[Deleted]

[isaiaheverin]

[Deleted]

Not worth critiquing the design of a game on this platform, it just results in trolls and childish behavior and blocking and reporting many users who should go back to 4chan for harassment. Feel free to try to read between the lines of the few people who quoted me to reach inaccurate conclusions as to the purpose of my post or what I actually was saying about how the game works.

Gave the game a "Not Recommended" since the majority of people who like the other games this is based on will either not like it or have to lower the difficulty in a way that I can't say whether or not will lead to a fun game (since I'm not bothering, I'll just beat it as it is), and I think folks should understand how hard it is going in.

[Riut]

Originally posted by isaiaheverin:

Originally posted by Riut:

The parry window is super forgiving man. It's slightly tighter than dodge roll windows in a Souls game and very much in line with perfect parries in Sekiro and parrying in Lies of P. Major difference of course is the internal damage but you don't actually lose that HP until you just straight up miss a parry and it's quick to recover when you start landing your parries again.

I mean, we're already off to not being on the same page about how these games actually work because the perfect parry window in Lies of P is half the length of that in Sekiro, so you just don't actually notice how good your reaction time is in these games. You can straight up spam the button in Sekiro and you will be fine. Also, you don't take damage whatsoever for failing, losing all of your posture is not that big of a deal. It's really, really confusing to me for anyone to compare this game to Sekiro, they have literally nothing in common.

You get like, 8 parry frames in Lies of P, 12 in Sekiro and 13 dodge frames in most of the souls games with normal roll. I found perfect parries in this game to be way easier than in Lies of P making me think the parry frames lean more towards Sekiro's numbers than LoP's. The big difference between Sekiro and this is the temporary chip damage; you can spam parries, but you will take chip damage that you don't actually lose until you mess up so bad you actually take a hit. This game has tons in common with Sekiro and I don't know what would motivate you to deny that. For reference, I died way more in Sekiro than in Nine Sols. I died to Demon of Hatred in Sekiro more than I died in my entire Nine Sols playthrough.

Originally posted by isaiaheverin:

In Bloodborne and Lies of P, you get your health back. In this game, you do not. I do not understand why you're comparing them. The health is gone unless you play perfectly and never take damage. It is more punishing. That is just...how something being more punishing works? Right?

If you look at your health bar when you don't parry perfectly, you will see it turns red but lingers. There's a mechanic in this game called internal damage that means the health lingers until you take an actual unguarded hit. If you keep spamming L1 to guard attacks that red bar will stick around until you start landing perfect parries or get away and let it recover on it's own. You have to mess up REAL BAD with your parry spam to actually take a real hit inbetween your parries that's how forgiving it is. It recovers on it's own if you just run away and avoid damage or if you land parries. That's super forgiving.

Originally posted by isaiaheverin:

I've managed to not lose my stuff almost ever in games like Hollow Knight and Dark Souls, this game is far more punishing if your souls are stuck in an elite enemy and that enemy is surrounded by three other enemies. It's apples and oranges. Also, the XP gain in this game is soooooooo slow compared to Fromsoft games, it feels twice as bad to lose it, yet another "let's just make this harder than things that came before just...because" aspect of the game. Fact: it is harder to get your souls back. Therefore: this game is more punishing than other games that have this mechanic.

It's marginally less forgiving because sometimes you have to kill an enemy to get your stuff back. Most of the enemies in the game will be gibbed if you fire two bow shots at them, and if there are adds with an elite, you just clear out the adds with the arrows and finish off the elite (for reference the strongest elite in the game will be near death after two arrow shots and you start with two arrow shots). That's if you don't want to use the charm that lets you recover your stuff from them with a talisman attack. Your complaint is "this mechanic that is absolutely nothing in other games actually comes into play now in this game and that's bad" while refusing to engage with the mechanics the game gives you to help you easily secure your stuff.

Originally posted by isaiaheverin:

If you find games like this easy, good job, you're in top 5-10% of gamers. Cool. Have fun not noticing when things are overly punishing.

I'm just speaking from the perspective of someone that has played the games you have claimed to play that you also claim to be way easier. I found this game to be easier than the games you mentioned as being easier. I died more in Hollow Knight than I died in this. Died more in Sekiro than this. It's obvious from what you posted that you're trying to play this game like these other games and bouncing off of it, then rather than adapting you're just wishing the game played differently.

Originally posted by isaiaheverin:

Moving on from this thread, I've clearly laid out how this game is more punishing than Fromsoft games and Hollow Knight and games in its inherent design principles, that is ruffling the feathers of the "just get good" audience beyond my ability to care. If a thing is harder in the way it's designed to work, then it's harder. That's how game design works.

Your core thesis was that it was too much, not that it was merely more punishing. It is more punishing than Sekiro and Hollow Knight undeniably. But you:

1: Overexaggerate the degree to which it is more punishing.
2: Misunderstand how the mechanics of the game work then blame the game for being different to how you expected it to work.

[Scorpix]

Easy conclusion. There is no game which everyone will like. You have problems with gameplay while88% or more love the fight and game

[SKINLESSHEAD]

Originally posted by isaiaheverin:

Originally posted by LighterThief:

You seem really really mad about this. The game is fine. You just suck. Throwing a tantrum and blaming the game isn't making you look as smart as you think it is.

Some people are capable of having opinions and explaining them without being mad. It's really not an emotional investment for me to explain how a game works. I don't take 4chan-tier bait, blocked.

You are not one of those people, since you sure sound mad to me. Obviously you have an emotional investment if you're throwing a tantrum like this. Announcing a block is hilarious behavior. Why would anyone care?

[Lexomatico]

Originally posted by isaiaheverin:

Originally posted by Riut:

You get like, 8 parry frames in Lies of P, 12 in Sekiro and 13 dodge frames in most of the souls games with normal roll.

Literally just Google "Sekiro active parry frames" before making numbers up.

1: Overexaggerate the degree to which it is more punishing.
2: Misunderstand how the mechanics of the game work then blame the game for being different to how you expected it to work.

You've not explained anything I haven't explained in my own words, you just didn't find any of it difficult and nitpick what you already agree is harder and more punishing to... I don't know, insult me? I'm not sure what your goal is, you haven't written anything that contradicts my point other than when you're saying things that aren't even true in how the game works or misunderstand the basic concept of how two mechanics are similar. You think a parry system that leaves the player with 1 HP in the middle of a boss fight even when they've parried every single attack is the same as anything in Sekiro, so you just don't care about how game mechanics fundamentally work differently from each other. You literally can't hide from all of the bosses and just wait for your health to refill, which takes at least 15-30 seconds in the first third of the game.

This is why I do not bother using any form of social media to have a conversation about how games work anymore, it just devolved into people throwing around insults or people just completely misunderstanding the premise of how different forms of game design result in different fundamental player experiences, some of those being inherently less forgiving or approachable than others.

Sekiro is 12 frames indeed. Tested and proven a long time ago. That .5 second myth is nonsense probably coming from fextralife or something.

[SKINLESSHEAD]

This guy just wants someone to agree with him LOL

[Riut]

Originally posted by isaiaheverin:

Originally posted by Riut:

You get like, 8 parry frames in Lies of P, 12 in Sekiro and 13 dodge frames in most of the souls games with normal roll.

Literally just Google "Sekiro active parry frames" before making numbers up.

Literally do some research other than just googling it and checking fextra. It's 12 frames.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=GRdHVXfVbfI

Originally posted by isaiaheverin:

1: Overexaggerate the degree to which it is more punishing.
2: Misunderstand how the mechanics of the game work then blame the game for being different to how you expected it to work.

You've not explained anything I haven't explained in my own words, you just didn't find any of it difficult and nitpick what you already agree is harder and more punishing to... I don't know, insult me? I'm not sure what your goal is, you haven't written anything that contradicts my point other than when you're saying things that aren't even true in how the game works or misunderstand the basic concept of how two mechanics are similar. You think a parry system that leaves the player with 1 HP in the middle of a boss fight even when they've parried every single attack is the same as anything in Sekiro, so you just don't care about how game mechanics fundamentally work differently from each other. You literally can't hide from all of the bosses and just wait for your health to refill, which takes at least 15-30 seconds in the first third of the game.

Fundamentally, these are both games where you parry attacks by pressing L1 at the right time after reading the attack animation. Anyone who has played Sekiro will come into this thinking "oh, it's like Sekiro." The reason why? It's like Sekiro. The core difference is that you take chip damage when you fail a parry but get a block, that only happens in Sekiro if you remove kuro's charm, but the health you lose doing that is gone for good. So it is harder in that respect, but that doesn't make it an alien experience to Sekiro.

Ultimately if you parry spam in Sekiro and parry spam in this, you'll get a lot of blocks but few parries. In Sekiro a lot of blocks means you don't make much progress getting an enemy's posture meter down so you can actually kill them and you get staggered leaving you momentarily vulnerable, but block spam is a viable tactic. In this game when you block spam, you end up with a lot of internal damage but blocks still generate Qi charges which can be cashed in to deal fat damage to the boss. Block spam is viable here also, but riskier. So in Sekiro well timed parries help you kill the boss quicker which means you spend less time fighting the boss and are less vulnerable to dying by attrition. In this game well timed parries help you stay alive but only affect how quickly you kill the boss in that you may need to heal should you have your internal damage buildup cashed in.

You're saying this game is ridiculously hard because of this, but the fact that you still get Qi for failed parries and Qi is how you do major damage in this game means both you and the boss die quicker in this than in Sekiro. The end result of this is that you're more likely to kill a boss through just going in and hoping for the best in this game than you are in Sekiro because you haven't got to be perfect to generate damage opportunities, you just have to be good enough to not let your HP bar be constantly in the red and simultaneously not grab heal opportunities inbetween attacks. It's a bit like how Maliketh in ER does insane amounts of damage and can one combo even the tankiest characters, but has so little HP that you can just get him on one your attempts when you get a bit of favorable RNG.

It plays like Sekiro. You're acting like temporary chip damage makes it totally unlike Sekiro. And you're acting like it makes it ball bustingly hard when in my experience it ended up being more of a breeze for me than the games you claim to be easier. I posit the problem actually isn't with the game but with the player's approach to it.

Originally posted by isaiaheverin:

This is why I do not bother using any form of social media to have a conversation about how games work anymore, it just devolved into people throwing around insults or people just completely misunderstanding the premise of how different forms of game design result in different fundamental player experiences, some of those being inherently less forgiving or approachable than others.

I apologise if you feel insulted, I'm not trying to insult you. But you don't understand how to play this game and you stopped after Goumeng. You got two real bosses worth of gameplay time in then decreed the game to be a lost cause. Imagine dropping Elden Ring after Godrick.

I do wonder how you played. For me what I did, first enemy I encountered I just stood there and let them attack me so I could feel out the parry timings. Did you do that or just try to kill them as quick as possible? That's my approach to every enemy, is just let them do their moves and play defensively, you can run away to heal the chip damage outside of bossfights no trouble so it's very easy to get it all down this way. In the boss fights I just focused on parrying before I even considered touching the attack button. I fumbled most parries until the timing clicked then I had an easy time once I went aggressive. The fact that I don't actually die from internal damage meant I just had to not totally miss the window to hit parry to gain vital learning experience.

I do implore you, stick with the game, take a learning approach to it rather than a winning one and it'll click for you. If you beat Sekiro you can beat this.

[Scorpix]

They wont change the game because you dont like it. You can read a lot of posts here and people see no problems and can explain why it is working well.
There are 88% at least positive reviews, so it seems that people like the game how it is, because parry is a core mechanic of the game.

[boppagibbz]

I suck at games but persevere. Have made it to the final boss without resorting to story mode. Last few bosses before took hours apiece and about drove me mad, but I managed to get them

[Justin Timbersnake]

I'll agree with two things; Some of the mob populations are a bit much/annoying, mainly on bosses that honestly would be better without having adds as well. Also, while I never had an issue with it, having your exp and money get tagged onto an enemy who may be in a precarious location is a bit annoying in concept. There's definitely been a few spaces where this could of happened where I would just have to accept I'm never getting my resources back.

The rest though, the game feels fine. I didn't have an issue with the "yellow area" and I've had my frustrations with the multi-hit/no invincibility getting me swamped, but overall the parry isn't hard to use, the skill tree also has an ability that recovers your health on perfect parry, and generally you can make it through the loop of an area or area to area without having to worry.

The game definitely has the Sekiro frustrations, but it's not bad, just a bit rougher in the early parts, but honestly midway through it gets great.

[boppagibbz]

The devs definitely went out of their way to make it insanely difficult. There were 2 areas I remember, one on the way to the last boss, where they hide your health and all information, and you have to just guess. That was super annoying, and not spoiling, but there’s a huge reason beyond health and heals why the one at the end of the game is annoying.

[mP3+Z]

Originally posted by isaiaheverin:

This is so...

You're right at most point, but it doesn't help to post here because the dev may not visit steam forum.
Check their discord (link on the store page of this game), find "#contact-us" channel, click "create ticket" button and copy/paste your long post to the dev as feedback.

[Scorpix]

Originally posted by boppagibbz:

I suck at games but persevere. Have made it to the final boss without resorting to story mode. Last few bosses before took hours apiece and about drove me mad, but I managed to get them

Gratz, I hope you have fun in getting better during fights

[stevo]

I think there's some valid points. Too many enemies in this game have way too much HP. Given the nature of a 2D game, this makes traversal just tedious and actively forces people to just ignore encounters and run on through. I think the stealth options available are a neat touch to counteract this, but ain't nobody got time for this during backtracking. Doesn't help that killing enemies feels very unrewarding. No item drops, just very, very megre exp rewards and coins.

I think enemies are far too quick to change their attack directions too. Genuinely don't see the point in the emphasis on shadow strike, beyond using charged attacks for it maybe. It's a shame as well, because there's a neat little trick where you can use your first 2 attacks, dodge past the enemy and immediately unless the final blow on an enemies back. Or at least you would, except most enemies just shift their bodies way too quickly. Kinda making it redundant.

Beyond that, the game is pretty easy to grasp. The parry window is generous. Boss patterns are fair in an almost rigid and rhythmic way. The game gives you a delete option for enemy ganks.

This game's issue really is what a lot of Metroidvanias suffer with - traversal tedium/bloat, and unfulfilling upgrade/progression.

[Too much Copium (New fingers)]

My advice Get good or play story mode. Its a hard game and it is perfect at it is. Its fair when u understand all the mechanics.

[Mattrex]

The funniest part of this whole thread is how OP is apparently a game developer with credits on multiple non-indie games who makes videos about game design topics.