Why is the parry window in this so unforgiving?

[Grimmothy]

Like jesus christ, I'm only at like the 2nd or 3rd boss and I'm struggling to get any hits in because I'm getting so little chance to break their posture. Also the attacks are timed in such a teasing way lol. I can understand why so many people say this game's bosses are the hardest out of the Souls-likes. I had an easier time with the majority of Sekiro's bosses.

[Sonnenbank]

it isnt !

it just works different from sekiro
dont tab

instead press and hold button for ~1 second

[MMB]

Like Sekiro its all about becoming familiar with move sets and like Sekiro expect to be face rolled till it clicks.

[Sonnenbank]

Also this game has 3 different options for any boss attack

1.) evade
2.) parry/deflect
3.) spacing correctly by running to the correct position when a boss attacks

if you only concentrate on parrying you will have a much harder time
use all 3 depending on the boss

[zab]

It's perfectly fine

[Fengard]

Parry isn't unforgiving but the game is unforgiving if you only try to use one of the several defensive methods the game has. You can just guard attack, dodge, perfect guard or just move away. In some of the best boss fights in the game if you only use one, the game becomes incredibly hard.

Also the window of time is really narrow because perfect guard has a lot of benefits like building up stagger, wearing down enemy's weapons, not losing health and more with P-Organ perks added with quartz. Some extra perks you can get are not losing stamina when perfect guarding, regaining health from guard gain, not losing weapon durability.

I would say that the intended play style is to prioritize perfect guard and then guard if it's too fast and you still have enough health to tank some hits. Then taking advantage of the guard gain to recover health attacking enemies. Dodges and running away, when you know you can't tank it and need space to recover health or to use throwables or other items.

[Persona Au Gratin]

Saying "it's like Sekiro" is idiotic lmfao. Sekiro lets you guard cancel out of the start up of attack animations, you're actually able to impose or press certain enemies (Genichiro/Phantom Butterfly... human sized opponents). Those fights end up feeling very different, especially when you fight monsters or giants that can push Wolf around with their attacks. Those fights are much more similar to Lies of P, but you're allowed to use tools that dramatically simplify those fights if you don't want to play "dodge/take turn" with some pissant boss.

The parry in this game feels like ♥♥♥♥ because it's designed to be difficult to use, so the consequence is it's frustrating. Like, the closest thing to a Lies of P boss that I can think of in Sekiro is the Fallen Monk. But the Fallen Monk never forces you to have to parry while removing all of the other ways to defend yourself. That is, you can use umbrellas, you can infinitely run and keep them at bay, you can force the Monk to do a delayed approach that you can dodge through, this can be difficult but it's a fight where the design is to show a difference in size/power between you and the opponent.

Every fight in Lies of P, consequently, mostly boils down to being too similar for their own good. The variation is in how long you have to block a string before seeing a point where you can dodge. I think the Lies of P crew really like Tekken, or that's the feeling that comes to mind. Hold the enemy's offense, punish their string.

Sekiro doesn't give you tepid, milquetoast amateur designer options to deal with fights either and it doesn't mind you cheating.

Lies of P is difficult, but I wouldn't expect most folks who don't understand how to articulate the differences in a combat system to be able to distinguish how the two games are different. So what will happen is some idiot is going to chime in and be like "It's just like Sekiro!"

It's just like Sekiro if Sekiro punished you greatly for ever trying to parry throughout the entire duration of the game. Deflection in Sekiro can cause a boss to die if you can press them as early as 1/4 of their lifebar... Lies of P thinks that the good part of this system is just literally getting nothing until you land a charge attack and then you get a "visceral" whereas in Sekiro enemies just die because the point of that system is to actually represent a type of swordplay.

Lies of P combat is really ♥♥♥♥♥♥, and anyone saying "It's just like Sekiro" is delusional. They are superficially similar, like if you posture break someone in Sekiro, you don't slap them on the wrist lmfao. Patterns are a lot more interactive, Lies of P is just boring and difficult to appeal to a type of moron I guess.

[Grimmothy]

Originally posted by Persona Au Gratin:

Saying "it's like Sekiro" is idiotic lmfao. Sekiro lets you guard cancel out of the start up of attack animations, you're actually able to impose or press certain enemies (Genichiro/Phantom Butterfly... human sized opponents). Those fights end up feeling very different, especially when you fight monsters or giants that can push Wolf around with their attacks. Those fights are much more similar to Lies of P, but you're allowed to use tools that dramatically simplify those fights if you don't want to play "dodge/take turn" with some pissant boss.

The parry in this game feels like ♥♥♥♥ because it's designed to be difficult to use, so the consequence is it's frustrating. Like, the closest thing to a Lies of P boss that I can think of in Sekiro is the Fallen Monk. But the Fallen Monk never forces you to have to parry while removing all of the other ways to defend yourself. That is, you can use umbrellas, you can infinitely run and keep them at bay, you can force the Monk to do a delayed approach that you can dodge through, this can be difficult but it's a fight where the design is to show a difference in size/power between you and the opponent.

Every fight in Lies of P, consequently, mostly boils down to being too similar for their own good. The variation is in how long you have to block a string before seeing a point where you can dodge. I think the Lies of P crew really like Tekken, or that's the feeling that comes to mind. Hold the enemy's offense, punish their string.

Sekiro doesn't give you tepid, milquetoast amateur designer options to deal with fights either and it doesn't mind you cheating.

Lies of P is difficult, but I wouldn't expect most folks who don't understand how to articulate the differences in a combat system to be able to distinguish how the two games are different. So what will happen is some idiot is going to chime in and be like "It's just like Sekiro!"

It's just like Sekiro if Sekiro punished you greatly for ever trying to parry throughout the entire duration of the game. Deflection in Sekiro can cause a boss to die if you can press them as early as 1/4 of their lifebar... Lies of P thinks that the good part of this system is just literally getting nothing until you land a charge attack and then you get a "visceral" whereas in Sekiro enemies just die because the point of that system is to actually represent a type of swordplay.

Lies of P combat is really ♥♥♥♥♥♥, and anyone saying "It's just like Sekiro" is delusional. They are superficially similar, like if you posture break someone in Sekiro, you don't slap them on the wrist lmfao. Patterns are a lot more interactive, Lies of P is just boring and difficult to appeal to a type of moron I guess.

Wow, well thanks for the long in-depth response. Yes, I may be abusing the deflect/posture break system a little too much, so I'll fess up to that. Early on, the game does tempt you into using the deflect mechanic by making quite a large reward for doing so, i.e. having the enemy stagger once you strong attack them. As someone who generally tries to master these rewards by using mechanics like that in Souls games, it's like a carrot on a stick lol.

But yeah, seeing as they add a few barriers to get that reward... I can see why myself and others early on in the game won't quite catch on that you're not supposed to be abusing that like it's a primary mechanic (like in Sekiro). Now I understand that it's more of a reward for punishing obvious attacks that enemies dish out, like the spear puppet. I'll try to dodge more and use spacing.

[Deathwing1306]

I like the parry in this game much more than in Sekiro because you actually have to get better at the boss fight to defeat the boss, you can't just deflect dance constantly and hope you will time it correctly by spamming the button.

[peterstevens]

Originally posted by RE/PAKO:

Like Sekiro its all about becoming familiar with move sets and like Sekiro expect to be face rolled till it clicks.:praisesun:

Quoted for truth. Once the game game clicks you'll have a variety of ways to tackle things -

You can play as intended mixing parry, guard, and dodge.

You can mix two of the three or play one way exclusively.

[Shreddy]

Originally posted by Deathwing1306:

I like the parry in this game much more than in Sekiro because you actually have to get better at the boss fight to defeat the boss, you can't just deflect dance constantly and hope you will time it correctly by spamming the button.

Ah yes the game known for the hardest boss fights in the souls series doesn't require getting better to beat them....it's just so easy bro lmao.

[Deathwing1306]

Originally posted by Shreddy:

Originally posted by Deathwing1306:

I like the parry in this game much more than in Sekiro because you actually have to get better at the boss fight to defeat the boss, you can't just deflect dance constantly and hope you will time it correctly by spamming the button.

Ah yes the game known for the hardest boss fights in the souls series doesn't require getting better to beat them....it's just so easy bro lmao.

It is, you can just spam the deflect button and you might parry everything if you are lucky... you can't do that in LoP, in LoP you have to press block at perfect time and you only have one try.

[Poyzo]

Originally posted by Sonnenbank:

Also this game has 3 different options for any boss attack

1.) evade
2.) parry/deflect
3.) spacing correctly by running to the correct position when a boss attacks

if you only concentrate on parrying you will have a much harder time
use all 3 depending on the boss

This is what you should learn. You don't have to perfect parry 100% of the time, nor dodge 100% of the time, nor bait and run 100% of the time. Mix and match both depending on the enemy and the move they use. It'll take time, but it'll help you in NG+(+++), and you'll be grateful you knew this.

[Reflexion]

As a Sekiro enjoyer, I struggled a lot with early game Lies. Mainly because I never dodged, and always went for perfect parries. And I got really good at it! The window is indeed punishingly small, but I cleared the first 6~ chapters only parrying bosses, avoiding dodging completely. Then my friend told me to try dodging here and there and ohhhh man, fights sure got a lot easier. Poyzo put it best - don't be like me and stick to one combat method, this game rewards using all three appropriately.

[cl@m Hulk Hoagie (Crawsome)]

It's horrible. They want you to block like sekiro, but they don't give you the tools to do it.

[Netsa]

I have no idea. The bosses' attack timing is right out of Elden Ring (i.e. delays for so long that avoiding damage relies more on reflexes or a precise metronome).

I primarily parried rather than dodge against every enemy in the game up to and include Nameless Puppet, and I swear Sekiro's parry wasn't nearly this hard to land. It feels different for every attack, like some attack seem to have a reasonable, wide parry window, while on other enemies I hit the block on what I'm certain is the very same frame I get hit and it still counts as, not a hit, but a regular block, as if I blocked too early. If I blocked any later, I wouldn't be blocking at all!

If anyone's wondering why I kept parrying and rarely bothered to dodge (outside of Manus), it's just because parrying has ridiculous benefits in this game. Block too early, take Guard health, parry afterwards, and you heal that back. That's. Insane. Nope, the rest of you guys can dodge, I'm putting on a weapon that has massive guard percentage.

I disagree that these are the hardest Souls-like bosses, though. DS3 and DLC-DS2 bosses are harder than these. As much as I was struggling against some of these guys, there wasn't anyone here harder than Nameless King. I think what makes people think these bosses are harder is just because they're tankier, but if you know the boss's patterns well enough, fighting them for a little longer doesn't matter.

Then again, building is weird here, too. I think they were way too stingy with the quartz in the first half of the game, and the weapon crafting isn't exactly intuitive.