3)
So combat. I love combat. So I agree with you that the swing bar prevents alot of possible counter play by making full power charge a requirement since a fast hit does zero dmg, as in, you can't let someone miss their power swing than get them with fast hits before they charge up the next cuz you would need to charge up too after you parry or block the hit, theres no way to parry or block than hit the enemy faster than they can charge up another hit and get you. I think having fast hits 75% power and charged hit 100% power is a step in the right direction, this means noobs will do dmg with regular hits and opens up the ability to parry or block a charged hit and than counter attack after.

In my opinion baiting the animal into swing'n at you and missing is the whole concept of dark souls. You either dodge their or block or parry and than punish them in the opening after if you do it properly. Again kingdom come deliverance is another game where you can parry or block and if you do it at the right time you can punish them in the opening after. This really needs to be added to the game or rather more embraced, nobody uses parry since its easier to just tank the shot and return a charged shot.. this means lower hp players have a much much harder time "out skilling" a higher hp guy by parrying and blocking their hits to win, since if they tried to parry than hit they would just be opening themselves up for a power hit, so parry is basically taking a free hit, with no opening after or benefit to use it.. there needs to be a benefit to use it.

Even skyrim has shields, the ability to block and parry needs to be in this game before we talk about any "balance" of combat, since trying to balance it with only half the features will be impossible.

I really like the multi-directional twitch style combat, reminds me of a ultra low graphics version of kingdom come deliverance.. but the problem is that theres no reward system for parrying or shield blocking the right direction correctly.

Some solutions:
a)
add stun to parry and block, give it a percentage of x time based upon the percentage of the parry or shield location, so when you get the parry or block exactly on the sweet spot you'll get the whole time and the biggest dmg reduction, where as if you get it close enough to block or parry but nowhere near the sweet spot you'll do the lowest amount of time and the lowest dmg reduction. This would add a HEAVY counter play mechanic to the game, if someone with 333hps like sark attacks a much weaker person but they are able to properly parry him, it would give them the 1 sec they need to get away if they got a perfect parry, or maybe they would get a free hit after the parrys or blocks.

I think the person attacking should also lose energy based upon how well the block or parry was, nothing for the bottom 50%, where as a sliding scale above 50% close to the sweet spot. This would punish people for spam attacking if they are getting repeatedly parry'd, this would make defensive gameplay a option to fight off a stronger opponent, where as right now the game is basically "Battle of the hps" where you need to grind hps higher than the enemy cuz theres no way to out skill or heavily counter play them to make up for him having twice your hps.

I think having parrys or blocks if they are done in the top percentage say 80%+ to sweet spot, near largest dmg reduction, they should also do heavy durability damage to the attackers weapon. This means that if someone is repeatedly attacking someone and they are repeatedly parrying and blocking, that the attackers weapon should brake, leaving him exposed for spam attacking instead of counter playing.

b)
more movement options. Games like dark souls have the ability to roll or dash to the side, why can't we add some ability to use stamina in order to side step or side jump in a faster way in order to dodge someone charge attacking you? At the moment you can only slowly move back, slowly move to the sides, or sprint forward, so this heavily benefits the attacker since they can go full speed and you can't unless your running away from them. This also HEAVILY effects creature combat since you have no ability to fight any animals aside of slowly walking backwards and attacking them as they charge you, this offers very little ability to counter play through actions, that needs to be there for any combat game.

c)
counter-play matters. Noobs hate dying to something they had no ability to counter. Two hp bars bashing each other till one dies isn't fun gameplay cuz its about who has ground more hps, not often who is the most skilled in combat.

Think dark souls. If you where to model after ANY game, think dark souls. Why? Cuz they have shit figured out, yes its unforgiving, yes early game your taking huge dmg, yes early game you do no damage, but EVERY last single creature has some ability to counter play them, or rather, some kind of opening so you can create a opening that you than use to attack. This is the difference between a seasoned vet starting dark souls and a noob starting dark souls, the seasoned vet won't have a problem with most of the starting monsters and will be able to easily farm them since they already know their attacks, their openings and how to play around the enemy... where as a new player may not understand where that opening is and have a hard time till they do find out where that opening is.

What I'm trying to get at here is that being attacked with zero ability to counter play it isn't fun, its like "oh I've been hit at the exact moment I realized I was even under attack"

The solution to this is for there to be a wind up, something you can see them do before the physical attack actually happens, this currently happens in the game and gives you just enough time to bait the attack out, than go back into range to hit with your own attack, this is EXACTLY like dark souls and any combat player should be perfectly okay with this, the only difference is your walking straight back with no ability to dodge any other direction, so thats extremely limiting.

Ideally a animal should be able to swing, player should have enough time to SEE AND REACT and if they properly parry or block they should get some kind of reward through a hit recovery animation that gives you enough time to hit them at least once. This gives you the ability to fight something that is 1) faster than you 2) stronger than you and be able to be highly skilled instead of only having to exclusively grind to get the hps to fight things, you could use your skill in combat to fight.

I feel the same way about player attacks, so making all the attacks instant with no wind up creates a problem there since now axes and shovels for example are massively stronger since they dont need full swing power to produce the dmg dmg, this means more hits in less time, more total dps for the shovel by making it attack like this, with less time to counter play inbetween hits. This also makes the knives extremely unbalanced since again they attack extremely fast without the need for a power charge. So all swing times need to be looked at.

On the subject of swing times, the shovel swing for example seems to be "smooth and steady" as in the shovel moves just as fast at the start of the swing as the end and even the middle... this is odd and makes hitting things and reading counter attacks less "user friendly". Ideally there would be a slower wind up or starting swing speed to let you know the hit is coming so you can block, parry or get out of the way, but the swing after that should be faster through the middle, with the same slower end swing "if" you miss, if you don't miss the shovel should stop there and reset your attack to zero so you can swing again. This would make it so if you swing, someone could see the swing coming and counter play it, and if they miss, there is a opening for someone to counter attack them. Again think dark souls, you can often see the attack coming before it actually comes, but when int does come, its fast and sharp. So with a shovel could have a slower arm raise into start of swing than fast swing into tail of slow miss or reset if you hit.

Removing or even ignoring parrying and shields while trying to focus on combat is really not gona work, cuz most of the problem with combat is based around the fact you don't have counter play options so it just becomes two hp bars reducing each other and whoever has the most wins in most cases.. where as pvp should be about skill... there is no skill pvp in xsyon cuz theres no way to prevent a attack aside of moving, but since you have no movement dodges or skills or way to avoid anything side to side or backwards as fast as someone can sprint at you, there isn't the ability to out skill. Theres no way to stun or counter attack with block or parry so it just becomes down to two things; who has more hps or who runs out of energy first... where it should be more about who is better at combat, who has better reaction time, better judgement on choices in combat ect instead of purely whos been playing or grinding longer with no ability to counterplay.