Tying focus to Parry was a mistake

Wicked Feedback
1

Here’s what I think happened. You tied focus gain heavily to the parry system. Without parrying I gain very little focus in general which is not fun. Now parrying is fun but hit or miss. It’s not clear to me when to parry just by the animations. Sometimes I get it right and the next time I do the same thing it doesn’t happen. The top-down aspect probably doesn’t help the parrying. A Sound cue might be helpful there. To be clear I want to parry, but I would like it to be less hit or miss. I die so often it’s not worth learning the parry accurately. I play Clair Obscure and can parry like a champ there so perhaps there is something I’m missing here you haven’t communicated.

Also the new weapons are fun! I picked up the two hander bare fists and walloped my opponents! For some reason it really resonated! But…your old weapons feel like they were nerfed so the new ones could shine. Or am I imagining things? Folks in the comments help me out there.

3

Clair Obscur has very generous parry timing windows and for the most part not only visual queues but sound queues right before the hit impact.

The parry window in this game is not as generous and the camera does not change like Clair Obscur. In Clair Obscur when an enemy comes to attack you the camera changes to show clearly the swing and point of impact on your character. It has its few exceptions but for the most part it works like that.

We don’t really know what the design intent behind the parry is. If developers expect you to master it to function in content, then it needs to be somewhat reliable. If the window is unreliable, then viable alternatives have to exist, in which case successful dodges should generate focus, even if a third or a quarter of what a parry generates.

4

I think their aim is to copy souls games, where a successful parry is highly rewarded (souls: riposte, NrftW: stun+focus) but a miss is highly punished.

5

I agree. But just wish that the movesets of enemies were more clearly parriable. I can parry bosses, but not minions. Bosses have the windups that you can rely on. Mobs do not.

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