A personal word on combat and difficulty, part 1

So I recently stopped playing the reboot of Tomb Raider. It wasn't because of the story was bad, I actually liked it a lot. However, for as much as I liked the story, I couldn't continue playing as the combat system is in my opinion broke. To make it clear, I played the game on the PC with a keyboard on the hardest difficulty.

Now, what do I mean when I say that I feel that the games combat system is broken? This is because of a number of factors. One of these is how the cover system works. I like the idea of not pressing a button and gluing yourself to a piece of cover. This is however a mechanic that needs to be implemented with care as if you are not careful you can end up with a cover system that doesn't work to the extent that is needed if the combat system is centered around the use of the cover system. Now the cover system in Tomb Raider isn't that bad, but it could have been better. I have had several time when I have wanted to get behind cover, but as I rush over to it, Lara jumps over the chest high wall and out into the line of fire of every single enemy in the area. This, I feel is becuase the controlls are poorly optimized. However, this alone would not make me feel that the games combat system is bad enough to stop playing the game.

What made me stop playing was when I had to fight two different enemies that require two completely different playstyles. A number of enemies fighting with automatic rifles that shredds your health in a couple of seconds if you are out of cover and a melee enemy that requires you to dodge his attacks to be able to damage him, this is because he has bullet proof shield that you can bypass for a few seconds after he attacks. Might be worth mentioning that the enemy that is melee, kills you in two to three attacks and causes flinch when he hits you. So you end up in a situation where you have to stay in cover not to be killed while you have to dodge out of cover and run around in order to not get killed. This is what made me turn of the game and uninstall it.

This cuased me to think about combat systems in games and how I see difficulty in a game. As a result I will be posting a series on how I view combat and difficulty in video games. Join the discusion down in the comment section, I'd love to hear you you ever have had any experiences like the one I had that cause you to just stop playing a game.