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Update:

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Stellar Blade’s stylish and fast-paced battle mechanics are one of the upcoming title’s biggest attractions, earning it comparisons to acclaimed action titles such as Sekiro and Bayonetta. Players worldwide attested to the quality of Stellar Blade’s combat when the demo dropped on March 29. However, some players have commented that they have experienced what feels like input lag in certain instances, and Shift Up’s Hyung Tae-Kim recently addressed this topic.

Hyung Tae-Kim, the director and producer of Stellar Blade, gave an interview to Japanese video game outlet 4Gamer (published on April 25). Discussing the game’s demo, the interviewer inquires about a delay they felt between button press and activation when performing perfect parries or dodging.

In response, Kim answers: “In Stellar Blade, there is about a 0.5 second lag between the moment you press the button and the moment the skill is visible on-screen. It’s a time lag that can’t be reduced any further. We made it so that the character’s movement does not get triggered immediately upon button press, as we felt this would not fit the game’s style of animation. Thus, we made it so that the skill itself is activated the moment you press the button, but the animation of the movement follows afterwards.”

It seems that what some players identified as input lag was a choice made by the developers in the interest of keeping Stellar Blade’s character animation fluid. Additionally, it seems there is no actual delay between button press and skill activation, as it is only the animation of the skill that lags behind.

On the other hand, Kim seems aware that players could potentially encounter issues due to this choice, mentioning that he will keep an eye on feedback and make improvements if necessary.

Source - Automaton West

 

[MayauMiao]

All that jiggle physics takes time to calculate.

 

[Guilty_AI]

Literally unplayable

 

[360fps]

Its a feature right?

 

[winjer]

Half a second of lag. Seriously, wtf.

 

[SlimySnake]

0.5 seconds delay is ridiculous for a parry. especially for a game designed around it.

sometimes you have to make compromises you dont want to make for the sake of gameplay. this is a game after all. at least the parry command is registered immediately but then it creates a disconnect between player prompts and game feedback.

 

[Punished Miku]

I guess if you want to give the presentation priority, trying to make the activation trigger before the animation is the best you could hope for.

It's definitely noticeable. I was watching my brother play the demo recently and he couldn't get the parries despite being good at action games. I had to literally tell him to always hit it early because it's slow, then it started working for him.

Movement in general is also slow, but that's more of a design choice. I'm not as into that, but people seem excited.

 

[John Bilbo]

Sound a bit like Dark Souls.

Clarification: The combat sounds similarily animation based to have weight in it. Not hack & slash but more methodical and requires more consideration in its actions.

 

[Evolved1]

it was messing me up at first, but i did adjust in the demo. i could see it annoying people.

 

[nkarafo]

So it's visual lag, not really input lag? He said the actual skill is activated immediately and only the visuals/animations look like they are lagging?

But still, if you react to visuals you are always going to be late so that's terrible.

 

[crackajack]

Something felt off to me. I never like when games seem to have some sort of slow queue to work through and finish animations or some other shit instead of doing what I press right now, abandoning anything I pressed before. Makes it feel like I am shouting orders and someone else is doing the inputs for me which is just indirect, mushy and weird. Fighting games or DmC are certainly great for those who really see through their mechanics, I just get annyoed and I would need proper tutorials that teach me each and every move more in depth than just doing it thrice in a sort of useless training. Make sure I actually understand the timing and correct repsonses through the first hours, and after every new acquired move and not allow me button mash somehow thru it. Pros would not like it, should be optional of course, but some inner monologue telling me what I did wrong and what I am supposed to do and look for would be great. Too fast, too slow, entirely wrong response... games should be able to tell if a player is just doing guesswork and help them get actual skills and also leave them alone when they do well already.

 

[AndrewRyan]

Only played through the demo once but the lag was like jumping into cold water. Will give it another try cause the it looks so amazing but hope they can patch it or make it an option.

 

[baphomet]

So that's why it felt like actual shit

 

[dezzy8]

So it's visual lag, not really input lag? He said the actual skill is activated immediately and only the visuals/animations look like they are lagging?

But still, if you react to visuals you are always going to be late so that's terrible.

Yup that’s what it sounds like.

 

[Evolved1]

at least it's not elden ring. i've been a parry player in every souls game, and even after hundreds of hours in elden ring it still feels like a dice roll. so... could be worse lol.

 

[Zheph]

I did pretty well in the demo so no worries for me, bring on the full game!

 

[Madflavor]

All of the critics, and youtube content creators like FightingCowboy have all said the combat is great. So I'm not worried about this. I played the demo, I got used to it, and once you get into the flow of combat it feels really good.

 

[Chuck Berry]

I never noticed it in the demo and there are also parry upgrades that make them easier to pull off. I dont see this being an issue for me personally

 

[Robb]

That sounds awful. Make animations that fit the gameplay, not the other way around.

 

[Skifi28]

After 15 minutes of playing I didn't even notice it.

 

[rodrigolfp]

A new record?

RDR2 cries.

 

[Cynexius]

I noticed this in the demo. Personally, I think it's a terrible decision they made, and I will never buy this game because of it.

 

[Arsic]

Odd. It never was an issue in the demo for me. Parried without problems.

 

[Punished Miku]

Odd. It never was an issue in the demo for me. Parried without problems.

You probably just weren't reacting to your character animation then. Theoretically, if you just watch the monster and parry on time the input works. But if you view controls as manipulating the character on screen and seeing the response it can feel sluggish.

 

[FunkMiller]

Well, that's just fucking dumb, people.

 

[midnightAI]

You probably just weren't reacting to your character animation then. Theoretically, if you just watch the monster and parry on time the input works. But if you view controls as manipulating the character on screen and seeing the response it can feel sluggish.

Ah, that makes sense why it felt fine to me, but surely that's how everyone plays? Reacting to the monster attacks, why would you be watching the player character animations?

 

[Punished Miku]

Ah, that makes sense why it felt fine to me, but surely that's how everyone plays? Reacting to the monster attacks, why would you be watching the player character animations?

Some people just view controller inputs as a direct manipulation of the character and don't feel comfortable with the slower visual responsiveness.

 

[midnightAI]

Some people just view controller inputs as a direct manipulation of the character and don't feel comfortable with the slower visual responsiveness.

So long as the dodge and parry work as expected it isn't an issue for me, in fact, parry in this game seems much easier than many games (especially souls games)

 

[Bert Big Balls]

I found this fine in the demo to be honest. Once i'd practiced the combat and parries etc, I got used to the timing. No different to any other game of this nature which takes getting used to.

 

[Bert Big Balls]

Odd. It never was an issue in the demo for me. Parried without problems.

Same once I got the hang of the timing.

 

[Davevil]

 

[Muffdraul]

When I played the demo I chalked this up to a style choice. Sort of like the little freezes before super moves in Street Fighter games. Didn't bother me at all.

 

[Clear]

There is no need to sync up event processing 1:1 with visual display; Games are mostly smoke and mirrors with what feels right and what looks right often being independent problems to solve.

Its another fallacy that's been deepened over the years by the crude way by DF etc. tests frame-rate and latency almost exclusively based on visual feedback. A methodology that's always been flawed.

 

[MayauMiao]

The lag would make sense if there is animation transition during parry. It shouldn't be hard to adjust parry timing.

Like this person did perfectly.

 

[StereoVsn]

Ahh, that explains why couldn’t get parry to work in the Demo. I get why the devs did this but I don’t think this is the right choice.

At least put in an option to disable this.

 

[The Cockatrice]

It was obvious from the demo but gaf had to defend the sexy waifu game. It's annoying, especially as a main PC gamer /sekiro fan where input delay is practically nonexistent. I'll wait for it to be adjusted/fixed before playing the game.

 

[midnightAI]

It was obvious from the demo but gaf had to defend the sexy waifu game. It's annoying, especially as a main PC gamer /sekiro fan where input delay is practically nonexistent. I'll wait for it to be adjusted/fixed before playing the game.

You do realise that the actual action of the input isnt delayed? the only delay is the character animation that is played after the input. In other words, monster attacks, you press the parry button the parry is executed as expected

 

[The Cockatrice]

You do realise that the actual action of the input isnt delayed? the only delay is the character animation that is played after the input. In other words, monster attacks, you press the parry button the parry is executed as expected

The brain works by looking at the animations. It just felt wrong. Couldnt get used to it. Lies of P also has this shit and it also annoyed me. Sure I got used to it eventually but I played LoP at 150 fps.

 

[midnightAI]

The brain works by looking at the animations. It just felt wrong. Couldnt get used to it. Lies of P also has this shit and it also annoyed me. Sure I got used to it eventually but I played LoP at 150 fps.

Fair enough, I'm too busy looking at what the enemy is doing to notice what my character is doing (other than looking at the positioning of my character to avoid attacks etc)

 

[skit_data]

Don't know if its my brain suffering from some kind of latency but I found Stellar Blades parry timing better than similar games parry timing. Maybe I have a chronic 0.5s delay on all my sensor-motor functions from all pot smoking in my younger days.

 

[Complistic]

This isn't a good or bad thing really. It's just part of learning the game.

 

[00_Zer0]

0.5 seconds delay is ridiculous for a parry. especially for a game designed around it.

sometimes you have to make compromises you don't want to make for the sake of gameplay. this is a game after all. at least the parry command is registered immediately but then it creates a disconnect between player prompts and game feedback.

Hopefully, he gets bombarded by requests to change it, that way PS5 gamers can be happy, then by the time the game inevitably makes it's way on PC it will be fixed. I'll be buying the future PC version so if it doesn't get fixed we will see what modders can do to fix it.

 

[Generic]

You do realise that the actual action of the input isnt delayed? the only delay is the character animation that is played after the input. In other words, monster attacks, you press the parry button the parry is executed as expected

So the issue is that isn't possible to cancel the parry animation?

 

[E-Cat]

It's a zero-sum game between interactivity or beauty/grace of movement. You have to pick one.

 

[Fess]

500ms is crazy but if it’s instantly registered they can just remove some frames, it’s worse if it’s input latency.

 

[VenomousCoffee]

This definitely explains why the demo felt off to me. Playing it just felt unpleasant and I didn't finish it. I hope the game sells well, I suppose, but it's not for me.

 

[stickkidsam]

It’s fine.

We don’t need every game to play the same way. The game just needs to be consistent.

 

[Chuck Berry]

You should update the thread title Thick Thighs Save Lives

 

[Thick Thighs Save Lives]

You should update the thread title Thick Thighs Save Lives

Cheers! I'll ping a mod to edit the title. In the meantime, I've added the tweet to the OP.

 

[Punished Miku]

Cheers! I'll ping a mod to edit the title. In the meantime, I've added the tweet to the OP.

I wish this was fixed in the demo. Main reason I'm not buying it is I felt the combat was sluggish and not fun. Would like to try it.