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[Hashassin]

I'm an ultima omega souls vet deluxe and I have this to say: git gud.

But also, are you using shields? They're very nice to get to know an enemy without needing to sporadically dodge. Lots of times you can just hold your shield up and strafe around the enemy and not get hit, but still have your shield for if you do get hit.
You need to get up close and know your enemy.
Once you get comfortable you can try without shields. Strafing around enemies and fishing for backstabs is a good way to start getting to know them. You can look at it as a kind of dance.

Of course this doesn't apply to bloodborne and (mostly) sekiro, those games will require you to get the hang of it.
For bloodborne you could use a gun as a kind of panic button, more often than not you will get a stagger.
The dodges are smooth and fast and therefore tricky as you'll also receive extra damage if you miss the timing. You can go for a similar strategy of baiting an attack and dodging into the enemy to end up behind it, hopefully nullifying any followup and getting you in position for a stagger.
Dodging into enemies as opposed to away can also prove to be the better option for most of these games.

Also, don't use guides, takes away all the magic of self progression. In my humblest of opinions. Good luck!

 

[HRK69]

Don't get greedy, pace your attacks, play cautiously and memorize the enemies attacks.

Sekiro is only an extremely hard game if the player isn't cautious and refuses to learn the enemies attack patterns.

I disagree

Sekiro's combat revolves around breaking posture, not just chipping away at HP. The fastest way to break posture is by being aggressive, keeping pressure on the enemy so they can't recover posture

Sekiro rewards aggression and pressure, not the slow and safe approach you'd use in a typical Souls game. Genichiro, in particular, is designed to punish hesitation and reward you for mastering posture damage through relentless deflection and forward momentum

That said, it's not mindless aggression. Timing your parries correctly is absolutely key, and smart offense means knowing when to deflect, counter, and strike.

Sekiro is about rhythm and dominance, not caution

 

[Azure Crystal Gaming]

It sounds to me like your favorite part of Souls is the exploration/progression, NOT the boss fights, which have in time become more hardcore/reflex intensive. I don't see any problem with you enjoying the explorations bits and consulting help for the boss bits. Every game gives you tools to make fights easier (summons, buff consumables).

I hate the environment kills as well. Anything that makes me fall of a narrow path. Any enemy that can two shot me as well. I love looking around in these games once enemies are cleared out.

 

[Grildon Tundy]

I'm on my fourth attempt at getting into Sekiro as we speak. In Dark Souls/Bloodborne/Elden Ring, I hardly ever dodged or parried, and I enjoy grinding levels until I'm OP. Sekiro has no RPG-style leveling and demands that I learn to deflect, whether I want to or not.

Funny enough, it was Clair Obscur's dodge/parry mechanics that made me want to give Sekiro another go.

 

[Super Lemon Drop]

Are there any really good and in-depth combat breakdown videos of Sekiro that go into detail beyond just blade dancing and the rock-paper-scissors of the kanjis? I'm looking for something that talks about different enemies and bosses and how to understand and use the combat system in different situations against different enemies. It is a game that I have tried several times and I do no want to give up on it since I love everything else about it.

 

[Kagoshima_Luke]

I remember hating Ninja Gaiden. Couldn't beat the first boss and even getting to him was a nightmare. Then... it clicked. I figured out how the game expected me to play and be successful. Ended up being one of my favorite games of all time.

Very similar thing happened with Demon's Souls. I gave up on the game for A YEAR. The game felt really weird and sluggish to play; couldn't figure out the phalanx boss. Same deal - came back to it a year later, and it clicked. Ended up loving that game and every souls game that came after.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is there's a point where it clicks and stops feeling draining and starts being awesome.

 

[bbeach123]

Its pattern recognition the game , with a bit of a rhythm game .

Oh and just dont panik .Do not spamming the attack button.

 

[Buggy Loop]

I never managed to get into the parry system of Sekiro. I just couldn't manage to get the timings right.
Maybe there is some trick to it, but I couldn't figure it out.

Not much trick that I can recall, it's even a lot more forgiving than Dark souls which I never timed correctly, but I beat Sekiro 100% comparatively. I think you can even spam the button and it'll work out for a lot of parries if you're still not quite good on timing. Spam has less frames than a legit parry but still works out and saved my ass a lot of times I'd wager.

Cool thing about PC is the trainer. Slow down time, get timings right, speed it up, then get to 100%.

Also never cheese. Never look youtube for cheese strategy on a boss. That's gonna bite you in the ass later in the game as truely everything you learn in the game will be used later on. My first run I was looking at cheese strategies and hit a wall with the game. I tried it again like 2 years later and didn't cheese anything, looked for videos on how to beat it fair and square online for some boss sure, but it was a learning experience needed to beat the game.

And when you understand this game, there's nothing like it.

 

[Super Lemon Drop]

Some games you are good and some games your are not……that's life.

I'm absolutely shit at fighting and will never gonna good at it no matter how much I try.

I do agree with this. But Sekiro is one of those rare games that is special enough that I will not accept that haha. I owe it to myself to figure it out in order to experience and enjoy the game the way it is meant to be enjoyed.

 

[TerribleAtThisGame]

I remember hating Ninja Gaiden. Couldn't beat the first boss and even getting to him was a nightmare. Then... it clicked. I figured out how the game expected me to play and be successful. Ended up being one of my favorite games of all time.

Very similar thing happened with Demon's Souls. I gave up on the game for A YEAR. The game felt really weird and sluggish to play; couldn't figure out the phalanx boss. Same deal - came back to it a year later, and it clicked. Ended up loving that game and every souls game that came after.

Basically, what I'm trying to say is there's a point where it clicks and stops feeling draining and starts being awesome.

I bought Ninja Gaiden when it came out and I remember my friend and I being outraged that the game expected us to beat that dude lol. It took me days of coming back and trying.

 

[kevboard]

You have to journey around the map to unlock the gate at the beginning and fight the boss before you can level up your character.
Before that point, (without a guide) you are walking around a massive castle with no idea what to do. You also have to try get past a dragon on a bridge to reach a lever for opening said starting boss gate, if you can even make it that far.

It is not easy.

Compare that to Elden Ring, where you can literally walk without fighting anyone to reach the bonfire that activates your level-up system.

uh, that massive castle has like 3 relatively short routes you can go down. what? I am so confused. and then the first boss is also so ridiculously easy.

 

[balls of snow]

The way I got into Soulsborne was to watch a good player lets play concurrently with my own playthrough. Watch an episode or part of one and then try myself.
EpicNameBro was the one for me for Bloodborne. His tips and tutorial on bosses carry through up to Elden Ring.

Dodging or rather where to dodge, iframes, anticipating enemy patterns, rinse repeat its the same thing 10 years on.

 

[Hemingwayoffbase]

Dodge later than you think.

 

[Crayon]

For skill based stuff, i watch the part on a lets play. The key is you have to pay close attention to what they do different than you.

Just the other day i got stuck in an old helicopter game where there is no strafe. So i watched someone else do it and noticed they were using the altitude up/down buttons to strafe, but vertically. I tried that and got unstuck. The player i watched was not any kind of expert, just someone who could beat the level.

 

[IAmRei]

I'm kind of triggered, for sekiro is compared with stellar blade ...

Ew, no...

 

[bitbydeath]

uh, that massive castle has like 3 relatively short routes you can go down. what? I am so confused. and then the first boss is also so ridiculously easy.

3 short routes?
This is the map.

The first boss is easy, reaching the boss is the hard part.

 

[kevboard]

3 short routes?
This is the map.

The first boss is easy, reaching the boss is the hard part.

this only looks complicated because it's split up into different floors. there are only like 3 distinct paths to go down, and they either lead to a shortcut or loop around.

 

[bitbydeath]

this only looks complicated because it's split up into different floors. there are only like 3 distinct paths to go down, and they either lead to a shortcut or loop around.

Still takes a good half hour or more to get around, and that's only if you go from beginning to end without dying. The normal enemies are more challenging than say Bloodborne.

 

[Rush2112]

Sifu and first berserker

 

[Chittagong]

I had to triple dip on Dark Souls until it finally clicked on the Switch. I still vividly remember fighting some bog standard skeletons at the beginnig of the game one Easter in St Emilion (a place that feels like the game), determined to figure out blocking and parrying. I never really learned to parry, but being able to block nearly everything with zero damage was such a revelation that I finally saw how I had a chance.

From there I went to complete all the souls games, and absolutely love them. I am on my second play through on Elden Ring. In Sekiro, I double dipped and got to the last boss on my second run. In Bloodborne, I gave up in Ludwig. I regret both – if a remaster dropped for either, I would jump right back in and finish them.

YouTube videos and the wiki are absolutely fine for boss fights. I usually work a boss a good twenty times, level up if needed, but in case of desperation, look it up. Better to get forward than stop.

 

[_Justinian_]

I love certain mechanics from these games (bonfire level up build locations, lore, atmosphere, settings) but everything else is soul crushing. Should I stop so I do not go gray haired before my time?

Feel free to roast me for being a bad gamer, because it is true.

When I was a kid, every morning at my babysitter's house before going to school I would play this game on the NES called "Deadly Towers." I eventually took the game home with me to play in the evenings, as well. I could never beat it. I didn't think that I was a bad gamer. I just played video games for the fun of it. I also couldn't beat "Mike Tyson's Punch Out," "Platoon," and to this day I have been unable to beat the original "Zelda." I did, however, beat "The Goonies II" which apparently was considered quite a feat.

Lookup guides and seek advice and watch videos if you so desire, but not being able to finish a game doesn't make you a bad gamer (unless you're unable to pass the tutorial section in Cuphead; then you should seek a new hobby). Enjoy the journey.

 

[Soodanim]

So much bad advice.

There is only one piece of advice that applies to all of the games, and that's to wait for opportunities. Or, more to the point, find opportunities. It is about patience in a sense, and I do get impatient, but that's not the mindset that makes you succeed.

Souls games are about attack commitment and both you and the enemy punishing attacks.

Dark Souls 1 is probably the best place to learn that, because later games are stuck in the cycle of upping the difficulty and speed. 1 is the most fair.

Basic 3 step:

1. Enemies (mostly) use fixed attacks or combos, which means you can start to recognise them
2. When you know what combo is happening you can look for when and where you might be able to punish
3. Learn how many hits you can get in

For example if you see a 3 attack combo, that might be getting out of the way for 2 then dodging toward on the third and getting a few hits in.

Quick bits for specific games:

Dark Souls 1: I got better when I stopped locking on. The extra roll directions really help positioning and you can still face forward and block.

Sekiro: people call it a rhythm game but that almost misses the point. There are just more hits in enemy combos and your primary method of damage avoidance is L1. You're still learning combos and waiting for punish windows, it's just that successful L1s also help punish the enemy. You can still play it like regular Souls if you like, and there are videos of people doing just that.