A very frustrating combat experience

[PL]

Hello dear dev team !

While I don't want to be "that" guy - this project demanded a lot of hard work - I just rage quit the demo after too many attempts against the "spear guy".

So many things exasperated me. This is the 1st time I quit a game to instantly write feedback on Steam. Unfortunalely, it had to be negative feedback.

Keep in mind that I'm a particularly raging type of player. I'm in no way, shape or form, attempting to attack you or spit on your hard work. I hope my huh... "enthusiastic" attitude will not hurt anyone.

1- ENEMY TRACKING : absurd. For testing purposes, I was sprinting at Mach 3 around the spear guy, thanks to the lock on. His thrust attacks still got me no problem... like I was standing still in front of him.

2- DODGE : also frustrating because of enemy tracking. You can only do reasonable damage in close-combat... but if you're in close combat, you can't dodge far enough to avoid most of enemies counter strikes. And if you decide to roll to the side, the enemy tracking is so accurate that you have to time your dodge at the right moment or you will get hit, brutally damaged and need a precious health potion.

3- DEFLECT : very unstatisfying. It's clearly not a "shield" but it's not a parry either. You have to time PERFECTLY every deflection in order to not get fµcked. It's irritating and difficult to execute properly when enemies spam attacks or spin to win. And of course, any bad timing punishes you so heavily that you're good to run away and sip a health potion after one hit. It's kinda like the Sekiro deflect mechanic... only there is no stamina / poise / stance gauge in Thymesia, so there is neither reward nor satisfaction for deflecting with masterful timing. It's "Get good or get fµcked".

4- SUPER ARMOR : questionably balanced. Souls games have this mechanic for special moves or when an enemy is particularly massive / heavily armored. In Thymesia, you can slash an enemy around 3 times (more or less) before they start attacking you and NOTHING will stop them. It is irritating to slash them with a big claw strike and they decide to retaliate at the same moment... but they don't even flinch and brutally hit you in the face, half a second later.

To conclude my combat experience in Thymesia, I spent the whole demo (part of it anyway) hesitating all the time, wondering if I should attack right now or if I would get brutally punished for attacking at the wrong moment, knowing that I could not roll away far enough, "parry" with the right timing, or get smacked in the face because of enemy super armor that not even a frickin' nuke could interrupt.

While I'm a long time Souls games fan, I'll be the first to admit I'm not a particularly good player. Maybe my bad experience is solely due to the fact that "I suck" like gamers tend to nicely tell each others these days. Totally possible.

But if this is the type of gameplay you're aiming for, then I have to admit that you've already lost me. I'll leave your hard work in the hands of others - more persistent or talented than me - and wish you the best. Not every game is meant for everyone and it's totally fine.

(Also, I didn't even adress all of the other things : art direction, ambience, sound design, U.I, etc etc. Apologies. I'm too frustrated at the moment to get my thoughts clear about the demo in general)

[Oldman]

I was really hyped for this game, as it looked like Bloodborne in terms of atmosphere. However, after playin the demo, well it wasn't the best first impressions.

I agree with all what you said, I made it to the boss fairly easily as I had to cheese all enemies due to no flinch, enemy tracking and the dodge feels off, I just couldn't work with the dodge or the parry. So I just two hit and backed away. All of these issues are doubled when facing the boss, and the fact the demo plays a death scene, and kicks you out to the menu before finishing the demo.. hmm very interesting choice. I decided to check the game on a later date when patches roll and the price drops.

Edit: I just realized it comes out in August, hopefully they'll sort things out before release, will be checking reviews when it comes out.

[PL]

Originally posted by Oldman:

I had to cheese all enemies due to no flinch, enemy tracking and the dodge feels off, I just couldn't work with the dodge or the parry. So I just two hit and backed away.

This pretty much sums up my own experience, friend. The first trash mobs we encounter aren't unbeatable by any means... but because of all of these weirdly balanced mechanics, none of these basic enemies feel particularly satisfying to fight.

Maybe because I haven't mastered the flow of the game yet. God knows how much I was terrible at Bloodborne the first time XD

Anyway, we both agree on our very mixed impressions for now... but we keep an eye open for future updates.

Gotta get our Souls-like fix !! (^^)

[Mira113]

Honestly, everything just seems to have such tight windows to do anything. The dodge is relatively fine, if not for the tracking like you mentioned, but the deflect's parry is extremely strict for very little benefit and the feather counter, well, tried so many times and never managed to get it to work.

Everything being so hard to use for the benefit they give, it feels like the only viable strategy is getting a few hits in and then backing off.

Normally, souls like games have the ability to do parries, high risk high reward maneuvers, but here, it feels like it's either typical hit and run or high risk low reward in addition to the high risk being particularly high due to how tight timings are.

[WinRAR Premium]

Pretty much my opinion exactly.

Also, not only deflecting, but also attacking feels pretty unrewarding because first of all you deal no damage AT ALL. Like if deflecting does more damage than hitting someone with your sword you might have to do something about that weapon. And after dealing little damage, if you get combo'd once and can't get a hit in for a few seconds all of your progress dissappears as the health regenerates. It's obviously designed to be aggressive and not let the health regenerate, but because you can't stagger enemies, you're forced to wait out their combos and if you fck up a deflect, get knocked down and the enemy decides to chain a critical attack (which will hit and kill you 99% of the time anyways, because you can't throw feathers or dodge away fast enough after getting up) he will start regenerating hp.

Also, sometimes the enemies can just decide that your attack window after their long, slow attack is now not an attack window anymore, deflect you and counterattack instantly, even when you're hitting them from behind.

Dodging does give I-Frames, but they somehow don't work for the critical attacks and they will always hit you if you are even remotely near the point of impact.

I like the "throwing feathers" mechanic, kinda like the jump kick in sekiro, but they are just really useless imo, because you can't cancel the attack startup of the enemies, you can only cancel the move if you hit them during the latter part of their actual attack swing animation, which just doesn't work if you're melee and in a deflect animation (which you will be at some point because the spear guy in the river for example can chain his overhead crit attack after his helicopter move super fast). The only use for the feathers for me was throwing them at the enemy to delay his health regen.

The plague weapons deal underwhelming damage as well and don't stagger enemies so they're absolutely not worth using at ANY time.

Still, those are mostly balancing issues, the game itself looks pretty nice and i will still buy it if at least some of those issues are patched.

[Arthur Morrigan]

It really is some of the worst combat I've seen in a Souls-like.

[Ting]

What you have here is a game that the developers played so much they lost all objectivity on the experience. It's tuned for people who have been playing it since day 1 of development, not human beings.

[PL]

Originally posted by Schmeo:

Pretty much my opinion exactly...

You guys Mira & Schmeo also have a point. I see we all agree on the same issues !

It is really irritating when Thymesia pushes you to be very aggressive in order to prevent health regen... but will prevent you to harass enemies because of automatic super armor. The fact that the slightest miscalculation is brutally punished does not help at all.

And Gawd dang it, I'm so pissed when I throw feathers like a superhero but get stomped into the ground a second later, just because I didn't time it exactly like the game wanted me to. You don't get to cancel a critical enemy attack just like that, you ALSO have to time it perfectly... just like everything else in this game !

You're totally right though : these issues are not tied to anything "big" like the level design, or an entire environment, or anything else the devs couldn't redo in a short amount of time. I have faith that all of this can be reasonably improved for the couple of remaining months.

[winterMAN555]

Input delays are terrible. Other than that (and the insane spear guy) it's 0K

[Royal]

Originally posted by Ting:

What you have here is a game that the developers played so much they lost all objectivity on the experience. It's tuned for people who have been playing it since day 1 of development, not human beings.

alien resurrection all over again

[Koz]

I like a difficult game, in fact i am spoiled to the point that i expect it but i just felt like the combat was a bit stiff and unfair. The enemy could interrupt me after i would parry which felt unfair plus i couldnt do the same, Also i wasnt sold on the HUD, I felt like i was a bit uninformed with the HUD that is. if the game is centered around mechanics, it needs to be alot tighter. one more point, If your not going to have a voice actor, let me click to continue the subtitles ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥♥.

[Stardust Breeze]

Originally posted by Schmeo:

Pretty much my opinion exactly.

Also, not only deflecting, but also attacking feels pretty unrewarding because first of all you deal no damage AT ALL. Like if deflecting does more damage than hitting someone with your sword you might have to do something about that weapon. And after dealing little damage, if you get combo'd once and can't get a hit in for a few seconds all of your progress dissappears as the health regenerates. It's obviously designed to be aggressive and not let the health regenerate, but because you can't stagger enemies, you're forced to wait out their combos and if you fck up a deflect, get knocked down and the enemy decides to chain a critical attack (which will hit and kill you 99% of the time anyways, because you can't throw feathers or dodge away fast enough after getting up) he will start regenerating hp.

Also, sometimes the enemies can just decide that your attack window after their long, slow attack is now not an attack window anymore, deflect you and counterattack instantly, even when you're hitting them from behind.

Dodging does give I-Frames, but they somehow don't work for the critical attacks and they will always hit you if you are even remotely near the point of impact.

I like the "throwing feathers" mechanic, kinda like the jump kick in sekiro, but they are just really useless imo, because you can't cancel the attack startup of the enemies, you can only cancel the move if you hit them during the latter part of their actual attack swing animation, which just doesn't work if you're melee and in a deflect animation (which you will be at some point because the spear guy in the river for example can chain his overhead crit attack after his helicopter move super fast). The only use for the feathers for me was throwing them at the enemy to delay his health regen.

The plague weapons deal underwhelming damage as well and don't stagger enemies so they're absolutely not worth using at ANY time.

Still, those are mostly balancing issues, the game itself looks pretty nice and i will still buy it if at least some of those issues are patched.

Glad to see i am not the only one that got problems with spear guy, Spear Guy for hidden boss anyone? XD. PS: english not my native language, so sorry for spelling errors.

In all seriousness though, as much as i like the souls games, this felt utterly bonkers with how damn tight the window of opportunity is to parry againts Claymore Knight and Spear Knight, while doing the parry works and chips their health, the enemy parry is far, FAR stronger, along with the speed of recovery for the Wound mechanic, while it is a nifty idea, ONLY the enemies benefit from it, while you as the player has the classic "Get hit, that HP is gone".

The speed which enemies (bosses specially) continue their attack with the super armor, makes The "estus flask" (potions) practically are a joke item, it is almost a Riposte at best, and a wombo combo opening for them at absolute worst. That being said, "Spear Knight" does broadcast a huge problem and is that enemies with super armor will ABUSE the hell out of it, I do not know if it is just me, but even after perfectly parrying the Spear Knight 3 times in a row, he continued to combo me the second i started attacking, and the fact he hits twice with the spinning attack doesnt help (again, timing to parry both hits is less than 3 seconds max).

I sincerly hope the dev team balance this out, or give us different starting daggers for the parry if they insist on going full rouge/bandit only, (it would be cool a dagger that gives "Classic souls Riposte" or a Dagger that increases parry/wound damage if executed right) while the bandit daggers for parrying are awesome on the Souls games, as many pointed out, this is not Dark Souls, this is not Bloodborne, this is not Sekiro, this is Thymesia

[LillDingiDongi]

After finally beating the spear guy, I finally had to check into the diskussions because there was no way that I was the only one who felt like combat needs muuuch more balance.
Glad I am not the only one.

Certain things that bothered me A LOT were

1. Punishment for failed parries in this game was horrible. In a lot of situations it means you loosing a lot of health or even the fight (not referring to the end boss, I get the feeling his dmg output was meant to be in order to kick people's assses). On top of that, the parries felt weak - while enemies directly make a followup after their successfull parry and combo the ♥♥♥♥ out of you with rly hard to reach patterns - you just end up weakening them a tiny bit. No stagger, no chance to attack as follow up.

2. Dodge is weak af. Sure, if you want people to parry more than dodge, then thats fine with me, I personally just feel like the recovery on the dodge is insaaaanely long.

3. The special weapon thingies don't stagger enemies at all. They just poise threw that ♥♥♥♥ and even end up interrupting your attack. That makes these special abilities way too risky and people won't rly end up using them, neither will they try to gain the abilities from the enemies since the charged claw attack is also easily interrupted and doesn't stagger enemies at all.

[4. Please don't create these oldschool darksouls boss runs where you just run through half of the area - especially when it's just empty and just there to pretty much WASTE peoples time. I know, the a lot of games did it, but I definitely don't think it's something that adds to the experience. It's something that makes game much less enjoyable and way to frustrating. (This is no ''average gamer'' or ''pls gib easy mode'' comment. These games just rly don't need it.]

In general I feel like enemies poise through way too many attacks, even the ones that are seem heavy af. The only enemy, that actually felt good to parry was the actual main boss. I do think that once enemies can actually be interrupted, the combat will improve a LOT. It's the biggest grudge I have right now and I can only recommend changing it.

[Trusty]

After waiting for over a year for this game, I left this demo feeling entirely disappointed, and with three months till release i'm not optimistic about the game anymore.

The visual and art direction of the game is for the most part good. Though that's as far as my praise for the game goes. The combat is just jarringly clunky to me, like half of the mechanics introduced feel useless. Dodging frames feel inconsistent, and it also feels inconsistent on where it dodges you to. Why does the crow talon abilities need a full charged hit in order to use it again? What is the point of blocking when it doesn't even grant you any benefits? The most jarring combat mechanic is the feather 'parry' which timing feels like you're supposed to do it at the end of an enemy's attack, and there not even a real benefit to using it.

To me this game feels like it doesn't even know it's identity. It feels like it wants to be a fasted paced combat game with all it mechanics, but in reality the game feels like it's slow paced. The worst example of this was the enemy that introduced the feather parry mechanic- an enemy which doesn't need a health regeneration mechanic. This fight forces you to be aggressive against a enemy that has hyper armor through the roof and high damage that you have to deal with by using either cheese or your clunky arsenal.

[Yeff]

Originally posted by PL:

Keep in mind that I'm a particularly raging type of player.

Life is hard for folks like us, i envy people who can get frustrated without raging XD

[N/V]

Deflect and Feather feel terrible, when executed well they don't feel powerful or rewarding enough, why use these options when a simple dodge does the same thing (avoid damage) and is easier.