Game mechanics that need to die

[Specter Von Baren]

Or maybe they are at the age where that is no longer fun and they'd get more enjoyment doing something else with their time.

That's.... time and willingness. That's exactly my point.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

In a way that's true, although another angle would be the learning curve just looks different. Once you learn the rhythm aspect to deflecting attacks, it becomes arguably far more manageable than melee combat in SoulsBorne. There's no stamina bar to deal with, you have a ton more mobility including being able to retreat vertically with ease, and most enemies can be stealthed, including mini-bosses at least to some extent. You also get gear which exploits enemy weaknesses far more effectively than the bulk of stuff in SoulsBorne games. Even the core mechanic of deflecting itself can be cheesed somewhat by fluttering L1 when you're not quite sure of the exact timing.

If you count magic and ranged combat from Souls then sure that could be easier, but it also takes a ton of grinding to be so which is its own difficulty in terms of time investment. But someone not knowing anything about either Dark Souls, Bloodborne, or Sekiro, might struggle through the entirety of the first two, while the combat of Sekiro might click for them early on and feel like a relatively easier experience. The mechanics yield a greater means of improving above whatever challenges are presented to the player vs just grinding out levels and stats to gain an advantage.

Deflecting attacks isn't really the skill curve though, and yeah, it's easy just tapping L1 to deflect. The hardest part is reading the attacks and animations because just seeing the kanji appear doesn't actually help all that much. I recall the Souls fanbase saying you had to pay attention to enemy animations when I was reading about the games prior to playing DS1 and that's a crock of shit because you barely have to pay attention to enemy animations in the Souls games. Sekiro really forces you to pay attention to enemy attack animations and severely punishes you on any slip-ups, more than Souls does. If you can't execute the proper counters (both recognizing and reacting) to the unblockable attacks in Sekiro, you're done no matter how good you're at timing deflects. Sekiro also has a lot of annoying game design like have enemies around mini-bosses that you have to clear out every time just to re-fight the mini-boss, the farming of spirit emblems if you're too bad that you end up using them all up, the divine confetti bullshit, the fact that normal enemies don't train you at all in the game's combat system because they're so easy to beat up on, and probably a few more I'm not remembering.

That's.... time and willingness. That's exactly my point.

That's any game. Anyone can put in the time to beat those NES/SNES "Nintendo hard" games like Ghosts 'N Goblins if they want to. The point is that most people enjoy maybe like 1% games that much to want to put in the time to master them. Most games anyone plays to completion, they just "like" the game and if the game required mastery to beat, they wouldn't beat them because they don't enjoy them enough to do that (and rather play something else with that time). If someone likes a game but doesn't enjoy a game enough to get to the skill level the game requires to beat, then there's a problem with the difficulty of the game plain and simple.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Deflecting attacks isn't really the skill curve though, and yeah, it's easy just tapping L1 to deflect. The hardest part is reading the attacks and animations because just seeing the kanji appear doesn't actually help all that much. I recall the Souls fanbase saying you had to pay attention to enemy animations when I was reading about the games prior to playing DS1 and that's a crock of shit because you barely have to pay attention to enemy animations in the Souls games. Sekiro really forces you to pay attention to enemy attack animations and severely punishes you on any slip-ups, more than Souls does. If you can't execute the proper counters (both recognizing and reacting) to the unblockable attacks in Sekiro, you're done no matter how good you're at timing deflects. Sekiro also has a lot of annoying game design like have enemies around mini-bosses that you have to clear out every time just to re-fight the mini-boss, the farming of spirit emblems if you're too bad that you end up using them all up, the divine confetti bullshit, the fact that normal enemies don't train you at all in the game's combat system because they're so easy to beat up on, and probably a few more I'm not remembering.

If you miss-time a deflect in Sekiro you’re still holding the block button, and can slop enough to escape most damage on most attacks. The perilous attacks also have even larger windows (like QTE’s) but the trick is learning which counter to use (mikiri for thrusts, jump up attacks for sweeping stuff, and dodging for grabs).

In Souls, your parry leaves you wide open if you miss-time it because it’s a different button than merely blocking. That’s why there’s more of a risk/reward to it because it’s unquestionably an advanced technique vs an essential one like deflection in Sekiro. Bloodborne trades some of the risk with the fact that bullets are a huge premium item to come by, especially early on. Sure you can fire off a bunch of rounds from safety, but have fun farming more if you’re not being judicious with your timing.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

If you miss-time a deflect in Sekiro you’re still holding the block button, and can slop enough to escape most damage on most attacks. The perilous attacks also have even larger windows (like QTE’s) but the trick is learning which counter to use (mikiri for thrusts, jump up attacks for sweeping stuff, and dodging for grabs).

In Souls, your party leaves you wide open if you miss-time it because it’s a different button than merely blocking. That’s why there’s more of a risk/reward to it because it’s unquestionably an advanced technique vs an essential one like deflection in Sekiro. Bloodborne trades some of the risk with the fact that bullets are a huge premium item to come by, especially early on. Sure you can fire off a bunch of rounds from safety, but have fun farming more if you’re not being judicious with your timing.

I doubt the blocking/defecting is an issue for anyone because it's not hard. It's the perilous attacks that's the skill curve. You have to recognize the animation for which kind of attack it is and then react with the proper counter in time. That's the skill curve of the game.

The Soul's parry is basically pointless because it's almost never worth the risk, everything else is easier (block, dodge, range, etc). Bloodborne fixed much of what was wrong with the parry though. The timing window is IIRC more lenient than Sekiro or at least feels that way since the parry works on basically all attacks so it's only just timing vs having to read the type of attack. Plus, the parry isn't really essential in Bloodborne.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

I doubt the blocking/defecting is an issue for anyone because it's not hard. It's the perilous attacks that's the skill curve. You have to recognize the animation for which kind of attack it is and then react with the proper counter in time. That's the skill curve of the game.

The Soul's parry is basically pointless because it's almost never worth the risk, everything else is easier (block, dodge, range, etc). Bloodborne fixed much of what was wrong with the parry though. The timing window is IIRC more lenient than Sekiro or at least feels that way since the parry works on basically all attacks so it's only just timing vs having to read the type of attack. Plus, the parry isn't really essential in Bloodborne.

Perilous attacks can usually still be avoided by jumping backwards or running away, provided the player was close enough for one to connect in the first place. It’s not like an actual QTE in some action games that will result in a fail state. At most they take more health away; at least more than the player can dish out upon countering one successfully.

 

[Dreiko]

Deflecting attacks isn't really the skill curve though, and yeah, it's easy just tapping L1 to deflect. The hardest part is reading the attacks and animations because just seeing the kanji appear doesn't actually help all that much. I recall the Souls fanbase saying you had to pay attention to enemy animations when I was reading about the games prior to playing DS1 and that's a crock of shit because you barely have to pay attention to enemy animations in the Souls games. Sekiro really forces you to pay attention to enemy attack animations and severely punishes you on any slip-ups, more than Souls does. If you can't execute the proper counters (both recognizing and reacting) to the unblockable attacks in Sekiro, you're done no matter how good you're at timing deflects. Sekiro also has a lot of annoying game design like have enemies around mini-bosses that you have to clear out every time just to re-fight the mini-boss, the farming of spirit emblems if you're too bad that you end up using them all up, the divine confetti bullshit, the fact that normal enemies don't train you at all in the game's combat system because they're so easy to beat up on, and probably a few more I'm not remembering.

Actually, the smaller enemies around a miniboss act as health refills because you eventually learn the ninjutsu that heals you for performing a killing blow. So the idea is you kite them while fighting the boss and take em out when you take damage to heal up. Sekiro is super mobile like that and has no endurance so mobility-based playstyles are incredibly effective.


And yeah the kanji doesn't tell you whether a thrust or grab or sweep is coming, you gotta learn to tell the windup apart. Though that being said I think if you get a bit of a feel for it you can kinda see when someone's readying a thrust (usually they're pointing straight and pulling their body back) or a sweep (they're holding their weapon sideways behind their back)and so on.


The biggest difference in souls is that your roll has invuln so you can just dodge whenever they do anything no matter what it is, Sekiro has some things that you gotta jump or dodge towards in particular so you can't just do the same thing as soon as you see the enemy do anything, which prompts greater analysis of their actions.


But yeah as demanding as it is, once you're out at the other side of things you feel like an immortal ninja god cause anything they can throw at you you can see clearly through, it's really satisfying to just parry and dodge everything constantly.

I doubt the blocking/defecting is an issue for anyone because it's not hard. It's the perilous attacks that's the skill curve. You have to recognize the animation for which kind of attack it is and then react with the proper counter in time. That's the skill curve of the game.

The Soul's parry is basically pointless because it's almost never worth the risk, everything else is easier (block, dodge, range, etc). Bloodborne fixed much of what was wrong with the parry though. The timing window is IIRC more lenient than Sekiro or at least feels that way since the parry works on basically all attacks so it's only just timing vs having to read the type of attack. Plus, the parry isn't really essential in Bloodborne.

The window in bloodborne depends on the sort of gun you use I believe, the ones that shoot fast have the easier window but no the Sekiro parry is frame 1, as soon as you press the button you're parrying instantly, the guns in BB have some startup before they shoot so it takes a while for the parry to actually activate. Basically Sekiro is about as easy as a parry can be.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Perilous attacks can usually still be avoided by jumping backwards or running away, provided the player was close enough for one to connect in the first place. It’s not like an actual QTE in some action games that will result in a fail state. At most they take more health away; at least more than the player can dish out upon countering one successfully.

I recall the grab being finicky on what would actually work against it. The player is like always close to the enemy because that's how the combat system basically works.

Actually, the smaller enemies around a miniboss act as health refills because you eventually learn the ninjutsu that heals you for performing a killing blow. So the idea is you kite them while fighting the boss and take em out when you take damage to heal up. Sekiro is super mobile like that and has no endurance so mobility-based playstyles are incredibly effective.


And yeah the kanji doesn't tell you whether a thrust or grab or sweep is coming, you gotta learn to tell the windup apart. Though that being said I think if you get a bit of a feel for it you can kinda see when someone's readying a thrust (usually they're pointing straight and pulling their body back) or a sweep (they're holding their weapon sideways behind their back)and so on.


The biggest difference in souls is that your roll has invuln so you can just dodge whenever they do anything no matter what it is, Sekiro has some things that you gotta jump or dodge towards in particular so you can't just do the same thing as soon as you see the enemy do anything, which prompts greater analysis of their actions.


But yeah as demanding as it is, once you're out at the other side of things you feel like an immortal ninja god cause anything they can throw at you you can see clearly through, it's really satisfying to just parry and dodge everything constantly.



The window in bloodborne depends on the sort of gun you use I believe, the ones that shoot fast have the easier window but no the Sekiro parry is frame 1, as soon as you press the button you're parrying instantly, the guns in BB have some startup before they shoot so it takes a while for the parry to actually activate. Basically Sekiro is about as easy as a parry can be.

But the enemies around a mini-boss also act as major annoyances because From's combat systems aren't tailored to fighting multiple enemies at once because it seems they can't make a combat system without lock-on for some reason.

I'm just saying that actually having to identify enemy attacks raises the skill level quite a bit.

And, if someone likes a game, they should be able to finish it without taking hours and hours of practice to "git gud". If someone stops playing because of difficulty, you failed at your game design plain and simple.

I'm not talking about the technical parry in Sekiro, I'm talking about the counters to the perilous attacks (that are basically the real "parrys" of the game). I doubt anyone is dying because they can't deflect well enough in Sekiro.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

I recall the grab being finicky on what would actually work against it. The player is like always close to the enemy because that's how the combat system basically works.


But the enemies around a mini-boss also act as major annoyances because From's combat systems aren't tailored to fighting multiple enemies at once because it seems they can't make a combat system without lock-on for some reason.

I'm just saying that actually having to identify enemy attacks raises the skill level quite a bit.

And, if someone likes a game, they should be able to finish it without taking hours and hours of practice to "git gud". If someone stops playing because of difficulty, you failed at your game design plain and simple.

I'm not talking about the technical parry in Sekiro, I'm talking about the counters to the perilous attacks (that are basically the real "parrys" of the game). I doubt anyone is dying because they can't deflect well enough in Sekiro.

Unless a boss or mini boss decides to armor through one of your attacks you usually have ample time to escape. IE a dodge can escape a thrust, jumping away escapes a sweep, and usually grabs have a longer tell, or the enemy (often slowly) charges at you. Hell sometimes with a jumping perilous I end up erroneously jumping in the wrong direction depending on the angle of the attack.

Just like other SoulsBorne games and probably even more so because of the increased mobility, scrub enemies on the way to a boss can be stealthed past or skipped over. Idk why you complain about them as they’re designed to be optional enemies to increase experience, items, etc. The mini bosses teach the player about the combat intricacies, and bosses are the “test”. If it was just them populating the world they might as well have just made an arena fighter.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

Unless a boss or mini boss decides to armor through one of your attacks you usually have ample time to escape. IE a dodge can escape a thrust, jumping away escapes a sweep, and usually grabs have a longer tell, or the enemy (often slowly) charges at you. Hell sometimes with a jumping perilous I end up erroneously jumping in the wrong direction depending on the angle of the attack.

Just like other SoulsBorne games and probably even more so because of the increased mobility, scrub enemies on the way to a boss can be stealthed past or skipped over. Idk why you complain about them as they’re designed to be optional enemies to increase experience, items, etc. The mini bosses teach the player about the combat intricacies, and bosses are the “test”. If it was just them populating the world they might as well have just made an arena fighter.

I feel like if you're dodging as your primary form of defense, you're playing the game wrong. I did that early on just because of how use of dodging I am in most other games. You play better by dodging as little as possible IMO.

Everything should be in a game for a reason. I don't find what the point of the normal enemies are in Sekiro as the game really feels more like Shadow of the Colossus than a Souls game where your primary reason for playing are the mini-boss/boss fights, that's where the core game shines. I felt like the normal enemies just aren't engaging combat whether you're fighting them or stealthing them or just running past them. Either remove them or make them engaging. One of the problems is that unlike Ghost of Tsushima, Sekiro's combat doesn't fair well against groups of enemies. Also, the stealth is really bare bones and not very interesting or entertaining. You don't need enemies to increase experience, items, and whatnot as the game could just give you more beating each mini-boss/boss or they could be found exploring or whatever.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

I feel like if you're dodging as your primary form of defense, you're playing the game wrong. I did that early on just because of how use of dodging I am in most other games. You play better by dodging as little as possible IMO.

Everything should be in a game for a reason. I don't find what the point of the normal enemies are in Sekiro as the game really feels more like Shadow of the Colossus than a Souls game where your primary reason for playing are the mini-boss/boss fights, that's where the core game shines. I felt like the normal enemies just aren't engaging combat whether you're fighting them or stealthing them or just running past them. Either remove them or make them engaging. One of the problems is that unlike Ghost of Tsushima, Sekiro's combat doesn't fair well against groups of enemies. Also, the stealth is really bare bones and not very interesting or entertaining. You don't need enemies to increase experience, items, and whatnot as the game could just give you more beating each mini-boss/boss or they could be found exploring or whatever.

It’s definitely a carryover from SoulsBorne, but I think it’d be more frustrating if we were forced to fight through all the scrub enemies every time we died, if they were actually engaging and impeded progression. They would need to have idols to continue from right before bosses, like at the ape which is a rare perfectly placed example IMO.

 

[Dalisclock]

Fishing being added to games that seriously don't need them. Looking at you Ys 8 and FF15

Isn't it a running joke that every Japanese game needs a fishing mini-game because....Japanese people love fishing I guess?

Ace Combat 8: Fishing for submarines.....with missles!

 

[Phoenixmgs]

It’s definitely a carryover from SoulsBorne, but I think it’d be more frustrating if we were forced to fight through all the scrub enemies every time we died, if they were actually engaging and impeded progression. They would need to have idols to continue from right before bosses, like at the ape which is a rare perfectly placed example IMO.

Just making the combat fun wouldn't force you to fight the enemies every time. In Ghost of Tsushima, you can run past enemies. One thought I had about Sekiro was to make the game kinda like Mirror's Edge in a sense where you can run through the levels just doing disarms in Mirror's Edge but in Sekiro, it would be the deflect and insta-kill instead basically.

 

[hanselthecaretaker]

Just making the combat fun wouldn't force you to fight the enemies every time. In Ghost of Tsushima, you can run past enemies. One thought I had about Sekiro was to make the game kinda like Mirror's Edge in a sense where you can run through the levels just doing disarms in Mirror's Edge but in Sekiro, it would be the deflect and insta-kill instead basically.

That’s kinda possible as it is, but maybe not with deflect or the quickness of ME. There’s a village in Sekiro that acts as a good stealth farming run. Other areas you can often use the verticality to drop kill and grapple back up to the rooftops or trees.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

That’s kinda possible as it is, but maybe not with deflect or the quickness of ME. There’s a village in Sekiro that acts as a good stealth farming run. Other areas you can often use the verticality to drop kill and grapple back up to the rooftops or trees.

Yeah, you can run past most most of the enemies in Sekiro without engaging them. The only ones you actually have to fight are the bosses and mini-bosses since the game literally gates your progression. Everything else though is pretty easy to avoid since you have much higher mobility than any of the enemies.

 

[Phoenixmgs]

That’s kinda possible as it is, but maybe not with deflect or the quickness of ME. There’s a village in Sekiro that acts as a good stealth farming run. Other areas you can often use the verticality to drop kill and grapple back up to the rooftops or trees.

I know you can kinda do that, but the game isn't designed to be like my Mirror's Edge idea. It just feels like outside of the boss fights, the game lacks an identity as it has a lot of Souls design but isn't a Souls game, it has stealth but it's barebones, the normal enemy combat is lackluster. The game likes to throw groups of enemies at you but the combat system doesn't work well there so that's partly why I thought up the ME idea as it would remove that issue while giving the gameplay between bosses a "core" to it that it lacks. Even Ghost of Tsushima feels best when you're playing it like a speedrunner finishing combat (mainly with parries) in as few button presses as possible, I totally ignored the entire stance system in Ghost.

 

[BrawlMan]

Fishing being added to games that seriously don't need them. Looking at you Ys 8 and FF15

What's worse when every dev back in the early to mid HD/Wii era were doing mini games within mini games. Those were some of the worst, most annoying, and time wasting mechanics ever. The only mini game/bonus stage I liked from that era was Mad World. Bloody, fun, and hilarious. Man Darts. Ha.

 

[Gyrobot]

Weeb fanservice game mechanics that allowed games like Senran Kagura to succeed needs to stay dead and buried thanks to Sony

 

[BrawlMan]

Weeb fanservice game mechanics that allowed games like Senran Kagura to succeed needs to stay dead and buried thanks to Sony

They'll never stay dead. I don't know what you're trying to wish for. Even if Sony tries to quote unquote "kill" them. There are other platforms that exist. Nintendo and Microsoft says hello. So does Steam. Bayonetta still exist. Onechanbara still exist. It just got a new game that came out earlier in October 2020.

 

[The Rogue Wolf]

They'll never stay dead. I don't know what you're trying to wish for.

He's wishing for people to stop being able to play games he doesn't like.

 

[Dreiko]

Didn't they JUST announce the new Hyperdimension Neptunia x Senran Kagura crossover Arpg game?
Was I dreaming when that happened?

Nope here it is, never mind being dead, it's stronger than ever!