Nioh: Feudal Era Dark Souls

[Sentinel]

Been giving this a 4th try and I'm enjoying the Kusarigama quite a bit after rerolling my previous odachi character. What's a good sub weapon for it? I have dual swords because it uses skill which I naturally need for light armor but I'm not feeling it's doing anything the kusarigama can't.

 

[Strange Fellow]

Coming up on the endgame now, I think. Just fought Dude With Spear (seriously, who can remember these names?) after going through the trench warfare level. Motherfucker killed me with a sliver of health left like five times. Before that was Icarus With Guns, which was really easy. Would've had him on the first try if it weren't for those gosh darn grab attacks. Ban grab attacks already. In other news, I unlocked a new skill for the Odachi in low stance which jumps up above enemies and cleaves them in half, doing a shitload of damage, which is immensely fun to use and has kept combat from being a slog through these last few levels. I'm gonna do a proper impressions post once I finish the game, but I'll say for now that the enemy variety in this game is some sad shit.

 

[aweigh]

Use Windows 10's compact command.

You can save gb's of space by compacting game folders with absolutely no performance impact, and in fact gain some speed in loading times in certain games because of the smaller file chunks.

https://www.reddit.com/r/pcgaming/comments/7787qd/compactgui_compress_any_game_with_no_impact_on/

 

[Sentinel]

Did Team Ninja nerf the bosses in some patch? I completed the game and didn't die more than 3 times to any boss. Particularly the last 4 bosses, I only died once on each because I was caught off guard by some move. Or is the kusarigama just OP as fuck? I'm not even using omnyo (I heard you can cheese anything with Sloth).

I'm not complaining, I was just expecting it to be way harder 'cause I hear so many comments about the difficulty.

 

[Hyperion]

Sloth was nerfed hard. It's not useless, but it's nowhere near what it was. With the addition of DLC, most weapons got new tricks to handle enemies and bosses, certain abilities had their tracking improved, damage upped, etc. Nioh is only backbreakingly difficult if you try to play the game like it's Dark Souls. When the game first came out, every nimrod streamer was playing single katana or axe and never leaving mid stance because they're all clownshoes, which gave the game a really bad first impression to most people. The game is far more exciting than they made it look. Mastering Ki Pulses, and the bonus Ki you receive from switching stances (can do it 2x - from Low to Mid to High for double the bonus) gives you pretty much unlimited attack and dodge time so you never really need to let up in your assault. Funny too, because I find Mid-stance the most useless of all 3 stances and am hoping they make it at least somewhat enticing to use in the sequel. It's supposed to be about handling groups of enemies with wide attacks, but I always found repositioning with a sidestep more effective. Only use I found for it was blocking a heavy attack (you take reduced stamina loss on block in mid stance) and baiting human enemies out when I wanted to use The Shrike, probably the best parry in the game.

The first area before you have many tools at your disposal, don't have a distinct build going, and the only decent weapons you get are single katana (the game front loading you with no other weapon is probably my biggest gripe, aside from the obvious lack of monster variety which should be addressed for the sequel), is the only really hard place in the game. It's also why so many people quit before beating Hino-enma, the sissies.

 

[sullynathan]

Got around to playing the game and I beat mission 1. Overall I liked it even though the initial boss is really trash.

 

[cretin]

wanted to get this until i read it has zero kb and mouse support.

 

[Strange Fellow]

wanted to get this until i read it has zero kb and mouse support.

You're in luck, because that's not true at all. Nioh controls very well with kb/m. It lets you rebind keys too, even allowing dedicated keys for certain combos and stance-changing which with a controller require multiple buttons.

 

[Wunderbar]

wanted to get this until i read it has zero kb and mouse support.

i beat it with kb+m. Stance changing mid-combat, ki pulse and ki flux felt wonky, but aside from that it was fine.

 

[Reinhardt]

Also ranged weapons are much better with mouse.

 

[cretin]

Well I guess the morons on steam that wrote that were full of shit, not the first time and certainly won't be the last. I guess ill be getting it then. Thanks.

 

[Sentinel]

I don't think you have any business calling any of those people morons when this is on the game's News page

 

[HoboForEternity]

So i got it on discount. After blue balled by sekiro, i found nioh finally filled my dark souls thirst.

It is really good so far. The build, weapons variety, skills, stat etc feels really good. The gameplay is super varied, switching weapons feel seamless. It is different than dark souls, while still maintain its core feel, while i fimd sekiro is half assed attempt to make fast paced action game while shoehorning souls like mechanics that the result is like mixing beef steak with ice cream. They are great on their own, but probably awful when you mix it.

 

[InD_ImaginE]

It is really good so far. The build, weapons variety, skills, stat etc feels really good. The gameplay is super varied, switching weapons feel seamless.

This is the reason NiOh is uperior than DS, at least combat wise. DS exploration is fun, but the combat is banal.

In NiOh having different weapon using different stance, whether you use magic or ninja tools or not matters. The gameplay is not limited to roll,hit,run for half an hour, restarting when you are gibbed by new pattern when you 50% down the boss health. Repeat until the boss run out of tricks.

Heck, even the 2nd boss in the game is already doable without playing the game like Dark Souls. The first boss is pretty much DS big bad boss clone tho.

 

[HoboForEternity]

TIL the MC is based on a real person

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/William_Adams

and he is, historically speaking the first weeb ever recorded in history.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Been playing this the last few days. Haven't gotten deep enough to evaluate level design, story, etc, mostly getting used to the combat system. I am playing with mouse and keyboard, and it took me like a full day to remap all the important keys. The default Kb&M controls are trash. This game also has more controls than any other non-Dwarf Fortress game I've ever played.

The combat is brutal. It has some elements of Dark Souls combat, but overall, it's much faster and more difficult. Dark Souls combat is more tactical, in the sense that you learn different enemies' patterns, and can play against that. In Nioh, there is some of that, but in addition to it, your reflexes are also tested. In Dark Souls 1, the only enemies that really tested your reflexes were skellies, those thieves, and Black Knights, but in Nioh, you run into a ton of such enemies (Revenants, Samurai with Swords and Spears early on). They attack super fast, with different patterns and feints, and attack constantly. Since my reflexes are kinda shit now that im no longer a spring chicken, it took me many tries to defeat most of these enemies. Eventually, you do get better at it (which is a big part of the appeal of these types of games), but still, it's pretty brutal.

My current build is a regular katana samurai, mid stance for counter gameplay, and using Haze to parry. Will eventually get Haze 2 for the follow up knock-down thrust, and combine it with Iai Quickdraw 2 for a vicious combo (parry, thrust to knock down, charge up quick draw and massive final blow). I also switch to low stance for multiple opponents (dodge is crisper and cooler looking), and use bow when needed.

 

[Somberlain]

Just a tip, parry skills in Nioh are not as powerful or reliable as they are in Dark Souls.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Just a tip, parry skills in Nioh are not as powerful or reliable as they are in Dark Souls.

Are you sure? I mean I am the furthest thing from an expert on Nioh combat, being only in the beginning, but so far, it seems like parries are the ONLY way to fight. They are hard to pull off correctly, but everything else is even harder. For instance, dodge works differently from Dark Souls, there are no iFrames or whatever, so you actually have to dodge out of the attack path, but since enemies attack so quickly, with little tells, and attack many times, I can't imagine that being more effective than parrying. You have to time it, like parrying, with 2 buttons instead of one, and do it with direction included. Seems harder.

 

[Hyperion]

Parrying only works against humans, and even then, quite q few attacks can't be parried. The black smoke trail is a dead giveaway that you need to GTFO Dodge. Enemies also take ~50% more damage from behind, and a dodge will usually set that up perfectly.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

Oh yeah, parrying doesn't work against everyone, but it works against all humanoids, even undead I believe, as long as they are not too big. As far as damage bonus, most parries set you up behind the enemy.

 

[Sentinel]

Problem with parrying is that the follow up attack deals pretty poor damage unless you build for it, and 99% of the time you can just dodge behind the enemy and deal double the damage you'd deal with a riposte, while having all the advantages of not being locked into an animation.

 

[Seigneur Voland]

dodge works differently from Dark Souls, there are no iFrames or whatever

There are i-frames in Nioh exactly like in Dark Souls, around the middle of the dodge animation. The number of i-frames can even be increased with a property on Body Armor, or with set bonuses.

Problem with parrying is that the follow up attack deals pretty poor damage unless you build for it, and 99% of the time you can just dodge behind the enemy and deal double the damage you'd deal with a riposte, while having all the advantages of not being locked into an animation.

The Dojo Masters and human bosses like Okatsu are definitely made to be parried, you can kill them without but it's just longer and harder unless you go for chain stuns. One of the advantages of parries being also that you have i-frames during the entirety of the parry animation, this is really handy for certain double boss fights, like Hanzo + Okatsu or Katana + Spear Dojo Masters.

Parrying is unecessary against the rest though, true.

 

[HoboForEternity]

i have finished the 3rd main mission. this game isn't too hard tbh. only Nue gave me trouble. but it's fun. i love just changing weapon type whenever i found a good weapon and it would play mostly different. buffing weapons with omyo talisman or potions/poisons is fun too. it's not as hard as people say so far (or as hard as from soft games) but the combat is alot funner than fromsoft game overall. favorite part is how seamless the weapons are and you actually can switch from ranged to melee too ranged with a single button press and did some great combo.

as for blocking vs dodging, it's true human enemies mostly are better to parry, while bigger onis are better to dodge. some weapons type like the tonfa feels great to block and perform a swift counter attack, while slower weapons is better to dodge.

 

[PorkyThePaladin]

One nice thing is that if your equipment weight starts approaching the limit, while it screws you in terms of agility, it actually helps with blocking. You lose less Ki per blocked hit.

I am wearing pretty heavy armor (Warlord pieces) and while Ki runs out pretty fast and I have to pulse a lot, I can guard for a while, which really helps with my parrying build, as some enemies attack so quickly, the only way to beat them is to guard for a while, waiting for an opportunity to parry.

 

[deuxhero]

I always preferred exploiting the bridge and inability of enemies to attack through it for the dojo fights.