Thanks for playing!
For parrying, enemies are also capable of parrying, and in Nia's and the tutorial's case they have a specific effect to show that it's a parry from their end. But I agree that the current priority system for parrying is kinda nonsensical because I haven't made any proper guidelines or standards thus far, and having specific attacks beat out other attacks is really hard to convey when things go this fast, especially when some attacks are always interrupted on any parry for sequence reasons rather than the intuitive power of the attack.
The tutorial for parrying is tricky, because if I don't slow it down, then players might get stuck and never be able to get past this, and if I skip it, then they miss out on a core mechanic. But slowing it down also means it's not representative of how actual combat will be, which is why I settled for having an effect that only shows up during this stage of the tutorial, while using attacks that you've already seen and have established the timings for.
There's a gap currently where projectile deflects and parries don't count towards the tutorial. Probably should just remove that attack from those stages tbh. I guess I should also try and update the tutorial text based on that too.
As for skills, there were plans to make dedicated skill tutorials in that section, but I couldn't come up with ideas for all of them in time, and implementing them is also not that straightforward. Also, players aren't going to sit in the tutorial to slowly go through each one of them. It's pretty much the other major cursed design problem of this game, because the bosses and combat system are made with the expectation that you know how to exploit your skills, but there's also no good way to guarantee that without being exceptionally hand-holdy.
Some other notes I had watching the video (more so on things I need to somehow teach players about):
- Nia's grabs are likely to miss if you keep moving, and they can even be deflected unlike Louise's.
- but maybe teleporting into it might be too much (even if it is the major telegraph for that move aside from the flash)
- The intended playstyle is in using all of the skills to land attacks constantly with as little downtime as possible, so this actually still isn't enough aggression.
- Maybe I should use another tutorial pop-up for Lynette's fight? It is a gimmick fight, but part of the fun of gimmick fights is figuring it out on your own, so spoiling it so obviously doesn't feel good. Not sure where else I should take this to make it more of a proper fight rather than an elaborate tutorial for one mechanic.
Also, if you've got time to revisit the demo, I'd like to hear your thoughts on the ??? boss at the bottom of the list. It's supposed to be an optional boss just before the final boss, so it'll serve as the ceiling of difficulty in the game to test the limits of this system.