Master Strikes Abuse
Almost completely removes any skill aspect from combat.

Once you learn it, there's no combat, just 'press Q to win'. If you try to avoid abusing it, then NPCs will, so you'll suffer if you're not using it.

Slow-Mo
Good for learning, but later becomes annoying and simplifying combat too much. Basically makes every block a perfect block.

Hard-lock
Negatively impacts combat against multiple enemies, sometimes rather infuriating. However, this one is not so straightforward: from my experience, hard-lock is essential to pull off combos.

I personally kept the hard-lock as is, sacrificing agility in group combat.

Fixed by mod:

Better Combat and Immersion Compilation[www.nexusmods.com]

Makes master strikes timing extremely hard to pull off and reduces NPC usage accordingly, making them 'happy little accidents', when you're doing them.

It also nerfs the clinches, so you can't cheese them with "clinch master" perk.

However, READ THE MOD DESCRIPTION!

It includes a lot of other changes, which you might not like. But keep in mind, that it's quite modular: you can disable the things you don't like.

This might look intimidating at first, but let me try to simplify things for you.

You don't need any special software for this, .pak archives are opened by any archive app you use for .zip archives and if you plan to edit XML files, you'd better get some basic app that highlights the syntax like notepad++, sublime text or visual studio code, but you can also edit it with windows notepad too.

Large 'modules' are clearly distinguished by fancy headers:

If you don't like entire 'module', feel free to simply remove the files listed in spoiler.

However, if one module includes both changes you want to have and changes you don't like, you will need to edit XML files yourself.

However, if needed XML files contains only the change you want to remove, feel free to delete entire file. But that's a rare case and more often that not, you need to find the changes you don't like yourself in a file and remove them or even adjust to your own preferences.

Luckily for you, the mod author kindly included all the changes he made as a comment next to an edited line, where he specifies how exactly the value was changes, so you can revert it back to vanilla.

For example, you don't like hunger and tiredness changes in combat module, you need to find respective parameters in one of the XMLs in the module, in our case it happens to be rpg_param__BCAIC.xml, where you can see this:

So if you want to revert one or two lines back to vanilla, you need to revert the change mod author did there.

Software that highlights the syntax here is very useful, because it will also show if you made a syntax mistake by mistakenly touching something besides the value.

Fixed by mod:

No Mo' Slow Mo[www.nexusmods.com]

If you combine it with 'Better Combat and Immersion Compilation' mod, you should ignore 'NoMoSlowMo - Options' in downloads, just get the main file.

Read the instructions and don't forget to also disable Slow-Mo sound effect for better experience.

Worth noting, that with default setting, the mod is not completely removing the slow-mo, but accelerates it a lot, but you won't notice it in battle much. It was done due to animations that were meant for slow-mo.

Turned into a soft-lock by this mod:

More Responsive Targeting[www.nexusmods.com]

Loosens up the targeting system and makes it easier to move around in a fight and engage multiple opponents at once.

Optional solution, just a suggestion to try it out. Maybe you will like it more. But after I couldn't finish combo tutorial with Bernard with it, I decided to revert back to vanilla hard-lock.

After applying those solutions, adjusted to your liking, the combat system becomes engaging and fun against single strong target, but hard and unforgiving when outnumbered. Especially when combined with hardcore mode.

Your doggo from Woman's Lot DLC can help a lot in those situations by distracting enemies.

As a side effect, this makes Alchemy a very important skill and you should always carry few potions to help you against multiple enemies, such as:

For yourself:

Aqua Vitalis:
-50% incoming damage

Buck's Blood potion:
+50% stamina (also means you're less likely to take health damage)

Bivoj's Rage potion:
+50% melee damage, but lowers defence (7% alcohol)

Artemisia potion:
+5 strength & warfare, but obstructed vision (13% alcohol)


For your weapons:

Bane potion:
-110 HP over time

Poison:
-50 HP over time


Interestingly enough, it is better to apply poison/bane to your arrows, rather than blade: it seems that as long as you're hitting your targets with those, you can always pull it off from the dead body and it will still have poison on it. Also it's much simpler to 'neutralize' certain visible enemies with a bow, before they get too close.


Video example of random bandit encounter:

I hope that was useful and I helped you improve your KCD experience with better fights. Rattay tourney is now a real challenge early game and you won't be able to cheese through it with master strikes and clinches.