The response toClair Obscur: Expedition 33has been extremely positive, with both critics and players praising the game for its mechanics, story, and world. That said, many mods for the game have been released, which allow PC players to tweak the experience in various ways. The most-downloaded of those mods targets a fundamental aspect ofClair Obscur: Expedition 33,and its popularity is a clear indication that the combat system in the base game is leaving many players frustrated.
The mod in question is Caites’sEasier or Harder Dodge and Parry, and it has more than 63,000 unique downloads through Nexus Mods at the time of writing. As its name indicates, this mod, in part, makes it easier to dodge and parry attacks, and it does so by increasing the window of time during which a player can perform an evasive maneuver. More specifically, the mod can be used to increase the dodge and parry windows by 30%, 100%, 200%, or 450%, and it is proving to be of interest to manyClair Obscur: Expedition 33playerswho are unhappy with the game’s base timing requirements.
Dodging & Parrying in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
For the uninitiated, players have two primarydefensive options inClair Obscur: Expedition 33: they can dodge attacks, or they can parry them. While both of these options fully negate an attack’s damage when successfully performed, there are some key differences. Namely, dodges are slightly easier to execute than parries, as their success window is a bit larger. However, players are incentivized to go for the more-difficult parries, as they will perform a counterattack if they parry every one of a foe’s attacks in a single turn. These counterattacks can deal big damage, especially when supported by certain equipment, and they cannot occur when dodging.
While it is easier to dodge an attack than it is to parry one, it is not significantly so. This means that a player who struggles to consistentlyparry attacks inClair Obscur: Expedition 33may also find it quite difficult to dodge them. Players for whom that is true can attempt to address the issue by lowering the game’s difficulty, as doing so slightly increases dodge and parry windows, or they can configure the playable characters in ways that look to minimize the importance of defensive maneuvers. However, these options are not sufficient for, or of interest to, all players, as is made perfectly clear by the number of times that the Easier or Harder Dodge and Parry mod has been downloaded.
Indeed, the popularity of the mod points directly to the fact that many players are simply not satisfied with the base options for adjusting the game’s difficulty. Perhaps these players feel that the game’s easiest difficulty setting (Story), which decreases the damage enemies deal alongside increasing dodge and parry windows, is too easy, while its “intended difficulty” (Expeditioner) is too punishing. Or maybe it all feels like too much, yet the player still wants to have freedom to experiment with character builds and not be pushed towards those that focus primarily on defense. Regardless of exactly why someone might pursue aClair Obscur: Expedition 33modthat gives them more control over difficulty, it does seem that many players would appreciate more difficulty options in the base game.
More Difficulty Options in Clair Obscur: Expedition 33
With respect to how those options could manifest, perhaps the most straightforward approach would simply be to add a difficulty that falls between Story and Expeditioner. This setting could use the enemy damage values from Expeditioner and the dodge and parry windows from Story, and it could be perfect for players who feel that neither of those options are quite right. Alternatively, there could be sliders associated with enemy damage and dodge and parry windows, allowing players to freely adjust those values until they land on a combination that they find suitable. While it is true that those sliders could be used to trivialize the game, if they made values beyond what appear in Story mode accessible, they could also serve to improve the experience for players who are really struggling withClair Obscur: Expedition 33’s combat.
