Combat Thoughts

Early game Combat felt great and that was one of the major "Wow Moments" for me when I started playing back on the original release. Melee hits had a fun 'thwack' to it and enemies showed that my effords mattered, they staggered or tripped and hitting them while they were down came natural AND was rewarded with a big number.

Later on this sensation began to fade into obscurity, most bigger enemies showed no sign of staggering or flinching, some types of Bound just outright "power armored" through attacks with flourishes and summersaults, simply knocking me on my ass instead despite just getting a mouthful of Sledgehammer.

I think combat feel shouldn't be a balance question, even if my attacks only deal 1% of the Bounds total health they should atleast flinch or twitch a little, I think it is essential that the player gets some visceral feedback for their aggression just like in the very early stages of the game. Small hits could get away with a bit of a flinch or atleast an interrupt on winding attacks (aside from the big brutes with their telegraphed overhead swings, sure they are beefcakes that can take a hit) or if it's the nimble enemies they would interrupt their attack voluntarily to try for a dodge. Bigger attacks that deal big damage or big impact like sledgehammer swings or two-handed tool swings, should more often cause enemies to stagger or straight up trip to make combat feel dynamic and like the player leaves a mark outside of floating numbers.

Aside from the kinetic feedback it would be insanely cool if mundane, non-magic combat got some flavour.
e.g. different fighting styles that can be switched on tools and weapons like infusions, the Knife for example is the outlier having a parry which is high risk, high reward as the default, an alternative style could be a riposte, an even shorter timing but if pulled off successfully would instantly strike the enemy for a big weakpoint hit. Or a style that utilizes a big of magic, when the attack is parried it teleports the player behind the enemy, leaving a fog apparition in their place to distract the enemy for a few good hits on their back. Of course the players would have to choose whichever style they wanted to use and couldn't switch out in the field or use all at once, maybe even make it character specific and not tool specific.

A few other ideas were to replace the block on two-handed tools with a heavy swing or leg sweep for high single target burst damage or area denial.
The difference between shortbow and Longbow is already similar to this train of thought.

Ranged could do with some variety aswell, an idea was magic that is unique to ranged weapons, like marks or curses that make all projectiles home in on the marked enemy or projectiles hitting the marked enemy split or ricochet to nearby targets or hitting the marked enemy in the leg grows roots locking them in place for easy follow up shots.

Magic itself is also in a weird spot, with the new combat oriented spells completely outclassing everything else and most of the utility spells being utterly useless or underwhelming. Dispell has exactly one usecase which is now taken up by an offhand item which does the job better. Bramble Wall doesn't even do damage anymore, even if that was pretty lackluster to begin with, the obstacles created are as much of a burden to the caster aswell as the enemy. Assassins Mark only shows weakspots of enemies recently hit or in really close proximity, removing its only useful trait of showing hearts. Recovery often times takes too much time to switch to and to cast to be very useful and is outclassed by potions. Quake is now just an inferior version of Fionn's, the fire enchantment for weapon hits aswell as shockwave desperately need more charges before reapplying at high tiers and maybe need to scale with melee damage aswell as magick.
In short, after a playthrough with only magic most of the available spells are never used with Immolation, Fionn's and Swarm being easily the top choice alongside Oberons being the only useful utility spell.