My grievences about combat

[Aria Athena]

Parrying and Countersparking are fine on their own, but in Ronin these mechanics have not been tightly implemented. There are a ton of weapons, stances, combos, and hitboxes for the same actions, and it doesn't feel like they have all been properly tested. As a result, things keep failing. I am going to list my issues in no particular order, and then have Mike tell me how they are all user related errors. I am at the dojo now, and fighting all those bosses again on repeat really highlighted my problems.

1) The attacks are often very fast, the parry frames few, yet there is input delay. The combat is at the point where a couple of frames actually do count. This is very common btw, but in most games it becomes rarely an issue.

2) The red aura tells you an attack is unblockable, while obscuring the enemy's animations, and the flash tells you nothing consistently. Not when you should parry, not when the attack is about to hit and not when the attack is about to begin. To properly parry red attacks you have to follow the enemies' movement, as always, but now there is red aura in the way and an inconsistent flash to confuse you. I don't understand why it's implemented this way, when the flash's sole purpose is to show you when to parry. Of course people are having trouble understanding when to parry, they are following an inconsistent indicator.

3) Combos/animations are way too similar. They very often start with the same 2-3 attacks, and then split to up to 3 different combos, one of which requires instant parry follow up, and the others being delayed. Other combos start with almost the exact same animations, to the point someone said you are not supposed to know what they are doing. Some have the same attack twice, but one of them is faster. I am not just saying a few bosses have such a combo, I am saying most bosses have like 4 iterations of this. The tell sometimes comes down to literally a twist of the wrist, which is not even always visible cause of the

4) camera and lock-feature. You character locks-on the enemy, mostly, but the camera certainly doesn't. It kinda tries, I think. It doesn't even hold relative positions, or even the enemy on screen. Sometimes you character is obscuring the enemy, other times the enemy is on your left all of a sudden, while the camera keeps moving, somewhat trying to reposition. Meanwhile, that wrist you need to keep an eye on, to know if you should parry once or twice, is on the other side and not visible. I need to emphasize that you are locked-on, it's not like you can adjust it manually, unless you unlock and relock. You can always play without lock-on, tell me how that goes.

Also, the red flash the game expects you to pay attention to, sometimes happens off screen, cause the enemy jumped high in the air, with half of him out of screen, cause the camera didn't follow. During the first fight with the blade twin, she has a zig-zag charge attack, which half the time goes off screen as well.

On its own, this is a minor issue, cause in what game such as this the camera doesn't screw you occasionally? But the enemy is on your size, the combos similar, the animations subtle as ♥♥♥♥ and the parry frames few.

5) Enemies quite often miss you with their attacks, and you are left exposed during parry animation. This can happen in a few different ways, but one of them is mid-combo while in the boss' face. You go for the parry and you miss each other, even if you are in kissing distance. Needless to say, you get hit by the next attack in the combo. Shusaku Chiba is by far the worse culprit so far, the amount of times he misses is staggering. This is by far the worst issue for me, and I think it's insane it's in a game such as this. It's probably as I said, a ton of weapons, stances, combos, and hitboxes, and some miss-matches slipped through the cracks. Dual katanas btw, in case you are wondering.

6) Final issue, and again probably related to weapon/enemy combinations. After breaking their stance, sometimes the animation of the execution doesn't reach the enemy, you are locked in position, and usually miss the time frame. For example, Kimenzan, dual katanas, the execution starts with an upward strike with both blades, and sometimes doesn't reach him. You see the red circle, you press the button and you somehow fail. That's not as often, but against the enemies that it happens, it happens quite consistently.

Maybe I picked the weapon with the most hitbox issues.

[ultimatelubu]

Publicado originalmente por Aria Athena:

Publicado originalmente por ultimatelubu:

Just wanna circle back to this point, it makes sense if you consider what YOU can do as a player. How many different things can you do after two normal attacks?

Unlike the computer, I don't read inputs, I read visual queues, and the game does a poor job indicating to the player what the enemy is doing. Splitting the combos on in its own is not an issue. The problem is when the animations are too similar regardless of the follow up, or when one of the possible follow ups is instant, while the others delayed. Or both. Input delay and the camera not being centered, both come into play here. Even the first attack is not safe from this, Ii's tell is literally how he positions his wrist when grabbing the sword, first time in my life when I thought my monitor was too small. Then in phase 2, the camera zooms out... If he moves to your left, you can no longer see his hand. Most named enemies have 2-3 few examples of this.

Take Genzui for example, who has been mentioned a bunch, and is the only other guy whose name I remember. Does't have this issue at all. You can always tell what he is about to do. Other examples are a guy with a two handed sword who has his own dojo arena, will have to look him up, and the shogun. The dude with the shield is also a good example. Enemies with well defined animations, where I don't have to strain my eyes to read micro-mannerisms, put the rest of the mini-bosses to shame. I ended up learning to dodge, and not parry, any attack that puts effects on my swords, especially fire, causes it obscures those mannerisms too much. This was not even remotely an issue in previous TN games.

This really just sounds like a matter of practice and experience, but you haven’t even seen the worst examples of what you’re describing either

Okita (the fierce version especially) is a real ♥♥♥♥♥ when it comes to sudden hard to react red attacks. Mind you it’s not enough to cause you to lose a fight IMO, but if you’re tryin to get a perfect dojo run it’s quite frustrating

The element weapon thing doesn’t distract me though, it is problematic in dojo making me cause too much damage when I don’t want. Also if you weapon swap (even just standing there swap and swap back) the effect goes away, same if you use a whetstone for the effect

[_jp_]

Publicado originalmente por Aria Athena:

Publicado originalmente por ultimatelubu:

Just wanna circle back to this point, it makes sense if you consider what YOU can do as a player. How many different things can you do after two normal attacks?

Unlike the computer, I don't read inputs, I read visual queues, and the game does a poor job indicating to the player what the enemy is doing. Splitting the combos on in its own is not an issue. The problem is when the animations are too similar regardless of the follow up, or when one of the possible follow ups is instant, while the others delayed. Or both. Input delay and the camera not being centered, both come into play here. Even the first attack is not safe from this, Ii's tell is literally how he positions his wrist when grabbing the sword, first time in my life when I thought my monitor was too small. Then in phase 2, the camera zooms out... If he moves to your left, you can no longer see his hand. Most named enemies have 2-3 few examples of this.

Take Genzui for example, who has been mentioned a bunch, and is the only other guy whose name I remember. Does't have this issue at all. You can always tell what he is about to do. Other examples are a guy with a two handed sword who has his own dojo arena, will have to look him up, and the shogun. The dude with the shield is also a good example. Enemies with well defined animations, where I don't have to strain my eyes to read micro-mannerisms, put the rest of the mini-bosses to shame. I ended up learning to dodge, and not parry, any attack that puts effects on my swords, especially fire, causes it obscures those mannerisms too much. This was not even remotely an issue in previous TN games.

This is how game supposed to play. You block or dodge unless you 100% sure that you can parry this attack. Beside, parry is not hardest thing to learn, but using all this with stance dance/change weapon attack and MA - this is where things become really complicated. From core gameplay its not really of if compare it to other TN games, anyway.

[Aria Athena]

Publicado originalmente por ultimatelubu:

This really just sounds like a matter of practice and experience, but you haven’t even seen the worst examples of what you’re describing either

Okita (the fierce version especially) is a real ♥♥♥♥♥ when it comes to sudden hard to react red attacks. Mind you it’s not enough to cause you to lose a fight IMO, but if you’re tryin to get a perfect dojo run it’s quite frustrating

The element weapon thing doesn’t distract me though, it is problematic in dojo making me cause too much damage when I don’t want. Also if you weapon swap (even just standing there swap and swap back) the effect goes away, same if you use a whetstone for the effect

I kinda gave up on the game at the start of Act 3, so I won't find who Okita is. Dojo was the only thing I cared about for quite a while, and the end of Act 2 made me feel I was completely wasting my time.

Publicado originalmente por _jp_:

This is how game supposed to play. You block or dodge unless you 100% sure that you can parry this attack. Beside, parry is not hardest thing to learn, but using all this with stance dance/change weapon attack and MA - this is where things become really complicated. From core gameplay its not really of if compare it to other TN games, anyway.

Let me tell you a secret about how I play the game. I don't know on which key block is bound. Maybe it isn't. I don't find it complicated at all. You spam your combos until the enemy decides to strike back, then you parry, rinse and repeat for a minute and a half. It was very familiar to me from the get go, it's exactly how I've played 3,5 other recent TN ninja games, and then some. I am not sure what you are saying in the last sentence, but I think you agree with it being the familiar TN combat.

[causality]

Publicado originalmente por Aria Athena:

Publicado originalmente por ultimatelubu:

This really just sounds like a matter of practice and experience, but you haven’t even seen the worst examples of what you’re describing either

Okita (the fierce version especially) is a real ♥♥♥♥♥ when it comes to sudden hard to react red attacks. Mind you it’s not enough to cause you to lose a fight IMO, but if you’re tryin to get a perfect dojo run it’s quite frustrating

The element weapon thing doesn’t distract me though, it is problematic in dojo making me cause too much damage when I don’t want. Also if you weapon swap (even just standing there swap and swap back) the effect goes away, same if you use a whetstone for the effect

I kinda gave up on the game at the start of Act 3, so I won't find who Okita is. Dojo was the only thing I cared about for quite a while, and the end of Act 2 made me feel I was completely wasting my time.

Publicado originalmente por _jp_:

This is how game supposed to play. You block or dodge unless you 100% sure that you can parry this attack. Beside, parry is not hardest thing to learn, but using all this with stance dance/change weapon attack and MA - this is where things become really complicated. From core gameplay its not really of if compare it to other TN games, anyway.

Let me tell you a secret about how I play the game. I don't know on which key block is bound. Maybe it isn't. I don't find it complicated at all. You spam your combos until the enemy decides to strike back, then you parry, rinse and repeat for a minute and a half. It was very familiar to me from the get go, it's exactly how I've played 3,5 other recent TN ninja games, and then some. I am not sure what you are saying in the last sentence, but I think you agree with it being the familiar TN combat.

Haven't used block a single time either. it seems really ki inefficient when you can just dash behind the enemy if you're not sure you can parry something. Nevermind the fact you get enhanced dodging and counterspark sets in Midnight.

[ultimatelubu]

Block is a valuable tool for learning the timing of things

Early advice is to block hits and counterspark the last hit of a combo only at first, the ki loss is mostly neutralized by the finishing hit being countersparked, and you can still get a feel for the attack rhythm from the noise on blocks for further countersparking

[Outlaw Mugen]

My two biggest issues :

1. Enemies don't have same COMBAT rules as the player ( to name a few : Their Attacks don't consume KI / Stamina, they can attack without KI, their PARRY takes WAY too much Player's KI while the opposite is simply chip damage... and many more like Hyper Armour, Grab attacks ( player can only use them for PANICED or OUT OF KI enemy whereas enemies can grab you even if you have FULL KI and HP ).

2. Combat styles are badly implemented... Honestly I would have preferred to have ONE customizable COMBAT STYLE ( instead of three ). There is TONS of reasons why but the main issues are those :
a) I HAVE TO change the style to get advantage otherwise its pain ( especially on midnight difficulty ).
b) The parry timings are awful at some styles and great in others...
c) Can only transfer ONE SKILL. It sucks if other skills are bad in the combat style you are using.

All I wanted is a similar gameplay feature like in Way of the Samurai games. MAKE YOUR OWN STYLE after unlocking others. Mix n Match. Get good at it and master the game. But nope... Im stuck with 2 styles I don't particulary like with the skills that suck.

Just my 2 cents on the combat.

[LArc7thHeaven]

Enemy attacks do consume their Ki BUT compared to player character, they are slow burn while player's Ki burned very fast, also you need some good martial skill like kihetai style polearm martial skill that can burn 2/3 enemy ki when they block but that's only one martial skill that's useful and you need to be careful to manage your ki since martial skill can cost up to 2/3 your ki. I also agree that RPS combat system is d*gshit and they should ditch it for future games also my most woeful point is ONLY 1 FR*CKING IAI STYLE!!!!

[Lahoo Eckbert]

Publicado originalmente por Outlaw Mugen:

My two biggest issues :

1. Enemies don't have same COMBAT rules as the player ( to name a few : Their Attacks don't consume KI / Stamina, they can attack without KI, their PARRY takes WAY too much Player's KI while the opposite is simply chip damage... and many more like Hyper Armour, Grab attacks ( player can only use them for PANICED or OUT OF KI enemy whereas enemies can grab you even if you have FULL KI and HP ).

2. Combat styles are badly implemented... Honestly I would have preferred to have ONE customizable COMBAT STYLE ( instead of three ). There is TONS of reasons why but the main issues are those :
a) I HAVE TO change the style to get advantage otherwise its pain ( especially on midnight difficulty ).
b) The parry timings are awful at some styles and great in others...
c) Can only transfer ONE SKILL. It sucks if other skills are bad in the combat style you are using.

All I wanted is a similar gameplay feature like in Way of the Samurai games. MAKE YOUR OWN STYLE after unlocking others. Mix n Match. Get good at it and master the game. But nope... Im stuck with 2 styles I don't particulary like with the skills that suck.

Just my 2 cents on the combat.

Yeah, input reading, infinite stamina and hyper armor are added into the game as a layer of difficulty which is the laziest way you can do it.

Also after a while, midnight difficulty lvl 75 and onwards, the forced parry becomes a bigger part of the game as missed parries often end in getting either 1 shot or stunlocked to death. So you literally have to fight certain enemies and memorize their timings to prevent getting one shot.

You'd expect the combat to get better as you progress more into the game but it gradually becomes worse. It's pretty sad because we likely won't see a TN game for a while.

[ultimatelubu]

Publicado originalmente por Lahoo Eckbert:

Publicado originalmente por Outlaw Mugen:

My two biggest issues :

1. Enemies don't have same COMBAT rules as the player ( to name a few : Their Attacks don't consume KI / Stamina, they can attack without KI, their PARRY takes WAY too much Player's KI while the opposite is simply chip damage... and many more like Hyper Armour, Grab attacks ( player can only use them for PANICED or OUT OF KI enemy whereas enemies can grab you even if you have FULL KI and HP ).

2. Combat styles are badly implemented... Honestly I would have preferred to have ONE customizable COMBAT STYLE ( instead of three ). There is TONS of reasons why but the main issues are those :
a) I HAVE TO change the style to get advantage otherwise its pain ( especially on midnight difficulty ).
b) The parry timings are awful at some styles and great in others...
c) Can only transfer ONE SKILL. It sucks if other skills are bad in the combat style you are using.

All I wanted is a similar gameplay feature like in Way of the Samurai games. MAKE YOUR OWN STYLE after unlocking others. Mix n Match. Get good at it and master the game. But nope... Im stuck with 2 styles I don't particulary like with the skills that suck.

Just my 2 cents on the combat.

Yeah, input reading, infinite stamina and hyper armor are added into the game as a layer of difficulty which is the laziest way you can do it.

Also after a while, midnight difficulty lvl 75 and onwards, the forced parry becomes a bigger part of the game as missed parries often end in getting either 1 shot or stunlocked to death. So you literally have to fight certain enemies and memorize their timings to prevent getting one shot.

You'd expect the combat to get better as you progress more into the game but it gradually becomes worse. It's pretty sad because we likely won't see a TN game for a while.

Disagree, it does get better as you go imo

You get more styles, you have more VAs, ki management gets better with the breakthrough tree, and higher level gear helps everything

Yea you can still die easily, but I don’t see that as a horribly bad thing when you can kill just as easily

[Long Dangler]

The combat feels worse the further you get in my opinion. In any other game I'd love the massive variety of enemies but jesus I don't want to have to memorise the entire moveset of every enemy just so I don't get immediately guard-broken into full-comboed every fight. Missing one parry means you're guaranteed to miss the next one or two and if you blocked any hit beforehand then bam out of ki and depending on the boss you can't block a full combo even from full ki to learn it. I really don't feel like I've died that much either, you do so much damage with whetstones and remedies that you can kill the enemy pretty quickly, it's just not that satisfying compared to other similar games. Honestly I've overall enjoyed the game but I feel like it's a few tweaks away from being way more fun.

[Lahoo Eckbert]

Publicado originalmente por ultimatelubu:

Yea you can still die easily, but I don’t see that as a horribly bad thing when you can kill just as easily

It's actually not true at all.
For example in Nioh 2, combat loop kept getting better as you progressed, simply because to be able to do certain builds, you'd have to hit like 150 on at least a couple of your stats and get end game set bonuses. Unlocking certain moves made big differences in how much damage you can deal. You kept getting stronger and you didn't plateau until the very end.

This game has pretty much the same combat ever since I unlocked all weapon types. Most styles aren't too distinctly different and their damages are pretty similar(it is mostly a stylistic difference rather than a tangible one) and since it is a 'forced parry' game, combat loop pretty much stays the same.

Also loot is garbage and most stat affixes and set bonuses are completely meaningless. So there isn't much to look forward to once you finish the game.

[Voxman]

Publicado originalmente por Lahoo Eckbert:

Yeah, input reading, infinite stamina and hyper armor are added into the game as a layer of difficulty which is the laziest way you can do it.

Input reading? Take a sip from the estus flask in Elden Ring. Now that's input reading. It's almost nonexistent in RotR.

There's not even much tracking here, so enemies and bosses often miss and you can dodge their series of attacks with a single roll.

Just as there's no room for panic rolling in ER, there's no room for spamming with contersparks.

It's like the “human resources” meme. ER also requires memorization of attack patterns due to delayed attacks. Why is this suddenly so critical in RotR?

Sure, some timings are weird, too short or don't correlate well with animations. It's not that RotR isn't flawed, but the approach here is within the latest iterations of the genre.

[Voxman]

Publicado originalmente por Lahoo Eckbert:

For example in Nioh 2, combat loop kept getting better as you progressed, simply because to be able to do certain builds...

RotR is closer to Sekiro in that regard. Sekiro has a prosthetic and some good consumables, but you still generally rely on your skills.

Meanwhile, in Nioh:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqiMLd92nyU

[causality]

Publicado originalmente por Voxman:

Publicado originalmente por Lahoo Eckbert:

For example in Nioh 2, combat loop kept getting better as you progressed, simply because to be able to do certain builds...

RotR is closer to Sekiro in that regard. Sekiro has a prosthetic and some good consumables, but you still generally rely on your skills.

Meanwhile, in Nioh:
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=yqiMLd92nyU

You know what I like most about Nioh is how it enables those ezmode baby playstyles but there is also full hardcore playing DMC/Ninja Gaiden.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GB9dHtrcK48

It respects player skill expression. That is one of the best things a game can do.

[Lahoo Eckbert]

Publicado originalmente por Voxman:

RotR is closer to Sekiro in that regard. Sekiro has a prosthetic and some good consumables, but you still generally rely on your skills.

It works in Sekiro because gameplay is simple, and prosthetic tools are just support items that you may or may not use, makes certain encounters easier but that's it. You can play the game and finish it without using a prosthetic tool once.
Plus the story, world design and boss encounters are on a different realm compared to Rotr.

Publicado originalmente por Voxman:

Input reading? Take a sip from the estus flask in Elden Ring. Now that's input reading. It's almost nonexistent in RotR.

It's more outrageous in ROTR. Enemies who are preoccupied with allies will often change their behavior based on what weapon you pull even behind their back. They became insanely agressive the moment you try to heal, and again, they always react to the input, before even the animation comes out.

It's like the “human resources” meme. ER also requires memorization of attack patterns due to delayed attacks. Why is this suddenly so critical in RotR?

False equivalence. ER is not a forced parry game. That's why.