Meiam said:
Stamina being an action limiter is it's entire function, it's perfectly well implemented. The point is rather than have a combo that just abruptly end for no reason you go use up stamina that you have to regenerate between attack. Other game run into the problem of not having a limiter (like witcher) where you can just mash attack forever, so for challenge to still exist the enemy either need to be able to arbitrarily cancel your attack attack or enemy can just ignore stun lock (like FF15). By having stamina you force the player to stop attacking after awhile and introduce a lot of small decision, do you use up all your stamina to attack or keep some to dodge/block the next attack? Do you let your full stamina regenerate between attack or do you go as soon as an opening is formed even if your not fully recharged. This then play into the weapon choice, with some consuming large amount and some small. Most combo focused game usually have a right combo for a certain enemy (one is weak to air juggling so you do that, one need the ground pound so you use it), soul game are far more flexible since different player will have vastly different build/equipment, so it's about making your play style work with the different enemy and environmental situation.
There's a difference between complex and deep, you can have a game with tons of combo and system within system, but usually a few of those are better than all the other one and you just use these one over and over again, but since they had to spread out over so many system each of them is quite shallow (if you watch speed run of game with complex system you'll see they usually ignore 95% of it and just spam cheap attack). By limiting themselves to few system the souls combat does far more with far less.
Good melee combat systems (not Witcher) have specific rules for what breaks and doesn't break enemy "super armor", which dictates enemy staggers so you can't just infinitely mash attack. The problem with Souls stamina is that all you do is mash R1 until you run out of stamina and dodge away (because you just need a sliver of stamina to dodge) and just do it again. If you actually needed a set amount of stamina to dodge, then you couldn't just mash R1 until no stamina and dodge away, just like how Monster Hunter stamina works. You'd actually have to manage and pay attention to your stamina then. After you dodge away after using up stamina, you just have to dodge again, which isn't hard because Souls normal enemies are slow (even Bloodborne) in comparison to other action games so outside of bosses there's really no enemy that even poses a threat to you if you have just decent reactions. The weapons in Souls basically function the same really, you either hit fast for weaker hits or hit slow for stronger hits and I'm guessing the DPS is basically the same regardless of which playstyle you prefer so it doesn't really make much of a difference outside of just pure visuals. I used the Kirkhammer in BB and the hammer portion really only changed visuals with it being cool to knock down an enemy. However, the knocking down of an enemy is completely useless (outside of coolness factor) because the enemy gets i-frames to get up when your character doesn't so what's the point of taking the risk to charge up your attack to knock down an enemy when I can just mash R1 to stun lock everything with zero risk with the short sword of the hammer?
With most action games, the point isn't to speedrun them, it's to rack up more points. Bayonetta at least makes you master the dodge offset if you wanna feel like you're actually good at the game whereas Souls you really don't need to gain really any skill (shields or magic). And, even if you do wanna play the hardest way, you just gotta learn the dodge, which is easier than Bayo's dodge (due to the much faster enemies in Bayo). For me Souls combat doesn't really have much challenge, there's really no different playstyles in functionality (the visuals are really the only change, fast or slow weapons; you block/dodge, then attack, rinse and repeat), and there's no player creativity in the way you fight. Thus, the combat doesn't really satisfy in any area (outside of boss fights) as there's really no challenge nor creativity.