Is something wrong with how I'm approaching combat?

[Johnny Pistolwhip]

I cannot stand the combat in this game. No hits cause a stun, except for on me, I cant heal any in combat and i cant get away because everyone is faster than me and can not be shook. I keep dying no matter the approach. I'm trying to have fun but I'm really not having any

[SomeTotalAss]

With practice dodging becomes pretty doable. Stealth is very good in this demo coupled with melee. Going rambo is gonna get you killed even with guns. If you're having trouble you can skip the Gourge area and head straight to Tauris to buy gear.

I've beaten the demo several times on the hardest skill, but when I started the demo I kept dying on standard. Once you get used to it the combat gets pretty fun

[talecrafter]

Enemies get a stun from your hits. Then they have a few seconds of resistance against that. (To avoid stunlock.)
Avoiding damage lies in the rolling. On the moment of rolling you have a short moment of being invulnerable, no matter the direction you roll even.
Key to the controls of this game is that it's very easy to switch between melee and ranged.
Combining all those above should give a rhythm to master the combat, with practice.
I admit we have a few problems still with "onboarding" people to this.

[Error3000]

I recommend using dodge, you can start by hitting something once and dodging away (try experimenting with different number of hits if you want), additionally if there are multiple enemies try to start the fight with stealth backstab and after that try to move in a way that will put both enemies in the way of your melee hits

oh yea in locations where its possible the robotic guards can help you, just make your target follow you (try hitting them or pickpocketing them, far from the robots) and then run towards robots and stay near them, when your enemy hits them they will get gunned down immediately

[wartrax9]

quick save before every combat approach

[Red]

as an action hack-&-slash, combat in this game is terrible.

should had made it turn-based. Perhaps the nice environments warrant a play through at the easiest setting to avoid the combat.

[talecrafter]

It's not an action hack & slash. it's a mix of twitch based action and strategic thinking, similar to games like Dark Souls, and the combat is fine if you adjust to its rhythm. You have to weave a mix of melee weapons, ranged weapons, rolling and tools to master it.
Turn-based was no good fit for the pacing of this game.

[Red]

Originally posted by talecrafter:

It's not an action hack & slash. it's a mix of twitch based action and strategic thinking, similar to games like Dark Souls, and the combat is fine if you adjust to its rhythm. You have to weave a mix of melee weapons, ranged weapons, rolling and tools to master it.
Turn-based was no good fit for the pacing of this game.

depending on the future reviews on it's story and world building, this game could be worth a purchase.

right now, for a-rpg needs, i have these other exemplary games of the genre to play through.

[NecromancyBlack]

Originally posted by Redhunt:

Originally posted by talecrafter:

It's not an action hack & slash. it's a mix of twitch based action and strategic thinking, similar to games like Dark Souls, and the combat is fine if you adjust to its rhythm. You have to weave a mix of melee weapons, ranged weapons, rolling and tools to master it.
Turn-based was no good fit for the pacing of this game.

depending on the future reviews on it's story and world building, this game could be worth a purchase.

right now, for a-rpg needs, i have these other exemplary games of the genre to play through.

What a terrible take on this game's combat.

The combat is actually fantastic. It's very skill based though RPG stats definitely play a part (more damage and armour means much less risk involved). Treat the combat more like Dark Souls then Diablo. Because it 100% is not Diablo.

Don't run blindly into combat. Look and observe. Stealth mode is a free enemy locator. Save before combat. You can reload right before it infinitely to learn how to fight. Feel you're still underleveled or under equiped? then leave and come back later.

Attack with purpose. Don't just blindly swing a weapon when you don't know how it's attack animation works or what the enemy does. And for gods sake, roll! It's a Dark Souls roll so use it the same way.

[malfunction]

It took me three or four re-rolled characters before the combat felt okay and made sense, even so that I didn't even use all my level up skill points in the start of the game and even had a couple of levels worth of unassigned skill points by time I finished the demo.

That said, I felt bunker 17 was too constricted in level design for taking on mobs of enemies at a time...

maybe I'll get better the more I play but I felt bunker 17 could have some non-combat approaches added?? like being able to stealth the whole level whist avoiding combat entirely?? The benefit would be completing quests without murdering an entire bunker, the negative outcome would be no dropped loot to collect/sell/craft etcetc.

I actually wonder if it's possible now, with all points possible into stealth and crafting those blip things (though I couldn't figure out how to use them effectively when I tried them out before)...

[Arath Hunter]

Originally posted by Redhunt:

as an action hack-&-slash, combat in this game is terrible.

should had made it turn-based. Perhaps the nice environments warrant a play through at the easiest setting to avoid the combat.

If it ended up turn based with these graphics, I wouldn't have even bother trying the demo. plenty enough out there that does this with turn based as is.

[weirdee]

Originally posted by talecrafter:

Enemies get a stun from your hits. Then they have a few seconds of resistance against that. (To avoid stunlock.)
Avoiding damage lies in the rolling. On the moment of rolling you have a short moment of being invulnerable, no matter the direction you roll even.
Key to the controls of this game is that it's very easy to switch between melee and ranged.
Combining all those above should give a rhythm to master the combat, with practice.
I admit we have a few problems still with "onboarding" people to this.

Ah, I didn't know about dodge rolling having i-frames, that's not immediately obvious. If I knew I could just roll through bullets this would make more sense.

[Pixelcat]

I just finished the demo on normal and completely forgot to roll around. I ended up taking a few beatings but there was enough meat to keep me alive and going indefinitely.

[devxx]

i have some left hand issues and can't quickly do keyboard commands. i usually play mouse only games. anyway, can some tell me how to effectively fight 2 bad guys with the rifle? i mean, do you have to right-click to aim, R to reload, then left click to fire? if that isn't frickin' bad enough, you have to go thru it all again for a second shot! how the heck do you do all that plus run away and/or roll? for me anyway, way too chaotic to be fun. is that it or is there a 'right' way to do it? thanks

[talecrafter]

Originally posted by devxx:

i have some left hand issues and can't quickly do keyboard commands. i usually play mouse only games. anyway, can some tell me how to effectively fight 2 bad guys with the rifle? i mean, do you have to right-click to aim, R to reload, then left click to fire? if that isn't frickin' bad enough, you have to go thru it all again for a second shot! how the heck do you do all that plus run away and/or roll? for me anyway, way too chaotic to be fun. is that it or is there a 'right' way to do it? thanks

That is unfortunate, but the combat in this game is really built on moving around a lot. Similar to other action games, relying on pure mouse input will be very difficult or impossible.
Regarding the targeting with ranged weapons there's an option to change the mouse input in combat, away from having to use both mouse button for shooting. Non-combat approaches like stealth should work, of course.
And we're open to ideas on adding additional options that would make it more feasible for anyone to play and we'll be adding more on our own, too, over time.

[Glamorpuss]

Originally posted by talecrafter:

I admit we have a few problems still with "onboarding" people to this.

Maybe early in the game have some training dummy or room, or a type of enemy with bigger, more obvious telegraphs, that you basically can't beat without dodge-rolling into melee range? A dude with a blunderbuss that knocks you back but does low damage with every hit? I looked at the GIF of combat on the store page (from your reply on another thread), and realised I'd beaten the whole demo, but had been doing combat completely wrong the whole time! : )

EDIT: Thinking about this a bit more, the default controls might be contributing too. In Enter The Gungeon, all your combat stuff is a single button (attack, dodge, active item, blanks), but here your melee is a shift-click, which makes it seem like something to use only from stealth, when you have time to set up for a deliberate attack. (I assume other similar games like Salt and Sanctuary would be similar, but I haven't gotten around to any other games that would be a good example.) Like, I think the difference between my immediate dodge-button, and the slower melee-buttons was a contributing factor in me using dodges to escape combat, but never to initiate it.

EDIT AGAIN: Apparenlty, shift-click is only needed in peaceful zones. Just tried it out and a regular click works if you're already in combat. Not sure where I learned that bad habit, but maybe I mis-read something critical in the tutorial. :|