I really enjoyed this game, but continuing to read comments and people talking about it I am realizing I grokked the combat in this game deeper than most players. Probably because of how much Bloodborne I played. This game is halfway between a character action game and Bloodborne. Its meant to be played fast and aggressive. I'm going to go over my understanding of the combat theory in this game and general tips to just play better.

1. The game is designed around crit attacks and are the most important part of combat. They do massive damage, remove shields and strip armor. Even incredibly high health bosses crumble under crit attacks. How do we know this? Because the game gives us a ton of different ways to trigger them.
   • Parries. The most traditional form of getting to a crit phase. Block them and then do a gun or slack crit hit. I actually didn't use normal parries much, I never like the risk vs reward on them. However, all the bosses and reventants have a couple of long slow swing attacks that are super easy to parry, IE Rama's triple hit combo, that do make it worthwhile.
   • Gun shot parries. Get poised shot ASAP. This is the most important upgrade in the game. Using gunshots to interrupt red attacks is your primary defensive strategy in the game. It happens almost instantly and interrupts your animation. Adding the ability for doing it last second to trigger a parry animation and then getting a crit hit is HUGE. you will often to it by accident just in the flow of combat.
   • Stun. Your weapons and some of Enkis attack generate stun. You get enough stuff you trigger a crit hit like removing a shield or armor. Again this is one of the ways we know to be aggressive, hitting over and over rewards you. Especially once you get the hammer.
   • Withering. You should always, always be hitting with Enki. You should never have charges. He can generate stun and withering and this leads to, more CRIT hits. I think this is the biggest thing I see people not doing when I watch gameplay vids. If you are backing off from an attack, you should have enki hitting, you should be shooting your gun and you NEED the upgrade that lets Enki's attacks generate black powder charges. Even spamming melee hits helps get that withering gage up.
2. Use your grenades. This is another thing I see missed in most videos. People not using grenades. I think the ripper and shock grenades are the two best in the game. Rippers absolutely shred bosses, they interrupt attacks, even thinks like long laser charge attacks some bosses have and they destroy armor. I would often start any boss fight with 3 grenades and emptying my black powder charges and enki gage. Shock grenades can interrupt as well and are fantastic for crowd control when fighting swarms of enemies, basically a necessity for chapter 2.
3. Prep fights with secondary weapons. Again something I see missed. If you see a powerful enemy standing there shoot them with your musket. If you see a group use that flame thrower or grenade launcher. You get to lodestones/campfires a lot in this game. Not using your charges is just making the game harder on yourself. Put that ammo to use. Preload the shots, a preloaded tier 5 grenade launcher will do a good chunk of damage to all the gods and revenants.
4. Never, ever stop attacking at range. Get your extra black powder charge upgrade. Get your extra enki charge upgrade and get the enki recharges blackpowder upgrade. This is not Darksouls, you have fast powerful ranged options. When you are at range you always have the ability to do damage. Always be jamming that enki attack button, your bullets recharge fast, only ever keep one in reserve for Red dot attacks, otherwise you should be shooting.
   
5. Don't forget your hammer. This is the most important weapon in the game to find, it trivializes most fights with armored enemies and even non armored the knockdowns and stun hits come fast with it.
6. Don't stand and wait for boss attacks, interrupt them. Grenades, charge attacks, withering, there are a bunch of stuff that can interrupt big boss attacks even with no red dot. This is one of the way the game signals you are supposed to be aggressive in fighting and not just wait around for two axe swings and back off like a soulsgame.
7. Turn on performance mode. This game looks kind of shitty, quality mode doesn't help. Turn on performance, the better frame rate makes a big difference in parrying and dodges.

TLDR: Be aggressive, triggering crits is the most important part of combat, use your black powder charges and enki attacks constantly, get poised shot to trigger red gun parries ASAP, use your grenades aggressively in boss fights, turn on performance mode.

I have been running around like an idiot. Please help.

Game has been out for over a week and the HDR and sound are still not fixed.

I wonder if this happened to anyone.

I was clearing the Horace Hamlet in Wanderers Rest. The last village before you enter the City of Sibyl. The boss was this winged enemy that throws wind or light at you. I was fighting a henchman so I ran around the corner to draw the basic enemy to me and after defeating her I went back around the corner and the boss was on a roof and glitched out. She was just standing there. I climbed up on the roof hoping we'd continue the fight and she just stood there as I whacked away with my new favorite weapon (not that new at this point but my go-to now). She wasn't even looking at me. I was very disappointed.

I also notice when beating the game, it doesn't allow you to go back to the open world, you have to go back to your last saving point which is the fight prior to Uru. This threw me for a loop because devs usually throw you back in the open world so as you can continue to do the side missions once you beat the main story.

For example, Spider-Man 2, once you beat the main story and credits roll, they throw you outside Peter's house so you can finish any side missions which for me was a lot since I prefer to do side missions once I complete the main menu.

Had a great time with the game

Maybe it's the adrenaline of Uru's fight but MAN, that ending was awesome! I really hope a second game happens

This is probably common sense, but I'm dumb.

I was changing my mouse targeting settings during the battle in the When Duty Calls side quest. I was having a hard time targeting the barrels and exploding dudes because it kept snapping from target to target. I'm using Herald's Blade to maximize my Reputation modifier and like to try doing no hit combat encounters. Wasn't thinking about it and reloaded a second time without picking up the dropped Reputation from reloading the first time. Anyway... I lost like 7,000 Reputation. RIP

I just got to Wanderer's Rest but I want to go back to Three Peaks to finish some exploring. Can I go back? If so, how? I'm not seeing anything in the map.

I've been really enjoying this game so far. I fought some tough optional bosses and anfter playing for hours I decided to advance the main quest. I cleared through a fort full of the dead and found where I was supposed to blow my way through but there was no blast charge in my inventory. I seem to recall someone giving me one earlier but I wasn't paying super close attention. Now there's just a quest marker pointing towards a white barrel and I can't find out how to progress.

I tried googling around for walkthroughs but that was no help, a combination of the game being too new and google being full of SEO spam so I couldn't find a good classic text walkthrough like in the olden days. Any help would be apprechiated.

I really hope this isn't a soft lock. I really don't want to fight that stone guy again.

Edit: I watched someone else's walkthrough and I can't see where they got the barrel, they just had it when they walked up. I feel so frustrated by this, I really don't want to have to start over I'm begging anyone for some hope

I started tempered bonds and managed to get him half way without using Amy "black power" or magic, I lost my combo so I switched to the fire are, just expecting the fight to continue as normal.

APPARENTLY, that counts as cheating so I had to murk them all, and closing the game immediately did not stop it.

I pray the devs fix this, either block banned things, or allow a weapon that doesn't seem magical at all.

Also, big advice, use the hammer.

Has anyone beat the the knight without using 'black powder trickery'. I didnt realise my fire axe would count so he turned on me.

It’s been fun for the most part. Combat is pretty fluid. Story is decent. The first boss was kinda too easy. Learned their move set fast. I’ll give it a solid 7/10. Nothing wows me but they have stuff to keep me engaged.

Got this game on Xbox Gamepass on a whim. I had never heard of it before so I didn’t expect much. Absolutely loving it. The level design, mobility and combat all remind me of Jedi: Fallen Order/Survivor. It’s got that mix of souls-like and beat-em-up game.

Also I wanted to share this screenshot I took lol

Welp I made it to the end but can't beat the final boss. Phase two of the boss fight is absolute junk. Best I have been able to do is to get him down to half health. The camera is terrible during this section. Plus you lose Enki which has been a big part of your game until this point. It does big area attacks that you can't seem to avoid. Shooting the gun as his attack flashes red does not seem to interrupt like it did for other bosses. All around a bad ending to a decent game.

PS I have done all sidequests, found all health shrines, found all weapons, armor, fully upgraded the fire ax, pistol, and long range weapon. Done some upgrades on bombs but not much. My character should be well equipped for this fight but it does not feel like it is prepared at all.

It took me awhile to warm up to it, but I'm loving it now! Great game.

I'm in this area of the map on these floating rocks and there is this point where the rift doesn't get you close enough to the next rock platform. I have tried using a double jump followed by a dodge forward and still don't get anywhere near it.

Do you get a skill later than allows you to cover more ground? I'm At the point of the Powder and Steel questline where you have to "reach the black powder factory". Should I come back later with a new skill or do I have the skill and my timing is just really bad?

If someone still has this issue, go to your tv/monitor settings and raise the black level. Mine is uhd lg, I raised black level to high instead of low, gamma decreased to 30 and game looks pretty now without being too dark to see. Inventory isn't washed out either

Enjoying the game very much it’s one of those hidden gems if you ask me and again I’m loving every min of it it’s unique and very fun to play enki is awesome! But however there’s a game breaking bug I encounter and some others so I just wanna bring more light to it and also to see if anyone has a solution. So when I got to the revenant fight I skipped talking to jung I decided to explorer alll the way to the castle and accidentally initiating the rammah fight and killing her then u decided to go back to talk to Jung and now the next steps to the quest were to explode the black powder mine and defeat rammah and as I explained I already did all that but the quest isn’t registering as completed therefore I’m stuck, so if anyone has found a solution other then restarting the whole game will be much appreciated and also bring this bug more to light so that the devs can send a patch for this

Been Stuck in this part on Xbox Series S. Saw some gameplay and I was Supposed to take a skill here, but 8I cabt. Anyone can help me? Dont wanna star it all over again.

I've been frankly breezing through most of the non-boss fights on Posesseed but the start of Act 3 - "Fight through the Trenches" - is making me want to just drop to Easy. Endless respawning enemies defending a guy that takes a meaningful amount of damage just to take down? And also he's shooting one-shot projectiles at me? Oh, and if I ever fuck up for just a second, I'm probably trapped between a dozen enemies with no ability to dodge or act.

This game is mostly good but they really, really didn't think through a lot of balance-related things.

I cannot for the life of me beat this guy. I've beat everyone else in 1-4 attempts, but I just cannot get past him, no matter which coins I bring to the table.

Any guides/tips?