Avowed's combat wasn't ready to show at reveal, Obsidian admit, but they've made it "feel more juicy" since

rockpapershotgun.com:

Obsidian have spent a lot of time tuning up Avowed's combat in response to negative reactions to the new action-RPG's initial reveal footage at an Xbox developer direct, with gameplay director Gabe Paramo conceding that the team could have oiled the hinges and buffed the contacts a little more before showing the game off.

Speaking to Windows Central, Paramo noted that Obsidian had always planned to give the game's sword-and-sorcery component some love, but were persuaded by the reaction to prioritise this aspect before showing Avowed off again at this year's Xbox summer showcase. "Sometimes you can lose sight on the importance of the prioritization of some things," he told the site, adding that "we thought [Avowed] was good enough to show as is... A lot of that stuff we knew we were going to get to before shipping." The developers took the feedback in their stride: "We just went 'Okay, let's look at this, this is a big deal, people are noticing this, we should polish this sooner,'" Paramo said.

So where and how have they added some jazz? "We really analyzed the feeling and moment when the player swings their weapon and the moment of impact," Paramo explained. "Were there any delays, was there any system that might have been preventing it from being immediate?" The developers also "looked at posing... to give that visceral, immediate feedback" - posing being, in my very dim understanding of videogame animation, the introduction of character poses that are designed to catch the eye and stick in the memory. "We really focused on that, and the blood impacts, and VFX feedback, and the audio," Paramo went on. "We basically went and looked at all the pieces that make [combat] feel more juicy."

I find this story interesting not least because I'm always interested, and alarmed, to hear about what developers can change after showing a videogame off without giving themselves tonnes of extra work and losing sight of what they're making. Paramo's description sounds like it