Incline Wo Long: Fallen Dynasty

[Great Deceiver]

I tried playing it on release but the microstutters made it very difficult for me.

I installed it again today and indeed it runs much better, but I still really dislike the hit detection and parrying feels terrible compared to Sekiro. I don't like this game at all.

 

[Suicidal]

I tried playing it on release but the microstutters made it very difficult for me.

I installed it again today and indeed it runs much better, but I still really dislike the hit detection and parrying feels terrible compared to Sekiro. I don't like this game at all.

While parrying is jankier than in Sekiro, I wouldn't call it terrible. I think it works quite well in humanoid fights, especially against enemies that can be staggered because then when you deflect you actually see your character stopping and redirecting their attack, which feels satisfying.

Where it truly feels terrible is in the giant monster battles because then the animations just don't make sense at all.

I'll do a more detailed write up/explanation of my thoughts on the system after I finish the game.

 

[Jinn]

Where it truly feels terrible is in the giant monster battles because then the animations just don't make sense at all.

I think they managed to do pretty well with the parry windows with big monsters, even in the initial release. Not a huge problem, and it seems they've made it a little too easy now with the nerfs. Though you've probably played further than me at this point, so I could be mistaken.

 

[Suicidal]

Where it truly feels terrible is in the giant monster battles because then the animations just don't make sense at all.

I think they managed to do pretty well with the parry windows with big monsters, even in the initial release. Not a huge problem, and it seems they've made it a little too easy now with the nerfs. Though you've probably played further than me at this point, so I could be mistaken.

My problem is not with the parry windows but with how your character interacts with the big monsters' attacks. They swing their giant arm/leg/cock at you and your character just does a little spin and somehow avoids all damage even though half his body is lodged inside the bosses giant tentacle or whatever.

Game doesn't feel too difficult, but I've never found the Nioh games particularly difficult as well, and neither Sekiro, but I think it's far from trivial because I find myself using a lot of my arsenal and the parry timings for bosses are tricky to get right on the first/second go. They like to use a lot of delays and feints to catch you off guard.

I'm at Lu Bu atm and he's kicking my ass. Seems like this game's skill wall boss, but it's a lot of fun.

Also ran into some cases of bad performance - in some specific areas of specific levels I get FPS drops from 120 to like 80-90 which causes the game to run in slow motion for some reason. Locking FPS to 60 fixes it but after playing in 120 for so long playing in 60 feels wrong somehow. Didn't expect it to be so noticable.

 

[Suicidal]

I just did a side mission where at the end you fight a "boss" that's basically just 2 named normal human dudes that fight just like PVP/NPC invaders and I had more fun with it than any of the giant monster bosses in the game.

I liked how when you fight them you actually see the deflects going on. I liked that they use the same martial arts as you but they are treated like a red attack you can counter. I liked how small and precise the hitboxes were and how various martial arts made much more sense to use (for example, using a spear MA to jump over their heads and strike from behind). I liked that your character's fast speed and quick animations actually allow you to fight more than 1 serious enemy at the same time without it turning into a retarded clusterfuck where you are forced into roll spamming for 20 seconds.

Fights vs. humans is where the combat truly shines and this makes me a lot more hopeful for Ronin because from what I've seen you will only fight humans in that game and if they added a similar deflecting/counter attacking system that would make for very fun combat.

All they need is to give human enemies more defensive options, like being able to deflect your attacks the same way you can deflect theirs, or having various quick recovery moves after getting parried that they can also follow with a quick counterattack you need to watch out for.

 

[Great Deceiver]

My problem is not with the parry windows but with how your character interacts with the big monsters' attacks. They swing their giant arm/leg/cock at you and your character just does a little spin and somehow avoids all damage even though half his body is lodged inside the bosses giant tentacle or whatever.

This is exactly it. It feels very disconnected and the visual feedback doesn't reflect the state of the game at all. Contrasted to how Sekiro conveys a successful parry, it's pathetic.

 

[Correct_Carlo]

Anyone have controller mapping suggestions? This game has really weird controls out of the box, although there are so many x/y rb/rt combos that it's hard to remap anything without fucking some game mechanic up. So it'd be hard to just switch things to a classic Souls control scheme.

It's also really weird that parry is the same as dodge. I'm thinking I might just remap b (dodge/parry) to lb and call it a day. It's just really awkward to me that both attack and parry are on the arial/face buttons, as it means there's a split second between pushing either that wouldn't be there if dodge/parry were on a trigger button.

 

[Suicidal]

Anyone have controller mapping suggestions? This game has really weird controls out of the box, although there are so many x/y rb/rt combos that it's hard to remap anything without fucking some game mechanic up. So it'd be hard to just switch things to a classic Souls control scheme.

It's also really weird that parry is the same as dodge. I'm thinking I might just remap b (dodge/parry) to lb and call it a day. It's just really awkward to me that both attack and parry are on the arial/face buttons, as it means there's a split second between pushing either that wouldn't be there if dodge/parry were on a trigger button.

I'm playing on KBM so can't help you there.

I also dislike the dodge move being the same button as the parry that you have to double tap to do, no less. It's like the devs really didn't want you using it, ever.

My advice: get the water spell that lets you teleport. It's quick to activate, it's very smooth, it covers a much greater distance than the dodge and it gives you a good alternative for when you're not sure if you can parry a boss's ultra long combo. Makes the combat more enjoyable.

 

[Correct_Carlo]

I've gotten used to the controls and no longer think they need to be remapped as I see what the designers were going for. It's not a perfect parry, its a perfect dodge and it's an incredibly limited resource, so it's meant to be something you use occasionally, rather than spam.

Anyhow, this game is fine so far. It feels like Nioh lite, but it's OK if you like that game-loop.

 

[Suicidal]

Game has a really weird difficulty balance. I finished the main campaign and everything was going very smoothly, a bit too easy even. I barely died in the missions (although it seemed like every other monster I killed gave me an "AVENGED SomeCunt" popup, I have no idea how you can die to just 2 dogs at the start of the level in 1 of the end game missions) and most bosses went down in under 5 attempts (usually 1-2) with a few exceptions.

Then I unlocked a bunch of end-game optional missions that I decided to try out and spent hours dying to the same bosses I've already beaten without much trouble, like Aoye (fuck that thing btw, possibly the worst boss in the entire game, what were they thinking?).

This made me realize something - I really suck at deflecting in this game, yet I somehow beat the entire campaign without much trouble. The problem is that I think the enemy stat values in the base campaign are undertuned, which lets you just retard your way through most fights by trading damage and just deflecting occasionally. It's also compounded by the morale system - enemies do much less damage to you if you're on higher morale, and if you play through the levels carefully you're almost guaranteed to come into the boss room at 25 morale versus their 20. You can also further reduce the boss's morale using executes during combat.

In these side missions you are often forced to fight bosses while being at a morale disadvantage and it makes a huge difference. Now if you get hit by a few attacks in their super long combo string, you die. You have to deflect everything perfectly, and doing that is quite difficult in this game, much harder than in, say, Sekiro. You have to be a lot more precise with the inputs and even triggering the deflect animation prematurely costs spirit so if you try to mash you will not only probably get hit but also get stunned because you brought your spirit bar to negative by spamming. In some of these boss fights I just ended up coming up with strategies that required minimum deflection attempts and that worked much better for me. I actually liked that I could fight the bosses effectively by substituting deflects with aqua blink spam and that wood spell that lets you eat 1 attack for free even though the game is clearly deflect-focused and I'm not sure how far this approach can carry me.

Funny thing is, they actually give you an option to play with your morale settings after you finish the campaign - you can cap your morale and also change other sliders, like damage/healing done/taken and etc. I think this should have been available from the start. I'd probably cap my morale at like 18 for a first playthrough and the game would have been challenging enough to make me learn how to deflect and what each boss actually does. Now it feels like I've played through the entire game without learning a thing. Alternatively, the morale system should not have been in the game at all and enemy stats should have been better balanced.

Time to get sodomized in the DLC.

 

[Suicidal]

Finished the first DLC, which was mostly decent and am now playing through the second and already the very first boss you fight, Gan Ning, who's just some random pirate, is so far my personal best boss in the entire game.

He fights like a regular human enemy but on steroids, he uses fists and has the largest variety of different red attacks of all the bosses so far and all of his red moves are the same martial arts you can use, but he can modify them in different ways (like launching them from the air or delaying them).

His moveset is purely reaction based rather than memory based, because he can follow up any attack with pretty much any other attack, including comboing 3 or more red moves in unexpected ways, which I really like.

He is fully staggerable (at least in the first phase), which means your deflects are much more impactful (and look more impactful) and you can safely use a lot of your martial arts.

Despite being staggerable, he can escape being stunlocked by using a grappling hook to pull himself to the other side of the arena (which he can also follow up by a dive kick red attack, or throw bombs around the arena, or throw daggers at you (once or several times), or throw another grappling hook at you, which you can deflect and if you do he falls out of the sky like a dumbass) or by jumping behind you, which he can immediately follow with a red attack.

He is one of two bosses who can deflect your attacks that I've encountered so far, the other being the final boss of the main campaign.

In the second phase he gets a stagger immunity aura, which makes the fight less proactive and more reactive, which I'm not a big fan of, but because he uses so many red attacks once you get good at his timings you can quickly deplete his spirit meter by deflecting them.

Not the hardest boss I've ever fought, but quite difficult and very demanding of your attention and by the time I beat him my hands were all sweaty.

I think this might be the best boss in all Team Ninja games that I've played and one of my favorite bosses in action games in general.

On a scale of 0 to 10, where 10 is the final fight against Vergil in DMC 3 and 0 is Bed of Chaos, I'd give him an easy 9.

 

[Correct_Carlo]

Dlc bosses don't fuck around. Much like Nioh 2, I didn't want to play NG+, but now I feel like I have to, just to get better gear to beat the dlc bosses.

 

[Suicidal]

Dlc bosses don't fuck around. Much like Nioh 2, I didn't want to play NG+, but now I feel like I have to, just to get better gear to beat the dlc bosses.

Are you trying to do DLCs on the default difficulty?

 

[Correct_Carlo]

Dlc bosses don't fuck around. Much like Nioh 2, I didn't want to play NG+, but now I feel like I have to, just to get better gear to beat the dlc bosses.

Are you trying to do DLCs on the default difficulty?

Yes. However, I beat the whole game with one build, but apart from upgrading the armor/weapon, I haven't paid much attention to emblems.

These games can just be too much fucking work to continually upgrade after every mission and/or farm the armor sets you want. Then, the instant NG+ starts, your gear is instantly invalidated by the first shit that drops.

So I've been purposely avoiding this, and I think my build has suffered. I'll research it a bit and maybe go for something else.

 

[Suicidal]

Dlc bosses don't fuck around. Much like Nioh 2, I didn't want to play NG+, but now I feel like I have to, just to get better gear to beat the dlc bosses.

Are you trying to do DLCs on the default difficulty?

Yes. However, I beat the whole game with one build, but apart from upgrading the armor/weapon, I haven't paid much attention to emblems.

These games can just be too much fucking work to continually upgrade after every mission and/or farm the armor sets you want. Then, the instant NG+ starts, your gear is instantly invalidated by the first shit that drops.

So I've been purposely avoiding this, and I think my build has suffered. I'll research it a bit and maybe go for something else.

I did something retarded. When I beat the campaign I saw that the recommended levels for the first 2 DLCs were much lower than my current level (guess they intended for you to play them between the main campaign chapters) and thought that I was over-leveled and decided to start NG+ and play the DLCs on NG+. And now here I am, fighting every boss at -5 morale difference and getting 1-2 shotted by almost every attack. I think my death count was in the 70s when I beat the main campaign and I was feeling overconfident, now it's in the 400s and I'm still not done with DLC 2 . The smart thing to do would be to restart them on NG difficulty and maybe limit my morale a bit using the inner disciple system but at this point I feel like I'm in too deep. On the bright side, I did become much better at parrying and utilizing all the different available tools in general - because the alternative is dying to the first 2 hits of a 7 hit combo.

As for NG+ items - they are not actually that impactful. A 4 star piece of gear will have the same stats as a 5 star piece of gear given the same upgrade level. The only differences are:
-5 star weapons have 6 martial arts slots (not that useful unless you really know which martial arts are good in which situations or have a build specializing in them).
-1 extra random modifier
-5 star items can have grace bonuses (basically advanced sets that can appear on any item) - they are powerful but to take full advantage of them you need the entire set, which can take a while to get.

So I'd recommend just ignoring NG+ if you don't feel like doing it. If a boss is giving you trouble, chances are, there is some ability you have that can really improve your chances that you haven't tried yet. For example, I could barely put a dent in DLC 2's 2nd boss (who is basically Lu Bu 2.0) for the first several attempts because I used a lot of ice spells and he was ice-resistant. Merely switching my ice weapon enchant to a lightning enchant led me to consistently getting him to 20-30% hp for the next several attempts.

 

[Correct_Carlo]

Yeah, like I said, I'm lazy. All my shit is ice based too and it seems like many of the dlc bosses are ice based, so I need to farm some electricity equipment.

The grace bonuses are annoyingly hard to get full sets of, so I might not bother, but I have been reading about some that sound pretty awesome. There's one that adds an equal amount of damage from the opposite element that you are doing damage with on every hit. So, for example, if you enchant your weapon with ice or use an ice spell that does 500 ice damage, it automatically applies 500 fire damage. I've seen people on youtube melting all of the dlc bosses with this in seconds, to the point it seems like it ruins the game.

 

[Deflowerer]

Finished the first DLC, which was mostly decent and am now playing through the second and already the very first boss you fight, Gan Ning, who's just some random pirate, is so far my personal best boss in the entire game.

He fights like a regular human enemy but on steroids, he uses fists and has the largest variety of different red attacks of all the bosses so far and all of his red moves are the same martial arts you can use, but he can modify them in different ways (like launching them from the air or delaying them).

His moveset is purely reaction based rather than memory based, because he can follow up any attack with pretty much any other attack, including comboing 3 or more red moves in unexpected ways, which I really like.

He is fully staggerable (at least in the first phase), which means your deflects are much more impactful (and look more impactful) and you can safely use a lot of your martial arts.

Despite being staggerable, he can escape being stunlocked by using a grappling hook to pull himself to the other side of the arena (which he can also follow up by a dive kick red attack, or throw bombs around the arena, or throw daggers at you (once or several times), or throw another grappling hook at you, which you can deflect and if you do he falls out of the sky like a dumbass) or by jumping behind you, which he can immediately follow with a red attack.

He is one of two bosses who can deflect your attacks that I've encountered so far, the other being the final boss of the main campaign.

In the second phase he gets a stagger immunity aura, which makes the fight less proactive and more reactive, which I'm not a big fan of, but because he uses so many red attacks once you get good at his timings you can quickly deplete his spirit meter by deflecting them.

Not the hardest boss I've ever fought, but quite difficult and very demanding of your attention and by the time I beat him my hands were all sweaty.

I think this might be the best boss in all Team Ninja games that I've played and one of my favorite bosses in action games in general.

On a scale of 0 to 10, where 10 is the final fight against Vergil in DMC 3 and 0 is Bed of Chaos, I'd give him an easy 9.

Haven't played Wo Long, but Gan Ning is usually one of the most dangerous characters in Dynasty Warriors games, at least in the earlier entries, fast and deadly.

 

[Suicidal]

Finished the first DLC, which was mostly decent and am now playing through the second and already the very first boss you fight, Gan Ning, who's just some random pirate, is so far my personal best boss in the entire game.

He fights like a regular human enemy but on steroids, he uses fists and has the largest variety of different red attacks of all the bosses so far and all of his red moves are the same martial arts you can use, but he can modify them in different ways (like launching them from the air or delaying them).

His moveset is purely reaction based rather than memory based, because he can follow up any attack with pretty much any other attack, including comboing 3 or more red moves in unexpected ways, which I really like.

He is fully staggerable (at least in the first phase), which means your deflects are much more impactful (and look more impactful) and you can safely use a lot of your martial arts.

Despite being staggerable, he can escape being stunlocked by using a grappling hook to pull himself to the other side of the arena (which he can also follow up by a dive kick red attack, or throw bombs around the arena, or throw daggers at you (once or several times), or throw another grappling hook at you, which you can deflect and if you do he falls out of the sky like a dumbass) or by jumping behind you, which he can immediately follow with a red attack.

He is one of two bosses who can deflect your attacks that I've encountered so far, the other being the final boss of the main campaign.

In the second phase he gets a stagger immunity aura, which makes the fight less proactive and more reactive, which I'm not a big fan of, but because he uses so many red attacks once you get good at his timings you can quickly deplete his spirit meter by deflecting them.

Not the hardest boss I've ever fought, but quite difficult and very demanding of your attention and by the time I beat him my hands were all sweaty.

I think this might be the best boss in all Team Ninja games that I've played and one of my favorite bosses in action games in general.

On a scale of 0 to 10, where 10 is the final fight against Vergil in DMC 3 and 0 is Bed of Chaos, I'd give him an easy 9.

Haven't played Wo Long, but Gan Ning is usually one of the most dangerous characters in Dynasty Warriors games, at least in the earlier entries, fast and deadly.

What about Taishi Ci and Xu Chu? Those are the hardest bosses for me in Wo Long so far, not counting the demons because those are probably not in any Dynasty Warriors game.

 

[Correct_Carlo]

Taishi Ci was whipping my ass, so I left, got new gear, came back, and he still whipped my ass. So I watched a video on youtube.....turns out he's super weak to earth. I only had 10 points in earth, but I equipped the earth spells and the earth guardian......and I beat him in one try.

I think shit like that is cheap. Boss that's impossibly hard, but melts against one spell. It feels like a lame adventure game puzzle or some shit.

Xu Chu was hard too, but I couldn't find a gimmick with him. Just had to learn his moveset and dodge.

I've made it to the final boss of dlc 3, who seems really hard. However, I'm going to mop up all the remaining side-quests before I bother.

 

[Suicidal]

Taishi Ci was whipping my ass, so I left, got new gear, came back, and he still whipped my ass. So I watched a video on youtube.....turns out he's super weak to earth. I only had 10 points in earth, but I equipped the earth spells and the earth guardian......and I beat him in one try.

I think shit like that is cheap. Boss that's impossibly hard, but melts against one spell. It feels like a lame adventure game puzzle or some shit.

Xu Chu was hard too, but I couldn't find a gimmick with him. Just had to learn his moveset and dodge.

I've made it to the final boss of dlc 3, who seems really hard. However, I'm going to mop up all the remaining side-quests before I bother.

Is earth good against him because it negates his AoE ice spam or does it also do a lot of damage.

I really like the fact that spells can negate eachother, but I feel like elemental weakness damage is a bit too high. I use the icicle rain spell for damage and it does next to nothing on enemies that are resistant to it, but oneshots things that are weak to it like the hedgehogs and the monkeys (not sure why they are weak to it).

I specced into water and wood, so I had to kill him the hard way. At least the wood spell that blocks 1 attack works well in all situations. In my winning attempt I did the first phase without taking damage. 2nd phase was still a nightmare.

Can't imagine how fighting him with a fire build is like considering any of his attacks will dispel all your fire buffs in phase 2.

I think the game expects you to be at least somewhat proficient in every element at this point but I'm still going all in on ice and wood.

 

[Correct_Carlo]

Taishi Ci was whipping my ass, so I left, got new gear, came back, and he still whipped my ass. So I watched a video on youtube.....turns out he's super weak to earth. I only had 10 points in earth, but I equipped the earth spells and the earth guardian......and I beat him in one try.

I think shit like that is cheap. Boss that's impossibly hard, but melts against one spell. It feels like a lame adventure game puzzle or some shit.

Xu Chu was hard too, but I couldn't find a gimmick with him. Just had to learn his moveset and dodge.

I've made it to the final boss of dlc 3, who seems really hard. However, I'm going to mop up all the remaining side-quests before I bother.

Is earth good against him because it negates his AoE ice spam or does it also do a lot of damage.

Both. You destroy him very quickly in round 1 with the stone spike spell (which only requires 8 in earth), and you can use the earth spirit animal in round 2 to throw up spikes and they not only block spells, but they also take half his health bar off if he runs into them.

 

[Cheesedragon117]

My problem is not with the parry windows but with how your character interacts with the big monsters' attacks. They swing their giant arm/leg/cock at you and your character just does a little spin and somehow avoids all damage even though half his body is lodged inside the bosses giant tentacle or whatever.

This is exactly it. It feels very disconnected and the visual feedback doesn't reflect the state of the game at all. Contrasted to how Sekiro conveys a successful parry, it's pathetic.

NOTHING beats that one deflect animation where Wolf has to stab his sword into the ground to stabilize himself as he slowly slides to a stop (with the camera panning down a bit to help sell it). Humongous attacks are treated with the proper gravitas, even when you successfully avoided damage!

 

[Suicidal]

I've heard horror stories about DLC 3's final boss but he actually wasn't that difficult. There is a very consistent rhythm in his combos and in the 2nd phase when he uses certain attacks you can simply get behind him and do some free damage. Also, if you have spells/MAs that can hit him from the top, you can destroy the dragon growing out of his body, which severely limits his move pool in phase 2, although it will regrow after a spirit break. He does have a lot of HP so it's more of an endurance test that requires you to pay close attention for a long time and it's very easy to get clipped by something and get comboed to death from full health, especially in phase 2 where he shits out tons of projectiles and random ground explosions. Demon Taishi Ci without earth magic was much harder.

Still a fun boss, though. Reminded my of Nightmare Bringer from Nioh 2, but cooler and with 5 elements instead of 3. I feel like if he was any harder he would have been too frustrating and I wouldn't have enjoyed it as much.

 

[Shurakan]

I adore Nioh2 so I'm considering this one, been waiting for a complete edition and a sale. I've been reading that the game's performance has improved. Now, does that mean that it's actually good or that it's just moderately better than the dumpster fire that was reported at release? I won't buy if it's going to stutter like it has Parkinson's.

Besides that... the reviews I've read have given me some pause. I've watched footage and it looks fun enough, but the flag morale system and simplicity compared to Nioh seem like negatives. Even the recent reviews are still mixed. Yet, the Nioh itch needs scratching.

 

[Suicidal]

I adore Nioh2 so I'm considering this one, been waiting for a complete edition and a sale. I've been reading that the game's performance has improved. Now, does that mean that it's actually good or that it's just moderately better than the dumpster fire that was reported at release? I won't buy if it's going to stutter like it has Parkinson's.

Besides that... the reviews I've read have given me some pause. I've watched footage and it looks fun enough, but the flag morale system and simplicity compared to Nioh seem like negatives. Even the recent reviews are still mixed. Yet, the Nioh itch needs scratching.

I'm a big Nioh fag and this game scratched the itch well enough. It's like a combination of Nioh and Sekiro, but not as good as either of them, unfortunately. It lacks Nioh's mechanical depth and Sekiro's polish. Still, I had fun with it. As dumbed down as the combat is compared to Nioh, I still prefer it to the majority of soulslikes because in a combat-focused action game controlling a fast character with lots of abilities is more preferable to slowly tumbling around the room like a retirement home Sonic the Hedgehog. ATM I beat all the levels and am fucking around in NG+ for a bit. I'll do a more detailed write-up/mini review after I'm done.

Performance has been decent for me, but I had to go from 120 FPS to 60 FPS because at 120 FPS the game started running in slow motion for me in certain areas. Other than that, the only noticeable performance problem was during a boss fight against a guy who summons spirit weapons from the ground in an area around him and when I tried to deflect through it the sheer amount of sparks and other particle spam caused to game to lag severely. Apart from that, pretty good all around. Better performance for me than in Stranger of Paradise (not a very high bar, mind you), which I still found perfectly playable.