Does this game suck?

Wicked General
21

I don’t know how to say this is mainly to add context, but I don’t know how to help you. You gave me 2 main questions:

  1. how does focus even work? Have you not noticed how the focus bar goes up when you attack/parry & goes away when you use runes?

  2. “how do I upgrade gear?” The blacksmith???

Like both questions you presented to me I can’t answer in regards to “how to make Wicked easier” both questions presented were tutorial pop-ups or the general basis of how action-RPGs work, how gaming in general works.

This thread reminds me of a post long ago of a guy in a similar situation where he thought the game was extremely hard & the healing system sucked. He became extremely argumentative the entire time for 50+ replies until someone asked him and we found out that the ****** didn’t know he could cook food. He had been healing himself with just mushrooms(which slowly regen health) for 10 hours in the first area of the game. Suddenly the game clicked, he beat the game 30 hours later, loved it. My point here is in regards to those 2 questions you gave me I didn’t consider them a point that needed to be address.

22

i removed your insult. even if it wasn’t meant as one please do not be “that guy” :slight_smile:

23

If you’ve beaten Sekiro then you can beat this game hands down. My main points still stand(gear upgrades) are what you’re lacking the most rn. This is gonna be a big one this game isn’t a soulslike and yes it is easy once you read all the info here. Consider this game a survival ARPG.

The survival aspect comes from the multitude of recipes/blueprints you can craft where all ingredients must be scavenged. You can buy recipes with really strong buffs eventually from Gordon Ramsay once you rescue him(sidequest) that give you 50% more max stamina/health/focus/attack power for 10 minutes. Each vendor also has recipes/blueprint per tier you upgrade them.

You also have to buy/unlock crafting or refining stations to make the stuff you want. When you upgrade the city you get QOL stuff but you also upgrade the vendors which gets them these crafting/refining stations. The first city upgrade per vendor unlocks a station, every upgrade after makes the station better at what it does. You can turn ore into ingots, plain logs to planks of wood, raw hide into leather, etc. You can buy a house and put crafting stations inside of it, chests for storage, decorations.

You need to have armor/weapon shards + refined ingredients to upgrade shit. The blacksmith for metal gear, the twin madams for leather & cloth gear. This fucking matters because one tier of upgrades can potentially double your armor rating or your weapons damage stat, no I’m not kidding. ARPGs are more gear-focused than soulslikes are.

The ARPG part is unique to this genre and isn’t present in soulslike. All gear can be enchanted at Eleanor(a vendor, pull up your map) which is an RNG roll(yes it’s RNG, no it’s not dumb, get used to it) of affixes, permanently embedded set of effects on gear that affect your moment-to-moment gameplay. These effects can be as basic as adds fire damage scaled off physical stat or as complex as every 5 hits the wrath of lightning can descend upon your foes shit like that. These affixes can also be negative which is purple/cursed gear but that doesn’t mean it’s bad, just something you have to play/build around. Blue enchanted gear is all positive affixes no negatives at all.

You can enchant at Eleanor and you’ll find a lot of affixes are focus-related. Focus goes up every time you do a good thing basically(parry/attack) with affixes existing that make it easier to get focus. There will also be affixes though that get rid of focus decide if you like them or not. Regardless focus only goes away if you: die, have a negative affix, or use a rune(special attacks inherent to every weapon, but are also removable and swappable between weapons). REMOVING A RUNE FROM A WEAPON DESTROYS IT YOU HEAR ME???).

That is literally everything I can think of on my fucking day off. If you still think this game is harder than all the mainstream soulslikes including the original tried & clunky true DS1, I have literally nothing to say. I cannot fathom that you’re experienced enough to beat DS1 but not this, I literally can’t.

24

uh ok…better to do your own thing, stay ignorant and come and complain on the forum or on Twitter about anything stupid…

25

Good advise and thank you.

Big halberd guy died 3 times last night.

I’m using a 1-h with shield and trying to parry, which is what is leading to the main frustration. (It just doesn’t seem to work very well.) On the smaller guys, I stand back, learn their patterns, and then engage. The dude with the spear can be frustrating as the parry windows is so small and if he’s too close, you’ll get hit.

I really feel like they need to take a page out of BoTW for how to do parrying. It’s fast, responsive, and makes you feel like a bad ass when you do it. This,not so much.

Someone said the best thing to do at this stage of the game is to start a new realm with your character and farm the hell out of things and get better at combat that way.

Thoughts?

26

What insult?

I know you think you’re trying to be helpful, but I’m clearly frustrated by the difficulty level and your comment was inappropriate.

Telling someone the game isn’t difficult, when it clearly is (and is intended to be) is rude. It’s like telling someone to calm down when they are stressed out. It doesn’t work and it’s not helpful. It’s rude and condescending.

If you want to be helpful , post guides, gives tips, and be curious.

27

BOTW parrying is easy AF though and quite literally a kids game that doesn’t need to worry about coop. I will say what I always say, everyone complains about parries in soulslike until they learn to do it, then suddenly it’s the greatest tool ever. Happened with DS1, Bloodborne, it’ll happen here too

28

The game should not require you to go watch videos of someone else cheesing the game with a broken build in order to play it. There are multiple points in the early game when things are unnecessarily hard. Part of that is the parry system that they want to use, part of that are bugs (that is to be expected), another part is the durability system which forces you to farm for resources. And throw away gear because you can’t afford the cost of repairing.

I suck at this game and I’d like to get better. I should not be punished for that in the beginning the game. Move the durability system to a hard mode if you want to keep it. It’s better to have the game be more accessible and have more people play it for finding bugs and helping balance out the game, then to follow your vision and fail.

I’m not alone in complaining about the game. As an older and moderately poor video game player, who wants to “get good” because I know the potential of the game, it’s leading to a bad experience.

29

Do you know why it’s easy af, because parrying in botw is responsive and it works.

The vast majority of people who learn how to parry in souls game spends an absurd amount of time learning to do it.

It’s unnecessary.

Botw is one of the greatest games ever made and games like No Rest are stealing ideas from it. It may be easy for you, but it’s not a kids game. It’s inviting, relaxing, with a good challenge curve. Once you figure it out, you feel like a badass.

30

It’s not “unnecessary” it is an intentional game design decision by developers. Stop saying it’s bad it’s not, it’s an orange you’re looking for an apple. I don’t like how argumentative you are with points like this just because the game doesn’t bow to your specific wants. Durability has existed in games for forever now, it’s literally in BOTW the game you are rightfully calling a masterpiece. You’re looking to twist the gamedev’s vision into what you want instead of seeing the fun that can be there.

One last edit sorry, the main reason I disagree so much with what you’re saying is you’re trying to exclude game design philosophies. You’re saying I like this, this, and this, therefore only they should exist. You’re narrowing the scope of what games can do and make you feel, I utterly despise that type of creative thinking.

31

Your talking about a game made by the studio who made Ori. It’s one of the best games ever made. The design, the music, the gameplay, etc… they need more of that, not catering to the very small percentage of people who enjoy this sort of torture.

No haven’t beat DS1 and I’m not going to…it’s too hard and I have better things to do in my life than to bang my head against the wall for a little dopamine rush.

I appreciate the tips, but even the wiki doesn’t give you adequate instructions on how to play the game. Example, I see people strafing, but no idea how to do it. Feel free to post any good sites, as the forum doesnt seem to have a newbies guide to the game pinned.

I think it would be helpful to mitigate the challenge at the beginning a little more, fix (or remove) the parrying system, and punt the durability on weapon usage and the penalties on death until they can figure out how to do it better. There are no warnings on jumps that take off half of your life (or flat out kill you) and then you have to wander around looking for resources to heal, or just die and start over again, because you can’t go into combat with half health .

Enjoy your day off!

Cheers

32

It’s not bad, it’s awful! It’s not an orange or apple, it’s a fact that it’s broken and not working as intended. Don’t believe me, I watch people play on YouTube they are zipping around dodging or getting hit. (Ie, not using it) Hell, even the parrying videos on how to do it, they get smacked.

Other people have commented on it in this very thread, so I know I’m not alone here.

33

Every person you find complaining about it, I can find another who uses it. I don’t get this point, every person I find who complains about “x” thing in the world I can find another who likes “x” thing. You also say “small percentage of people who enjoy this sort of torture”… Elden Ring sold 25 million copies, Dark Souls 1 literally created its own subgenre. Again I want to reiterate here, I BELIEVE YOU CAN DO THIS, I BELIEVE YOU CAN BEAT IT but if you don’t like the game, then, you don’t like the game my problem is you are attacking the game and now the studio too. You are telling them to narrow their vision & to … IDK stick to ori, like IDK what you’re trying to say here?

Are you saying that just because a gamedev studio made one genre/vibe of game they can’t make another? With your own analogy, Nintendo made Wind Waker(bright cheerful game), are they not allowed to make something like Metroid then(dark, atmospheric, lots of death). That is again something I will never agree with.

34

This would be true if I was alone. Go watch video reviews of people who enjoy “souls” game and they have spent 20 minutes talking about how much they love the game (myself included) and another 30 minutes talking about the bad stuff.

Thumbs up on you being good at these types of games. YOU are the minority. The rest of us, especially older people have to practice and get better at the game. That’s fine, I’ll put my time in, but you should still find a balance in the early game to make it fun,. The farming, durability, targeting system, shared resources, difficult enemy jumps that seem to scale with the progression of the game more than the level you are at, random poor controller mechanics, and a number of things that are and issue need to be addressed to be able to make the game better.

Asking these questions and complaining about this sparks conversation and conversation allows for changes to make the game better.

So as much as these conversations and my perspective drives you nuts, it’s a necessary evil.

If you want to help, put together tips and tricks from.newbs such as myself. Or don’t, go enjoy your day off.

35

Elden ring knew it’s audience and was so successful because they catered to a new set of gamers and made a souls game more accessible with functions, minimized punishments, a adding in general gameplay that rivals most anything that has been produced in modern gaming history. It’s a great game and I’m finishing up the dlc content now.

Moon studios needs to learn from this success.

Also, the durability system in BoTW is a necessary evil because it forces you to try new weapons and to change you fighting strategy. Not such much in this game.

Also, don’t put words in my mouth. At no point did I attack the studio. I play this game for 2-3 a night . I’m awful at it, but I’m getting better. My opinions are backed by other people, which means my criticism is not alone. There is nothing wrong with asking questions and having a healthy conversation about whether or not this game sucks.

In it’s current iteration, it could be better. Does it suck, I don’t think i would spend this much time on something if it sucked. It’s just not where I think it should be…

36

It’s less about making the game easier, it’s more about making it less harsh and more fun. You want to have hard content, cool, make it challenging, but don’t punish me for trying to get better at the game.

Make sense?

37

Nice!

I have my own thoughts on parry and for me it depends on the situation. Against bosses like Warrick, parrying can trivialize most of the encounter. But, vs mobs it is almost useless as it is better to override their actions with your own. Bothering to get the timing right on the parry isnt worth it when you can swing your sword once and kill them. Too much opportunity cost for me.

Made a post about a different take on parrying if you wanna give it a read, @Chemile0n also already linked it: Suggestion: More dynamic parrying through different parry types

It can work for practicing bosses etc. But, I do think it is a bandaid solution, right. Since you are farming XP against weaker enemies and practice combat to be stronger against lvl appropriate enemies. If you then defeat those the exact same will happen again. You don’t get better but your character is higher level and stronger, if that makes sense.

Getting better at combat is also knowing what to parry, dodge, move away from or just ignore and attack. Also ensuring to weave runes into your attacks is a solid plan. Especially, if you want to do a parry build, since parrying restores focus. So rune attacks are sort of your riposte. You only have to manually use it.

The reason I say this is because the crucible will also be overwhelming for the first time. You might fight 2 strong enemies with high poise defense who charge at you. Make sure to have AOE and specific runes to deal with them. The throw rune, insanely powerful, highly recommended on any melee weapon.

38

[quote=“RomoloHero, post:37, topic:13578”]
I have my own thoughts on parry and for me it depends on the situation. Against bosses like Warrick, parrying can trivialize most of the encounter. [/quote]

That’s how I took him down as well. I killed him after a few attempts and after standing back and watching his move sets, I was able to get the timing figured out.

Right…so, why have it in the game if it’s not going to work? They could expand the margin of error and make it work AND you’d have fun and feel like a bad ass. It’s better than ignoring a core feature because the designers made it too hard to consistently pull it off.

39

I’m not there yet and at this rate, I may never be.

As for starting the realm over, it allows you to farm the mats to upgrade without constantly dying, which leads to this endless cycle of resource management that is NOT fun!

40

The resource management is why I mentioned this is a survival ARPG. they are not removing this aspect of the game, they have always wanted this game to be partially survival mechanics and partially combat this will stick throughout the entirety of the gameplay loop. It’s why I told you it’s not a soulslike, it truly isn’t. Fighting isn’t the only thing you have to think about.