Party Formations: There are no party formations. Is this a deliberate design choice or was it due to engine limitations ? The reason I bring this up is that in Chalice, your party position becomes extremely important. However, since you have so little (or zero) control over this, when combat starts, my party members end up in really unpredictable, awkward, and disadvantageous positions.
Baiting: You cannot control a single character. This effectively makes luring monsters into ambushes impossible. Again, was this a deliberate design choice, or was it due to engine limitations? The bad thing about this is that my party can be ambushed and surrounded by many enemies, but I can never do the same.
Luck-based combat: Because of the lack of control over where your party members are positioned when combat starts, there is an unpredictable element to each combat. Your party could be walking along the forest minding their own business, when suddenly a bandit group surrounds your party and they end up in really awkward positions with the mage in front and the fighter at the rear.
To me, this unpredictable element gives combat an overall-luck based nature. Sometimes a fight which was hard on one occasion, became easy on the next, only because the combat triggered in a different place and your party members were in better tactical positions. This lack of control over your position is a big deal because it gives the game a luck-based nature, when fights should be determined by your tactical ability, not your luck. I hope this is something they are working on in Chalice 2 or I hope they at least re-consider their design choice, if it was a deliberate design choice and not an engine limitation.
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