Some Feedback

[Dilapidated Potato]

So first off - the dodge/parries are too tight for my taste. I think it really takes away from how good the rest of the combat is. Especially when you end up having fights where you actually parrying 50+ times in a single fight. I think a punishing parry system would be fine if it were like... once in a while but you're dodging/parrying or jumping like 1-5 times every single time the enemy attacks, sometimes enemies go 2-3 times, and sometimes there are 2-3 enemies to deal with. So it's a huge part of the game... Personally I think it should be more forgiving because it makes the game feel pretty bad constantly failing that many times.. and it's even worse in the beginning when enemies are legit one-shotting you a lot.

So -- from a "fun" standpoint, I think that would overall be a good thing. It does feel good to land parries... and some of that comes from the fact that you can fail them... but yeah -- tweaking the timing a smidge would probably go a really long way... I can think of many times where I parried an attack and my guy was doing the parry animation as the attack hit my character.. but it still hit me... and that just feels bad. At least for normal anyways.
Then you can make it as frame perfect as you want for harder settings. (That is what I would do anyways, for whatever that is worth.)

On that note -- once you get over the QTE's and start digging into the actual Pictos and Luminas -- the game gets SUPER fun. I'm literally running around with a suicide squad to farm XP... and my main character has a bunch of solo buffs. Playing with all these different build ideas has been super fun.

Story stuff -- So I think the beginning of the game is really rushed. There is so much interesting about this setting. I really wanted more build up before Thanos Day. My first run through that area left me annoyed with pretty much everyone on that island. It really soured my take on the game. I think the reason I was so upset with the story was because I felt robbed of the time to build up an appreciation for all this interesting stuff before being yeeted into chaos. It really made it all feel kinda cheap/manufactured to me. Like it was trying to force me to feel things and it just had very little effect on me.

I really wanted to learn more about the expedition teams.. and how they get information back to Lumiere.. and if any expeditions had ever returned.. how they even had tales of things on the island and whatnot. Also the society in Lumiere.. and Sophie/Gustave's relationship... and the people in the city to understand their way of life before experiencing the worst part of it. I felt like I was having to speculate at what these characters lives were like amidst so much tragedy and I think that robbed me of the ability to experience the full depth of the situation.

That being said -- I don't think I've ever been happier to stick with a game I wasn't enjoying. I'm one of those people who wants to explore every nook and cranny.. and go everywhere I'm not supposed to go before I do the story, outside of the forced story elements. So I spent a while meandering around super annoyed at the story... while getting owned by combat I wasn't enjoying. When I had finally explored enough and started making my way towards the Gestral city I had gotten a handle on the combat and the Gestral city actually got me to laugh. Hard to be cranky about things around these lovable morons... and finding all these expedition notes really kinda started filling in some gaps for me.

I just hit ACT II.. and I have fallen absolutely in love with some of the characters. Francois. There is a character that sounds like Gugu the steak guy and he's freakin' amazing. My god. The Gestral's. I don't wanna spoil anything for anyone -- but if anyone is struggling to find any grounding in the story -- just give it some more time. I'm fairly hooked now, and I definitely wasn't in the beginning.

I do think the UI needs some work. Especially where you customize your build. I would love a more clear breakdown of what I have equipped vs what passives I have active without having to try and decipher the color coded menu we have now. Sometimes less is more, but that UI page could be infinitely more clear. It felt like trying to interpret someone's excel spreadsheet by fiddling with the inputs until you figure out what everything means. What is there works, but I think the UI person tried too hard to cram too much into one pane for efficiency and just made it an eye sore.

Incoming damage if you play on normal is kind of extreme... and it kinda inspired me to stack nothing but Vitality... which is a double benefit because my characters are significantly more durable.. but also gives me more chances to do some cool combos, since they do less damage. I ended up going 60 Vitality and 30 Defense on every character sofar, and it's enabled me to survive well enough that I am actually enjoying testing different builds. I have kinda trivialized the entire game at this stage, but I'm also probably way over leveled cause I've been taking my time -- so for a turn based RPG I think that is part of the fun.

I do think that the combat pacing needs some work -- because I frequently feel kinda robbed on getting to do huge combos except on really tough enemies... and even then it's rare because my combos are being interrupted by healing and keeping my team alive. That being said -- I haven't enjoyed theory crafting build ideas like this since my first playthrough with FFVII when I was a kid with the Materia system. It's such a great system and I have been really enjoying zooming around the map on my new best friend to perform combat science while powering up.

If you're struggling to enjoy the game I strongly recommend just swallowing your pride and putting it on Story mode until you have the parry timing down.

I don't think I've ever flip-flopped on a game this hard. I'm pretty stubborn and generally once I've made up my mind about something it's hard to change it, but this game has grown on me significantly as I have spent more time with it. I still think the beginning of the game is a huge disservice to the game setting. It's felt like starting a show on the season finale to me.. and honestly it still feels like I've just skipped the whole first season. But the game has done the impossible.

It changed my mind.

TL;DR -- I started out hating this game, and it's managed to turn me into a fan -- it just took about 10 hours cause I was actually exploring instead of rushing the story. I think combat would be more fun if QTE's were less tight on normal difficulty. Especially since you have to do them so many times. UI needs some work.

I love the turtle.

[Crimson Ardat-Yakshi]

I think it's an issue that you can basically beat the game with nothing but parry/counter, making your offensive abilities redundant, but if you can't parry/dodge/jump correctly at least half of the time, you're screwed and your abilities won't save you.

[Brocknoth]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Crimson Ardat-Yakshi:

I think it's an issue that you can basically beat the game with nothing but parry/counter, making your offensive abilities redundant, but if you can't parry/dodge/jump correctly at least half of the time, you're screwed and your abilities won't save you.

Completely untrue on both accounts. Just because counters are strong doesn't mean they should be the only thing you use. I think a lot of you folk are over blowing the difficulty of the game. It's tough yes, but it's not insurmountable. If you put forth basic effort to learn enemy animation timings and use the tools the game provides you with you'll be just fine. When in doubt use dodge instead of parry and dump more stat points in health and defense.

[Dilapidated Potato]

Learning the parry timing took me a while.

The game intentionally ties to trick you into parrying early with the enemy attack patterns -- They'll jump in the air and hit you with one attack, and on another attack they'll land near you first, and then hit you with a different attack.

Between that and awkwardly delayed attacks... or attacks that could be one hit or a 5 hit combo... and the fact that the parry timing can still miss even if your animation is going off while the attack is hitting your model. You have to know exactly when the actual attack animation is starting, and parry within the couple frames of the actual swing, not an instant before.

To me the parry timing feels a bit un-intuitive/late. I've got the hang of it now so it doesn't bother me so much anymore -- but it definitely took me a while to get it down... and I still probably fail like 20% of them. I just built so much defense and vitality that it matters less. I basically just slowed the combat down as much as possible to learn, and I had to do that in order for the combat to become fun to me.

It's designed to absolutely plow you in the beginning, especially since failing to parry can end up getting you killed in one round. It seems kinda like an oversight to me? Like I imagine the devs fighting the same enemies over and over and again just kinda didn't really take into consideration how miserable the beginning of the game would be for people who don't already know the attack patterns.

There are tons of different ways to play though... Making a full on parry/counter setup.. or a basic attack setup.. or a death bomb build... or to capitalize on mark/burn/etc. There are so many cool ways to do combat. It's just all hidden behind that brutal initial learning experience. Game needs lube for the first couple hours lol.

All the different resources/finishers/synergies between characters and weapon element types... stat scaling etc... there is so much there to play with. Assuming people stick the initial hurdle of getting smashed into dust until the attack patterns become predictable.

[Crimson Ardat-Yakshi]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Brocknoth:

Completely untrue on both accounts. Just because counters are strong doesn't mean they should be the only thing you use. I think a lot of you folk are over blowing the difficulty of the game. It's tough yes, but it's not insurmountable. If you put forth basic effort to learn enemy animation timings and use the tools the game provides you with you'll be just fine. When in doubt use dodge instead of parry and dump more stat points in health and defense.

That's not what I was saying. I am currently verifying this and so far have not found an encounter in this playthrough I could not beat with only parry/counter and jump when needed, just using basic attacks without anything specced for that. Should probably have used skips instead, but hey, that's extremely boring ...

The other extreme may be a skill/build issue, but missing all counters/dodges always gets me killed in all but the most basic encounters.

EDIT: There are some extras where this doesn't work, admittedly, notably Petanks.

[Dilapidated Potato]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Crimson Ardat-Yakshi:

Oprindeligt skrevet af Brocknoth:

Completely untrue on both accounts. Just because counters are strong doesn't mean they should be the only thing you use. I think a lot of you folk are over blowing the difficulty of the game. It's tough yes, but it's not insurmountable. If you put forth basic effort to learn enemy animation timings and use the tools the game provides you with you'll be just fine. When in doubt use dodge instead of parry and dump more stat points in health and defense.

That's not what I was saying. I am currently verifying this and so far have not found an encounter in this playthrough I could not beat with only parry/counter and jump when needed, just using basic attacks without anything specced for that. Should probably have used skips instead, but hey, that's extremely boring ...

The other extreme may be a skill/build issue, but missing all counters/dodges always gets me killed in all but the most basic encounters.

EDIT: There are some extras where this doesn't work, admittedly, notably Petanks.

The importance of parrying is definitely much higher than I think anyone was really expecting in the game. There are some fights you literally can not win unless you parry almost every attack. One of the Chromatic fights has 3 enemies that all attack ~3 times each and if you drop a parry they reduce your max HP, and it stacks.

I had like 63 parries on that one fight. So to your point -- not focusing heavily on counter attacks is leaving a TON of damage on the table.

To that end I think it's a shame, cause the rest of the combat system actually has so much potential to be awesome. Trying new build ideas out is really fun.

One thing that I really didn't appreciate is that when you read the description of the difficulties, they clearly state that parrying isn't mandatory to for the normal difficulty... but it 100000% is. I mean I guess you could dodge, but I haven't found much of a difference in the forgiveness between dodging and parrying... and at that point you might as well just parry for the counter damage -- especially against some enemies where they constantly shield -- it helps break through them.

[Crimson Ardat-Yakshi]

Agreed. You can forgo the parries/counters and dodge instead, leaving you with the ability-based combat 'intact'. That somehow feels much more like it's supposed to be.

[Dilapidated Potato]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Crimson Ardat-Yakshi:

Agreed. You can forgo the parries/counters and dodge instead, leaving you with the ability-based combat 'intact'. That somehow feels much more like it's supposed to be.

I almost wonder if there is a bug in the difficulty settings.

I just re-read the description again and it says "Mastering Dodging and Parrying is encouraged but not mandatory. Recommended for players who enjoy turn based combat." for the Expeditioner difficulty.

But that isn't what I remember at all. Even normal enemies were smashing my brains in until I over-leveled all of the content and had a ton of health. (at least till I learned to parry them) I need to re-watch my playthrough when I edit my video to confirm that. Maybe I'm just remembering the harder optional fights?

[Crimson Ardat-Yakshi]

Oprindeligt skrevet af Dilapidated Potato:

I just re-read the description again and it says "Mastering Dodging and Parrying is encouraged but not mandatory. Recommended for players who enjoy turn based combat." for the Expeditioner difficulty.

But that isn't what I remember at all. Even normal enemies were smashing my brains in until I over-leveled all of the content and had a ton of health. (at least till I learned to parry them) I need to re-watch my playthrough when I edit my video to confirm that. Maybe I'm just remembering the harder optional fights?

Basically what I said earlier - if I miss all the parries or dodges on Expeditioner, the fight is over. There may be some early fights where you can heal against that, but that would actually be horrible gameplay

[EJR]

It needs some visual cues. I was finally able to get the hang of the mechanics yesterday and started having fun with it but I can see others not being able to get it. And I don't understand why there's no visual cues, attacks that require you to jump to avoid damage literally has one in the form of a rune on the enemy. The cues don't need to be that obvious, could just be a brief slow-mo effect or the enemy's weapon has a red tint before the timing you need to dodge/parry.