I think the combat in the base game is definitely not especially good.
The weapons are limited, there's very little moment-to-moment decision making depth beyond very basic, outdated means to exploit ai/mechanics, the way the combat relates back to the other mechanics of the game are there but a little bare-bones imo, and there's little to facilitate individual fantasy or skill expression.
But I also think most people seeking a game like this aren't really expecting particularly good/deep combat, so you probably wouldn't consider that a great issue unless you meant to judge each feature of the game as equally important. It's easy to play this game without fighting much at all! That said, some design decisions (temporal storms, rifts, etc,) do make it seem like the game wants you to engage with action more often than others of its ilk.
...which in my opinion is a risky choice since the combat mechanics are pretty bare bones! haha
I think the ways the average end-user imagines these problems should be solved (dual-wielding, for example) probably wouldn't do the trick; the things that make combat feel good are usually more elemental than new features/gimmicks. They tend to have to do with the depth present in the very basic model of combat, that then has complexity added on top of that foundation.
I doubt very much that the VS team/direction is interested in that kinda thing though, personally!
If they were, I would hope they take influence from successful 1st person combat games like Vermintide, Avowed, Mount+Blade (to a lesser extent,) KCD, and so on. Not necessarily to directly ape the systems in those games (which are much more focused on being good combat games,) but instead to draw inspiration from sources that were successful at the task of making good combat in first person.
There are some features that are pretty standard these days; input-based blocking, one or two methods of attack (light/strong, standard/alternate, whatev,) enemies that incentivize or reward diverse usage of those tools, enemies that present strategic challenges beyond either shooting from a distances or swarming the player, etc., different reasons to use different weapons, or to specialize, etc., that would all be great things for/sings of, a good or in-depth combat system.
I think the main issues would probably come down to how they'd fit in an open world block game, how something like that would hold up in multiplayer, how the team would actually make and implement anything like that, and most importantly whether they even cared to, etc etc,
Combat is one of the harder things to make good in video games as far as I understand it, takes time and effort that I imagine people who were inspired primarily by minecraft might be less interested in than saaaay; another cool way to interface with the world visa vi crafting/building/gathering/etc!
To me it seems unlikely, anyway.
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edit: to be clear, as a blackguard player, I definitely definitely definitely wish they would/want them to make combat better!!! I just don't think they will.
I didn't mean to imply that no end-user could have a good idea of course; I suppose I meant more that end-users are at a disadvantage for making effective suggestions thanks to how the construction of games/game-design goes and how much of it is constrained/contingent on details/broader limitations. Then also the thing I said about base mechanics vs features, blah blah. So I think inside this bullet is a really really important point which is that any improvements or overhauls to the combat have to exist inside Vintage Story, an open-world block game with a focus on exploration, gathering, processing, building, and survival. I think it seems obvious to us to go "oh, well, just have a mechanic that kicks in during combat/as an effect of combat," but due to the nature of the game that might not be the simplest thing, and it also might not even be necessary. Some of that comes down to opinion, I'm of the mind that mechanics should be consistent in a way that's situation-agnostic in an open-world game, I'm sure some people might disagree. I'm skeptical of that, to be honest. Leaders/faces of game projects trend on the affirmative and I think that the phrase "low priority" is very meaningful in the context of us really seeing any meaningful official combat overhauls/changes for VS. I don't know anything about this other project they've started either although I'm not necessarily thrilled to hear that, personally haha. I guess if this other project is using a similar base of construction (Mine...craft?? I don't actually know that much about the construction of VS) then they could move tech over from it to VS but idk about that honestly. I feel like studios say stuff like that all the time "new project y will benefit old project x!" with very few situations I can remember in my game-consumption tenure that actually follow through with that notion lol. My official stance is: "Yes, the combat isn't particularly good or well-realized. No, I would not anticipate that changing in the practical future. Yes, I would advise seeking modding breakthroughs on that front. No, I would not think it likely that those mods would get integrated."