So between other forum guidance and trying to watch the icon line up, I'm fairly stumped. 90% of the time if you hit the button to counter and you're anything close to being in an animation, Max will just get hit - it's the complete opposite of Batman, Shadow of Mordor or Sleeping Dogs where they'll transition out of it, and honestly, feels kinda broken.

However, the more I've read online the more people have mentioned specific counter windows you have to watch out for, and the icon changing colour (which I've not seen).

How have you guys found the combat, and the reliability of countering? It's the only thing ruining the on-foot sections for me, as groups of guys come out of nowhere and land huge hits I can't see coming!

@shalashaskauk666: I saw a video where the dev's were playing the game and they specifically said that you can't cancel out of attacks to counter. No idea why they thought this was a good idea but they are aware of it.

It's mostly just a rhythm thing. As I got deeper into the game I just got used to how to approach the combat and the prompts became sorta irrelevant. The only problem I still had with the game is the same thing I've encountered in all of these games, which is that sometimes you get stuck in this "loop" where if you fail one counter each enemy will chain-attack you and you just have to stop and make sure to land a counter.

I would highly recommend starting every encounter by countering instead of attacking, which will usually put you into the right "sequence" where you can predictably attack and counter the way you want to. Also, learning what enemies you can do special counters on (once you acquire the skills) helps a lot, as the animations give you "immunity" much like executions in Mordor.

Yes a lot of the times the counters will straight up fail. Max will also just frequently stand around like a dildo and get hit, when there is a special button prompt on a downed enemy yet nothing happens as you press it. The animation immunity also fails quite frequently on a lot of special moves, to enemy charging or other attacks. Attacks off screen etc...

It's a busted take on the Batman style combat system, that really showcases what is needed for that to work, and that when it fails to work it's just a shitty experience.

One piece of advice I can give you is you can't counter while doing a heavy attack, at least not in time 9 times out of 10. If you want to consistently counter more only use light attacks.

All that counter windows and icon color change stuff is BS. You can fail mashing a counter button that was on the screen for a good second or two

It feels more honest. Batman will straight up cancel out of his shoryuken and divert his attention towards the new dude. You could argue this fits under the "not fun" category of realism, but I think it's a philosophical difference that requires a different strategy.

@shalashaskauk666: No, it's the same as Batman. You can't interrupt attacks with counters because then it becomes a filthy mash of two buttons and it's not very engaging. Sleeping Dogs and Shadow of Mordor, while fun as hell, were a walk in the park in terms of combat, and being able to counter-cancel is precisely why. If you can counter whenever, there's absolutely no reason not to be continuously attacking and there's zero rhythm or skill involved at all.

I agree, the countering system is... counter intuitive. While I can do it fairly well, the visuals do not seem to line up with when I seem to be expected to hit the button for a perfect counter. I get the impression this is intentional so as to make perfects rare, but it's a dumb way of doing that (forcing a handicap on the player is always bad game design).

However there are still things about it I like, and I like that they made it feel more realistic. Like others have pointed out it doesn't interrupt one attack in order to counter which is more realistic. Unfortunately, the combat itself doesn't flow in a way that makes any logical sense anyway so I don't see why that matters. Half the time when you counter you grab the opponents leg, but he doesn't do anything with that move as as soon as you attack he transitions into punching as if he never grabbed the leg- he does nothing with the leg he grabbed he just transitions out of ever having held it. There's a lot of choppy animation like this in the combat that completely negates any authenticity to the combat they may have been going for. It feels about as half done as the rest of the game.

Edit: Oh and ya, sometimes he just doesn't respond to counter commands at all unless you're mashing the button. I don't know, though, that may be my controller. I don't know why it does that sometimes, but not always. I've had that problem a few times though- he just stands there and does nothing when you hit counter but he still would attack. It's weird.

Keep in mind, I say this as someone who enjoys playing this game, but I still see all the wasted potential and problems and I'm a bit disappointed in Avalanche because I believe they did it on purpose.