When you feel like your perception of difficulty is askew

[Dalisclock]

I've been playing Sekiro for a bit and I'm digging it a lot. It's a Souls game that generally hits all the things I like about Souls games but also changing shit up a bit to make it feel new(the posture system, no stamina, the shinobi tools, etc).

What I find interesting is that apparently(no hard data, just a perception from peaking around the net) something like half of the people who are into Souls games consider it the hardest of the bunch which wasn't really my impression at all. It's tough at shit at times but in some ways it feels easier due to having a functioning stealth system and the ability to kite mobs on the way to the bosses far more easily. Hell, a number of mini-boss battles allow you to escape from the arena and disengage entirely, which isn't a bad move if you flubbed the opening, running low on gourd uses and already used your resurrect(though the downside is half these guys bring their boys with them to the fight, which means you have to clear them out first or it's ganktown).

What really got me is running into the brick walls that most of these bosses represent. Some of them I was able to overcome fairly quickly while others feel incredibly difficult, except my feelings don't seem to match what I'm from a lot of other people. I'm at Genichiro(at the top of Ashina Castle) on the main branch but I've been continually challenging and failing vs. Lady butterfly for a while now(which normally prompts me to go fight or explore somewhere else). So now I've pretty much finished Senpou temple and cleared the way to Genichiro but still having trouble with Lady Butterfly, only to find out apparently she's considered easy. At least I don't feel so bad that I'm having trouble with Seven Spears(the guy on the cliff with the giant spear) near where the game starts.

I've seen this before in FROM games and I sometimes think maybe I'm just a fucking wierdo. In Dark Souls 2 I swear I'm the only person who ever had problems with Prowling Magus and congregation but managed to take down the Smelter Demon in a handful of tries, or had far more problems with the Old Iron King(well, more his fucking lava arena then him) then the Lost Sinner(who I took down in one attempt). In Bloodborne I took down Vicar Amelia the first try but found ROM a pain in the ass(ROM is apparently the easy one).

I don't really know if I even have a question here. I think I'm just venting a little over how it feels like I'm playing a different game then everyone else is at times. Anyone else have examples of this they'd like to share(not just FROM games, obviously)?

 

[09philj]

Everyone always plays up how tough the Big Daddies were in Bioshock but I always found the Splicers to be harder enemies. (Because I'm bad at videogames and Splicers are smaller targets) Electric attacks in particular more or less trivialised fights with them.

 

[Yoshi178]

if you think a game is hard then git gud or keep failing until you do.

 

[Neurotic Void Melody]

Get totally what you mean, and it does seem to come mostly from the soulsbourne percepticles. Did actually try sekiro for a bit round someone's house last year and was surprised how much it would let me button mash compared to DS, as well as the parrying not being a total arse to pull off. Was considering how long pretending it was entirely skill would last to the person who already completed it. Probably not long at all.
Ron was major tricky first time, but other bosses I'd do first time without issue until doing them again much later in life and finding them a far bigger wall as if playstyle had sneakily changed behind the scenes or some other tainted spirit had overtaken this body to fail instead. There was also that magic gauntlet dash area in DS2 that everyone hated but wasn't an issue for me as long as eye's are kept sharp, while that 3 wizards boss just denied any further progress until brandished the honourable superpower of summoning me funkily-dressed (anonymous) battle mates to the hard work instead. It caused similar musings until realising even my own experience is inconsistent too. Can't trust anything to remain static and dependable. Especially perceptions of difficulty and one's own body cells.

Trying to think of a non-SB game who presents a similar gulf in perception, but nothing as of yet. Wonder what that means. Presumably that I ain't played enough of them there videogames!

 

[bluegate]

It comes down to individual skill, obviously, but also the way you play.

My personal story with Sekiro and Lady Butterfly is this;

When I first encountered her I thought she was very difficult and I tried maybe 20 times to defeat her before I gave up and went to other places. Heck, because Hirata estate is somewhat of an optional side area, I thought that maybe this was just a late game area that you're expected to come back to later.

During my first "skirmish" with Lady Butterfly I was trying to perfectly deflect individual attacks with single presses of the L1 button, thinking that parry windows were small and precise like in Dark Souls.

A couple of hours later when I came back to Lady Butterfly, my play style had changed; Instead of trying to aim for individual attacks' parry windows, I'd just be constantly pressing, or holding, L1 during her attacks, occasionally an attack of hers would get through, but overall, I was parrying more of her attacks than before.

Also, I got more aggressive in playing. I would just keep hitting R1 until she'd parry an attack, then I'd switch over to hitting L1 until I parried one of her attacks ( you know the satisfying sound ), then I'd switch back to R1 and repeat the cycle. I ended up defeating her on my "first" try and I now classify her as easy.

I'm almost at the final boss of the game, so I'm somewhat looking forward to fighting her again in New Game +, will she still be easy to me?

 

[meiam]

As far as sekiro being the hardest of the soul game, I'd disagree... until the final boss which is I thought was the hardest of all final boss. It really depend on how you play, I personally always hated anything that comes down purely to timing, I've played pretty much every other soulborne without ever touching the parry functionality and avoiding using the i-frame in the dodge. So the boss I consider the hardest often are very different than other player, father G in bloodborne is pretty much made to make sure the player is good at parry, so to me he was the hardest boss in the game (even over the DLC one).

Lady butterfly also was pretty hard for me, but that's mostly because I tried to fight her as soon as I could, I came back later, with more health and str, and she was much easier (obviously).

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Lady Butterfly is hard only because you can reach her fight very very early in the game where you're low on heals and life and skills. She's very easy once you realize that you can shuriken her out of the sky and you can parry anything she does and then just break her posture without even worrying about her life. You really shouldn't even be touched during her first lifebar if you know how to play. Ashina has a lot of stages but if you practiced fighting the samurai in the castle a bunch he's not hard either and the third stage is just the air parry gimmick which you read about in that wallscroll and should try applying asap. The only fight that you legitimately wanna dodge until later is those headless oni that cause fear because you lack the medicine that cures it and the prosthetics that shield you from it.


Sekiro overall is not hard, and only if you skip by IKing all the mobs and don't practice fighting them properly will you find bosses as being a brick wall of difficulty. For example, I did the dual ape fight on my first try going blind, and was baffled people thought it was hard, but then I realized people weren't even using the right prosthetics (firecrackers to scare it, then flamethrower to cut its stamina recovery, and shield to defend against the fear scream of the other one) so I think a lot of the "perceived" difficulty is due to people not adapting and not trying all their available tactics until they stumble on the right one but just mindlessly bashing their head into the wall until they win by sheer chance.


Ultimately, Sekiro's parry system is very generous, cause you can both cancel an attack into the parry and the parry is instantly active as soon as you press the button and it is instantly going from the parry window into a guard window with no gap at all. That means that you wanna time your parry early so that if you time it too early you still just normal block stuff. As long as you comprehend that part you shouldn't have trouble with like 90% of the game.

 

[Dalisclock]

I've been playing Sekiro for a bit and I'm digging it a lot. It's a Souls game that generally hits all the things I like about Souls games but also changing shit up a bit to make it feel new(the posture system, no stamina, the shinobi tools, etc).

What I find interesting is that apparently(no hard data, just a perception from peaking around the net) something like half of the people who are into Souls games consider it the hardest of the bunch which wasn't really my impression at all. It's tough at shit at times but in some ways it feels easier due to having a functioning stealth system and the ability to kite mobs on the way to the bosses far more easily. Hell, a number of mini-boss battles allow you to escape from the arena and disengage entirely, which isn't a bad move if you flubbed the opening, running low on gourd uses and already used your resurrect(though the downside is half these guys bring their boys with them to the fight, which means you have to clear them out first or it's ganktown).

What really got me is running into the brick walls that most of these bosses represent. Some of them I was able to overcome fairly quickly while others feel incredibly difficult, except my feelings don't seem to match what I'm from a lot of other people. I'm at Genichiro(at the top of Ashina Castle) on the main branch but I've been continually challenging and failing vs. Lady butterfly for a while now(which normally prompts me to go fight or explore somewhere else). So now I've pretty much finished Senpou temple and cleared the way to Genichiro but still having trouble with Lady Butterfly, only to find out apparently she's considered easy. At least I don't feel so bad that I'm having trouble with Seven Spears(the guy on the cliff with the giant spear) near where the game starts.

I've seen this before in FROM games and I sometimes think maybe I'm just a fucking wierdo. In Dark Souls 2 I swear I'm the only person who ever had problems with Prowling Magus and congregation but managed to take down the Smelter Demon in a handful of tries, or had far more problems with the Old Iron King(well, more his fucking lava arena then him) then the Lost Sinner(who I took down in one attempt). In Bloodborne I took down Vicar Amelia the first try but found ROM a pain in the ass(ROM is apparently the easy one).

I don't really know if I even have a question here. I think I'm just venting a little over how it feels like I'm playing a different game then everyone else is at times. Anyone else have examples of this they'd like to share(not just FROM games, obviously)?

That?s what makes these games so interesting is the fact there are very few identical perceptions or experiences among players. I really didn?t grasp Sekiro?s combat until after I beat Lady Butterfly. I merely scraped by the Drunkard right before her, and that was only when sneaking behind for the first stealth kill.

LB took dozens of tries, but by the time I beat her I only healed once; the second phase only taking some damage from that exploding butterfly attack right. Applying as much pressure as possible worked best for me. Wait by the wall behind her when she drops down in the second phase for some free hits.

With enough pressure she shouldn?t even get a chance to summon spirits, so don?t waste time/resources getting seeds. Jump over the Perilous ground attack and counter kick, and throw a star or two to stun when she goes airborne, hit her a couple of times then dodge and repeat. IIRC there?s a Perilous airborne attack, but it can also be interrupted with a star if caught early.

I found Amelia and ROM to be just as you described though. The chalice Ebriettas would be my bane in Bloodborne. Runner up would probably be the hellfire cleric beast in NG+ (or was it in Old Hunters, which I did in NG+ like a masochist), ironically in Amelia?s arena.

 

[Dalisclock]

if you think a game is hard then git gud or keep failing until you do.

That would be a very signature-worthy statement, if we still had signatures here.

 

[Dalisclock]

Lady Butterfly

Spoiler

is hard only because you can reach her fight very very early in the game where you're low on heals and life and skills. She's very easy once you realize that you can shuriken her out of the sky and you can parry anything she does and then just break her posture without even worrying about her life. You really shouldn't even be touched during her first lifebar if you know how to play. Ashina has a lot of stages but if you practiced fighting the samurai in the castle a bunch he's not hard either and the third stage is just the air parry gimmick which you read about in that wallscroll and should try applying asap. The only fight that you legitimately wanna dodge until later is those headless oni that cause fear because you lack the medicine that cures it and the prosthetics that shield you from it.

Sekiro overall is not hard, and only if you skip by IKing all the mobs and don't practice fighting them properly will you find bosses as being a brick wall of difficulty. For example, I did the dual ape fight on my first try going blind, and was baffled people thought it was hard, but then I realized people weren't even using the right prosthetics (firecrackers to scare it, then flamethrower to cut its stamina recovery, and shield to defend against the fear scream of the other one) so I think a lot of the "perceived" difficulty is due to people not adapting and not trying all their available tactics until they stumble on the right one but just mindlessly bashing their head into the wall until they win by sheer chance.

Ultimately, Sekiro's parry system is very generous, cause you can both cancel an attack into the parry and the parry is instantly active as soon as you press the button and it is instantly going from the parry window into a guard window with no gap at all. That means that you wanna time your parry early so that if you time it too early you still just normal block stuff. As long as you comprehend that part you shouldn't have trouble with like 90% of the game

.

I should be fairly ok then because she was the second boss for me after the horse rider. I had 11 VIT and 2 ATK. Ran out of seeds too, so that kinda sucked until I learned to just pressure the hell out of her and interrupt her air attacks.

Vaati Vidya had some tips on parrying that helped too. Basically L1 can be sort of butterfly-tapped or fluttered during unpredictable attacks and you can still parry fairly well, although the posture damage bonus is lessened.

 

[Dreiko_v1legacy]

Lady Butterfly

Spoiler

is hard only because you can reach her fight very very early in the game where you're low on heals and life and skills. She's very easy once you realize that you can shuriken her out of the sky and you can parry anything she does and then just break her posture without even worrying about her life. You really shouldn't even be touched during her first lifebar if you know how to play. Ashina has a lot of stages but if you practiced fighting the samurai in the castle a bunch he's not hard either and the third stage is just the air parry gimmick which you read about in that wallscroll and should try applying asap. The only fight that you legitimately wanna dodge until later is those headless oni that cause fear because you lack the medicine that cures it and the prosthetics that shield you from it.

Sekiro overall is not hard, and only if you skip by IKing all the mobs and don't practice fighting them properly will you find bosses as being a brick wall of difficulty. For example, I did the dual ape fight on my first try going blind, and was baffled people thought it was hard, but then I realized people weren't even using the right prosthetics (firecrackers to scare it, then flamethrower to cut its stamina recovery, and shield to defend against the fear scream of the other one) so I think a lot of the "perceived" difficulty is due to people not adapting and not trying all their available tactics until they stumble on the right one but just mindlessly bashing their head into the wall until they win by sheer chance.

Ultimately, Sekiro's parry system is very generous, cause you can both cancel an attack into the parry and the parry is instantly active as soon as you press the button and it is instantly going from the parry window into a guard window with no gap at all. That means that you wanna time your parry early so that if you time it too early you still just normal block stuff. As long as you comprehend that part you shouldn't have trouble with like 90% of the game

.

I should be fairly ok then because she was the second boss for me after the horse rider. I had 11 VIT and 2 ATK. Ran out of seeds too, so that kinda sucked until I learned to just pressure the hell out of her and interrupt her air attacks.

Vaati Vidya had some tips on parrying that helped too. Basically L1 can be sort of butterfly-tapped or fluttered during unpredictable attacks and you can still parry fairly well, although the posture damage bonus is lessened.

Yeah you're good, I made the error (or chest-hair-growing) decision to fight her before the horse guy which made him look like a chump and also made me learn how to play sekiro really fast. I fought her literally during the very first time you reach the estate, I never even went out of that place cause I was super into it and wanted to see what else was waiting for me lol.

And yeah you can doubletap (we call that plinking in fighting games) but the bigger thing is canceling your attack into a guard because you bait them to parry and give you an opening. It's very useful vs the sorts of enemies that parry you and do not just super armor through your hits.

 

[Dalisclock]

I've beaten three of these games so far(though not every boss because some of them can clearly fuck off) so I guess I've been doing SOMETHING right though I don't consider myself terribly good and I'm not that lucky to just bumble through it. Like some of you guys, I never managed to get good at parrying in the other games, though got somewhat decent at timing my shots in BB for a Visceral because I had to.

Strangely I went back and took another stab at granny(Phrasing? Is that Phrasing? Are we still doing Phrasing?). I guess I just hadn't been pressing the attack enough or something because this time I got her in one try. Appreciate the help. Maybe stepping back was the right thing to do. I knew about spamming L1(The Parry Dance) and apparently just needed to get the timing down.

Maybe I was just too embarrassed by getting repeatedly owned by a 90 year old grandma to fight the right way. Or maybe it was her fucking ghosts and butterflies that did it. Anyway, time to move on to Genichiro, who apparently is an exam boss. I tried him once and he was a bit of a challenge. The "Shoot an arrow" when you try to heal was a nice trick for sure.

if you think a game is hard then git gud or keep failing until you do.

There's a message on the ground. It says "Try Jumping".

I found Amelia and ROM to be just as you described though. The chalice Ebriettas would be my bane in Bloodborne. Runner up would probably be the hellfire cleric beast in NG+ (or was it in Old Hunters, which I did in NG+ like a masochist), ironically in Amelia?s arena.

Yeah, I fucking hated Laurence in the Old Hunter Cathedral/Amelia's room. He felt like just a giant firey damage sponge with no real way to do any decent damage(since fire doesn't work on a fire beast). Ludwig was much more interesting. Hell, Maria, despite being hard as fuck, was quite fun even when she was murdering me all the time.

 

[Ravinoff]

Yeah, I've experienced that more than a few times. Queelag absolutely stomped my ass in DS1, though I rarely if ever hear anyone mention her over say, Fume Knight or Ornstein & Smough (both of whom were fucking brutal fights, admittedly).

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

The bosses/mini-bosses in Sekiro force you to play properly (assuming you're not using prosthetic tools) so, yeah, you won't beat Lady Butterfly until you get the parrying / posture systems down. The normal enemies don't fight you in a manner to actually "git gud" so fighting them tons doesn't help you much. And the Spear guy is to make you get good at the Mikiri Counter. And like every boss/mini-boss, you have to get down all of their attack animations.

 

[CaitSeith]

if you think a game is hard then git gud or keep failing until you do.

That would be a very signature-worthy statement, if we still had signatures here.

We used to have mottos at the profile pages tho.

OT: Even after getting the Platinum Trophy in Bloodborne, I still can't win against the Abhorrent Beast in a fair fight.

 

[WhiteFangofWhoa]

Playing through Dark Souls 2 and 3 has taught me that I am absolutely terrible at Souls games... Which makes it all the more mystifying when I was actually able to bring down Champion Gundyr, one of the bosses whose reputation preceded him, on the very first try. Conversely, everyone said the Deacons of the Deep were easy, yet killing the leader in time to stop the unavoidable area curse, even with a ring to resist it, demands risky charges into the bulk of the infinite swarm that got me gang-raped/gang fireblasted several times even with a wide-sweeping weapon. My all-time nightmare is the Pursuer though. It's always difficult when a boss attacks so quickly and relentlessly that you can't heal, and unlike Pontiff Sulyvahn or Gundyr there's no room to escape.

Not just limited to Souls games either- I'm much more proficient at the SMT series yet some of its most legendary bosses like Trumpeter or Mot will occasionally mess up around me.

 

[BrawlMan]

Dark Souls was never my jam. I get the appeal, but none of it works for me.

Devil May Cry 1 - A game that can be difficult for newcomers, but for seasoned veterans, the game is practically a cakewalk unless you're playing certain section on Dante Must Die. Nelo Angelo was known for being a game stopper. He's difficult the first time though. And then you learn on NG+ that Irit's charge combos can parry and stun Nelo Angelo. Or that you can slash cancel Alstar's 1-2-3 slash combo leaving him in a stun loop. Ya still gotta respect such as awesome boss.

I never found Carnival Night Zone difficult. I did not even know about the infamous "barrel" section until about 2003. I have never once gotten stuck on CNZ.

Ninja Gaiden II (360) is not a difficult game. It's a game made of tedium, frustration, and a unfinished title rushed for release. I've beaten once and almost have no fore thought to play it on the higher difficulties.

Streets of Rage 3 was ball busting hard for no reason, while the Japanese version was too easy, even on Very Hard mode. The Japanese version I still prefer. The same applies to Contra Hard Corps. Once you know about how CHC JP let's you take three hits before dying, it's almost impossible to go back to the US version. Not with out the 30 lives code anyway.

 

[Nuuu]

I beat Sekiro recently as well. Was a lot of fun, but I felt that overall the game wasn't too difficult. Most bosses only took 2-4 attempts, though Lady Butterfly being my first boss took a good 20 to beat. Even kept the Bell Demon debuff on for most of the game until the final boss; being posture broken after every combo was overkill.

Maybe it was because I'm used to games like this, some of my favorites being Metal Gear Rising and Furi, and I picked up the game's mechanics fairly quickly. The game was super fun, but difficulty really was all over the place.

MGR has a weird thing where if you're trying to do No-hit runs for high rankings, its second-highest difficulty is actually harder than it's hardest difficulty, which gives you massive damage boost to perfect parries at the cost of smaller parry windows and harder hitting enemies.
These two difficulties have the exact same enemy placements and boss changes, but only on the hardest difficulty can you do so much damage with a parry that you can skip entire boss phases. It's just strange.

 

[Dalisclock]

My all-time nightmare is the Pursuer though. It's always difficult when a boss attacks so quickly and relentlessly that you can't heal, and unlike Pontiff Sulyvahn or Gundyr there's no room to escape.

Don't forget he can miss you and somehow teleport you onto his sword for an impale because bosses have the advantage of janky hitboxes but you don't because fuck you.

At least he's optional unless you want to use that backdoor to the Lost Bastille. I actually killed that bastard a couple times in the other places he appears out of nowhere along the way. I was disappointed to find out you don't really get anything out of it though.

The bosses/mini-bosses in Sekiro force you to play properly (assuming you're not using prosthetic tools) so, yeah, you won't beat Lady Butterfly until you get the parrying / posture systems down. The normal enemies don't fight you in a manner to actually "git gud" so fighting them tons doesn't help you much. And the Spear guy is to make you get good at the Mikiri Counter. And like every boss/mini-boss, you have to get down all of their attack animations.

Yeah, I haven't had much trouble with the normal mooks for the most part, even when I am fighting them.

I like the undead guy at the temple who will help train you but I kinda wish you could get him to ratchet up his game a bit as time goes on, or even better, if there were a way to get him to emulate a certain boss you'd already beaten to get some more practice. Then again, I guess he's really there to just help you ease into the fighting mechanics since it feels like you get a LOT more leeway from fighting him then any of the real enemies.

 

[Trunkage]

I remember Nameless King being called a hard boss. I finished it in my second go.

The Dancer though.... I have never beaten her solo. Without summons, I would have been stuck there