Sekiro: Shadows Die Twice

[GreenGoo]

Careful, I hear he has a lot of spears.

[coopasonic]

I checked (and checked and re-checked). He only has one, but sometimes it sure feels like seven. Between the Poison Blade and Flame Vent attachments, I really feel like I should be able to overcome. DoTs for the win. Also he is one where you can pretty easily take half his life with a stealth opener. The downside is that there are about a dozen guys between the respawn and his location. Most of them are skippable, but not without risk.

[GreenGoo]

Nioh (and I think Dark Souls) are pretty good about giving you a decent path back to the boss without it being a huge chore. It can still be a hike though, and for me, given how many attempts it takes me, it still annoys me. If I had to fight more than 1 or 2 peons to get back to the boss, I'd be super annoyed.

[coopasonic]

You could run the gauntlet with little problem, but stealth killing 3 makes it a much safer prospect. I would kill them all, but there are two that take some effort that isn't worth it. Since it is a mini-boss I don't think they expect you to die as often. I like to exceed expectations.

[GreenGoo]

You don't want to know how many times I've died to basic skeletons in Nioh. Hell, I was surprised and embarrassed when I saw the number. exceeding expectations is not on my to-do list.

Good luck!

[GreenGoo]

Here's a tips video for Sekiro. While I don't have the game and can't judge for certain, it seems like this guy knows what he's talking about. Let me know if it's worth anything or not. If not, I'll remove it from the thread. Don't mind the video title, he's talking about aspects of the game and the gameplay, not hidden treasures or collectibles (does the game even have collectibles?) or anything like that.

[Roman]

I've decided to step away from this and come back to it when I finish Metro Exodus, Sekiro needs my full attention and muscle memory.

Found this PC Gamer combat guide 17 tips for mastering the blade and minimizing losses and this one as well there Is Sekiro too hard?

I am thinking the same. I have Metro AND Division 2 all in rotation.
I am hyper focused on Div2 now...

[coopasonic]

Here's a tips video for Sekiro. While I don't have the game and can't judge for certain, it seems like this guy knows what he's talking about. Let me know if it's worth anything or not. If not, I'll remove it from the thread. Don't mind the video title, he's talking about aspects of the game and the gameplay, not hidden treasures or collectibles (does the game even have collectibles?) or anything like that.

Not a lot of new information for me, but still very nicely put together and should be helpful to anyone starting out or having trouble. Block, block, block and use jump are two great reminders.

[coopasonic]

I think I may be giving up. The Genichiro Ashina boss fight is a pretty straightforward fast sword with a bow and requires two deathblows and then he switches to Way of Tomoe and starts throwing lightning around. 20% of the time I can get to the final phase, but I generally die very quickly once I get there before I can really figure anything out. Based on that fight and what I know about the fights yet to come, I just don't think I have the skills to finish this one.

[coopasonic]

I think I may be giving up. The Genichiro Ashina boss fight is a pretty straightforward fast sword with a bow and requires two deathblows and then he switches to Way of Tomoe and starts throwing lightning around. 20% of the time I can get to the final phase, but I generally die very quickly once I get there before I can really figure anything out. Based on that fight and what I know about the fights yet to come, I just don't think I have the skills to finish this one.

it turns out I do have the skills after all. After a couple days off from the game, I think I beat him on my 5th try. You can see it high def glory here:

[GreenGoo]

Congrats! I watched the whole thing, although without playing it, it's hard to know what's going on. Do you have to block each of those arrow and sword flurries individually?

[coopasonic]

Congrats! I watched the whole thing, although without playing it, it's hard to know what's going on. Do you have to block each of those arrow and sword flurries individually?

The bar on the top left is his life, with the red dots underneath being deathblows to kill him. The bar in the top center is his posture. If you empty his health or fill his posture, you get a deathblow. (Many bosses in the game cheat this system by changing forms requiring extra deathblows. This boss showed two required, but actually took three)

The bar on the bottom left is my life, with the circles above being resurrection opportunities. On a boss, you have to deliver a deathblow in between resurrections. You can't resurrect twice without a deathblow in between. The bar in the bottom center is my posture.

You can hold the block button to block incoming attacks and that works on most attacks, but builds up your posture meter fairly quickly. Alternatively you can tap the block at the right moment and deflect the attack which increases the opponent posture bar. So, for best effect, you want to tap block only when necessary to deflect. When you hear the ping sound, that's a deflect. I basically never hold block, except when I see my posture is in trouble. If you hold block and are NOT attacked for a second, posture recovers very quickly.

Most bosses recover posture quickly, but as they take health damage they recover it more and more slowly. Knock down their health a ways, then go for posture.

In the final phase, I was using my shadowrush ability which is pretty powerful against this boss, where I charge in with a thrust then go into the air and come down for a couple more attacks. Attacks like this use a limited resource called spirit emblems, the cross things in the bottom right that showed a 16 for most of the fight. In earlier attempts I was trying to use that for phase 1 and ran out of emblems before phase 3 and got wrecked. I decided to try to get to phase 3 without them and use them then and that is what worked in the end for me, though the biggest difference was successfully catching and throwing his lightning back at him early in the second phase. That did a lot of damage.

I think that covers pretty much everything there is to know about the game.

[MonkeyFinger]

Speaking of this game, I stumbled across some dueling opinions on its difficulty:

An easy mode has never ruined a game

No, Sekiro absolutely does not need an easy mode

[GreenGoo]

So I've been poking around youtube, watching the occasional gameplay video, or boss ranking, or what have you, and man, there is a lot of lore in this game, and in some ways like Dark Souls, a lot of it is told through environmental items, inscriptions, eavesdrops and other non-direct ways. Also, there is a PILE of secret type stuff just lying around if you're willing to go off the beaten path and/or retread areas and such.

Of course it's hard to enjoy these aspects of the game if you can't get by the 2nd boss fight or whatever. The game's reputation for being difficult in the extreme has not ebbed with time and player base experience.

This will be my next purchase, assuming Jedi-whatever doesn't turn out to the be Dark Midichlorians. I doubt I could resist a Star Wars based Dark Souls-like.

[coopasonic]

I have not played the game at all since that boss fight three weeks ago. Too many distractions and it's just not calling to me.

[Skinypupy]

Speaking of this game, I stumbled across some dueling opinions on its difficulty:

An easy mode has never ruined a game

No, Sekiro absolutely does not need an easy mode

What I don't get about it is why people think that making an easier difficulty setting available somehow diminishes their achievement. Play it on the normal or nightmare difficulty and you get the same satisfaction of beating an incredibly difficult game. The only difference with adding an Easy setting is that now someone like me would also get the chance to experience the game. I've never understood why my being able to play takes away from your accomplishment in any way.

From a business standpoint, From Software would have many hundreds of my dollars if they had included an Easy mode. There's at least six of their games that I would happily pay full price for if an easy setting were patched in tomorrow. I absolutely love everything about their games - the art direction, the environments, the graphics - but I avoid them all simply because I know they'll end up being an exercise in frustration. They've obviously made the strategic decision that casuals don't matter (and have been wildly successful with that decision), but it still seems kinda odd to me.

To each their own, I suppose.

[GreenGoo]

I have not played the game at all since that boss fight three weeks ago. Too many distractions and it's just not calling to me.

There are a number of articles and videos discussing the game mechanics in detail. This might or might not interest you. A lot of discussion of how it differs from previous souls-likes, and how many of the muscle memory and instincts from previous games are punished in Sekiro. Of particular note was how dodging is not the go-to defensive/offensive move it is in previous games. Since I only learned to dodge into and out of attacks mostly in Nioh, everything I'm learning there is going to get me killed repeatedly and frustratingly in Sekiro. Oddly, I find the idea exciting, and am starting to eyeball the market for deals. Nioh still frustrates me even though I have most of the bosses down now, because getting lazy or being slow still makes you die in 1 hit, no matter how well you know the patterns. For example, the Iga Toad's spear thrust has got to be the easiest move in the game to avoid, yet I recently found a weird spot in the hit box that shouldn't even be making contact, but is, which kills you despite appearing to be untouched. Annoying. In fairness, the hit box also misses at certain angles when it clearly should be hitting, so...yeah.

Anyway, lots of talk about how Sekiro is different, how everything you know up until know is wrong, and by leaving it behind and starting fresh, the game is not as difficult as it at first appears. I say this based on no personal experience whatsoever, so I can't speak to the veracity of these articles.

It took two tries and hundreds of hours of pure stubbornness to even begin to reduce the difficulty I was having with Nioh. Sekiro seems like it's an order of magnitude harder. Scary.

[coopasonic]

What I don't get about it is why people think that making an easier difficulty setting available somehow diminishes their achievement. Play it on the normal or nightmare difficulty and you get the same satisfaction of beating an incredibly difficult game. The only difference with adding an Easy setting is that now someone like me would also get the chance to experience the game. I've never understood why my being able to play takes away from your accomplishment in any way.

The only thing I would say here is that taking the difficulty away doesn't leave much game left. While the story here is much more "on the surface" than other souls games, there isn't much to it. Without the difficulty it becomes a visual novel that barely makes any sense. Of course, I also have no interest in visual novels so maybe there's a market for that and i am blind to it.

[GreenGoo]

The difficulty of games like this is part of the core design. Removing it would be like having a pixel hunt adventure where the pixels glowed and clicked themselves. It'd be borderlands with a custom weapon designer. It'd be chess with every piece replaced with a queen.

Making an easy mode would absolutely diminish the game community's sense of accomplishment. The difficulty of Dark Souls is what defines it and is the basis for it's popularity. That people find it frustrating is a feature, not a bug.

Normally I wouldn't care how people play their own single player games, but the challenge *is* the game in this case.

I'm sure someone, somewhere can articulate the concept far better than I.

It'd be like reading Chaucer at your book club and having some people decide that Cole's notes is good enough.

Games of this type exist for those who play them for the challenge they provide. The enjoyment comes from the difficulty. You could make an easy mode, but only by diminishing your core audience's sense of accomplishment.

Dark Souls saw a niche that wasn't being served and filled it, and it turned out that niche was huge. Others are now serving that same niche because there is money to be made. Putting in an easy mode might serve a wider audience, but only at a loss of the target audience.

[Skinypupy]

The difficulty of games like this is part of the core design. Removing it would be like having a pixel hunt adventure where the pixels glowed and clicked themselves. It'd be borderlands with a custom weapon designer. It'd be chess with every piece replaced with a queen.

I never said anything about removing any difficulty. I'd just love it if they throw in another option for those of us who find it to be an impenetrable barrier.

It wouldn't even require a single change to the core of the game. Just give an option where if the player chooses the Easy mode, their attacks do X% more damage or enemies have X% less health/armor. Everything about the game stays exactly the same (you'd still have to "git gud" to have success), but it would eliminate some of the frustration of having to replay sections or bosses over and over again before finally just throwing in the towel in frustration. Not that I'm speaking from personal experience or anything...

To use your analogy, when my kids play chess they like to make up all sorts of crazy rules while sticking within the general framework of "move pieces, capture your opponent". This gets them interested in the game and as they get better at it, they can start to play by the actual rules, think strategically, etc. But if there's this huge impenetrable skill wall up front, then they're just not going to bother at all. Same idea here, I would think. I can't get past the difficulty (I've tried twice, with Dark Souls 2 and Bloodborne), so I just don't bother trying any more...even though everything else about the games screams "throw your money at this" (especially Sekiro, since I was a huge Tenchu fan).

Yes, I realize I'm just yelling a frustration into the void. People obviously love From's shtick, and it's not going to change any time soon.

[wonderpug]

The Ninja Gaiden series from the 2000s was basically the Dark Souls of that era, and I don't remember the world falling apart when they added in the "ninja dog" easy mode.

[coopasonic]

even though everything else about the games screams "throw your money at this" (especially Sekiro, since I was a huge Tenchu fan).

What "everything else about the games" though? There is basically nothing else to From games. Particularly with the Dark Souls games, the difficulty is the game. I guess the exploration aspect, finding secrets and shortcuts, but in my mind the exploration is only interesting because of the tension.

I have no problem, with them adding "easy mode" though I would also add a "weenie" achievement/trophy specifically for completing the game on that mode because that is how I am. I just think all you would find is disappointment because whatever you are expecting to find in the game beyond the difficulty just doesn't exist.

A From trainer that works sort of like the progression in Rocksmith, adding different challenges and tactics over time rather than more notes/chords, would be kind of interesting, but if you play the games with your eyes open, you'll see that is basically what the game already is. You start out with the easiest enemies that make the most basic attacks and there is a steady progression of common enemies, Knights/stronger enemies, mini-bosses as skill checks on your progress until all the tools are second nature and all that is left is the bosses with their unique attacks and rhythm.

[GreenGoo]

I understand the perspective and normally don't have any issues with people playing how they want, including cheats, mods and trainers.

These games are their difficulties though, and rising to the challenge is diminished if others can make things easy with the developers' blessing.

The world wouldn't fall apart, but the appeal of the game to it's core demographic would be reduced. Whether that means an increase in sales or a decrease, I have no idea. I honestly think it would result in less sales. As Coop points out the game is the difficulty. Without it you have an (albeit gorgeous) 3rd person walking simulator.

Nioh's combat system is somewhat detailed, and it exists hand in hand with mobs designed to exploit that system. You can already button mash through a lot of the game, which makes all the design work moot. The only thing making people learn the systems is when mashing doesn't work. Sekiro seems to be the same x100.

I just can't help but feel an easy mode diminishes the game. Like a black belt factory diminishes the hard work people put in to actually master a martial art. In the end one is mini-mall master the other an actual master, so what does it matter? I don't know, but I think it matters.

The game is hard and it's supposed to be hard. That's the appeal. It may in fact be too hard given the market reaction and we may very well see a patch at some point. I doubt we'll ever see an "easy" mode though, just "easier".

[GreenGoo]

A From trainer that works sort of like the progression in Rocksmith, adding different challenges and tactics over time rather than more notes/chords, would be kind of interesting, but if you play the games with your eyes open, you'll see that is basically what the game already is.

This is exactly right. There are many references to rhythm games when discussing Sekiro. Also, many people feel Nioh is trivially easy once you learn everyone's movesets. I personally don't feel any game that can and does one-shot you for making a mistake is trivially easy, but it can *feel* trivially easy when you're in the groove. Learning those movesets is a significant part of the "git gud". Removing the need to pay attention and learn takes away the entire premise of the game design.

The market clearly needed a game (games, now) that was challenging to the player, given the market's reaction to Dark Souls and everything that's come after. There are a billion games that hold a player's hand and only a few that don't (or do less of it), and that's ok imo.

[GreenGoo]

Read some discussion of game mechanics as art which I felt was good and ties into my game mechanics design comments a little.

The internet is a cesspool as usual however, and lots of people who are of the mind that Sekiro doesn't need changing are trollish assholes. I'm not one and am enjoying the more mature discussions on the nature of game design, difficulty and balance. Some good discussion about what games benefit from cinematic mode vs which might be harmed by it.

I'm just surfing around so no specific links or anything right now.

[GreenGoo]

Those that have/are playing it, how are the skill trees? Interesting? Diverse? Useful?

[GreenGoo]

read this quote which made me laugh.

Sekiro is exactly as difficult as Dark Souls fans like to pretend Dark Souls is.

[coopasonic]

Those that have/are playing it, how are the skill trees? Interesting? Diverse? Useful?

My thoughts here aren't positive so I was going to let someone further into the game comment if they want.

[GreenGoo]

Those that have/are playing it, how are the skill trees? Interesting? Diverse? Useful?

My thoughts here aren't positive so I was going to let someone further into the game comment if they want.

That's fine. I'm not looking for people to only tell me what I want to hear.

[GreenGoo]

Wife bought it for me as a gift.

Now to rage quit repeatedly until my family has an intervention.

[GreenGoo]

First fight that is giving me problems is Lady Butterfly. I'm much more decked out that the average player would be, having farmed some while I practice combat and making sure I didn't miss any gourd seeds or prayer beads along the way. I've beaten the bull in the main storyline, so I'm making some progress there, although I guess everyone but Gyoubu and and Lady Butterfly have only been mini-bosses so far?

Lady B is disappointing for me because I had her down to 50% of her second life bar on my first attempt and each subsequent attempt has me making less and less progress. Of course I had just remapped a couple of buttons right before the fight so my muscle memory was all messed up but I think I'm past that. Learning to jump during her sweeps took me awhile. Too long, really, but I'm finally there. I still jump away too much instead of jumping straight up and punishing her, but I'm doing better. I've started making more progress again and I can pretty much get through the first phase with no healing but those butterflies just chip away at you. By the end she has less than 25% hp and I have less than 50% and she just keeps summoning her minions. The camera is NOT your friend in this game (which is par for the course for these kinds of games). I don't know how many times I was blocking her minion butterflies (the ones that don't do damage through block) only to lose lock on LB. When that happens your block is directional and if you move even a little bit you start taking damage no matter if you're blocking or not. I know, keep the pillars between you and them.

Basically the first phase is trivial now but I just can't make it past her last 25%, even with a longer health bar and more heals than you'd expect for the fight. I'll get there, but I'm somewhere around 15 tries now (easily the most tries for anything in the game so far) and it seems so doable, yet I'm not doing it.

I'm not complaining at all, just writing down my experience thus far. I've been waiting for this monstrous difficulty I've been hearing about and this is my first taste of it. I'm sure it gets much, much worse, as this fight not too bad as far as boss fights go. I didn't even start to focus on her tells and moveset until 8-10 tries, you can sort of wing it for most of it.

[GreenGoo]

The game is a little bit Assassin's Creed and a little bit Nioh. The deflection system is brilliant, and it's the centerpiece of the game. You don't have to be perfect on your timing, but you are rewarded if you are. The clash noise changes based on how "good" a deflection it was. Perfect deflections are ringing and loud. Way off deflections are dull and more quiet.

[coopasonic]

I'll get there, but I'm somewhere around 15 tries now (easily the most tries for anything in the game so far) and it seems so doable, yet I'm not doing it.

I don't even want to think about how many times I killed the guy on the way down to her. That guy had to be so frustrated with me.

The game is a little bit Assassin's Creed and a little bit Nioh. The deflection system is brilliant, and it's the centerpiece of the game. You don't have to be perfect on your timing, but you are rewarded if you are. The clash noise changes based on how "good" a deflection it was. Perfect deflections are ringing and loud. Way off deflections are dull and more quiet.

I do enjoy the stealthy aspect to the game. There are so many fights where getting that first "death" through stealth is so satisfying.

I still haven't touched this since I posted the video.

[GreenGoo]

Lady Butterfly is dead.

I'm embarrassed to say that I killed her via her health bar, and not her posture bar, if you can believe it. I died during the first phase too, but then focused on deflecting her move set and managed to kill her in phase 1 via posture much earlier than expected (i.e. she had more health left than usual for me). By the end I was out of meds and so paranoid that I just kept my distance and waited for her to leave herself open, which is rare. I'm sure there are other opportunities to punish her but I only found a few, myself. Even when she would sweep I mainly just jumped on her head, I only got vitality damage about 50% of the time during that.

So I whittled Lady Butterfly down to very low health, but I stayed the hell away from her leaving her posture bar alone. Eventually my whittling took her down to zero health, and the fight was over. Killing people via filling the posture bar and deathblow is the entire basis of the game. This is the showcase and core feature. In my fear of dying, I just stayed away all together and poked her when she over extended. In my defense to get to where I could chip away at her I had to learn her moveset pretty well, and I did a TON of (at least nearly so) perfect deflects in the first phase and first half of the second phase. So I absolutely did as the game expected and wants you to do, it was only at the end when I wussed out and dodge dodge dodge poke'd her to death.

[GreenGoo]

Moving this to it's own post as it might be useful for anyone interested in gameplay mechanics.

A (very) brief explanation of the combat system, or 1 aspect of it anyway.

Enemies have 2 bars. Health, which starts full, and posture, which starts empty. You fill up the enemy posture bar by attacking. This is slow, but if your attacks get through, you do health damage too. Deflecting enemy attacks add big amounts to their posture bar compared to attacking. The amount varies based on how good a deflect it was. It can take 4-6 poor deflects to fill a pion posture bar. It only takes 1 perfect deflect and maybe an attack (even if it's blocked) to fill it. You can see how perfect deflects are very rewarding, but poor deflects are still beneficial. It's a really excellent system imo.

Posture bars empty. The speed at which they empty is directly related to how full the enemy health bar is. You are *never* going to fill a boss' posture bar if he has full health. So the goal is to chip away at their health (vitality in this game). As their health bar goes down, their posture goes up and stays up, degrading slower and slower as their health decreases.

When an enemy has no health bar, they die (duh). When an enemy has a full posture bar, you can "death blow" them. Basically attack when their posture bar is full and it's an insta-kill. You can kill pions/minions without ever touching their health bar this way, because they have a small posture bar and you can fill it fast. Bosses have more than 1 life, so it takes 2 deathblows to finish them off (essentially 2 lives).

[GreenGoo]

This game does *NOT* want you fighting more than 1 enemy at a time. Way more so than the first Dark Souls, The Surge or even Nioh. You can do it and I'm sure more skilled players can handle it easier and as you level up and get tougher I'm sure it becomes easier, but man, 3-4 (or even 2, if you're not "in sync") attack constantly and overwhelm you no matter how good you think you are at deflecting (I do not think I'm good at deflecting).

[GreenGoo]

I don't even want to think about how many times I killed the guy on the way down to her. That guy had to be so frustrated with me.

I do enjoy the stealthy aspect to the game. There are so many fights where getting that first "death" through stealth is so satisfying.

I still haven't touched this since I posted the video.

Chances are you didn't have the skills, gourd charges (4) or vitality (2 prayer necklaces) that I did. I can imagine that would make it extra tough.

The stealth aspect is something I haven't spent too much focus on. The "shortcuts" and routes that are in place for exploiting stealth are pretty straightforward. Guy looking at you, go around, stab back, repeat. The stealth kills are fun and taking a mini-boss' first health bar via a leaping stealth kill is awesome, obviously.

[GreenGoo]

I checked (and checked and re-checked). He only has one, but sometimes it sure feels like seven. Between the Poison Blade and Flame Vent attachments, I really feel like I should be able to overcome. DoTs for the win. Also he is one where you can pretty easily take half his life with a stealth opener. The downside is that there are about a dozen guys between the respawn and his location. Most of them are skippable, but not without risk.

I asked him, he said "stab. Stab. Stabbity stab".

I could mikiri counter him all day, but I have no idea how to hit his health bar, so I bailed.

Also, scary dude in the dungeon.

I haven't watched any videos on this part of the game and am completely blind as to what to do next. I assume once Lady Butterfly is down there is no need to return to Hirata Estate? Barring missing a bead or something? Seems like a dead end.

I don't have or even heard of the poison blade.

[GreenGoo]

I like Sekiro but it has some of the worst 3rd person camera mechanics of any souls-like I've played recently. Nioh is worse than the Surge and Sekiro is much worse than Nioh. It's particularly galling when the encounter design is in confined spaces.

Here's a not particularly awful example. There have been much worse. And while I start the fight off terribly through no fault of the camera, twice it tries to kill me. It is particularly vexxing that it will refuse to keep the target in view, then unlock your target because it hasn't been in view for a little while.

Since I'm feeling self conscious about how terrible this particular try was, I'm compelled to mention that I just about broke his posture bar the previous attempt without ever having done any but the tiniest bit of damage to his health bar. i.e. I was a deflecting machine. I still lost though.

Note 19-20 seconds things get wonky, and at 28 seconds where nothing is visible, not me in the 3rd person, not my target, nothing useful. I particularly like the shot of the mist wall for a second. Remember I'm in a life or death fight and the camera is the only way I have to read the ai tells and react to them. Now consider that mist wall. Yeah. I've also had times where I tried to manually move the camera with the right stick and it refused to turn even though I had no target locked, which is just salt after injury after insult.

[GreenGoo]

Also, I thought dragonrot only took effect if you died "permanently" with loss of cash and exp. I just got a new dragonrot despite only dying and ressing once. Hmmm. Weird.

edit: Ok, I figured it out. I alt-tabbed while resting at a shrine and was "discovered" twice, killing me twice while the game was in the background. My bad. You can pause the game by going into your menu to avoid that and I didn't. Oops.