Fimbulvetr
Member
I don't see how this is an argument for parrying at range being a good thing. Enemies that counter it don't make it not exist, and parrying often being seriously non-viable up close is still a problem. The riposte window is shorter than Dark Souls II's, but seems to be about the same length as the first Dark Souls (about 2 seconds from the first frame of the parry reaction to the last), and I think we can take DS2 as the anomaly here (you won't see me protecting its parrying system regardless).They were fully aware that you can parry at range. They made some mobs extremely aggressive for this reason (and the reason that they can also punish back dashing). They also made the reposte window far smaller than in Dark Souls 2 for this same reason.
Your scenario with players mashing L2 was already a nonfactor in Demon's and Dark Souls even with their much faster (roughly one tenth of a second!) parry warmups. Mashing has never been viable, and wouldn't be viable in Bloodborne if parry warmups were cut down.There is an NPC hunter in the game that will do this to you (it is intelligently programmed compared to any other NPC hunter in the game, whereas Father G is a very dumb NPC hunter in comparison.)
Basically players that get up close are able to get attacks in and the other player can't just mash L2 to get a lucky parry (unless they want to take serious damage I suppose).
The reason I mention PVP mechanics is because Father G uses the Hunter's Axe, so some of his attacks are balanced for PVP in that regard. He's still very easy to parry because his AI is exploitable which is fine because he's the first boss in the game.
Father G is distinctly not meant to be a PVP simulator, though aspects of his design may make him seem that way, so bringing up PVP in relation to his design just makes the conversation murkier I think. I'd like to see an NPC Hunter bait a parry and then punish its warmup. Even crazier would be if they countered parries on reaction, that's an inhuman task that's only even possible in theory with attacks that have something like 3 frames of warmup lag or lower (are there any attacks that are that fast?). Why would you want to punish a parry warmup anyway? If you're slightly to slow in that tiny window you just get parried.
I won't be able to respond again for a while after this post, but I look forward to seeing your response.