Counterspark

[Snow]

anyone else feel like the counterspark mechanic is just unpolished and terrible compared to wo long and nioh as well as sekiro?

[Tiasmoon]

Yeah its the most fun imo, even if it does make games a lot less forgiving.

[D. Flame]

Originally posted by D. Flame:

Originally posted by Loli God:

thats incredible those ninja waited there turn XD
thats literally never happened to me, every enemy is always attack me in force together so i have to parry multiple and running out of stamina also sucks cause they couldnt just adapt from wo long or niohs mechanics which were perfect.

You can also enter that house from the Left, backstab the first ninja, to instant kill them, shoot the second on the head with your rifle, then take out the last one one on one.

The game gives you options.

The reason I dodge to the side and backed up was to get the 2nd guy in my field of view, and I waited until I saw him start to step back to rush his buddy again. If they are both within melee range of each other, they will attack you together, based on my limited testing.

Also, I just tested it, and you can actually assassinate the first two ninja's so the last one you can fight 1v1.

Also parries knock back nearby enemies, so if you land a parry in a group, you can have an opening for offense.

Stamina also regens quickly if you stand still with your guard lowered.

[Simbolic]

Originally posted by 楊玄。杨玄。LangrisserWWE:

The game isn’t unpolished, but it does feel less punishing toward enemies compared to similar titles. One standout feature is the attack patterns, even among common enemies, which are filled with intentional delays designed to catch players off guard. This mechanic takes time to adapt to, as is the case with most games that incorporate parry-based combat. However, the reliance on delayed attacks can come across as a questionable design choice. While it adds a layer of challenge, it also makes combat feel overly dependent on memorizing these unnatural timings, which can detract from the overall flow and immersion. In my opinion, this approach feels forced and less intuitive.

In contrast, take a game like Ghost of Tsushima: despite facing repetitive enemy types, the combat remains fast, dynamic, and highly engaging. The fluidity and responsiveness of the mechanics make every encounter exciting. Rise of the Ronin, on the other hand, seems to have regressed to the slower, more methodical pace reminiscent of Nioh. While this might align with its focus on Japanese martial arts, the execution here feels less inspired. The deliberate pacing, combined with the reliance on delayed attacks, makes the combat feel less natural and exciting compared to its peers. It’s a design decision that, while intentional, doesn’t quite hit the mark.

Yeah hate the constant delays seem more annoying then anything.

[TOKC1998]

Originally posted by Dehra:

Originally posted by Loli God:

anyone else feel like the counterspark mechanic is just unpolished and terrible compared to wo long and nioh as well as sekiro?

Yes, it's awful game design. Like something out of early Playstation era. Context sensitive parry never should have got past the early early design phase

It's not context sensitive it just has very tight timing on any difficulty above Dawn. It was even worse on the 1.0 PS5 which I did play at launch and while they did loosen and tweak the timing a bit it definitely could use some more tweaking, and I'm speaking as someone who really likes this game

[Valant]

The delays suck and makes the game horrible to play.

[Alex]

What I learn is that you can counter everything but the game recommended that you don't. Learned that the hard way and now I am getting used to the combat. Pretty fun although annoying as some enemies can just super armor their way through the stagger but you'll just have to figure out which ones to counter and which ones to just block or dodge.

[level3]

Originally posted by Valant:

The delays suck and makes the game horrible to play.

This. There are too many variations with almost similar cues. Paired with the meh stamina management at the beginning, it feels worse than wo long.

[Percopius]

Originally posted by 楊玄。杨玄。LangrisserWWE:

The game isn’t unpolished, but it does feel less punishing toward enemies compared to similar titles. One standout feature is the attack patterns, even among common enemies, which are filled with intentional delays designed to catch players off guard. This mechanic takes time to adapt to, as is the case with most games that incorporate parry-based combat. However, the reliance on delayed attacks can come across as a questionable design choice. While it adds a layer of challenge, it also makes combat feel overly dependent on memorizing these unnatural timings, which can detract from the overall flow and immersion. In my opinion, this approach feels forced and less intuitive.

In contrast, take a game like Ghost of Tsushima: despite facing repetitive enemy types, the combat remains fast, dynamic, and highly engaging. The fluidity and responsiveness of the mechanics make every encounter exciting. Rise of the Ronin, on the other hand, seems to have regressed to the slower, more methodical pace reminiscent of Nioh. While this might align with its focus on Japanese martial arts, the execution here feels less inspired. The deliberate pacing, combined with the reliance on delayed attacks, makes the combat feel less natural and exciting compared to its peers. It’s a design decision that, while intentional, doesn’t quite hit the mark.

'Rise of the Ronin, on the other hand, seems to have regressed to the slower, more methodical pace reminiscent of Nioh'

GoT is a good game, but;
Nioh is slow and methodical? Really? Methodical - 'Arranged or proceeding in regular, systematic order'. GoT is much more methodical than Nioh (and so is RotR). GoT time to kill, combat engagement setups, and how you deal with threats are highly curated and consistent, that's why there is one melee weapon and limited builds, limited enemies - it can be tuned to feel really good and fits the 'you're in a samurai movie' vibe. But it is very methodical, you fall into a grove. Nioh's amount of builds, supported by a vast array of weapons, armor and tools, (combined with the random affixes on loot drops that from enemies, or you made in the blacksmith), all backed up by its RPG stat progression (750 levels), leads it to having many times more methods of combat available to the player, so its combat will be less regular, less methodical depending on your build and skill.
Also, 'regressed'? If you are trying to persuade, 'regressed' comes off as a slight.

[Kingpin-cz]

In that game, the difficulty level keeps increasing! You are still behind in character development, equipment and weapons. It also decides what styles you choose for a given weapon! One day you will be perfect, but you have to develop.

[cacromwell3113]

Originally posted by Outsider:

Elden Ring poisoned parry systems forever.
You praised it.
You deal with it.

Wasn't Elden Rind parry just dark souls parry?

[D. Flame]

Originally posted by cacromwell3113:

Originally posted by Outsider:

Elden Ring poisoned parry systems forever.
You praised it.
You deal with it.

Wasn't Elden Rind parry just dark souls parry?

They probably meant sekiro.

[kcnue]

Originally posted by causality:

Counterspark was redesigned from the Wo Long parry to be more high risk high reward and meaningful instead of something you could just spam like in Wo Long even if you missed. You have to commit to your parries now.

EXACTLY! well f*kn said! that's what i felt as well. u either get the parry on time or you don't. no wishy-washy... gibby-jabbey... splishy-splashey... f*kn around!

u miss, u get wrecked!

also, u can clearly see when they're going to do their special attack, even if it's delayed, cuz the blade flashes brightly right before they commit to it, and that's when u push the deflect button!

simple... sometimes naive

[Dehra]

Originally posted by kcnue:

Originally posted by causality:

Counterspark was redesigned from the Wo Long parry to be more high risk high reward and meaningful instead of something you could just spam like in Wo Long even if you missed. You have to commit to your parries now.

EXACTLY! well f*kn said! that's what i felt as well. u either get the parry on time or you don't. no wishy-washy... gibby-jabbey... splishy-splashey... f*kn around!

u miss, u get wrecked!

also, u can clearly see when they're going to do their special attack, even if it's delayed, cuz the blade flashes brightly right before they commit to it, and that's when u push the deflect button!

simple... sometimes naive

its fine you can't spam, the issue is it shares a button with an attack which is stupid. Contest sensitive is bad design. There is no "deflect button" if it is shared genius

[kcnue]

Originally posted by Dehra:

Originally posted by kcnue:

EXACTLY! well f*kn said! that's what i felt as well. u either get the parry on time or you don't. no wishy-washy... gibby-jabbey... splishy-splashey... f*kn around!

u miss, u get wrecked!

also, u can clearly see when they're going to do their special attack, even if it's delayed, cuz the blade flashes brightly right before they commit to it, and that's when u push the deflect button!

simple... sometimes naive

its fine you can't spam, the issue is it shares a button with an attack which is stupid. Contest sensitive is bad design. There is no "deflect button" if it is shared genius

no it does not share a button with an attack. there's even styles that the button does not translate to an attack but to a shove.

it's simply that the deflection motion (which every style has a different animation, and if you look at that animation you can very clearly see that's not an attack) if it touches someone of course it will hurt them. that is the reasoning behind it.

if you miss it translates to a motion that did not connect to the opponents blade and so it makes perfect sense that you cannot automatically do it again in an instant. cuz that's clearly basically what YOU want.

if they simply made the deflection so that if you miss you can't do it again for a second or so, you would've been just as mad. why? cuz bad, that's why.

instead they opted for a more realistic style, if you miss the motion continues and it touches the enemy and hurts them. it's purposefully done.

also, the "attack" for that button is very innefective and does almost no damage.

go troll somewhere else scrub

[Tiasmoon]

Originally posted by Percopius:

Also, 'regressed'? If you are trying to persuade, 'regressed' comes off as a slight.

Wo Long's combat flow (and parry mechanic) was a lot better, so yes this is a regression.