Remove blocking and you suddenly have to actually use your brain and movement again, just like pre-awakening MO1 lmao, it really is hilarious how everything ive ever said about MO1 turned out to be true down the line. I even remember making a thread saying its best to just shut down MO1 and start working on an MO2 but all the kids started crying saying it was super pessimistic, funny where were at now.
Hopefully it improves a lot when they add ways to counter the braindead blocking (which is a direct portover from MO1 post awakening). Only trash players cried about ping in MO1 before they made the blocking braindead easy, they literally shot themselves in the foot and solved the problem with the most trash implementation of combat ive ever seen. Sure anyone with good ping is going to have an easy time blocking with the 180 degree arcs, but pre-awakening MO1 you didnt need to block even though you still could, the arc wasnt 180 degrees and no matter your ping you could outplay your opponent.
Blocking being the 100% damage negation it is and having such a huge arc, makes it inherently ping based. If blocking wasnt so braindead strong and easy, the combat wouldnt be so ping based. Since SV refuses to do anything about this trash blocking system, they decide to "work around" it and try to make it less ping based by slowing down swings so much you literally have seconds to react to a swing, Sure now everyone can participate in the Runescape combat, but theres so little skill ceiling to this, its laughable.
Lets face it, this shit blocking system that got implemented way back in awakening in MO1 is what dragged the skill ceiling back in that game and now this game down to the mud. People are only complaining now in this game, because its literally gone so far that you can BARELY do anything about it with these slow motion swings. Some people noticed its effects already after the first release post awakening, but most zerglings ofc had no clue about it. Now when they try to attack someone and have every single swing parried, considering anyone can do it, suddenly its a problem on their radar too.
I think the sad truth is that SV doesnt really care much about making the combat as skillbased as possible. I think they are more concerned about it being more "realistic" and mainstream.