Parry timings feel unfair

[Nanako]

Parrying is a skill issue, i'm not that bad at it. When you get it right, great!

The thing is, when you screw up and parry too late, the time it takes to recover is longer than the time it takes for the enemy to attack again. This means that on a second attack, even though your timing is perfect as a player, you still don't parry it because your character hasn't recovered from the first failure.

so instead of parrying that second attack, the attempt buffers and happens again too late, which then leaves you unable to parry the third attack, and so on.
I'm getting annoyed of taking four-hit combos to the face when I know for certain my parry timing was perfect on the last three hits.

Of course the player should be punished for making a mistake, thats the first hit. but you shouldn't keep being continually punished for that same mistake. I make one mistake and three correct actions, but i still get four punishments. This isn't fair.

Please consider revising the time it takes to recover from a parry x

[GreatMx]

We will revise it! We are just in the middle of improving parrying all the way since players find it as the most satisfying mechanic in the game. Thx for sharing your in-depth observation!

[Crowley42]

Yes, imput queueing is an issue, I do think however that the regular missed-parry wulnerability window should perhaps be a little longer to make it less spamable, maybe just make the parry animation long like with the spear

[TheNecroswanson]

Yeah, the parry recovery takes forever and the input buffer holds the next input literally forever locking the player into doing whatever they pressed after the parry button (which screws you over if you time your parry right, and immediately press riposte, but the geometry magically blocks the enemy from tagging you thus you never parry thus you go through the full animation, reset, and then are locked into attacking), but you can stop that by kicking the enemies. Yes, this game invented the, "rofl-stomp recovery cancel".
Like, on the one hand, it's a mechanic that sorely needed more testing and needs work, but on the other, it becomes a non-issue because you should be shoving your boot up literally everything's rectum on reaction regardless.

[SexyPanther]

To the original poster: That was an expertly worded explanation of what you feel is wrong with the parrying in the game. I hadn't thought about it before reading what you wrote, but I 100% agree with everything you said. Keep writing. You're good at it.

[DefectiveByDesign]

Originally posted by GreatMx:

We will revise it! We are just in the middle of improving parrying all the way since players find it as the most satisfying mechanic in the game. Thx for sharing your in-depth observation!

I beat the game some time ago, and came back after the patch. I then realized what is wrong with parry. It's the whole notification process. Take the Drowner, for instance. It shows the attack warning WAY before you need to actually parry. The parry timing is specifically at the END of the drowners leap, when he swings, and every single attack in this game suffers from the same off-timing notification. You might as well ignore it for timing, and just use it as a general attack notification. The real timing is dependent on the enemy's attack animation, and NOT when the warning pops up.
https://youtu.be/2Vx-E4KgYqY

This game suffers from a small scale Warframe Syndrome, in which I mean the basic tutorials do not actually help you play the game, and you will only "get it" after your played experience teaches you how to actually play.

It doesn't help that the spear animations are WEIRD and unexpected for new players. People who are just starting do not expect or understand the game mechanics, especially when the attack warnings are incorrectly notifying, and the player's attacks are strangely animated. The sickles are also WEIRDLY animated, making people who just got used to spear uncomfortable with the sickles, and this applies to every new weapon in the game.

Some of the challenges are also extremely difficult due to AI, like the Hammer challenge where you have to break 2 shields at once, which is extremely difficult on the first level, but easy on the second level after Janus. It's only hard because the first level shield bearers rarely block at the same time. The skull crusher challenge is also difficult due to being extremely random and hard to target skulls, and requires the reverse of Hammer, where you must go back to the first level to easily achieve.

You then have pointless upgrade abilities like rip n tear, which is mostly useless, and later upgrades are harder to come by making each point more important, and you won't get all of them by the end game, nor is there a new game+ mode to replay with your upgrades.

Once you understand the mechanics well enough, you won't have problems, but the real issue is that the game seems to be specifically designed to confuse new players with each new weapon and enemy being designed to throw you off. Therefore, you won't really get it until after you beat the game.

Additional tip: Speed upgrade is mostly unnecessary and you can beat the game without a single point, but some points will help new players recover faster. I also think the reflect arrow ability should be changed to allow move cancellation, and the air jump costs way too much. Speed should be massively lowered in point cost, with increased abilities. The only must have upgrade is Resilience, which has the most useful abilities in the game, while Strength is only useful for damage output.

[815|Shouldabeen]

Originally posted by DefectiveByDesign:

especially when the attack warnings are incorrectly notifying.

I feel like this is not correct. The icon you get on your screen is to let you know that the incoming attack can be parried. It has nothing to do with the timing. The timing comes from the player using their eyes to judge the correct time to parry. And I feel like this system works well within the game. Most enemies attack immediately as soon as you get within range, so parry timing really isn't that hard once you spend a few minutes and learn the moveset, just to make sure that they don't have any abilities that can't be parried.

[DefectiveByDesign]

Originally posted by 815|Shouldabeen:

Originally posted by DefectiveByDesign:

especially when the attack warnings are incorrectly notifying.

I feel like this is not correct. The icon you get on your screen is to let you know that the incoming attack can be parried. It has nothing to do with the timing. The timing comes from the player using their eyes to judge the correct time to parry. And I feel like this system works well within the game. Most enemies attack immediately as soon as you get within range, so parry timing really isn't that hard once you spend a few minutes and learn the moveset, just to make sure that they don't have any abilities that can't be parried.

No, it is correct, aside from the semantics. Why? The game never specifies any of this, and you can easily assume otherwise. Everything in the game is then awkwardly animated, almost as it was designed to confuse the player.

YES, you can figure it out. That's not the point. The point is the game is not intuitive and very misleading, meaning people won't figure it out until after screwing up. In fact, I bet some people still won't figure it out until after you tell them, since there obviously seems to be problems people have with the system. The tutorial needs to be point blank and admit the notifications are not representative of the parry mechanic's timing.

Once you figure out the timing, the game's difficulty drops, so I'm betting the developers knew this, and deliberately made the mechanic confusing for artificial difficulty.

Quite frankly, most melee combat games are over simplified, unrealistic, and handicapped in some form for the player. Elderborn is no different, aside from it trying to confuse the player with janky animations and poorly timed notifications. The only games that have more realistic combat are old games like Die by the Sword, and VR titles. Even the old starwars titles moved your lightsaber according to player movement. There is a massive hole in the market here than can easily be exploited for profit. Just look at Doom 2016, and it's location based glory kills. If a melee game wants to capitalize on this market, it needs to do more than generic blocking and weapon swings. The combat system needs to be more diverse, physics simulated, and location based, instead of artificial difficulty based on obscure mechanics.

[TheNecroswanson]

I am going to disagree with the whole, "notifications being wrong" thing.
Let me use Sekiro as an example. There are attacks you cannot parry. These attacks are especially damaging. You can only dodge, jump over, or use a special technique against a thrust. You get an indicator when one of these attacks is coming. They don't tell you which maneuver you will need to use, and they are way before the attack's active animations begins.
This is done on purpose. It's not an indicator telling you, "do specific action now". It's an indicator letting you know a specific action outside of your primary techniques is going to be needed, and it is now up to the player to pay extra attention to the incoming animations, to decide on reaction which method is appropriate.
Or, they can just dodge back/sideways/run away to avoid interacting with it at all.

In Elderborne, that timing window serves the same purpose. The indicator tells you whether a parryable but unblockable attack is coming, or if the incoming attack can ONLY be dodged. It is the up to the player to watch the animations closer and decide on reaction which method is appropriate. Or, they can dodge out entirely, or kick to try and disrupt the enemy's action.
It's designed as an indicator not that you need to do this things NOW, but that it's coming and you need to be prepared to respond appropriately.
Imagine if the indicator only showed up when you needed to make the reaction, and input delay and start up frames screwed you. You'd then be hurt even more by the recovery time as now a poor window of indication has caused you to error. Or imagine if it's like Bloodborne, and there isn't any indication at all, and you have to learn through getting smacked in the face over and over again, with no real clear indication on whether or not your testing is yielding accurate results.

TL;DR: The indicator isn't telling you when you should act. The indicator is to let you know that you need to pay extra attention, and decide which action is appropriate.

Edit: And no game tutorializes parry windows and indicator icons for attacks like you're demanding. You're demanding the game hold your hand at this point. It's probably just not for you.

[TheNecroswanson]

It should also be noted: The yellow indicator is NOT telling you to parry, or that a specific attack can be parried. You can parry attacks that do not give off this indicator. As the player, you intuit that the yellow indicator essentially means it's time to parry BECAUSE you can't block, not because that is what the game wants you to do. The yellow indicator lets you know the incoming attack CANNOT be blocked. The accompanying red indicator lets you know you can't parry the incoming attack either.
I think most of your problem is you're focusing too much on indicators telling you how to play, rather than experimenting and learning on your own.

[Crowley42]

Originally posted by TheNecroswanson:

It should also be noted: The yellow indicator is NOT telling you to parry, or that a specific attack can be parried. You can parry attacks that do not give off this indicator. As the player, you intuit that the yellow indicator essentially means it's time to parry BECAUSE you can't block, not because that is what the game wants you to do. The yellow indicator lets you know the incoming attack CANNOT be blocked. The accompanying red indicator lets you know you can't parry the incoming attack either.
I think most of your problem is you're focusing too much on indicators telling you how to play, rather than experimenting and learning on your own.

I second this