Nioh 2

[Reinhardt]

Sounds like i'm too old for this shit...

 

[InD_ImaginE]

Fair enough. While I like the stance system, I'd certainly be open to hearing what you'd prefer as an alternative.

No stances, no Ki pulses and less flashy moves without physics behind them.

Anyway my opinion is irrelevant. Play the game and enjoy it.

Because attacking twice and rolling and running then repeat is a hallmark of good combat. Like Dark Souls!

 

[toro]

Fair enough. While I like the stance system, I'd certainly be open to hearing what you'd prefer as an alternative.

No stances, no Ki pulses and less flashy moves without physics behind them.

Anyway my opinion is irrelevant. Play the game and enjoy it.

Because attacking twice and rolling and running then repeat is a hallmark of good combat. Like Dark Souls!

Don't embarrass yourself. Fuck. Too late.

 

[aweigh]

i think the introduction of the dodge-roll mechanic was the death knell of good combat design in modern action games.

Eerily equivalent to the introduction of "cover-based shooting" in the world of shooters. Dodge-a-mole.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

Dodge-a-mole.

Funny, but innacurate
Dodging as been present since at least the first 3D hack 'n' slashes, and it didn't ruin any of those games.
It's all a matter of enemy design and how you balance the gameplay.

 

[Suicidal]

I think it's not the dodge roll that's the problem but the fact that almost every dev insists on making the dodge act like an immunity button. A dodge move should make your character get out of the way of an attack quickly, not turn you into a ghost able to phase through waves of fire and giant enemy sword swings unharmed.

 

[Reinhardt]

I'm too old for this shit. Why i can't just say "i dodge"?

 

[cvv]

I think it's not the dodge roll that's the problem but the fact that almost every dev insists on making the dodge act like an immunity button. A dodge move should make your character get out of the way of an attack quickly, not turn you into a ghost able to phase through waves of fire and giant enemy sword swings unharmed.

Depends, FromSoft games are specifically designed around iFrames, that's why mobs have these broad sweeps and flailing spasms. There's no way you could dodge those without iFrames. They'd have to overhaul the whole design.

Btw Nioh has iframes too, altho just a handful.

 

[TheHeroOfTime]

Getting fucked by the serpent like yokai. The dark realm phase is though, the little snakes are very hard to hit. Altough the kusarigama is helping a lot since it hits both the boss and the minions when they are all together.

 

[toro]

Your complete lack of understanding good game design from bad despite your experience is both amazing and hilarious.

I've watched several streamers playing it because, honestly, it's funny to watch retards getting stomped.

But there are two things which flabbergast me significantly: (1) the game world design is mediocre at best and (2) most boss fights devolve in clusterfucks because of multiple attacks types or support mobs.

There is no environmental storytelling and the game contains a mind boggling quantity of mediocre fights.

It's true I did not play the game but please tell me where is that "good game design" you are speaking of because I don't see it.

By the way I've asked Elajjaz on stream about Nioh 2 vs Sekiro. The answer was that Sekiro is a much better experience while Nioh 2 has much more replay ability. He is not an expert but he did finish the game and explored most content including secret bosses. Also most streamers moved on from the game because it's simply dull.

 

[DJOGamer PT]

So not only you decide to reply to that post after almost one week, you also decide to completely ignore it's context (I was talking about the gameplay, I make it pretty clear in the very next line) and finally needing a twitch eceleb to make an argument for you, like the opinion of those shills and retards amounts to anything other than shit.

Plus:

most boss fights devolve into clusterfucks

Kinda like Sekiro uh...

There is no environmental storytelling

This Team Ninja we're talking about.
Do you kind they care about storyfaggotry?
No. They are all about 3 things: tight, difficult combat and enemies, a rollercoaster of a campgain and last but not least jiggle physics.

 

[cruel]

Are we seriously comparing this game with Sekiro? I liked Sekiro, but... Simple parry-parry-attack with some prosthetic tools vs solid action RPG, with 8 different (and here it means TOTALLY different) weapons, each with 3 stances, different skills, full magic / ninjutsu / shifting tree, bombs, traps, shurikens, poison, elemental debuffs, paralysis and much more. This is not even a fair comparison (in terms of gameplay complexity that is).

 

[cvv]

Are we seriously comparing this game with Sekiro? I liked Sekiro, but... Simple parry-parry-attack with some prosthetic tools vs solid action RPG, with 8 different (and here it means TOTALLY different) weapons, each with 3 stances, different skills, full magic / ninjutsu / shifting tree, bombs, traps, shurikens, poison, elemental debuffs, paralysis and much more. This is not even a fair comparison (in terms of gameplay complexity that is).

You just spend your entire post comparing Nioh to Sekiro just saying.

 

[Lutte]

Depends, FromSoft games are specifically designed around iFrames, that's why mobs have these broad sweeps and flailing spasms. There's no way you could dodge those without iFrames. They'd have to overhaul the whole design.

Son.
Please.
It's not easy to accomplish and I would never have the patience to do 3000 retries to do it, but it's technically possible and some autists did many of the broad sweep, unrelenting fuckers WITH NO DODGE, NO BLOCK


(dude doing the pontiff even uses an emote to avoid attacks. Emotes have no iframes. He's just physically sitting there.)




These people mostly rely on running back and forth or running in circles. If the game had some form of real movement that had no iframes, it would present a challenge but wouldn't be impossible to kill them without iframes. People doing it without any form of movement or blocking (NO DODGE) have managed to kill them, so with movement it'd be more accessible. A from no-iframe dodge could take forms of more active movement like super backstep and leap attacks.

 

[TheImplodingVoice]

I played it on PS4 Pro and performance was decent in the trial and I enjoyed it. I want to get it in November for PC but November is so far away. Tempted to get it for PS4.

Guess I could always replay Nioh 1

 

[TheHeroOfTime]

You never played Dark souls with a heavy armor, aren't you?

Anyway, in none of these games the dodge button it's just an i-frame button. Their main goal is to move your character outside of the range of the foes. The i-frames are a complement to the dodging animations to make them reliable and to avoid weird inconsistencies (Like getting hit by an attack with a huge hitbox. Dark souls 2 suffers a lot because of this, since the default i-frames are very low, no matter how light is your armor).

The way people plays these games nowdays is a meta-style that has evolved through time (And is one that requires skill and precision). You would loved to see the Demon's souls era, where people did roll panic backwards against anything done by a random enemy, just to create space between them.

 

[cruel]

The more I play it, the more I like the game. All the game mechanics started to click together, Yokai skills became muscle memory, plus experience from first game helps. When you get access to Ninjutsu and Magic, the game really opens up - the amount of tactical options to fight enemies becomes amazing - I didn't have this feeling since Dark Souls probably. There are moments when you have Enki, poison Blob and Snake Lady in close proximity - if you don't study environment properly and plan beforehand, you will die miserably. Very satisfying to get the plan in place and execute. Also - dual swords low stance + poison = fun. I see that some of the Ninjutsu skills have elemental powers now, looks fun.

I was going to even post that maybe the game becomes a little bit too easy (level 30, finishing third main mission / 7 missions total), but some of the newly introduced enemies made me rethink that. And probably I will rant about the boss soon (Yatsu no Kami), but will give myself few more tries before I do that.

Overall, they improved everything. In the 15h I played so far, I had probably more than 14 distinct enemies (Gaki, adult Gaki, Enki, Yoki, Ipon-Datarra, Tengu, One-Eyed Oni, Abhorrent Soldier, human soldier, armored soldier, skeleton warrior, Sohaya Warrior, blob, elemental head) - and probably forgot about something. Level design is also improved I think. Even Dark Realm is a nice improvement (even if I hated it in the beginning). Another plus - the game is not cheap. Very few moments when you die because they wanted you to die (cheap ambush, max 2 times so far).

The only thing that should go is this Burst Attack and Burst Counter crap. The amount of times I died to this is amazing, and it's totally stupid - you can have an almost dying enemy, with 10% or less health left, and he will decide to do a Burst Attack as a last resort; if you are too close / not enough time to react, this is instant death very frequently. I hate it.

 

[Hyperion]

The only thing that should go is this Burst Attack and Burst Counter crap. The amount of times I died to this is amazing, and it's totally stupid - you can have an almost dying enemy, with 10% or less health left, and he will decide to do a Burst Attack as a last resort; if you are too close / not enough time to react, this is instant death very frequently. I hate it.

Use Phantom. It's the best of the 3, and not even close. It's the fastest to work, on par with the Parrying Dagger / Monastery Scimitar / The Shrike. Except if you slightly mistime it, you get the benefits of a Timely Guard - block the attack with no Ki loss. If you badly mistime it, you still get a block but with Ki Loss as if you blocked thebattack. Fortunately the most useful GS in the game for a general build is also Phantom (no spoilerinos), so you don't even have to choose between good stats and good counters.

Agree with everything else. Hated Yokai Abilities at first, came to really love them. The Shiftling tree enhancements make them even better, like clearing a Yokai Pool on use, healing on hit, being able to Ki Pulse + Yokai Ability simultaneously, etc.

The black smoke grapple attacks of most enemies are by fat the nastiest. Most were sped up, like the Yoki grab, or have absolutely disgusting tracking like the Enki one, or a future boss who shall not be named.

 

[cruel]

Thanks for the tip. But for now, I have only access to two Guardian Spirits, Monkey and the Bird - and both of them are Feral. The only way to switch to Phantom is another Guardian Spirit, right?

Yatsu-no-Kami boss... I hate bosses like that. Instead of nice, intense, fair fight, you need to play a puzzle and solve it in an exact way (bait snake heads attack, rush, high stance hit, back down, rinse and repeat). Horrible, worst boss so far.

 

[cruel]

What a piece of shit boss that is. 15 freaking tries, and only once I had him at 5% health. There wasn't a single thing in Sekiro, DS3 or DS2 that gave me so much trouble I think.

Massive health pool, hits like a truck up close, very little time to react. You can bait him at range, but then it becomes an endurance fight - hit once or twice, back off, repeat. And still, even if everything goes well, Dark Realm phase - and 3 enemies at once. Why not, let's limit stamina recovery, buff the boss but also give him two snakes as bodyguards. Either I suck so much, or they crossed the line here. Just give me 'I win' button and let me proceed with the rest of the game.

I even summoned some people for last 4 tries - they all die like a bitch, even guys being level 50 (while I'm level 32). No idea how they managed to beat him if they cannot survive this fight.

 

[Hyperion]

Level only helps so much - your stats gets scaled down as a visitor I'm not sure what to say other thanckeep your distance from it and try to bait the burst attack where he just kinda slithers at you, I found it easy to counter with Brute and Feral. If you can't time it, at least it's easy to dodge.

Also, big vertical attacks because of the yellow, glowy spot on his face. High Stance Odachi attacks worked well for this. Chunks his Ki nicely. Don't forget to use your own Yokai Abilities - you get hyperarmor, and what looks like a bit of bonus defense when you use them. They also permanently reduce the Ki bar if they connect. Don't neglect them.

 

[cruel]

I refused to use Burst Counter for now completely, and was doing just fine, but maybe I will make an exception for this boss. I'm using Enki + Gozuki for Yokai abilities, liking the first one because of the range, the second one hits hard and is very quick to unleash. Most of the time I'm conserving them for the later phase of the fight, maybe will try doing them sooner and hoping to build anima later.

Also, I get a feeling that Dual Swords suck for this fight. Not much benefit of high DPS, low range, and High Stance for hitting the snakes is not that great. But getting a new weapon only for single boss fight ;/

They introduced this boss at a similar stage of the game as Umi Bozu in the first one. Bad memories.

 

[cruel]

20+ tries and still nothing. Seems I will need to change my whole play style for this boss, and maybe try a High Stance Odachi (something that hits hard with good range).

Some videos for other people who are going to suffer with this piece of s...:

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=W07-sPmpUM0

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3go_3FuvQ80

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8Nx6BFSzP10

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=i4lCwC6wrTA


And of course it looks soooo easy if you watch it on a video :/

How exactly the Blue Visitors are scaled down when summoned? Only level goes down, or other things as well? I find it amazing that all of them die so quickly - either it's the Boss itself, or healing when summoned is very limited?

 

[Hyperion]

My health went from 3,400 to 2,100 in a low level mission. Damage was scaled back, but still higher than an appropriately leveled character. Also got hit harder than I expected. I didn't check to see if anything else was quantifiable.

 

[XenomorphII]

The blue graves are ai controlled, not controlled by their owner.