u/mydogspaw

Question about melee combat feel in indie vs. Fromsoft games:

As a huge fan of Enshrouded, Valheim, and now Windrose I’m trying to better understand the combat from a game-design perspective.

Windrose has many of the same core ingredients as FromSoft-style melee combat: lock-on, dodge, light/heavy attacks, stamina, healing, enemy patterns, etc. But the overall feel is very different. FromSoft combat tends to feel more grounded, weighty, responsive, and deliberate, while Windrose feels a bit more floaty to me.

I’m not saying Windrose should match FromSoft one-to-one, and I understand budget, team size, and experience are major factors. I’m more curious about the specific design details that create that difference in feel.

Is it mostly animation timing, recovery frames, hit feedback, enemy stagger, stamina tuning, input buffering, camera/lock-on behavior, sound design, or something else?

For people who understand combat design better than I do: what are the main reasons two games with similar combat mechanics can feel so different in practice?