Bouncing (spikes, ...)

[Silkke]

How does that work? For the last hour I've tried and tried and tried. I try, I die 5 times, wake up on the bench, run back, regain my soul and try again 5-6 times before I die.
I've managed maybe 6 or 7 times out of over a 100 to bounce of the first spikes, once I even managed the second spike, but here are 4 and it just doesn't seem as if I can repeat whatever I am doing that many times.

I've watched videos and it looks so simple, but whenever I try it just sucks the fun out of the game. As far as I understood, I have to jump, look down and at the same time hit the attack button and then redirect the bounce. But that doesn't work. I must have done something else during the few times it worked but I can't figure out what.

Will there be an explanation for it later in the game? Do I miss an ability that I will only require later in the game? Do I just not use the correct sequence of buttons? Or does the game just not recognize my input fast enough? I've switched off Vsync already since I read in some places that it can cause an input lag.

[256MB of SPAM]

Just don't try it on thorns. Doesn't work.

[Bridgeburners]

You don't need an upgrade. You can do it right at the beginning of the game, to get Fury of the Fallen, and a seemingly out of reach grub. But it is a little bit easier when you have the long nail charm. So if you feel like you can't do it, it might help to use the long nail charm first to practice, and then when you get the hang of it try it without the charm.

It's a very valuable skill to learn because the same technique works very well against so many bosses. I'd say the trickiest part is, right after the bounce, holding your stick in the direction you want to go and then quickly moving it back down for the next bounce.

[Silkke]

Well, it is official. I suck at this game. But thanks for the help anyways. I spent hours on trying to learn the bounce and after getting the mothwing cloak I finally managed to reach the little grub with only one bounce after countless tries (quite a bit over 100). That said I wouldn't be able to repeat it with any less tries. And now that I have the mantis claw I am equally bad with that thing each time there are thorns.

I finally resorted to opening the CheatEngine, set my health to 100 and die until I make it (or raise it for another 100 and another) and then set it back to what it was to not mess up the rest of the game since cheating can make a game boring very quickly. But without it I would have given up on the game by now.

[loveless]

That's so sad man. For the life of me, I don't understand how your reflexes can be that poor.

[hanehiko]

What is the exact problem? You can't perform down attack or can't make it work above the spikes?

For the former - press '↓' and then 'attack' buttons.
As for the latter - it's just about timing. Look at range of nail during attack animation, remember it and do the down-attack right when you feel you are close enough to spikes to hit it. Maybe even earlier due to required time to press combination of buttons.

[256MB of SPAM]

Originally posted by poetryofthedreams:

That's so sad man. For the life of me, I don't understand how your reflexes can be that poor.

Maybe he has the ever prevalent (for some) input lag? Would explain a lot...

[Arseny]

You can also use CheatEngine to slow down the game ("Enable Speedhack" option).

I also had huge problems with bouncing early on, just couldn’t get the timing right. I trained bouncing jump by slowing the game to 50% speed, and it helped to figure out how it works and later I was able to do it at full speed (most of the time).

[paladin181]

Originally posted by TAOBrewster:

Originally posted by poetryofthedreams:

That's so sad man. For the life of me, I don't understand how your reflexes can be that poor.

Maybe he has the ever prevalent (for some) input lag? Would explain a lot...

Maybe he's playing on a keyboard and has ghosting problems.

[Silkke]

I have no idea what my problem is. Half the time I think the controller is too sensitive because I fall of plattforms even though I just want to turn around. The rest of the time I feel like the controller doesn't notice my input because I constantly fall of walls when trying to use the Mantis Claw. Those glides down aren't much a problem on normal walls. Every now and then I am just stuck on the same height of the wall a few bounces before I either glide down a bit and can restart the trouble spot, but with the spikes and thorns being unprecise is deadly.

[Fredrikorex]

Try playing the game with keyboard controlls and see if it's any easier and/or more responsive, the game works perfectly fine without the use of a controller anyhow.

[256MB of SPAM]

Originally posted by melfice181:

Originally posted by TAOBrewster:

Maybe he has the ever prevalent (for some) input lag? Would explain a lot...

Maybe he's playing on a keyboard and has ghosting problems.

Why, is that a prevalent issue thats been mentioned in the FAQ thread and elsewhere?

[256MB of SPAM]

As Fredrikorex suggests, try playing with the Keyboard. See if the problem persists. As for then using a controller, try some of the fixes in the FAQ thread. There are a few, like disabling v-sync, the new beta native controller option and using steams own controller config (not recommended imo).

[Silkke]

I am bouncing . I activated the Beta thingy for the controller and it started working. On my third attempt I managed four spike bounces. Now that it works I just need to practice the whole direction stuff a bit since until now I never got that far. Thanks for all the suggestions.

[256MB of SPAM]

Poetryofthedreams comment made me think that you might have had input lag. Theres quite a few people who have experienced it and he was right, it was a bit weird that you were having that much trouble with something so straight forward as getting the timing right on a spike bounce.

I genuinely think theres a few people out there who similarly, like yourself, had (and possibly still have) no idea they're suffering from input lag.

Anyway, glad to hear its working for you now. :)

[frank]

I experienced the same problem. After several deaths and having to run back I couldn't get the nail jump right, and it got quite annoying.
So I searched if there were tips on the internet and came across this thread.
I don't use a genuine Xbox controller so that could have been the problem but I thought it would be more likely to be by my own incompetence. So I resulted in using the Cheat Engine as mentioned above.
It felt a bit cheap and game breaking, and I thought I would lose interest in the game because of that but it really helped me. It allowed me to practice the jump more efficiently without running back all the time. Now I am actually capable to do the jump right, without cheating!
Nice!