He shoots arrows, no knives, and is at the top of the castle.

@Haak - ye I am tempted by Ghostrunner, maybe later in the year!

I do think its its something that is overlooked by the industry as a whole. Millions are spent on developing a game but the completion rate is relatively low. It doesnt help that games have ballooned in size to 40-60 hour epics. However with the technology available now, why not have a feature that allows the AI to take over your character if you get stuck ala Genichiro boss fight as mentioned above and the AI complete the fight for you? That way you can move on and explore the rest of the game.

You could argue thats not how the game is meant to be played or its teaching you skills you'll need later in the game. Or just dropping a difficulty level or two would help, but boss fights are such old clique trops, that i never look forward to them in games like these. However i love the exploration in the From Software games.

Hmmmm...i think im gonna write my first letter to Edge.

Yeah, I mean I should be able to just choose to have movies cut out all the boring talking bits and get straight to all the killings.

To be fair to Dino’s point, Nintendo have implemented those very systems in previous games. If you die repeatedly in Mario, it will play or skip the level for you. It’s only because it’s being suggested in a From game that there’s backlash.

Why not let players do it, but have it so they don’t get the trophy for completion, or have some other marker for using the system?

Removing summoning from Sekiro probably makes it the least completed From game (based on nothing but a bunch).

I think it's a fair argument that difficulty modes means more people can play it but I imagine part of the reason they don't is because it reduces the amount of testing and design involved in making the game for one.

ShabbyMcCrabby wrote:

I think it's a fair argument that difficulty modes means more people can play it but I imagine part of the reason they don't is because it reduces the amount of testing and design involved in making the game for one.

I'd happily take a setting where I just have double the health to get through a boss fight for example. Or just take half the damage.

Minimal programming to put a feature like that in.

A big problem with Sekiro was the fact that you could get killed so easily then have to wait for a load and then the run back to the boss. If I had a bit more health I could practice on the boss more and get the timings down. As it stands the parry windows are so small for many people and the punishment for failure too harsh.

All I wanted with Sekiro was an option to practice the 2nd or 3rd phase of a boss fight without having to repeat the first phase every time. I'm happy to do the whole thing in one go once I've learned it properly, but until then it's so boring.

From have gone from creating varied boss fights that required a little ingenuity to figure out to these ultra-complex marathons. There's no elegance any more. And now Nioh 2 does the multi-phase thing so much better.

stonechalice wrote:

A big problem with Sekiro was the fact that you could get killed so easily then have to wait for a load and then the run back to the boss.

I don’t like that either, but From have learned lessons and Sekiro does it about a million times better than Dark Souls. That was horrendous. Sekiro often has a save spot right by the boss.

It’s definitely an interesting debate, although having played some dire games for review lately balancing is clearly really hard and something that takes a lot of time and something Sekiro was really tight on.

I can’t really contribute meaningfully because I basically love Sekiro and find it better in terms of difficulty than any other From game because it’s designed without stats and stamina in mind. Everyone has the same path and experience so they could design it around that. I have a feeling that it was originally harder, with only perfect deflects not causing chip damage, hence why Kuro’s Charm is an option right at the start. I wonder if that would have been better overall, with the damage received from attacks lowered in general to balance it out.

As for the multi stage bosses... I understand why people don’t like them, but for me they’re really the core essence of the fights in this game and I love them all. The way they turn up the pressure is brilliant, and the way they remind you that one slip up on an early stage can really cost you is class. They add such a great narrative to the fights, especially as new moves are added, existing moves are modified, or bosses become more aggressive but easier to stagger as the phases change.

The core issue with any changes to difficulty is that you take away the designers intent. There’s an uneasy tension there, and one that’s probably unique to games. I don’t know that it’s easily solved really, if a designer wants to make a stiff challenge then they have to disallow certain things. Interestingly the Gauntlets sort of solve the multi-phase issue, and make me wonder if it could be the way forward: each gauntlet has to be tackles in one sitting, so any death is failure, but the bosses can be fought repeatedly separately. This means that my current bugbear (let’s call him Skinny) is at the end of a 5 boss run. I can fight Skinny solo through a reflection of strength to learn his new moves and patterns, but to beat the gauntlet I need to do it live. Perhaps a good way to deal with phases is let you practice them at bonfires/idols, and make you do them move to progress. For what it’s worth I don’t think any of the multi phase stuff in Sekiro is as egregious as some of the stuff in Dark Souls 3.

Given that Miyazaki’s philosophy is very specifically about reward in the face of adversity, I would expect Elden Ring to be any easier than Sekiro.

Also take all my views on this game with a pinch of salt as I have 100 hours logged in it and basically
play it to zone out these days.

You could probably say the same thing for Dark Souls 3 which I feel is a tremendous slog and resting on its laurels design wise, but carried by the name.

Even Bloodborne has its issues with how aggressive it wants you to be back the flexibility of Souls.

I feel that Sekiro just isn’t really a very soulsy game. It’s what it wants to be, it has a very specific focus and thrust but was bandied together with the other games by dint of its Idols Gourd healing and such, and so people bounced off it when they realised it was doing something different. I don’t think that difference is a failing personally, and I’d rather From branches into different directions. There’s definitely some halfway housing in Sekiro, to it’s detriment, but the core combat is so different with its focus on stamina, aggression. and parrying that I don’t think it got anything wrong, but expectations of the studio weighed against it.

It worked for me cos it’s far closer to DMC and Bayonetta than Souls, the latter of which I have found to be diminishing returns. Spectacle fighters are a lot like SHMUPS in that they are hard and have a smaller audience, but the expectations are set better.

Issue with Sekiro is that there’s only one way to play it. In all other From games, you could play how you wanted. That makes it different, which should be celebrated, but equally it means it will alienate certain people who like From games for their variety of play styles.

Maybe, I can't agree with them on that because I think it executes on its premise basically perfectly. It's a game about fraught battles full of parries and tiny windows of success.

Ultimately it's just subjective innit. People want three ways to take down bosses cos Souls, I am happy with the one way because they've honed it to perfection.

O Rin is pretty one note - parry constantly, jump her red kanji slash. It's a tedious fight.

The Monk is a bit more nuanced I think, the kanji attack she has where she thrusts is your main source of damage but she sometimes mixes it up with the sweep so be careful. Firecrackers give you a could window for damage if you need it. Don't be afraid to just sprint away if you need to block to cool your stamina.

It's a psychological exercise. If you put those aids in the game people will use them the first sign of frustration. The entire point of the From games is perseverance and dedication. I know this is a bold statement but I'd rather not finish the game (because I wasn't good enough) than be tempted by gameplay aids and feel dirty then for progressing with those enabled. It's like I always say with MMOs and stuff, if you don't have the time or inclination (guess this applies to games like Destiny too) to dedicated your time and energy to the game then the people that do shouldn't suffer because of it.

What do I mean by that?

Over the years MMOs and games like that have gotten progressively easier and require less and less time to be invested in characters and learning systems and mechanics so that the 'I don't have enough time' crowd get to experience end-game content. Effectively nullifying the point of the game.

Certain games are made for certain types of players. I think it's extremely unfair on those players to suffer due to people outside of the games intended demographic getting bent out of shape. I include -as said above- myself in this. If I ain't good enough or don't have enough time then the fault lies with me. Not the game or it's player base.

If that happens, it's time to soldier on or gtfo.

I agree that some games should be a challenge. I won't be buying Sekiro because I know I won't be able to cope with the parry system - I just about managed to learn it to beat Gwyn in Dark Souls, but it's not my idea of fun.