Attack speed deliberately slow?

[HunZolka]

I've noticed that my character's attack speed is rather slow when compared to many NPC's, especially the more difficult ones like the people you need to fight in arenas.

In early game I assumed it will get better when I upgrade my fighting skills, but even on highest skill level I still don't seem to match the attack speed of these characters, in fact after getting the Master skill in either Large/Sword/Dual wield, I didn't see a well noticable upgrade. It may still be better than in the beginning of the game, I can't recall for sure but compared to me, many characters' animations looks like it is in fast forward.

Playing the beta branch.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

With or without Alternative AI? (<-- that is a checkbox in the difficulty settings)

Else, the melee combat implementation largely depends on stun-locking opponents. That is why I only recommend playing a magician in this game. A pure magician may start with ranged combat early on, but will not invest into melee/ranged skills because of focusing on boosting Ancient Knowledge to 200 (or 250 with Alternative Balancing OFF) as to get mana regeneration as early as possible.

[HunZolka]

Alternate AI on, alternate balancing off.

I played the game several times since it's release, as I recall I always ended up with a mage build as it is so overly powerful, so I decided to this time try a melee focus, as I found it to be more fun in Elex 1-2.

I just wasn't sure if my slowness compared to some NPCs despite the Master skill level is a bug, or intended.

[D'amarr from Darshiva]

Well, Alternative AI mode heavily changes the melee combat rules and behavior of opponents. The PDF manual explaining the changes used to be available on one of THQ's servers, but they've removed the files unfortunately.

Melee combat in the ELEX games is much more fun than in Gothic 3.