I want to like this game so much, but...

[[Barracuda]]

I can't see to shake off how unpleasant the combat encounters are. The focus on battling these groups of enemies would be fine, but I feel like they're the star instead of the good old fashioned jump puzzling of the previous game.

Blocking seems mostly worthless except against the big spear-toting fellows who get stunned for a long time on a block- everyone else gets pushed out of arm's reach and recovers before you can offer a counterhit. Enemies often recover from attacks instantly, and enemies that charge forwards sometimes hit through your shield.

Even trying to jump over enemies is a crapshoot, since if they are too close you will rebound off them and your trajectory will be random. Every encounter so far boils down to triggering the foes, leading them to a wide open space, and doing hop-in-hop-out heavy attacks and praying they dont do any anti-air attacks.

Its worst of all If a group of foes stack up. I don't really understand how to break through them, since all of their movement patterns are more or less identical.

I genuinely feel like I'm missing some crucial component, but right now each enemy encounter feels like flailing in the dark. I was a huge fan of the first game, and I'm really bummed out and frustrated with how glitchy and stiff this current iteration feels.

Please tell me i'm missing some key strategy that wasn't in the tutorial? I even went back and played the opening again to see if I missed some kind of input that would be helpful.

[HaRyDe]

Almost any enemy goes into a mini stagger after a combination of 2 quick attacks 1 strong, after that you can finish off with 2 quick ones, If you can't do that, change weapons. Look at what attributes are needed to use a specific weapon, this greatly increases its damage, do not forget to upgrade it as well.

As for shields, everything is simple, there are many of them and each protects against different types of weapons, but there are also universal ones for everything, you just need to upgrade them up, always keep an eye on the blue shield bar, if it runs out, you will not block damage. You receive damage through a raised shield in two cases: weak and not upgraded shield or the stamina has run out. You can still parry in the game.

Now, regarding a group of enemies, if, as I wrote at the beginning, after a combination of fast and strong attacks you can stun an enemy, then with a group of enemies it’s the same, the only thing here is that you need a weapon with a large radius. In general, no one recommends collecting enemies in a big group, since they are hard to kill and if they squeeze you, then in 90% of cases you die.

And finally, this is not a game about speed (if you are not speedrunner ofc), sometimes you need to wait, lure out enemies one by one, remember their strengths and weaknesses.

[[Barracuda]]

Originally posted by HaRyDe:

Almost any enemy goes into a mini stagger after a combination of 2 quick attacks 1 strong, after that you can finish off with 2 quick ones, If you can't do that, change weapons. Look at what attributes are needed to use a specific weapon, this greatly increases its damage, do not forget to upgrade it as well.

As for shields, everything is simple, there are many of them and each protects against different types of weapons, but there are also universal ones for everything, you just need to upgrade them up, always keep an eye on the blue shield bar, if it runs out, you will not block damage. You receive damage through a raised shield in two cases: weak and not upgraded shield or the stamina has run out. You can still parry in the game.

Now, regarding a group of enemies, if, as I wrote at the beginning, after a combination of fast and strong attacks you can stun an enemy, then with a group of enemies it’s the same, the only thing here is that you need a weapon with a large radius. In general, no one recommends collecting enemies in a big group, since they are hard to kill and if they squeeze you, then in 90% of cases you die.

And finally, this is not a game about speed (if you are not speedrunner ofc), sometimes you need to wait, lure out enemies one by one, remember their strengths and weaknesses.

I appreciate the advice. I'll give it another go.

I've been upgrading and paying attention to my stats, though I am admittedly using a fairly short weapon. (The redhood bandit sword)

As for shields, I'm curious about how parrying works? Is it when you draw a shield out into an attack, or is it hitting E when the attack connects? So far I havent really been able to tell what causes a true parry knockdown opportunity, and there isnt any documentation I've found about it since the game is so new.

And lastly, for groups: I understand the usefulness of patience. I'm not charging in, and I try to proc one enemy at a time; but there are some segments where enemies will simultaneously react (there's a few encounters like that in the Black Knight's treehouse.) I suppose then speed IS the key, dealing with the closest before they have the chance to group up.

[lonelymascot]

Originally posted by Barracuda:

I appreciate the advice. I'll give it another go.

I've been upgrading and paying attention to my stats, though I am admittedly using a fairly short weapon. (The redhood bandit sword)

As for shields, I'm curious about how parrying works? Is it when you draw a shield out into an attack, or is it hitting E when the attack connects? So far I havent really been able to tell what causes a true parry knockdown opportunity, and there isnt any documentation I've found about it since the game is so new.

And lastly, for groups: I understand the usefulness of patience. I'm not charging in, and I try to proc one enemy at a time; but there are some segments where enemies will simultaneously react (there's a few encounters like that in the Black Knight's treehouse.) I suppose then speed IS the key, dealing with the closest before they have the chance to group up.

shielding also has a bit of nuance to it, iv done a fair bit of experimentation and from what i know shield initially comes out frame one(faster than you can see the shield pull out animation, really important against enemies who have fast counter attacks after being hit), there are 3 states of shielding, normal shielding(your shield gauge takes shield damage, your character gets knocked back and with enough damage your guard can be broken), perfect shielding(shield takes no damage and your character isnt moved) and parrying(shield takes no damage, you dont get moved and enemy gets put into intermediate stagger animation)

since all my info comes from experimentation it will be lacking solid numbers but il say frame one to 3 of pulling out shield is basic shield frames, between frame 3 and 6 is what il call parry window and roughly 2 frames after parry window seems to trigger perfect shield, keep in mind this is after pulling the shield out when you wernt already holding it out
projectiles however cannot be parried but the prefect shield window seems to cover both the standard perfect shield window and what would be the parry window

while holding the shield out already i have yet to ever parry anything, i suspect the perfect shield window still exists while holding the shield out however the timing is so hard to pull off im not entirely sure if it actually does exist or not while already holding shield

another thing to note with shielding, no matter how low your health is, as long as you're health isnt actually zero if an attack would do enough damage to kill you and your guard breaks, you will always be dropped to absolute min hp and not be knocked off the stage, useful for last ditch surviving an attack you cant get out of the way of which would otherwise drop you