#bossfight gimmicks

[modeus-the-misanthrope]

Kinda wanna make an expanded version of my Elden Ring boss idea. Original place the idea is at this link.

The idea I have for this bossfight and it's mechanics are heavily inspired by the Fume Knight Raime fight in DS2. The bossfight arena is in an area of Leyndell that you previously couldn't access. The boss shares design elements of the four armed puppet enemies and Crucible Knights. The Crucible training dummy was originally just that. A training dummy fashioned to help keep the Crucible knights who worked under Godfrey in peak condition. Now it sits in an abandoned and ruined training arena, alone.

The player will find two helmets in Leyndell that previously weren't in game. These are specifically worn by the Crucible knights to help the Crucible training dummy know which fighting style they wanted to train against. Fast and rapid unarmed strikes. Or slow but hard hitting staff swings. The animations for both intentionally resemble Hoarah Loux and Godfrey respectively. Entering the arena without either helmet equipped will cause the Crucible training dummy to periodically switch between the two styles. At 30% health the Crucible training dummy will retreat to it's self repair station, with a large chasm seperating it from the rest of the arena. If the Crucible training dummy drinks its repair fluid, it will gain an aura around it that damages the player slowly. This is due to the Crucible Training Dummy and the repair fluid having degraded over time.

If the repair fluid has been sabatoged by the player outside of the bossfight, then instead the Crucible training dummy will stand there perplexed for several moments. Allowing the player to either do a ranged/magic/charged heavy attack that will have a 300% damage multiplier added to it. Or the player can allowe the Crucible Training Dummy to finish animation and learn a gesture that matches it. This gesture closely resembles the one the player does when trying to heal without any crimson flasks and can be cancled at any point with a dodge, block, or attack. But being hit while the animation is active will make the player take 50% more damage.

Defeating the Crucible Training Dummy will give the player a new Crystal tear for their Physick Flask, specifically it's effect will mimic the damaging aura that the repair fluid would have given the boss for 20 seconds. In the area's where the boss fight arena was acting as a barrier to enter, ther will be an armory for the Crucible knights. A Collosal weapon category Hammer (crucible knight themed) and a light set of Crucible Knight armor will be in a chest.

[dividedsingularity]

Inscryption doodle portraits for Act 1.

[modeus-the-misanthrope]

Hope ya don't mind if I use my own ask to jump in.

As a Fume Knight Raime fanboy I will base a fair bit of my bossfight on his mechanics, that I can't recall being used too often outside of him. Preperation. I will be a speedrunners worst fucking nightmare.

My first phase will involve lots of fast & low damage attacks that involve me getting nose to nose with the player. Blocking my attacks with anything, even a weapon, will make my hit deflect off like a "light weapon" bounces off of the Stone-Diggers in Elden Ring. This encourages blocking my attacks and punishes dodging. But when I go into my second phase, the reverse occurs. My attacks become delayed, can't be parried or deflected, and deal a large amount of stamina damage. This encourages dodging instead of blocking. The preperation mechanic comes into play depending on if you are wearing one of two helmets gaurded by minibosses and found in the same region as my bossfight occurs. (A callback to wearing Velstadt's helmet sends Raime into phase 2 for the entire fight.)

The first helmet will keep me in my phase 1 moveset, and the second helmet keeps me in my phase 2 moveset for the entire fight. The other part of this preperation mechanic is at the 30% health mark, I will leave the bossfight arena to a raised platform the player cannot reach and drink from a fountain. This will give me a damaging area around myself akin to the Smelter demon for the rest of the bossfight...unless you destroyed the fountains source prior to entering the fight. In which case I will not get the buff and leave myself vulnerable to a ranged attack (which the first hit will do triple damage) as I scratch my head in confusion.

My bossfight would only be as difficult as the players need to rush and just get it over with. Preparing before the fight by getting one of the helmets that help make my fight easier, breaking the fountain source, and having a powerful ranged weapon ready to use, are all things that would make my bossfight a borderline cakewalk. It also encourages exploration of the region, since you would need to travese at least 2/3rds of it to break the fountain source and get one of the two helmets.

What kind of bossfight mechanics would you want to have as a Fromsoftware bossfight?

Something that rewards precision and punishes passivity. Perhaps an arena-wide health-sapping spell kinda like how Jailers in Dark Souls 3 worked. With the only way to prevent it is to keep being agressive and not letting me cast it. As long as you stay in the fight, it doesn't take your health away.

But this ability won't kill you. If you're good, you can just not get hit and that last bit of health you got won't go away no matter how passive you are. Also, your health restores back to normal if you don't let me cast for long enough.

Of course it would be still hard to engage and counter my moves. I think I would prefer if the fight taught people how to properly utilise spacing and timing just like you do during PvP.

And most importantly I want an anti-air attack. If you just wait around for me to expose myself for a jumping L1 with your shitty dual twinblade arc build, you will meet the ground in two pieces. I want it to have a special sound effect too, to really rub it in. Of course it would have counterplay, but it wouldn't be as free as most other bosses. You'd actually have to use the I-frames of your legs to dodge an attack to land a jumping attack instead of jumping in outside of my range, landing the hit and spamming roll away untill you're safe to regain stamina.

But maly main mechanic should be making Redditors mad.

btw anyone can participate in this post. Imagine your own bossfight

[epidaleacalamita]

i entered the second phase of my bossfight and shot a laser at the moon visibly cracking it and causing chunks of lunar debris to begin impacting random areas throughout the arena but the hero said that this gimmick was "kinda mid" and i just got sick of his negativity and turned off my theme music and left the battle and i've locked myself in my room in the demon king's castle for the past two weeks now. my fellow dark generals keep banging on the door asking me to come out. telling me my gimmick was not mid but i know they're just saying it to make me feel better

[fag-by-daylight]

Why ARK: Survival Evolved would be an amazing addition to Dead By Daylight

What IS ARK: Survival Evolved? ARK is a survival game where you tame dinosaurs and mythological/fictional creatures! That's not all you can do, but that's the main gimmick. The game features an awesome soundtrack, by the amazing Gareth Coker, amazing bosses and an amazing antagonist. The game also has some really great lore, that I'd recommend watching Neddy the Noodle's videos on. [Lore Videos and ARK: The Survival Stories [the lore from the Island to Aberration]]

But that's not horror!! Okay, and? Lara Croft, Nicholas Cage, and Dungeons and Dragons are in the game, so what's wrong with a survival game that has some horror elements in it?

Who's the killer gonna be? Edmund Rockwell, of course; he's the main antagonist, I'd say, of the game; more or so becoming a threat to the player in the third, fifth and sixth story-DLC. Think of him in a similar way to Vecna, arrogant, thinks EXTREMELY highly of himself [he literally calls himself a GOD], and he's an intelligent, fun antagonist! He's a British chemist from the 19th century turned giant tentacle-meat-monster. Obviously, we can't just have a gigantic monster with tentacles as the killer, but, the Entity would take him from Aberration, after he's defeated by the player, and give him a body that's better suited for the trials. Kind of like how the Entity gave Chucky the ghost so he could actually hook people. [An added note, he would have voice lines <3] And if this was a skin collaboration, he'd be a legendary for Blight. They suit each other. And there'd be voice lines and a different Mori.

Why would Rockwell even want to join the Fog? Power. Same reason as Vecna. Edmund is a man driven by power, and science. Think about why Wesker is in the Fog; he would join for similar reasons.

Power? I feel like a biological power would be pretty cool, something close to Singularity or Wesker. I'm not too good when thinking about powers and balancing it for the game, but maybe even something to do with his orbs in the Aberration bossfight, which would act similarly to the Unknown's UVX.

Perks? I am not a perk designer, so I sadly cannot think of perk ideas </3.

Chase Theme? Of-fucking-course it has to be his boss theme! Like, not just the theme outright, but a mix of it. They can do so much with the music, especially if they get Gareth Coker involved!

Who are the Survivors gonna be? Helena Walker, an aboriginal Australian palaeontologist [also canon lesbian], would be perfect; she's smart and resilient. She later becomes a Homo Deus in the game, but she'd be an amazing survivor! [and would obviously be taken from before she became a Homo Deus.] And of course Mei Yin Li, a warrior from the Han Dynasty [she's also a lesbian 💪]. She is perfect survivor material; she's a strong, resilient woman who can very well take care of herself. AND, if this is a skin-only collaboration, Helena would be a great skin for Claudette, I think. I think Claud could use a legendary <3. And Mei Yin Li would be a fantastic legendary for Yui Kimura. [Maybe a Santiago skin for Gabriel?? Hmm??? Give him the TEK armour, too?] [Maybe even a legendary Diana skin for Kate ^^]

Perks? Again, I'm not a perk designer.

[pictured left is Helena's design from the animated series, because I couldn't find any good pictures of her from the explorer notes; pictured right is Mei Yin Li]

Map? OHOHOHO, BOY ARE YOU IN FOR A TREAT! Since I want everyone to be taken from the Aberration map, obviously the map should be Aberration! Maybe the Green zone is the actual map and the main building could be the destroyed TEK city! It'd be great, atmospherically, and maybe there could be some creatures around that can be interacted with in a similar way to the Tanuki and the creature in the Dungeon on the D&D map [like light pets chilling around]! The realm would be called something like "The ARK", or "The Broken ARK", and some other areas on the map could be the portals and maybe even a little bit of the blue zone? Obviously, the maps are a bit difficult for me to think about, because how would the borders work, lol? Or the exit gates. But then again, you have to think about the fact that the Entity makes these itself. The Entity would be the one recreating the whole map, so there would be tiles that look funny and maybe the fact that there's generators would make this map look "weird", but just think of the possibilities! If Dvarka can be a map, ARK: Aberration can work, too!

They could even make different variations of the map where one is the green zone, one is the blue zone, one is the red zone, and maybe even the surface would be super cool! I also think some cool environmental features would be awesome like in the red zone, you'd hear Reapers growling, see rumbles, and hear Rockwell's voice echoing quietly. And if they do it this way, having the light pets for the specific zones would be awesome.

[pictures; left to right, top to bottom: green zone/Fertile Region, blue zone/Bioluminescent Region, red zone/Molten Element Region, and the Surface]

Are there any skins or charms that would come with the Chapter or Collab? I personally think a cute implant charm would suffice, and if they do the skins thing, it'd be like Resident Evil where the more you buy, the more charms. The first buy would grant you a Gamma Ascension charm, another would be a Beta Ascension charm, and the last would be an Alpha Ascension charm.

I know this is long, and I apologize for the, probably, incoherent rambling, but I'm very passionate about both of these games, and I think that they'd be perfect for each other. ARK has horror in it. It's not a horror game, but Tomb Raider isn't either, so I think ARK should be able to come into the game. I know I was vague with things, like Rockwell's power, but I'm not a game designer, so I am not qualified enough to think of a balanced, fun power to suit him. And, again, I cannot think about what perks to make. I don't know what perks would work by now and I just cannot think of anything good. So, my apologies. I would love to hear your feedback, and maybe even more ideas!

Peace and love, and thank you for reading my nonsense <3

[bossfight-messages]

Bossfight: Glube

I should NOT be given hot glue

[adhdemongirl]

I just finished my first playthrough of Metal Gear Solid. It was mostly blind (except for some pop-culture osmosis) and on normal difficulty. I wrote down a lot of my thoughts and live reactions because I thought it might be fun to read through. So have fun doing that if you want to:

-I really like that you have to watch the briefing through an extra menu option before hitting start. Just adds too the vibe

-50 Huskies. Genuinly why haven't I heard of that before?

-The controls are definitly something. I also kinda hate that the camera is so zoomed in that I spend most of my time looking at the radar

-God, I love ps1 wobbly textures so much

-The Hind is so sexy

-Why the fuck are chokehold and throw on the same fucking button?!!!

-Snake seems to be only slightly less horny than Kojima

-So was the Darpa Chief a psycho mantis illusion? What's going on here? Really nice intruige building btw

-Revolver Ocelot is such a bastard. I already love him.

-This boss fight was so weak. Teally hope the rest isn't that bad, but I honestly do not exspect much.

-I really love how Grey Fox (at least I think that's him from cultural osmosis) has a really wobbly eye. It clearly isn't part of his base texture. Just keeps moving around. I don't know if that's on purpose, but it's a great effect.

-This game really has some opinions on the mic, huh? Good for it, honestly. Shame that it has "the Gundam problem™"

-Did Meryl just say she hid the key in her pussy?!!!!

-Smoking damages you. Amazing

-Deepthroat

-Vulcan Raven feels like he's probably really problematic. I don't know enough about the first nations to know for sure, but I also don't think Kojima knows shit. That being said, I still think he's kinda cool

-The boss fight wasn't though. I feel a bit sad, yet vindicated.

-Uii, they're just toying with Snake! Fox-Hound are such cocky bastards. I love these guys so much

-Yooo, it's just like my japanese anime!!! (also piss. but that's like some anime too, I supose)

-Nice gimmick with this boss, sadly still shit

-Have I mentioned how much I love the wobbly red eye?

-Otacon is so pathetic. I love him.

-Who could have predicted that building the torment nexus from my favourite anime *do not build the torment nexus" for the military might be a bad idea? At least he knows he fucked up I guess.

-I haven't mentioned this so far, but the pacing of this game is honestly really good. There is always something happening, some gimmick being used, it's really great work

-Having to follow Meryl into the womens restroom to talk honestly doesn't feel that good.

-Holy shit, thry put so much efford into Meryls textures. Kojima is so fucking horny. Why can I see her nipples?!

-Psycho Mantis gas a really neat design, but I might also just have a thing for gasmasks.

-So I'm playing on pc and the way they did the "switch the controler port" thing is by having you switch out your controler for the keyboard. It's a really cool idea for how to preserve that moment. Unfortunatly, keyboard controls feel somehow even worse. 4/4 on kinda shit bossfights so far

-My dude is death monolging for so fucking long

-"Oh no, a tense moment! Better make the player run through half the map!" Insane design choice. Honestly dogshit.

-Using the sniper felt like dogshit as well. 5/5 on shit boss fights

-omg she's so fucking hot arf arf arf

-Liquid is such a whiny bitch. Only member of Fox-Hound I didn't love on sight. But maybe I could love to hate him. We will see. Also more Revolver Ocelot, yay :3

-I can see what they were going for with the torture minigame. Forcing the player to mash a button, thereby hurting/"torturing" them outside of the game as well. Neat idea.

-I like the negativ opinion this game has about nationalism, (liberal) politics and america

-"At least 20th century Russia had an ideology" I love both Shalshaska and this game

-"That's paricide! -yup" lmao

-I adore the 2D maggots

-Otacon is crushin on sniper wolf almost as hard as I am

-They are really stretching playtime by having you run back to the same point over and over again. It'a noticable and definitly not in a positive way

-the time bomb is a nice touch

-omg the hanky makes the doggos luv you <3

-I literaly just went through this part, why do they play a flashback?

-Naomi is shipping Snake and Meryl so hard lmao

-PS1 RATS!!!

-I hate those stairs with a passion

-The Hind is so sexy

-You know "Do you think love can bloom, even on a battlefield" has been memed to death, but it's honestly such a good line

-The Hind was the first boss fight that was really fun for me.

-The Elevator ambush fucking got me lmao

-Noooo, I don't wanna kill her (especially because it'll probably be another shit boss fight)

-I hate being right sometimes

-Wait, she's kurdish?! I should really check up on rojava, give a bit to the kurdish red crescent again

-Wow, her death really did make me feel bad :( (even though she took even longer to die than Psycho Mantis)

-That whole scene also made me really apreciate the music in this game. It's been great the whole time, but here especially so

-Master Miller being like "her story is bullshit, Hoover was to racist for that" is so fucking funny.

-I sadly already know that he's Liquid, but that whole convo is also so fucking sus

-In the intro for the Vulcan Raven rematch now. This game is really trying to be as racist as Hoover, huh?

-Wow, those were some fast working ravens

-Wait, did Naomi actualy kill The "Darpa Chief" (Decoy Octopus)? Did she inject Snake with some gene-bullshit in the beginning that kills certain people? She is a genetecist after all. Maybe something targeting those "soldier genes" the game keeps babbleing about?

-I like how they wrapped up the "new kind of nuclear weapon" plot. Sure, a railgun is kinda insane, but they manage to justify it.

-Can you imagine a world with less US-american SDI spending? Incomprehensible plot point tbh

-Ha, I was right! Naomi fucking killed them! I feel so smart! (FoxDie is a bit on the nose though)

-Love how Metal Gear Rex looks btw. A rwal beauty. Even more sexy than the Hind

-The russians involvement in all this does honestly feel very in character

-Are they going to make me activate the nuke for Liquid? Would be a nice twist.

-Why does it feel like Liquid is so horny for Snake? He's so obsessed, it's embarrassing

-I hate how they make me run around to change the key. Honestly just stretching out the game. Kills some tension too

-a fucking trapdoor got me lmao

-The runback is soo looong!!! It's okay, your game is allowed to be 20 Minutes shorter, you don't have to stretch it this way

-Final confirmation for Naomi being a tier one assassin

-She's Rhodesian?!!

-I kinda love Naomis character and her motivations, I think

-Cambell is a bitch as motherfucker btw. He has been for the whole game, but I feel like I need to mention it at some point

-Ha, fucking knew that thing with the nuke

-The Liquid reveal is really well made btw.

-Liquid Snake doesn't know shit about genetics. "I got all the ressesive genes" Dumb motherfucker

-Rex is so fucking sexy

-Otacon designing Rex with a weak point because he thought Rex would be cuter that way is so fucking valid

-Nice Gray Fox backstory

-Boss fight is shit as well btw

-Wait, this game does the whole hotline miami "You enjoy hurting people" thing???

-Super Baby Method

-Liquid (and by extension Kojima) still don't know shit about genetics

-I like the fmv bits a lot btw

-I should look into both Iraq wars I think

-The voice acting in this game is surprisingly good btw

-The final fist fight on top of Rex was almost comedic

-I don't completely buy the romance with Meryl

-On the other hand, I completely get why people ship Snake and Otacon

-Wait, Liquid's still alive?!

-Well, now he isn't

-I really liked the ending. Nice message

-He's called David?!

-I liked the game way more than I exspected, even though it has a bunch of flaws

-It also had a way smaller focus on stealth than I exspected

-I'll probably do a short, comprehensive post on my thoughts as well

Thanks for reading. Feel free to ask me stuff

[oltammefru]

The IS4 Ending 4 bossfight mechanics is so fucking funny. The main gimmick of it is that there's two guys and instead of doing normal boss things like attacking your units they just attack each other until one of them dies (or they leak, I suppose).

Also, Ceobe stonks are going way way up because holy fuck look at that 5k def (6250 at max difficulty) with reasonable Res.

[daringdoombringer]

The plots of the six main Skylanders games in a nutshell

Spyros Adventure: ooo Look toys can come to life and Kaos destroyed the Core of Light better reconstruct it before darkness consumes everything !! :DD

Giants: we have to stop Kaos from getting what’s basically the Infinity Gauntlet for robots I actually don’t know much about the plot of this one but one of the bosses rap so that’s cool

Swap Force: ✨magic volcano✨ oh and Kaos has these crystals that turn things evil and his mom is here apparently also the gimmick is swapping legs for some reason

Trap Team: more crystals but they’re used to capture villains also THE MOST TERRIFYING FINAL BOSSFIGHT EVER MF WHY DO YOU HAVE WINGS

Superchargers: 🔥WE KICK THE ANTICHRIST’S ASS WITH THE POWER OF MARIO KART🔥

Imaginators: haha brain magic and giant tactical birthday cake. we totally didn’t prioritize marketing the gimmick over any actual plot and just release a half-complete game in the end. (which I am still SO mad about so much wasted potential)

[many-faced]

ranking the nine sols main bossfights minus Eigong bc i havent finished that one yet

I will note while this is a ranking, I think all of these fights are REALLY good. Some are just even better than others. Fuxi and Nuwa is the only one I sort of disliked, but even then I did enjoy the bossfight!

I'd be interested to hear other's opinions :>

1. Ji Challenging but SO entertaining. I also just love his design. Probably actually my favourite Sol and I am including Yi in that equation.

2. Lady Ethereal Similar to Ji, challenging but fun! She marks the end of midgame imo, and perfectly sets up the crowd control and quick visual identification skills you'll need for the areas going forwards.

3. Goumang Looks tougher than she is. Maybe a bit easy, but a fun gimmick! Kicks up the difficulty a bit alongside Yanlao, but is a lot weaker. I recommend fighting her before Yanlao, even though you can technically do them in either order. Despite her being weaker, still very entertaining!

4. Jiequan A bit fast, definitely a good skill check for the halfway boss, though! Would recommend bringing the gene eradicator, though. Makes it SO much easier. Some azure bow upgrades wont go amiss either.

5. Yanlao Old man. Fun patterns, second phase is a fun challenge, all about timing and patience. A tough but still reasonable difficulty spike alongside Goumang, eases you out of early game and into midgame well.

6. General Yingzhao A great introduction to how the main bosses feel. Simple patterns, not too fast, but still a challenge for his place in the game.

7. Fuxi and Nuwa First phase is fun and simple. The second phase SUCKS. It's doable but I found myself relying more on luck and hoping Fuxi doesn't do certain patterns at the same time as Nuwa's charge or jump. They're also just my least favourite sols overall, design-wise, personality-wise and lore-wise. I do really like the Empyrean district area, and this is still an entertaining bossfight, but it's just not as good as the others.

[nefarious-exclam]

YOU DARE TRAVERSE INTO MY NEFARIOUS WIZARD TOWER?

Learn the rules, foolish traveler, for I am NEFARIOUS EXCLAM! Make no mistake, I am not @monster-bestiary , the Supreme Exclam of all things Monsters, but I am TWICE AS EVIL and THREE TIMES AS NEFARIOUS!

HEED MY WARNINGS, AND BEWARE MY DUNGEON!

#nefarious deeds: ALL THINGS ON MY BLOG BY ME THAT ARE NEFARIOUS AND EVIL! (And those that do not fit into the FOLLOWING TAGS!)

#monster summoning: BEASTS HAVE HALTED YOUR PATH! WILL THEY BE FRIEND OR FOE? IF MY WARRANTY HADN'T EXPIRED THEY WOULD ALL BE FOE BUT UNFORTUNATELY THE MONSTER BESTIARY GAVE ME "LESS FOUL" MINIONS THAN I WAS EXPECTING!

#evil reblog: I, THE WIZARD OF EXCLAMANIA, WILL REBLOG ALL THINGS EVIL AND NEFARIOUS!

#brews and potions: DASTARDLY POTIONS AND SPELLS TO DESTROY YOUR ENEMIES! THEY COME WITH A PRICE, SO BEWARE!

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#foiled again: SEND ME A NEFARIOUS ASK TO GLOAT YOUR VICTORY! REAP THE REWARDS!

#rewards: EARN YOUR RIGHTFUL REWARDS FOR EITHER DEFEATING ME OR DOING AN INCREDIBLE NEFARIOUS AND EVIL ACT!

#dastardly queue: MY EVIL QUEUE TAG! WEHEHEHEH!

#the wizard speaks: HEAR ME SPEAK!

#not rpg: posts that aren't part of the gimmick

#the sun saga: that time THE NEFARIOUS WIZARD extinguished the Sun.

#interrobang war: that time I went to war against the Interrobangs

#bedrest saga: after the magic toll of shrinking the Sun, fighting off the ice people, unshrinking the Sun, and briefly going to war, The Nefarious Wizard is on magical BEDREST.

#nefarious art: fan art :)

NEFARIOUS-EXCLAM IS AFFILIATED WITH @mercury-lurks! ALL COMMENTS WITH THAT USERNAME ARE FROM ME!

Part of the Exclamation Point PFP RPG Blog Cinematic Universe founded by @status-updates , including @deathscreenmessages , @loading-tips , @monster-bestiary , @bossfight-messages , @dailyquests , @mission-board , @advancement-made , @character-selecton , @item-shoppe , @glitches-and-bugs , @buffs-window , @beta-leaks , @evil-loading-screen , @magic-foraging-tooltips , @unused-questline , @war-causing-interrobang @small-cat-npc @collectibles-menu , @character-profiles , @rpg-partylog , @shady-item-shop , @unskilledpoint , @redacted-exclam , @percontation-mark , @shitpost-mods , @cmd-semicolon , @ultrakill-style-bar-updates , @big-bad-evil-guy , (a bunch of fuckin others I can't keep track of), and of course me, @nefarious-exclam

Any asks about speeding up arcs, spreading drama, personally attacking mods, or constantly wanting [character] to meet some other person will be deleted.

[chemol-2]

so. yknow MESMERIZER? what if it was an omori bossfight?

yknow how bosses can change the emotions of the party? what if the gimmick for this fight is that they lock party members on specific emotion paths. with the exception of omori, of course.

i'm also thinking that maybe teto attempts to help the party via using healing items on them. sparingly of course, to avoid any suspicions of foul play.

like. miku is the main damage dealer, with teto buffing miku (and herself. tee hee)

[fluffypichu876]

If you were to recommend Sekiro to someone, perhaps a Mutual even, how would you go about it?

(I'm always on the roll looking for soulsborne design content, as it is a big topic in the industry, and I am too much of a whimp to play something that openly sadomasochistic xD, but sekiro is the one I'm lest knowledgable about of them all and I'd love a first-hand opinion on it/maybe a reccomend to see if there might be something interesting to try to brave it For, and not just difficulty for difficulty's sake)

That is a GREAT ask, mutual, and I am very glad to answer it to you! (i never miss an opportunity to discuss game design xD)

Well, the game is REALLY good. It's rewarding and it just feels good to play. That's why I recommend it in very simple words, with the small warning that it is, indeed, a difficult game.

But if I was allowed to go into detail on why I love it and recommend it so much...

Sekiro is a very interesting soulsbourne. It follows many traditions of FromSoft's other games, but it also breaks enough of these rules to stand out as a game of its own.

One thing that differs in Sekiro is the very way that you tackle bossfights. Boss design is one of, if not the most important aspect of a soulslike. I have yet to play other soulsbournes, but from what I've heard, in these games there are usually multiple ways of dealing with a tough boss. You can grind and find better equipment to fight them, use cheese strategies, get help from another player (co-op), or just git gud and try to defeat the boss by learning their patterns and relying on pure skill. Each boss is always designed with that in mind, focusing on providing a fair experience to the player no matter which option they choose.

But in Sekiro, there's none of that. No co-op, very little cheese strats, a stat system that requires the defeat of a major boss to increase damage output (by very little), and a EXP system that only grants a few new skills (some of them are very useful though, such as the Mikiri counter). Oh, and you lose EXP when you die.

To beat a boss here, you must rely on pure skill. Git gud, as people say. This skill consists basically of your ability to recognize and correctly counter all the types of enemy attacks. Deflect strikes, dodge grabs, Mikiri-counter thrusts, jump over sweeps and ocassionaly redirect lightning. If you don't understand and properly use these skills, you will not get very far, because every enemy and every boss will demand varying levels of your knowledge about the game, and more importantly your ability to actually use said knowledge. Their very design is based on the player's skill.

It may sound bad, but this focus on pure player skill is exactly what makes this game so compelling and rewarding. When you fight a boss in Sekiro, you are not mastering the bossfight, you are mastering the game itself. Each boss requires the same skills to defeat, consisting of a single core gameplay loop, and extra items or tools are merely extra help and not really necessary to win (with the exception of a few gimmick optional bosses). Master these skills and the whole game becomes much easier to understand and overcome. You'll still die a lot, but you will feel your progress, understand why you died, and become even more confident after every defeat.

Once you beat Lady Butterfly and Genichiro, you have already mastered the game. From now on, you will be just sharpening your skills.

In simple words, Sekiro's definition of getting good is very different from other soulsbourne games. Beating this game is like a personal journey of improvement, in which you aim to improve because you know it's worth it.

The revival mechanic is also very interesting to me. From what I understand, it serves both as a mid-battle breathing room, and as a motivator.

Dying in a bossfight doesn't feel good, and enough deaths can motivate the player to give up, so giving them time to breath and consider their options before reviving and trying again is very nice. It's a period of time used to strategize and reflect what exactly is going wrong. Allowing the player to revive once or twice during a fight doesn't make the game easier, it makes the game fair. The player will not have to repeat a part of the fight that they have already mastered, and will have another opportunity to try and understand what's currently going on. Then, they can carry this new knowledge to the next attempts, making the whole "die and try again" experience much more fluid.

Following this logic, the revival mechanic also serves as a motivator. If the player has good enough base knowledge of a bossfight, giving them a second chance will motivate them to take risks, which leads into the discovery of potentially better strategies. Dying now will not really grant too much of a bad consequence, so why not risk something new? The whole combat system revolves about your agressiveness and lack of hesitation, so a motivator like this is very important.

Sekiro also has stealth mechanics, yipeee!!! Fitting, since you are a shinobi. Stealth here mostly serves as an second option to deal with areas filled to the brim with enemies. Attacking any enemy from behind without their notice will instantly delete an entire healthbar. This means death to most lesser foes. It also helps you deal with mini-bosses who have more than one healthbar.

Having said all of that, Sekiro is an amazing game, and I can't recommend it enough. In my opinion, you don't even have to be too much of a masochist to like this game! I found the whole experience to be pretty fair and rewarding, and not really painful at all (maybe it's just me on that xD). Patience is all that you really need, patience to slowly learn and understand, as if you where learning how to use a sword in real life. After all, that's exactly what you must do to beat this game.

[mini-games]

-BEGINNING LORE/SUN SAGA-

In the beginning, most everyone lived in Item’s (@item-shoppe) basement, eventually escaping one way or another to Nefarious’s (@nefarious-exclam) tower or to set up their own place.

I, Mini, came along through anon. An anon (a different one) had supposedly been quoting the lyrics to a song, but none of us knew the song and took it seriously. So we killed the sun. How? Well Nef tried (and failed) to shoot it with a water gun, and one of his gimmick posts was shrinking someone down to the size of an ant. So, if they’re able to do both of those things, I figured “Why can’t he do both on the sun?”

I sent in an ask, on anon (before I had become a gimmick blog. I was wanting to be one at this point but didn’t know what my gimmick would be) telling him to shrink the sun down to the size of an ant and shoot it with a water gun. It worked, the sun was extinguished, and it all went dark in the universe. And cold.

After figuring out what gimmick I wanted to be, I quickly made a profile picture for the blog and made the blog itself, now being able to interact with everything easily. The first interaction I had was with Vance (@advancement-made), and they asked me why I would do that. I didn’t think it would actually work, but it did and I have been advised to not underestimate Nef again. I was also forgiven.

Meanwhile, the Ice People had come out of the ice caves (looking at you, @solidwater05. I know what you did. /silly) and were attacking Nefarious, trying to get him to become an Ice Person as well. Nefarious uses a lot of mana during this period of time, trying to fight them off. Also Vance and Glitches (@glitches-and-bugs) can glow, we found out.

Boss (@bossfight-messages) ends up making a deal with the Ice People, telling them that they’ll be an Ice Person if they are given blankets. This deal was never completed, however, as Boss never turned into an Ice Person. Guess it’s too late for that now, though.

In the meantime, Vance and I forged a plan to relight the sun by making a large bonfire and throwing the sun in it, since Nef still had the sun in their hands. Small fires went out pretty quickly, but we figured a large bonfire would take a while to go out. Vance ended up leaving to get some wood, whilst I left to get something to light the wood with. I found some matches, before the Ice People found me.

The Ice People tried convincing me to join them, eventually telling me about how they are lonely and just want a friend. I ended up breaking, and they infected me, turning me into an Ice Person with them.

Before I could do anything as an Ice Person (infecting others, hiding away in the Ice Caves, etc.), the sun returned to the sky, having been re-lit. Normally, I would’ve melted since I was ice, but it was night-time. So I still had time.

Status (@status-updates) ended up watching as everyone panicked about me being an Ice Person, as he sat on a thawing machine. Nefarious ended up making a bargain with Status for the thawing machine, and when Status agreed on the price, he took 50 extra gold from Nefarious for renting the thawing machine. Nef used the thawing machine on me, thawing away the ice. I was back to normal, and everything was right and good in Exclamania once more. Well, except for Nef. Especially since he was angry at Status for swindling them.

Nef also gave me one of his cloaks, since I was still quite cold after having been frozen for about an hour. They also revealed that he knew the Ice People once. This seems to be a pretty big part of both Nefarious and Select (@character-selecton) lore.

If anyone else has anything to add to the Beginning Lore/Sun Saga lore, feel free to add to it!

If needed, I can also post a plaintext version. If you need a plaintext version, just ask and I can post it!

[coolwali]

I dreamt last night that Naughty Dog released Jak and Daxter 4: Recollections. It came out on a Febuary for some reason. The premise was that Jak was in therapy for all the messed up things that happened to him and he did. He’s taking with the therapist. I don’t remember much of what he said. I do remember one line where he said “I don’t even like hoverboarding that much tbh. I only do it because I have to”. Daxter is sitting around and eventually gets bored. Saying he’s heading out to grab some snacks. As soon as Daxter leaves the office, the therapist then attacks Jak. The game drops the plot twist that the therapist is actually a future/alternate timeline Jak from a future/alternate timeline where Daxter died so there was nobody to help Jak onto the right path to being a hero so he’s become more villainous. His plan is to kill present Jak and pretend to be him so he can reunite with Daxter.

The game is then a bossfight where you control present Jak vs future/alternate timeline Jak. I remember this bossfight being really annoying because future/alternate timeline Jak’s gimmick was that he mimics everything you do only better. For example, when I used present Jak’s “Turn into Light Jak and slow down time” power, future/alternate timeline Jak also did the “Turn into Light Jak and slow down time” power. Only his was more powerful than mine so he’d be the one slowing down time overall and giving himself the advantage. When I used the shotgun to try blasting him, Future/aternate Jak pulled out his shotgun which had more range and damage than mine. I believe the solution was to try going through your moves as fast as possible so by the time he mimics one you’ve already switched to another and hit him with it but it was really hard and I woke up before I made much progress.

[cominy-kiwami]

i think mgs2 suffers from a general lack of the core gameplay. the tanker to the end of the c4 defusal section is like pure unfettered gameplay and its really good but then basically the entire rest of the gameplay is gimmicks. theres the thing with the uniform where you dont sneak past anyone, then the thing with emma where you cant really employ real stealth so you just have to tranquilize everybody, then the sniper section where you dont sneak past anyone, then its a suite of combat encounters with the sword and bossfights. like the tactical espionage part of the tactical espionage action game is way sidelined for like half of its runtime.

i think mgs2's story is more captivating than mgs3 even though i also think mgs3's story is really good but one thing about mgs3 is that it is really filled to the brim with the real gameplay of the game. like theres the eva section at the end which blows for the exact same reason as the emma section in mgs2, and you do have to do disguise based stealth in graniny gorki and groznyj grad but its also made more dynamic by the fact that you cant let people look at your face too closely which means you still have to move in a purposeful, sneaky way.

but then i think mgs2 has better stage design than 3. too many forest areas just force you to crawl slowly through which is less interesting than the cover based interior maps of mgs2. i think the fact that guards hear your footsteps in mgs3 is a step down in terms of gameplay pacing even though it is more realistic. mgs1 and 2 are kinda like arcadey experiences and mgs3 went and turned the speed way down and the required patience a lot higher for the general gameplay loop.

i cant speak for mgs4 and pw because they havent been brought to pc yet but mgsv is so heavily slanted toward gameplay rather than story that people said that game barely had a story at all. like there are cutscenes here and there but the overwhelming majority of the story is meant to be listened to at the same time that you do the gameplay.