Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice...

[Hot Sauce 2,727]

5 hours ago, Delita said:

All the bosses are damage sponges. It's almost pointless to even attack them when the game is actively forcing you to counter them building up their meter to do any real damage. It's so stupid tiring And just not fun at all.

You've got it backwards. You attack them to make the building up of their posture bar easier.

 

The only boss that's really a damage sponge (with Kuro's Charm, at least) is Corrupted Monk. The game can feel like bosses are damage sponges because if you let their posture bar recover you've essentially let the fight reset minus whatever vitality damage you've done. It's a much different game playing passively vs. playing aggressively.

[Mr. House 3,371]

53 minutes ago, Hot Sauce said:

You definitely shouldn't be retreating or just getting one hit in. Playing the game "right" is basically you just always being next to them and attacking until they parry one of your attacks, then parrying one of theirs and either beginning to attack again or finish parrying their chain of attacks depending on what they followed up their parry with.

 

The game is incredibly rigid in it's expectations for how you should be playing. I can see that as a flaw and not wanting to play it that way, but playing it as a hit and run game is definitely going to be a terrible experience.

What's the point of attacking a boss that way? They're gonna parry every hit, you can only get some damage in during very specific moments where they aren't guarding, and if you haven't damage their health enough their posture is just gonna recover. So it's back to trying to get that one hit during patterns until I damaged their health enough.

[Mr. House 3,371]

39 minutes ago, bhytre said:

All those VR games ruined your game skills 

Video games skills, serious business.  

[Mr. House 3,371]

6 hours ago, Delita said:

Agreed. That game sucked. I can write a novel of all the bad game design descions that are bafalling. 

 

I got to the final boss and I said this game is straight up dookie and I regretted spending any time with it

I stopped playing DMCV for this shit, fml. I'm pretty close to the end but I don't have the patience or time anymore. Tbh I enjoy the game a lot, until I reach some hard boss and I'm back to being frustrated as fuck. I don't even want to do the last one.

 

And lol at the people trying to pass parrying attacks as an 'aggressive' playstyle. Especially one with a generous parry window frame and in a game with no combos and only one weapon.

 

And the tools are so bad, they're only useful in certain circumstances. They really don't add much options. The techs are also pretty worthless, been using the same one since almost the beginning.

[Hot Sauce 2,727]

30 minutes ago, Ramza said:

What's the point of attacking a boss that way? They're gonna parry every hit, you can only get some damage in during very specific moments where they aren't guarding, and if you haven't damage their health enough their posture is just gonna recover. So it's back to trying to get that one hit during patterns until I damaged their health enough.

They'll block your attacks, but they'll still take some posture damage and it'll prevent the posture bar from depleting. Can also use Whirlwind Slash against most bosses for the chip damage. After a couple blocked attacks they'll parry one of your attacks and immediately follow up with an attack of their own, so you parry that and either parry the rest of the chain or start attacking again if the chain can be interrupted/the parry response attack was a one off. There won't be any downtime for the posture bar to do much depleting and you'll constantly be building it up and getting the occasional vitality damage in from interrupting an attack (or using Whirlwind Slash).

 

You mentioned it somewhere else that the game requires you to be perfect and that it's all pattern recognition. I don't agree that's what's necessary to just kill the boss as Whirlwind Slash and parrying an attack here and there is enough, but to do what I said above it's fairly apt. You need to know the attacks that the boss will respond with after a parry, which chains can be interrupted and when, and know how many attacks the boss will block before they parry an attack. It sounds like a lot, but really it's just playing aggressively and taking your lumps along the way. The difference in the end will be you aren't just surviving long enough to kill a boss but making the game your bitch.

 

Games are meant to be fun, though, and Sekiro punishes you for trying to play the game any other way with things that aren't necessarily more difficult but frustrating as fuck so if it's just not fun that's fine. The posture bar is probably the most restrictive thing From has ever done and pretty much the opposite of the freedom in tackling fights that Souls/Bloodborne is known for.

[Mr. House 3,371]

2 minutes ago, Hot Sauce said:

They'll block your attacks, but they'll still take some posture damage and it'll prevent the posture bar from depleting. Can also use Whirlwind Slash against most bosses for the chip damage. After a couple blocked attacks they'll parry one of your attacks and immediately follow up with an attack of their own, so you parry that and either parry the rest of the chain or start attacking again if the chain can be interrupted/the parry response attack was a one off. There won't be any downtime for the posture bar to do much depleting and you'll constantly be building it up and getting the occasional vitality damage in from interrupting an attack (or using Whirlwind Slash).

 

You mentioned it somewhere else that the game requires you to be perfect and that it's all pattern recognition. I don't agree that's what's necessary to just kill the boss as Whirlwind Slash and parrying an attack here and there is enough, but to do what I said above it's fairly apt. You need to know the attacks that the boss will respond with after a parry, which chains can be interrupted and when, and know how many attacks the boss will block before they parry an attack. It sounds like a lot, but really it's just playing aggressively and taking your lumps along the way. The difference in the end will be you aren't just surviving long enough to kill a boss but making the game your bitch.

 

Games are meant to be fun, though, and Sekiro punishes you for trying to play the game any other way with things that aren't necessarily more difficult but frustrating as fuck so if it's just not fun that's fine. The posture bar is probably the most restrictive thing From has ever done and pretty much the opposite of the freedom in tackling fights that Souls/Bloodborne is known for.

Yeah I do that to regular enemies. Mostly and it works fine, I have 0 difficulty exploring. But some of the bosses are ridiculous and instantly go back to attacking after just a few hits. I'm at the Owl boss fight second fight with him (optional at Hirata Estate) and fuck I easily get punished. He punished the whirlwind slash many times too. 

 

Fuck this back and forth rhythm anyway, I can see where you're going but I'm done.

[Hot Sauce 2,727]

10 minutes ago, Ramza said:

But some of the bosses are ridiculous and instantly go back to attacking after just a few hits.

Which is fine, you'll generate more posture bar damage through parries than attacking anyway. You attacking is just to keep the posture bar from depleting while they "recover" from their attacks.

 

Parries are how the game wants you to kill bosses, everything else is just in service of it.

 

12 minutes ago, Ramza said:

I'm at the Owl boss fight second fight with him (optional at Hirata Estate) and fuck I easily get punished. He punished the whirlwind slash many times too. 

That boss is one of the two bosses in Sekiro that I think are harder than anything else in the Soulsborne series, so I can definitely empathize with you on that boss.

 

13 minutes ago, Ramza said:

Fuck this back and forth rhythm anyway, I can see where you're going but I'm done.

Yeah, like I can see where you're coming from so I'm not going to dog you for disliking the game. It has flaws.

[Mr. House 3,371]

6 minutes ago, Hot Sauce said:

Which is fine, you'll generate more posture bar damage through parries than attacking anyway. You attacking is just to keep the posture bar from depleting while they "recover" from their attacks.

 

Parries are how the game wants you to kill bosses, everything else is just in service of it.

 

That boss is one of the two bosses in Sekiro that I think are harder than anything else in the Soulsborne series, so I can definitely empathize with you on that boss.

 

Yeah, like I can see where you're coming from so I'm not going to dog you for disliking the game. It has flaws.

Our posture gauge is so weak tho. I think I collected most of the prayer beads possible and I still feel weak.

 

He's pretty fucking hard. I could probably get used to his patterns but yeah, I don't feel like dying a few times more. In Souls games I rarely get stuck on bosses, here in Sekiro, it's common occurrence. 

 

Well, I like to troll people, I like the game, most of the time but like you said, it's a strict ass system that wants you to play their way. And I don't like their way.

[soup 105]

3 hours ago, Hot Sauce said:

You've got it backwards. You attack them to make the building up of their posture bar easier.

 

The only boss that's really a damage sponge (with Kuro's Charm, at least) is Corrupted Monk. The game can feel like bosses are damage sponges because if you let their posture bar recover you've essentially let the fight reset minus whatever vitality damage you've done. It's a much different game playing passively vs. playing aggressively.

Even CM is easy to get through if you use the correct tools to tackle it. Confetti and snap seeds/firecrackers just destroy her. The game gives you such broken tools that it makes most of the encounters manageable in a relatively quick fashion. Hell, on my no bead run I punished the final boss to the point where he couldn't phase shift for so long that the game wouldn't let me DB him.  

Spoiler

 

😂

Edited July 23, 2019 by soup

[madmaltese★ 2,550]

17 hours ago, Ramza said:

Lol, what? Maybe for regular enemies, those aren't the problems, it's the boss fights that are hard.

 

 Dodging at the right moment or parrying to get one hit then retreating isn't my idea of an offense.

 

There's no point randomly attack and there are no combos or anything too deep. It's always jump for sweep, mikiri counter for thrust, jump/parry for thunder attacks, everything else block/parry and dodge. Or run around like a crazy ninja trying to find an opening within the pattern. Then get that one-two hits or tech in. There's literally nothing else except some tools gimmicks depending on the boss fights. It's lame as fuck after a while tbh.

 

This game badly needs to be more offensive and less gimmicky but whatever. 

I told you this a while ago when you first mentioned it but you seriously played it wrong. The game is all about offense. Every time you retreat your enemies posture fills right back up making you lose all progress. It is literally a dance of parrys and attack while expending as little stamina as possible to deal maximum posture damage. The game because near rhythm game precision when done right and has a feel like no other sword fighting game before it. 

You've been trying to play it like dark souls, sneaking in a hit here and there and defending in between.  

 

For eg, Genichiro, a fight you were complaining about should be fought like this (ranodm YT vid):

 

Not trying to sneak in single hits and running around 'like a crazy ninja'. 

 

It's fine if you didn't like it but you legit played it wrong.