I am looking forward to the combat of resynced. It look like what I had hoped to see at Mirage.
(sorry for my poor english. I am not native.)
When I heard they are planning to rebuild combat system from free flow combat used in original black flag into hit box combat used since origins, I am concerned that changed combat could ruin entire pacing of naval combat system that requires fast killing on enemy vessel because of high health of enemy and absence of chain kill system. especially after experiencing mirage's combat that tried to original combat system through removal many abilities but eventually cause flawed outcomes.
But after reading many previews and watching playthrough, the concern about combat have become anticipation. and there are three reasons that made me change my mind.
First, I surprised that developers actually decided to give us chain kill system removed since Unity. that system is implemented since brotherhood and it became one of a feather of old assassin's creed. It has distint pros and cons. due to this system, combat had became unchallengable and boring, but at the same time, players could have performed cool finisher and fast kill during combat with low effort and felt fantasy of skilled assassin. Original black flag is one of most effected by the system even compared to other entries in the series. if there were no chain kill system, the combat pacing on enemy ship get slowed down and became tedious. But they set limits of number of chain kills and set difference based on weapons. I think this is smart and effective way for treating chain kill system in an environment design for combination of style and challenge.
Second, addition of perfect dodge and its impact and movement. there are two step of dodge-just normal dodge, and perfect dodge that gives us increased power with momentory slow effect. I prefer the brief slow effect rather than long slow motion from odyssey and valhalla because of pacing. and I liked that players could dodge with one click of button and roll with two click of button and If the timing is set right, we could see other cool dodge move too.
Three, kicking, knocking down, shooting become tactical maneuvers. those actions were only used for cool takedown and easier killing, but in resynced, they got essential role to defeat enemy. at the same time, some takedown animation of original game most appeared automatically depending on places such as in front of wall or handrail. but we could perform some of those takedown as we want in the new combat system and I really like it.
The restructured combat system seems like it has celar vision that pursue well balanced combination of fast free flow combat from original games and challenging hit box combat from rpg games. before this game, we could witness similar orientation from Mirage, but they tried to achieve the goal only through remove of player's ability and that eventually cause clunky and unchallenging combat although it has cool finisher which is comparable with old entries.
I hope this combat would get positive reviews from many players and become standard combat system that we could expect to see in future titles.