I Wish I Could Enjoy This Game

[gmcdowell2001]

I own this game on PS4. I paid money for a digital copy. That was my mistake. I'd heard it was hard, but I'd beaten every Souls game from Demon's Souls on to Dark Souls 3. I'd beaten Nioh 1 and 2, the latter of which I'm up to Dream of the Wise currently. I'd beaten Salt and Sanctuary, and got platinum on it. I've beaten so many games that people claimed were incredibly challenging. I've been playing since the NES era, so I know all about video game difficulty.

And then I played Sekiro. Here's the deal: I enjoy a lot of things about Sekrio. I enjoy the exploration. I enjoy the stealth. I enjoy planning assassination attacks on enemies. I enjoy the beauty of the game, and its aesthetic. I enjoy so many things about the game...

...but I am absolute garbage at the swordplay, which severely limits my ability to play the rest of the game. Worse, the very difficulty of that swordplay prevents me from being able to get better at it.

Here's the deal: I can't 'Git Gud' at it, if a single mistake causes any enemy above a basic minion to take more than half my health in one hit. There's no means by which to polish my skills if I get less than two minutes to fight against a boss before he kills me. I cannot improve if I am not allowed the opportunity to do so, and this game punishes you for being bad at the swordplay by making it so you can't practice the swordplay for more than a few seconds before a boss destroys you.

Am I saying the game needs an Easy Mode? No, it needs a training mode. Disable trophies, give me a chicken hat, a pink ribbon, a freakin' tutu, I don't care. Disable recording so I can't post clips online. Put a watermark that proclaims that this is not the games full difficulty. I don't care. Mock me for having to play the game at an easier mode just so that I can experience everything it has to offer. I don't care. I want to be able to enjoy this game that I payed money for. I'm not playing it to brag about how great I am, I just want to be able to enjoy this beautiful, mastercrafted game that From Software created. Just give me a means by which to polish my skills so I can actually have the opportunity to improve at the game to meet the bare minimum that it requires to advance, and stop guilting me about how terrible I am at the game by inflicting every NPC with lung cancer just because I'm not instantly perfect at its core mechanic.

Final update.

I finally beat Sekiro on PS4. It took me two freakin' years, but I did it. I'm not going to try and Platinum it, or play this game again. I platinumed Bloodborne, but this game? No thank you. I've proven myself to myself, and snatched the pebble from Miyazaki's hand. I've done what I set out to do. Until Salt and Sacrifice or Elden Ring come out, I'm probably not hitting any other Soulsbornes for a bit. I still feel that this game needs a training mode or a story mode for people who have trouble reaching the level of skill needed to play this game's default difficulty, but I'll let the matter rest. I beat this game, so now I'm taking a break.

[Noshoe]

Go and try and fight the dude of to the right path of the dilapitated temple. I think thats what you are looking for.

[gmcdowell2001]

Originally posted by spicynougat:

Go and try and fight the dude of to the right path of the dilapitated temple. I think thats what you are looking for.

You mean the guy that has the moveset of a basic enemy? Yeah, I've killed him hundreds of times. I can do it without taking damage. He's why I can handle basic enemies with ease. But he doesn't prepare you for literally everyone else in the game. There's so many different enemies, each with unique movesets to memorize and adapt to, with different timings on their attacks. Fighting the undying doesn't prepare you for a samurai on horseback, or a sumo wrestler with a sword bigger than yoiu are,or a gigantic bull with a burning tree trunk tied to his head, or an undead headless amatuer proctologist. And before you have a chance to adapt to the latest horror the game throws at you, it has already killed you and the game reminds you that you have exceeded smoking as the number one cause of lung cancer on the planet. I don't need someone to practice basic gameplay against, I need some means by which to train against specific enemies and bosses so I can actually improve and adapt new strategies.

[ilikeshiny]

Sorry you're feeling this way! I hope you can learn to enjoy the combat as much as I do. Not knowing how you play the game, I have a couple of assumptions about what might be going wrong for you.

1. Blocking in Sekiro is VERY GOOD. You can block (not parry) nearly every attack and take 0 damage. Holding block causes your posture to recover faster than running away or just standing still without blocking. While you're blocking you will take posture damage, but you can usually escape before your posture breaks or afterwards before taking damage.

2. The "block drop window" overlaps the parry window. What I mean by this is: if you are blocking, then release block and immediately click it again, you will be able to parry before your character leaves the block stance. What this means is that you can spam the block button when an enemy is attacking you, and you might parry, but worst case you'll still be blocking. While this isn't ideal, it can help you ease in to understanding the "proper" parry timings.

3. Dodge is useful for spacing, but not really for invulnerability. The I-frames on dodge aren't great, and you should mostly be using dodge as a way to escape, not as a primary way to deal with enemy attacks.

4. Most fights in Sekiro are a give and take. Often you sort of "take turns" in a fight. The enemy does a combo and you defend, then when they finish, you have an opening to attack, and they defend. Often these openings are small (2-5 hits of yours), so you will need to be prepared to block even when attacking, but after a while you can come to understand the rhythm of the fight.

I hope some of this advice was helpful for you, and good luck!

[erneiz]

If you can complete Dark Souls then it's probably not a physiology problem, but a psychological one. Basically your body can handle it but you need the right mind set. As have been said, parry is the name of the game here. Some might say you can just forget parry and play dodge exclusively, but that's akin to eating soup with a fork. As for parry, the timing of it is actually pretty lenient in this game, and for a certain extent you can even parry when you're already beginning an attack (sort of like a 'cancel' in fighting games). As bad as dodging and jumping are in this game, there are certain attacks that are better dealt with with these moves, and not just the ones the game tells you about with the big red kanji. So mix and match for best results, keep attacking, parrying, and dodging non-stop. Most bosses' attack that are almost a ohko are very hugely telegraphed so you just need to pay closer attention to that and learn to deal with it. Once you do that you can start learning the smaller attacks. If all else fails, you can look online on how to deal with bosses, there are plenty even the ones that don't use cheap moves and exploits.

One thing though, the headless ghost is kind of a special enemy. You need certain items before you can fight it on a much more manageable levels and you're supposed to ignore that thing until much later.

[Xaphnir]

Originally posted by gmcdowell2001:

Here's the deal: I can't 'Git Gud' at it, if a single mistake causes any enemy above a basic minion to take more than half my health in one hit. There's no means by which to polish my skills if I get less than two minutes to fight against a boss before he kills me. I cannot improve if I am not allowed the opportunity to do so, and this game punishes you for being bad at the swordplay by making it so you can't practice the swordplay for more than a few seconds before a boss destroys you.

All of this applies to Dark Souls.

[I-Chi]

Originally posted by gmcdowell2001:

Here's the deal: I can't 'Git Gud' at it, if a single mistake causes any enemy above a basic minion to take more than half my health in one hit. There's no means by which to polish my skills if I get less than two minutes to fight against a boss before he kills me. I cannot improve if I am not allowed the opportunity to do so, and this game punishes you for being bad at the swordplay by making it so you can't practice the swordplay for more than a few seconds before a boss destroys you.

1. There's a sugar that lets you take less Vitality damage
2. If the worry is the deaths resulting in XP, sen loss and Dragonrot buildup:
a. 'Top-up' (aka farm) XP to the next skill level before a boss fight
b. Buy coin purses to reduce sen loss
c. There's enough Dragon Blood Droplets in the game to not worry about using one (after big boss fights).

There is a practice arena, the Reflections, that lets us fight each boss repeatedly after they're defeated. It's a lot of fun.

[Gegenzeit]

First: I suck at using the controler and picked up Sekiro to have somerthing that forces me to stop button mashing. And I managed to find a way into it. If you beat all the DS games...you can do it. A friend told me how he approaches bosses, and it works for me:

1) Make the first couple of encounters not about winning, but surviving as long as you can. Use the parrying mechanics as much as possible and realize which attacks cannot be parried during the first couple of deaths. Survive a bit longer, learn the breaks between animations. Try to figure out if there is a range you survive longer in (the Ogre I could do better from mid range than from close range).

2 ) Start to pepper in attacks. The game wants you to be aggressive, but only in short bursts. If you get greedy, you get punished. Work for your hits and allow yourself to see it as an success if you hit them once or twice. Every eney seems to call for a bit of a different rythm though. I'm not controlled enoough yet to say for sure.

3) I realized that I use certain buttons too much in some fights, mainly the jump button. If that happens to you, go in two or three times and do not use it at all. Find other ways to stay afloat for a bit. Then start using it again in a more controlled manner. That worked for me.

3) If you get too frustrated, stop for an evening. I had ALL my boss kills so far in my first three attempts of the day...after failing all evening the day before.

Other tips:

- Parry really is king
- Try to finda wy to stealthkill the bosses before going toe to toe. I found a way for all of them so far.
- Don't wait fir the Kanji to blink to start reacting. It often is too lte and the animation has already started. Look at the enemy, not the kanji.
- You really only need to kill the trash mobs right around the boss; enemies a bit further away you can just run past. This helps, when it starts to be all about repetition.
- The bosses vary in difficulty ...by a lot. If you cannot do one, play a different part of the game and kill another one. I feel some bosses are meant to be killed only after having aquired more skill than normal people have in the beginning of the game. The bosses in the memory seem to be escalating harder than the bosses outside (my impression).

Sekiro really wants you to learn the sword play ... and now that I start to get the hang of it, I feel it is the best sword game I've played so far. But: It is hard.

[MULTIPASS]

Originally posted by gmcdowell2001:

you can't practice the swordplay for more than a few seconds before a boss destroys you.

That's familiar - many times I would run into a boss and just get destroyed in seconds. Thankfully, unlike dark souls there is never a long run back to the fog door. Idols are pretty much always very close to boss encounters with little to no resistance.

I noticed you mentioned the headless, so just fyi it's possible you're not at the point in your playthrough where you could actually take them on. Otherwise, I'd echo the advice other people have given already. Block the attacks and just watch them to get familiar with their patterns, and when to retaliate.

One key thing I learned is that most bosses are much much easier when you are close to them and trading blows back and forth - attacking and deflecting in a rhythm, and then getting in some vitality damage when there is an exploitable opening. If you give the boss space to move around and do what they want, they will tear you to pieces. This doesn't apply to the big beast bosses like the bull or the ape, in those cases the fight is a little more souls-like.

[Xaphnir]

Originally posted by Gegenzeit:

2 ) Start to pepper in attacks. The game wants you to be aggressive, but only in short bursts. If you get greedy, you get punished. Work for your hits and allow yourself to see it as an success if you hit them once or twice. Every eney seems to call for a bit of a different rythm though. I'm not controlled enoough yet to say for sure.

No, the game encourages constant aggression, not just short bursts. Don't back off of an enemy if you have no reason to. Also note that it encourage measured aggression, not reckless aggression. That means that while being aggressive, you want to understand how the enemy may try countering you and be ready to stop attacking on a moment's notice.

[Playerjjjj]

As the person above me said, it's really important to understand that "measured aggression" is the key to sooo many bosses. There are only a few where you should play cautiously. Enemies do have different rythms though: Owl will give you free hits if you're super aggressive, the most important thing in the DoH fight is to NEVER let it gain distance from you, Guardian Ape requires exploiting openings and playing more defensively, etc.

As to OP's problems specifically, I was in the same boat when I started playing! I actually think playing so much Dark Souls made me worse at Sekiro. I spent so much time unlearning my muscle memory that told me to dodge every attack. One problem the game has imo is that the early minibosses don't really follow the normal rules of the game. Against the drunkard it's sometimes better to dodge than deflect; the Ogre is quite hard to deflect and the timings for dodging his flying kick and grab are difficult compared to most other enemies. The Blazing Bull is one of the game's worst bosses. I really wish there was a better early boss that broke new players in; the rematch with Geni is where the game finally clicked on my first playthrough but it comes closer to the midpoint of the game. The first "actual" bosses can be beaten without much deflecting as well.

You really are just going to have to practice a lot to get better at the game, that's all there is to it. Kanji attacks can be frustrating at first because they don't tell you if it's a thrust, sweep, grab, or otherwise unavoidable move, but as others have said you need to watch the boss, not the symbol. You'll get used to which enemies have which moves after a while. Just like in Dark Souls knowing everything your enemies can do is the first step to defeating them.

One beginner-friendly strat is to spam the deflect button. This makes you less likely to deflect (spamming the button actually reduces the deflection window), but you'll still block. This can help deal with long combos before you get comfortable with the deflection timings. Another thing: deflecting too early is ALWAYS better than deflecting too late. If you go too early you'll just block; if you go too late you'll get hit. If your guard is broken or you get staggered, roll away! Trying to recover by blocking will get you killed in most situations as the recovery animation is quite long.

Two more random pieces of advice: the easiest way to mikiri counter is to press the dodge button while you are not moving in any direction. A lot of players have trouble with this. Also, the firecracker prosthetic can be very useful against strong enemies. Use it when they start charging up their most dangerous combo to stun them out of it. There are still several enemies who I always do this to even after hundreds of hours.

Okay, this turned into more of an advice-dump than I intended. If you're struggling with specific enemies or bosses I can give more nuanced pointers. Just keep in mind that a lot of the early bosses are really bad teaching tools imo. It's one of the few major flaws in this fantastic games and it's not your fault.

[gmcdowell2001]

Originally posted by Butt Stallion:

Originally posted by gmcdowell2001:

Here's the deal: I can't 'Git Gud' at it, if a single mistake causes any enemy above a basic minion to take more than half my health in one hit. There's no means by which to polish my skills if I get less than two minutes to fight against a boss before he kills me. I cannot improve if I am not allowed the opportunity to do so, and this game punishes you for being bad at the swordplay by making it so you can't practice the swordplay for more than a few seconds before a boss destroys you.

1. There's a sugar that lets you take less Vitality damage
2. If the worry is the deaths resulting in XP, sen loss and Dragonrot buildup:
a. 'Top-up' (aka farm) XP to the next skill level before a boss fight
b. Buy coin purses to reduce sen loss
c. There's enough Dragon Blood Droplets in the game to not worry about using one (after big boss fights).

There is a practice arena, the Reflections, that lets us fight each boss repeatedly after they're defeated. It's a lot of fun.

The problem with 1. is that those items are rare in early game, where I'm having the most problems. 2. My main issue is with the Dragonrot. If feels insulting to punish me for having trouble defeating bosses in a game that was built from the ground up to be difficult. As to the Reflections? Offering that after bosses are defeated is like asking me if I want to relive my worst nightmares for fun. One of the few advantages of beating the boss is that I don't have to fight them again this playthrough.

[gmcdowell2001]

Originally posted by Xaphnir:

Originally posted by gmcdowell2001:

Here's the deal: I can't 'Git Gud' at it, if a single mistake causes any enemy above a basic minion to take more than half my health in one hit. There's no means by which to polish my skills if I get less than two minutes to fight against a boss before he kills me. I cannot improve if I am not allowed the opportunity to do so, and this game punishes you for being bad at the swordplay by making it so you can't practice the swordplay for more than a few seconds before a boss destroys you.

All of this applies to Dark Souls.

But in Dark Souls, character improvement and progression wasn't directly tied to killing bosses, barring defeating the first boss to unlock leveling up. You didn't have to defeat four separate mini-bosses just to gain extra health, or defeat a boss to be able to do more damage. In Dark Souls, if you met a boss you had trouble with, you could go out and gain exp, upgrade weapons, etc, so you could stand a better chance. In Sekiro, you can explore, find items, etc, but ultimately, you will reach a point where you cannot get anything else until you kill a boss or mini-boss, and with vendors and decent items being in such short supply, there's a finite number of times you can fight a boss before you either give up, or go fight minions to get the items needed so you can use shinobi tools in combat again. A guy here recommended the blue candy that gives higher defense. That would be great advice if I had any left.

[Shichiya]

You have to understand that Sekiro is more like a rhythm game. Button smashing will help a little but ultimately in the end, it's more about understanding the rhythm of the enemy.

[TecISR]

Originally posted by gmcdowell2001:

I own this game on PS4. I paid money for a digital copy. That was my mistake. I'd heard it was hard, but I'd beaten every Souls game from Demon's Souls on to Dark Souls 3. I'd beaten Nioh 1 and 2, the latter of which I'm up to Dream of the Wise currently. I'd beaten Salt and Sanctuary, and got platinum on it. I've beaten so many games that people claimed were incredibly challenging. I've been playing since the NES era, so I know all about video game difficulty.

And then I played Sekiro. Here's the deal: I enjoy a lot of things about Sekrio. I enjoy the exploration. I enjoy the stealth. I enjoy planning assassination attacks on enemies. I enjoy the beauty of the game, and its aesthetic. I enjoy so many things about the game...

...but I am absolute garbage at the swordplay, which severely limits my ability to play the rest of the game. Worse, the very difficulty of that swordplay prevents me from being able to get better at it.

Here's the deal: I can't 'Git Gud' at it, if a single mistake causes any enemy above a basic minion to take more than half my health in one hit. There's no means by which to polish my skills if I get less than two minutes to fight against a boss before he kills me. I cannot improve if I am not allowed the opportunity to do so, and this game punishes you for being bad at the swordplay by making it so you can't practice the swordplay for more than a few seconds before a boss destroys you.

Am I saying the game needs an Easy Mode? No, it needs a training mode. Disable trophies, give me a chicken hat, a pink ribbon, a freakin' tutu, I don't care. Disable recording so I can't post clips online. Put a watermark that proclaims that this is not the games full difficulty. I don't care. Mock me for having to play the game at an easier mode just so that I can experience everything it has to offer. I don't care. I want to be able to enjoy this game that I payed money for. I'm not playing it to brag about how great I am, I just want to be able to enjoy this beautiful, mastercrafted game that From Software created. Just give me a means by which to polish my skills so I can actually have the opportunity to improve at the game to meet the bare minimum that it requires to advance, and stop guilting me about how terrible I am at the game by inflicting every NPC with lung cancer just because I'm not instantly perfect at its core mechanic.

After you'll pass the frustration part of Sekiro and your combat skills become great it's amazing to play + bosses become less hard - I'm not saying easy because this game is hard.

[I-Chi]

Originally posted by gmcdowell2001:

As to the Reflections? Offering that after bosses are defeated is like asking me if I want to relive my worst nightmares for fun. One of the few advantages of beating the boss is that I don't have to fight them again this playthrough.

This is the main problem: you don't like playing these type of games.