What Do You Think Of Jarl Ivar?

[Keiko]

@BlueFighter15

Bosses can already supercharge attacks, unlike players. Not unlikely a new player sees a boss blocking and assumes it’s some exclusive mechanic, especially since there is no pattern or rules in NPCs’ blocking.

ive got 800+ hours and i still dont see supercharging as an exclusive mechanic, ive always seen it as ultimate arts for NPCs and didnt know until recently that it wasnt that

@BlueFighter15

I don’t really think so. The player is told about pretty much every other function: dodging, tall jumps, flaunting etc. It’s entirely possible they never felt the need to change the keybinds for those actions, and thus never learned about blocking.

well one of my friends quit at frostmill because he was trying to change his keybinds and the game wasn’t showing them (i tried to tell him it was just a visual bug but he wouldnt listen, i dont blame him though), there are a lot of people who have preferred keybinds as well

@BlueFighter15

Nothing says good game design like depending on the players to learn about what’s meant to be a fundamental combat feature via a completely accidental misinput.

way more common than you would think, and i wouldnt say blocking/parrying is a fundamental combat feature since its only really used in pvp and, of course, this boss, rather the game incentivizes dodging more

[BlueFighter15]

@Keiko

ive got 800+ hours and i still dont see supercharging as an exclusive mechanic, ive always seen it as ultimate arts for NPCs and didnt know until recently that it wasnt that

Proving my point

@Keiko

well one of my friends quit at frostmill because he was trying to change his keybinds and the game wasn’t showing them (i tried to tell him it was just a visual bug but he wouldnt listen, i dont blame him though), there are a lot of people who have preferred keybinds as well

Strawmanning the argument

@Keiko

way more common than you would think, and i wouldnt say blocking/parrying is a fundamental combat feature since its only really used in pvp and, of course, this boss, rather the game incentivizes dodging more

Doesn’t change the fact that it’s utter dogshit game design to have the player depend on pure chance to find a key mechanic for beating a story boss.

[GemstoneDreams]

@ddbois

just do not encourage you to do that very much especially when parry timings are inconsistent compared to I see ball coming my way I dash

Now that I think about it there are some instances where parrying and blocking helps a ton (Elius lightning shotgun, Argos waves) but they are just so easy to raw-dog besides Elius’s but even then its a single move.

[Keiko]

@BlueFighter15

Proving my point

how is me saying that i (a player with many hours) thought it was a mechanic that players already have (that being ultimate arts) proving your argument that new players may see it as an exclusive mechanic?

@BlueFighter15

Strawmanning the argument

actually, you argued that people may not know about the blocking mechanic under the possibility that they are content with the default controls, and i responded by saying that many people have preferred keybinds and gave my own specific example of someone i introduced to the game deciding to change his keybinds at frostmill, so no it was a direct response to your claim, not a misrepresentation of your argument

you might have meant my example was anecdotal since i brought up my friend’s experience as evidence, but my point stands that plenty of players actually do check the keybind menu

@BlueFighter15

Doesn’t change the fact that it’s utter dogshit game design to have the player depend on pure chance to find a key mechanic for beating a story boss.

blocking/parrying is not really a requirement/key mechanic for beating ivar, nor is it pure chance to find out about the mechanic (as i mentioned before, there are several ways of figuring out there’s blocking and even some i didnt even mention that aren’t chance based)

the main issue, as other people are pointing out, is that the game incentivizes dodging more than blocking/parrying, which is why the boss where you may want to block/parry rather than dodge is hard for some and easy for others, and the reluctance is further strengthened by the fact that the blocking and parrying system is poorly made