Nioh Slash-All!

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Is anyone else playing the alpha right now? I expected this to be a little more like Souls than it is. It's pretty good so far, though a few things definitely need work, still. I'm not sure how far through the alpha I am, but so far it's been pretty fun. Has anyone else played any of this or had any thoughts?

I'll give it another shot, but my initial impression was not great. Watching you shareplay last night made it look slightly better, but damn do they ever do a bad job communicating what they expect from you.

Some things I noticed to keep in mind for anyone planning to check this out:

Shrines

- Shrines are like bonfires. Here you can Level Up, Sell Items / Equipment, Apply Kodama Effects, Equip Ninjutsu(?) abilities / equipment, summon help, and something about recovering your 'Grave', or, lost Amrita (souls) - not sure what this entails yet, as I seemed to be missing something required to do it.

- Levelling up costs Amrita (souls) which you get from consumables and killing enemies. It makes changes to stats, as well as the fact that some stats give you Ninja scrolls to use for the Ninjutsu skill tree.

- Ninjutsu skill tree uses scrolls to unlock / strengthen new skills, affect abilities (like cutting the amount of Ki / stamina that a specific type of weapon stance / weapon will consume, or dodging) - example of which is that I used three scrolls to reduce the amount of Ki consumed when dodging by 6%.

- Selling items at the Shrines gives you Amrita, and the spirits will occasionally gift you some items for doing so. Usually it's either Elixirs or arrows, both of which are mega useful.

- Kodama effects are neat. If you search hard enough, you will find Kodama (little adorable guys) sitting in the environment around you, who need help navigating back to the Shrine. You don't have to do an escort quest, but you just pick them up and bring them back to a Shrine. I'm still unsure if they stay with you if you die on your way. When you bring one back, you'll be able to select it to use and its passive effect / buff will be applied. Examples of this include increasing the amount of Amrita found by 5%, 10%, or 15% if you have found all three Kodama who give this effect. Other Kodama I've found increase damage/strength by 5%, and I'm sure there are others for different stats, etc. The most you can find of any type of Kodama (which are denoted by their hat colors) seems to be three, but I'm not sure if that means that there are always three of each within each area or not. Maybe there's only one, but three icons will still show. Unsure about that at this point.

- Equipping Ninjutsu abilities (assuming I'm referring to this correctly, this is all from memory) is something you can do from here as well - you can choose between things like Shuriken, or other smaller weapons to use (I'm assuming all ranged) against enemies. However, I haven't figured out how to do this. I need to check the controller layout screen for that.

- Summoning help (other players) uses consumable items which you will find while playing. I believe it consumes it as soon as you trigger a search, and not as soon as a player is found. I wasted one by doing this in the Alpha and not being sure if this feature was set up yet. (More on this later)

Combat

- Weapon stances are interesting, as there's a High, Middle, and Low stance for each weapon. This mixes up the weapon's trajectory, but doesn't seem to affect blocking position. In middle position, hitting Triangle while having a Spear equipped will do a quick jab, whereas hitting Triangle while it's in low position will do a ground sweep. It lets you customize the way you want to attack specific things in a more dialed-in way. However, doing this on the fly while in combat isn't super useful because it's so slow.

- Spoiler? Nah. Eventually you get a bow and arrow. There are a couple things I love about this. In the equipment menu, there is a slot for the bow you're using, but unlike Dark Souls, it's not something you ever have to switch to/from your main weapon to use. It's always available (assuming one is equipped) by aiming with L2 and shooting with R2 (or square - I'm not sure what the difference is.) Hitting an enemy with a headshot (which is denoted by a teeny-tiny red dot in the center of the reticle) will do one of two things: 1. Massive Damage or 2. One-shot kill. It's great for pulling and has come in handy very much. However, arrows seem to be somewhat scarce so it's not meant to be used as a main weapon.

- Stamina / Ki bar. This can increase in value with successive levels, but can drain somewhat quickly if you're careless. Letting it drain to 0 will cause your character to stagger for a second while he catches his breath. You want to avoid this! However, enemies can have the same effect. Weapons that you equip can also break enemy's guard which affects their Ki. Hitting an enemy with a Triangle attack while they're drained will trigger a visceral attack a la Bloodborne. You have to be in front of them and the positioning / timing is pretty similar.

- L1 blocks with your weapon, but it seems like it's not to be as reliable as the Souls games. Maybe somewhere between Souls and Bloodborne as far as reliability. The game mostly wants you to dodge and roll, it seems. It's good if you need to use it, though. One other thing I did notice about blocking is that any time you block, whether you're locked on to an enemy or not, your character will always strafe. If you're blocking, I think the game assumes that you're looking at / for an enemy and wants you to maintain your view. I like that.

Tips

- Camera - after Share Playing with JC last night, I noticed that turning down the Horizontal Camera Speed by 1 actually seemed to help it feel a little less wobbly. I'd recommend doing that.

- Turn on health bars and Ki bars in the settings. Seriously, just do it. This is valuable enemy information that you'll want to be able to see.

- Other players' bloodstains will summon a Revenant if you interact with it. This summons (what I assume is) a ghost of another player, and not the actual player, to fight you. These figures are harder than normal enemies - it's like doing an NPC-scripted PVP encounter with that player's gear. Killing the NPC/ghost/player/whatever will net you more of the consumable items used to summon help. This is very useful, but I would not recommend doing this until you've gotten a hold of the game. You will die.

- Equipment and weapons can be dropped regularly from enemies. They don't have one particular set of equipment / weapons that they'll drop - this is pretty randomized and you can find some pretty great stuff from farming the same 5-10 guys a few times. Equipping armor ASAP is TOTALLY vital. You literally start the game in a shirt and pants, and swords love to pierce through that stuff. Get something on you as soon as you can. The damage reduction from wearing literally anything else is massive.

- On that same note, equipment load is a thing. This reduces the distance you'll dodge by a pretty big margin. I assume there are two thresholds where this changes, and one of these is definitely at the 70% mark. I haven't gotten naked enough to find the lower threshold.

That's all I can think of for now... if I have more later, I'll add it.

If I can find time I'll try the alpha, but man this is gonna be a busy weekend of playing games (and at some point I need to actually write about them, too!)

I really, really enjoyed what I've played so far. It might change later on in the demo, but it seems to me to be like a combination of Bushido Blade and Dark Souls. The only thing I haven't really found yet is how to repair a weapon? I've been using the inital sword and I like the moveset, but it's getting close to breaking and I'd rather not use all of these spears I've picked up.

Whetstones! It occurs to me I forgot to include that. They're consumable and you just 'Use' them to repair all equipped weapons (I don't think all weapons, I think just equipped ones. But maybe all..)

I played for maybe an hour last night but it didn't quite grab me. I may have another go tonight, if for no other reason than an attempt at the free dlc in case I decide to buy it.

This didn't grab me as well.

I'm intrigued. They've got the difficulty down. But the blend of Ninja Gaiden and Souls-like is a bit awkward for me. The main character moves a lot like Ryu Hayabusa but imagine now if Ryu bends over to catch his breath every 3 to 4 swings. That stamina bar is really incongruous with the faster pace of combat.

It's funny how much the protagonist reminds me of Geralt of Rivia. At the moment I'd say the combat in Witcher 3 is more satisfying. This is all still so early, of course, but it seems like that blasted stamina bar is core to the game's design so that's pretty much here to stay. It works in Dark Souls and Bloodborne. I just don't see it working as well here.

I may have to retract my last comment. I ended up playing way more of this than I expected to! There's actually some anticipation for this game now.

Random Learnings:

- Unlock the combo ender skill for your preferred weapons. This delivers a boot to your opponent's gut, draining them of ki (stamina) and increasing the likelihood you can put them into a staggered state for the easy finish.

- You'll accumulate extra gear soon enough. Go back to the temple to make offerings, which converts your unwanted items into Amrita

- It's been totally feasible to jog away from attacks instead of rolling/dashing. This is especially true of enemies that only have swords. You save on ki and that's huge. Guys with long weapons? I still prefer to roll outta the way!

Anyone know how to summon the spirit wolf?

So I put an hour or so into this yesterday. I ended up going back to Dark Souls 3 because it was easier. The game mechanics aren't quite as intuitive as I'd like, and it definitely doesn't ease you into it. Blocking is close to useless, but you run out of stamina very quickly!

I don't hate it, but I'm not sure I liked it either.

I want to try to finish it, to get the exclusive DLC that comes from doing so... but I'm not sure I have it in me.

I might get some more time in tonight but I found the bit I played to be kind of frustrating. Either the early enemies need to be toned down or your early power level needs to be turned up. The combat and movement system is esoteric enough that I feel the need for a little room for error at the beginning while I figure out how it works and the game is not giving it to me.
I am sure the purpose of the demo is more to tune up the online portion but it could stand to be a bit less obtuse.

I fired this up last night expecting to check it out for 30 minutes or so before bed. I ended up playing for three hours before realizing what time it was!

The first 30 minutes or so were pretty rough. The game is quite obtuse. It is not a Souls-like in the same way that something like Lords of the Fallen is. There are massive differences that make the game feel very much like its own thing, so trying to play it like a Souls game isn't going to work very well.

The armor you start with is useless, so enemies will kill you in two or three hits at the start. Getting hit in the back will probably kill you in one.

After I picked up a bit more armor and figured out the combat system a little better, things started clicking and I really began enjoying myself. Much like a Souls game, you have to be very careful while progressing through a new area for the first time. Pulling more than one enemy is not likely to go well, and this is compounded by the punishment you receive for fully depleting your stamina.

I started utilizing my Ninjutsu skills on multi-enemy pulls to make things much easier. The stun bombs were incredibly helpful, and I use the poison bombs as zoning tools against a couple elite enemies. Poison is a bit difficult to apply, but the damage it does in this game is no joke.

The fact that you can see the enemy's stamina bar makes combat tactical and intense. I found myself trying to bait out attacks to get the enemy under half stamina and then rushing them with a kick finisher before they had a chance to recover it. The trick was doing so while keeping an eye on your own stamina bar. There were several times that I thought I had an enemy against the wall only to slump over in horror from depleted stamina just as my enemy was recovering for a counter. Also, blocking is your friend. Use it liberally.

Eventually I found some decent armor for each slot, and wow, the difference in survivability was massive. I went from dying in 2-3 hits to dying in 5-6. I think they should have started the player with better armor for the demo so figuring out all of the other aspects of the game was more manageable.

There are some pretty rough edges to the demo, but I am very excited by what's there right now, especially considering the game is only in alpha. Definitely returning to play through the rest.

I played this for a couple hours over the weekend and LOVED it. My favorite part was something that nobody seems to be talking about here so I have assume that nobody figured it out. (The game tries to explain it in a message but it does an extremely poor job of getting the idea across.)

You have an active-reload mechanic to instantly refill your stamina in combat.

Yes, that's right: You can mostly drain your stamina bar, then refill it and keep slicing away if you execute things properly. It's only available in the low and mid stances, but after you have used some stamina you'll see the majority of what you spent turn white for a split second before beginning to refill slowly. If you tap R1 in the brief window while that section is white, it will all be refilled instantly for you to continue dishing out punishment. Once I figured this out it became a totally different, and much more rhythm-based game.

Cathadan wrote:

The game tries to explain it in a message but it does an extremely poor job of getting the idea across.

This sums up the demo for me.

I think it's great a lot of people really liked the demo, and were able to glean more from it than me. That mechanic was mentioned on the 8-4 Play podcast, which was the first I heard of it. Sounds really cool!

I'll be keeping an eye on this, but the state of the demo was enough to turn this from a probably purchase to definite wait. They made a lot of highly questionable choices with it that turned me off it. I get it's an alpha, but I felt it was a pretty bad slice of the game to introduce me to it. The most glaring issue was how it barely tells you how to play, then has the first enemy you encounter be able to kill you in 1 hit. The tutorials are poorly placed, and honestly pretty poor themselves. I'm really hoping this is improved for the final version.

They provided a very quick tool tip about that active stamina reload mechanic when I was almost done climbing that first hill of ambushes. I never managed to pull it off. When I had first started playing the demo I noticed that my guy would flash & sparkled when I tapped R1 and was very curious as to what was happening.

I later did a few test attack strings and followed up with the R1 replenish and closely watching the Ki bar. What is the execution window for pulling this off? I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary.

I have really turned around on Nioh. I went from being excited by learning about a new Team Ninja game, to disliking the demo to really enjoying the demo and putting more time into it than I did Bloodborne over the weekend. The persistent issue for me is how heavily it leans on stamina management for difficulty and how stingy the stamina meter is.

I'm super interested in this, thanks for the report DB!

Maclintok wrote:

I later did a few test attack strings and followed up with the R1 replenish and closely watching the Ki bar. What is the execution window for pulling this off? I didn't notice anything out of the ordinary.

Just grabbing the first clip of Nioh gameplay I could find for illustration: https://gfycat.com/OptimisticSaneAma...

Watch the Ki bar as it gets depleted. When a section is used it first turns red then begins to refill in white. Your timing window on replenishing is pressing R1 (or X to dash) at the moment the entire red section becomes filled with white. Wait any longer and the white section disappears and you have to wait for it to refill normally. However, it seems some combat moves will not leave behind that red section and consequently lock you out of replenishing any stamina used before them, but I haven't experimented with that very much yet.

Cathadan wrote:

You have an active-reload mechanic to instantly refill your stamina in combat.

I figured that out near the end of my play session, but I haven't messed with it much yet. It seemed like it would be extremely useful, but it'll take some practice to work it in well. There were just so many other mechanics to focus on. I had just barely began to work on stance swapping mid combat when I figured out the Ki Pulse.

I finished the demo! Well, I "finished" it yesterday, but then I noticed that there was a second mission on the map that you can access after it tells you you've completed it, so I went all the way through that map too.

Playing around enemy stamina is an interesting concept that lead to some really intense battles for me. The second boss was just mopping the floor with me until I realized that I could bait it into running out of stamina and then unleashing hell with my spirit summon.

I was not really feeling the game when I started, but this very quickly shot up to one of my most anticipated upcoming games. I think I played it for close to 6 or 7 hours. I really appreciate that they gave us such a substantial amount of game to mess around with in an alpha stage.

I hope that means they're confident in the base game, and they should be. They need to work on smoothing out the learning curve and sanding off some rough edges, but the base mechanics are great.

Hey Dyni, congrats!

So I got up to the top of the hill with all the guards patrolling around with torches. How much further do I have to go?

And does the May 5th demo cut off only affect new downloads or will everyone be locked out after that date? Debating whether I should pour that much more time into this thing or just wait until the proper game comes out.

Did you reach a second shrine yet? If not, you're still pretty early. That 2nd shrine is about the halfway point of the first level depending on how thoroughly you're planning to explore.

I have no idea about the demo cut off.

Second shrine? Hell NO.

Geeez, I got a ways to go!

Yeah Like I said, it took me 6 or 7 hours to get through the demo. I finished at level 38.

Maclintok wrote:

And does the May 5th demo cut off only affect new downloads or will everyone be locked out after that date? Debating whether I should pour that much more time into this thing or just wait until the proper game comes out.

Given that the game is "always online" and dependent on their servers to so much as let your character have an idle animation, I'm going to assume that everyone loses access to the demo after the 5th.

After skimming the thread I have to say a lot of what Dyni has said applies to me as well.

I had a pretty rough time in the beginning, the game mechanics slowly started to click, and now I'm looking forward to playing the 2nd mission today.

The mechanics remind me of a lot of other games even if they aren't direct influences. To me the combat feels like a mixture of Onimusha and Dark Souls. To be honest there isn't much to the actual gameplay that feels completely similar to Onimusha but it feels like this is where Onimusha might have ended up if the series made it past the PS2.

I am very excited for the full release of this game. Looking through a couple of results from Google it seems like the game is supposed to release this year. Based on the current alpha I wouldn't be surprised if they pulled it off.

I'm stuck on the first boss. I don't think he would be that difficult out in the open, but having to fight him in such a tiny room where there is basically no way to get out of his reach is immensely frustrating.

Gimpy_Butzke wrote:

The mechanics remind me of a lot of other games even if they aren't direct influences. To me the combat feels like a mixture of Onimusha and Dark Souls. To be honest there isn't much to the actual gameplay that feels completely similar to Onimusha but it feels like this is where Onimusha might have ended up if the series made it past the PS2.

Definitely. That's probably a large part of why I'm enjoying it so much. I was a huge Onimusha fan in the PS2 era. The aesthetic similarities are very apparent and appealing to me.

ruhk wrote:

I'm stuck on the first boss. I don't think he would be that difficult out in the open, but having to fight him in such a tiny room where there is basically no way to get out of his reach is immensely frustrating.

One thing that helped me greatly with all tough enemies, bosses included, was discovering how deadly DoT effects are in this game. I'm not sure if the boss can be poisoned via the poison Ninjutsu bombs, but try the Firebomb equivalents if you have some. They do a good amount of direct damage and whittle down the boss pretty quickly. Fire Shurikens also do the trick if you have unlocked them.

Also, make sure you offer up gear whenever you visit a shrine. The Amrita you get from it isn't particularly significant, but the gifts you get are very important, specifically the elixir. You only ever respawn with 3 elixir, but offering up several pieces of gear will up your supply substantially. You should be able to go into the boss fight with 6-10 elixir without much trouble.

Finally, make sure you are under 70% equip load. The movement speed and dodge distance penalties are harsh if you cross that threshold.

ruhk wrote:

I'm stuck on the first boss. I don't think he would be that difficult out in the open, but having to fight him in such a tiny room where there is basically no way to get out of his reach is immensely frustrating.

I don't know if you mind spoilers for the boss so be aware I'm going to lay down my (lengthy) strategy for fighting this boss.

Spoiler:

1) While the boss is in the first phase make sure to try and keep it facing you. I always try to go to the left side, its right, while it does the overhead smash. You may not even need to dodge but I pretty much always do.
2) Get in one attack with square and follow up immediately with a triangle kick to sap it's stamina. If done fast enough you can get away before it begins to swing the balls around. If you don't get away before it starts spinning the balls around you can block this attack in certain positions. I don't know enough to be able to describe what positioning you need.
3) When you get its stamina down get in as many hits as possible before it regenerates stamina.
4) Repeat 1-3 until phase 2.
5) Once it starts fighting with only its hands getting behind for a hit or two is basically the only thing you need to do. In this phase you should be dealing more damage with each hit. If you feel better trying to sap it's stamina know that whenever it has the black aura on the ground it will regenerate stamina faster than you can deplete it.
6) The boss will pretty frequently pick up the giant balls and hurl them at you. You can just sprint to the side to avoid them or time your dodge to the side assuming you are pretty far away. I typically don't go for attacks when it is trying to throw them because the dodge timing and tracking of the boss seems a bit tricky when up close.

I actually ended up beating it in a few more attempts immediately after I posted, but thanks anyway. Once I wore him down through attrition to phase 2 the fight actually becomes pretty easy.

Another Nioh demo is up. This time it's a Beta. It ends 6th September.

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