Combat is something I'm still thinking about often and I'm still not entirely sure what to do with it.
Curent combat system works and it is not horendous, but it is pretty boring and doesn't allow players to do much.
One step above is the top down grid based combat, similiar to games like tactics ogre or disgaea. I found a script online that worked well and I was thinking about implementing that. The problem is the speed.
Right now, if you overlevel your self and attack a scavenger, you can kill him in one hit. Entire fight takes about 10 seconds. Grid based combat would take much, much longer. Not a problem when you have intense fights with strong enemies, but it gets boring quickly once you have to fight large group of weak enemies too often. I could make very weak enemies just die automaticaly without a fight taking place, but that seems like a lazy solution.
And now we are at your suggestion. There are two things are realy dislike about most RPGs.
One, main character goes from weak farmer to a hero saving the world in a matter of days or weeks. I really hate that and pretty much every rpg does that. Sinathir doesn't.
Two, Player skill is often more important than character skill. For example, in Gothic 2 you can defeat pretty much everyone from day one if you have enough patience with slashing them for hours before they go down, because you can dodge and parry all attacks. Not the main character, but you, the player. Same goes for pretty much every action rpg, like dark souls or elder scrolls games.
In Sinathir you, the player, act as a guide for Nika. You tell her what to do and she tries to do that. The result is entirely in her hands.
Only way to really achieve this in combat is to make it play itself like a mobile game, but that would be really boring (Although I was thinking about doing it) so I have to balance everything. Make player skill less important, but not so little important that he does nothing and just watches flashy lights. Fighting is very common and there are plenty of weak enemies you have to fight quite often, so the combat itself has to also be quick to not get anoying.
So I can't really make the combat completely action oriented because it would make players skill too important. Can't make it autoplay because then there is no player involvement. Adding player action input like in that one south park game is somewhere in between, so I can't really say no, but I can't say yes either.
Combat will definitely be changed in some way. I might decide to implement the grid battle system and do something about the speed. If I decide to keep the curent system in, then I will definitely spice it up somehow. I improve it graphicaly by adding backgrounds and animations and I will improve it mechanicaly by adding more active skills and passive skills like if enemy misses you, you instantly attack back. Stuff like that.
This is something I will have to think about.