Suggest pressing the attack button once, the character will only have one attack action!
Some weapons have too long attack actions. What I mean is that some weapons may have multiple attack actions when pressed once, causing them can not stop (especially weapons with fast attack speeds, you stop pressing the button and cannot immediately stop him. ), miss opportunities to dodge, and be attacked by enemies. It greatly affects the feeling of game attacks, making people feel like the character is out of control, especially during continuous attacks. Do you have this feeling?
We all play games at different focus levels. (Sometimes we calculate and evade attacks or take distance from the enemy 1-3 sec before the attack happens and sometimes we freakout and mash buttons because our focus level is low and we should probably have taken a break from all the screen time or eat food or drink or we should have gone to bed 2 hours ago..)
I hope they improve upon the ability to animation cancel the attack animation on all weapons in some way but its not game breaking, atleast not for me.
You can animation cancel with medium weight dodge rolls without or with slight yet noticable delay on “most” weapons.
Light weight evasions usually have a very noticeable delay(maybe shouldn’t have im no fan of the evasion animation so it doesn’t affect me much)or have the problem of not being able to animation cancel at all on many weapons.
I dont know what impact heavy rolls have on animation cancelling so im not addressing it.
To reduce input lag, you can disable features like V-Sync and image processing on your monitor, optimize your peripheral settings, and ensure your hardware and software are configured to minimize delays.
Theres probably a few other tricks aswell but those are the most basic ones.
Im only saying this because its better to have alternatives to a potential fix in the meantime while we wait for further improvements from developers.
In my opinion, a good part of the problem is that there are some movesets that have not been thought out well, (especially some wands) moovest a little too extravagant are a little too common, for now all you can do is avoid these weapons.
I think it’s fair to say “it is making people” this is a common problem, when an animation seems to be broken in two you expect to be able to interrupt it or that there should be 2 inputs, this is because the double attack is not read as a single attack but two. The way to avoid this problem is to make the animation of the double attack more fluid and less broken in two (as Fromsoftware did with the “Milady”).
Essentially attacks that need to appear as if they are uninterruptible, as if the character himself cannot stop it and must continue the movement of the weapon in order not to fall/leave himself exposed due to the momentum.
I’ve been bringing this up for some time now. I just think the game lacks a mechanic that forcibly interrupts actions (which would allow players to dodge enemy attacks by using directional keys to move or roll). Some might argue that this would lower the game’s difficulty, but I don’t see it as a major issue—after all, those large enemies and bosses already have area-of-effect attacks. If you truly feel the difficulty is too low, developers could simply buff the enemies and that would suffice. There’s no need to make the player’s character stubbornly stick to finishing their attack animation when on the verge of being hit, causing the player to feel out of control. Because this isn’t the genuine and rational response humans would have in real life.Maybe some might argue, “It’s a Souls-like game; it doesn’t have this mechanic anyway.” That’s a matter of perspective. But I believe every game should have its own unique identity. If they all just copy and paste, it’d be better to just play Miyazaki’s games instead. The purpose of the game is entertainment.
It’s called “Animation committed combat”, and even if the souls are the ones who did it best/perfected it they are not the ones who invented it.
Every game that has implemented it has done so to ensure that there is a consequence for taking an action at the wrong time.
Enemies are specifically designed to be tackled by players who have these limitations, and offer openings that the player must use to perform his actions without being hit back.
Let’s say we implement animation canceling in its most extreme form (which is what you proposed if I understood correctly) and any action can be interrupted by a dodge, now you have created a game where you can press the attack button without any criteria and as long as you dodge at the right time you win.
This significantly reduces the difficulty of the game even outside of enemy damage and health, as the player simply has one less factor to think about.
Games that implement such a mechanic are either simpler or become very chaotic very quickly (for example many bullet hell games have animation canceling).
I’m pretty sure that the majority of NRFTW players don’t want it to become a chaotic game like Bullet Hell, neither a simpler game.
Even if the fundamental elements are the same the comat feel is different, there are unique things in the game, and the game already has its own distinct identity when it comes to combat.
That said a less extreme form of animation canceling, It could also be implemented if done carefully, but I don’t think it’s needed, rather, there is a need for them to be more methodical in the creation of weapons movesets.
Dodging damage is also a test of reaction skills, just like parrying—you must seize the right moment. You yourself have said, “you dodge at the right time,” right? That so-called “right time” is precisely a factor we need to consider. Moreover, some enemies employ area attacks, it’s not as simple as just wanting to get close or strike.
Additionally, some weapons have overly redundant attack animations: spinning, leaping up, yet only resulting in a single attack (with lots of frames of animation), which is less straightforward than a single slash (requiring fewer frames). If developers can limit each attack to a specific frame range and set the number of frames for each attack animation based on the rhythm and frequency of natural human button-pressing habits, we wouldn’t even need to enforce mandatory dodging. In that case, we wouldn’t feel like we’re losing control of the character—for example, pressing the attack button once would make the character strike once, and if we don’t press it, he stops. The number of animation frames for each attack action varies (some are too long or too short), which disrupts the rhythm of button presses. Perhaps this is the reason I feel a loss of control.
I’m sorry, but I can’t provide the names and types of weapons. When I first started playing this game, I found the character controls were unresponsive (they didn’t suit my operation rhythm), so I switched to playing as a mage, focusing primarily on rune attacks. As for games with excellent attack frame control, they are likely fighting games like The King of Fighters series, but after all, this isn’t the same genre. However, when I played Elden Ring, I’ve never felt the issue of unresponsive controls to be this severe.
While writing this response, I thought of another factor: the game’s input command system. Humans generally press buttons 2–4 times per second (my perception), and the developers might not have well accounted for this rhythm. Let me use an example: suppose a weapon’s attack combo consists of 4 moves. If we press the attack button 4 times within a second, the character might still be in the middle of executing the third move at that point. Assuming the combo isn’t complete, we would continue pressing the attack button. The system would record these inputs, and when we see the attack animation reaching the fourth move (the final one), we would release the button, hoping the character will stop. Yet the system would execute the extra button presses we made earlier, causing the character to continue attacking—this is another reason why it feels like the character is out of control. This is something technical, and I’m not sure if I’m right.
I’m not questioning that dodging at the right moment is an expression of skill.
I’m saying that if attack animations can be canceled at any time, then you don’t have to think about when to attack, and so you can spam the button and if it goes badly, then you dodge and cancel the attack.
The problem is that you have one less thing to think about, which makes everything less complex & interesting.
There are nice & fun games where you can cancel any attack like Enter the Gungeon, but the fact is that these games were designed with this mechanic in mind from the beginning, making all the attack animations concenllable in NRFTW would only result in an impoverishment of the gameplay.
I agree, in fact only a few weapons appeal to me, and I noticed that some weapons seem almost unusable, unfortunately I don’t remember which ones.
Hello, I understand what you mean—you’re saying we don’t need to get hung up on whether the attack timing is precise; as long as we dodge within the correct time, we’ll enter an invincible state. Make the game simple and uninteresting.
I believe that regardless of whether we have a forced dodge, we still need to consider the appropriate time to attack. Could we just charge in and attack directly while the enemy is striking us just because we have a forced dodge? If that were the case, such skill wouldn’t be something everyone could master. Typically, we attack by exploiting the gaps in the enemy’s own attacks. In fact, both scenarios—attacking with or without a forced dodge—are based on the enemy’s current state.
Additionally, this game has a weight system that categorizes equipment into light, medium, and heavy—the light-type units dodge the fastest. However, most of our equipment isn’t light-weight. Medium and heavy-type units evade attacks by tumbling, but these tumbles only grant a few frames of invincibility. Thus, tumbling isn’t all-powerful or invincible; it’s just that characters with a forced dodge are relatively more agile than those without.
If we’re talking about true invincibility, only “parrying” qualifies. When executed with perfect timing, a parry not only leaves you unharmed but also stuns the enemy. So has the game become boring and uninteresting?
In my view, the core issue ultimately lies with the weapon attack animations—they don’t align with the button input rhythm, or perhaps I’m just not used to their timing. That’s why I’ve brought it up for everyone to discuss.
I’ve played games where attacks are 100% cancelled if you dodge at any point in the game.
Yes, I assure you, you can simply spam the attack button when you’re in range of an enemy and when the enemy attacks, you dodge. This makes attacking an automatic action.
Of course, it doesn’t make the game super easy, you still have to dodge at the right time, but it’s significantly easier and you have one less thing to think about, which makes it less interesting and less engaging. It doesn’t mean it’s boring, but it’s still a step back compared to the current state of the game.
Being able to cancel any attack means there are no consequences for attacking at the wrong time, if you learn to attack using the enemy’s openings your game will be cleaner but the fact is that there is no need for it because you can simply spam and focus only on dodging.
As I already said the fact that you don’t get punished for attacking at the wrong time, that’s what would allow you to spam attacks, but even ignoring this also consider that in the game there is a part of the attack animation that is called “recovery animation” essentially the attack has already happened and the enemy has already been hit, but you cannot move because the attack is not finished yet, for example in the case of the great sword it is very obvious because you have to pick up the great sword from the ground, or another very obvious example would be an attack that starts from the right and goes to the left, if you cancel the attack after it comes into contact with the enemyeven if the attack is not finished you can move away for free and it’s like doing an attack that still does 100% of the damage but has an animation that lasts much less sometimes even half.
It adds a lot of new attack windows that essentially allow you to blast some enemies with guaranteed attacks that they can’t punish and against some enemies you don’t even have to dodge the enemy’s attack, you just attack and move away and don’t even give the enemy a chance to attack
Yes, it’s true, but if this feature is added, it would be such a strong buff for fast dodge and medium dodge that using slow dodge would be an off-meta build, which is significantly weaker than the others, and not one of the three possible options. Even in that case, obviously, there would be people who enjoy using it, but essentially it would be the objectively worst option.
To be precise, in both cases, iFrames are about untouchability, not invulnerability (for example, if you’re taking damage over time from fire, your life will continue to decrease even if you dodge or perry). The iFrames duration for dodges is much longer than that of perry (even in the case of heavy-rolls),
Given the very short duration of the iFrames and the fact that it has a start and end animation that is not covered by the duration of the iFrames, Another reason why the perry is more risky than a dodge is that, the dodge even if you don’t use iFrames can reposition you out of the enemy’s range allowing you to avoid damage while with the perry you remain in the dangerous area in front of the enemy, the perry is a risky and difficult action to perform and consequently the player is rewarded more when he manages to perform it.
There are enough weapons that have very nice movesets, find the ones you like and use those, then obviously there is always an adjustment period when you change weapons.
Pig Sticker is probably a weapon you might like (if you like Rapiers) since it has fast attacks with fast recovery animations & the blacksmith sells a blueprint of this weapon from the beginning of the game.
There are also many weapons that don’t have a good moovest so stay away from those for now, If you want to write down the “bad” weapons and why they are not good, let’s make the list, so the devs take a look and they fix them.
If you truly believe that forced dodge reduces game difficulty, as I mentioned in my previous response, developers can simply strengthen enemies—for example, by increasing their health, attack power, attack speed, attack range, etc.—to make dodging more difficult.
Additionally, regarding the “great sword” example you brought up, If you attack enemies in such a manner under the premise of having a forced dodge mechanism, don’t you think it’s a bug?Developers wouldn’t allow such a bug to persist; it would be fixed.
Lastly, I’m not sure why our discussion has kept circling back to “forced dodge,” but that’s not the core point. I started this post to encourage everyone to discuss the issue of delayed character attack animations and share their feelings about it. “Forced dodge” was merely a proposed solution raised during the discussion to address the problem of delayed character attacks. If you have any better suggestions, feel free to share them.