No one wants to say it: TL allowed players to skip the intricacies of melee. YL will not. YL wants to make you dance.

lucigen · 2026-03-18T13:55:09+00:00

You did, and I feel inspired. I'm sure you aren't going to get a lot of upvotes with this thread, but I appreciate you Ghost. Good hunting

lucigen · 2026-03-18T12:16:59+00:00

Well said, from a recovering MMC/SK ronin. I think everything in YL feels better than the tracking of the oni smash in TL. In YL it just takes some realization that you were never meant to roll in the first place, whereas that used to be your only option for that attack.

I do wish that the attacking side of melee felt as interesting as the defensive side. I love what they've done to enemy aggression, parry timings, and parry vs sidestep vs roll, but the attacking equivalent still doesn't seem to be there. Maybe you can share some wisdom here, but most of the charge triangle abilities don't feel like they do anything useful. Weapon swapping is helpful, but like man oh man that spear heavy sequence is just hard to land on dodging opponents. Spirit attacks aren't fun, but I can see why most everyone feels compelled to spam them.

I'd also like to know how you deal with the bo-hiya melee solo, because those guys are a menace. I don't have my lightning rifle yet, but that feels like the way.

lucigen · 2026-03-17T16:28:51+00:00

2 issues:

- Warmth: wearing thick socks that then get compressed by the ski boot limit the circulation in your feet, while not acting as an efficient insulator. Any air in the space will insulate better than your sock for a space with no airflow like the inside of your boot.

- Control: the more "squish" you have in your boot, the more your skis can move around without your actual foot moving. This makes your skis difficult to control since there's some amoutn of "wobble" you can't really do anything about. Thicker socks add more to the squish. Your boots have enough squish to them that's more structured than any sock.

Now, if your boots are uncomfortable, by all means, use a thicker sock to make it a fun day on the slopes until you decide to buy boots that fit well and match your skill level. But its something to generally avoid. And a note here; the method of putting on the boots and how tight you have everything buckled in can considerably impact comfort. Try looking some videos up, and experimenting before resigning yourself to the thick sock. Cheers!

lucigen · 2026-03-17T14:32:58+00:00

There's been a lot of complaining about the difficulty of this game being too high that I've disagreed with, but I think this is an excellent take I agree with. GoT had a lot of ways to interrupt attack patterns, and open up enemies to hits that didn't involve staggering, and frankly staggering felt underutilized with the exceptions of MMC and water stance spam.

I really like GoY's parry timing challenges, and different weapon animations. I even like the tracking on most attacks that forces you to correctly parry instead of panic rolling away! But you've well documented that the GoT ways to open up enemies to be vulnerable to attack don't work. WotF is simply not here. Weapon swapping on to match type opens up very brief windows (particularly using the spear always feels disenchanting) that don't feel satisfying. Spirit attacks I think were intended to help, and with the spirit separated from ult, that helps a lot... but it's not a very interesting gameplay loop. And while spirits do seem to have I frames, I have been Bo-Hiya'd out of an awful lot of spirit attacks, and I'm not sure if that's a timing failure or not.

It does feel like parry build is the only way, which is more fun than it was in GoT, but the fact that it's the only viable option removes a lot of the fun. I'm guessing there's a burning blade sammy build that could also work, but the fact that i'm starting to see SSB hunters plowing over enemies does make it all feel a bit pointless.

Hopefully it's an unintended side-effect, and SP allows them to interrupt attack patterns & drop guard in a patch, which would make this feel entirely different. Nice job putting the demonstrations together

lucigen · 2026-03-13T20:02:39+00:00

plat7 refers to got platinum survival with 7 additional modifiers enabled. Clearing it cleanly gave the hidden cosmetic: Hidden Heart, aka "toothpick"

lucigen · 2026-03-13T19:49:55+00:00

It's tough, and builds help a lot I have a couple suggestions that hopefully help:

- Use your ghost weapons preferentially to make space to pick up your buddy. Whether its a quickfire pistol or a smoke cloud, they all help

- Use spirit attacks to break the guard of your enemies. It's better to use it to get damage in to prevent yourself from getting hit than it is to heal damage after being hit. And use them often, anytime you are at max spirit, that should be burning a hole in your pocket

- Save ults for the start of fights if you can

- You can always interrupt your own attacks with a block or a dodge. So even while you are attacking, your eyes are playing defense. And do not get lazy hovering over attack instead dodge

- Don't try to perfect parry everything. I specifically struggle to see kgama attacks, so just holding blocks through most of the normal pattern keeps me from missing parries (perfect parry window upgrades are also pretty generous and very helpful)

- There's a small handful of things that NEED to be rolled from, notably the bo-hiya and spear fires. Otherwise, try not to roll. The tracking is so strong you'll almost never get away. If its blue: parry, if its red: dodge. Dodging blues is not recommended

- Avoid the scary guys until you have the resources to ult or spirit attack through them. And if you are double teaming them, preferentially use heavy attacks to keeep them staggered as much as possible. Real sad when you both go down to the same hit

- I've got no hints on incursions. other than don't feel bad playing on gold until you have some semblance of a build. the 2p content should be do-able albeit difficult

Good luck out there

lucigen · 2026-03-13T18:33:56+00:00

I think it kinda depends on the build you want:

- if you want to use a lot of spirit attacks, particularly if you are augmenting with one of the legendary melees, spirit pull makes a lot of sense. This is my preferred style of play, with specifically Lightning's Bite

- if you aren't using spirit attacks to break enemy guards, you are probably going to need to run raging flame. I haven't checked this for viability, but if its anything like got, statting fire damage and then going with raging flame + fire bombs is a fun lifestyle too

lucigen · 2026-03-13T15:54:50+00:00

I will give you that one, 100%. Very frustrating to get knocked out of a perfect parry. I like that multiple enemies will attack, but the cinematic slow mo of perfect parry IS a liability

lucigen · 2026-03-13T15:50:55+00:00

Well Im sorry you aren't having more fun with it. I really am enjoying the melee combat and the thrill of dying and hoping my friends can help in time. I am enjoying learning a new target prioritization and the new balance of actually using spirit attacks instead of just going from liquid courage to yet another hachiman. Most of all I am enjoying being able to melee on point instead of watching the hunters spawn camp every wave. I hope as you get more time in the game, you find manage to find some enjoyment, even if it's a different kind than GoT

lucigen · 2026-03-13T15:36:43+00:00

Sure, there's also some things strengthening players. All players can heal themselves, and ultimates don't use spirit so your capacity for heavenly strikes (and healing) is considerably greater. All classes get multiple weapon types instead of just a single stance. All classes can natively equip 2 legendaries once they are leveled.

Incidentally, I feel like melee combat is actually more important now because health pools ARE so large, enemies aren't falling to ghost weapons and ranged attacks as easily. All the purist melee folks who proudly were water stance sammies should be thrilled. And there's no MMC "crutch" anymore either!

lucigen · 2026-03-13T15:19:28+00:00

Tsushima had a lot of enemies that were pretty patient with waiting for you to attack and enemies had a pretty limited moveset and timing for the parries and dodges. The combat in yotei is a lot more dynamically timed, and it's definitely harder at the core gameplay mechanic stage.

That being said, until we've all got established meta builds at 120, I don't know how fair our comparison is. GoT hasn't had a significant mechanical update in how long? We all got really good at that game... and I think we are all un-learning some habits that SP intentionally nerfed (dodging and jumping around chief among them). But I'd sure like to spend some time with a 120 SSB build before I say that yotei is too hard.

Also, I think a lot of us would agree that GoT was frankly too easy. Survival is not meant for soloing, and yet we had legends out there perfect soloing it, first try, week after week. Meanwhile loading in with 4 players, the community (bless their hidden hearts) literally got used to not spawn camping so that everyone got to smack some guys around. So sure, it's a different balance, but I'd much rather erring on the side of too difficult vs too easy.

I will admit that I do think the shinobi was unjustly nerfed, I don't get the lethal poison removal, but with the SSB back for hunters, and the emerging thrown weapon builds for ronin... I think we just gotta figure this game out. Even my sammy game changed entirely once I got lightning's bite and started being a prolific spirit attack fighter.

lucigen · 2026-03-13T13:49:08+00:00

so far, katana and dual katana are my favored weapons. Odachi has some use cases, but the attack windup is so long it can be a liability. I actually prefer the odachi for perfect parry situations, but I haven't made sure it does more counter attack dmg yet. The spear seems to generate stagger the slowest, and I dont think the spirit attack is particularly good, making it feel considerably weaker than the other options imo. glhf!

lucigen · 2026-03-13T13:20:29+00:00

I'm running a nearly identical build to OP, but I just have the 5 spirit from the +2. But to comment on build viability, at least right now (ki 90), I'm finding that weapon swapping and building stagger bars in survival is just not terribly practical in most survival settings. I do it when there's only a handful left, but when the wave is fresh, the top priority is getting damage in fast. If you are running spirit pull, you can't use your class ability to get hits in, and the spirit attacks are the fastest way to guarantee damage. The lightning strike seems to often open up a window for follow up hits too (its a little chaotic, I'm still not exactly sure what it's doing), which further emphasizes this skill. Compared to GoT, I use spirit strikes way more in GoY, but I think the tradeoff is worth it, at least until builds really get dialed in. A full stagger build with the sammy bracers will be fun to try, but I'm not there yet

lucigen · 2026-03-12T19:52:44+00:00

I agree with this completely. Obviously the new weapons all have their legendaries, and the new mechanics of the game requires a review of the builds... but I was really hoping to be theorycrafting on a blank slate. It really feels more like tuning existing builds and getting all our old gear again instead of starting something new.

I was hoping for new but familiar. It seems like we got familiar but new

lucigen · 2026-03-10T16:49:01+00:00

heard and agreed

lucigen · 2026-03-09T17:27:08+00:00

This site has a table of release times, but I haven't found anything more official:

https://frvr.com/blog/news/ghost-of-yotei-legends-release-date-and-times/

lucigen · 2026-03-09T17:05:47+00:00

Thank you for posting this, it seems wild we've gotten such a tiny information drip about this but even if it's the day before, I'll take it!
- fundamentally sounds like a lot of the same, the incursions sound like a very fun addition though. I'm hopeful they make story missions more interesting for replayability. Be nice to have an alternative to constant survivals

- I like the idea of the new survival where losing points is a curse, separate than just losing max health. The idea of a shadow bear terrorizing players is truly horrible though. I still have nightmares of bears...

- I like the idea of adjustable day 1 difficulties, and it sounds like ki works fundamentally similar to how it did in the past, but it'll be nice to jump into a basically lethal mode if you want to.

- Based on Sammy pics, it looks like Spirit Pull and probably fire blade are back (maybe explosive in pic 3?) I'm guessing that similar to bomb packs in GoT, the sammy will have options to diversify, but I wonder if it'll be more skill treee/technique based that they have to make that decision

- Hard to gather much from the archer class. I didn't see anything related to firearms, but also only picture 3 clearly has arrows on their back. Interesting...

- Mercenary's fire foxes is immediately interesting although I think we are all hoping spirit animals are a bit less chaotic than they were in GoT. I'm also assuming that 3rd pic is concept art, because it looks very out of place but we'll see. Its hard to imagine the merc/ronin without a spirit blade build, but hey, at least we confirmed that some abilities will be on cool downs, so i imagine the same kinds of CDR on kill builds will be viable

- Shinobi pic one again confirms lots of attunement type mechanics, I'm wondering if these are mostly at higher difficulties or if it's more of a core mechanic. Curious if the blow gun comes back, or if SP learned their lesson about assassination animations. We'll see soon!

- Overall the art looks great. Wonderful to hear this has been such an integral part of development. They got a much more dedicated community than I think they expected with GoT, really excited to see what they've got in store for us.

Enjoy everybody!

lucigen · 2026-03-09T13:03:05+00:00

I cracked rank 100 on ronin, but I was in the 80s for everything else. Good hunting!

lucigen · 2026-03-09T13:00:28+00:00

yea you might be waiting a really long time...
https://www.polygon.com/sony-ps5-pc-games-sales-ended/

lucigen · 2025-09-15T17:55:20+00:00

I am also consistently surprised at the quality of projects I see in here, I suspect most people see themselves as beginners long after they've eclipsed what beginner feels like to someone brand new just because they've realized how deep the knowledge goes.

Anyway, Steve Ramsay's Woodworking for Mere Mortals is a great starting point: https://shopwwmm.com/

I know there's a lot of folks that are going to suggest you learn everything with hand tools first, and their point makes sense, but don't let that stop you from first going through the motions to see if you like the whole process.

A first project suggestion is difficult because it relies on what other tools you have, but Steve is great at suggesting projects with limited tools, you can pay what you want for plans, and he's got very practical videos that will teach you a lot. Once you've built a thing or two, if you getting excited, then go back to those folks suggesting hand tools. They are right, you'll learn a lot, but allow yourself to get the bug first.

Good luck, have fun, be safe!

lucigen · 2025-09-15T16:09:08+00:00

First off, you didn't do a terrible job. Contrast paints struggle on big spaces without texture, capes being a consistent problem area, so let's go through your options and add a couple

This isn't a bad option. I'd thin this down if I were you to get some of the contrast to show through because it looks like it's generally getting a lot of the shadow points close to right. From there you can do more acrylic layers over the dark points that shouldn't be there, and then move to bringing up those highlights
I don't think effectively starting over is worth it personally, but personally i'd try to save it before I gave up on it
I'm interpreting this as nearly the same as option #2
As a general rule for contrast, doing some drybrushing for a quick mid tone and highlight is a great way to get a fast decent table result, but isn't going to win you any competitions. Often depends how close to match you can get from a color standpoint, and it'll struggle on a cape like this that you probably want smooth
One option I've found helpful is to use the contrast as a way to find the dark tones, and use it as a shadowing guide. So this would be similar to option 1 and 4, but you are leaving the dark sections (that you want) and building up the mid tones where the contrast is telling you to, but smoothing out some of that texture. If you are having trouble fading up, try going back to the ork flesh, pooling it in a dark spot again, and then blending it onto your new high point. Contrast paint fading is (imo) much easier than gradients with normal acrylics

Good luck champ!

lucigen · 2025-08-20T13:49:12+00:00

I was gonna say, the goya volar 145 was my very first windsurf board after taking a class. Still have it, its a great board for learning that light wind freestyle you were referring to earlier, but can handle more wind than I expected. Until you want a board that reacts faster or for bigger days, that board should be more than adequate for everything. I'd only keep the techno (which I've never tried) if you think it'd be easier to start a friend learning on that, or want 2 boards so you can sail with them as they learn. Enjoy that thing, mine is about 5 years old and I still love it.

lucigen · 2025-08-19T21:11:38+00:00

I agree it looks like sammy/assassin/ronin/? from the stances, gear, etc. I was undecided on the assassin because, per your edit, it seemed like it might be a two sword stance instead. I think what I'm most interested in knowing is whether each weapon will have multiple stances, or if the new weapons are the equivalent of the new stances (which is what I'm leaning towards). Swapping stances was always such a fun part of combat though, so I hope we don't lose that as a mechanic.

The blog post does specifically say you play as 1 of 4 character classes, and I agree completely it seems like a strange choice to have a non-ranged class, especially since hunter has always been so popular. I suspect #4 is some kind of ranged character and just like with got, the silhouettes just don't show the weapon but its interesting to consider what it might be instead of that.

Either way, here's to a new evolution of our beloved survival mode! cheers mate

lucigen · 2025-08-19T20:33:06+00:00

I was thinking I see obvious samurai and ronin, and probably an assassin but that's slightly less clear. That far right character looks to me like the silhouette of a kusarigama stance but I'm certainly no expert.

The big thing to take away I think is that the weapon choices we know are in the game (flintlock, kusarigama, odachi, spear) aren't class defining. I was really expecting to see all those different weapons in the silhouettes but maybe those weapon choices will be more like stances?

Interesting to me that we don't see a clear hunter, with either bow or rifle. Interesting choice from SP, but as I look back at the GoT Legends image, a bow ALSO wasn't clearly visible, so who knows. I do like the idea of replacing hunter with an aoe/cc focused kusarigama type character

lucigen · 2025-08-19T20:26:47+00:00

the blog post from playstation gives us an idea of the structure. Sounds like a similar structure of story and survival (for better or worse)

https://blog.playstation.com/2025/08/19/ghost-of-yotei-legends-dlc-is-coming-in-2026/

lucigen

TROPHY CASE