Parry signals & flow-state

[Apples]

I will preclude this by stating that I'm playing on the hardest difficulty, but I think it applies across all settings.

I don't have a problem with the parry mechanics per se. I do enjoy it & even on the hardest setting it's not impossible to hit them consistently; with one caveat. Once you've fought a dozen of any given enemy & memorized their move set.

There is an extremely wide variation between the different types & timings of (extremely subtle, if any) indications when to parry & it prevents being able to enter a parrying flow-state (anyone who has played Sekiro, or any rhythm game knows what I mean). That is the one thing this game got wrong.

It's fine for the enemies to all have extreme variations in their movesets, attacks & timings. But there needs to be either a clear audio, visual or even rumble parry cue that is a consistent thread between ALL enemies which permits muscle memorization. As it stands, it is completely random & you have to learn purely by brute force trial & error for each enemy. It gets to be a drag.

To put it succinctly: You are required to use rot memorization on each enemy, rather than more broadly learning the actual mechanics of the gameplay; which a clear (but tight) cue/signal for parrying facilitates.

That's the piece which makes these type of rhythm gameplay mechanics work & fully enjoyable. It doesn't make the game necessarily easier, but it ties everything together with a common skill so you can get into a flow as you naturally improve when progressing through the game.

The cue could be more or less forgiving based on the enemy & difficulty setting & even turned off completely for players who prefer that. I would really like to see the developers implement something like this in a patch. Looking at Sekiro to reference, as the parry mechanic is otherwise quite similar.

[Nelo]

Spot on. While some attacks are audio and/or animation consistent, which helps you react without pattern recognition, some are absolutely horrible.

As of now the best solution is to obliterate the enemy before he moves

[ZexxCrine]

ive parried many attacks first time. there are audio queues you can't unhear once you know. the issue are the outlier moves that have unique audio or desynched audio from usual. for instance simon "attacks at lightspeed" plays one of the audio queues but it plays it after or maybe an unreactable amount of frames before it hits you. just about every story boss has at least one attack like this that breaks the rules. most enemies however do not. I think the outliers just need to be tightened up.

also even if it was as you say and there were no queues that would be fine too. its not like every rpg ever isn't "figure out how to beat enemy and then beat enemy" checkpoints are plentiful and fair. its no different from old games requiring death immunity or specific cure items or enemy elemental weaknesses that you couldn't just know from the outset. the only difference is now that memorization is mechanical instead of statistical.

[WjndWalk3r]

Some enemies have really bad animation for player to see and try to parry because camera is locked behind the "get hit" character. Some enemies have the lunge the weapon animation that got block completely by our own character model, it's impossible to see that and the game force you to die few times to realize you have to wait certain milisecond and press button when that enemy enter that animation stage, no other way.

[Apples]

Originally posted by ZexxCrine:

ive parried many attacks first time. there are audio queues you can't unhear once you know. the issue are the outlier moves that have unique audio or desynched audio from usual. for instance simon "attacks at lightspeed" plays one of the audio queues but it plays it after or maybe an unreactable amount of frames before it hits you. just about every story boss has at least one attack like this that breaks the rules. most enemies however do not. I think the outliers just need to be tightened up.

also even if it was as you say and there were no queues that would be fine too. its not like every rpg ever isn't "figure out how to beat enemy and then beat enemy" checkpoints are plentiful and fair. its no different from old games requiring death immunity or specific cure items or enemy elemental weaknesses that you couldn't just know from the outset. the only difference is now that memorization is mechanical instead of statistical.

SOME are clear, but overarchingly it is the inconsistency (& often absence) of cues as a whole (different from a queue btw). Some attacks do have a degree of consistency between a impact signal (say an enemy weapon hitting the ground when you should leap) & the actual parry time. But a large amount of them are completely inconsistent between the enemy movement or sound which might indicate when you should expect to parry & when you actually need to. This disregulates the flow.

it's like trying to find a common rhythm in chaotic jazz songs. The timings & changes are so all over the place, that you can only really know it consistently by listening to the song 100 times. By then it's overplayed & boring. It works fine in music because you enjoy it passively; a game not so much. If by the time you get the hang of the flow of an enemy you are just fed up with fighting them & likely onto a new area with a new set of enemies anyways, with a new mechanical set to memorize; that is just not enjoyable.

Look at the character attack cues. They clearly understand the need for them. Why not something similar (though I would argue far less obvious & forgiving) for parrying as a common skill thread to tie it together across all enemies?

[Haruspex]

Dodge if you're not sure.