Anarchic Fox on 7/8/2022 at 03:11
Still Dragon Quest XI for me. It was my reward to myself for a successful move, and here I am a month and half later still playing it. I very much appreciate its midgame twist, though: It's basically Final Fantasy VI all over again. The bad guy wins.
PigLick on 7/8/2022 at 09:43
that actually does look pretty cool, wishlisted!
Thirith on 7/8/2022 at 18:10
I can already say that I will suck at Sekiro. It leans into the aspects of Dark Souls and similar games that I'm worst at, while reducing or even removing the aspects that helped me get through them after all. However, I realised that one of the things that didn't help was that my Xbox One controller was not exactly a spring chicken anymore, so that e.g. LB wouldn't work as reliably as it should - which is a problem if that what you need to block and deflect. So, after I spent over an hour trying and failing to defeat the first (?) mini-boss, General Naomori Kawarada, I switched to a new controller - and while I still struggled, I did kill him in ten minutes. Here's hoping 1) that the new controller'll help in general and 2) that the game will succeed at teaching me how to play it, because if it's already this stressful to play, I don't want to know what it'll be like once I get to the actual bosses.
Aja on 7/8/2022 at 22:15
Sekiro is probably the most difficult of all the Souls games, but I found it the most rewarding. Unfortunately you have to unlearn a lot of what the Souls games teach you: parrying, which was stupidly hard in DS, is now the best and many cases only way to win (so yeah, making sure LB works properly is important ;). Focus on filling the enemies' stamina bar, not draining their health. Learn the parry timings for each enemy. And be aggressive. The usual tactic for the non-monster bosses is to attack until they deflect, then focus on deflecting their attacks until you have an opening to attack again. Also, Chained Ogre is coming up, is probably the worst boss in the game, but he's not representative of what's to come, just a bad early design decision.
I could spend hours talking about Sekiro, but I guess there's a separate forum for that.
Thirith on 16/8/2022 at 09:46
I have to say that I didn't find Chained Ogre all that bad. Whether he's representative or not of other bosses, I can't say, but he was reasonably slow and the hint to use fire was very clear. I did die to him two or three times, but after that my timing was sufficiently okay.
What I'm still finding difficult is to deflect consistently; I press LB too early much of the time. However, whenever there's a sole enemy that I reasonably toy with, I use them to practice my timing.
Anarchic Fox on 16/8/2022 at 16:04
Quote Posted by Thirith
I have to say that I didn't find Chained Ogre all that bad. Whether he's representative or not of other bosses, I can't say, but he was reasonably slow and the hint to use fire was very clear. I did die to him two or three times, but after that my timing was sufficiently okay.
What I'm still finding difficult is to deflect consistently; I press LB too early much of the time. However, whenever there's a sole enemy that I reasonably toy with, I use them to practice my timing.
I think Chained Ogre and a certain fiery one that'll show up soon are the only ones that can fought like Dark Souls bosses.
Thankfully the deathblow mechanic makes successful combat more and more rapid the more skilled you become at parrying, so that skill remains a pleasure to practice.
Angel Dust on 16/8/2022 at 22:48
Quote Posted by Thirith
I can already say that I will suck at
Sekiro. It leans into the aspects of
Dark Souls and similar games that I'm worst at, while reducing or even removing the aspects that helped me get through them after all. However, I realised that one of the things that didn't help was that my Xbox One controller was not exactly a spring chicken anymore, so that e.g. LB wouldn't work as reliably as it should - which is a problem if that what you need to block and deflect. So, after I spent over an hour trying and failing to defeat the first (?) mini-boss, General Naomori Kawarada, I switched to a new controller - and while I still struggled, I did kill him in ten minutes. Here's hoping 1) that the new controller'll help in general and 2) that the game will succeed at teaching me how to play it, because if it's already this stressful to play, I don't want to know what it'll be like once I get to the actual bosses.
I had a similar experience to you at first but eventually it clicked. It felt like I was gonna have to do all the stuff that I basically avoid in Dark Souls & co (i.e. parrying) but once I clicked that the parrying is more like a little mini-rhythm game I really started liking it. I can't parry to save myself in Souls games but it's WAY more forgiving in Sekiro (since the parry/block in pretty much instantaneous you can block when the attack will hit you rather than that odd timing in Souls where you have to take into account the wind up animation of the parry and hit parry sometime BEFORE the attack would land) and works more like a block - once you learn the moves you parry the full attack and then get tour attacks in. Aja's advice about focus more on filling their stamina bar than lowering their health is good but for bosses you still need to focus on the health initially as the amount of health a boss has often affects how fast their stamina recovers.
Hopefully you persevere as Sekiro has the best bosses gaming has to offer in opinion - tough, full or spectacle but super clear to read. The final boss is by far the best 'final exam' boss I've every fought.
Thirith on 17/8/2022 at 11:54
Oh, I'm pretty sure I'll persevere. There's more than enough that I'm enjoying about this game, so it'd really have to get to the point where I keep failing and I don't feel I'm improving in any way and moving towards beating a boss. I know I somehow managed to beat the final boss of the Bloodborne DLC without any external help, so I should be fine. It'll just take a while. :)
henke on 18/8/2022 at 08:51
I got a new computer! With an Nvidia RTX 3080! I have been going through the RTX initiation ritual of playing
Quake II RTX. It does look quite stunning in some spots.
Inline Image:
https://steamuserimages-a.akamaihd.net/ugc/1728839496026296079/49604FB7F42BB29BD48E8A5F78ACBD3ED12180E7/?imw=1024&imh=576&ima=fit&impolicy=Letterbox&imcolor=%23000000&letterbox=trueAs for the gameplay, it's in that odd post-Quake/pre-Half Life space where the genre was just starting to evolve past the most basic FPS gameplay into actually having things like objects, and story, and enemies that do more than just run straight at you*, and some kinda set-piece-y bits.
Also got back to playing
Teardown, starting over from the beginning. Game looks and runs great and the gameplay is as fun as ever.
Any other recommendations for RTX-enhanced MUST-PLAYS? Guess I should try Minecraft. Oh, and hook up the Valve Index for some HL:Alyx and MS Flight Sim.
* they also duck in place! uselessly!
