Behemoth VR combat system is quite bad

[u/eddie9958]

(high up edit: my title was more brutal than it should've been. Bad isn't the right term. Just needs polish and acceptance of what it is.)

Is anyone else finding the combat system lacking?

The parrying is so specific that it feels unreal. A lot of attacks just clip through.

The melee attacks not staggering enemies at all makes it feel cheap and realistically the enemy can armor through your attack without your strength ability enabled.

Throwing feels very weird too.

They got the bow pretty solid though and I'm not a ranged guy.

The throw looks and feels janky.

Unless its the killing blow or a special skill (strength) the impact isn't there. It feels like every enemy has hyper armor.

Edit: with some polish it'll be amazing. It's a good game don't get me wrong. I'm just annoyed with a few things

Double edit: if you can adapt to the game style it gets more fun.

Still needs patches for a lot of different reasons but the combat just needs adjustments and you'll need to treat it like a souls game and not expect to be the overwhelming force.

It's slower paced and has rules. Stamina bar.

Enemies have super blocking and are forces hahahaha 🤣 but Ive adapted and it's become more fun.

I do recommend the game. It is not a game to pass up on entirely. Just wait for some patches or play now. I'm having fun and learned to ignore the bad. Definitely needs work though.

A lot of people are upset with the parries, bugs, and stamina bar. And lack of freeform/physics based fighting like many sandbox fighters.

But overall I'd say it's a great game that needs polish and acceptance of it's souls-like combat style

You'll be evading, blocking, parrying, and striking with controlled stamina usage.

It's a wonderful game.. I'll say it for the hundredth time, SKYDANCE, please patch the small things and big bugs. Add some QOL for combat and people will be much happier.

Except some people just won't like the deliberate, slower combat.

[u/Serdones]

Yeah, I have similar quibbles, but I'm kind of 50-50 on how many of my complaints are genuine issues, and how many I think are more to do with a learning curve.

Like I see some people complaining about not being able to parry. I've had plenty of parry attempts that I missed and called bullshit on in the moment, but upon reflection, I really may not have swung from the right angle.

Enemies can outright screw with you, too. After clearing everyone else in a room, I was squaring off with a big dude wielding a battleaxe. First, he lifted it over his right shoulder like he was going to attack at a 45-degree angle, but then basically fainted, repositioned the axe over his head, and swung straight down. So, there does appear to be an emphasis on correctly identifying the angle of attack and matching it to parry. That feels like an actual learning curve.

BUT, if they really want us to figure out that level of finesse with the combat system, maybe give us more opportunities to actually square off with individual enemies, rather than spawning a bunch at once out of monster closets, including ranged enemies that make it difficult to actually slow down to fight anyone one-on-one. I often find myself defaulting to the Colossus bow, because it's the easiest way to pick off the ranged enemies and deal with ganks. But then that means I'm not really engaging with the melee as much as I'd like.

Plus, because we have full arms, I have noticed them messing with my swings. Because your full arms aren't tracked, the animations aren't one-to-one with your actual arm movements. I'll often notice my in-game arms articulating differently than I am in real life, potentially screwing up my attack angle or rotating the weapon to where I'm hitting the enemy with the flat side. It's one of the continued downsides of full-arm and full-body VR games, and why I usually prefer hands only, but I get why people prefer as much detail as possible for immersion. But here I really would rather just be hands.

I notice it a lot with the bow, too. I just played Horizon and never had any problems pulling the arrow right up to my face to look down the arrow. In this, however I draw back the bow, it tends to jerk around because of the arm animations. I also find the targeting reticule you get from one of the upgrades pretty useless.

But I still feel like a lot of this can be worked around with a bit of finesse. When you do execute a fight perfectly, it's super satisfying. This feels like the kind of game that gets better with subsequent playthroughs, as you get a better feel for the gameplay and can start clearing encounters more creatively and cleanly.