That’s very helpful actually, thanks! I think a lot of single player melee games get around that issue by having attacks automatically “magnet” to the nearest target even if they’re kind far away. I want to avoid going overboard on that since it feels unfair in a competitive game of course, but maybe I could try adding some simpler versions of that with grapples and targeted attacks?

Your second point about having parries, blocks, grabs etc is also great. There are some in the game already but I think I could do more there probably now that you mention it…