Got to sacrament, went leveling and then shortly thereafter just decided to put the game down. Pretty disappointed with the early game to say the least and don’t recall feeling this way starting the game on launch.
Tried the gauntlets the smith has a available. Single combat is as trivial as Sekiro where your rinse and repeat the same combo. Only difference is it’s parry into focus skill in Wicked as opposed to parry into finisher.
Multiple enemy encounters play like a circus act running around waiting for an opening. You’ll get the opening strike on an enemy and it means nothing as they attack through it. And given the only way to gather any focus early game is to parry, this is made quite bothersome as you’re positioning against 3 enemies. Now I’m not saying the multiple enemy encounters should be little more than you getting an opening strike and then just chain autoing an enemy to death, hardly. But I also don’t think players should be getting attacked for 30 damage in a recovery animation for an opening attack… It forces a pretty boring combat flow in which you jump in, attack, and dodge out. You’d love to parry their retaliation but this is a multi-enemy encounter and chances are one of them has a crossbow and is in the process of shooting you in the back, or chucking a fire bomb, take you pick. Jumping in, attacking for 9 damage on an auto attack and jumping out, repeat the cycle and you have 3 brain dead mobs auto walking at you while you wait for another opening.
To be clear I’m not saying the game is too punishing or hard. I’m sayin the combat flow just feels bad.
Oh.. and the bare fist have a better sprinting attack than the starting fist weapon…
Oh.. and the standing attack for fist weapon is a right hook? I guess I can’t suggest the devs go get in some bar fights for practice so I’ll recommend muay thai videos if you wanna get the animations right. That style I think would fit the game well.
Which is to say sadly the games combat just feels like top down dark souls at the moment. Does access to additional runes and gear mitigate this feeling as you progress. Surely; however I don’t think a great game should play as poorly as it does not until some invisible line is crossed. Gameplay should be consistent.
Upon first entering Sacrament I believe the items available from shopkeepers should reflect what the smith has available for sale in the keep upon rescuing them. Nothing says, we forgot about this... like buying your first weapon from the smith after punching his way to freedom because you've yet to get a drop only for it no longer to be available directly for purchase upon progressing in the game.
Starting weapons, starting pokemon, etc… if we’re progressing we shouldn’t lose access to an entry level item upon reaching the games first town.
There is… a new vendor.
Part of why the game feels just like something we’ve already played is that there is no true combat nuance. Something I’ve dwelled on previously but found other ways to enjoy the game are the lack of depth in mechanics. Parry any attack outside of a slam, sure. Neutral spacing, sure. Picking the right attack type… well that depends on the weapon you’ve selected.
Enemies have much more variation in armor and therefore poise it feels like now. Which is to say maybe poise just actually matters now. An attack that would stop an enemy in light armor a heavy armored enemy can attack through, ok cool. But the changes to the “backstab” hitbox make punishing heavy enemies limited. So… you’re back to just parrying everything. Meanwhile they’re swinging a 2H axe with the agility of a tooth pick.
I believe it would go a long way to have deeper mechanics tied to enemy types and their animations. Otherwise I believe we’ll just end up at darksouls with 4 weapon arts in an isometric setting in terms of combat.
Personally I think parry should be nerfed to be more intuitive as to what the player can and can’t counter (BUT have something take it’s place).Therefore it’s not the end all be all rinse and repeat combat in every engagement. Should every enemy have a parry-able attack, absolutely, it’s a key way to maintain/gain focus in an encounter. However I think it would go a long way to have larger openings depending on the enemies attack that the play can punish in other ways.
For example, why can’t I get bonus poise damage for attacking a flank, and double bonus points for attacking a flank mid attack animation?
The new camera angle doesn’t feel good. Please give us a way to change ourselves, not all of us want Wicked as directed by Hollywood, and would rather focus on the games combat and story.
Also, When a large enemy gets between me and the camera it’s a shit show. Before we had a better angle to our character and now it just feels awful.
Doubly so when enemies are using sweeping attacks and our angle of attack to gauge the hit box feels like shit.
I’ve only been playing fist weapons this patch, can’t speak to if this issue persists with other weapons but it seems the after cast on spirit burst doesn’t match the idle animation of the player.
My character does not respond to inputs while in idle animation after using spirit burst until a significant delay.