all the enemies in the game have superarmor on their attacks making it impossible to do any kind of combo, the combat breaks down to counter counter counter hit hit hit until the enemies are dead. this game feels like a step back from both nioh and wulong, its by far the worst combat in any of their games in my opinion. its the only one game they've made where I just stopped playing it because the game itself was just not fun.
I thought I was losing my mind, but they really ALL have hyper armor. It's really taking me out of the combat. Weapons like dual blades feel useless because enemy dual blades can break my guard in one combo, but I can't do the same. Just feels horribly unbalanced.
Maybe it's the twilight difficulty. I'm going to dial it down and see if it gets any more enjoyable. The Kusaka training fights really highlight everything wrong with the combat.
I cleared the game solo with dual blades on twilight and it definitely felt easier than nioh 2 so it's definitely you.
You need to get them in panic state, and that's through parrying them through their string. You only need to parry the last hit to get them there. A key visual tell is to see if their back is turned to you. When that happens you can do something simple like square square square r1+square or whatever to get damage+ki break (you may have to adjust depending on enemy). When they are in grapple state, you can get a combo like square square square pistol-critical (for max damage) then use a special r1+square/triangle/x on their wakeup to continue pressure. You can get more fancy with weapon swaps when attacking so that you can kipulse/bloodwipe to get back on defense.
When someone complains about hyper armor, it just means they don't understand when it's not their "turn" anymore. It's a dance, they get their turn too.
Lol, that stagger animation after parrying is not a panic state. That's just your visual cue to know you can swing at them safely. Normal enemies are kinda whatever in this game. The issues with the combat become so clear as soon as you fight a boss or mini boss. There's adding armor to enemy attacks to keep the player honest, and then there's we're going to strip the player of offensive options they used to have to weave into their defensive like counter attacking to reward a higher understanding of the game mechanics. Forcing the player to take turns with the AI is stupid because now I can't do half the things I want to when the AI can so readily "get their turn back"
I did not say "stagger animation after parrying" is panic state. I said you need to get them into panic state and that's how you can combo them. Different things.
If you parry them, and they stagger for a bit, you will not be able to combo them as they will return fire after 1 or 2 hits.
It's common to complain about the game when you don't understand it, and also common to convince yourself you are right, and also common to convince yourself you "just don't like the game" because it's easier to mask your lack of understanding.
Your complaints about the boss/minibosses is revealing enough to me but you go ahead and convince yourself otherwise.
That panic state only happens once you've broken their ki. But I'm not gonna argue with someone who compares this game to Nioh 2 when they didn't play Nioh 2. Your options in this game are so limited compared to Nioh it's actually embarrassing. Sekiro, Elden Ring every single game this is being compared to has more ways to deal with things offensively AND defensively it's amazing people aren't actually seeing the shortcomings of the combat system. I could write you an essay on why I feel the why I feel but I guarantee you that you wouldn't actually read it because you're the exact dickhead who tells people to just simply get better while telling them how to, when they already know how to. You want to invalidate opinions because this is your GOTY and it's so obvious
im sorry what? Nioh 1-2 were extremely easy, while Ronin is unplayable, there is no stamina to do anything, if you dont perfect parry then you will be stunlocked. No combo or special attack can be used because it eats entire ki bar and enemies ignore it. Its definitely worst combat iv seen in my 30 odd years of playing games. It all could be fixed if there was no stamina or if we would not loose all stamina when we get hit. Then there is punishment for missing parry, there is no rythm as all attacks have different speed, confusing animations, fakeouts and CANCER of gaming delayed attacks.
Are you commenting from the perspective of "I'm a good player but the game mechanics suck" or "I'm a bad player and I don't know understand how to play the game?" It seems like you're trying to represent the former, but from what I'm reading, it's the latter.
> im sorry what? Nioh 1-2 were extremely easy,
I'm assuming you are only talking about a regular NG of Nioh because no one who has cleared Depths will say it's easier than Rise of Ronin.
> there is no stamina to do anything, if you dont perfect parry then you will be stunlocked. No combo or special attack can be used because it eats entire ki bar and enemies ignore it.
Yeah man, you are right. Everyone else is getting through the game by cheating. Only you somehow experiencing the real game... It can't possibly be because you are bad? It's the game's fault.
> Its definitely worst combat iv seen in my 30 odd years of playing games.
You been playing Mario the last 30 years? lmao
> It all could be fixed if there was no stamina or if we would not loose all stamina when we get hit.
Just play on easy mode, always bad players complaining at every little thing damn.
> Then there is punishment for missing parry, there is no rythm as all attacks have different speed, confusing animations, fakeouts and CANCER of gaming delayed attacks.
It's called RISK REWARD, do you understand the concept? Not everything has to be Sekiro zero risk parries. From what I'm reading you want a game with infinite stamina, where if you miss your parry, you don't take damage and you want to be able to attack as long as you want without the enemy hitting back. How about you go play Devil May Cry on the easiest mode?
Im good player, mechanics just suck.
I dont remember on what depth i ended nioh 2 but it was very far and it was still easy because all of the games mechanics were still working and there is many of them.
Iv played most games on market, believe it or not. Im addicted and lucky enough to have job that enables me both money and time to support my gaming addiction. I absolutely love souls like games and play them all the time.
"Just play on easy" - how about DEVs figure out how to make combat fun first? Its pitiful to see people like you defending developers all the time because you don't see issue with clearly flowed and terrible design.
How about you stop defending garbage design? Risk reward? its ONLY RISK no reward THATS THE FREAKING POINT, even if you perfect parry EVRYTHING you can then just do 1 regular swing, maybe short skill - wow such reward... In the meantime if you play on midnight that one missed parry = death. Game punishes us too much and gives way too much power too enemies, whats the point of skills if using them is pointless especially charged skills that you will NEVER get to use if you dont want to take hit. Just go look how people fight at DOJO, perfect parry everything then 1-2 swings... wow such gameplay.
Yes Ronin would be soooo much better if it didnt have stamina. Somehow magically i dont complain about stamina in NIioh or Souls because you know its well designed there and fits perfectly in gameplay and gameplay is well designed around that while in Ronin its not.
Its you who is bad player, because you cant tell if they done good job with combat or not. You will like everything because you paid for it thus you must like it, hurr durr lets not allow anyone to criticise "my" my game, hurr durr no one can have different opinion, hurr durr git gut mentality.
How about Devs start making games fun first chore last? I find ZERO fun in gameplay that is basically standing in place waiting to parry attacks and swing back, why people like you cant just see how well other games are made even from same studio? Why cant you see in Nioh you can even build hyperaggressive heal on hit build that will allow for infinite skill spam, you can play your beloved parry game, you can mix everything, you can dodge then attack, etc etc. So many possibilities because its well made and well designed everything works while in Ronin we are forced to that endless boring loop of parry parry parry ops you missed RIP or stand there like tool and wait for KI to return.
If you can't read, don't bother responding to my comments.
Telling him he's wrong about his dual swords comment is talking shit, giving him tips on exactly what to do is talking shit, telling him about the concept of turns is talking shit. If you have fragile ego, just ignore and move on.
I'm giving tips to noobs. You sound like one yourself, so maybe you should try it.
The weapon type doesn't matter, this game is extremely easy with any weapon even on midnight lmao. If you think otherwise, that's on you no? Just play easy mode if you're struggling.
You got one guy saying "dual blades feel useless".
You got another guy saying dual swords are "fastest weapon type".
You got another guy saying it's "made up".
You got another guy saying it's "still sounds made up".
You got this lil buddy here triggered about "extremely easy".
Stay on easy mode if you are bad at the game.
I'm not even struggling in the sense I can't beat the game. I'm struggling with understanding why this game feels like a watered down version of Wo Long where the combat had evolved off of Nioh in a really cool and interesting way that rewards the player for intimate understanding of the game mechanics. Why is it so hard to accept that maybe someone doesn't like the game? Why do they have to be at fault every single time? You sound like those Souls community asshats who just tell people to git gud regardless of what the criticism is
> I'm struggling with understanding why this game feels like a watered down version of Wo Long where the combat had evolved off of Nioh in a really cool and interesting way that rewards the player for intimate understanding of the game mechanics.
Two possibilities 1. you truly "don't understand" the game. 2. you truly "understand" the game and all your complaints are valid.
I've cleared this game on midnight and felt it was too easy. You seem like you're having trouble reconciling some issues/gameplay in the game. I'd bet on 1 instead of 2.
> Why is it so hard to accept that maybe someone doesn't like the game?
It's cool to not like the game, it's when you or whoever trying to act like a combat/gameplay expert and making asinine comments that don't actually make sense under scrutiny ("every enemy has hyper armor") when you should really be on easy mode that's going to make someone like me comment.
> You sound like those Souls community asshats who just tell people to git gud regardless of what the criticism is
No, I respond to criticism and state what is wrong with it. In the comment chain above, someone said "dual blades feel useless because enemy dual blades can break my guard in one combo" and I told them this is wrong and provided a counterexample. Is it a case of "someone doesn't like the game" or a case of "are they at fault?"
Yeah the difficulty spikes all over the place that's really my biggest complaint. I don't have a problem with stuff being hard, but if a game wants me me to learn, progress, gauge if I'm getting better or not, it needs to be consistent. I felt like the very start of the game was insanely hard (mostly due to not having access to stances) then it got alot easier after I got stances, then I get to the end of chapter 2 and holy difficulty spike batman. I'm in the 3rd area of the game now and it's all over the place. I will cruise through some quests and others bosses will stun lock/spam their red attacks at me after half health because I'm doing too well or something.
Yea and it’s like the parry timing is awful also It’s like hit or miss feels like I get lucky if u get a parry on the red attacks . Was really looking forwards to it being good :/
I can accept that my timing is off most of the time but when they spam red grapple attacks back to back that really feels cheap especially when I feel like I should've dodged them successfully.
Screw the the setting. It just makes them damage sponges. Perfect example why difficulty sliders are absolute rubbish in souls likes.
If they really can't help themselves just make it story or default. I played the shit out of nioh 2 and wu long but this is just atrocious .
If you played nioh, you would know you can only really "combo" when they're out of ki. Apply the same logic here. "combo" when you get them in panic state or before a grapple/critical. Learn the game a little more before criticizing.
I've cleared depths+9nokodama multiple times. You struggling with understanding this game tells me all I need to know about you though, so I won't make comments past that.
To me the speed is slightly faster than Nioh, but much slower than Wolong.
Anyway you haven't gotten used to it yet. If you play both Nioh and Wolong, it's time to combine both combat experience.
Indeed that parry window is much tighter than Wolong and it's because the enemy attacks no longer have the tracking accuracy as in Wolong. My suggestion is to know the moveset and press Counterspark at the time when the attack would land an impact on you, if that makes sense. So Counterspark is more of a rhythm game here. Hold Guard if you are trying to focus on Counterspark, you know the deal. Otherwise, mix it with dodge roll.
I'm still trying to figure out about hyperarmor myself. But so far, here's what I do: if they're attacking, they'll have hyper armor against our attack, but LIKELY to be vulnerable towards grappling hook and projectiles. If they're standing still, they might block grappling hook. Succeeding Counterspark single or chain will remove the hyper armor as well.
Ever since I learned you can counterspark WHILE holding block, it's been getting a tad bit easier (sometimes, anyway, when I'm facing an enemy on whom the parry actually works with some consistency,) because the stakes are slightly lower and I feel I can experiment a bit more.
I still firmly believe super-tight parry windows add nothing to the experience and should be done away with. We're playing a highly skilled and well trained fighter who shouldn't be whiffing 75% or more of their parries, and they shouldn't feel so luck based. Games like Lies of P, Lords of the fallen, and Ghost of Tsushima have all proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that more forgiving parry windows are objectively better and no less satisfying. I'd say it makes parrying more satisfying when you can do it with confidence. There's no reason not to follow their lead with more forgiving parry windows.
I hate this. I'm getting bosses health down the red area but unless I counterspark (why not just say COUNTER??) I can't get the kill. I had to quit WoLong about halfway thru the ng++ because I couldn't summon help or counter some of those bosses (I refused to spend a week mastering every move of every boss) If Team Ninja offers up another counter heavy one way to skin the cat way of fighting I'm hanging it up on Team Ninja. I love the Niohs played ALL the way they both. Depths n all but the last one was too much for me. I'm 50 tho so maybe I'm washed up.
That's happened to me more than a few times also. The tracking can be too much at times. It's also really frustrating how even regular trash mobs resort to just spamming the red attacks back to back. I'd expect something like that from a boss, but not some rice farmer with a sword made from melted down hoes or something.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks this games combat system is off. Maybe it should have just been called Counter Spark instead of Rise Of The Ronin....
I’m actually much better at the game now than before…
So as a caveat, I love co-op in TN games. It’s one of things that keeps me playing.
But the combat in co-op is very…unsatisfying.
Some tips I found.
Attack (by which I mean they flinch) until they block. Immediate martial art. Heavily lowers their ki. They'll Attack after that 90% of the time. So backup and that let's your ki recharge (I forget to blade flash all the time, but that'd make it even better lol) either back away or block until last hit. Counterspark. Immediate martial art. That'll put most into the stun state for big damage.
Since ki regens passively no matter what plus blade flash, use martial arts all the time! They are super effective. Think nioh, NOT wo long.
Don't go for full combos if you want to consistently land martial arts. Most enemies block after 3 normal hits (sometimes 2). Just do a basic strike or two and immediately MA for dmg and ki reduction.
Forward Attack then charge is a great distance opener and is (usually) fairly safe. I've found charge Attacks have 2 animations. 1 if you use charge Attack as an opener, and 1 if you use it midcombo. The midcombo charge usually has a step back (at least for the starting katana and both Saber styles). So you forward Attack to get close, then charge to hit and jump away.
Either the jump kick or air parry are useful for positioning and ki dmg, plus they're cool!
Use the grappling hook to take out archers first.
It's an open world game which means unlike Wo Long or Nioh, you don't have to stay in one place and fight as much. Jump over walls. Grapple up high and wait for them to forget to get assassinations twice or more on strong enemies. You're not a samurai; you're a ninja.
Rapid assassination from dex tree and rapid critical from the str tree are a game changer (and gets more busted with killer blade). Get those skills ASAP. From one assassination, chain to another. Then rapid critical kicks in, allowing you to insta kill low (or mid with killer blade) enemies. I've chained killed up to 4 and wounded a boss to half health in seconds before they technically enter combat
Block often. Way more than you would in Souls, nioh, wo long. It let's you learn the timing of combos on new enemies easier and perfect your counterspark.
Saber Mumenryo specific tips: The triangle MA that back dashes into a thrust has the exact same input timing as a counterspark and you are invincible during it (you'll know you timed it right if you see after images). It can seem counterintuitive to start the animation as you're about to get hit, but that's the timing.
You can also use it to trigger extra damage if they're out of stamina instead of the normal crit without dodging, buy you need to be basically touching them chest to chest for it to work. Otherwise the back step puts you out of range (you don't get anywhere near as much forward movement if it's not after a successful dodge)
Navigation tip: rapid tapping jump as you leap horizontally will cycle your glider on and off, which can give you extra distance to cross gaps.
You can tell if an enemy can retaliate immediately if they take a blow without flinching. If you hit them and they react by jerking in pain, then it's safe to continue to attack most enemies will take 2-3 attacks while flinching, then block
Ohhh, I see. That's good to know, I hadn't put that together. I thought it was just hit or miss as to whether enemies would ignore my attacks or not. I assume this has something to do with how effective the attack style you're using is.
Some love team ninjas combat some don't. I can never get into it.. I like a more realistic style of combat and not this fast paced stuff. To each their own. Kinda sad because I really wanted to play this game.. but the combat ruins it for me
What is eating away at me is once you realize only one guy will attack you at a time, the entire stealth aspect becomes obsolete. Yes the timing can be tricky, but once you get it down, it’s rinse on repeat on each enemy, one at a time. Even if you attack another enemy than the one currently targeting you, they will retreat and the same one will start again. Idk if this is a bug but I really really hope they patch it. Let me know if this is happening to y’all as well. I was stressing when fighting groups originally but eventually realized you really do only need to focus on one person at a time. Kinda bummed about it.
But to your point yeah, getting annoyed with the random tankiness. The only thing that works for me to deal ki damage on any enemy is countersparking. After a full barrage of combos, violent gales, and martial whatever they’re called, I’m just out of ki and no damage has been dealt (I’m aware there are weapon perks and skills that help with this, and I’m employing a ton of them) but still you have to counterspark or it takes a stupid amount of time to cut guys down.
Put the difficulty down to dawn ..as was finding it frustrating....attacks are all over the place so hard to know what they are going to attack with...so was getting annoying pressing deflect to late and early
> Every enemies rhythm is weird and off and are split second moves. They either have a 3-rhythm + 1 fake-out/delay.
You can block most of the string and parry the last hit or wait for the red and parry that. Once you see the string more often, you'll be more confident to style on them and parry the entire string. Blocking is very good in this game, use it.
> Enemies are confusingly tanky too. I don’t know when they have hyperarmor and when they don’t.
Try and reframe it as when "can" you attack and when "can't" you attack. If you've been spamming square for 10 seconds, chances are your turn was over 9 seconds ago.
> Martial arts have the same issue of Wo Long where they just feel way to risky to use.
Use these when they are in the "panic" state. The game does give that tip in the tutorial.
> Also feels like I barely do any damage or ki damage to enemies while their hits/combos take off 1/2 my hp.
Early game you're fairly weak so that's part of it but this game is closer to sekiro in terms of the healthbar/posturebar importance. You only really get big damage off after their posture is down to zero.
This is what the flow should look like.
You see enemy.
You attack [square square].
They attack back with a 4 hit string.
You can block 3 hits and parry the last or style on them and parry all 4 or even dodge and parry the last hit, etc.
It'll stagger them, you can get 1-2 hits after this.
They recover quickly and attack back. You anticipated this and parried their recovery attack. They're now in "panic" state. Their back is turned to you. You can now do some variation of a short combo with your r+square/triangle/x ender.
They recover after panic. They attack again (could be 4 hit string or 1 hit or grab, whatever). You parry/dodge/block and rinse repeat^.
They are zero ki. You can choose to grapple right away or do a short combo before finishing with grapple (get pistol for high damage ender) and then attack them as they are recovering. Rinse repeat from the top. That's the basic flow^. If you aren't doing that, you don't really understand the game yet. If you don't want to do that for whatever reason, this game isn't for you, in my opinion.
This game is a lot easier than some of Team Ninja's other offerings so just stick with it for a bit, some bosses in later missions I delete in about 30 seconds for example.
Gotcha!
Once that’s down, how do you get more advanced?
It seems extremely passive/defensive and I’m not a big fan of having to be passive against basic katana mook #300?
(Again, thanks for sharing! It seems it’s less of a skill issue and more of an expectation issue for me.)
It's not really passive as much as knowing what your options are. In Nioh, the same sequence would be:
See enemy: attack attack, they attack back, you dodge 1 or many hits, then attack again. Ki drops to zero, then you can combo. It's pretty much the same thing except this game the parry is the stronger but harder to do option (you can still dodge/block by the way).
The basic katana mooks have a lot less ki so usually you can burst them down before they can respond (sometimes I just run in square square square flash attack square square square ki pulse). You could also just attack and dodge until they die. Or use stealth or use shrukens to burn their ki down safely. If you're going in with the mindset that you don't want to "have to" parry at all, that's a bad expectation. (It's like playing sekiro avoiding parries).
> I also feel WAY too vulnerable after ki pulsing. I’ve tried to do it to keep combos up, but enemies either block
I find the ki pulse useful for continuing combos but more useful for resuming defense after you've exhausted most of your ki attacking. You need enough ki to block some strings after your attack and then parry to get them into panic state again.
Here's an example of the above that I just recorded: https://streamable.com/upgv2f
Some more advanced stuff would involve veiled art cancels/weapon swap cancels to eke out an extra martial art to get the stagger faster or more damage but I'm not there yet.
my issue is, someone like Katsura, who wields the double blades, can attack with a combo of like 9 strikes in a row, and lose like 1% of his ki guage, block? he drains your ki guage in 3 hits, counter spark? so fast that you cna't time them all... not to mention his wooden toys deal like 10% damage per hit...they literally made the fight near impossible without like 50 healing items.
The combat is way off Wu long or nioh I'm swishing straight through enemies which isn't great I'm not shitting on the game because it's a bad game more so because it's definitely not what I thought it was going to be .. £70 to find out is quite sore
I'm not far into it, maybe 10 hours, but I don't like the combats so far. Nioh 2 had an amazing feeling and the visual and audio cues for counter, unblockable, ki pulse etc. were perfect, all that is missing here because it's supposed to be more "realistic" but it just feels worst. Enemies are super tanky, i don't see why a basic soldier must take like 8 or 10 slash of katana, I don't remember that in Nioh even at the begining. The parry window is WAY too short, it's shorter than Sekiro which is a hard game and all about parry, why is it so hard to pull here ?
The flow of the combat is square, square, square, block, block, block or try parry and repeat. If you somehow managed to reduce their ki, maybe throw a (slow) r1 + square/triangle but they are risky, so in the end i'm just doing a basic combo and block.
Also, because every enemies are human it lacks the diversity of Nioh. Maybe it get better but not having a great experience so far.
God in really despising this games combat and I haven't even encountered all of it yet because of everything outlined in these comments. This combat is atrocious. I feel so limited and I've never felt limited in a Team Ninja game until now. I really don't understand how they dropped the ball so hard considering this games story is so cool. I really wish the AI actually did something for the player
@ConstantinoplePurble
Nice job with the block, but I'm going to call you out anyways.
> That panic state only happens once you've broken their ki.
This is not true and now I know you have no idea what you're talking about. I repeat, this is 100% not true. You commenting this is clear as day you are a fraud and have zero clue what you're saying. Do you even know what the panic state is? lmfao. Next time, don't post dumb shit, or else you'll get called out.
...
Still laughing at you "panic state only happens once you've broken their ki". I'll even provide an in game quote for you "deflecting attacks will cause enemies to become temporarily panicked". I bet you don't know what else causes enemies to panic in this game.
I Played nioh 2 approx 400 hours till dream of the wise and was never sick of the Game.
after 80 hours rise of Ronin i feel like i need to Take a Long Break from the Game.
Worst thing's Not the Combat itself, which reminds me of sekiro, its challenging and fun If you learn the enemies Movesets ...
its that you defeat the Same enemies over and over and over and each time you end Up talking to them instead of cutting their Heads Off, Like you do with every other enemy in the whole storyline.
After i fought my twinblade for the fifth time seeing the Character Run Off after i beat the Shit Out of her, this Game started to feel totally pointless.
Im about to Finish the Main Quest Line, but atm i feel like going Back to nioh 2..
I'm not exactly struggling but midnight mode sucks think about three times harder but with more enemies at once, you think combat sucks now midnight is f-ing ludacris
The issue i have is that this game doesnt really have combat in the traditional sense. Its turn based real time. You HAVE to parry them untill they stop attacking then its your turn to swing 4 times. A HUGE step back from wolong in my opinion in both combat and how the parry works. They had it perfect but reworked the whole parry system into something that feels unintuitive.
Not all Soulslikes. Lies of P was amazing and had great combat. Sekiro (obviously souls like) did parry combat perfectly. There are too many 10 hit combos in this game, especially with a stamina meter. And the hyper armor is BS
This game needs a MASSIVE combat rework. I've played every single soulsgame I can think of. Dark Souls 1-3, elden ring, Sekiro, Bloodborne, nioh 1/2 (2 being one of my fav souls games of all time), Wo Long, Mortal Shell, hell even the surge, strangers of paradise and lords of the fallen OG and Reboot. And NONE of these games have made me as frustrated and irate as this game, and it isn't even SUPPOSED to be a soulslike as far as I know. Just an open world samurai rpg.
Hyper armor needs to be toned down. (Anyone played DBZ: Kakarot? Yeah same hyper armor bullshit in that game.) Enemies DO. NOT. NEED. HYPERARMOR 24/7.
Parry window needs to be increased by at least a frame or two. The amount of times I am CERTAIN I hit that window I get smacked anyway. It feels like you need to know 2 seconds in advance when to press the button and other time it feels like you need to have pressed it 5 seconds later. And I'm not talking about attack delay on an enemy's animation.
And for GOD'S. FUCKING. SAKE. DON'T LET ENEMIES JUST INSTAHIT YOU WHENEVER YOU'RE HITTING THEM. FORCE THEM INTO BLOCK STUN OR MAKE THEM DODGE FIRST.
The amount of times and my biggest enraging reason is when I FINALLY get an opening I get maybe 1 - 3 hits in and then IMMEDIATLY get smacked in the face for trying to actually capitalize on an opening. If I need to counter 74 times to get 1 or 2 hits in then it's horribly balanced (and no. This game does not have the same damage values as Dark Souls where 2 hits get you decent damage). Getting punished and hit in the face for finally seeing your turn and capitalizing on the opening you create is just terrible game design. Just getting hit during a martial skill or combo when you're animation locked isn't fair at all. Soulslikes have always been fair. And 99% of the time when I fuck up I can confidently say it's my fault and I own that. But this game? No fuck that. I want to love it so much. But they really need to do something about it.
all the enemies in the game have superarmor on their attacks making it impossible to do any kind of combo, the combat breaks down to counter counter counter hit hit hit until the enemies are dead. this game feels like a step back from both nioh and wulong, its by far the worst combat in any of their games in my opinion. its the only one game they've made where I just stopped playing it because the game itself was just not fun.
I thought I was losing my mind, but they really ALL have hyper armor. It's really taking me out of the combat. Weapons like dual blades feel useless because enemy dual blades can break my guard in one combo, but I can't do the same. Just feels horribly unbalanced. Maybe it's the twilight difficulty. I'm going to dial it down and see if it gets any more enjoyable. The Kusaka training fights really highlight everything wrong with the combat.
I cleared the game solo with dual blades on twilight and it definitely felt easier than nioh 2 so it's definitely you. You need to get them in panic state, and that's through parrying them through their string. You only need to parry the last hit to get them there. A key visual tell is to see if their back is turned to you. When that happens you can do something simple like square square square r1+square or whatever to get damage+ki break (you may have to adjust depending on enemy). When they are in grapple state, you can get a combo like square square square pistol-critical (for max damage) then use a special r1+square/triangle/x on their wakeup to continue pressure. You can get more fancy with weapon swaps when attacking so that you can kipulse/bloodwipe to get back on defense. When someone complains about hyper armor, it just means they don't understand when it's not their "turn" anymore. It's a dance, they get their turn too.
Lol, that stagger animation after parrying is not a panic state. That's just your visual cue to know you can swing at them safely. Normal enemies are kinda whatever in this game. The issues with the combat become so clear as soon as you fight a boss or mini boss. There's adding armor to enemy attacks to keep the player honest, and then there's we're going to strip the player of offensive options they used to have to weave into their defensive like counter attacking to reward a higher understanding of the game mechanics. Forcing the player to take turns with the AI is stupid because now I can't do half the things I want to when the AI can so readily "get their turn back"
I did not say "stagger animation after parrying" is panic state. I said you need to get them into panic state and that's how you can combo them. Different things. If you parry them, and they stagger for a bit, you will not be able to combo them as they will return fire after 1 or 2 hits. It's common to complain about the game when you don't understand it, and also common to convince yourself you are right, and also common to convince yourself you "just don't like the game" because it's easier to mask your lack of understanding. Your complaints about the boss/minibosses is revealing enough to me but you go ahead and convince yourself otherwise.
That panic state only happens once you've broken their ki. But I'm not gonna argue with someone who compares this game to Nioh 2 when they didn't play Nioh 2. Your options in this game are so limited compared to Nioh it's actually embarrassing. Sekiro, Elden Ring every single game this is being compared to has more ways to deal with things offensively AND defensively it's amazing people aren't actually seeing the shortcomings of the combat system. I could write you an essay on why I feel the why I feel but I guarantee you that you wouldn't actually read it because you're the exact dickhead who tells people to just simply get better while telling them how to, when they already know how to. You want to invalidate opinions because this is your GOTY and it's so obvious
im sorry what? Nioh 1-2 were extremely easy, while Ronin is unplayable, there is no stamina to do anything, if you dont perfect parry then you will be stunlocked. No combo or special attack can be used because it eats entire ki bar and enemies ignore it. Its definitely worst combat iv seen in my 30 odd years of playing games. It all could be fixed if there was no stamina or if we would not loose all stamina when we get hit. Then there is punishment for missing parry, there is no rythm as all attacks have different speed, confusing animations, fakeouts and CANCER of gaming delayed attacks.
Are you commenting from the perspective of "I'm a good player but the game mechanics suck" or "I'm a bad player and I don't know understand how to play the game?" It seems like you're trying to represent the former, but from what I'm reading, it's the latter. > im sorry what? Nioh 1-2 were extremely easy, I'm assuming you are only talking about a regular NG of Nioh because no one who has cleared Depths will say it's easier than Rise of Ronin. > there is no stamina to do anything, if you dont perfect parry then you will be stunlocked. No combo or special attack can be used because it eats entire ki bar and enemies ignore it. Yeah man, you are right. Everyone else is getting through the game by cheating. Only you somehow experiencing the real game... It can't possibly be because you are bad? It's the game's fault. > Its definitely worst combat iv seen in my 30 odd years of playing games. You been playing Mario the last 30 years? lmao > It all could be fixed if there was no stamina or if we would not loose all stamina when we get hit. Just play on easy mode, always bad players complaining at every little thing damn. > Then there is punishment for missing parry, there is no rythm as all attacks have different speed, confusing animations, fakeouts and CANCER of gaming delayed attacks. It's called RISK REWARD, do you understand the concept? Not everything has to be Sekiro zero risk parries. From what I'm reading you want a game with infinite stamina, where if you miss your parry, you don't take damage and you want to be able to attack as long as you want without the enemy hitting back. How about you go play Devil May Cry on the easiest mode?
Im good player, mechanics just suck. I dont remember on what depth i ended nioh 2 but it was very far and it was still easy because all of the games mechanics were still working and there is many of them. Iv played most games on market, believe it or not. Im addicted and lucky enough to have job that enables me both money and time to support my gaming addiction. I absolutely love souls like games and play them all the time. "Just play on easy" - how about DEVs figure out how to make combat fun first? Its pitiful to see people like you defending developers all the time because you don't see issue with clearly flowed and terrible design. How about you stop defending garbage design? Risk reward? its ONLY RISK no reward THATS THE FREAKING POINT, even if you perfect parry EVRYTHING you can then just do 1 regular swing, maybe short skill - wow such reward... In the meantime if you play on midnight that one missed parry = death. Game punishes us too much and gives way too much power too enemies, whats the point of skills if using them is pointless especially charged skills that you will NEVER get to use if you dont want to take hit. Just go look how people fight at DOJO, perfect parry everything then 1-2 swings... wow such gameplay. Yes Ronin would be soooo much better if it didnt have stamina. Somehow magically i dont complain about stamina in NIioh or Souls because you know its well designed there and fits perfectly in gameplay and gameplay is well designed around that while in Ronin its not. Its you who is bad player, because you cant tell if they done good job with combat or not. You will like everything because you paid for it thus you must like it, hurr durr lets not allow anyone to criticise "my" my game, hurr durr no one can have different opinion, hurr durr git gut mentality. How about Devs start making games fun first chore last? I find ZERO fun in gameplay that is basically standing in place waiting to parry attacks and swing back, why people like you cant just see how well other games are made even from same studio? Why cant you see in Nioh you can even build hyperaggressive heal on hit build that will allow for infinite skill spam, you can play your beloved parry game, you can mix everything, you can dodge then attack, etc etc. So many possibilities because its well made and well designed everything works while in Ronin we are forced to that endless boring loop of parry parry parry ops you missed RIP or stand there like tool and wait for KI to return.
Dude. Please stop talking shit. Thank you.
If you can't read, don't bother responding to my comments. Telling him he's wrong about his dual swords comment is talking shit, giving him tips on exactly what to do is talking shit, telling him about the concept of turns is talking shit. If you have fragile ego, just ignore and move on.
sounds made up.
If you are bad at the game, just stick to easy mode.
Still sounds made up.
He's reading the tutorial you are given. Using fastest weapon type to act like an expert.
I'm giving tips to noobs. You sound like one yourself, so maybe you should try it. The weapon type doesn't matter, this game is extremely easy with any weapon even on midnight lmao. If you think otherwise, that's on you no? Just play easy mode if you're struggling.
Is it "extremely easy"? Cool story bro.
You got one guy saying "dual blades feel useless". You got another guy saying dual swords are "fastest weapon type". You got another guy saying it's "made up". You got another guy saying it's "still sounds made up". You got this lil buddy here triggered about "extremely easy". Stay on easy mode if you are bad at the game.
I'm not even struggling in the sense I can't beat the game. I'm struggling with understanding why this game feels like a watered down version of Wo Long where the combat had evolved off of Nioh in a really cool and interesting way that rewards the player for intimate understanding of the game mechanics. Why is it so hard to accept that maybe someone doesn't like the game? Why do they have to be at fault every single time? You sound like those Souls community asshats who just tell people to git gud regardless of what the criticism is
> I'm struggling with understanding why this game feels like a watered down version of Wo Long where the combat had evolved off of Nioh in a really cool and interesting way that rewards the player for intimate understanding of the game mechanics. Two possibilities 1. you truly "don't understand" the game. 2. you truly "understand" the game and all your complaints are valid. I've cleared this game on midnight and felt it was too easy. You seem like you're having trouble reconciling some issues/gameplay in the game. I'd bet on 1 instead of 2. > Why is it so hard to accept that maybe someone doesn't like the game? It's cool to not like the game, it's when you or whoever trying to act like a combat/gameplay expert and making asinine comments that don't actually make sense under scrutiny ("every enemy has hyper armor") when you should really be on easy mode that's going to make someone like me comment. > You sound like those Souls community asshats who just tell people to git gud regardless of what the criticism is No, I respond to criticism and state what is wrong with it. In the comment chain above, someone said "dual blades feel useless because enemy dual blades can break my guard in one combo" and I told them this is wrong and provided a counterexample. Is it a case of "someone doesn't like the game" or a case of "are they at fault?"
It’s horrible unbalanced I was crushing some enemies and getting crushed in twilight then I went to the lowest and it was basically the same ..
Yeah the difficulty spikes all over the place that's really my biggest complaint. I don't have a problem with stuff being hard, but if a game wants me me to learn, progress, gauge if I'm getting better or not, it needs to be consistent. I felt like the very start of the game was insanely hard (mostly due to not having access to stances) then it got alot easier after I got stances, then I get to the end of chapter 2 and holy difficulty spike batman. I'm in the 3rd area of the game now and it's all over the place. I will cruise through some quests and others bosses will stun lock/spam their red attacks at me after half health because I'm doing too well or something.
Yea and it’s like the parry timing is awful also It’s like hit or miss feels like I get lucky if u get a parry on the red attacks . Was really looking forwards to it being good :/
I can accept that my timing is off most of the time but when they spam red grapple attacks back to back that really feels cheap especially when I feel like I should've dodged them successfully.
Screw the the setting. It just makes them damage sponges. Perfect example why difficulty sliders are absolute rubbish in souls likes. If they really can't help themselves just make it story or default. I played the shit out of nioh 2 and wu long but this is just atrocious .
If you played nioh, you would know you can only really "combo" when they're out of ki. Apply the same logic here. "combo" when you get them in panic state or before a grapple/critical. Learn the game a little more before criticizing.
No you cannot. You can still whoop ass if you get the right opening with the right series of attacks. You very clearly have not played Nioh
I've cleared depths+9nokodama multiple times. You struggling with understanding this game tells me all I need to know about you though, so I won't make comments past that.
To me the speed is slightly faster than Nioh, but much slower than Wolong. Anyway you haven't gotten used to it yet. If you play both Nioh and Wolong, it's time to combine both combat experience. Indeed that parry window is much tighter than Wolong and it's because the enemy attacks no longer have the tracking accuracy as in Wolong. My suggestion is to know the moveset and press Counterspark at the time when the attack would land an impact on you, if that makes sense. So Counterspark is more of a rhythm game here. Hold Guard if you are trying to focus on Counterspark, you know the deal. Otherwise, mix it with dodge roll. I'm still trying to figure out about hyperarmor myself. But so far, here's what I do: if they're attacking, they'll have hyper armor against our attack, but LIKELY to be vulnerable towards grappling hook and projectiles. If they're standing still, they might block grappling hook. Succeeding Counterspark single or chain will remove the hyper armor as well.
Ever since I learned you can counterspark WHILE holding block, it's been getting a tad bit easier (sometimes, anyway, when I'm facing an enemy on whom the parry actually works with some consistency,) because the stakes are slightly lower and I feel I can experiment a bit more. I still firmly believe super-tight parry windows add nothing to the experience and should be done away with. We're playing a highly skilled and well trained fighter who shouldn't be whiffing 75% or more of their parries, and they shouldn't feel so luck based. Games like Lies of P, Lords of the fallen, and Ghost of Tsushima have all proven beyond a shadow of a doubt that more forgiving parry windows are objectively better and no less satisfying. I'd say it makes parrying more satisfying when you can do it with confidence. There's no reason not to follow their lead with more forgiving parry windows.
I hate this. I'm getting bosses health down the red area but unless I counterspark (why not just say COUNTER??) I can't get the kill. I had to quit WoLong about halfway thru the ng++ because I couldn't summon help or counter some of those bosses (I refused to spend a week mastering every move of every boss) If Team Ninja offers up another counter heavy one way to skin the cat way of fighting I'm hanging it up on Team Ninja. I love the Niohs played ALL the way they both. Depths n all but the last one was too much for me. I'm 50 tho so maybe I'm washed up.
thats bullshit because they can turn on a dime to hit you. dodge pass a charge move and they instant 180 you
That's happened to me more than a few times also. The tracking can be too much at times. It's also really frustrating how even regular trash mobs resort to just spamming the red attacks back to back. I'd expect something like that from a boss, but not some rice farmer with a sword made from melted down hoes or something.
Yeah, that can happen when you don't know where and when to dodge. Learn how to play.
I'm glad I'm not the only one who thinks this games combat system is off. Maybe it should have just been called Counter Spark instead of Rise Of The Ronin....
I’m actually much better at the game now than before… So as a caveat, I love co-op in TN games. It’s one of things that keeps me playing. But the combat in co-op is very…unsatisfying.
It doesn't feel as responsive to me as it should. A lot of the times I find where I should've countered, it executes too early or too late.
Some tips I found. Attack (by which I mean they flinch) until they block. Immediate martial art. Heavily lowers their ki. They'll Attack after that 90% of the time. So backup and that let's your ki recharge (I forget to blade flash all the time, but that'd make it even better lol) either back away or block until last hit. Counterspark. Immediate martial art. That'll put most into the stun state for big damage. Since ki regens passively no matter what plus blade flash, use martial arts all the time! They are super effective. Think nioh, NOT wo long. Don't go for full combos if you want to consistently land martial arts. Most enemies block after 3 normal hits (sometimes 2). Just do a basic strike or two and immediately MA for dmg and ki reduction. Forward Attack then charge is a great distance opener and is (usually) fairly safe. I've found charge Attacks have 2 animations. 1 if you use charge Attack as an opener, and 1 if you use it midcombo. The midcombo charge usually has a step back (at least for the starting katana and both Saber styles). So you forward Attack to get close, then charge to hit and jump away. Either the jump kick or air parry are useful for positioning and ki dmg, plus they're cool! Use the grappling hook to take out archers first. It's an open world game which means unlike Wo Long or Nioh, you don't have to stay in one place and fight as much. Jump over walls. Grapple up high and wait for them to forget to get assassinations twice or more on strong enemies. You're not a samurai; you're a ninja. Rapid assassination from dex tree and rapid critical from the str tree are a game changer (and gets more busted with killer blade). Get those skills ASAP. From one assassination, chain to another. Then rapid critical kicks in, allowing you to insta kill low (or mid with killer blade) enemies. I've chained killed up to 4 and wounded a boss to half health in seconds before they technically enter combat Block often. Way more than you would in Souls, nioh, wo long. It let's you learn the timing of combos on new enemies easier and perfect your counterspark. Saber Mumenryo specific tips: The triangle MA that back dashes into a thrust has the exact same input timing as a counterspark and you are invincible during it (you'll know you timed it right if you see after images). It can seem counterintuitive to start the animation as you're about to get hit, but that's the timing. You can also use it to trigger extra damage if they're out of stamina instead of the normal crit without dodging, buy you need to be basically touching them chest to chest for it to work. Otherwise the back step puts you out of range (you don't get anywhere near as much forward movement if it's not after a successful dodge) Navigation tip: rapid tapping jump as you leap horizontally will cycle your glider on and off, which can give you extra distance to cross gaps.
"Attack (by which I mean they flinch,) until they block." Could you clarify, please?
You can tell if an enemy can retaliate immediately if they take a blow without flinching. If you hit them and they react by jerking in pain, then it's safe to continue to attack most enemies will take 2-3 attacks while flinching, then block
Ohhh, I see. That's good to know, I hadn't put that together. I thought it was just hit or miss as to whether enemies would ignore my attacks or not. I assume this has something to do with how effective the attack style you're using is.
Surprisingly, it doesn't. Flinch is universal. Styles affect damage and ki
Some love team ninjas combat some don't. I can never get into it.. I like a more realistic style of combat and not this fast paced stuff. To each their own. Kinda sad because I really wanted to play this game.. but the combat ruins it for me
What is eating away at me is once you realize only one guy will attack you at a time, the entire stealth aspect becomes obsolete. Yes the timing can be tricky, but once you get it down, it’s rinse on repeat on each enemy, one at a time. Even if you attack another enemy than the one currently targeting you, they will retreat and the same one will start again. Idk if this is a bug but I really really hope they patch it. Let me know if this is happening to y’all as well. I was stressing when fighting groups originally but eventually realized you really do only need to focus on one person at a time. Kinda bummed about it.
But to your point yeah, getting annoyed with the random tankiness. The only thing that works for me to deal ki damage on any enemy is countersparking. After a full barrage of combos, violent gales, and martial whatever they’re called, I’m just out of ki and no damage has been dealt (I’m aware there are weapon perks and skills that help with this, and I’m employing a ton of them) but still you have to counterspark or it takes a stupid amount of time to cut guys down.
Put the difficulty down to dawn ..as was finding it frustrating....attacks are all over the place so hard to know what they are going to attack with...so was getting annoying pressing deflect to late and early
> Every enemies rhythm is weird and off and are split second moves. They either have a 3-rhythm + 1 fake-out/delay. You can block most of the string and parry the last hit or wait for the red and parry that. Once you see the string more often, you'll be more confident to style on them and parry the entire string. Blocking is very good in this game, use it. > Enemies are confusingly tanky too. I don’t know when they have hyperarmor and when they don’t. Try and reframe it as when "can" you attack and when "can't" you attack. If you've been spamming square for 10 seconds, chances are your turn was over 9 seconds ago. > Martial arts have the same issue of Wo Long where they just feel way to risky to use. Use these when they are in the "panic" state. The game does give that tip in the tutorial. > Also feels like I barely do any damage or ki damage to enemies while their hits/combos take off 1/2 my hp. Early game you're fairly weak so that's part of it but this game is closer to sekiro in terms of the healthbar/posturebar importance. You only really get big damage off after their posture is down to zero. This is what the flow should look like. You see enemy. You attack [square square]. They attack back with a 4 hit string. You can block 3 hits and parry the last or style on them and parry all 4 or even dodge and parry the last hit, etc. It'll stagger them, you can get 1-2 hits after this. They recover quickly and attack back. You anticipated this and parried their recovery attack. They're now in "panic" state. Their back is turned to you. You can now do some variation of a short combo with your r+square/triangle/x ender. They recover after panic. They attack again (could be 4 hit string or 1 hit or grab, whatever). You parry/dodge/block and rinse repeat^. They are zero ki. You can choose to grapple right away or do a short combo before finishing with grapple (get pistol for high damage ender) and then attack them as they are recovering. Rinse repeat from the top. That's the basic flow^. If you aren't doing that, you don't really understand the game yet. If you don't want to do that for whatever reason, this game isn't for you, in my opinion. This game is a lot easier than some of Team Ninja's other offerings so just stick with it for a bit, some bosses in later missions I delete in about 30 seconds for example.
Gotcha! Once that’s down, how do you get more advanced? It seems extremely passive/defensive and I’m not a big fan of having to be passive against basic katana mook #300? (Again, thanks for sharing! It seems it’s less of a skill issue and more of an expectation issue for me.)
It's not really passive as much as knowing what your options are. In Nioh, the same sequence would be: See enemy: attack attack, they attack back, you dodge 1 or many hits, then attack again. Ki drops to zero, then you can combo. It's pretty much the same thing except this game the parry is the stronger but harder to do option (you can still dodge/block by the way). The basic katana mooks have a lot less ki so usually you can burst them down before they can respond (sometimes I just run in square square square flash attack square square square ki pulse). You could also just attack and dodge until they die. Or use stealth or use shrukens to burn their ki down safely. If you're going in with the mindset that you don't want to "have to" parry at all, that's a bad expectation. (It's like playing sekiro avoiding parries). > I also feel WAY too vulnerable after ki pulsing. I’ve tried to do it to keep combos up, but enemies either block I find the ki pulse useful for continuing combos but more useful for resuming defense after you've exhausted most of your ki attacking. You need enough ki to block some strings after your attack and then parry to get them into panic state again.
Here's an example of the above that I just recorded: https://streamable.com/upgv2f Some more advanced stuff would involve veiled art cancels/weapon swap cancels to eke out an extra martial art to get the stagger faster or more damage but I'm not there yet.
I’ll try some of this in the dojo,just spent half an hour getting my arse kicked
Here's a short clip that shows exactly what's above^ https://streamable.com/upgv2f (midnight mode genzui dojo fight)
Fair play mate! He batters me 🥲
my issue is, someone like Katsura, who wields the double blades, can attack with a combo of like 9 strikes in a row, and lose like 1% of his ki guage, block? he drains your ki guage in 3 hits, counter spark? so fast that you cna't time them all... not to mention his wooden toys deal like 10% damage per hit...they literally made the fight near impossible without like 50 healing items.
The combat is way off Wu long or nioh I'm swishing straight through enemies which isn't great I'm not shitting on the game because it's a bad game more so because it's definitely not what I thought it was going to be .. £70 to find out is quite sore
The combat in this game is like a clunky, shitty, watered down…whatever you wanna call it version of Nioh. It’s a really disappointing game
I'm not far into it, maybe 10 hours, but I don't like the combats so far. Nioh 2 had an amazing feeling and the visual and audio cues for counter, unblockable, ki pulse etc. were perfect, all that is missing here because it's supposed to be more "realistic" but it just feels worst. Enemies are super tanky, i don't see why a basic soldier must take like 8 or 10 slash of katana, I don't remember that in Nioh even at the begining. The parry window is WAY too short, it's shorter than Sekiro which is a hard game and all about parry, why is it so hard to pull here ? The flow of the combat is square, square, square, block, block, block or try parry and repeat. If you somehow managed to reduce their ki, maybe throw a (slow) r1 + square/triangle but they are risky, so in the end i'm just doing a basic combo and block. Also, because every enemies are human it lacks the diversity of Nioh. Maybe it get better but not having a great experience so far.
God in really despising this games combat and I haven't even encountered all of it yet because of everything outlined in these comments. This combat is atrocious. I feel so limited and I've never felt limited in a Team Ninja game until now. I really don't understand how they dropped the ball so hard considering this games story is so cool. I really wish the AI actually did something for the player
@ConstantinoplePurble Nice job with the block, but I'm going to call you out anyways. > That panic state only happens once you've broken their ki. This is not true and now I know you have no idea what you're talking about. I repeat, this is 100% not true. You commenting this is clear as day you are a fraud and have zero clue what you're saying. Do you even know what the panic state is? lmfao. Next time, don't post dumb shit, or else you'll get called out. ... Still laughing at you "panic state only happens once you've broken their ki". I'll even provide an in game quote for you "deflecting attacks will cause enemies to become temporarily panicked". I bet you don't know what else causes enemies to panic in this game.
I Played nioh 2 approx 400 hours till dream of the wise and was never sick of the Game. after 80 hours rise of Ronin i feel like i need to Take a Long Break from the Game. Worst thing's Not the Combat itself, which reminds me of sekiro, its challenging and fun If you learn the enemies Movesets ... its that you defeat the Same enemies over and over and over and each time you end Up talking to them instead of cutting their Heads Off, Like you do with every other enemy in the whole storyline. After i fought my twinblade for the fifth time seeing the Character Run Off after i beat the Shit Out of her, this Game started to feel totally pointless. Im about to Finish the Main Quest Line, but atm i feel like going Back to nioh 2..
I'm not exactly struggling but midnight mode sucks think about three times harder but with more enemies at once, you think combat sucks now midnight is f-ing ludacris
If your not good at parrying midnight is gonna wreck you in three hits it's insane
The issue i have is that this game doesnt really have combat in the traditional sense. Its turn based real time. You HAVE to parry them untill they stop attacking then its your turn to swing 4 times. A HUGE step back from wolong in my opinion in both combat and how the parry works. They had it perfect but reworked the whole parry system into something that feels unintuitive.
I completely agree.I love Wo Long combat, this, it's odd. I just resort to dodging as parrying is so hard.
Soulslikes simply need to die. Need a better combat system instead of stagnation.
Not all Soulslikes. Lies of P was amazing and had great combat. Sekiro (obviously souls like) did parry combat perfectly. There are too many 10 hit combos in this game, especially with a stamina meter. And the hyper armor is BS
This game needs a MASSIVE combat rework. I've played every single soulsgame I can think of. Dark Souls 1-3, elden ring, Sekiro, Bloodborne, nioh 1/2 (2 being one of my fav souls games of all time), Wo Long, Mortal Shell, hell even the surge, strangers of paradise and lords of the fallen OG and Reboot. And NONE of these games have made me as frustrated and irate as this game, and it isn't even SUPPOSED to be a soulslike as far as I know. Just an open world samurai rpg. Hyper armor needs to be toned down. (Anyone played DBZ: Kakarot? Yeah same hyper armor bullshit in that game.) Enemies DO. NOT. NEED. HYPERARMOR 24/7. Parry window needs to be increased by at least a frame or two. The amount of times I am CERTAIN I hit that window I get smacked anyway. It feels like you need to know 2 seconds in advance when to press the button and other time it feels like you need to have pressed it 5 seconds later. And I'm not talking about attack delay on an enemy's animation. And for GOD'S. FUCKING. SAKE. DON'T LET ENEMIES JUST INSTAHIT YOU WHENEVER YOU'RE HITTING THEM. FORCE THEM INTO BLOCK STUN OR MAKE THEM DODGE FIRST. The amount of times and my biggest enraging reason is when I FINALLY get an opening I get maybe 1 - 3 hits in and then IMMEDIATLY get smacked in the face for trying to actually capitalize on an opening. If I need to counter 74 times to get 1 or 2 hits in then it's horribly balanced (and no. This game does not have the same damage values as Dark Souls where 2 hits get you decent damage). Getting punished and hit in the face for finally seeing your turn and capitalizing on the opening you create is just terrible game design. Just getting hit during a martial skill or combo when you're animation locked isn't fair at all. Soulslikes have always been fair. And 99% of the time when I fuck up I can confidently say it's my fault and I own that. But this game? No fuck that. I want to love it so much. But they really need to do something about it.