So how's the combat? Is it better to any degree than what we usually get in an ARPG? If the combat's enjoyable enough I may have fun with this game, otherwise it looks like no.
The combat mechanics are pretty solid, but it has other combat related crippling problems. I will describe the mechanics of longsword combat (one handed), other weapons are similar.
You have your standard 4x hit combo which is unlocked from the start. Then there are abilities that grant additional moves. The first one allows you to perform closing-in attacks (the move must be charged up for 1-2 seconds). The second one is a brief invincibility frames granting feint that transitions into an attack and further follow up strikes. The final ability allows you to transition from a successful block to a combo counter.
Holding the block button for a considerable time before the attack simply reduces damage with no stagger to the enemy. Timing your block precisely results in a stagger and allows a counter (you must have the final ability described earlier to perform a counter). There is an ability that allows you to shield bash, which results in a stagger.
Now, enemies are divided into "weak" and "tough" ones. Weak enemies can be interrupted by any attack/ability/shield bash/whatever, while tough enemies are immune to interruption. Reducing the health of tough enemies past a certain threshold makes them susceptible to interruption from powerful attacks, but they will still shrug off most weak attacks without interruption. The player is always considered as a "weak" creature (can be interrupted by pretty much anything), unless he uses an ability that grants him interruption immunity at the expense of armor. There's also an ability to roll out of harms way.
Enemies successfully attack simultaneously (there's no actual coordination, as in deliberately attacking in groups, it's up to chance/random) and, coupled with the player being interrupted by pretty much anything, can dish out some long chains from time to time. However, the combat HORRIBLY suffers from being too fucking easy even on Hard. Generally, you will have a sky-high armor rating that negates pretty much all damage (played a Warrior-rouge that used a mix of leather and metal armor). I was basically unkillable 10 hours into the game due to custom crafted arms and armor. Fuck, I was regenerating health faster than the enemies could dish out damage. There were literally 3-4 cases when I died in game, 2 of which resulted from being stunlocked into living death by an army of sprites in the House Of Valor sprite challenge. Next, enemy attacks are telegraphed as fuck and you can easily dodge them even while being drunk as shit (tested this personally). There's also an ability to trigger your speshul fate powers and gain a tremendous damage bonus as well as a slow down time effect for a short while, which allows you to steamroll through any encounter in seconds.
TL;DR: the combat system is a slightly dumbed down version of Risen system, but the combat gets old way too fast due to kindergarten difficulty. Coupled with the fact that combat is the only saving grace of this turd, I would advise you to stay away and play something more challenging instead.
on you like Playing Skyrim does. Skyrim has indeed Darker and dirtier setting (''Corrected'' already to shiny Animu fagotry by modders) and marginaly better background lore but as RPG Mechanics and story goes it is derper than Oblibion. Skyrim to be good as Morrowind Needs 
and FNV treatment. 
