Enemies being staggered is really overtuned, really bland, and is a huge detriment to the game

[Stret]

Big bosses and enemies often take way too little damage when they're not staggered. and they take WAY, WAY TOO MUCH damage when they're staggered.

It genuinely just dumbs the game down and makes it so much more one-dimensional. Getting right through their defenses while theyre up and shooting grants me very little reward, walking up to the enemy in the dedicated " hey, heres your chance to deal massive damage for free with no skill! " stagger window deals huge damage

Its significantly dumbing down a game that has already been very simplified and dumbed down to appeal more to a wider audience, because it all just revolves around stagger

The perfect window for opportunity to deal damage up close should be doing something like jumping over an enemy's melee attack where im right on top of them to hit them with their heaviest attack in the face, or dashing through their barrage of shots and getting them up close when their weapons are down. Not something you can achieve by just mindlessly waiting until the bar fills up with bland, cheap, easy attacks

It would be so much better if the dmg vs staggered enemies was reduced, and to compensate, make stuff deal overall more damage

[ImHelping]

*kicks enemy in head to stagger*
*enemy dodges follow up melee attack from anything but laser lance anyways*

Even MT get in on that action. Bad enough bosses generally share the fromsoft tradition of constantly running away like a baby.

"Oh boy, finally a long range FCS!... Oh right that doesn't matter because shots deflect at any range beyond spitting distance even with a linear rifle when an enemy runs away crying again"

But hey, sometimes there is variety to that. Sometimes they get a second health bar.

Stagger is not the crime. Stagger not being worth a damn, probably because somebody whined filling a stagger meter in sekiro is overpowered because it lets you kill things, is the crime.

[EldritchErin]

Yeah the stagger system, having played through the whole game with one ending done, is not really well implemented in my opinion. I find myself veering more towards kinetics which seem to have the best stagger rating just because if I don't stagger enemy ACs/Bosses, they just become a huge amount more difficult to actually fight.

This is also partly why I don't like the bosses, as they all really come down to a DPS/Stagger race so that you don't give them a chance to go full crackhead on you. Not using staggering weaponry severely gimps survivability, as the best way to not take damage is to not die.

Even then two bosses cheat with their stagger, Balteus and the Final Boss, where they can get their shields back mid stagger for no reason. Beyond that the stagger system is weirdly opaque where a boss can have near full stagger but then just lose half of it for no explainable reason within a second.

[Aleynikovich]

I simply see stagger as another mechanic that the game is balanced around.

Originally posted by EldritchWaifu:

.
Even then two bosses cheat with their stagger, Balteus and the Final Boss, where they can get their shields back mid stagger for no reason. Beyond that the stagger system is weirdly opaque where a boss can have near full stagger but then just lose half of it for no explainable reason within a second.

You can cheat stagger too with pulse shield.
Weapons have impact (short term stagger) and cumulative impact (long term stagger). So if you stop hitting them with impact weapons IE machineguns, handguns, etc then it will clear fast. If you use missiles/explosions to stagger then it will stick for long.

[Nate River]

Originally posted by Stret:

Big bosses and enemies often take way too little damage when they're not staggered. and they take WAY, WAY TOO MUCH damage when they're staggered.

It genuinely just dumbs the game down and makes it so much more one-dimensional. Getting right through their defenses while theyre up and shooting grants me very little reward, walking up to the enemy in the dedicated " hey, heres your chance to deal massive damage for free with no skill! " stagger window deals huge damage

Its significantly dumbing down a game that has already been very simplified and dumbed down to appeal more to a wider audience, because it all just revolves around stagger

The perfect window for opportunity to deal damage up close should be doing something like jumping over an enemy's melee attack where im right on top of them to hit them with their heaviest attack in the face, or dashing through their barrage of shots and getting them up close when their weapons are down. Not something you can achieve by just mindlessly waiting until the bar fills up with bland, cheap, easy attacks

It would be so much better if enemies took less damage when staggered, and in turn took more damage when not staggered

Most people who dislike the stagger system because they don't know how to fill the stagger bar, it's take forever for them.

1 - You have to plan care fully when stagger boss, because by the time the boss being stagger, if all your weapon are cooldown, you miss the chance to do massive damage to the boss. It's not mindlessly.

2 - Filling the bar is not mindlessly also. You have to learn how to agressively fill the staggerbar as fast as possible without getting kill - and it call skill


3 - bosses have many opening when you in the right possition when they attack you, either behind, above, beneath them. Just try to figured it out.

[EldritchErin]

Originally posted by Nate River:

Originally posted by Stret:

Big bosses and enemies often take way too little damage when they're not staggered. and they take WAY, WAY TOO MUCH damage when they're staggered.

It genuinely just dumbs the game down and makes it so much more one-dimensional. Getting right through their defenses while theyre up and shooting grants me very little reward, walking up to the enemy in the dedicated " hey, heres your chance to deal massive damage for free with no skill! " stagger window deals huge damage

Its significantly dumbing down a game that has already been very simplified and dumbed down to appeal more to a wider audience, because it all just revolves around stagger

The perfect window for opportunity to deal damage up close should be doing something like jumping over an enemy's melee attack where im right on top of them to hit them with their heaviest attack in the face, or dashing through their barrage of shots and getting them up close when their weapons are down. Not something you can achieve by just mindlessly waiting until the bar fills up with bland, cheap, easy attacks

It would be so much better if enemies took less damage when staggered, and in turn took more damage when not staggered

Most people who dislike the stagger system because they don't know how to fill the stagger bar, it's take forever for them.

1 - You have to plan care fully when stagger boss, because by the time the boss being stagger, if all your weapon are cooldown, you miss the chance to do massive damage to the boss. It's not mindlessly.

2 - Filling the bar is not mindlessly also. You have to lear how to agressively fill the staggerbar as fast as possible without getting - and it call


3 - bosses have many opening when you in the right possition, either behind, above, beneath them. Just try to figured it out.

That's the thing though, I know how the system works, but that somehow makes it feel worse to actually interact with. The best way to not get hit by a boss attacking is to just chain staggers and keep at it, one of the best staggering weapons, the miniguns, don't even need to care about saving their ammo for stagger because they do so much on their own.

Basically I saved my shoulder weapons for stagger crit damage, because they were chunky and then used mini-guns to smack the stagger on the enemy. This is likely what the OP means by mindless, the fact that there isn't much thought in beyond just getting the stagger down, which the combat suffers for by inflating boss hp.

[RX-3DR]

Originally posted by EldritchWaifu:

Even then two bosses cheat with their stagger, Balteus and the Final Boss, where they can get their shields back mid stagger for no reason. Beyond that the stagger system is weirdly opaque where a boss can have near full stagger but then just lose half of it for no explainable reason within a second.

The way stagger works is that it builds up a full amount, then drops half of the gained amount and slowly drains out. So if you had a single blast fill up the stagger bar to 90%, it will drop to 45% a second later and start to slowly drain out. If no more damage is done for about 5 seconds, it drops rapidly.

Because of this mechanic, sustained fire weapons are weaker compared to high impact burst damage because if you don't stagger something during that initial window, your stagger build up is going to be offset by the loss of the previous attacks wearing out.

In the end, the game is all about mashing as much attacks out as possible. Aside from using something like the flamethrower, the majority of your damage will come from the boss being staggered. The difference is that Energy weapons stagger slower but do more damage during a stagger window while Kinetic/Explosives just stagger more often which makes it safer to avoid damage. Hit and run and letting your enemy recover their stagger (or using the flamethrowers only) makes the fights practically unplayable because the mechanic is so baked into fight balancing, yet somehow fails to consider stagger oneshots.

[Caramel_Clown]

Lol, the last suggestion. Thank god you're not in charge of game design. Can't even tell if you are trolling, or have brain in standby mode.

[Stret]

Originally posted by Caramel_Clown:

Lol, the last suggestion. Thank god you're not in charge of game design. Can't even tell if you are trolling, or have brain in standby mode.

I think i worded the suggestion a bit poorly, i think it would be obvious to any reader but i guess your brain was in standby mode.

Im not saying that the damage when the enemy isnt staggered should be GREATER than if they were staggered. What im saying is that the gap between the both should be reduced. For example if the current damage is " 1 " and staggered is " 3 ", make normal damage be 1.5, and staggered damage 2.

[Stret]

Originally posted by Nate River:

Originally posted by Stret:

Big bosses and enemies often take way too little damage when they're not staggered. and they take WAY, WAY TOO MUCH damage when they're staggered.

It genuinely just dumbs the game down and makes it so much more one-dimensional. Getting right through their defenses while theyre up and shooting grants me very little reward, walking up to the enemy in the dedicated " hey, heres your chance to deal massive damage for free with no skill! " stagger window deals huge damage

Its significantly dumbing down a game that has already been very simplified and dumbed down to appeal more to a wider audience, because it all just revolves around stagger

The perfect window for opportunity to deal damage up close should be doing something like jumping over an enemy's melee attack where im right on top of them to hit them with their heaviest attack in the face, or dashing through their barrage of shots and getting them up close when their weapons are down. Not something you can achieve by just mindlessly waiting until the bar fills up with bland, cheap, easy attacks

It would be so much better if enemies took less damage when staggered, and in turn took more damage when not staggered

Most people who dislike the stagger system because they don't know how to fill the stagger bar, it's take forever for them.

1 - You have to plan care fully when stagger boss, because by the time the boss being stagger, if all your weapon are cooldown, you miss the chance to do massive damage to the boss. It's not mindlessly.

2 - Filling the bar is not mindlessly also. You have to learn how to agressively fill the staggerbar as fast as possible without getting kill - and it call skill


3 - bosses have many opening when you in the right possition when they attack you, either behind, above, beneath them. Just try to figured it out.

steam forums is the only place where you can complain about the game being too easy and have someone assume youre finding it too difficult

[ImHelping]

People want to talk ♥♥♥♥ in ways that make it sound like all critiques can't even clear a call of duty tutorial, so of course they ignore explicit "Even causing a stun with a kick to the skull has enemies start dodging nearly immediately, how boring instead of challenging" victory posters.

"Man I stole the sea spider's lunch money even though they are a game journalist baby that wants to stay flying even with a full stagger meter. what a poorly designed idiot boss that does not feel rewarding no matter what your tactics are."

"YOU JUST CAN'T HANDLE DEEP GAMEPLAY! UNINSTALL IF CANT BEAT SPIDUR!"

[SolusiRadikal]

Want less stagger but more damage?
Pick laz0rs
That is all

[Stret]

Originally posted by SolusiRadikal:

Want less stagger but more damage?
Pick laz0rs
That is all

I will try using lazerers next time i play, i just bought some

[RX-3DR]

Originally posted by Stret:

I will try using lazerers next time i play, i just bought some

It's not all that different. It's just more damage when the boss is staggered at the price of building stagger slightly slower. The large majority of your damage is still going to come from the boss being staggered and the damage you deal building up to the stagger is minor in comparison.

[Stret]

Originally posted by RX-3DR:

Originally posted by Stret:

I will try using lazerers next time i play, i just bought some

It's not all that different. It's just more damage when the boss is staggered at the price of building stagger slightly slower. The large majority of your damage is still going to come from the boss being staggered and the damage you deal building up to the stagger is minor in comparison.

thats unfortunate
I assume that, if its a global multiplier (or a bunch of different multiplies per weapon type) for all enemies it should be easy to mod, just reduce the increase, then go around increasing the stat of every weapon by a set proportion

[Mr.Kill]

Originally posted by SolusiRadikal:

Want less stagger but more damage?
Pick laz0rs
That is all

The shoulder lasers are actually quite good at staggering since on tank treads you can fire both multiple times for 1k stagger per volley up to 3 before an overheat. IDK why you wouldn't want to stagger a boss. It interrupts their more powerful attacks and is basically required on your first run through as you won't have the mobility in certain builds (i.e tank) to actually dodge some of the attacks reliably.