Parrying is practically useless | Forums

[El_CK]

OBSERVATIONS

Heavy attacks can be countered in the following ways:

Guard

• guarantee of avoiding damage
• guarantee of not dealing damage
• risk of being fooled by a feint
• window spans all of enemy attack animation until point in time where guard would be unable to switch effectively
  
  • [time remaining in heavy attack's animation] - [time to switch guard] <= 0

Dodge

• possibility of avoiding damage and repositioning at the same time
• risk of taking damage from dodging in the wrong direction
• window spans beginning of attack until point in time which attack would make contact before dodge could move the player the minimum distance to avoid the attack
  
  • [time remaining in heavy attack's animation] - [ [minimum safe distance] / [velocity of roll] ] <= 0

Light Attack

• prospect of small amount of damage and interrupting attack
• risk of receiving damage from incoming heavy attack
• window spans from time of enemy beginning attack to point in time when light attack cannot strike before light attack*
  
  • [time remaining in heavy attack's animation] - [time to execute light attack] <= 0

Parry

• prospect of invulnerability period in which attacks cannot be interrupted (but can still be blocked)
• risk of damage from heavy attack
• risk of being fooled by feint
• requires enemy's attack to be targeting a guarded area by the time the attack indicator flashes
• contains two windows
  
  • window 1 spans from start of attack to point in time which attack indicator flashes
  • window 2 spans from point in time which attack indicator flashes until end point in time which attack makes contact

ANALYSIS OF OBSERVATIONS

Summary of actions required per motion relative to their allotted time frames

• guard: 1 action for a fairly large window
• dodge: 1 action for a slightly smaller window
• light attack: 1 action for relatively smaller window than either dodge or guard
• Parry: 2 actions for 2 windows, 1 per window. Each window is roughly half the size of the window for just guarding

Summary of possible rewards

• guard: no damage taken
• dodge: no damage taken and a new position
• light attack: no damage taken, small damage given, opponent staggered
• Parry: no damage taken, opponent may no longer use light attack to counter heavy attacks

Summary of apparent risks per window

• guard: damage from heavy, damage from feint's follow up
• dodge: damage from heavy attack, either from rolling into attack or dodging into a wall and then taking heavy attack
• light attack: damage from heavy attack
• Parry:
  
  • window 1:damage from heavy, damage from feint's follow up
  • window 2:damage from heavy

Summary of utility provided/ windows of opportunity given

• guard:none
• dodge:change in position, opponent needs time to process, small window of opportunity given
• light attack: opponent staggered, enemy caught off guard, relatively larger window of opportunity given
• parry: animation triggers, blade lights, opponent is given time to process their disadvantage, no window of opportunity given

THE PROBLEM
Relative to other options, Parry does not reward players as much as other options do when compared to their risks. Instead of providing any sort of window of opportunity for the parrying player to retaliate and cash in on their successful parry, they receive a buff which marginally strengthens their heavy attacks. I.E. it's not worth all the effort to parry. Assuming I've identified the direction of the heavy attack near the beginning of it's animation (which needs to be done in order to parry), why shouldn't l just light attack and immediately dish out damage and a stagger, or dodge and reposition myself? Assuming I decided to shift my guard rather than light attack or dodge, why should I initiate a heavy attack if i don't know whether or not my enemy will feint and therefore require me to shift my guard again? Assuming I know that my guard is guaranteed to make contact with the incoming attack, why should i risk another window of vulnerability for a small buff to my heavy attack when I know i'm safe and can follow up with a guard break or light attack after my guard succeeds? There is no objective reason for me to use Parry over all of my other options.

THE SOLUTIONS

• After the initial animation, Parry executes a special unstoppable attack animation which deals bonus damage
  
  • bonus damage ideally equal to or greater than [heavy attack damage] + [light attack damage]
• same as first, except parrying player is forced to decide direction of counterattack during animation for parry, while attacking player is forced to decide a direction to guard from within the same time frame
  
  • counterattack can be blocked, but not parried
  • bonus damage ideally equal to or greater than 2*[heavy attack damage]
  • if attacking player successfully guards against counter attack, damage dealt is reduced
  • ideally greater than or equal to [damage of unblocked counterattack]/3

Tell me what you think guys, I'll post a poll to see which options you think are better
option 1 = solution 1
option 2 = solution 2
option 3 = other [post reply]
option 4 = parrying shouldn't be reworked

[ZenBearV13]

Option 4: No rework.

Another benefit of parrying is it opens the largest window of opportunity to run away. Also, if you Parry an attacker that has run out of stamina, you knock them off their feet. That's a steep advantage because now you guarantee a heavy attack to land, barring outside intervention.

Parrying is risky, but not that risky. One attack is the only price of failure, you will recover in time to respond to the follow up.

You can parry heavy or light attacks, heavy is easier because you have more time but has a worse punishment for failure.

The reward is not only stealing the aggressive advantage, but having a more effective attack through bonus damage and being immune to stagger from regular attacks.

[SquadCityTyler]

I feel that parrying shouldn't be reworked as well, despite a lot of the math that's been thrown around, I suspect they're mostly educated guesses. What we know for sure is that 1) Your poise is buffed, so you won't be susceptible to staggers and that sort of thing for a short duration afterwards. This is great for dealing with 2 v 1 situations where your main problem is being stun locked, where you can't do much and end up dead. By parrying, you get (what I've /confirmed/)

1- Increased poise.
2- Increased damage.
And if what you said is true all of your provided information as well.

A lot of the argument was that why poise, whereas you can guard or dodge and such, and the fact is that parrying simply is a bigger risk, for potentially a bigger reward. Many of my deaths were because of people who parried my attacks. At that point, I couldn't make use of my typical strategy, thinking 1 step ahead and interrupting their attack with a fast light up or light right-right combo, and following up with a heavy in the same combo or something- because they weren't interrupted. However if you miss it, you're in for a world of pain.

That's my reasoning behind not wanting a rework for parrying, I think it's wonderful as is, though the feature is very discreet actually, I didn't know about it until I was specifically told by a dev at the Ubi booth at MIGs, so there's that- but I'm sure the tutorial will be far more in depth in later builds and inevitably release.

[Be1dou]

Parrying is indeed fine. The increased poise and damage obtained from it have killed me more times than I can recall. It's very good against spammers.

[BudBro49]

Parrying is fine where it is.

[emerica778]

Is not only very good against spammers, but if I remember correctly it's supposed to increase the damage you deal as well, so instead of simply guarding everything, why not just parry an attack, and get the buff. It's not much harder at all when compared to simply guarding. When somebody parries your attack, it changes the flow in which the person that was parried must be more defensive if he doesn't want to get 2 shot directly afterwards.

[slypo]

I found parrying to be fine.

The poise gain and increased damage buff you get from parrying an attack is very much worth it.
Guard and Dodge are defensive options, Light attack and Parry are Offensive options.
Each have their pros and cons and you use them depending on the situation.

For example, with a very quick, aggressive attacker, Dodging and light attacks won't cut it.
The best options in that situation is the Parry and Guard.

None of them are useless.

Also IIRC Heavy attacks when buffed do chip damage if the opponent blocks them.

[Be1dou]

I found parrying to be fine.

The poise gain and increased damage buff you get from parrying an attack is very much worth it.
Guard and Dodge are defensive options, Light attack and Parry are Offensive options.
Each have their pros and cons and you use them depending on the situation.

For example, with a very quick, aggressive attacker, Dodging and light attacks won't cut it.
The best options in that situation is the Parry and Guard.

None of them are useless.

Also IIRC Heavy attacks when buffed do chip damage if the opponent blocks them.

This ^

Once again, the bonuses you get from parrying gives you a big advantage for a comeback. And even if you don't want to risk going offensive, your buff from the parry generally keeps the enemies backing off. So it does help in many situations. Let's say, for example, you need back up. Performing a parry could hold off the enemies for a few seconds, more time for your teammates to get to you.

I haven't tested this myself yet, but does anyone know if the defensive bonuses helps with grabbing? IIRC, it mostly affects attacks with the weapon (hence the glow), but I think it might also help if you want to throw an enemy off a cliff or something. Wishful thinking here.

[Willaguy2010]

In the demo I played at PAX you could parry either light or heavy attacks, though it was easier to parry heavy attacks. In my opinion it was definitely worth it to parry, especially against people who just spammed attacks.

[Spyro1303]

Option 4: No rework.

Another benefit of parrying is it opens the largest window of opportunity to run away. Also, if you Parry an attacker that has run out of stamina, you knock them off their feet. That's a steep advantage because now you guarantee a heavy attack to land, barring outside intervention.

Parrying is risky, but not that risky. One attack is the only price of failure, you will recover in time to respond to the follow up.

You can parry heavy or light attacks, heavy is easier because you have more time but has a worse punishment for failure.

The reward is not only stealing the aggressive advantage, but having a more effective attack through bonus damage and being immune to stagger from regular attacks.

RE: When you say stamina, are you saying that an opponent has a stamina bar? I have not gotten my hands on the Alpha so I'm not certain. However if that is true then THANK GOD this game needed a stamina bar despritally. But if that is not the case then still, IT NEEDS A STAMINA BAR SYSTEM! I've gameplay footage of people who played the game and found a pattern of success, spam the attack button; at least that is what I saw anyway.

The majority of the people who played the game found success in spamming the attack button, giving little time to recover.

It reminded me of Battlefront, when someone who was playing a force sensitive hero or villain would run directly at you knocking you down and keep pressing the attack button until you were dead; not even giving you a chance to fight back. All in all this seems unfair because...

...people who actually attempted trying to play the game right got their asses handed to them.

There needs to be adverse affects for that kind of behaviour.

And in realistic terms, a person would get tired after awhile from swinging so many times.

Anything to add?: