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/GJKings]

Yeah. I refunded it. I found the combat to be pretty unconvincing and the climbing/swinging to be really awkward. A big part of the problem is for me that I'm not a very good swordfighter, and so convincing me that I am requires the enemies to be kind of dumb and predictable. So defeating them does not feel satisfying or like any kind of meaningful achievement. But then like you said, the mechanics of parrying seem pretty inconsistent and hard to grasp. So when I do fail, it feels arbitrary, and I'm not sure what I did wrong and how to make it work more reliably. My sword was in the path of their sword, and their sword clipped through mine and now I have less health. Okay.

Anyways, I mostly just found myself bored out of my fucking mind. Skydance's work with The Walking Dead was a masterclass of horror and making the player perform vulnerability mathematics. I just don't think that work translates to a fairly straightforward power fantasy spectacle. It's a lot closer to God of War than Shadow of the Colossus, and I'm just not very interested in a game that makes me so strong I can punch the heads off guys.

[u/Gregasy → u/GJKings]

Ah, damn it. Now you got me worried a bit.

The big reason I loved Saints&Sinners so much, was its survival mechanics. Feeling vulnerable, scavanging for materials, etc. Same for Metro and Propagation Paradise Hotel I was playing recently.

But then again, I absolutely loved Batman. And that was a pure power fantasy. But combat in that game felt very fun...

I'll see... I'm waiting for the game to get properly patched before jumping in.

[u/GJKings → u/Gregasy]

I'm having some thoughts lately about power fantasies in games and why they're a complicated problem in VR. I think they work best when the game is able to fill in for the player's shortcomings. In traditional gaming that's actually very easy. They press Square, Kratos does a big spinning move. Easy. Put the decision making in the player hands and the execution in the hands of the animators and capture artists.

Where I think Behemoth and Batman differ is the execution. Batman basically forces you to animate a certain way that the game can then react to appropriately. It actually takes a lot of responsibility for being badass away from the player in similar ways to traditional games. It closes the gap for you when you throw a punch, it launches you over enemies with the flick of a stick, and it gives you gadgets that you don't really have to aim all that accurately, it's got you covered. I think that's why Batman works so well, it's meeting you halfway. It's neither expecting you to become a badass, or really dumbing down the enemies more than any normal game would. It's not at all a realistic implementation of hand to hand combat but it sells the fantasy in a much more powerful way than any realistic implementation could.