I am finally a Sekiro convert

[The Dogfather]

When this released I absolutely hated it, which saddened me because the Dark Souls franchise and Bloodborne (Bloodborne is my favorite game of all time) are all beloved. With Sekiro, I just couldn't get on with the combat. I have always sucked at parrying in DS and BB so to have a game so singularly focused on it, I ended up bouncing off it hard unable to make any leeway with the first mini-boss before uninstalling in disappointment.

This week I completed the game for the first time with a Sekiro vet in co-op using the Sekiro Online mod just so that I could fully experience the game I paid for. The more I played it with her, the more I started to enjoy it as she guided me through the entire campaign, giving me hints and tips on how to deal with particular enemies or environments.

I decided to restart a solo playthrough and I have now made it through 3/4 of the way through the game on my own (amazing how just having played in co-op watching and learning has prepped me). I just have Guardian Ape to kill then I can move onto the start of end game (the pivotal decision you make that starts the end game).

I purposefully left Guardian Ape for last because in co-op he was the boss I died to the most, having done Senpou Temple, Ashina Castle, Ashina Outskirts, Hirata Estate first killing all mini-bosses and bosses. With upgraded attack power and prayer necklace 6 built I should be in a much better position now to tackle the ape. I also have the gord for the terror build up. This I know is still going to be a great challenge for me, but I feel much better prepared for it now.

It all clicked at the Genichiro Ashina fight in solo. While it might have taken me 6 hours of repeated trying to kill him that is where this games combat finally won me over and now I can't imagine any other sword or melee fighting game not using the same mechanics, as they will just be terribly dull and boring.

If you are having a tough time with it, stick with it as it is totally worth it. Or better yet get a an experienced friend to take you through it and then see how you fair on your own after that.

[The Dogfather]

So I managed to kill Guardian Ape on my third try. Divine confetti and flamethrower made mince meat of him but then I found out that he returns with a mate. So weird it seems we missed that one in co-op.

How the hell am I supposed to kill two of these bastards?

Also I am really struggling with Isshin and Emma fight (I need that third ending achievement)

[Gamall Wednesday Ida]

The mate always drops at a specific location; if you anticipate her arrival, you can layer plenty of firecrackers where she falls, and insta-break her

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHMLArPG_aE
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=LNr2kGSHTMI

[The Dogfather]

Thanks when the work day is finally over I'ma gonna try that.

[Alexoferith]

引用自 Gamall Wednesday Ida：

引用自 President Füher King Bradley：

I realized that I skipped tutorial

That's hilarious. I get a "Manly men don't need no stinking directions; or tutorials!" vibe from this. :-)

引用自 Alexoferith：

For one, to carry out the mikiri counter, it seems that, on the PC, for normal soldiers, you can press the button quite early, whereas for some of the main bosses, have to wait till the red kanji starting to disappear. I died a lot by just reacting to the animation. I

It has nothing to do with PC or console.

The danger kanji is not tied to the timing of the mikiri or deflect, it merely signals the beginning of the thrust move, then the counter depends on the move itself: windup and attack window.

The bane of my life is Seven Spear's charge: kanji appears, he makes a fake charge first, then grunts and finishes the move, doing the real charge -- only the last phase can be countered, and I tend to die, lunging early.

引用自 Alexoferith：

some of the attacks have to be blocked, not parried.

No. [Are you sure you didn't simply exchange up the two concepts in your head ?]

Nearly all attacks (ie. aside from some of the perilous ones -- and even then, some grabs can be deflected, eg snake-eyes) can be parried / deflected, with perfect timing.

Strictly *fewer* can be blocked (holding block button without timing). To my knowledge, there exists *no attack* that can be blocked yet cannot be deflected. That would make little sense, as mechanically a deflect is just a block performed at the last moment.

Deflecting is also mandatory to avoid posture break when your meter is full.

Thank you very much for the response. It is quite clear that you are more skillful than I am. I don't know if it is my keyboard or mouse or both, I cannot seem to parry Isshin's attack right after I carried out my perilous attack. Hence my conclusion of some moves can only be blocked and not parried. Recently, I have found videos of a Korean gamer (well, the channel name is in Korean characters), he parried every bloody attacks or at least that was what they looked like. So, I think, perhaps, every attack can be parried, as you said, with perfect timing. Of course, except their perilous attacks, cannot be parried. Or, am I wrong again?

If in doubt, or when in the heat of battle, I tend to use animation to decide when and what to react. This obviously is not very good way to play as some of the moves are predetermined by program coding, or in every day term, as you have put it, the "window" where a response is expected, or more precisely, which key press to be expected. And very frustratingly, this game can have some really really frustrating camera angle. This is what caused a lot of complaints towards the game. Of course, one can say that all you have to do is to avoid getting in such situation. Humble people will response, "yeah, got you." But others will have a different and more negative response. Fighting lone swordman in the narrow pit before the bottomless pit, and when fighting Owl at the lookout, if carrying defending by parrying, one will find oneself getting his back against the wall where the door is or the pillar at the corner. Rather than complaining at the game, just learn to get out of there, Quick. :)

You haven't mentioned if you play on PC or console, if you are a PC gamer, I would love to ask you to teach some moves that is if you don't mind.

For everyone out there, make sure your computer if you are PC players, not running some other programs, updates or even crunching codes while playing this game. It will affect the timing of key response. But if you don't mind dying more than twice, please ignore what I have just said. Have fun.

[Gamall Wednesday Ida]

引用自 Alexoferith：

...

>>> "It is quite clear that you are more skillful than I am."

I'm hardly skillfull; I've spent just enough time in the game that I now feel comfortable sharing some advice regarding its basic mechanics. Unfortunately, there is a difference between knowing what you're supposed to do, and applying that knowledge under pressure...

>>> "I have found videos of a Korean gamer "

Was it ONGBAL, by any chance? He's wrist-slashingly good.

>>> Of course, except their perilous attacks, cannot be parried. Or, am I wrong again?

There are exceptions. Snake Eye's grab is deflectable, as it uses her weapon. All *grabs* are even *blockable* with the umbrella, I believe (I've tested this on snake eyes). All perilous thrusts are deflectable, and that can even be the superior option over Mikiri in some cases, at high skill level (see ONGBAL looping True Monk's combo).

>>> "some of the moves are predetermined by program coding"

ALL the moves are predetermined. They are fixed animations, with a specific duration; in fighting games, the windup, attack, and cooldown durations are usually given in "frames", and relative to the game's fixed framerate, eg 30 or 60 fps. The choice of attack animation, and the delay between attacks, are random (plenty of asterisks here), but once an animation is started, it *always* plays out the same.

When it comes down to it, success at such games boils down to anticipating possible animations, recognising them, and reacting appropriately within the window.

Intuition helps, but sometimes, animations may be misleading, either deliberately, or through bad design / hitboxes. Then there is only rote memorisation.

>>> And very frustratingly, this game can have some really really frustrating camera angle

The Camera and Gravity are the true bosses of From software games. Few would argue that.

>>> You haven't mentioned if you play on PC or console,

PC, mouse and keyboard, for all Souls games. I use AHK for games that don't natively recognise the extra mouse buttons -- which Sekiro does --- and for quality of life stuff, like one-button access to quick items. I have posted a topic about that on those boards some time ago.

Not sure what PC-specific advice you would be looking for beyond that.

[Alexoferith]

Thank you for the response again. So, you are a PC gamer as well. Excellent. I know it is hard to use words to describe the exact moment to press a key. I mean if all the tutorial video show the exact moment to press what key, that would be great help. I mean I watched those video just to learn what combat art combined with what prosthetic tool to fight against what boss. Then I find out that watching too many of those videos didn't really help because the mind is imprinted with the same temp. But due to each person's different mind set, level of excitement (in my case, too high), these all affected the reaction time. I mean it took Ongbal around 30 seconds despatching Emma whereas it too me about 3 minutes and used up one gourd. Sigh. Fightingcowboy is another good example. He had shown how to do it but not exactly how if you know what I mean. Mind you, watching all those videos did help in the way that I can see what moves the opponents can do. But, I still have to learn how I react under the same environment.
Just one more note for others out there, the training guy at the temple at the beginning, his speed is about half of those out there. Oh, that reminds me to ask you a question. I saw they can side step so coolly to the right or left by what I can amount to one step. In my case, I could not do that. I can "wildly" side step to the left or right, then I have rush back in to attack which has caused me so many death. However, when I started a new normal game, I "accidentally"" did it while doing side stepping training with him. Out of 10 times, I only managed to do it twice. I mean when he attack, I press Shift + D to dodge right or Shift +A to dodge left. And sometime when I did it, I still got caught by his slash. It got me so confused. This move is so OP against say Owl when he tried to his overhead chop, dodge (sidestep) to right, then Ichimonji double him. But I couldn't do that. I could only "wildly" sidestep to the right and chop chop, which were all deflected by Owl (though still done some posture damage) instead of doing some real damage if I was much closer by successfully sidestep. Any idea? I press the Shift key and either the A or D key at the same time, or at least I think I press them at the same time. Or I have to press Shift and A+W at the sametime? This I guess would be equivalent to a diagonal left dodge on the console where the direction was done by the two little sticks, I believe it would be the left one.

[Gamall Wednesday Ida]

>>> "I saw they can side step so coolly to the right or left by what I can amount to one step."

Not sure what you're referring to, without a specific video and timestamp, but note that some rare moves can be dodged merely by *walking* to the side. Fire Isshin's charged Ichimonji, for instance, I believe (not sure, need more testing to see if it's consistent, and I don't have time to check right now). Perhaps that's what you're seeing. Or...

>>> I can "wildly" side step to the left or right, then I have rush back in to attack

...are you sure you're not pressing Shift for too long ? In that case you start running, instead of just dodging. That's the only thing I can think of that looks "wild".

(Note: I personally bound dodge to a side mouse button as well as shift, using shift for long sprints and the mouse for dodges, as I find it hard to coordinate movement, dodges, *and* jumps with the left hand alone.)

>>> Or I have to press Shift and A+W

Of course, moving diagonally is often useful. Don't think that relates to your "wild" dodges.

[Alexoferith]

Thank you very much for your help. It sounds like I have to spend much much more time with the trainer how to dodge effectively. You are right. I think I may have pressed the Shift key too long. Hmm.. it is quite hard not to press long due to the excitement. Perhaps, I can try tweaking the repeating rate of the keyboard. At the moment, it is the default window setting.
From what you said, so dodging diagonally is possible with keyboard. Ok, I will try that with the trainer. Thank you very much for your help.

[Gamall Wednesday Ida]

>>> Perhaps, I can try tweaking the repeating rate of the keyboard.

Won't work; games rarely use such settings, because they work on a lower level than, say, word processing programs. They poll the keyboard more or less directly every 5ms or so to know which keys are up or down, and react accordingly.

That's why you long-press E to vacuum sen, and it does so, but does not work to say, skip dialogs as though you repeated E (I had to write an AHK script for skipping dialog fast by repeating E in the game when I press another key).

[ And often game developers mess it up, and non-QWERTY keyboards are poorly handled -- being French, equipped with AZERTY keyboards, I'm painfully aware of this. ]

So, don't do that because

1° It has no effect, the game bypasses those settings
2° Dodge vs sprint is not based on key repetition in any way, shape or form, because of 1°
3° Trying to master one's timing is the main part of the fun of this game

Only advice I have beyond "practice!", or "git gud", as the kids say, is to bind dodge to a side mouse button as well, like I described in my previous post. I thing it's better mechanically for fine timing, and it helps mentally separate dodge and sprint --- even though the two buttons technically do the same thing.


>>> Thank you very much for your help.

You are quite welcome.

[solidap]

Honestly Genichiro is where the game starts, and everything before that is more of a tutorial (optional path to Lady Butterfly aside).

I think the game is overly difficult at the start, just to drill into you how important the core mechanics are (Posture, parrying, timing) and it holds out on giving you a wider arsenal (like a bunch of the tools and sword arts) so you can properly learn. It also keeps you on a rather narrow progression path so it can gradually introduce you into increasingly more difficult enemies with more mechanics. And then once you beat Genichiro the game finally opens up into multiple non-linear paths.

I think Sekiro is so great because the game actively encourages you to get better, rather than punish you for failing.

[Alexoferith]

引用自 solidap：

Honestly Genichiro is where the game starts, and everything before that is more of a tutorial (optional path to Lady Butterfly aside).

I think the game is overly difficult at the start, just to drill into you how important the core mechanics are (Posture, parrying, timing) and it holds out on giving you a wider arsenal (like a bunch of the tools and sword arts) so you can properly learn. It also keeps you on a rather narrow progression path so it can gradually introduce you into increasingly more difficult enemies with more mechanics. And then once you beat Genichiro the game finally opens up into multiple non-linear paths.

I think Sekiro is so great because the game actively encourages you to get better, rather than punish you for failing.

Well said.