Yesterday white trying to fall asleep I've got some vague idea on how to improve melee combat.
Now it doesn't look as fascinating as yesterday, but I'll write it down, just in case.
On first 'bump to attack' you enter combat mode. In combat mode each turn takes two keypresses.
One for attack and one for post-attacks-stance (or exiting combat mode).
If the enemy is to the north of the character then:
up is top-down slash
up-left is slash from left-top to bottom-right (if looking from character's perspective).
left is horizontal slash from left to right
up-right and right similarly.
post attack stances:
up - aggressive close attack stance. next attack might deal extra damage, also bonus damage dagger as secondary weapon.
up-left - attempt to evade attack from the right
left - I don't know
probably attempt to evade attack from left and forward, but cost more stamina then up-left.
wait - prepare to block/parry incoming attack
up-right and right similarly.
down is to exit combat mode and try to retreat.
evasion might drain less stamina then blocking/parrying, and doesn't reduce durability of weapon(s)/shield,
but if you try to evade in wrong direction, you'll get extra damage.
This might work well if lesser enemies will have some randomly generated attack pattern (one pattern for one kind of enemies).
Stronger enemies might alternate between 2-3 attack patters.
Even stronger enemies might sometimes randomly switch pattern right in combat.
Something like this.
