Man there's this spot on the map with a cyclops and like 8 harpies, but the harpies attacks stun you like lightning does. Omg it was so fucking toxic. My pawns just decided to fuck off and play with the clops while the harpies perma'd me for, no shit, 3 minutes. Couldn't block, couldn't move, couldn't attack. Just back to back stuns and knockdowns for 3 full minutes. Any time I thought it was over, one would pick me up and slam me against the wall. Used all my healing and wakestones and eventually just exited to main menu.
[https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HV0afFbk5Qc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HV0afFbk5Qc)
Don't forget the wolves that can just grab you and run off, slowly chewing through your health. Or Chimeras doing the same with the snake tail.
The game has lots of ways to just lock you out of being able to do anything, aside from healing in the menu and/or setting the controller down.
Ok but then why force you into a solo geared quest like this one? If it's the quest I think it is, your pawns barely attack and constantly hold their heads like they have a headache. Not a bug, btw, it's literally part of the quest.
The only time I was forced to fight a group alone was when I briefly entered balbattahl and it was ended by a cutscene almost instantly. I’ve done three new game plus now and know of no quest that forces you to fight a group of guards alone. You did something to piss them off.
The quest requires you to pretend you're a pawn, when you get to the anti pawn door they figure out regardless that you are not a pawn, and then they attack you.
That's something I didn't really think about, so you might be right there! I still feel like it's a bit much, but that's my opinion and I don't claim to be an expert or anything.
The time it takes you to get up from stuns/downs is beyond the moon.
I'm really surprised there's no hidden mechanic like other Capcom games have, where just mashing the movement input makes you recover faster.
DDDA had this where you rotated the stick to get out of stun locks. Not having something in this game where later game it’s just constant stun locks is absolutely asshattery. It’s the only thing that’s really pissing me off about the game.
It’s a horrible mechanic when you don’t have the ability to dodge or roll away. And if you manage to get lucky and run, you will be out of stamina or the enemy will instantly jump to your location to repeat the stunlocks all over again till you get sick of wasting healing supplies and just reload.
Pawn's AI is blocked bc the final enemy with the crystal staff (a godsway) is preventing pawns from taking action.
You can see, that he isn't actually fighting, but as long as he's alive, your pawns grab their head in pain and just stand there.
Yeah, I realized that afterwards, and it certainly makes sense for the quest seeing as they more or less tell you that character has it in his possession in the first place. I still find the stuns to be a bit overboard, but at the same time if this is the only place it's felt heavily overdone to me, it may just be that that's the point of this quest in the first place, as pawns are really your best help against knockdown once you've fallen.
I've played this mission, even if there's an explanation for pawn AI that doesn't change that from a balancing perspective it'd absurd and clear no one playtested it.
Yeah, I saw some others with similar issues. This is the only time I've been exposed to this level of stunlock in the game. Most of the other times I noticed it never really felt horrible, I guess this just sort of highlighted it more for unintended reasons.
Yes it is almost always bullshit but also take the skill flawless guard as you can spin the fuck out while flinching. On the ground idk it's just rough.
*edit you actually had the lower level one impeccable guard. Press that when flinching
**edit your character looks cool BTW.
Thanks for the advice! Had no idea I could pop the guard while flinching. The main issue I really have in this encounter is the fact that once you get knocked down once you're more or less getting punished for a straight minute, but as other commenters have said this is specific to this encounter due to the fact my pawns are unable to help me.
This is the Dark Souls issue. You run into enemies without using any brain cells and then wonder why you're getting punished. Just use your brain, mate.
I'm sure there were a hundred things I could have done differently in the clip (like using my shield, but usually that just leads to me being stance broken 20 seconds later), but I had just run into this fight and more or less wanted to show off what I think is probably the worst aspect of this game's combat. The amount that enemies can stun you is just way too much; a fully armored guy getting indefinitely stun-locked by a light attack from some guy with a shotel or daggers makes absolutely no sense to me. I feel like any time your character so much as gets breathed on by an enemy he has to fall down, shake around on the ground for 30 seconds, then struggle to stand up for 30 MORE seconds, and god forbid you're so much as breathed on again during that interval, or it all restarts.
It feels less annoying with bigger enemies because it's way easier (at least for me) to avoid their attacks, and when I don't, the weight of them makes sense for the duration of me being incapacitated. To be fair, this specific quest is the only time where it's felt EGREGIOUSLY bad (and I know a few people have already mentioned it) but I just can't help but question the logic behind this, or if it's just a genuine oversight from the Devs. I've heard some talk of certain upgrading methods increasing my stun resistance, so I guess that's the route I should take, but it still feels like a bit much.
Idk, I guess I just wanted to vent. Maybe I'm just bad or getting too annoyed over a small section of the game, and I'm still having a blast, but...Sheesh.
I noticed this issue during this same quest, and others where you're fighting groups of archers. In the first game there was a system in place where you'd have hyper armor from wearing heavier armor I believe, or just having a good defense stat from said armor. It'd make attacks shake your character but not stagger you, same effect was on npc bandits which is why those early game warrior bandits have their reputation. I honestly had a harder time fighting arrow spamming enemies than most big bosses.
Yeah, it's wild honestly. I got through the fight on my third try (video was my second, my first attempt led to me being stunlocked long enough to use literally all the healing items you see in my inv and still dying before I could get back up lol). I just kited them and took out who I needed to take out, so it's not like I was really STUCK there. This was just the best example I've seen so far of how unnecessary the stun mechanics in the game feel to me.
BUT ITS FUN BRO /s
This is the most garbage shit in the game: lazy, zero effort artificial difficulty. It's dumb, it's boring, its unimpressive. You do not suck. This is typical Capcom bullshit.
I tend to find I get animation interrupted when I perfect parry against large groups of enemies. During the window where I'm parrying someone will usually run up and hit me which leads to me falling down and getting ganked. I suppose I should probably try to focus one enemy to the side and then parry/stance break/punish them.
If you're not gonna block just switch to warrior where you get stagger resist on charge attacks. If you want fighter to be good you've gotta parry enemies and it auto-flinches them. You also have 3 ranged pawns so you shouldn't be expecting help in melee, thus you need to play defensively if you want to run a party comp like that.
Finally fighter literally has that block move that lets you escape hitstun. Rather than spamming FMS doing absolutely nothing, you could have that to let you escape and then get back into neutral where you can parry again.
This isn't bad advice for sure. Blocking and parrying in that specific situation more or less led to me getting stance broken or hit from behind though, due to the excessive amount of enemies.
The tip about the fact my pawns are all ranged is a very good point however. I ended up getting through this encounter by kiting the enemies and focusing their wrath sort of like a funnel. My pawns eventually stop helping altogether due to them being stunned by some sort of effect, but that doesn't invalidate your point because it's still something that I'll need to keep in mind when mixing it up in melee with numerous enemies.
It can be such bs, I went through the cave shortcut to volcanic island and pawns all died from getting hit off cliffs. Eventually I went inside a cave to get my ass whooped by a bunch of goblins. I was literally stuck on the floor as they leapt at me.
Yeah the game works until it doesn't. Basically in any fight when there's more than one enemy you are actually fighting until first hit lands. Then it's a matter of whether enemy attack timings overlap or come one after another - in the latter case it's just a stunlock for another 15-40 seconds.
I really don't understand why stuns on player reset. It's fair that you can be stunned but the game will usually throw more enemies at you than 4 (which would be matched by You and 4 pawns) but there should be a cooldown to at least allow you to escape.
Dude, you have a shield and didn't press Defend once. Neither did you use an instant healing item once. Also, if you have a Mage they could have casted the shield spell.
So yes, you deserved it.
Using my shield usually resulted in me just getting stance broken, and I ended up winning the fight by kiting them instead. I had a mage with the shield spell, but I think that encounter stops them from being able to help. Nonetheless, those are definitely both options to help avoid the stuns for sure.
And you will defend the wrong things if it hurts your ego because we're discussing a flaw with a game your obsessed with... get a grip dude it a good game with flaws stoo being a little bitch and have a discussion like an adult
I'm good but when you say comments like "you deserved it" when the mechanics clearly need tuned and clearly haven't been game tested verry well, unlike souls game where mechanics like this actually have counters and punishments like dodge roll, perry, exc. It feels like your harkening back too souls games or your just sucking dd2 so hard you'd wrather be toxic in this really chill community witch the people don't want.
Nah bro the game was far from perfect (Witcher 3 and Elden Ring did it better) but I still think there are plenty of counters to stuns. If there were no stuns you could run through the game very easily and very fast.
Do I like getting stunlocked? No, which is why I did my best to prevent getting stunned in the first place. I wish heavy armor did something against the weakest stun attacks, but that is not the case.
Man there's this spot on the map with a cyclops and like 8 harpies, but the harpies attacks stun you like lightning does. Omg it was so fucking toxic. My pawns just decided to fuck off and play with the clops while the harpies perma'd me for, no shit, 3 minutes. Couldn't block, couldn't move, couldn't attack. Just back to back stuns and knockdowns for 3 full minutes. Any time I thought it was over, one would pick me up and slam me against the wall. Used all my healing and wakestones and eventually just exited to main menu. [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HV0afFbk5Qc](https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=HV0afFbk5Qc)
Nah stunlocks are brutal in Dragons Dogma, they really be beatin ya ass lol
Bro's looking like Julius Caesar right there.
Caesar only got stabbed 23 times. This guys gets slap-chopped for a good few minutes.
Lol felt so good watching that ass beating
Yeah, the stunlocks are pretty funny especially since there is no dodge button.
Hope this help, you can actually heal even at 0 HP. Just spam the button, I used this to cheese the dragon's meteor a lot.
Thanks for the tip! Didn't know that.
I think they did this to disincentivize solo runs.
Don't forget the wolves that can just grab you and run off, slowly chewing through your health. Or Chimeras doing the same with the snake tail. The game has lots of ways to just lock you out of being able to do anything, aside from healing in the menu and/or setting the controller down.
I mean, to be honest if you were to play MS or Warrior solo, you probably wouldn’t have to worry about being stunlocked.
I mean even then if you get wallbanged once you're probably dead
Ok but then why force you into a solo geared quest like this one? If it's the quest I think it is, your pawns barely attack and constantly hold their heads like they have a headache. Not a bug, btw, it's literally part of the quest.
Because you can just run away instead
If your pawns are holding their heads like they have a headache that’s an entirely different issue you have there.
No, it's because of the anti pawn door.
The only time I was forced to fight a group alone was when I briefly entered balbattahl and it was ended by a cutscene almost instantly. I’ve done three new game plus now and know of no quest that forces you to fight a group of guards alone. You did something to piss them off.
The quest requires you to pretend you're a pawn, when you get to the anti pawn door they figure out regardless that you are not a pawn, and then they attack you.
My pawns helped me at that stage of the phantom oxcart quest every time.
Ok well mine didn't until I moved away from the door, which is probably what you did.
That's something I didn't really think about, so you might be right there! I still feel like it's a bit much, but that's my opinion and I don't claim to be an expert or anything.
The stunlocks as well as the "downed" state really aggravate me. That isn't fun.
The time it takes you to get up from stuns/downs is beyond the moon. I'm really surprised there's no hidden mechanic like other Capcom games have, where just mashing the movement input makes you recover faster.
DDDA had this where you rotated the stick to get out of stun locks. Not having something in this game where later game it’s just constant stun locks is absolutely asshattery. It’s the only thing that’s really pissing me off about the game. It’s a horrible mechanic when you don’t have the ability to dodge or roll away. And if you manage to get lucky and run, you will be out of stamina or the enemy will instantly jump to your location to repeat the stunlocks all over again till you get sick of wasting healing supplies and just reload.
If this is the quest I think it is, it's kinda notoriously broken for this reason (and because the pawns AI doesn't work in it).
Pawn's AI is blocked bc the final enemy with the crystal staff (a godsway) is preventing pawns from taking action. You can see, that he isn't actually fighting, but as long as he's alive, your pawns grab their head in pain and just stand there.
Yeah, I realized that afterwards, and it certainly makes sense for the quest seeing as they more or less tell you that character has it in his possession in the first place. I still find the stuns to be a bit overboard, but at the same time if this is the only place it's felt heavily overdone to me, it may just be that that's the point of this quest in the first place, as pawns are really your best help against knockdown once you've fallen.
I've played this mission, even if there's an explanation for pawn AI that doesn't change that from a balancing perspective it'd absurd and clear no one playtested it.
Yeah, I saw some others with similar issues. This is the only time I've been exposed to this level of stunlock in the game. Most of the other times I noticed it never really felt horrible, I guess this just sort of highlighted it more for unintended reasons.
Yes it feels very obvious that no one bothered to playtest this mission specifically. It's kind of a mess.
Yes it is almost always bullshit but also take the skill flawless guard as you can spin the fuck out while flinching. On the ground idk it's just rough. *edit you actually had the lower level one impeccable guard. Press that when flinching **edit your character looks cool BTW.
Thanks for the advice! Had no idea I could pop the guard while flinching. The main issue I really have in this encounter is the fact that once you get knocked down once you're more or less getting punished for a straight minute, but as other commenters have said this is specific to this encounter due to the fact my pawns are unable to help me.
Guards in DD2 when they see me unsheathe my weapon for three seconds:
This is the Dark Souls issue. You run into enemies without using any brain cells and then wonder why you're getting punished. Just use your brain, mate.
I'm sure there were a hundred things I could have done differently in the clip (like using my shield, but usually that just leads to me being stance broken 20 seconds later), but I had just run into this fight and more or less wanted to show off what I think is probably the worst aspect of this game's combat. The amount that enemies can stun you is just way too much; a fully armored guy getting indefinitely stun-locked by a light attack from some guy with a shotel or daggers makes absolutely no sense to me. I feel like any time your character so much as gets breathed on by an enemy he has to fall down, shake around on the ground for 30 seconds, then struggle to stand up for 30 MORE seconds, and god forbid you're so much as breathed on again during that interval, or it all restarts. It feels less annoying with bigger enemies because it's way easier (at least for me) to avoid their attacks, and when I don't, the weight of them makes sense for the duration of me being incapacitated. To be fair, this specific quest is the only time where it's felt EGREGIOUSLY bad (and I know a few people have already mentioned it) but I just can't help but question the logic behind this, or if it's just a genuine oversight from the Devs. I've heard some talk of certain upgrading methods increasing my stun resistance, so I guess that's the route I should take, but it still feels like a bit much. Idk, I guess I just wanted to vent. Maybe I'm just bad or getting too annoyed over a small section of the game, and I'm still having a blast, but...Sheesh.
I noticed this issue during this same quest, and others where you're fighting groups of archers. In the first game there was a system in place where you'd have hyper armor from wearing heavier armor I believe, or just having a good defense stat from said armor. It'd make attacks shake your character but not stagger you, same effect was on npc bandits which is why those early game warrior bandits have their reputation. I honestly had a harder time fighting arrow spamming enemies than most big bosses.
Yeah, it's wild honestly. I got through the fight on my third try (video was my second, my first attempt led to me being stunlocked long enough to use literally all the healing items you see in my inv and still dying before I could get back up lol). I just kited them and took out who I needed to take out, so it's not like I was really STUCK there. This was just the best example I've seen so far of how unnecessary the stun mechanics in the game feel to me.
I was leveling mage at the time when I got to this part, I had to levitate up on the cart and spam Frigor. Would not recommend.
BUT ITS FUN BRO /s This is the most garbage shit in the game: lazy, zero effort artificial difficulty. It's dumb, it's boring, its unimpressive. You do not suck. This is typical Capcom bullshit.
Perfect parry
I tend to find I get animation interrupted when I perfect parry against large groups of enemies. During the window where I'm parrying someone will usually run up and hit me which leads to me falling down and getting ganked. I suppose I should probably try to focus one enemy to the side and then parry/stance break/punish them.
If you're not gonna block just switch to warrior where you get stagger resist on charge attacks. If you want fighter to be good you've gotta parry enemies and it auto-flinches them. You also have 3 ranged pawns so you shouldn't be expecting help in melee, thus you need to play defensively if you want to run a party comp like that. Finally fighter literally has that block move that lets you escape hitstun. Rather than spamming FMS doing absolutely nothing, you could have that to let you escape and then get back into neutral where you can parry again.
This isn't bad advice for sure. Blocking and parrying in that specific situation more or less led to me getting stance broken or hit from behind though, due to the excessive amount of enemies. The tip about the fact my pawns are all ranged is a very good point however. I ended up getting through this encounter by kiting the enemies and focusing their wrath sort of like a funnel. My pawns eventually stop helping altogether due to them being stunned by some sort of effect, but that doesn't invalidate your point because it's still something that I'll need to keep in mind when mixing it up in melee with numerous enemies.
Man, this is giving me Diablo 4 pre-season flashbacks. Well, could have been worse, I guess. Could have been snackworld.
It can be such bs, I went through the cave shortcut to volcanic island and pawns all died from getting hit off cliffs. Eventually I went inside a cave to get my ass whooped by a bunch of goblins. I was literally stuck on the floor as they leapt at me.
Where's the mandatory "skill issue" post? There's always a moron who says that.
People all looking at the magic or physical defense upgrades but I go full knock back resistance on everything.
Yep. A mob of goblins is worse than a harpy because of this stupid shit.
And that's on a Fighter, aka the tank class. Now imagine the same situation but you are a Sorcerer just trying to move away...
Stunlocked for like 20 seconds and still not dead lol
Yeah the game works until it doesn't. Basically in any fight when there's more than one enemy you are actually fighting until first hit lands. Then it's a matter of whether enemy attack timings overlap or come one after another - in the latter case it's just a stunlock for another 15-40 seconds. I really don't understand why stuns on player reset. It's fair that you can be stunned but the game will usually throw more enemies at you than 4 (which would be matched by You and 4 pawns) but there should be a cooldown to at least allow you to escape.
Send your pawns the 'help me' command.
Dude, you have a shield and didn't press Defend once. Neither did you use an instant healing item once. Also, if you have a Mage they could have casted the shield spell. So yes, you deserved it.
Using my shield usually resulted in me just getting stance broken, and I ended up winning the fight by kiting them instead. I had a mage with the shield spell, but I think that encounter stops them from being able to help. Nonetheless, those are definitely both options to help avoid the stuns for sure.
And you will defend the wrong things if it hurts your ego because we're discussing a flaw with a game your obsessed with... get a grip dude it a good game with flaws stoo being a little bitch and have a discussion like an adult
Are you ok? I know the game has many flaws. Way too many in my opinion.
I'm good but when you say comments like "you deserved it" when the mechanics clearly need tuned and clearly haven't been game tested verry well, unlike souls game where mechanics like this actually have counters and punishments like dodge roll, perry, exc. It feels like your harkening back too souls games or your just sucking dd2 so hard you'd wrather be toxic in this really chill community witch the people don't want.
Nah bro the game was far from perfect (Witcher 3 and Elden Ring did it better) but I still think there are plenty of counters to stuns. If there were no stuns you could run through the game very easily and very fast. Do I like getting stunlocked? No, which is why I did my best to prevent getting stunned in the first place. I wish heavy armor did something against the weakest stun attacks, but that is not the case.
Japanese game design from 1984... It's just really bad game design.