#I think the only thing that is genuinely irredeemably hard is lockpicking with controller

[liorlenn]

I’ve been seeing a lot of new folks deciding to play the first Kingdom Come Deliverance game lately (either after playing 2 or before playing 2) and getting a bit frustrated with its gameplay, especially its combat.

I definitely understand all of you deeply. A lot of RPG games operate by letting you be competent enough at combat early on to get by, but KCD (especially the first game) doesn’t. I feel like it tricks you a bit by having a combat tutorial in the opening. That combat tutorial doesn’t even tell you how to block! The game really does not hold your hand, for better or worse.

I enjoy it, but sometimes games that depart from a more standard upward curve of improvement don’t always tell you all the options you have instead (did you know that you can save Theresa by whistling to distract the Cumans from her when escaping Skalitz? No need to attempt to fight them at all!).

It takes awhile to get into the swing of KCD because it punishes you severely by trying to play it like, say, Skyrim, and, this early on, you don’t quite have a handle on the kinds of things you can do to influence the world or solve problems.

(This isn’t to say that you can’t get good at combat eventually. Trust me when I say Henry can become an absolute monster once you’ve got Master Strikes.)

And even if we put aside all of this design philosophy, the game is, I must admit, also just janky as hell.

If you are getting excessively frustrated by the game, there are some mods that immediately make it easier (infinite saving for instance). I will also always be up for answering any questions on mechanics and/or easiest ways to start cheesing the shit out of the game.