Actually, besides maybe adjusting damage values or making the reposte window slightly shorter, parrying is fine. The game was designed with its nuances in mind.
I think I've shown quite a bit of proof that either the game wasn't designed with its nuances in mind, or the attempts to design with it in mind failed in critical ways. Parrying in Bloodborne is highly obtuse, both forgiving and unforgiving in ways that throw it off balance, and it breaks the fundamental risk-reward mechanics that made classic parrying work originally without being a worthy replacement.
Usually this isn't true with attacks but you can sometimes predict, even guess right for a parry. I've parried those quick attacks with a bit of luck when using the pistol to maintain stun.
Once again, luck should have nothing to do with anything in an action game. I don't know what you mean by "using the pistol to maintain stun."
I've never seen a fast warm-up range attack that causes crumples. It would be silly. You can make it have slow start-up frames which makes it only applicable to crumple on slower attacks. It isn't that complicated.
It indeed isn't that complicated: I understand what your proposing and don't agree with it. I explained why by saying it dilutes the idea of parrying, and I still don't see how that wouldn't be the case. Why design a lot of enemy moves to be parryable if you're going to encourage your players to not even try to parry most of them? You say that a quick response parry would require a high level of mastery to use well, and I agree. Players should be pushed towards things that require mastery instead of allowing them to avoid ideas that are critical to the game design. This is another aspect of the Souls design philosophy I admire, but in this case Bloodborne doesn't live up to it. If you want to argue against my personal idea for solving this issue, could you explain why it "would be silly?"
You make large enemies not parryable unless you have the firepower. Huge non-boss enemies in BB already look to not be parryable, you just enforce this as a rule. Except you can use something like a ranged cannon to crumple them. If you get the timing right, heavy crumple to down state, if off just hit stun.
Why does it need to be ranged to perform this function though? If you're still talking about parrying, as in "shooting right as the enemy attacks," then what you're proposing would seemingly work up close as well in theory. If so, it doesn't need to be ranged, right?
Trades are fine if they aren't done in a way that hurts the flow of the game. Older games used to have clash systems which would then bait follow-up attacks. It might not fit BB exactly in that way but it could work if tweaked. I personally prefer resets to partials and other options. You didn't succeed and neither did the enemy, so no rewards.
Trading absolutely hurts the flow of Bloodborne, there's no question. Most of what I've been arguing all along will serve as an explanation for why I think that. A reset on a near miss parry would heavily encourage players to parry because they stand to lose nothing and gain a lot, and I think that would be very harmful to the balance of parrying.
Not bad but I'm favoring much faster pace.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fyWZGGzzUII
A future idea I have is to go with the reiterpallasch + evelyn for parry run. Though right now I am all about taking down high HP bosses as quick as possible. And getting shredded with paper armor.
Yeah, that definitely is faster, and you definitely got shredded. I don't want to be rude, but I don't see this as an example of high level play at all. You're getting hit a lot, and it's usually your own fault for attacking wildly or dodging too early. I can empathise with dodging too early, since the dodge warmup lag combined with really fast attack execution times pushes players to anticipate attacks rather than reacting, but getting hit because you continued to attack even as the enemy began its own attack is all on you. You might have been hoping for a poise break in some of those instances, but unfortunately enemy poise is basically impossible to gauge, and that sucks. Even so, I don't think there's much question that that video doesn't show a high level of mastery. It also embodies the "dodge, light attack, dodge, repeat" playstyle I described as boring earlier to a large extent. The Cleric Beast is designed fairly well to counter this playstyle, which keeps it interesting even when that playstyle is employed, but making its head a weakpoint you have to target with guns to take advantage of makes it significantly more interesting (I just wish that idea was better telegraphed to the player). It encourages the player to back off at times, allowing the Beast to express more of its moveset, giving the fight a rhythm and adding an additional wrinkle besides "stay on its ass and hit it whenever possible." I think that's much more interesting.
Just saying that up close trades exist if you are positioned close. So it isn't only a game of parrying attacks from a safe zone.
I think I see what you're saying now. Let me clarify: I didn't mean trading when I said "parrying way too late and still getting a hit with the shot," I meant just getting a hit in general. Trading when you're outside of the enemy's attack range is something that can't happen in actuality, so I'm still confused by what you're saying, but I think I can understand in conceptual terms.
He is slow and trades are basically just inputs if you are going for them. I don't have videos yet emphasizing parries, but I likely will.
This is my NG+++ cap with Father G. I don't see anything in that video that shows I'm suffering from startup lag with evelyn. I only mistimed some attacks, though honestly I was not shooting for viscerals but hit stun. I even got a trade on his 2nd form, basically because if that was a parry attempt, I was late.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bNo-OARsYMU
Trades are more common on attacks with larger windows. This is because the enemy attack will be further in its animation. Slower attacks qualify more. If you are getting such trades, you were slow on the parry. Sometimes "slow" might mean you didn't have clairvoyance, but that's how parrying systems usually are. You can't do perfect RG runs in DMC3 with just reflexes.
He's slow huh? Gascoigne's heavy overhead attack (example in his video at 0:13) is probably the best one to use to gauge "judged" reaction time since it's visually similar to the first hit in the 3 hit light combo (the one that's physically impossible to parry for humans), and Gascoigne uses it often. My friend's best time for starting the parry is 12 frames into the attack's warmup animation. That's how fast he's capable of seeing the attack, distinguishing it from others that are visually similar, and pressing the parry button. We should also cut off a couple of frames at the beginning of the attack too, since it's completely impossible to distinguish from other attack animations at that point. That means his reaction time is about a third of a second at best. Are you really asking for timings more stringent than that? I'm sure there are people out there that can react faster, but not by a huge amount. A third of a second is already an extremely short time window.
Evelyn, just like the Hunter Pistol, has 9 frames of warmup lag. You're suffering because of that, you just don't know it. That lag, and the buggy hit calculations and unreasonably fast attack execution times, are the entire reason you barely try to parry in the first place. The trade late in the video is actually more bullshit than usual; Gascoigne's jumping attacks have insanely small windows for parrying, and trying to parry from range isn't going to work most of the time because the attack moves him toward you. That's an attack that should've just been made unparryable.
Parry windows can exist both before and after an attack's active period. The more parryable frames before the active period, the easier the attack is to parry. Attacks with substantial parryable frames before their active periods are quite rare. For most attacks, it doesn't matter how fast you are when you're in the attack's range because the parryable frames coincide closely with the attack's active period. This is not a matter of being too slow. And an action game should never, ever require clairvoyance. Memorizing an enemy's moveset and patterns will obviously give you an advantage, but a flawless victory should always be possible in theory. This is the ideal.
I've played a lot of action games and sunk many many hours into some of them. The basic idea is that you have to take what you can get. Having the ability to shape a game how you want, nerfing yourself, not using OP crap, is actually a large positive in these games. I do it all the time, it is fun and creates new challenges. Is it ideal? No. You are reacting to questionable design and shaping gameplay towards your own ideals. However, it's a realistic point of view. Even my favorite action games have huge flaws. My favorite would be DMC3 and it has more flaws then other games I really enjoy like NG. NG black is probably the least flawed action game title in existence but it is not my favorite. Flaws will always be there and you are lucky if you have the ability to remove them yourself.
Imagine BB was like Punch Out. Father G could only be killed by parries. Ebrietas could only be killed with arcane, physical damage gave her health. Games pull this shit all the time and thankfully BB doesn't. If the bullshit stacks up too high? Replayability goes out the window and that's way worse then shitty design decisions with a ton of polish.
I don't like accepting the idea that flaws will always exist, designers should always be striving for perfection, but it doesn't really matter for this conversation. Bloodborne has flaws that I can't correct, and that makes me sad.
I'd hate if Bloodborne had super strict rules like that too, but shitty design decisions with a lot of polish is how I would describe parry trading and quite a bit of other stuff in the game.
Positioning is always defense first. Attacking adds risk and lowers defense. Even the concept of rush-down is keeping enemy options low and using attacks to strengthen defense. There are other ways to look at it but action games actually emphasize defense over offense if you break it down. Well, the good ones.
Positioning has effects on both offense and defense simultaneously, but I would argue in Bloodborne it's usually active on offense and passive on defense. The bit in your Cleric Beast video where you get trapped in a corner (starting around 0:19) is a good example of this. That positioning was probably unintentional, but it put you out of the enemy's reach and allowed you to attack unfettered for a while. Of course, when the enemy was able to reach you again you'd be able to dodge it as long as you weren't already doing something else that had priority. Positioning leads directly to offensive opportunities, while making defense less necessary, at least temporarily. It's less often an active defense in itself, though that does happen. Invincibility frames mean that any attack that doesn't last longer than the invincibility does doesn't need positioning to dodge. Also, rush-down against AI in Bloodborne doesn't really exist. AI enemies' options aren't limited when they're in an arbitrary space, it's all about their positioning relative to you.
Sorry for the long wait between responses. I'll try to be more prompt. I do put work into them though, so they can't come too often
