I would like to pose three questions here, one of which is more of a suggestion.
My basic suggestion is this: SBS should consider elements of the For Honor combat system for their game, rather than going with a more traditional hotbar approach. This suggestion is based on two things: the described concept of their combat already has some commonalities with the For Honor style such as combos and skill based combat. The other is that For Honor's combat is, in my opinion, the best example of melee medieval combat that we have been exposed to thus far in gaming.
The first question for you guys is this, do you think the suggested concept of combat in CoE meshes with the For Honor system and sounds similar to it, or does it remind you of some different system? The second is whether or not you agree with my suggestion, or have another combat system in mind.
The third question is for your opinion on what games CoE should model their combat, or what games you think they ARE modelling their combat after that are already on the market.
To add some meat and reasoning for my suggestion, there are some things I would like you to consider. The For Honor system relies on the triangle for blocking and attacking at its base level, and includes the combo and special attacks along with guard breaks and parrying and such. I believe that CoE should consider a similar method of making attacks directional and able to be blocked. This style of combat is more organic and impactful than two meatshields pounding away at each others HP trying to race them to 0. Even if a directional system is not feasible, a more active attack and block style rather than pounding away mindlessly would seem in line with the game's concept.
Regarding the use of combo and special attacks, these fall in line with the already mentioned system of training, learning, and discovering techniques for combat as you progress. You wouldn't start with the ability to use those combos like you do for picking a class in For Honor, but you would learn different ones over time by discovering new attacks and chains for the different weapons. This sounds like it is already the ingame system, but it would mesh much better with an action oriented, perhaps directional attack based system like the one in For Honor.
What do you guys think, and any other examples of a good combat system are welcome! I do realize that the exact For Honor system may be hard to integrate into an MMO, but are there other action combats or directional based systems worth borrowing from?