Steep learning curve or just me?

[Swagmire III]

I've played every souls game but demon's and I'm really struggling the most since I started the series. I think it's because I played them all that I'm having so much difficulty; I can't get my mind around how to properly play. (I'm at Lady Butterfly)

So I have 2 questions: Is everyone experiencing this or is it just me? And any tips on how to play better (other than the obvious ones you get from every video on youtube)?

[Toaster Bath]

Steep learning curve. Unlearn all that you learned from the Dark Souls games. This game plays vastly different.

[miep miep]

you are not the only one. I adapted to the game half way through the playthrough. But once you understand how it works you see how awsome the game is

[axi312]

For me it is just a completely different play style for Dark Souls and Sekiro. I often find myself play the game aggressively to build up the enemies posture bar faster rather than slowly shred their HP.

Since the posture bar is decreased really fast for bosses, I will always make sure that I do not leave breathing room and always keep close to them.

[Gin-chan]

This game is a case where experience with past souls games is only a burden to you instead of an advantage. Muscle memory had made me lose much more fights than I care to count since I instinctively tried to play the game like a souls game on prolonged fights early on. Lady Butterfly managed to drill the basics into me fine though after a 2 hour attempt at her

[draeath]

I never got far with the Souls games, but I'm getting much more into this. Stuff seems more intuitive to me.

For what that's worth.

[rudeboy]

Souls games heavily reward you for properly exploiting combat mechanics, however they don't force you to abuse these mechanics in order to succeed. You can pick-and-choose per-encounter which mechanics to use, or completely ignore them.

Sekiro does the first thing, but not the second. The rules are a little more strict.

[Hobby8]

Just spam block and R1...know when to block. That's all the game is. Also, eliminate the health bar (for enemies); it doesn't matter. Poise is the only thing that matters when Deathblows are the only ways to kill.

[Alex]

I wouldnt say steep "learning". However the game is all about reaction times and doing the right thing at the right time. Not much to learn except knowing what to push at the right millisecond, lol. I went back to the training guy after i got the expanded fighting techniques (very early) and i trained with him to get the things down better. Still, you sometimes mess up when it counts (i do that in DS3 as well).

[Xengre]

Depends on your gaming background and just natural gaming ability I'd say, but it does have a learning curve depending on perspective.

With Lady Butterfly (aside from backing off behind pillars during illusions until they vanish and block the magic) you should always be in melee range of her and attacking or parrying. Don't dodge. Attack repeatedly until she is going to perform a kick and parry the kicks, then immediately start attacking again rinse and repeat this will build up her posture meter while actually negating her most dangerous attacks and prevent her posture from deteriorating. When she does a sweep this lets you easily jump to avoid the ublockable sweep (that is normally hard to dodge via jump when moving because dodge command blocks other movement inputs briefly) allowing a kick for more posture dmg. If she goes into the air to do a kick dodge and punish her for more dmg. It is going to be odd because you will rarely touch the movement buttons except to move forward in this fight and avoid illusions. When in phase 2 the exception is to dodge her magic attack + melee combo. She doesn't tend to follow up with anything crazy when she uses magic like this as far as I experienced so this is allowed during only that time, then press on her again. Beat Gyoubu first if you want the attack boost to help you do more dmg to her (and buy a 4th Gourd). With two revives prepped I think you can risk dying in phase 1 to revive and save all flasks for phase 2 (and your finisher should reenable your 2nd revive at start of phase 2) if I'm not mistaken (I haven't actually used this method tho to be sure).

[Quibz]

There wasn't much of a learning curve for me. Then again it varies for everyone. I play better in this game than any of the Souls games I've played.

[Cyotey]

It took me 3 hours to realize this isn't an HP reduction game unless you're dealing with ogres and animals. Any human foe you encounter needs to be dealt with in posture build up for executions. Play this game like you would in For Honor. Exhaust the enemy and go for the kill!

[Xengre]

Originally posted by Quibz:

There wasn't much of a learning curve for me. Then again it varies for everyone. I play better in this game than any of the Souls games I've played.

Same. Souls games are very easy for me and this one hasn't been that bad, either, despite the fact that I just recently realized I've been playing the game with the Demon Bell (forgetting I equipped it lol...) which is basically the calamity ring from DS3 where you take increased damage. Took it off and now feel like I'm using cheats because the game got so much easier after playing with it equipped for some time.

Shame not more people know of the Ys series if they like hardcore games. Has a very similar feel in terms of difficulty.