Blue flash consistency request.

[Petrichor]

When I happened upon the tutorial message (the one during the streetcleaner's introduction sequence) that stated that an attack that flashes blue cannot be parried, I was fairly excited. I was already noticing that this game was very generous with what can be parried (the most incredible example being the corpse of king minos' punches), so this message gave me the impression that *any* attack that didn't have a blue flash was parriable, because this game is so bold in so many other decisions that it honestly just made sense to me. So then I spent hours in the sandbox practicing parrying against certain attacks(an example of relevant enemy would be cerberus), practicing certain timings, testing to see how close or far from some attacks you needed to be in order to parry it. Whenever I failed, I concluded it was user error. Certain enemies, which I now know are not parriable at all, wasted a lot of my time as a result. Certain attacks like cerberus' stomp were less problematic because I saw the sense in a shockwave being unparriable even before I went to the discord for help, but others like his forward charge turning out to be unparriable despite the lack of a blue flash are a bit frustrating.

Could you retroactively make this more consistent? It doesn't really matter to me how you do this, whether you give them blue flashes, remove the blue flash mechanic entirely(presumably because that could result in visual clutter), or make them parriable. I already love this game due to how consistent it is in many other aspects, and it already *is* more consistent that most games when it comes to parrying, but I suppose that this game's successes when it comes to cleanly and efficiently conveying important information make it's lapses in trustworthiness more frustrating than usual, as this is the only time I was forced to resort to outside help in order to learn something crucial. I only say this because I know I probably sound very whiney over what is arguably a nitpick.

[Stavbearer]

As far as I know, only attacks that flash yellow can be parried (Except for one leviathan attack, but that's an artifact), and this is mentioned during limbo "Attacks that flash yellow can be parried". And as far as I've seen it, blue flashes are almost always used to distinguish whether a boss attack will be parryable or not; The tutorial on them moreso just saying "Normal enemies can have unparryable attacks too!"

Could use a bit more emphasis on the yellow side though, if it's leading people to misunderstandings

[Petrichor]

Yellow flashes would also be an excellent solution. Like I said, I don't really care how it's done so long as the ambiguity is abolished. It's not like we can apply realistic logic to it to determine it for ourselves, since cerberus' charge attack isn't parriable but The Corpse of King Minos' punch is. And normally trial and error is fine, but in a situation where even figuring out whether or not a maneuver is even possible requires a fair amount of skillful timing, such as experimenting with what attacks are parriable, ambiguity can lead to a *lot* of frustration. As an example, early on I would have assumed that maurice's hitscan cannon was unparriable given how long I'd been trying with no success, but since I saw no blue flash, I kept experimenting until eventually I worked out how to do it, and it turned out to be possible after all. It's this lack of ambiguity that made the entire learning process, and the parry system as a whole, extremely satisfying, and all I'm asking for is to extend that same opportunity for frustration-free experimentation to everything else. I don't want to have to read a spreadsheet to work out something that could be communicated so easily and organically in-game.

[BlaixenU]

ive asked before as to whether or not old enemies would be given flashes if they were added in modern day ultrakill, and he said that having too much flashes would devalue an actual flash and its ability to stand out while playing. Just a note

[Petrichor]

Originally posted by BlaixenU:

ive asked before as to whether or not old enemies would be given flashes if they were added in modern day ultrakill, and he said that having too much flashes would devalue an actual flash and its ability to stand out while playing. Just a note

There are more parriable attacks in this game than non-parriable, so adding a blue flash to unparriables wouldn't increase this very much. And if that doesn't work out, find some other way to signify unparriability, or at least some way of telling the player that the attacks they just attempted to parry isn't parriable, so they shouldn't spend the next 6 hours trying to figure out it's timing. As I've said, without any clues, whether or not a move can be parried can be one of the most frustrating things to trial-and-error because unless you've successfully parried it, you'll never be able to tell whether or not it's just user error. It's why I don't bother even trying to parry anything in elden ring.

[Plumber]

cerberus tackle is basically the only move that bugs me in this regard; the game does a decent job of teasing that seemingly impossible parries are possible via challenges or the terminal, but cerb is encountered in 0-5 before you've gotten your sea legs and immediately after fighting Swordsmachine who is a parry pinata. There isn't a single enemy in Prelude with a melee attack that can't be parried, save for you-know-who and Cerberus - and this is before the first enemy with a blue flash appears (streetcleaners in 1-2).

I definitely agree with the idea that it's possible to telegraph whether something can be parried more uniquely than with color-coded flashes, but it really wouldn't hurt to add one to cerb tackles at the minimum. Right now, blue flashes seem reserved for signposting that not only are moves not able to be parried, you're not advised to be in the enemy's way at all. I think that fits for cerb tackle

[Petrichor]

Originally posted by Plumber:

cerberus tackle is basically the only move that bugs me in this regard; the game does a decent job of teasing that seemingly impossible parries are possible via challenges or the terminal, but cerb is encountered in 0-5 before you've gotten your sea legs and immediately after fighting Swordsmachine who is a parry pinata. There isn't a single enemy in Prelude with a melee attack that can't be parried, save for you-know-who and Cerberus - and this is before the first enemy with a blue flash appears (streetcleaners in 1-2).

I definitely agree with the idea that it's possible to telegraph whether something can be parried more uniquely than with color-coded flashes, but it really wouldn't hurt to add one to cerb tackles at the minimum. Right now, blue flashes seem reserved for signposting that not only are moves not able to be parried, you're not advised to be in the enemy's way at all. I think that fits for cerb tackle

Exactly. Problematic attacks are few and far between in this regard, as I said, but it's those rare few that are exceptionally frustrating. Shockwave attacks(cerb, hideous mass) technically also apply, but it's more intuitive in that case, so it's unnecessary.