Even on Lethal difficulty the combat can be mastered, but for me it was too easy to exploit archery since most of the time there aren't any straight up ambushes

Even on Lethal difficulty the combat can be mastered, but for me it was too easy to exploit archery since most of the time there aren't any straight up ambushes in the game and you can see all the world encounters twenty - thirty yards away. God of War got it right in making the world encounters primarily ambushes and not allowing one-shot ranged combat. The bandits in GoT should've been primarily ambushes with only the Mongol patrols been spottable from a distance.