Combat system - am I missing something?

[ExMotio]

I'm 6 hours in the game and I can't figure out how it is supposed to play.

I assume the core lies more in the stealth / 1 on1 part.
When more enemies are on screen it becomes an uncontrollable mess.

Either you play with the enemy lock on and suffer a major lack of awareness / you sourroundings or you play without lock on which makes it a lottery on where you hit cause you will miss the enemy most of the time because of the the imprecise / junky movement of the character.

I don't have problems with the movement out of fights and with reaction time.

But what the game really does poorly, is give you information on how to block the incoming damage from all those different enemies.

Am I missing something here? The game feels like a grind by battling the enemy over and over again till you have a halfway working pattern. But when it comes down to use what you have mastered the game mostly lets you run against a wall (metaphorically speaking).

I get the dying part and I'm usually not the guy who gets frustrated fast, but Sekiro feels not right for me on what it does gameplay wise.

I played a lot of For Honor. There you actually have indicators when to block and from where the attack is comming from. It's up to you to learn the timing, but once learned you can work with it and get better. But here?

The Shinobi Hunter in Sekiro is a good example. Not only is the save point weird (since you have to play the half level again if you fail - and I alreday failed 10 times or so)
for me it feels like gambling blocking his attacks. I pulled of the Mekiro / Mikkiro (you know the "step on the weapon" move) a few times. But I have absolutelly no idea when I should press the button. Plus I have to to this a zillion times to break his guard once.


Ok, before this goes for too long.

You guys have any tips on what I do wrong?
And secondly, stays the game this way by throwing unpredictable enemies at you at bad save points - and will it get easier with character progression?

[David Benioff]

hmmm it's definitely tough to fight multiple enemies, especially on a first playthrough. In terms of bosses though, Fromsoftware really never tells you what to do for bosses. It's basically up to you to figure out what works best for you in a given fight.

[Kobi Blade]

The combat system is extremely barebones, deflect simple attacks, and pay attention to the special 3 attacks (each with his own counter).

Once you figure all that out, every fight will be extremely easy.

You also supposed to be extremely aggressive, unlike Dark Souls, normal enemies lose their posture extremely easily when you aggressive.

The lower an enemy HP, the easier they lose posture too (this is actually a tip for some of bosses ahead).

[Alexoferith]

First of all, Sekiro is a ninja, i.e. an assassin by stealth. Not a Conan kind of warrior. Do the job by any mean. Even in real life and even if you are a experienced swordman, you don't fight a group of enemies, especially when some of them are on your back. But in this game, you can, if you are really good and confident, face up to 3. You parry their attack by moving your mouse hence your character to face the enemy that you want to parry (sorry, I am a PC gamer). But at later level, I won't recommend facing more than two high level opponents.
I would like to bring your attention to block. On PC, (I think the principle is the same with console) the button for block is the same for parry (or deflect). Holding the button will give a block. Tapping the button will give a parry or deflect action. This is your first play through, you can get through a lot of enemies' (minions, guards, generals, mini-boss or main boss) attacks by blocking, i.e. holding the button. However, notice that both you and the enemy that you are fighting have a yellow bar which is the posture bar. When this bar reaches full, you or your enemy is basically one step away to death. How to get this bar up, by parrying perfectly. One way to know that you parried perfectly is the clanking sound (high pitch) compared to a mistimed parry which gives a duller sound, like "clunk" instead of "clank". Due to the intensity of the fight, there really is not much time to look at any of these bars. You really have to just carry on.
You can dodge to avoid enemy's attack. But unlike other games, there are some moves from enemies, especially boss class, that you won't be able to dodge out of. You have to either stop their action by throwing a firecracker (using your prosthetic tool) or you parry the attack. These moves are what the game called the perilous move. How to know that it is a perilous move? Well, just before the execution of such move by the enemy, there will be a red Kanji character shown up on your screen. It is up to you to learn which perilous move it will be by the body movement, position of arm, and/or weapon of your opponent. In your case, with the shinobi hunter, there are two perilous attacks. One is a thrust and the other one is a swipe. It is easier to spot a perilous thrust if you are some distance away from the hunter. But when you are at close quarter fight against the hunter, it is more difficult to spot it as you only have a very shot window to look at the hands and/or body position. You really have to learn that by literally dying a lot. I, myself, is still learning, even after 1,500 hrs in this game. I tend to fight them at medium distance so that I can spot the thrust. Oh, yes, to deal with the perilous thrust, when the red kanji character shows up on your screen, you press the dodge button (on PC, it is the L Shift key). At this early stage of the game, the window for you to press the button is quite large. The best way to deal with the shinobi hunter is to use stealth to take away the first red (life) dot. That means that you will have to clear all the soldiers first. Never face a boss class when there are minions around. You are just asking for trouble, or should I say death.
Unless you want to learn everything by yourself, I would recommend watching some Youtube videos of different bosses or characters. I would suggest watching the more recent ones. The game has been patched to 1.06 but there are still a lot of videos showing ways to deal with different bosses prior to version 1.06. Some of the combat arts are buffed and some are nerfed. So be careful.
Hope this help. Feel free to ask if you have any more questions. Good luck and have fun.

[EF_Neo1st]

Originally posted by ExMotio:

I'm 6 hours in the game and I can't figure out how it is supposed to play.

I assume the core lies more in the stealth / 1 on1 part.
When more enemies are on screen it becomes an uncontrollable mess.

Either you play with the enemy lock on and suffer a major lack of awareness / you sourroundings or you play without lock on which makes it a lottery on where you hit cause you will miss the enemy most of the time because of the the imprecise / junky movement of the character.

I don't have problems with the movement out of fights and with reaction time.

But what the game really does poorly, is give you information on how to block the incoming damage from all those different enemies.

Am I missing something here? The game feels like a grind by battling the enemy over and over again till you have a halfway working pattern. But when it comes down to use what you have mastered the game mostly lets you run against a wall (metaphorically speaking).

I get the dying part and I'm usually not the guy who gets frustrated fast, but Sekiro feels not right for me on what it does gameplay wise.

I played a lot of For Honor. There you actually have indicators when to block and from where the attack is comming from. It's up to you to learn the timing, but once learned you can work with it and get better. But here?

The Shinobi Hunter in Sekiro is a good example. Not only is the save point weird (since you have to play the half level again if you fail - and I alreday failed 10 times or so)
for me it feels like gambling blocking his attacks. I pulled of the Mekiro / Mikkiro (you know the "step on the weapon" move) a few times. But I have absolutelly no idea when I should press the button. Plus I have to to this a zillion times to break his guard once.


Ok, before this goes for too long.

You guys have any tips on what I do wrong?
And secondly, stays the game this way by throwing unpredictable enemies at you at bad save points - and will it get easier with character progression?

You can actually go full deflect only, full "block" only (for as stupid as it sounds), full attack and run away or full dash into the enemy and attack (repeating untill it dies and deflecting or not), that is an "easier way" to play that is deflecting (and most enemy attacks are deflectable) but you can play however you want and still beat the game anyway.

I think the game gives you more than enough hints for when to deflect, dash into, dash away, attack or even to block (and it all depend on how you want to play, also if you are going to use Sekiro skills or not).

Am I missing something here? The game feels like a grind by battling the enemy over and over again till you have a halfway working pattern. But when it comes down to use what you have mastered the game mostly lets you run against a wall (metaphorically speaking).

I get the dying part and I'm usually not the guy who gets frustrated fast, but Sekiro feels not right for me on what it does gameplay wise.

I dont agree, it is not a grindy battle against the enemy, but you need to get at least some time to learn its pattern (or suffer without knowing how the enemy attacks are) and it feels as right to me as any Dark Souls or souls-like game for that matter, fight cautiously untill you learned at least a good chunk of the enemy behaviour and attack patterns and you can use it all against your enemy on a multitude of ways, that is how it flows (at least to me).

[Alexoferith]

I forgot one most important aspect of this game. Miyazaki has never said so but this game is designed with his understanding of the philosophy of martial art. And it has been clearly stated in the game by one of Ishiin's conversation. It was something like "Don't hesitate. If you hesitate, you will be down...."
After spending over 1,500 hrs in this game. I am now in a NG+4 game with attack power at 51 (but with Kuro's charm). I am in no way saying that I am a master of Sekiro like Ongbal. I can defeat Great Owl the father in one attempt but died twice facing the lone swordman (technically 4 times). But, yes, you have to keep up the pressure. Get in close and fight your opponent face to face. I don't have lightning fast reaction. I am just a normal gamer but the 1,500 hrs allowed me to learn all their moves. Most of the time when I am up close, I just wait for their move. This has to be the case with the powerful bosses late in the game.
I have gathered that you have managed to proceed in the game a fair bit by now. You have done much much better than me in my first play through. It took me almost 3 weeks to complete the first play through. So, don't talk yourself down. Have fun and good luck.

[CCore]

Sekrio is a game of patience imo. Parrying is the most important thing, and you're right, there is no indicator of when to do it - you have to learn that. The idea is to actually learn enemies attack patterns so you know when to deflect, jump, dodge, mikiri counter etc. It is HARD. Seriously, comparing it to For Honor is meaningless cause that game is easy in comparison to this, and plays completely different. The best tip I can give you is to play slow. You want to take 1v1s as much as possible, stealth groups of enemies, and take your time learning enemy attack patterns.

The game actually has better save points than most souls-like games. Usually they're right next to major bosses so you don't have to trudge through an entire area of enemies again when you die.

The game doesn't really get easier, in fact, it definitely gets harder. Since there's only 1 weapon prosthetics are limited in uses, and combat arts are situational, your main goal is to get good at using that weapon, and learning attack patterns.

[E.P.D. Gaffney]

Mikiri is for thrusts. The enemy's blade will be pointing towards you for a thrust. Otherwise, the perilous attack is probably a sweep. For a sweep, the enemy's blade points away from you and is usually on the side or even all the way behind the enemy. For a sweep, you must jump (and can hit Jump again in the air to kick them in the head for major posture damage).

The timing on the Mikiri counter is very forgiving. You're more likely to do it too early than too late. Practise on Hanbei over at the Dilapidated Temple.

For the Shinobi Hunter, you only need to Mikiri him a couple times.

The bad save points are sadly a fact of life in this game but only when it comes to mini-bosses. The really weird thing is it's much worse early on. But proper bosses always give you a good save point.

Definitely never fight more than one enemy at a time until you're an expert on the game. Stealth everyone nearby before fighting a mini-boss.

If you want, you can come back to Hirata later. It's good to go back and forth early in the game.

You're supposed to play aggressively. That means to learn the rhythm so that you're (almost) always attacking, deflecting, or responding to a perilous attack. Deflecting is different from blocking and has a bigger sound and visual effect. Deflections fill your posture slower, and even if the metre is at its peak, it won't break on a successful deflection.

When an enemy deflects you or starts tanking your hits instead of guarding them, get ready because they are attacking.

[Kobi Blade]

Gaffney said it all.

Originally posted by Alexoferith:

I forgot one most important aspect of this game. Miyazaki has never said so but this game is designed with his understanding of the philosophy of martial art. And it has been clearly stated in the game by one of Ishiin's conversation. It was something like "Don't hesitate. If you hesitate, you will be down...."
After spending over 1,500 hrs in this game. I am now in a NG+4 game with attack power at 51 (but with Kuro's charm). I am in no way saying that I am a master of Sekiro like Ongbal. I can defeat Great Owl the father in one attempt but died twice facing the lone swordman (technically 4 times). But, yes, you have to keep up the pressure. Get in close and fight your opponent face to face. I don't have lightning fast reaction. I am just a normal gamer but the 1,500 hrs allowed me to learn all their moves. Most of the time when I am up close, I just wait for their move. This has to be the case with the powerful bosses late in the game.
I have gathered that you have managed to proceed in the game a fair bit by now. You have done much much better than me in my first play through. It took me almost 3 weeks to complete the first play through. So, don't talk yourself down. Have fun and good luck.

The Great Owl is one of the easiest boss fights of the game, so that was a weird flex.

[ek.2]

sounds like a skill issue to me

[E.P.D. Gaffney]

Also, I think the instructions for a Mikiri counter say to press Dodge + Forwards, but it's more reliable to press Dodge alone. Pressing any direction may cause you to veer slightly left or right and not get the counter.

So just press Dodge a moment after the Perilous Attack symbol appears (assuming it's a thrust; you don't press it immediately because you're meant to look at the enemy's weapon first to confirm it's a thrust/sweep/grab/lightning).

[=Palynzer=]

Just learn when to block, parry and mikiri counter, thats all.
And yeah, you are supposed to try to fight one by one, you are a ninja, not a soldier.
The first time is hard until you get used to it.
The game + is a walk in the park.
I finished it four times on ps4 (for the usual fools who say, "look, he talks and he doesn't have the game").

[Enderspoons]

Sekiro's fundamentals are simple -- never let your onslaught down, deflect every hit, and respond to oddballs with the right counters.

When approaching groups of enemies, your priority list should look something like this:
1. Dispatch lesser foes quickly
2. Retreat to an advantageous position if there are still too many enemies
3. Repeat steps 1 and 2 until the enemy can be handled conventionally

As for general 1v1 combat, there are a few things you should look for.

Deflecting- If you time your block well as a hit comes in, the orange particle effect and ting noise that appear will be larger and more vibrant than normal. This is a deflect.
Deflecting a hit rather than blocking it reduces the posture buildup you take, inflicts posture damage on the foe, and prevents your posture from being broken.

If you time your block perfectly (i.e. within a couple frames of the attack landing), it will become a perfect deflect. When you perform a perfect deflect, you take no posture damage and the enemy takes even more posture damage itself from the recoil.


Thrust Attacks - Thrust attacks can be turned against their user with a Mikiri Counter. To execute a Mikiri counter, you must time a stepdodge such that your dodge intersects with the enemy attack's hitbox while you are invincible. This means that you should press the button as late as you are humanly able (without being too late) and angle your movment directly toward the attack to maximize your odds of succeeding.

Keep in mind that the red symbol appearing above your head is not when the attack lands, but is a warning that such an attack is about to occur.

You can also counter a Thrust attack by deflecting it, but this is less rewarding than using a Mikiri counter, and you will get hit regardless if you time your button press poorly and perform a normal block instead.

Thrust attacks are also easily evaded by stepdodging sideways. This can be advantageous if the enemy has a followup attack after getting Mikiri'd and you want them to do something else instead.


Sweep attacks - Sweep attacks must be jumped over with decent timing. If an enemy performs a sweep attack and you successfully jump over it, you can immediately follow up by jumping again on the enemy's head for great posture damage.

Keep in mind that the red symbol appearing above your head is not when the attack lands, but is a warning that such an attack is about to occur.

Most of the time, enemy sweep attacks are combo enders and the enemy will have a little bit of downtime afterward. You can take advantage of this to punish it with something heavier, such as a mid-air Ichimonji.


Grabs - Grabs cannot be countered. Do everything in your power to get out of the way -- sprinting away or stepdodging with proper timing are often your best options.

Keep in mind that the red symbol appearing above your head is not when the attack lands, but is a warning that such an attack is about to occur.

[E.P.D. Gaffney]

Originally posted by Enderspoons:

If you time your block perfectly (i.e. within a couple frames of the attack landing), it will become a perfect deflect. When you perform a perfect deflect, you take no posture damage and the enemy takes even more posture damage itself from the recoil.

That post is all good advice except are you sure about this one? I've never noticed this in my 12 or so playthroughs nor in any videos.

Also I think the Mikiri counter timing is a little more forgiving that pressing it as late as humanly possible. You do usually want to delay a decent bit from when you see the perilous attack symbol, but I find the timing not to require much precision beyond that. Definitely more frames than the i-frames your dodge gets.

[SotiCoto]

Originally posted by ExMotio:

When more enemies are on screen it becomes an uncontrollable mess.

Same as real life fights then.

The game will not make clusterfŭck battles easy on you, so avoid getting into them in the first place.
If you're faced with a lot of enemies, your best bet is to stealth-kill as many of them as possible.
Pick lone enemies off around the edges without drawing attention if you can. As for the rest, if you can get a backstab on one of them and have Bloodsmoke Ninjutsu, then you can chain-backstab with it until you run out of talismans. If you can't get rid of all of them that way, be satisfied with just thinning the herd and then escape out of range to try and bait one or more of them closer to you.
Never underestimate the usefulness of kiting enemies away from their allies.

Either you play with the enemy lock on and suffer a major lack of awareness / you sourroundings or you play without lock on which makes it a lottery on where you hit cause you will miss the enemy most of the time because of the the imprecise / junky movement of the character.

Using lock-on is best... AFTER you have carefully scoped out the surrounding area and ascertained where all the enemies are. You won't always catch all of them, but if you die, you'll know for next time.

But what the game really does poorly, is give you information on how to block the incoming damage from all those different enemies.

Deflect weapon attacks. Double-jump for sweeps. Dodge aside for grapples. Get in free hits when you can. And DO NOT GET SURROUNDED.

But I have absolutelly no idea when I should press the button. Plus I have to to this a zillion times to break his guard once.

You should probably go back to the temple, find the Undying guy there, and get some practice in. He gives you free practice for all these sorts of things.
Just keep in mind that you can get a deathblow marker to appear by either depleting the enemy's health or maxing out their posture gauge, and reducing the health reduces the speed at which posture recovers too.

and will it get easier with character progression?

Totally. Collecting Prayer Beads helps get a longer health / posture bar, and every major boss you beat lets you increase your attack power (i.e. damage done to both health and posture). Before I went into Playthrough 2 after the Shura ending, I gave a try to just blitzing Ashina outskirts without even trying to survive, and funnily enough I made it all the way to the end just bullrushing enemies and overwhelming them with sheer power (having the skill that heals you upon doing a deathblow helps vastly).

[Energist]

Originally posted by ExMotio:

I'm 6 hours in the game and I can't figure out how it is supposed to play.

I assume the core lies more in the stealth / 1 on1 part.
When more enemies are on screen it becomes an uncontrollable mess.

Either you play with the enemy lock on and suffer a major lack of awareness / you sourroundings or you play without lock on which makes it a lottery on where you hit cause you will miss the enemy most of the time because of the the imprecise / junky movement of the character.

I don't have problems with the movement out of fights and with reaction time.

But what the game really does poorly, is give you information on how to block the incoming damage from all those different enemies.

Am I missing something here? The game feels like a grind by battling the enemy over and over again till you have a halfway working pattern. But when it comes down to use what you have mastered the game mostly lets you run against a wall (metaphorically speaking).

I get the dying part and I'm usually not the guy who gets frustrated fast, but Sekiro feels not right for me on what it does gameplay wise.

I played a lot of For Honor. There you actually have indicators when to block and from where the attack is comming from. It's up to you to learn the timing, but once learned you can work with it and get better. But here?

The Shinobi Hunter in Sekiro is a good example. Not only is the save point weird (since you have to play the half level again if you fail - and I alreday failed 10 times or so)
for me it feels like gambling blocking his attacks. I pulled of the Mekiro / Mikkiro (you know the "step on the weapon" move) a few times. But I have absolutelly no idea when I should press the button. Plus I have to to this a zillion times to break his guard once.


Ok, before this goes for too long.

You guys have any tips on what I do wrong?
And secondly, stays the game this way by throwing unpredictable enemies at you at bad save points - and will it get easier with character progression?

I'm lost too and I'm 10 hrs in.

I came to the forums to ask for advice and this is pretty much exactly what I'd post lol.

I'm at some samurai mounted on a horse, boss. Not sure what is dodgeable and what isn't in Sekiro. Unlike Souls games, hit boxes don't seem to matter much. I take damage from his lance even if it's nowhere near me. I'm assuming it's because I'm not pressing the right button at the right time, but I'm not sure how I am supposed to know that?

His lance attack is slow enough that I can jump over it, but I still get raped by it. If I grapple him when the green triangle pops up, I land next to him and start hitting him for pathetic damage. He then lances me. Even if I am out of the way, I still get hit.

What exactly does the game expect me to do? In Dark Souls, you dodge out of the way. In this... y ou do what??

I don't mind bosses as puzzles, but I don't feel like the game ever properly introduced me to the tools available to me. I'm 100% cool with "git gud", but I need to know how to "git gud" before I can actually "git gud". In dark souls, if a boss rapes me with a lance, I know I need to avoid his lance, and the game makes it clear how to do that, but in Sekiro, I have no idea how to avoid the lance... or hurt the boss..