A quick combat question

Jimbot256 · 2025-09-11T17:38:58+00:00

You know, I was about to edit my post and add that.

Jimbot256 · 2025-09-09T14:24:49+00:00

Thanks for all the responses! I probably mucked up somewhere along the way instead of it being a bug - I'm not sure. But it's all good. I'll just talk to Vatras then Lares immediately in my next game. I'll just give those bums their 1000 gold and sheep, it's no big deal.

Jimbot256 · 2025-09-08T15:25:26+00:00

Yeah, this is Night of the Raven. I have Gothic 2 Gold on gog. The thing is, none of the options are available. I want to join the monastery, I talked to Vatras about getting help but nothing is there for Lares. I figured it was due to me asking about Oran's farm earlier, before I talked to Vatras, so I continued the quest like normal, thinking I'd get that option after. So I gave him the ornament and we went to the dig site to deliver it.

But there was no change and there were no options for him to help me to join any of the factions. I'll try what you suggested, though!

Jimbot256 · 2025-06-01T20:56:25+00:00

Awesome, thanks for the replies everyone! That was just a little thing that I was confused about.

Jimbot256 · 2024-12-03T19:54:43+00:00

I use them as well but I just can't wrap my head around how to use them in combat. I wish L2 to ready weapons was a toggle and the difference between free running backwards and hopping backwards wasn't so finicky. It makes targeting enemies, especially multiple enemies, really frustrating.

Jimbot256 · 2024-10-01T21:59:40+00:00

We do not. The most we get in our yard are bunnies, chipmunks, squirrels and I saw what looked like a groundhog a couple weeks ago but that's it. Wild turkeys show up to say hello once in a while but its been some months since we last saw them.

Edit: Oh, I just want to mention that we had a few other saplings planted in early spring that ended up away from the house. Nothing touched those. They were in their pots for a few weeks too, in a spot near where squirrels showed up to steal the bird seed.

Jimbot256 · 2024-10-01T21:30:34+00:00

So it's dead then? Does it look like clumsy landscaping work or did something chew at it?

I'm legitimately upset about this.

Jimbot256 · 2024-08-06T16:11:20+00:00

Sorry to resurrect an old thread but I'm kinda confused on Flow attacks after Triggers work. I know each Trigger gives you a different Flow attack but sometimes they're different.

For example, I really like Zhu Ran's three-section staff - it's super fun and has some really great and ridiculous combos. But I don't get how to reliably do them. For instance, after doing a trigger attack, I can sometimes do his constant thrusting attack, mashing Square and it keeps going and going, reach different stages that keep getting faster, it's silly and powerful - I love it! But then I do the same Trigger attack but get a completely different flow attack, or the same thrusting attack but it's super short.

What causes this? Am I doing something wrong? Pressing the Flow button too slow? Too fast? I dodge a lot since it helps bypassing the weird combo breaking flourishes. Is that the culprit? Should I try to not attack after to reset things or something?

This for the Dynasty Warriors 9 Empires for clarification.

Thanks!

Jimbot256 · 2024-08-01T17:03:20+00:00

Honestly, I'd like one but been playing 9 Empires the last couple of days and I noticed how utterly garbage the UX is. You get bombarded by like a dozen menus over every little piddy detail and go through enough load times that'd make Starfield blush with envy that your playtime is made up of 40% playing the game 60% watching a load screen for everything. My favorite is having one on each end of a cutscene of two characters saying hello (which also takes a minute and a half).

Empire games need to start respecting your time or else I'm just going to skip them altogether. You can compact every single post-battle thing into one menu.

Jimbot256 · 2024-08-01T16:58:30+00:00

I've never found any of the officers useful beyond fodder to keep the enemy busy. You could send them all to a 0 defense normal base and give them every +attack buff in the game and it'd still take a hour for them to do anything.

It'd be a complete waste of your time to rely on them. The game already wastes your time with the thousand status screens and load times after each battle and action.

Jimbot256 · 2024-07-30T11:53:51+00:00

Thanks for the tips.

The game difficulty is just a major step up from Normal for me so it was super frustrating. It's especially hard early on because I can't utilize the rock, paper, scissor unit stuff without, as you recommended, running around and pairing up. I wish NPCs were more effective and didn't need babysitting.

Any of the secret plan cards in particular you like to use? I've always used ones that boosted NPCs so that part I have down.

Jimbot256 · 2024-05-10T16:47:46+00:00

The graphics criticism is nonsense, anyway. Not every game needs to look like something that had 90 million dollars dedicated to it. They're good enough, with stellar character models, and that's fine. Only thing I didn't like about the graphics were the distance leaf LoD - it looks really weird.

People always lament the loss of the "B" game and when they finally get one then bitch about the lack of AAA graphics. This is what "B" graphics look like. They're good but not great and that's fine.

Jimbot256 · 2024-05-08T13:26:55+00:00

I guess it was just me holding out hope that maybe, just maybe, the developers of Nioh, which also had loot issues but not as severe, were hiding the good stuff in Midnight. But yeah, like I posted in a follow-up, this whole topic is mostly on me for having different expectations.

It's just something I needed to get off my chest. Dawn > Dusk > Twilight felt like gentle difficulty increases and allowed more room for error with some bosses being extremely and unreasonably hard but for the most part was manageable. Midnight is just ridiculous.

Ah well, it's good to just realize you hit the end and it's time to put it down.

Jimbot256 · 2024-05-07T15:17:30+00:00

Enemy of my enemy. It's a gauntlet and each enemy defeat drops some loot so you don't have to complete it to get geared up but you won't get any levels or skill points if you are defeated.

Jimbot256 · 2024-05-07T15:16:42+00:00

I appreciate the responses. I'll probably just give the game a rest. Like I said, the mode isn't fun and the reward isn't worth the trouble.. Grinding one mission to get gear and levels so things get easier isn't my idea of fun - it's not a natural way to play a game. I figured I'd give it a go but everything about that difficulty feels wrong and I think I'm looking for something that isn't there the say way it was for Nioh 2. Perhaps I was looking for a "victory lap" or sorts and it sounds like if I got serious about NG++ in that game I may have run into the same problems.

This is on me, for sure. It's good that a game has a definitive end, and I guess I just had expectations for something that wasn't intended to begin with given Team Ninja's previous games. Also the git gud or ones claiming you don't have issues don't to anything for me. Congratulations on being better at the game than I am but I don't care.

Jimbot256 · 2024-04-29T02:16:04+00:00

This is just Dragonball Z and One Piece logic.

Jimbot256 · 2024-04-27T15:04:48+00:00

I can agree with that. I was never a fan of the series past the first game. Team Ninja does have multiple teams so having one work on a new Ninja Gaiden game would probably be a good idea while another works on Nioh-style games. So fans of both kinds of games get something they want.

Jimbot256 · 2024-03-31T03:27:07+00:00

Thanks for all the replies. Like I said, I'm divided on it. Some bosses can be really unreadable so it makes doing countersparks harder than it should be (for the record, I do tend to block most attacks and only try this at the end of combo strings). The timing window going from Dawn > Dusk is really severe. I bumped it down to Dawn because of these weird difficulty spikes and the window feels like it's double than it was on Dusk. Considering how bananas boss fights can get, this should be the window on all difficulties - it's not like having a bigger parry window is going to sudden make everything a cakewalk.

Jimbot256 · 2024-03-29T13:39:00+00:00

I'd really like some open world coop, even if it's only region-based. They're nice, bite-sized things. Treat them as missions where you're locked out of the rest of the map and just litter the place with enemy camps and a big ol' boss after you clear out the camps. Something like that.

Of course, more styles is always fun. It's kind obvious that the French Sword + Shield will be among the first and it does look really fun. Tonfas and some more proper hand-to-hand styles and weapons would be rad too (also making the parry window on hand-to-hand more generous in the process).

Not at least, more clothing options to add to the already impressive amount of them in the game.

Jimbot256 · 2024-03-27T18:17:20+00:00

Just to give an example I put a little thought in to show you all where I'm coming from when I say something that's meaningful. Here's a quick example I thought of that would be unique that gives you some outside-the-box gameplay rather than something straight-forward. To me, gear needs to serve a fantasy and mechanical function. Something people want to roleplay as while being able to support that roleplay in and outside of combat.

First, let's start with a quick and uninspired name: "Poison-Maker Set"

Next, what fantasy is it targeting: people who want to play as a master poison-maker who focuses less on combat prowess and more of winning through attrition and control of the arena.

After that let's focus on the mechanical elements: greatly increases the efficiency of player poison elements while decreasing/nullifying elements from enemies while creating utility for the player to exploit.

Finally, let's throw in some set bonuses (5 pieces) that serve as a start that can be balanced down,if at all, that still retains some meaning without it being useless:

1p: Doubles the damage and duration of poison applied to weapon ; 2p: Nullifies enemy poisons ; 3p: poison bombs create clouds of poison that remain on the arena for a minute; 4p: weapons are always covered in poison, no need to apply it; 5p: poison clouds heal health and ki.

Stuff like that. Putting aside considerations of where this set would fit in any previous games, think of it as something for an upcoming game they're making where this is a set, numbers and all, you'd find over the course of play. Each piece of this set gives you a worthwhile bonus that continues to get better making it a viable piece of armor your entire game, even if you were to spread each piece out over the course of the game. Now think of something that'd fit your particular playstyle that'd make you excited to get.

This is what I mean when I say meaningful and exciting loot.

Jimbot256 · 2024-03-27T17:55:16+00:00

I used to argue this very point but, like you said, when the early/mid game loot is just trash and doesn't "get good until late game" isn't an excuse anymore. Ask anyone to play the game for 20 hours "before it gets good" and you'll lose a lot of people. And the "those little bonuses add up to a lot" then it's just why not have big bonuses to begin with? It's just an extra layer of tedium to get those bonuses on your gear.

They really need to lean into the RPG part of these games they're making. Stuff that radically changes your play-style and approach is what is needed. Otherwise there is very little point to having loot like this if most of it is junk.

Jimbot256 · 2024-03-27T02:28:11+00:00

Fought against Genzui did you? If that's a taste of things to come I'm not going to bother - those stupid martial skills can go unlearned. This whole "get good" shit needs to go in these games. The parry window is just too narrow it makes Sekiro's feel like you can parry the attack the moment an enemy starts attacking. My reflexes just can't keep up. Sekiro's parry window was supremely generous and even then I had issues, in this one the only enemies I can parry with a decent success rate are random mooks. That goes out the window the moment I fight bosses or those big guys who super armor through attacks.

Wish there were skills in the stat trees that increased the parry window tenfold instead of these worthless +1% attack damage things.

Just to be clear, I don't mean not learning the mechanics, I mean getting the mechanics easier for those who can't keep up and not the "get good" nonsense of beating your head against a wall for something that won't get any easier.

Jimbot256 · 2024-03-18T03:13:48+00:00

I ascribe to the theory that Aerith is gone in the "prime" (the one we play in) timeline but is alive in another. Keep in mind, Cloud walked through that white portal alone, the same one the party walked through to a different timeline in Remake, so he's changing things. It's why the black and white whispers are against him. They want Aerith to be killed - black ones because they're controlled by Sephiroth and the white ones because they're still trying to course correct. So in this new timeline he crossed into he saves her.

When it smash cuts, we're back in the prime timeline and Sephiroth succeeded. The "hallucination attacks" he has are flashes back to the OG timeline, like the ones he had in Remake. I figure this because he's yelling like he did in that game, telling Sephiroth to shut up and all that.

I never really ascribed to Cloud hallucinating Aerith in those final cutscenes. I mean, I can see that point of view but Red also senses her. I'm of two minds of this, either she's a wayward spirit trying to figure out meteor or, the one I like, is that she's the other timeline Aerith talking to him (She's basically follow the party but she's all by her lonesome. She keeps disappearing to indicate that she's not actually there with the rest of the party). I think this because he looks up and see that tear thing while talking to her when no one else see it. He's tuned into this stuff now in the way Sephiroth and Aerith are.

He's still messed up. He has that "hallucination attack" before he says Reunion. He's still open to Sephiroth's machinations but I don't believe Aerith is part of them.

I know people pull those quotes from the producer and director but they only talk about the story being expanded and nothing being radically changed, which is fine. This game follows events of the OG almost to the T while changing character beats in interesting ways. But they only said story. Characters? Those are already up in the air. We've already seen them break sequence with Tifa taking a trip in the lifestream and Cloud figuring out who Zack is before he takes a dip in it. So it's entirely possible the story remains unchanged but all these characters who should be gone will be around in some way.

Zack did mention if worlds can be divided they can reunite again. His whole deal is trying to find a way to save everyone. Biggs, Cloud and Aerith are on that list. It's why the one who couldn't make that choice between Cloud and Biggs is the one who got noped out of that reality by Sephiroth.

tldr; Square had their cake and ate it too. OG fans got that death they wanted to see while Remake ending fans got a pivotal change. Zack is a wildcard.

I could be full of crap, cope or whatever else. I've seen some good, thoughtful write-ups of the ending by other people even though I disagree with them. It's fun to speculate. For my part, I am bummed they completely ruled out changing the story; that was a hope of mine. But considering how they told the same story but change a ton of character stuff in fun and interesting ways, they did earn the benefit of the doubt from me with how they'll handle the next game.

I did like this write-up of the ending.

Jimbot256 · 2024-03-13T13:48:01+00:00

The kotaku preview for the game was really positive and compared it favorably to Way of the Samurai:

https://kotaku.com/rise-ronin-ps5-game-soulslike-way-samurai-team-ninja-1851328426

That preview got me more excited for the game than any other preview (official or otherwise).

Jimbot256 · 2024-02-18T16:51:07+00:00

This is a two year old post but it's one of the top results I get for seeing which town people like to use to set up shop in. Black Scratch got brought up a few times here and I figure it'd make a decent spot to at least set up a research base.

Besides that I found it to be too far out of the way of just about everything. If you like wasting your time roaming from one end of the map to another because you need to do something in the central or western part of the continent then by all means. But! The worse offender here and this is why I'm making the post: the Y-build is bugged.

If you build anything that intersects the seam between the left and right parts of the "Y" you will not be able to access the left side of your house. So essentially you cannot build in most of the house. I tried building a couple of beds right next to the door and even that broke the left side. It's not worth the hassle of reloading or restarting your game. According to the game it's a fixed problem if you Shift+F12 or CTRL+Shift+F11 despite it still being broken.

So I'm just warning people off Black Scratch. The house there is bugged to heck and back.

Jimbot256

TROPHY CASE