Maybe unpopular opinion… the stamina system is appallingly bad and irredeemable.

I'm sorry for this rant…. but I just about had it today and am really curious how the rest of the community feels about this. Am I alone, or is everyone else as dissatisfied with the stamina system as me?

I have ~200 hours in this game and started playing back when it first launched in EA. I absolutely every aspect of it… except the stamina system. It is, IMO, irredeemably bad. It is pure "player punishment" and makes almost every single combat encounter extremely frustrating and tedious. Rather than actually "fighting", you just end up walk/running around trying to get enough stamina to either escape or actually… fight.

The speed at which stamina regenerates… even with all buffs on… is absolutely not in line with the stamina required for some form of sustained combat. It is extremely unbalanced given the amount of stamina required to block, attack, and run. You end up being able to do… maybe one of the three (block OR attack OR run), but you can't do 2, much less 3.

What's worse, is if you are slightly higher in elevation than most enemies (i'm looking at you wolves, fulings, etc), you miss your attacks, burn all your stamina, then cannot block, run, or otherwise disengage.

Unless you kill the enemy almost right away, every single fight devolves into this annoying walk/run game trying to get enough stamina to even get one hit or block in before your stamina depletes and you die again.

Suggestions:

• Double base stamina regen.
• Remove the short "delay" before stamina starts regenerating.
• Decouple block from Stamina. Blocking should take FAR less stamina as a minimum, and there should be no "minimum" stamina for blocking.
• Disengaging is impossible because you can't run as soon as your stamina gets low. Somehow, you need to remain mobile in fights, and somehow (again) decouple disengaging actions from fighting actions.
• Just do away with the stamina system altogether… come up with something else that is more of a "boost" than a blocker. Stop making EVERY single mechanism in the game a punishing factor. Wet, cold, poison, freeze, not being rested, even having not JUST eaten…. it all "punishes" you, and lowers what are already barely adequate aspects of the player.