Been ambling around in this and now the door that leads to where the flaming bull was is closed again, can't get through.

Bah, I've found a while new area around there that I had missed previously anyway.

revelthedog wrote:

It's interesting to hear a lot of people persevering with this only because it's a From game, currently sounds to me like there are some issues regarding difficulty over the normal skill based learning that's a staple from Fromsoft.
I've heard a few folks just give up because their simply not feeling their able to learn to moves to beat a boss.

It makes the same mistake that ninja gaiden 1 (boss in the dojo), the not produced by rocksteady batman game did (deathstroke fight), nioh (boss in the boat) and other games I forget did. That is a very difficult boss fight early on in the game that turns alot of gamers. If you want to appeal to a wide an audience as possible and therefore make as much money from the game as possible then sorting out of the difficulty curve or having difficulty options is something that should be looked at.

It's an enjoyable game, no harder than any soul's or bloodborne / nioh game. As someone earlier in this thread said you either gel with the combat mechanics or learn to get by. I'm in the latter camp, making progress but backstabs and rushing an enemy and going postal on them is my defacto playstyle. The whole defend and parry mechanic is only used if I really really have to. Otherwise I'm treating it as any other FromSoftware game of the same ilk.

So finished then, phew!!

Though it pains me to do so, I'd have to agree with yon Tempy: embracing the singular combat mechanics is key to good times/success. 

Also, no harder than the other From games if you go with its flow, imo.

It’s great your making progress, I just don’t understand why you’re not engaging with the fundamentals of the game.

Tempy wrote:

It’s great your making progress, I just don’t understand why you’re not engaging with the fundamentals of the game.

Because the game was programmed to allow me to play in this way. I'm poisoning more difficult enemies and legging it and allowing them to die slowly. The game let's me do that. It lso let's me charge in and hammer the attack button and against some enemies that's enough to get the red spot and they die. Also the whirlwind attack works really well against many enemies and bosses both mini and main. This was programmed in and I'm just exploiting it. I'm enjoying it alot more than my first initial hours.

There are enemies where block and parry will have to be used i.e. GA boss. But theres an exploit (skill) that allows you to hammer him down with one move constantly for all three stages of his fight. Watched someone do it in YouTube. So when I get enough skill points to get said skill. I'll then go back to GA and hammer that one attack over and over and over till hes dead. Makes me happy when I play and that's the reason we play right? For enjoyment.

Why’s that though? Surely you can play the game how you want to play it ?

I’m 48 and have the reflexes of a sloth. I’m enjoying the game a lot but know I’m going to hit a brick wall soon. really pissed me off as I thought I’d done him
I can see me using an exploit if I’m completely stuck , but as there’s no co op I’ll probably quit. As I’m not good enough to git gud.

Kernowgaz wrote:

Why’s that though? Surely you can play the game how you want to play it ?

This.

Tempy@ I am enjoying it. I burnt a ninja mini boss to death using nothing but burn prosthetic that was alot of fun. As was watching another mini boss die of poisoning while I ate a bowl of cereal watching from afar. I hammered the same move repeatedly on the boss before GA and he died. I'm good with that. It a sandbox which gives you tools and I'm just utilising different tools.

Yeah it’s nothing about the “spirit of the game” or that whole “you cheated yourself” thing, I just don’t personally understand where the enjoyment is coming from in the stuff Dino explained he did.

Tempy wrote:

Yeah it’s nothing about the “spirit of the game” or that whole “you cheated yourself” thing, I just don’t personally understand where the enjoyment is coming from in the stuff Dino explained he did.

I think because there's a hell of a lot of other stuff to like about the game. The face to face combat is only one part of it, and if people are struggling with it they can still get plenty from the other parts.

You could even make the wanky argument that the rhythm of the game mirrors the rhythm of combat.

I wouldn’t, obviously...

I’ve not said people are doing it wrong. Don’t be disingenuous.

Tempy wrote:

Yeah it’s nothing about the “spirit of the game” or that whole “you cheated yourself” thing, I just don’t personally understand where the enjoyment is coming from in the stuff Dino explained he did.

What's the point in trying to have a conversation about this stuff, couching my points in caveats and personal observations if you're just gonna wade in with that? Might as well just follow the time honoured B&B tradition of calling people names if the effort to have a constructive dialogue just gets ignore like that.

My general thoughts on this are that gaming is a broad church, and there are a lot of ways to approach it. What I don't personally get, is the decision to approach a game in a way that is contrary to how it is designed. It is entiely possible to bust every game out there with some glitch, strategy or external modifier that isn't anticipated by the developer.

I don't begrudge anyone doing that at all. I just don't personally see, via my own personal experience with exploits, cheats and walkthroughs, where the enjoyment or reward comes from. It's not about chastising people for doing it wrong, it's just about wondering where the enjoyment comes from. All game systems are arbitrary, tabletop wargaming and P&P rpgs, soemthing I play a bunch of, are even more so as there is nothing really enforcing you to play by the rules. But in the theory of play, accepting a contract or rules and restrictions is why you play, it's where the enjoyment is supposed to come from. I see playing a game like this as entering a contract or a relationship with the developers, and I don't get the impetus to step outside of that.

It's not about telling people off or chastising them, I just don't get the root enjoyment people are getting out of stepping into said contract, only to choose not to engage with it. 

There's perhaps an interesting coversation to be had here but it isn't going to come from misatributing positions, or taking my personal opinion of this as a slight on your abilities or whatever. Dino has said he found it fun to spam a move on a boss, and watch another enemy die over half an hour whilst he ate cereal. I don't think there's anything rong with asking why he derived enjoyment from that, and why this is the game he's chosen to play if he's going to come at it from a way that wasn't anticipated.

I can see that, though three of those quotes are coming from a totally different conversation to this one which isn't helpful either, IMO.

The're about why people might be struggling with the game if they're trying to play it like previous Souls titles, where dodging instead of parrying (the first two quotes) was the way to go.

The third - "there's no path to carve" - was simply related to the fact that this is the first From game where you have no character build choice - you cut off the bit about the fact you are playing as Wolf, which you are, and is important to the game, IMO.

Finally I don't think it's wrong to say that parrying is a fundamental of the game, given well, it is. It's the underlying concept of the combat system to the point it has its own dedicated UI element, tutorials, itnerviews where the designers talk about "swords clashing" as a concept the game was pinned upon.

acemuzzy wrote:

Hopefully the second bit of what I wrote was more useful, in terms of helping explain what others might find enjoyable?

It still doesn't particularly answer what I wrote in my longer post. There are games that offer those things better, which reimnds me of a quote from a Matthewmatosis review of Furi. Furi doesn't do rhythm combat, twins tick shooter, or bullet hell gameplay better than any of the exemplars in its field. If you wanted to engage with and enjoy either of those elements fully, you'd hunt out an exemplar title. You play Furi because of what it does present, which is a synthesis of all three, and a constant range of variety, which is something it does that none of the other titles do.

I personally think Sekiro hits quite low on the enjoyment factor of the things you've mentioned, and also I don't see the fun in gaming a game, but that's just me.