What games are you playing now?

I also gave up after 20 failed tries with Genichiro Ashina. It was a wonderful trip up to him, but after that I had severe muscle pain in my wrist and elbow area and did not want to continue. A shame as it is a near masterpiece, but leaned more towards a certain play-style.

Having said that, there are many technique paths that one can follow and augmentations and I did not try many of them to see if they make a difference.

Lemonhead said:

I had to give up on Sekiro, it was too hard for me. I've played all the Souls games but my play style was never the type of build/style required in Sekiro. Loved the game and the setting but just couldn't hack it, parrying is just to hard for me. Finished the Genichiro boss after 50 tries and then gave up on the game. I just lost interest I guess. Hoping that the upcoming Elden Ring is more similar to the other Souls-games.

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SpoonFULL said:

I also gave up after 20 failed tries with Genichiro Ashina. It was a wonderful trip up to him, but after that I had severe muscle pain in my wrist and elbow area and did not want to continue. A shame as it is a near masterpiece, but leaned more towards a certain play-style.

Having said that, there are many technique paths that one can follow and augmentations and I did not try many of them to see if they make a difference.

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Yeah, I kind of dread the mountain I've embarked on. I seem to have huge issues fighting even the minibosses that you stumble on. I just reached the hidden pagoda where the blue-clothed dude ambushes you. And I'm just having issues deflecting his attacks. And the tight area certainly doesn't help. And I don't think there's a way for me to sneak up on him, up there.

I can't imagine what I'll face with the main bosses. And unfortunately I've seen one of the later ones, the two gorillas. Holy shit, that almost made me stop playing. Somehow I find it very hard to juggle both moving around, and deflecting/jumping/countering. It's so much. Usually I can only do one well.

Once in a while I stumble into a Sekiro stream by some of the best people on twitch, and seeing the ease with which they handle combat, makes me want to hang up my sword. But once in a while they seem to stumble, and that gives me a little encouragement. But not too much.

I'm really curious how the QA department at FromSoft tests this game. How many of their people are actually able to finish it. Because I imagine a lot of them use cheats. But they must have some subset of QA that are able to play it, and gauge when it's really too difficult, or just not enough. And how they make that decision.

danutz_plusplus said:

Yeah, I kind of dread the mountain I've embarked on. I seem to have huge issues fighting even the minibosses that you stumble on. I just reached the hidden pagoda where the blue-clothed dude ambushes you. And I'm just having issues deflecting his attacks. And the tight area certainly doesn't help. And I don't think there's a way for me to sneak up on him, up there.

I can't imagine what I'll face with the main bosses. And unfortunately I've seen one of the later ones, the two gorillas. Holy shit, that almost made me stop playing. Somehow I find it very hard to juggle both moving around, and deflecting/jumping/countering. It's so much. Usually I can only do one well.

Once in a while I stumble into a Sekiro stream by some of the best people on twitch, and seeing the ease with which they handle combat, makes me want to hang up my sword. But once in a while they seem to stumble, and that gives me a little encouragement. But not too much.

I'm really curious how the QA department at FromSoft tests this game. How many of their people are actually able to finish it. Because I imagine a lot of them use cheats. But they must have some subset of QA that are able to play it, and gauge when it's really too difficult, or just not enough. And how they make that decision.

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Do you understand how the posture and death blow system works ? It’s the backbone of the entire combat system. Honest question, not trying to be a smarta**.

blocks will really deplete enemy posture. As I said earlier spam the block button every time you anticipate an attack. You don’t need to wait and try to time it perfectly. Some enemies are so fast I don’t see how you could block them without doing this. You can even hold the block button and block everything but it will deplete your posture quick if your being attacked so use it sparingly. However holding block when your not being attacked will rapidly replenish your posture.

Once you break an enemies posture you can deathblow them for huge damage.

I think enemy patterns were easier to memorize in sekiro than DS. Use that to bait certain attacks. For instance the chained ogres sliding kick attack and elbow drop are easily baited and have long recovery times.

Hope this helps. I fear for you if you found the chained ogre difficult because he’s child’s play compared to what awaits you. Good luck.

Imo. said:

Do you understand how the posture and death blow system works ? It’s the backbone of the entire combat system. Honest question, not trying to be a smarta**.

blocks will really deplete enemy posture. As I said earlier spam the block button every time you anticipate an attack. You don’t need to wait and try to time it perfectly. Some enemies are so fast I don’t see how you could block them without doing this. You can even hold the block button and block everything but it will deplete your posture quick if your being attacked so use it sparingly. However holding block when your not being attacked will rapidly replenish your posture.

Once you break an enemies posture you can deathblow them for huge damage.

I think enemy patterns were easier to memorize in sekiro than DS. Use that to bait certain attacks. For instance the chained ogres sliding kick attack and elbow drop are easily baited and have long recovery times.

Hope this helps. I fear for you if you found the chained ogre difficult because he’s child’s play compared to what awaits you. Good luck.

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Yeah, I did my research and understand the mechanics quite well, in theory. In practice though, I stumble and fail to time deflects. And often just guard against attacks, which don't really help much since they don't cause posture damage.

I think my main issue is that I constantly feel enemies either move very fast, that I can't anticipate which attacks they will do, or I just panic very quickly and end up reverting to spam behavior, which gets me killed.

Another issue is that I have the nasty habbit of not keeping my fingers on the shoulder buttons of the controller. So I lose precious miliseconds when I need to deflect or guard.

I think that if I'm serious about this game, I really need to do drills to ingrane best practices and turn them into reflexes that I can just do on a moments notice. Yeah, I'm not sure how I feel about that. Feels like work.

SpoonFULL said:

I also gave up after 20 failed tries with Genichiro Ashina.

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I got to where I could get past the first stages of that fight in my sleep, but I would die so very quickly to his last, lightning boy phase that it I didn't even have time to get a sense of what I needed to do differently. Even though the first stages became easy for me, they still took a long time, and going through all of that only to die in 20 seconds got very tedious very fast.

I eventually gave up at that point too. Picked up the game again months later and got past that fight in relatively few tries. I didn't end up finishing the game, though, at least not yet. I never beat any bosses in Sekiro in fewer than 5 tries, and several of them take me several times that. Wears me down.

Imo. said:

Do you understand how the posture and death blow system works ? It’s the backbone of the entire combat system. Honest question, not trying to be a smarta**.

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I do understand it too and learned to spam the block very quickly (rather than holding the block) and it does work in most cases - but spamming the block so quickly is what lead to my arm and wrist injury and would not recommend it over prolonged periods of time.

JFarrell71 said:

I got to where I could get past the first stages of that fight in my sleep, but I would die so very quickly to his last, lightning boy phase that it I didn't even have time to get a sense of what I needed to do differently. Even though the first stages became easy for me, they still took a long time, and going through all of that only to die in 20 seconds got very tedious very fast.

I eventually gave up at that point too. Picked up the game again months later and got past that fight in relatively few tries. I didn't end up finishing the game, though, at least not yet. I never beat any bosses in Sekiro in fewer than 5 tries, and several of them take me several times that. Wears me down.

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Yes I too, after many tries, managed to finish the first stage of the fight with Genichiro, but the 2nd lighting stage threw me off as I was already tired from the first stage. How to fight the lighting was actually given as a hint in the dojo wall where you beat the master samurai just before Genichiro fight. Not that it helped me!

Just started Day 3 in Disco Elysium. It's like Torment:TON without combat. I preferred Torment for the story and world. DE is too depressing to be fun for me.

I've no idea what the hell is wrong with me, in Sekiro. I've stopped going through the Hirata Estates, as I reached the huge drunk dude who just pummels me into the ground. So, I went back to the Ashina outskirts, wanting to make progress in that. And I've reached the first samurai general right after the chained ogre. And after 2 tries, he just mops the floor with me. And the weird thing is, he pretty much has the same attack patterns as the previous samurai I fought (the first mini-boss you stumble onto right after getting the shuriken attachment). So I think it must be that the margin of error for this one is so slim. He constantly impales me after rushing me.

I think I just don't have the nerve to keep calm during the fights themselves. And I always lose my cool, and just end up trying to rush things. Or I either time my attacks wrong. Or do the wrong thing at the wrong time. I also noticed I don't keep my thumb on the dodge button or the jump button. I keep it on the thumb-stick, and then wonder why I can't react in good time, to either jump or dodge.

Man, this game really is a man-maker.

I gave Greedfall a (little) break and now I'm playing Nehrim: At Fate's Edge. I'm having so much fun though sometimes the old Gamebryo engine shows its teeth in the form of CTDs and/or freezings.

I started playing Chivalry 2 for a change of pace.

It certainly is a change of pace

I'm shit at it but it's fun whenever I do kill someone...

I'm rotating between a ton of stuff right now. So far I have the following Let's Plays running concurrently:

FRUA - Temple of Elemental Evil ("The Realm" campaign) (Android version)
Tormented 12
Tortured Hearts: Or How I Saved The Universe. Again.
Sword Coast Legends
Troubleshooter: Abandoned Children
Himeko Sutori
Underrail
Age Of Fear 3 - The Legend (Dryad campaign)
Valheim
Heroes Of Steel (Android version, older LP I probably won't update much.)

So, yeah. Having a blast, though, every day is a different adventure as I delve deeper into all these very fine games, so no complaints from me. If u guys have any questions about any of the games, feel free to ask. Hope you're all doing well. Much love. <3

Valheim is a blast. I played it quite a bit a few months ago. I'm still playing mm7/mm8

crpgnut said:

Valheim is a blast. I played it quite a bit a few months ago. I'm still playing mm7/mm8

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actually 'nut it was your recommendation that got me to try Valheim. I saw u post in one of these threads about endless exploration and some other details i have since forgotten, but i ended up grabbing Valheim at that moment. i also discovered Legendary Journeys, too, thanks to u. so thanks for the RPG tips, 'nut! <3

Was playing Assassin's Creed Valhalla but the game is just not for me I hate it. So I went back for a replay of Tyranny, Queen's Wish, and Alpha Protocol. So no new games.

I've had a touch of gamer ADD lately. I'm still playing D:OS, but only for a few hours here and there. I recently finished all the quests in Hunter's Edge. Ran across a couple of NPCs named Myrthos and Moriendor while doing so.

Also, played a bit of Cryostasis: Sleep of Reason. It's a first-person survival-horror game from 2008. I finished it back in the day, but it didn't age well imo, and I quit after a few hours this time.

Playing Dark Souls II: Scholar of the first sin edition. It like visiting a good old friend. This is the best in the series in my opinion.

I was reluctant to try the Scholar of the first sin edition after playing the full game with the DLC separately. But the changes are welcome which include better (more consistent) enemy placement, more fleshed out story and progression, better graphics and colour.

There is good news for those who struggle with the bosses (especially for the DLCs), there are at least 2 NPCs now that you can summon to support you (I used 3 with the kings tiger pet!). This takes away the stress from the bosses and allows progression. You don't have to use these NPCs if you prefer.

What a huge and enjoyable journey!

I only briefly tried Dark Souls 2. But since I never finished Dark Souls 1, I wanted to try that only after I'd be done with DS1. Also, the community dispute over whether it's a good game or not. is interesting. It not being headed by Miyazaki. But some respectable people from the community make it a point that, while different, it's also very good. I'm not sure I'll ever be that good, to notice all these particulars. But maybe I'll return to it sometime.

But right now I expect I'll be quite busy with Sekiro for a long time. And as for Sekiro, I managed to defeat the general, I complained about previously. And somehow he proved quite easy this time. I mean, not easy, but I did it on a first try, after a break. Somehow I think I also managed to luck into him not spamming the right attacks. But I also somehow managed to perfectly time 5 really fast attacks that came one after the other. Felt really good. But I don't want to do that again.

I did read an interesting comment about this sort of playstyle, like mine. Where I don't embrace the combat, and want to just barely make it out alive after each encounter. Instead of forcing myself to not even use the first stealthblows. And just practice, practice, practice. And in theory, I agree. Until I'm on my 10th retry, and just want it to be over with.

With some hesitation, I've started playing Nier:Replicant (XSX)

Only a mere two hours in the game, but it seems most of my fears about this version are true: it is a polished version of (imho) one of the greatest games ever created, but something vital was lost in translation: the original's soul, that was buried under a clunky rough surface. The remaster is technically better, but interestingly a more hollow experience.

If you are old enough to remember Alfred Hitchcock's groundbreaking Psycho in all of its black and white glory, and compare it to Gus Van Sant's colorized remake, you'll know what I mean.

Fantasy General 2 "prologue" is available for free on steam

Giving it a try, and was pumped at first, but the game was putting me to sleep.
Maybe it was just late