Nioh 2 (PS4 (PC in November?))

DLC just dropped, anyone have a chance to play it yet?

They brought back everything-is-RNG that people hated from Nioh 1 (rev trading broken, 'star' stats return). Not sure I even want to bother loading it up yet if making any sort of build is pure luck, especially when I'm not done with Tsushima.

Edit: Just checked my PS4 and the damn thing auto-installed 1.12 so no easy soul core leveling for me either. Sad.

Went through and beat it on way of the strong before digging into the harder mode. Was super easy but honestly anything in way of strong is easy with an optimized build and over leveled. Only time I died in all of the missions was rolling into water.

The missions themselves were nothing spectacular. Really didn’t like the first half of the first mission, running around the boats wasn’t all that fun. Honestly I’d say it wasn’t worth the $10

The content itself is pretty meh. The first main mission is the only one that's actually new and as Ritley said, it's really really meh. Just has no flow to it, and it just seems to meander way too long. Second main mission is cool but the middle 2/3 of it is a level from Nioh 1's first DLC. The side missions are mostly rehashes of zones from 2 (mainly the dark forest one). Story is really borked, not that I really care in this game, but you legit have two missions and they try to make it sound like you were on a long journey with those characters in the interim when you have known them for like an hour in game play. I have a feeling all 3 DLC are heavily tied together moreso than 1, so that may all pan out by DLC 3.

Game play additions are awesome though. Love the new Guardian Spirits and Soul Cores. Love how you can level up green soul cores to 20. The picture scrolls are great too and remind me of the item world from Disgaea. The addition of Graces is absolutely tits, and I love how you can get them on any item you craft. The new sets are bleh but overall, the sets in this game are pretty mediocre overall anyway.

I personally love grinds so the item grind appeals to me, but yeah with Star stats returning and it's looking they can only be rolled on dropped/crafted items it's going to be a hell of a journey for me to get exactly what I want: melee damage to x infliction enemy on weapons, skill damage on armor pieces AND to have the certain grace I'm trying to roll. Obviously I'm working on the grace/set combo first then as I play I'll try to roll items with the star stats I want. If I get it all, my guy will absolutely fist fuck anything in his path.

The other thing is they did some serious nerfs to some things. Honda clan got absolutely fucked up. They didn't just adjust it, they absolutely cut it to pieces so badly, it's not even recognizable. Their 28% buff to skill damage was OP as hell, but now it's 7% which isn't even worth it. I went back to Toyotomi with the heal on amrita absorption and it's still insane. 132 per absorb, and with extraction, I'm full health after every single combo. Apparently the Tengu bird GS got nerfed too, but I hated that thing so never used it. I also think they shortened buff duration too because at first I was really struggling to keep them up and now, it's still shorter. Not by a ton, but enough to notice.

Had this come out in May like it should have, I'd have loved it despite the obvious cut corners on the levels. But taking 4 months for this is kind of unforgivable to me. Here's hoping it's because they worked on all 3 at once and the other two will come out quickly and once the whole picture is in place, it'll all make sense and come together.

Seems they nerfed moonlit snow a bit as well. Gets interrupted mid combo much easier, which sucks because it’s almost impossible to get the full combo off without getting hit unless you are staggering the target. Might try playing around with different builds eventually, but it still works well enough in the latest difficulty so far.

I agree with Namon, seems like this was more of a big patch than dlc.

Ritley said:

Seems they nerfed moonlit snow a bit as well. Gets interrupted mid combo much easier, which sucks because it’s almost impossible to get the full combo off without getting hit unless you are staggering the target. Might try playing around with different builds eventually, but it still works well enough in the latest difficulty so far.

I agree with Namon, seems like this was more of a big patch than dlc.

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I have always hated that skill. Yeah it hits like a truck but fucking A takes forever to pull through and really it's about all the Odachi truly has. Never "got" Odachi at all. With that said I really don't see why it was nerfed because that's the balance of it... you will get hit while pulling it off and most of the damage comes from that third swing. Their logic in 2 really is odd sometimes. And this is a perfect example.

This is for sale on console for $30.

I loved dark souls it hated (failed at) Sikero
I loved Ghosts of Tsu, but really did not like Nioh 1

I hear Nioh 2 is much better than 1.

With the above preferences mentioned should i I pick it up?

I don’t know, if you didn’t like nioh 1 I’m not sure you’ll like Nioh 2. They are very very similar.

Nioh 2 cleaned up a decent amount of the shitty design of the first game though. At least in the base game anyway... I still haven't loaded up the DLC yet because everything I've read about it sounds like they went the opposite direction and specifically decided to keep the shitty parts of Nioh 1 DLC design.

Personally, as a Souls/BB fan who thinks buying Sekiro day 1 was a horrible mistake and that Nioh 1 had some extremely tedious mechanics that bogged down an otherwise great game, I'd highly recommend Nioh 2. I don't think I'd suggest buying the deluxe edition now though; wait and see what the rest of the DLC is like first and get the season pass when it goes on sale.

Nester said:

This is for sale on console for $30.

I loved dark souls it hated (failed at) Sikero
I loved Ghosts of Tsu, but really did not like Nioh 1

I hear Nioh 2 is much better than 1.

With the above preferences mentioned should i I pick it up?

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It’s $20 right now

Finally got around to beating dream of the demon. Difficulty was firmly between the first difficulty (hardest) and second (easiest). Even with moonlit snow being heavily gimped I hardly ever died. Going to start looking at different builds, MLS really is awful now.

TL;DR (plus info from Japan not in the US blog)

DLC 3 (The First Samurai) is out 12/17

Nioh 2 PS5 Remaster with 4K 120 fps support out 2/5/21. Base game and DLCs you already own will be a free upgrade from PS4 versions. The way I read it, my Special Edition should upgrade to the Complete Edition on PS5 and it should be the same for any other versions that include base game + season pass.

Nioh 1 PS5 Remaster, also 4K 120 and out 2/5/21. Not much more details on that one. Kind of doubt they'll offer a free upgrade, seeing as it was a PS+ game. Sucks, because that game is much more in need of a remaster, and I'd probably be much more likely to play it rather than Nioh 2 come Feb. No way I'd pay $50 for it again though.

There's also a Really-Complete Complete Edition which includes both Nioh 1 & 2 for PS5.

And finally, Nioh 2 PC Complete Edition with all the same features as PS5 is out 2/5/21.

Base game is on sale for $10 on Amazon and the special edition with DLC is $30 from Sony. Both will get free upgrade to PS5 version in Feb.

Ugh necroing this thread for a discussion that happened nearly 5 months ago, but damn...

Nioh 2 is a flawed game that fixed things I didn't know were wrong with 1 (they made weapon buffs actually worth a damn and able to apply shit early on). The crafting has more freedom and options. And overall the leveling process scales much better and the scaling in the difficulties is smoother as well (save for late Demon).

However, to me in many ways it was a major step back from 1. The itemization is largely worse. To me it looks like you have a dev team who overall does not like the ARPG loot aspect of this game and really made an effort to minimize the effects gear has. The bonuses that armor sets/graces give are not all that high. And the ones that are higher are so deep in the respective trees, it's hard to synergize it with other things to boost it up. Straight up sets are basically pointless and really do nothing to boost your power. Graces are definitely better, but unless it's a gimmick that forces you to play a certain way (hello Versatility and the need to use 9 unique skills to fully work), they still aren't jaw dropping. They also do other things that just seem designed to keep player power down. Like in DLC 2, the amrita gain is just pathetic. Yet they leave a level you can totally skip through to get 4 items that grant you 80 million amrita. Making that (very boring) run can net you 2 billion Amrita in less than an hour, but it's literally you sprinting through a level. Why not just adjust amrita gain in a main mission to be about what you need for one level? It makes no sense to me at all.

1's biggest problem was the difficulty scaled to massive heights, while the character advancement largely stagnated (as perks/bonuses really don't improve with higher level armors), so the answer primarily became Living Weapon. That was bad sure, but at least it was fun pumping up base stats to absurd levels. I had way more fun building my skill based character in 1 than I do with my elemental based character in 2.

The DLCs are also a mixed bag in 2. Not that 1's were stellar, but they were all at least "good." DLC 1 in Nioh 2 was just awful in almost every single way outside of a couple decent grace sets. The levels sucked. The Yokai were just stupid hard to kill for no reason but because. The end boss was just a joke of cheap ass mechanics to keep you from overpowering him. DLC 2 was a massive improvement, and I have hope DLC 3 will be at least good as well, if not great. But if they keep the itemization as muted as they have so far, it just won't be near as good as Nioh 1 overall for me.

Vanilla Nioh 2 was perfect imo. Gear had a massive effect on your overall power and putting together a 'perfect' set was an attainable goal. DLC1 was so bad I barely even touched it; maybe the gear bonuses still are massive, but the bullshit grind involved in getting anything decent after the nerfs to revenants was a big NOPE for me. Haven't heard much good about the second DLC as far as reining in the retarded shit so I haven't even bothered installing the game on my PS5. I'll come back when DLC3 and the PS5 optimized version are available... if I hear that they've put the fun of vanilla back into the game.

Vorph said:

Vanilla Nioh 2 was perfect imo. Gear had a massive effect on your overall power and putting together a 'perfect' set was an attainable goal. DLC1 was so bad I barely even touched it; maybe the gear bonuses still are massive, but the bullshit grind involved in getting anything decent after the nerfs to revenants was a big NOPE for me. Haven't heard much good about the second DLC as far as reining in the retarded shit so I haven't even bothered installing the game on my PS5. I'll come back when DLC3 and the PS5 optimized version are available... if I hear that they've put the fun of vanilla back into the game.

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I thought DLC 2 was a massive improvement... but I'm not sure if you'd agree or not just because of your second sentence... That's been my gripe since day 1 was that gear's impact on you was so much more muted compared to the first. Perfect example: in 1 I rolled Japan's Bravest along with Kato GS, and then I had axe with tempered CTA, Skill Damage, and then later on star the particular skill I mainly used. I was able to get skill damage to around 120% on that one skill and about 90% on everything else. The damage increases were insane. In 2 they removed Damage Reduction (not huge but still something very noticeable), most stuff people actively sought: damage were placed way deep in the bonuses (5-7 piece) and then heavily muted. What was 20-25% in one is now at best like 10% and in many cases are like 5-7%. Japan's Bravest is a great example... The active skill damage is no more than a third in 2 of what it was in 1. Yeah, I know Honda buffed that pretty immensely before they swung the massive nerf bat on it in DLC 1. Also they got way more strict with categories in temper charts, so you can only roll ONE attack stat on a weapon, where in 1 you could do 2 or 3. It's not terrible but it is still way less than 1 ever was. The only thing is they have definitely made it better to roll elements so that's just where I went and i love my inari (elemental weapon damage) hybrid build focused on purity. It's different but yeah I miss the massive power jumps you got from the gear in 1.

You can see the build I used for vanilla endgame higher up on the page. I know the gear (and Honda) is nerfed in a bunch of different ways, plus from what I recall Moonlit Snow itself is trash now, but the difference between that gear and the crap I used to get the build ready was massive. Set bonuses might not have been terribly impressive, and the final bonus was often worth skipping to get a couple sets 3-5pc bonuses, but the Moonlit Snow and Attack boosts on every piece were huge. I had a Kintaro/Mad Spinner build too which could wreck just about anything with one spin2win.

Vorph said:

You can see the build I used for vanilla endgame higher up on the page. I know the gear (and Honda) is nerfed in a bunch of different ways, plus from what I recall Moonlit Snow itself is trash now, but the difference between that gear and the crap I used to get the build ready was massive. Set bonuses might not have been terribly impressive, and the final bonus was often worth skipping to get a couple sets 3-5pc bonuses, but the Moonlit Snow and Attack boosts on every piece were huge. I had a Kintaro/Mad Spinner build too which could wreck just about anything with one spin2win.

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Ok yeah you are right completely. I forgot about the inheritable skill buffs and those were huge (really probably still are). Because that is one thing I've noticed after 2 DLCs, is the actual stats on the gear (not set bonuses) are pretty tits. Like for me I'm about the elemental weapon damage, and I'm just now getting a full set with the star elemental weapon damage and it is MASSIVE. I just never really dabbled in that because I was mainly glaive and axe AND I used skills that were not usually on that table. And I guess that is what I was trying to say. At this point on Axe in 1, I was doing 20-25k of damage with a Titanic Strength that hit on all three hits. In 2? That is like 5-6k tops.

So with that said I'd say give DLC 2 a shot. It was a massive improvement over 1. The levels were much better. The yokai were much better. Everything about 1 was the classic let's see how cheaply we can stack bullshit up against the player to make it "hard". The crabs with the uber armor. The scrotum with arms that resisted everything (but lightning on both) and had a million HPs. The fuckhead boss that resisted everything and blocked endlessly only to go into a hyper combo that one shot you (fuck him)

And by the way... Moonlit Snow is still great. That was mostly min maxer hyperbole. It still hits like a truck. I think they just slowed down that last hit or something because it still wrecks shit. I've just never liked it as it was too damn slow for me. Now Honda... yeah they ass blasted Honda into oblivion. 28% down to 7% wtf. They also made the fire bird GS buff not stack with other attack buffs.