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[Tumetsu]

Argh, Gwyn... he's pretty tough. Seems so doable and yet... he's relentless with his attacks so it's hard to find time to heal when I need to.

Is every one of his attacks parryable or only a few? Or one? I haven't been able to do it consistently enough.

I never parried him, though if you know how to parry he should be very easy. Just use light armor and good shield for blocking and run behind stone pillars to drink Estus. Then just go hit and run tactic unless you are confident you can stay in close-combat for extended time.

[Glyph]

You can parry basically any of Gwyn's attacks, as long as it involves him swinging his sword. You can even parry the jumping attack he does when you first enter the arena (it feels really cool). A good rule for parry timing is to watch for his weapon to pass his shoulder, then hit the button. It works most of the time.
Or yeah, you can fight him the other way by just blocking/evading all of his attacks and punishing the misses (the grab miss is really punishable).

[s0]

i never bothered figuring out the parry timings for gwynn. i always just backtracked, waited until he did the grab and hit him with either great combustion or an R2 attack.

imo the inconsistent parry timings are one of the design faults of the game. i wouldn't mind them streamlining that in DS2.

[Blademasterbobo]

that'd totally break pvp

and also make the game ridiculously easy?

[Faust06]

I should expand on my opinion of combat. I think my favorite aspect is having to develop some skill in "distancing" with some opponents if you're melee, the kind that rip through your stamina.. knowing when to back away and run in close. That's a dynamic that doesn't often show up in action games. Also the intuitive, rock-paper-scissors approach to pvp.

[Derek]

I did it!

After some sleep I switched from medium movement to fast movement and the fight got a lot easier. I gave up on parrying and just poked him to death.

What a great game! I wish the ending was a bit longer, though. That opening CG is one of the best I've ever seen so I was hoping for something like that.

Looking forward to starting a new game at some point and trying to keep my humanity more. And do more multiplayer.

[Derek]

Mad props to Pik-Sen Lim, who narrated the intro. I love that intro!

[J-Snake]

After some sleep I switched from medium movement to fast movement and the fight got a lot easier. I gave up on parrying and just poked him to death.

What a great game!

Meh, not in terms of gameplay.

[s0]

that'd totally break pvp

and also make the game ridiculously easy?

i didn't mean like a button prompt or something haha, just clearer rules for when to parry a hit, so it requires less trial and error.

i'd actually be ok with removing parries and backstabs altogether.

[J-Snake]

You don't need to parry at all in this game, combat design could be a lot more interesting.

[Blademasterbobo]

trap them is a game for the hipster man

[Bandages]

What do you mean you don't need to parry? That's flat-out wrong, so pls to explain

[J-Snake]

Counter followed after block and outmaneuvering suffice. It's too simple, there is no depth.

[Glyph]

Risk/reward. Block stun. Stamina bar.

[s0]

What do you mean you don't need to parry? That's flat-out wrong, so pls to explain

i almost never parry and have completed the game several times lol

i don't do pvp though

[nekokoneko]

j-snake, what games do a better job at forcing/rewarding all the different aspects of the combat to get used? I'm actually curious on this because for the most part I find darksouls pretty good at motivating the player to use the tools within the game. Although i guess the soul bonus from backstabs rules out the need to gain them from parrying, perhaps rewarding that some more. I think damage on some weapons scales better from parrys? And it allows for more opportunities to attack. In a mix/max situation you'll find a lot of the best players like vegeta will parry a lot because it gets the job done faster, at which point you could make your argument about backstabing.

I'd say a better example of a lack of depth would be Darksiders as the starting combos and occasional dodging are more than enough to get you through the game effeciently, i could check a speedrun but im almost sure theres no motivation in the game at all to use the majority of the combos.

I think the min/max angle is more ideal to seeing what is really rewarded in a games design.

[Bandages]

What do you mean you don't need to parry? That's flat-out wrong, so pls to explain

i almost never parry and have completed the game several times lol

i don't do pvp though

Parrying is the only way I beat the Black Knights in my first playthrough.

I guess the point is it's really myopic to say "The only way you can experience this game is the way I did"

[Blademasterbobo]

jsnake thinks that god of war has better combat mechanics

just ignore him, he's an idiot

i don't get why he has to bring up his retarded views every 20 pages or so. guy's just lacking attention lately i guess

[gimymblert]

j-snake think go has less depth than chess because it only have one piece (paraphrasing the debate)

[J-Snake]

jsnake thinks that god of war has better combat mechanics

Beat God of War 3 on hardest, then you can talk.

Quality of combat gameplay is not just the potential of a concept, it is also the composition of all elements into an actual challenge. If the created challenge is full of one-dimensional exploits it becomes dull.