I analyzed Parry System

[Omnificent Aspiration]

I live with some pro gamers that were champions on a vr game called Hyperdash and are now doing well in the Veil tournaments. They are good at analyzing things in games and working on them to get better. There are also a couple of martial artist here who know a lot about reflexes. I mean I am one. But I hesitate to admit that since a lot of people only claim to be one online in video game discussions. And the bad rep may make others doubt me more by saying it than to say I only got advice from one. I do not count 1 month of taekwondo at the ymca. I have nearly 3 decades of many arts training and have taught as a sensei. And I also hold that experience too serious and sacred to argue with rando gamers about. But I need mention it for context here. Anyways. Also using second hand opinions from the others here I have preformed some tests on the knife parry system looking for reflex and game mechanics mastering.

These tests were all done in pro were they insist on more precise parries. And even though I went forward with testing as if I were not biased I could already feel the conclusions based on my experience. I turned out to be right.

The Knife parry prompts seem to be a waste of time most of the time. The shortest I saw one time appeared for only 180 milliseconds. I measured it in a couple of programs vlc and avidmux. Either using the time or counting the frames with framerate in mind.

Pro-gamers can get down to 200 ms reaction time. the highest reflexes recorded that was proven to not be a fluke is 150. That is probably extraordinarily rare. So some knife prompts may be some times (not all) significantly quicker than they should expect anyone playing their game to react to. So on pro you'll have to ignore the prompts and go for animations.

As for the animations. Some testing and playback in slow mo when attempted to parry and I found that on the same incoming attack can be inconsistent from one time to the next when the parry works. For example the middle of the dip of the pitch fork seems to be a good time to parry but even when you land it in there there is no guaranty of a parry. The sickle overhead is sometimes earlier near the start of the swing most of the time instead of mid swing. So even if they were consistent to themselves it appears there is no for sure common theme for all weapon attacks.

So you have to figure, memorize, and master the sweet spots for all attacks. Due to how I and the others at my house know that reflexes work it is experience not just skill that would help with something like this. It would feel like something like intuition but is really the involuntary quick analyzing based on experience added to the reflexes from the part of the brain we have less voluntary control over. Which means the people that are having a better time of the parries may not just have more skill or even more reflexes as some may say. It may be that their involuntary brain side is also more experienced by doing more of this thing over time in other games. They may not have that much more natural or trained talent as much as they say. It may be more doing and learning, just not in the parts of the brain they are away of.

The conclusion is though some can do the parries (in pro) more easy does not mean that they are easy and that people are simply over-exaggerating their difficulty. They really could be badly designed and some people are just built up to adapt to their inconsistencies. There is probably a small gap window from a move being inconstant to repeats of it's self but still have a commonality to get it right in a sliver of time. That is where the adapting is sticking despite the rest being inconstant and hard for others to get.

I have become good at resident evil games and have extremely good reflexes (tested). but I still cannot nail a parry every time. Maybe I really have not played enough to get the experience intuition needed to adapt to the RE4R parry system. Maybe my practical real life reflexes are trained so much it throws off video game attempts some times since they are indeed different. After all there is no glitch or inefficiency in programming when someone actually tries to hit you.

Things in actual fighting obey the rules of reality, though seemingly chaotic happen the way they physically can. So my martial arts reactions to attacks can only be flawed by me. Not how the attack was scripted badly. Unless what we think of as real life is really the matrix without our knowledge. So my training to how someone would really hit you may bias when I think a parry should be in the game. That bias may override what I know with game testing enough to throw it off. Remember that involuntary reflex can override to an in-perceptual degree what you consciously know. They can work together but they can contradict when there are inconsistencies and not be apparent that that is what is happening.

So if you have trouble with the parries in this game (in pro) you can ignore the people
saying it is easy only because it it easy for them. They are not helping. That only sounds like bragging to me. Or the ones that say you can only be making excuses for your lack in skill. Though those can be true. There are other possibilities they do not consider. Like they simply played these kinds of video games more, or much more.

That is a lot to read. But I am also a writer as a pass time so it was no big deal for me. Take or leave what I said. Unfortunately I had time to write it but not really time to discuss it over and over. So after I post it I will probably unsubscribe. Have fun talking about it with others if you wish. For one thing I cannot stomach video gamers arguing with me about the part I take too seriously to engage with them in online. Anything about martial arts. I only discuss that with people I know are confirmed warriors in real life.

[Blackdragon]

LOL @ "martial artist"/"writer"/"warrior" "analysing" an animation in a video game and writing a wall of text on it.

Dude you're so full of it, it's spilling over

[Æɴɪsᴏ]

While I do agree that I can't look at the prompt when I'm about to get hit I still think it's a me problem.

I just pay attention to the enemy's animation and block when he's about to hit me. That's it.

And the closest you are from a fighter/martial artist, is a sad keyboard warrior.

[solaris32]

tl;dr

[Plank]

Originally posted by Luna ☾:

While I do agree that I can't look at the prompt when I'm about to get hit I still think it's a me problem.

I just pay attention to the enemy's animation and block when he's about to hit me. That's it.

And the closest you are from a fighter/martial artist, is a sad keyboard warrior.

I use a similar method but sometimes, it genuinely just does not work.

[Harris]

Thank you for this analysis OP!

So, to rephrase:

1) playing Professional mode is required in order to get all the unlocks/content

2) on Professional mode, parry is limited to perfect parry

3) prompts for perfect parry are (borderline) impossible to follow for many (most) people, and the animations are unreliable either

4) parry on Professional is very hard, sometimes borderline impossible to pull off - so is effectively nonexistent and cannot be relied upon

5) parry mechanics is the player's only line of defense against an enemy AI, which without parry becomes unfair and outright brutal on Professional difficulty

Based on this, we can conclude with 100% certainty that the game's combat aspect, on Professional at the very least, was deliberately designed to be unplayable for an average gamer and heavily incentivize microtransactions.

[Agentti Kiivi]

Is this one of those rick and morty copy pastas?

[Dou B Jin]

So is this the RE4 version of git gud? I got used to timing because I have no life and played games like DS so much that its second nature to me.

I don't think most people can tell when to parry especially the prompt is a tiny icon on the lower right corner thats barely noticeable. Parrying normal mob is one thing but those bugs have some atrocious telegraph for their attacks on the ground.

[Bomjus]

this is just a giga skill issue. vs regular ganados you can position yourself to almost *never* have to parry attacks. i'm actually doing a new save pro run right now and i don't even have a "regular" knife in my inventory. i just rely on knives the game drops because i parry so little.

you can also earn the chicken hat accessory in hardcore. which reduces damage by around 30%. further making perfect parry unnecessary to complete a professional run. and wearing the chicken hat does not invalidate *any* professional challenge.

the game also vomits healing items at you during the two fights in the game where parrying really matters, the krauser fights.

if you think you need to be good at perfect parrying to beat professional you are A. delusional and B. bad.

"confirmed warriors in real life" yikes

[Plank]

The ultimate 'skill' in this game is basically running away. Super awesome.

[Shep]

Damn, that's crazy.

You wrote all that out just to conclude that parrying on the hardest difficulty setting (in which parrying is meant to be hard) is, in fact, hard.

I was gonna say you should be a writer, but you're already self-professed at it going by the last paragraph there. Real triple-digit IQ post.

[Star Rain]

Dude you're not supposed to look at the prompt while parrying it's just to show you the timing, so you can nail it without looking.

[Mint Manta]

Those prompts are only for easier difficulties. By the time you get to Pro, you should already have figured out how to parry by then

[Chillermaschine]

I am convinced the OP is Steven Seagal.

Source: I have been a senseo of the marital arts for thirty decades and can feel his power level by reading the post.

Thanks for the insightful conclusion that a higher difficulty makes the game harder.

[Blackdragon]

Originally posted by Harris:

Thank you for this analysis OP!

3) prompts for perfect parry are (borderline) impossible to follow for many (most) people, and the animations are unreliable either

4) parry on Professional is very hard, sometimes borderline impossible to pull off - so is effectively nonexistent and cannot be relied upon

Just use screen reading software that will push the parry button when the parry prompt appears. Boom - you're a keyboard kensai now.

Originally posted by Harris:

Based on this, we can conclude with 100% certainty that the game's combat aspect, on Professional at the very least, was deliberately designed to be unplayable for an average gamer and heavily incentivize microtransactions.

Why do you even need that? Just use a trainer and get all that bonus ♥♥♥♥ for free. It's only fair anyway, since no way a sane person will play the same ♥♥♥♥♥♥♥ game 100500 times just to get some stupid set of bunny ears or a cheat item.

[Not an FBI agent]

Is this ♥♥♥♥ typed up by ChatGPT? You're full of it my guy.