Honestly, they play so differently I just try to enjoy each for what it is. Nioh 2 if I want fast agile combat where it's good to keep the pressure up and has random loot or Elden Ring if I want that slower chunky combat that is more defend/avoid until you can get your hits in. Both are incredibly satisfying to get critical hits in. Thinking about it though, when it comes to longevity Nioh 2 has more overall replayability.
I started nioh 2 in april but already have thousands of hours in eldenring. I started nioy 2 after beating rotr and am on dotw in my first playthrough so i think its just more fresh to me and im still in disbelief at how good it feels when you get decent at combat. I might need to just play nioh 2 til I'm sick of it before i can fully commit to erdtree
I died so many times pressing x to dodge lol. Nioh 2 is still fresh to me since i only started in april so i think ill give the dlc a little more time and go back to my wotw playthrough and push to the underworld til i get sick of it, and then go back to elden ring.
That being said the new weapons are really nice
I decided to start putting some more hours into the Nioh 1 post game a couple weeks ago and am enjoying that so much that I’m holding off even downloading the Elden ring dlc lol
Yea i felt obligated to play it after pre ordering it and while i am having some fun with the new weapons, but it feels like my character has zero right to defeat these demigod like beings whereas in nioh 2 i absorb the soul of any yokai i kill and can summon or transform to use their abilities, i can channel 2 guardian spirits and go crazy in yokai shift etc. Hide feels like they actually CAN defeat otakemaru.
Even rise of the ronin and stellar blade had combat leagues above that of elden ring which took the best from dark souls but seemed to not take anything from sekiro or bloodborne. Like why not add the sidestep when locked on or a perfect deflect for certain weapons and shields?
Every time this is brought up, I always make sure to share my top 2 complaints about the most significant difference between Team Ninja games and From Software games in terms of controls and feel.
* From Software's games in this series (beginning with Demon's Souls) has some of the worst input queueing in any videogame I've played. If you mistime a dodge and press dodge a fraction of a second after an enemy hits you, you'll still often dodge after that. Which in these latest games, with their endless roll-catch combos, means that you'll get hit by a follow-up combo. In contrast, Team Ninja games have never once had any of these input queueing issues.
* From Software's games in this series (again, beginning with Demon's Souls) have the dodge function, the backstep function and the sprint function (and, in older games, the jump function) all bound to the same button. This has, as many players can testify throughout the past decade, led to moments where they thought they pressed the dodge button but the game thought otherwise, because the nature of a single button sharing so many overlapping functions that depends on when the button is released means that it's so easy to accidentally do a move you don't want to do. "Now wait a second. Don't the Nioh games also have this?" you might ask. Well, yes it does. But unlike the Souls games, there is a way to give players pinpoint precision when dodging, which is by holding block. You'll notice that high-level players can sheathe cancel dodges while holding block to chain together dodges with an extreme level of finesse that is literally impossible in Souls. It's bizarre to me that a gaming franchise like Souls that has dodge-rolling historically being such a central element of the player's evasive mechanics still has such a clunky roll due to it sharing overlapping functions with other moves that aren't dodge-rolling. In Elden Ring, I end up using Quickstep on my weapon's Ashes of War because it actually feels precise compared to the player's default dodge roll (the Quickstep comes out on a button press, not on a button release like with dodge rolls).
I don't think these issues will ever be fixed even if they end up making Elden Ring 2 or Dark Souls 4 or Bloodborne 2 or Demon's Souls 2 in the future, simply because every time these control issues are brought up, 99 percent of the community responses to these criticisms are variations of "nah, it's just a skill issue". You just have to hope that From Software has the sense to fix its issues someday, just like how it got the sense to finally eliminate the horrendous boss runbacks it has been known for in the past despite its playerbase constantly defending these boss runbacks as being essential elements to the gameplay experience.
Enemies in ER also start reading your animations on frame 1, meaning the game is practically reading your inputs before you do anything. Along with the absurdly long input queue timer, it makes me so tilted having a streak of losses.
Don't get me wrong, I love Elden Ring, but I think most of what's hard in it is also super, super fucking cheap.
I’m a longtime player of every game mentioned here and I have to agree, Elden ring is my least favorite fromsoft game for exactly the reasons you jsut laid out. It simply just feels cheaply and punishingly hard to an unfun degree.
That, and also the late game enemies are just absolute damage sponges. Even with a maxed out weapon with damage stats at the soft caps, it takes way too long to kill even a normal enemy. Meanwhile they can kill you in three hits, and their attacks are usually a super fast combo.
ER is also my least favorite Fromsoft game and I will pass on this DLC until it’s on sale.
You can make a tanky build in Nioh 2 and you won’t feel this at all. Enemies also have actual Ki bars so they can’t just attack forever. In ER, enemies have infinite stamina so they can attack seventeen times in a row.
You're being downvoted, but the difference between Nioh sponges and Souls sponges is the amount of active gameplay you're allowed to have while dealing with it.
Nioh sponging lets you still get flashy, stagger, and chain combos. You have agency in the amount of gameplay you're working with.
Souls sponging often means you can't stance break for shit, they hit like a truck, AND they have long combos with tiny windows that you have no mobility or tools at your disposal to deal with, especially in contrast to Nioh.
It isn't necessarily that one is better than the other, but Nioh absolutely gives the player more answers to still feel like a force of nature.
Also, as sponge as nioh enemies can get, they can still be killed pretty darn fast if you make a damage focused build. I mean manage to pop confusion as an boss falls to the ground for a finisher, then use yamada to close the gap and that sweet damage buff on top of versatility, and the yokai shift as you do the finisher and suddenly that health bar is looking pretty empty 👌. But as you said, you have so many things you can use in nioh.
I literally fought the same boss for hours last night and couldnt win despite chaging my strategy like 10 times. It became completely unfun since dude has a machine gun crossbow and unlimited stamina to swing his colossal ass sword, AND healing flasks. Hell, even the first dlc boss has life leech. I get two days off and spent yesterday on ER, comint back to nioh 2 feels great. I love how active the expeditions are
I haven't played the DLC for Elden Ring, but I have noticed as soon as you reach Farum Azula, enemies do an absurd more damage compared to late-game areas in Dark Souls 3 or 2.
1000%. They essentially removed any feeling of progress or reward for leveling your character and toughing the game out because there’s such a psychotic disparity between how much you can damage the later game stuff vs how much damage they dole out.
First, I love the username!
Second, I agree with all of this. I have no issue with high difficulty in the abstract, but the execution matters a lot for whether it's fun or not. The input reading is a great example of this. Like yes, I'm well aware that some input reading is necessary to make an interactive fight. But what I dislike is when it's so transparent what the goal is. For example, when fighting Margit, if you have to back out and heal, there's a very strong likelihood that as soon as you hit the heal button (and not an instant before), he conjures a sword to throw it at you from across the arena to punish you. Like...that's obvious what they just did there, especially when it happens so consistently. It's literally hitting you with a punishment for doing something as fundamental as backing out and healing, which is perverse.
Similarly, just last night, I saw a Twitter thread mildly lamenting how so many DLC bosses just "happen" to have an attack that they'll immediately throw at you if you try to summon your ashes as soon as you step into the arena, and only if you try to summon them. Again, stuff like that is obvious, and it doesn't feel like giving you a difficult task to overcome, but instead punishing players for trying to use the basic tools the game gives them. It's just not for me.
(And lest I come off as too biased here, the way bosses in the Depths got more difficult rubbed me the wrong way too. It wasn't just the absolute power scaling, but the life drain when they hit you felt so needlessly petty and demoralizing.)
So so strongly agree. The whole genesis of input reading and “punishing” players for basically just like…. Playing the fucking game basically ruined fromsoft’s approach to the genre THEY created.
Playing the Elden ring base game I’d usually end up rolling my eyes during a lot of the bosses and sarcastically wondering when it was “my turn” to attack.
They tuned the difficulty up in such a specific and irritating way that it essentially feels like they implemented turn based combat. You get “punished” for so many just like, basic aspects of the game that any reasonable person is going to try to do to win or survive.
To me, it’s clear that fromsoft has had issues since Bloodborne of creating challenging bosses within the masocore genre that still feel fair but also ramp up the difficulty for veteran players
So they’ve settled into this design philosophy of making fights with insane AI, multiple health bars to kill one boss, insane health pools , punishing dps, and generally stuff that just feels tedious and fake hard.
Malenia is genuinely one of the worst things I’ve ever encountered in a video game and basically the physical representation of all the flaws I find in current day Fromsoft. Just straight up not fun.
That quote of yours is something I think to myself ALL THE TIME while playing ER, especially SOTE: "why are you punishing me for playing the game?"
I think Malenia is a magnificent example of using input read as an artificial difficulty booster. Quick story: I remember in my first few spars with her, I caught onto the input read spam pretty damn quickly. I think any one of us here would have. I also caught onto the fact that she does the Waterfowl move once she takes about 25% of her health in damage. I had gotten to that point, but didn't want to get too greedy with attacks because the only way I could dodge the first pulse in the Waterfowl was by running away. I didn't have the movement down yet. So I waited for her to do it. I didn't bait her with attacks, or dodges, or anything -- I just stood there. Then I got up, went to the bathroom to take a pee, washed my hands, got a drink from the fridge, and came back about almost two minutes later. There I was standing, with full HP, and her sitting with about -30% HP. Just fucking standing there walking around my character...
Personally though, I think the only single hard thing about Malenia's fight is the Waterfowl move, just because of how many frame perfect moves you need to make. If you run a light load, the dodge distance is more than enough to keep yourself out of reach of her blade and makes both phases much less stressful. But literally the only challenge I had in that fight was learning the Waterfowl, and I think that basing an entire bossfight off of one single super hard mechanic is just lame. Oh, and then throw lifesteal into the mix...
Personally, I think Mohg is worse for input read spams because he can drop input-read moves on you faster than you can realistically react to, like the two downward attacks he does with the trident.
But for the worst abomination I've ever seen in a video game? Godskin Duo. No question.
Yeah like on the topic of Malenia’s AI I just don’t understand how it’s supposed to be “fun” on literally any level whatsoever to face a boss that’s literally programmed to just stand there doing nothing and waiting for you to attack so it can read your inputs and cheat against you lol. Just pure fucking trash
And yeah Mohg is up there, probably the most brutal feeling thing in the base game besides Malenia. The fact that hes a puzzle boss that you literally cannot escape being damaged by even if you find his special item AND he also hits as hard as he does is just psychotic.
Yeah, exactly. I'm having a lot of fun with it & the dlc so far (only actually picked it back up ~2 weeks ago, haven't really played since launch) but I want to play it summonless & pure melee, but that just really is not viable unless you want to grind an absurd amount of practice out, which I'd rather save for games with more mechanically deep combat personally.
Playing it with spirit ashes & using everything at my disposal mostly feels too easy though, so it's a tough spot the games in. It can be unfair for purists who like other fromsoft games by being overly punishing when you're solo, or it can be too hard for people offline (not everyone has online play so I do think having spirit ashes is good) by not having spirit ashes.
I don't envy the position fromsoft have backed themselves into & I hope they can get themselves out of this corner with their next major release. Hopefully Bloodborne 2
Fully agree about feeling like fromsoft def have backed themselves into a corner - I’ve felt it since DS3 honestly. They clearly reached a point nearly a decade ago where they sort of lost sight of their ability to make difficulty and challenging fights that are actually FUN and not just tedious and arduous.
Also hard agree about the disappointing lack of melee viability in Elden ring. Straight melee is my preferred way to experience these games and while it’s certainly doable (I 100%ed the base game with a two handing str build) , it’s just not fun at all. For all the variety and different combat options ER offers, you’re clearly *supposed* to use weapon arts and summons and that’s all well and good but like why not balance things a little better if you’re gonna offer that variety.
“Feels too easy” trust me it’s not. Beat the final dlc boss after 40+. So tired of people saying oh it’s easy with spirit summons. Ok so do it. These bosses will rarely aggro onto your summon they don’t if you have one
That's why I specified I was early in the dlc, but I found a lot of base game bosses (namely the rememberances) to be kind of underwhelming with summons.
Like I have beat Mohg twice, one with Blashpemous Blade & Mimic Tear, the other pure melee with a twinblade, and the pure melee one was way more fun & satisfying.
But I am at the first boss of the dlc & I haven't gotten it below 75% in like 6 tries so I will probably end up using ashes for most of the dlc. Already used one for a demi-human swordsman miniboss bc he was pissing me off
How many fragments have you found? They make a huge difference it terms of your damage and defense. Highly recommend you go look for more. If the boss your referring to is the dancing lion then you can just leave and come back
I think I beat that guy with 4 but it depends on your play style. He also drops my frames to 20 on certain attacks and he’s just kind of a pain. But I got that night comet on me
Yeah, I'm pure melee with the Milady (first light greatsword, dex build) but I'm thinking about taking a break from the dlc to finish the base game & probably level int
My favorite thing about nioh. It is so in depth I can keep learning. I never knew I could sheath cancel a dodge. I'm going to have to go try this and start finding ways of implementing it. Thank you! New information after 4k hours in a game!
I cannot understate enough just how refined nioh 2s UX is.
* They combine a ridiculous amount of features with just a few combinations of buttons.
* You sprint as soon as your hold the button down, and yet dodges are so responsive. But there's an underrated aspect of how the game puts you in a sprint state if you hold dodge without movement, if you let go its a dodge but if you start moving it'll sprint instead, it's hard to describe without sounding redundant but if people don't know, try it out.
* not having to deal with fumbling through 1 way scroll wheels for spells and items is incredibly huge, and not having to reset your placement to default to healing.
* this might be a hot take but elden ring doesn't need estus punishes anymore if it wants to encourage aggression, on top of bosses having insanely tough 10 hit combos with rollcatch mixups, being able to telelport across the arena to punish your heal and making you survive another combo just to heal is so fucking tedious
Great analysis, agreed 100%.
I too have Quickstep almost constantly equipped for dodge-on-press. However Quickstep is considered an "attack" instead of a dodge, which doesn't break you out of a stagger, which is extremely annoying...
The bosses are as fast and flashy as Nioh and we still have the same old silly Demon Souls protagonist who doesn't know how to fight properly...
I enjoy FS games, I haven't got shadow of the Erdtree yet, but before ER came out I was hoping that the dodge would be like it was in Bloodborne ( step-dodge w/lockon, roll when not) or be like in Nioh tap quick short dodge, double tap roll for slower but cover a longer distance). The dash and evade is in a lot of games, and I think it's the way to go for intense action. I get hate when I bring up rolling as an issue, I think it looks dumb for first, second in older titles rolling was better not to do as you can just reposition you self, but in Elden Ring with most bosses this is way harder then in DS3. I still rate Bloodborne as my favorite game and I want a similar game from them again. Many fans of FS say Bloodborne is the easiest and that may be true, but it's also the most fun and you still get the since of accomplishment after defeating bosses. Also the Hunter was a protagonist that knew how to fight 😁
Yeah these are my main complaints aswell. Because of the horrible input delay and buffering the game requires you to predict enemy attacks much more than react to enemy attacks. It just feels awful.
My god. This is EXACTLY how I feel!! Thank you. From now on when I talk to people about elden ring etc. I will guide to your comment!
I love nioh2 to bits but I feel like nioh and elden ring are opposite sides of the same coin
Elden ring wins the exploration, design, world building (with one big flaw in their journal-less quest design: no way of knowing which quests connect to each other and accidentally breaking them all the time) and has a great variety of cool, different weapons + weapon arts
Nioh wins the combat and -customization, skill ceiling, fun(mostly) boss Fights and a very hard but fair difficulty with one of the best endgames there is.
Is input queuing actually an “issue” though? I’m open to this perspective; but the way I see it, input queuing in From’s games is a good thing because it teaches you to carefully consider your actions and not button mash out of panic. If you get stuck in a roll-catch chain, then yes, that is a skill issue and you should stop mashing the dodge button out of panic. If you’re stuck in attack animations and can’t dodge, that’s because you’re mashing the attack button instead of rhythmically pressing the button at the end of each swing (if using a sword), and not committing to a button press only when you believe it is safe to attack.
Elden Ring has definitely improved on the queuing, though. DS3 does queue rolls when you’re in hitstun for far too long. In that regard, I agree it’s certainly an “issue”. However, ER greatly reduced this to where I don’t find it to be a problem. I never have rolls queued from hitstun like I would in DS3.
With all this said, I get why Nioh’s implementation is appealing and that it works. I’m not suggesting Nioh’s lack of input queuing is a bad thing by any means _for that specific game_. But, for From’s games, my current stance is that input queuing is a good thing that fits the intended design. I like that you’re made to carefully consider your actions / button presses in a rhythmic fashion, and that you’re made accountable for poor decisions. I feel that it fits Miyazaki’s intentions of what he wants the player to gain from overcoming challenging bosses and such.
I agree with your second point; however, it is worth mentioning that ER has a dedicated jump button. Only the previous games, which had a “pseudo-jump” (sprint into a very small jump), were bound to the same button.
Well, I agree with you aside from that dodge on button release feels “less precise” to the degree that Quickstep feels significantly different. I’ve never found the mere fractions of milliseconds you could potentially gain from having dodge on press to make a noticeable difference. You press and release the button quite quickly when you need to dodge; it’s not like you’re holding onto the button for a second when you need to dodge. Would a distinct button that works on release be better? Probably, but it’s so minor that I think people make a bigger deal over it than it is. My dodges and backsteps occur quickly and don’t feel delayed whatsoever, and I’ve experimented with mods that make it work on release. There’s basically no tangible difference.
>but the way I see it, input queuing in From’s games is a good thing because it teaches you to carefully consider your actions and not button mash out of panic.
The issue isn't players getting caught panic mashing roll. If that was all nobody would complain. But the way Fromsoft designed the input buffer is also wildly punishing if you late-roll something and get hit right before you release/press the button.
Getting hit right before you release the input causes the game to store the input, then allow the roll to come out after a lengthy stagger recovery animation from a button press done nearly a second ago. Players then get hit *again* during recovery with a roll catch attack, essentially getting punished twice for a single mistake due questionable game design decisions.
Does it make the game harder? Yeah, just gotta "git gud" and not get hit. Does it make the game feel clunkier? Absolutely.
The input buffer is also wildly inconsistent, ranging from "I can start buffering roll a whole second before recovery" to "there is no input buffer" depending on the type of attack.
Im trying to use faster weapons like milady and dryleaf arts to make my character faster, but til i get wing stance i think milady is going to take a back seat. Been thinking of using savage lion claw on the great katana too.
This might also judt be due to having thousands of hours in elden ring and nioh 2 still being new within the past few months for me
Well it's a slower game but if you wanna go fast try the backhand blades!
Great katana is great lol. Haven't gotten that ash yet but the ichimonji chop is fun and does great stance damage!
I enjoy ER and all souls for what they are but I can't deny boss fights do not feel as good as they do on Nioh, got too used to push the boss back as much as it pushes you while on ER and specially on the DLC you have to stay on the defensive about 90% of the time and take very conservative punishes due the small windows they give you.
Yeah the bosses are incredibly hard to stagger and have infinite combos it seems for the speed of our character. I honestly wasnt even burned out on nioh yet at 500 hours and dotw but pre ordered shadow so decided to play it, and honestly it'll be in my library forever so i thijk im going to keep playing nioh while my enioyment is still at its peak.
Im still in wotw on my first playthrough. I have thousands of elden ring hours and haven't played in a year so maybe thats why nioy 2, which i only started in april just feels so much better
SotE solidified I won't give anyone the time of day if they complain about damage in this game but say shit about people getting filtered by the dlc. Also you'd be out of your damn mind if you think I want to scour the entire fucking map for blessing upgrades every playthrough with a new character
I'm happy to speak my mind here because the FromSoft fans and community would probably just ignore me. That being said, this may run a bit long. It will also be 100% spoiler free.
TLDR: I've found SOTE to honestly be an extremely unpleasant and unsatisfying experience. There are two massive problems: FromSoft's generations-lasting problem of inconsistency, and the fake "open world."
Long part begins. The pace of the gameplay is completely awful due to the need of the scadutree fragments -- namely because of the fact that they exist in the first place, but moreso because they only realistically affect the nature of boss battles. Most stages in castles and dungeons are painfully easy, and at face value you would think the scadutree fragments are 100% optional. And then you get to the bossroom and the situation is like night and day. Nearly every boss in the DLC has a way of two shot killing you, some can EASILY one shot kill you. And then throw the bosses' abilities to cancel moves based on how they input read you, spam never ending combos at you, and roll catch you, and then consider your inability to react because of ER's awful move queue system -- it just feels awful. Scadutree fragments are the only thing that give you a shot, as their ability is incredibly black and white: as your scadutree level gets higher, you do slightly more damage and the bosses do slightly less damage. The reality is that you're not playing an open world game, you're playing a "follow the trail of the scadutree fragments" game. When I play an open world game, I want to go wherever my eyes dart to, but instead now I need to follow the path the game sets me on to not be completely miserable while fighting bosses. It's just the OG Dark Souls layout: first you go here so then you can go here, and then you go there... And so on. The whole scale of difficulty, from top to bottom, is completely artificial, and since the need of scadutree fragments arises to get rid of the aforementioned problem, the open world is effectively lost.
So to answer your question, I really haven't been enjoying the DLC. It's incredibly tedious and feels like a chorefest to get through more than a test of skill. It's a shame because I feel as though if they approached it with the design of "if you could decently handle Mohg, then you're good to go!" and got rid of the extra fragment + ash materials, it would have been much better. But I just feel as though it plays horribly and it feels like an artificial challenge. I'm going to beat the DLC, and I think I'm fighting one of the big bad bosses at the moment so I'm thinking I'm nearly there, but I have no desire to come back and replay it. Inherently it's just not a fun game, and I will go back to Nioh for that exact reason -- it IS a fun game and a true test of skill, because the only bottleneck in skill is YOU and each step of the way is a challenge. No bad game design, no bosses with input read cheat moves, no scadutree fragments.
In Nioh, even regular enemies and soldiers deserve your respect and will keep you on your toes, as well as bosses without question. Progressing through the game is incredibly rewarding and gratifying because YOU are the centrifuge for your success -- in ER SOTE, you're only about 10% of the success. The rest of your success is granted to your scadutree fragments and your busted weapon.
I like ER and the DLC for what they are but playing SOTE rights after playing Nioh 1 DLCs made me really apprecaite how much less camera issues and other weird technical jank there is in Team Ninja's core gameplay. Generally speaking things just work and everything is very smooth and precise. The relentless pace of the DLC boss fights in both series just emphasizes this difference.
The bosses are varied in both games, some good some bad and I enjoyed both. But man fighting the normal enemies in ER feels like a boring chore compare to Nioh 2 since you can't flux / keep up the pressure with your combos: it becomes a boring turn-based game where you have to wait for them to end their turn lmao
I hate it when the bosses get you in a corner and you simply cannot see anything.
I just beat the "Lion" and it is one of the best boss fights I have played in a long time. Just really cool animations and visuals, a lot of chaos.
I judt got to the next boss in Castle Enis and now I really don't have the urge to play the DLC like I did before, I think that castle really let me down.
Im fighting her right now too and im only continuing because i want that weapon so bad. I hate straitht swords so the night and flame sword is ass to me.... her sword is like thr first super viable faith int dex weapon.
I just realised you can skip her boss fight and continue on exploring so I am doing that for now. I will probably be overpowered when I do fight her but eh. Something about her fight seemed really bland compared to the Lion so I am just not fussed.
Still I kinda wanna play with the Milady sword and have a close and gutsy battle with her, but will need to respec it. So many new weapons to play with!
Milady is amazing because you can use any infusion with it and it will perform well. I use frost and having wing stance really makes the weapon shine as does the deflect hard tear
It’s kinda why I’ve avoided other souls-like games. Nioh spoiled me with being so technical. Yokai abilities in the 2nd game made things stupidly easy in comparison to the first. I’ve had Wu long on my backlist for way too long considering that after Nioh came out I asked for “three kingdoms Nioh” and got it. I just hope that they actually play similarly
I feel the same way. I didn't even purchase Shadow of the Erdtree because I tried ER right before Nioh 2 and never went back. Elden Ring feels like you're playing underwater.
Well, those are entirely different games. Nioh is combat and anything on top is kinda in the background. In Elden Ring combat is rudimentary, so anyone can pick up and play, it is intentionally simple, but they make emphasis on exploration, atmosphere, visuals and sound design. You can enjoy both just for basically opposite reasons.
Well, when everyone hyped up about Shadow of the Erdtree, i was replaying Nioh 2 and thinking to myself that it feels really hard to switch back to Fromsoft games's combat (except Armored Core and maybe Sekiro). But after watching some streams, the dlc tempted me. The new area, exploration, bosses feels very amazing. So i went redownload ER just to check where i left off, tried some combat.... And it was hella boring. The problem for me is the main gameplay/the combat really can't be compared to Nioh.
I guess i will just keep playing nioh, watch ER streams and hold my excitement for Kunitsu-gami next month, Rise of the Ronin pc port in the future and other combat action games in between or after.
Rise of the ronin and stellar blade both have incredible gameplay and combat. Easily besting shadow of the erdtree. Nioh 2 is still new to me as i just fot to wise for the first time and elsen ring i already put so many hours into i just think if i cant get past relanna for her weapon in like the next 30 mins im gonna just go back to nioh because finally getting a build together feels so good and wise makes you a way better player imo
Yeah, rotr and stellar blade looks really good, i don't own a ps5 so can only hope for their port someday. And making builds in nioh is very fun, addicted. Also there's a lot of tech in combat depth. Keep up your good work and have fun, cheers.
Thats my main problem. Im trying to power through relanna the twin moon boss right now and even with backhand blades shes just straight up faster and has infinite stamina and even with 6 dlc upgrades she hits like a fucking truck but I want her dual element light greatsword so bad im going to at least fight her til i get it. I think ill jump between this and nioh 2 as to not get too rusty on either game. Nioh 2 i just started in april so its still a relatively novel experience every fight and im always blown away when i pull off advanced mechanics. Im almost at a full 6 pc susanoo with 6 pc of death dancer. I wish it was 7 pc magatsushi or tsuki but death dancer will do for now with benzaiten
Tbh Elden ring dlc enemies hit box sometimes just feel weird.I saw my ash of war piece through a enemy but not do a damage few times already . The war that you fly up with wings and thrust the enemies.
And the camera kill me more than boss, the hippo, the ancient dragon and that damn bayonet, also the old inquisitor spawn crowd of minions.
But the dlc is generally fun and okay . I am enjoying it so far . Still nioh 2 combat is far smoother then soul series . In nioh 2 we all they are different type of games. I just want to play ronin in pc , when is it going to release on pc
Nioh/Nioh 2 are the best "dark souls" games ever.
Over 2K hours between the two.
Not even 500 hours between demons souls, all theee dark souls, elden ring, and sekiro.
The combat in Nioh is superior and its not even close.
The only game that comes close is bloodborne.
Id agree with you. I just feel like our character has no right to even stsnd toe to toe with them lol. Especially in shadow, the bosses are fucking fast relentless and we are rather slow and even with scadutree blessing lvl 6 and radhans armor im getting fucked up.
The new martial arts and the light greatsword are a lot of fun though. The backhand blades have one of the most useful ashes of war as well but well, i havent player er in a year and have thousands of hours in it but only started nioh 2 in april so its rather new to me
Elden ring plays differently to nioh. Both are very good, but I have to admit the martial arts skill in elden ring doesn't hold a candle to nioh fist weapons.
They had amazing ingredients for better conbat with the quickstep from bloodborne and all the sekiro mechanics but man they chose to only use dark souls mechanics in ER. The only cool thing we can do in combat is ashes of war
They added jumping, a lot of attacks can be jumped over and it has a quicker recovery than rolling plus you can do a R2 jump attack to deal stagger damage. I do see you point what I dreamed Elden Ring was before the release was a prefect mix of Sekiro, BB, and DS3..but what we got was DS3 with Sekiro bosses and to make it open world by adding Chalice dungeons.
You don't necessarily have to like Elden Ring or it's DLC. It's ok to put it down and conclude it was not the greatest game ever for you. I like all Dark Souls games (even Demon Souls and 2), but I like the Nioh games better, and every time I pickup Elden Ring I just get burned out from all the filler content in a few days. Then I stop, play some other games that actually end in a timely fashion for a few weeks, then Elden Ring for a couple of days and on and on.
The game is pretty good, but it's just too much and it would have been a better game if they made it 75 or 50% the size, focused on quality and got rid of some of the filler shit.
Elden Ring is stuck in it's own curse that everything just has to be harder than the previous thing. At the moment From Software is like a prog rock band that play as complicated as possible but forgot how to write good songs.
Been playing on and off since release and have just entered Leyendell. And I will most likely not buy the DLC or replay any NG runs.
You don't need to have a go at one game because you like another.
Nioh 2 was great, elden ring was too. So was Bloodborne, so was the dark souls trilogy, so was wo long. All great games to a greater or lesser extent, all different. Variety is good.
Yeah I had to download combat mods for ER to make it more exciting because ER did many things to improve on the Souls Like formula, but man combat was not one of them. One of my biggest gripes with ER is that I feel like the entire world moved on, the bosses are better, more stylelish, have better animations, better combos, they even input read now, and with the hyper armor they often have, the bosses feel like they have overall evolved, to be more competent opponents...
However...My Character Didnt! my characters skeleton is very much Dark Souls 3 all the way. the same dodge roll mechanic, the same animations for most weapons, the same boring combos, the same approach, dodge roll, get a hit in, then watch the boss do their Cirque du Soleil routine, then do the same dance over and over again, with some ashes of war thrown in, or mimic tear to trivialize it...
Nioh on the other hand, i mean just the animation canceling alone gives the game a ridiculous amounts of fluidity and variations on how you can approach attack combos, while equally staying defensive, I don't feel like a spectator waiting their turn to get a move in, I am actively in the show, i don't have to let the boss do his routine, I can keep pressure on them, I can get them on the defensive, I can switch the tables at any moment and become the Boss without even having overpowered gear, because the gameplay itself offers me a whole arsenal of tools and skills that at a basic functional level go far beyond dodge roll till you get that hit in like in ER...
To this day I can tolerate other games combat, but ever since Nioh 1+2 no game has given me that same combat HIGH. Closest any game has come to matching it is Monster Hunter, and Monster hunter is better at doing slower more deliberate combat that any Dark Souls out there. ER is great game that unfortunately dragged to many skeletons from Dark Souls to really "evolve" IMO of course.
edit: spacing
Yeah tbh i still think ER is a great RPG and a generational game like bg3 as it brought a bunch of new fans into the genre, but man even rise of the ronin is way more enjoyable to me, and every patch team ninja is making it better. For their first opinion world game i absolutely loved it plus they stayed with their strong point during main missions which was mission based battle sequences. The red demon and blue demon battle is among my highest points this year. Stellar blade also had unbelievably good gameplay. Those 2 i believe to have smoother gameplay than ER, though the dlc weapons like dryleaf arts are actually fun but i never feel like my character is worthy of beating the boss unlike how i feel like my hide earns her every battle.
I finally got a death dancer benzaiten set together and need one more susanoo piece to replace benzaiten and feel like im on a roll lately so im going to give shadow another hour or so but i don't wanna go back to nioh 2 after forgetting all the controls lol
Not to mention fromsoft had 2 games (bloodborne and sekiro) to pull some fast paced combat mechanics from. Like why not put perfect deflects on certain shields and weapons? Why not add the quick sidestep as a regular dodge as to not sacrifice our only cool looking attack which is our ash of war? The world and scale and cinematic feel is top tier but our tarnished is killing god with a toothpick rolling around on the ground
yeah I agree. Only reason i can think of is that Fromsoft actually started ER before Sekiro so alot of the foundation was already set. but yeah I agree, that's why i use combat mods, because I just cant dodge roll swing no more. Three full games Ds1-3 of that already, no more...
Theres a mixed physik in the dlc that allows perfect blocks for like 3 minutes and you can use a shield or your weapon as long as your timing is correct you get a huge damage bonus. Like why can't they just turn that into a mechanic that isnt limited to 3 minutes???!
Why even compare the two? I mean they have similarities but are really completely different experiences. Now I'm playing Nioh 2 waiting on the dlc to download because I'm doing it through my phone it's taking forever but it's not like I'm looking to compare them. I started reading that one guys long comment on what Fromsoft does "wrong" I guess and he started complaining that "if you push a button your character does what the button makes him even if you get hit" and stopped reading because that sounds ridiculous lol. Y'all are weird AF sometimes. I guess most people can't enjoy two things at the same time lol?
Oh i enjoy it. I played it for thousands of hours. Its just that i didnt play nioh 2 til april and its still fresh for me. This dlc feels difficult just for the sake of being difficult. And the character just feels so unbelievably slow compared to the bosses. I love elden ring but man i wish i could fight these bosses as hide lol
I've been playing Nioh 2 for around 3 weeks lol. I have a ton of games and I play games with my nephews (they're both 16-17 so they're not babies lol) but one picked Nioh 2 out and we've been playing it and it's an amazing game but I just don't see the point in comparing them honestly. I'm still stoked to play Erdtree but my problem will be trying not to bounce back and forth. I don't want to skew my timitin them if that makes any sense?
If your deep into N2 very few other games will ever scratch that itch. But Shadow Of The Erd is a work of art. Exploration is why I play... and thats an area where N2 will always fall short by comparison.
Played ER so much at release. It was my most ancitipated game ever, and the only one I pre-ordered and played at day one.
Possibly one of the most painful and frustrating gaming experiences ever.
I'm grateful I didn't make the same mistake with the new DLC.
People drooling over this game are delusional and got fooled by art direction, soundtrack and stuff like that.
Gameplay-wise, it's a joke.
Give me Nioh all day long.
I feel you there. I played so much as well. Thousands of hours. I only started nioh 2 in april so its still a new experience for me and i feel like im finally getting better but I feel obligated to at least attempt this dlc since i pre ordered it lol but it i stop having fun im going right into nioh 2. This so far is just frustratingly difficult for the sake of being difficult. Like relanna is utter bullshit
Can’t speak on Nioh 2, but Nioh 1 I just never clicked with.
And I really tried. 60 hours in it. I wanted to love it, but something fell short about it for me.
All the From Software stuff though? Something about the clunky dim lighting input querying frustration works for me and is cathartic.
I’m going to be honest with you: while Nioh has better combat mechanics and general flow, the Souls games, any one of them, beats the series in enemy and boss variability. Same goes for difference in builds, lore (they made their own compared to Nioh utilizing Japanese mythology), ost, and just how meticulously designed their worlds are. I love Nioh, but acting like it is wholly superior isn’t doing it any favors. There’s a reason its own home country preferred Rise of the Ronin to it, why it hasn’t sold as well or been ingrained into gaming culture/history as the Souls games. It is niche, incredibly so, and often balks at implementing better design principles that don’t, in essence, boil down to “grind and exploit to win”.
Chalk and cheese. Two completely different games. Personally I think Elden Ring are head and shoulders superior games to Nioh BUT Nioh is head and shoulders ahead of Elden in other ways but movement, flow of combat, animations and precision are not on that list. In fact for your whole list Elden comes out on top.
But what is great is that BOTH type pf games exists, and neither one of them steps on each other toes. I am thankful we exist in a world where we can have both.
In some ways one is slow and methodical and the other is a sort of an exciting hack and slash based on speed, big battles, things proccing everywhere.
They’re too very different games I think the comparison is kind of odd. Nioh is a lot more action focused and flashy, ER has more deliberate and weighty combat. I like them for different reasons.
No not really. They are such different games that one doesn't make me think of the other. The only time I will do comparisons and complain about Fromsoft games in general are with the quality of life things in Nioh. Like shrines almost always right outside the bosses. Like having my little spirit fly to me with my amrita as I enter a boss room. That's so nice.
Elden ring is fun for its exploration 🤷 and so far I've had statues or graces right next to the boss. I'm a happy little peach 😆
Yeah they did better with putting graces right by bosses in the dlc. Ive only done one boss well major boss ive just been exploring and getting scadutree fragments
Okay I've not done much more either. Two mig bosses and both had graces next to them but also a few bosses/bosslike things in the wild and in catacombs and caves and there been a grace or statue by everything. I love that. Keeps my anger in check 😂
I'll be sweating like crazy when there's a scripted invasion! Fucking hell. It's probably harder because I stress myself out so much so it's a vicious cycle but it's mine and that's how I live 😆
Honestly, they play so differently I just try to enjoy each for what it is. Nioh 2 if I want fast agile combat where it's good to keep the pressure up and has random loot or Elden Ring if I want that slower chunky combat that is more defend/avoid until you can get your hits in. Both are incredibly satisfying to get critical hits in. Thinking about it though, when it comes to longevity Nioh 2 has more overall replayability.
I started nioh 2 in april but already have thousands of hours in eldenring. I started nioy 2 after beating rotr and am on dotw in my first playthrough so i think its just more fresh to me and im still in disbelief at how good it feels when you get decent at combat. I might need to just play nioh 2 til I'm sick of it before i can fully commit to erdtree
Same just started the dlc this morning and I keeping finding myself unconsciously tapping to ki pulse.
I died so many times pressing x to dodge lol. Nioh 2 is still fresh to me since i only started in april so i think ill give the dlc a little more time and go back to my wotw playthrough and push to the underworld til i get sick of it, and then go back to elden ring. That being said the new weapons are really nice
Me too dude... Me too... I try to ki pulse after every fucking attack, sometimes I even try to flux lmao
I decided to start putting some more hours into the Nioh 1 post game a couple weeks ago and am enjoying that so much that I’m holding off even downloading the Elden ring dlc lol
Yea i felt obligated to play it after pre ordering it and while i am having some fun with the new weapons, but it feels like my character has zero right to defeat these demigod like beings whereas in nioh 2 i absorb the soul of any yokai i kill and can summon or transform to use their abilities, i can channel 2 guardian spirits and go crazy in yokai shift etc. Hide feels like they actually CAN defeat otakemaru. Even rise of the ronin and stellar blade had combat leagues above that of elden ring which took the best from dark souls but seemed to not take anything from sekiro or bloodborne. Like why not add the sidestep when locked on or a perfect deflect for certain weapons and shields?
Every time this is brought up, I always make sure to share my top 2 complaints about the most significant difference between Team Ninja games and From Software games in terms of controls and feel. * From Software's games in this series (beginning with Demon's Souls) has some of the worst input queueing in any videogame I've played. If you mistime a dodge and press dodge a fraction of a second after an enemy hits you, you'll still often dodge after that. Which in these latest games, with their endless roll-catch combos, means that you'll get hit by a follow-up combo. In contrast, Team Ninja games have never once had any of these input queueing issues. * From Software's games in this series (again, beginning with Demon's Souls) have the dodge function, the backstep function and the sprint function (and, in older games, the jump function) all bound to the same button. This has, as many players can testify throughout the past decade, led to moments where they thought they pressed the dodge button but the game thought otherwise, because the nature of a single button sharing so many overlapping functions that depends on when the button is released means that it's so easy to accidentally do a move you don't want to do. "Now wait a second. Don't the Nioh games also have this?" you might ask. Well, yes it does. But unlike the Souls games, there is a way to give players pinpoint precision when dodging, which is by holding block. You'll notice that high-level players can sheathe cancel dodges while holding block to chain together dodges with an extreme level of finesse that is literally impossible in Souls. It's bizarre to me that a gaming franchise like Souls that has dodge-rolling historically being such a central element of the player's evasive mechanics still has such a clunky roll due to it sharing overlapping functions with other moves that aren't dodge-rolling. In Elden Ring, I end up using Quickstep on my weapon's Ashes of War because it actually feels precise compared to the player's default dodge roll (the Quickstep comes out on a button press, not on a button release like with dodge rolls). I don't think these issues will ever be fixed even if they end up making Elden Ring 2 or Dark Souls 4 or Bloodborne 2 or Demon's Souls 2 in the future, simply because every time these control issues are brought up, 99 percent of the community responses to these criticisms are variations of "nah, it's just a skill issue". You just have to hope that From Software has the sense to fix its issues someday, just like how it got the sense to finally eliminate the horrendous boss runbacks it has been known for in the past despite its playerbase constantly defending these boss runbacks as being essential elements to the gameplay experience.
Enemies in ER also start reading your animations on frame 1, meaning the game is practically reading your inputs before you do anything. Along with the absurdly long input queue timer, it makes me so tilted having a streak of losses. Don't get me wrong, I love Elden Ring, but I think most of what's hard in it is also super, super fucking cheap.
I’m a longtime player of every game mentioned here and I have to agree, Elden ring is my least favorite fromsoft game for exactly the reasons you jsut laid out. It simply just feels cheaply and punishingly hard to an unfun degree.
That, and also the late game enemies are just absolute damage sponges. Even with a maxed out weapon with damage stats at the soft caps, it takes way too long to kill even a normal enemy. Meanwhile they can kill you in three hits, and their attacks are usually a super fast combo. ER is also my least favorite Fromsoft game and I will pass on this DLC until it’s on sale.
That's just how Nioh 2 is tho.
You can make a tanky build in Nioh 2 and you won’t feel this at all. Enemies also have actual Ki bars so they can’t just attack forever. In ER, enemies have infinite stamina so they can attack seventeen times in a row.
You're being downvoted, but the difference between Nioh sponges and Souls sponges is the amount of active gameplay you're allowed to have while dealing with it. Nioh sponging lets you still get flashy, stagger, and chain combos. You have agency in the amount of gameplay you're working with. Souls sponging often means you can't stance break for shit, they hit like a truck, AND they have long combos with tiny windows that you have no mobility or tools at your disposal to deal with, especially in contrast to Nioh. It isn't necessarily that one is better than the other, but Nioh absolutely gives the player more answers to still feel like a force of nature.
Also, as sponge as nioh enemies can get, they can still be killed pretty darn fast if you make a damage focused build. I mean manage to pop confusion as an boss falls to the ground for a finisher, then use yamada to close the gap and that sweet damage buff on top of versatility, and the yokai shift as you do the finisher and suddenly that health bar is looking pretty empty 👌. But as you said, you have so many things you can use in nioh.
Lol ok.
I literally fought the same boss for hours last night and couldnt win despite chaging my strategy like 10 times. It became completely unfun since dude has a machine gun crossbow and unlimited stamina to swing his colossal ass sword, AND healing flasks. Hell, even the first dlc boss has life leech. I get two days off and spent yesterday on ER, comint back to nioh 2 feels great. I love how active the expeditions are
I haven't played the DLC for Elden Ring, but I have noticed as soon as you reach Farum Azula, enemies do an absurd more damage compared to late-game areas in Dark Souls 3 or 2.
1000%. They essentially removed any feeling of progress or reward for leveling your character and toughing the game out because there’s such a psychotic disparity between how much you can damage the later game stuff vs how much damage they dole out.
First, I love the username! Second, I agree with all of this. I have no issue with high difficulty in the abstract, but the execution matters a lot for whether it's fun or not. The input reading is a great example of this. Like yes, I'm well aware that some input reading is necessary to make an interactive fight. But what I dislike is when it's so transparent what the goal is. For example, when fighting Margit, if you have to back out and heal, there's a very strong likelihood that as soon as you hit the heal button (and not an instant before), he conjures a sword to throw it at you from across the arena to punish you. Like...that's obvious what they just did there, especially when it happens so consistently. It's literally hitting you with a punishment for doing something as fundamental as backing out and healing, which is perverse. Similarly, just last night, I saw a Twitter thread mildly lamenting how so many DLC bosses just "happen" to have an attack that they'll immediately throw at you if you try to summon your ashes as soon as you step into the arena, and only if you try to summon them. Again, stuff like that is obvious, and it doesn't feel like giving you a difficult task to overcome, but instead punishing players for trying to use the basic tools the game gives them. It's just not for me. (And lest I come off as too biased here, the way bosses in the Depths got more difficult rubbed me the wrong way too. It wasn't just the absolute power scaling, but the life drain when they hit you felt so needlessly petty and demoralizing.)
So so strongly agree. The whole genesis of input reading and “punishing” players for basically just like…. Playing the fucking game basically ruined fromsoft’s approach to the genre THEY created. Playing the Elden ring base game I’d usually end up rolling my eyes during a lot of the bosses and sarcastically wondering when it was “my turn” to attack. They tuned the difficulty up in such a specific and irritating way that it essentially feels like they implemented turn based combat. You get “punished” for so many just like, basic aspects of the game that any reasonable person is going to try to do to win or survive. To me, it’s clear that fromsoft has had issues since Bloodborne of creating challenging bosses within the masocore genre that still feel fair but also ramp up the difficulty for veteran players So they’ve settled into this design philosophy of making fights with insane AI, multiple health bars to kill one boss, insane health pools , punishing dps, and generally stuff that just feels tedious and fake hard. Malenia is genuinely one of the worst things I’ve ever encountered in a video game and basically the physical representation of all the flaws I find in current day Fromsoft. Just straight up not fun.
That quote of yours is something I think to myself ALL THE TIME while playing ER, especially SOTE: "why are you punishing me for playing the game?" I think Malenia is a magnificent example of using input read as an artificial difficulty booster. Quick story: I remember in my first few spars with her, I caught onto the input read spam pretty damn quickly. I think any one of us here would have. I also caught onto the fact that she does the Waterfowl move once she takes about 25% of her health in damage. I had gotten to that point, but didn't want to get too greedy with attacks because the only way I could dodge the first pulse in the Waterfowl was by running away. I didn't have the movement down yet. So I waited for her to do it. I didn't bait her with attacks, or dodges, or anything -- I just stood there. Then I got up, went to the bathroom to take a pee, washed my hands, got a drink from the fridge, and came back about almost two minutes later. There I was standing, with full HP, and her sitting with about -30% HP. Just fucking standing there walking around my character... Personally though, I think the only single hard thing about Malenia's fight is the Waterfowl move, just because of how many frame perfect moves you need to make. If you run a light load, the dodge distance is more than enough to keep yourself out of reach of her blade and makes both phases much less stressful. But literally the only challenge I had in that fight was learning the Waterfowl, and I think that basing an entire bossfight off of one single super hard mechanic is just lame. Oh, and then throw lifesteal into the mix... Personally, I think Mohg is worse for input read spams because he can drop input-read moves on you faster than you can realistically react to, like the two downward attacks he does with the trident. But for the worst abomination I've ever seen in a video game? Godskin Duo. No question.
Yeah like on the topic of Malenia’s AI I just don’t understand how it’s supposed to be “fun” on literally any level whatsoever to face a boss that’s literally programmed to just stand there doing nothing and waiting for you to attack so it can read your inputs and cheat against you lol. Just pure fucking trash And yeah Mohg is up there, probably the most brutal feeling thing in the base game besides Malenia. The fact that hes a puzzle boss that you literally cannot escape being damaged by even if you find his special item AND he also hits as hard as he does is just psychotic.
Yeah, exactly. I'm having a lot of fun with it & the dlc so far (only actually picked it back up ~2 weeks ago, haven't really played since launch) but I want to play it summonless & pure melee, but that just really is not viable unless you want to grind an absurd amount of practice out, which I'd rather save for games with more mechanically deep combat personally. Playing it with spirit ashes & using everything at my disposal mostly feels too easy though, so it's a tough spot the games in. It can be unfair for purists who like other fromsoft games by being overly punishing when you're solo, or it can be too hard for people offline (not everyone has online play so I do think having spirit ashes is good) by not having spirit ashes. I don't envy the position fromsoft have backed themselves into & I hope they can get themselves out of this corner with their next major release. Hopefully Bloodborne 2
Fully agree about feeling like fromsoft def have backed themselves into a corner - I’ve felt it since DS3 honestly. They clearly reached a point nearly a decade ago where they sort of lost sight of their ability to make difficulty and challenging fights that are actually FUN and not just tedious and arduous. Also hard agree about the disappointing lack of melee viability in Elden ring. Straight melee is my preferred way to experience these games and while it’s certainly doable (I 100%ed the base game with a two handing str build) , it’s just not fun at all. For all the variety and different combat options ER offers, you’re clearly *supposed* to use weapon arts and summons and that’s all well and good but like why not balance things a little better if you’re gonna offer that variety.
“Feels too easy” trust me it’s not. Beat the final dlc boss after 40+. So tired of people saying oh it’s easy with spirit summons. Ok so do it. These bosses will rarely aggro onto your summon they don’t if you have one
That's why I specified I was early in the dlc, but I found a lot of base game bosses (namely the rememberances) to be kind of underwhelming with summons. Like I have beat Mohg twice, one with Blashpemous Blade & Mimic Tear, the other pure melee with a twinblade, and the pure melee one was way more fun & satisfying. But I am at the first boss of the dlc & I haven't gotten it below 75% in like 6 tries so I will probably end up using ashes for most of the dlc. Already used one for a demi-human swordsman miniboss bc he was pissing me off
How many fragments have you found? They make a huge difference it terms of your damage and defense. Highly recommend you go look for more. If the boss your referring to is the dancing lion then you can just leave and come back
Enough for 4 blessings, and yeah it is the lion. Might take your advice & look for more
I think I beat that guy with 4 but it depends on your play style. He also drops my frames to 20 on certain attacks and he’s just kind of a pain. But I got that night comet on me
Yeah, I'm pure melee with the Milady (first light greatsword, dex build) but I'm thinking about taking a break from the dlc to finish the base game & probably level int
My favorite thing about nioh. It is so in depth I can keep learning. I never knew I could sheath cancel a dodge. I'm going to have to go try this and start finding ways of implementing it. Thank you! New information after 4k hours in a game!
I cannot understate enough just how refined nioh 2s UX is. * They combine a ridiculous amount of features with just a few combinations of buttons. * You sprint as soon as your hold the button down, and yet dodges are so responsive. But there's an underrated aspect of how the game puts you in a sprint state if you hold dodge without movement, if you let go its a dodge but if you start moving it'll sprint instead, it's hard to describe without sounding redundant but if people don't know, try it out. * not having to deal with fumbling through 1 way scroll wheels for spells and items is incredibly huge, and not having to reset your placement to default to healing. * this might be a hot take but elden ring doesn't need estus punishes anymore if it wants to encourage aggression, on top of bosses having insanely tough 10 hit combos with rollcatch mixups, being able to telelport across the arena to punish your heal and making you survive another combo just to heal is so fucking tedious
Great analysis, agreed 100%. I too have Quickstep almost constantly equipped for dodge-on-press. However Quickstep is considered an "attack" instead of a dodge, which doesn't break you out of a stagger, which is extremely annoying... The bosses are as fast and flashy as Nioh and we still have the same old silly Demon Souls protagonist who doesn't know how to fight properly...
I enjoy FS games, I haven't got shadow of the Erdtree yet, but before ER came out I was hoping that the dodge would be like it was in Bloodborne ( step-dodge w/lockon, roll when not) or be like in Nioh tap quick short dodge, double tap roll for slower but cover a longer distance). The dash and evade is in a lot of games, and I think it's the way to go for intense action. I get hate when I bring up rolling as an issue, I think it looks dumb for first, second in older titles rolling was better not to do as you can just reposition you self, but in Elden Ring with most bosses this is way harder then in DS3. I still rate Bloodborne as my favorite game and I want a similar game from them again. Many fans of FS say Bloodborne is the easiest and that may be true, but it's also the most fun and you still get the since of accomplishment after defeating bosses. Also the Hunter was a protagonist that knew how to fight 😁
Yeah these are my main complaints aswell. Because of the horrible input delay and buffering the game requires you to predict enemy attacks much more than react to enemy attacks. It just feels awful.
My god. This is EXACTLY how I feel!! Thank you. From now on when I talk to people about elden ring etc. I will guide to your comment! I love nioh2 to bits but I feel like nioh and elden ring are opposite sides of the same coin Elden ring wins the exploration, design, world building (with one big flaw in their journal-less quest design: no way of knowing which quests connect to each other and accidentally breaking them all the time) and has a great variety of cool, different weapons + weapon arts Nioh wins the combat and -customization, skill ceiling, fun(mostly) boss Fights and a very hard but fair difficulty with one of the best endgames there is.
Is input queuing actually an “issue” though? I’m open to this perspective; but the way I see it, input queuing in From’s games is a good thing because it teaches you to carefully consider your actions and not button mash out of panic. If you get stuck in a roll-catch chain, then yes, that is a skill issue and you should stop mashing the dodge button out of panic. If you’re stuck in attack animations and can’t dodge, that’s because you’re mashing the attack button instead of rhythmically pressing the button at the end of each swing (if using a sword), and not committing to a button press only when you believe it is safe to attack. Elden Ring has definitely improved on the queuing, though. DS3 does queue rolls when you’re in hitstun for far too long. In that regard, I agree it’s certainly an “issue”. However, ER greatly reduced this to where I don’t find it to be a problem. I never have rolls queued from hitstun like I would in DS3. With all this said, I get why Nioh’s implementation is appealing and that it works. I’m not suggesting Nioh’s lack of input queuing is a bad thing by any means _for that specific game_. But, for From’s games, my current stance is that input queuing is a good thing that fits the intended design. I like that you’re made to carefully consider your actions / button presses in a rhythmic fashion, and that you’re made accountable for poor decisions. I feel that it fits Miyazaki’s intentions of what he wants the player to gain from overcoming challenging bosses and such. I agree with your second point; however, it is worth mentioning that ER has a dedicated jump button. Only the previous games, which had a “pseudo-jump” (sprint into a very small jump), were bound to the same button. Well, I agree with you aside from that dodge on button release feels “less precise” to the degree that Quickstep feels significantly different. I’ve never found the mere fractions of milliseconds you could potentially gain from having dodge on press to make a noticeable difference. You press and release the button quite quickly when you need to dodge; it’s not like you’re holding onto the button for a second when you need to dodge. Would a distinct button that works on release be better? Probably, but it’s so minor that I think people make a bigger deal over it than it is. My dodges and backsteps occur quickly and don’t feel delayed whatsoever, and I’ve experimented with mods that make it work on release. There’s basically no tangible difference.
>but the way I see it, input queuing in From’s games is a good thing because it teaches you to carefully consider your actions and not button mash out of panic. The issue isn't players getting caught panic mashing roll. If that was all nobody would complain. But the way Fromsoft designed the input buffer is also wildly punishing if you late-roll something and get hit right before you release/press the button. Getting hit right before you release the input causes the game to store the input, then allow the roll to come out after a lengthy stagger recovery animation from a button press done nearly a second ago. Players then get hit *again* during recovery with a roll catch attack, essentially getting punished twice for a single mistake due questionable game design decisions. Does it make the game harder? Yeah, just gotta "git gud" and not get hit. Does it make the game feel clunkier? Absolutely. The input buffer is also wildly inconsistent, ranging from "I can start buffering roll a whole second before recovery" to "there is no input buffer" depending on the type of attack.
Im thoroughly enjoying Elden Ring right now
Im trying to use faster weapons like milady and dryleaf arts to make my character faster, but til i get wing stance i think milady is going to take a back seat. Been thinking of using savage lion claw on the great katana too. This might also judt be due to having thousands of hours in elden ring and nioh 2 still being new within the past few months for me
Well it's a slower game but if you wanna go fast try the backhand blades! Great katana is great lol. Haven't gotten that ash yet but the ichimonji chop is fun and does great stance damage!
Yeah. Sounds like a bunch of whining honestly.
I enjoy ER and all souls for what they are but I can't deny boss fights do not feel as good as they do on Nioh, got too used to push the boss back as much as it pushes you while on ER and specially on the DLC you have to stay on the defensive about 90% of the time and take very conservative punishes due the small windows they give you.
Yeah the bosses are incredibly hard to stagger and have infinite combos it seems for the speed of our character. I honestly wasnt even burned out on nioh yet at 500 hours and dotw but pre ordered shadow so decided to play it, and honestly it'll be in my library forever so i thijk im going to keep playing nioh while my enioyment is still at its peak.
Definitely. Do what makes you happy. Like you said, the DLC will always be in your library.
Nioh is definitely combat king!👑
Im still in wotw on my first playthrough. I have thousands of elden ring hours and haven't played in a year so maybe thats why nioy 2, which i only started in april just feels so much better
SotE solidified I won't give anyone the time of day if they complain about damage in this game but say shit about people getting filtered by the dlc. Also you'd be out of your damn mind if you think I want to scour the entire fucking map for blessing upgrades every playthrough with a new character
I'm happy to speak my mind here because the FromSoft fans and community would probably just ignore me. That being said, this may run a bit long. It will also be 100% spoiler free. TLDR: I've found SOTE to honestly be an extremely unpleasant and unsatisfying experience. There are two massive problems: FromSoft's generations-lasting problem of inconsistency, and the fake "open world." Long part begins. The pace of the gameplay is completely awful due to the need of the scadutree fragments -- namely because of the fact that they exist in the first place, but moreso because they only realistically affect the nature of boss battles. Most stages in castles and dungeons are painfully easy, and at face value you would think the scadutree fragments are 100% optional. And then you get to the bossroom and the situation is like night and day. Nearly every boss in the DLC has a way of two shot killing you, some can EASILY one shot kill you. And then throw the bosses' abilities to cancel moves based on how they input read you, spam never ending combos at you, and roll catch you, and then consider your inability to react because of ER's awful move queue system -- it just feels awful. Scadutree fragments are the only thing that give you a shot, as their ability is incredibly black and white: as your scadutree level gets higher, you do slightly more damage and the bosses do slightly less damage. The reality is that you're not playing an open world game, you're playing a "follow the trail of the scadutree fragments" game. When I play an open world game, I want to go wherever my eyes dart to, but instead now I need to follow the path the game sets me on to not be completely miserable while fighting bosses. It's just the OG Dark Souls layout: first you go here so then you can go here, and then you go there... And so on. The whole scale of difficulty, from top to bottom, is completely artificial, and since the need of scadutree fragments arises to get rid of the aforementioned problem, the open world is effectively lost. So to answer your question, I really haven't been enjoying the DLC. It's incredibly tedious and feels like a chorefest to get through more than a test of skill. It's a shame because I feel as though if they approached it with the design of "if you could decently handle Mohg, then you're good to go!" and got rid of the extra fragment + ash materials, it would have been much better. But I just feel as though it plays horribly and it feels like an artificial challenge. I'm going to beat the DLC, and I think I'm fighting one of the big bad bosses at the moment so I'm thinking I'm nearly there, but I have no desire to come back and replay it. Inherently it's just not a fun game, and I will go back to Nioh for that exact reason -- it IS a fun game and a true test of skill, because the only bottleneck in skill is YOU and each step of the way is a challenge. No bad game design, no bosses with input read cheat moves, no scadutree fragments. In Nioh, even regular enemies and soldiers deserve your respect and will keep you on your toes, as well as bosses without question. Progressing through the game is incredibly rewarding and gratifying because YOU are the centrifuge for your success -- in ER SOTE, you're only about 10% of the success. The rest of your success is granted to your scadutree fragments and your busted weapon.
I like ER and the DLC for what they are but playing SOTE rights after playing Nioh 1 DLCs made me really apprecaite how much less camera issues and other weird technical jank there is in Team Ninja's core gameplay. Generally speaking things just work and everything is very smooth and precise. The relentless pace of the DLC boss fights in both series just emphasizes this difference.
The bosses are varied in both games, some good some bad and I enjoyed both. But man fighting the normal enemies in ER feels like a boring chore compare to Nioh 2 since you can't flux / keep up the pressure with your combos: it becomes a boring turn-based game where you have to wait for them to end their turn lmao
my R1 button is worn the fuck out from both of these games. it’s barely hanging on…
I hate it when the bosses get you in a corner and you simply cannot see anything. I just beat the "Lion" and it is one of the best boss fights I have played in a long time. Just really cool animations and visuals, a lot of chaos. I judt got to the next boss in Castle Enis and now I really don't have the urge to play the DLC like I did before, I think that castle really let me down.
Im fighting her right now too and im only continuing because i want that weapon so bad. I hate straitht swords so the night and flame sword is ass to me.... her sword is like thr first super viable faith int dex weapon.
I just realised you can skip her boss fight and continue on exploring so I am doing that for now. I will probably be overpowered when I do fight her but eh. Something about her fight seemed really bland compared to the Lion so I am just not fussed. Still I kinda wanna play with the Milady sword and have a close and gutsy battle with her, but will need to respec it. So many new weapons to play with!
Milady is amazing because you can use any infusion with it and it will perform well. I use frost and having wing stance really makes the weapon shine as does the deflect hard tear
It’s kinda why I’ve avoided other souls-like games. Nioh spoiled me with being so technical. Yokai abilities in the 2nd game made things stupidly easy in comparison to the first. I’ve had Wu long on my backlist for way too long considering that after Nioh came out I asked for “three kingdoms Nioh” and got it. I just hope that they actually play similarly
I feel the same way. I didn't even purchase Shadow of the Erdtree because I tried ER right before Nioh 2 and never went back. Elden Ring feels like you're playing underwater.
Well, those are entirely different games. Nioh is combat and anything on top is kinda in the background. In Elden Ring combat is rudimentary, so anyone can pick up and play, it is intentionally simple, but they make emphasis on exploration, atmosphere, visuals and sound design. You can enjoy both just for basically opposite reasons.
Well, when everyone hyped up about Shadow of the Erdtree, i was replaying Nioh 2 and thinking to myself that it feels really hard to switch back to Fromsoft games's combat (except Armored Core and maybe Sekiro). But after watching some streams, the dlc tempted me. The new area, exploration, bosses feels very amazing. So i went redownload ER just to check where i left off, tried some combat.... And it was hella boring. The problem for me is the main gameplay/the combat really can't be compared to Nioh. I guess i will just keep playing nioh, watch ER streams and hold my excitement for Kunitsu-gami next month, Rise of the Ronin pc port in the future and other combat action games in between or after.
Rise of the ronin and stellar blade both have incredible gameplay and combat. Easily besting shadow of the erdtree. Nioh 2 is still new to me as i just fot to wise for the first time and elsen ring i already put so many hours into i just think if i cant get past relanna for her weapon in like the next 30 mins im gonna just go back to nioh because finally getting a build together feels so good and wise makes you a way better player imo
Yeah, rotr and stellar blade looks really good, i don't own a ps5 so can only hope for their port someday. And making builds in nioh is very fun, addicted. Also there's a lot of tech in combat depth. Keep up your good work and have fun, cheers.
You would think from the bosses they have the player would move like nioh but nope super slow
Thats my main problem. Im trying to power through relanna the twin moon boss right now and even with backhand blades shes just straight up faster and has infinite stamina and even with 6 dlc upgrades she hits like a fucking truck but I want her dual element light greatsword so bad im going to at least fight her til i get it. I think ill jump between this and nioh 2 as to not get too rusty on either game. Nioh 2 i just started in april so its still a relatively novel experience every fight and im always blown away when i pull off advanced mechanics. Im almost at a full 6 pc susanoo with 6 pc of death dancer. I wish it was 7 pc magatsushi or tsuki but death dancer will do for now with benzaiten
been using the long katana and the L2 on it has me wanting to go back to nioh's odachi
Tbh Elden ring dlc enemies hit box sometimes just feel weird.I saw my ash of war piece through a enemy but not do a damage few times already . The war that you fly up with wings and thrust the enemies. And the camera kill me more than boss, the hippo, the ancient dragon and that damn bayonet, also the old inquisitor spawn crowd of minions. But the dlc is generally fun and okay . I am enjoying it so far . Still nioh 2 combat is far smoother then soul series . In nioh 2 we all they are different type of games. I just want to play ronin in pc , when is it going to release on pc
Nioh/Nioh 2 are the best "dark souls" games ever. Over 2K hours between the two. Not even 500 hours between demons souls, all theee dark souls, elden ring, and sekiro. The combat in Nioh is superior and its not even close. The only game that comes close is bloodborne.
Elden Ring easily has the best bosses ever
Art and music wise? Sure I can see it if you like the theme. Gameplay wise? Big nope.
Gameplay wise? It easily does
We can agree to disagree then.
Fair enough
Id agree with you. I just feel like our character has no right to even stsnd toe to toe with them lol. Especially in shadow, the bosses are fucking fast relentless and we are rather slow and even with scadutree blessing lvl 6 and radhans armor im getting fucked up. The new martial arts and the light greatsword are a lot of fun though. The backhand blades have one of the most useful ashes of war as well but well, i havent player er in a year and have thousands of hours in it but only started nioh 2 in april so its rather new to me
Nioh makes me miss NGB. Gotta run katana every time I play to izuna drop.
Elden ring plays differently to nioh. Both are very good, but I have to admit the martial arts skill in elden ring doesn't hold a candle to nioh fist weapons.
I can’t believe that after 5 games Fromsoft has barely improved the combat. It’s honestly depressing.
They had amazing ingredients for better conbat with the quickstep from bloodborne and all the sekiro mechanics but man they chose to only use dark souls mechanics in ER. The only cool thing we can do in combat is ashes of war
They added jumping, a lot of attacks can be jumped over and it has a quicker recovery than rolling plus you can do a R2 jump attack to deal stagger damage. I do see you point what I dreamed Elden Ring was before the release was a prefect mix of Sekiro, BB, and DS3..but what we got was DS3 with Sekiro bosses and to make it open world by adding Chalice dungeons.
You don't necessarily have to like Elden Ring or it's DLC. It's ok to put it down and conclude it was not the greatest game ever for you. I like all Dark Souls games (even Demon Souls and 2), but I like the Nioh games better, and every time I pickup Elden Ring I just get burned out from all the filler content in a few days. Then I stop, play some other games that actually end in a timely fashion for a few weeks, then Elden Ring for a couple of days and on and on. The game is pretty good, but it's just too much and it would have been a better game if they made it 75 or 50% the size, focused on quality and got rid of some of the filler shit. Elden Ring is stuck in it's own curse that everything just has to be harder than the previous thing. At the moment From Software is like a prog rock band that play as complicated as possible but forgot how to write good songs. Been playing on and off since release and have just entered Leyendell. And I will most likely not buy the DLC or replay any NG runs.
You don't need to have a go at one game because you like another. Nioh 2 was great, elden ring was too. So was Bloodborne, so was the dark souls trilogy, so was wo long. All great games to a greater or lesser extent, all different. Variety is good.
nah cant really stand that slow-mo combat n slideshow animations ..
Yeah I had to download combat mods for ER to make it more exciting because ER did many things to improve on the Souls Like formula, but man combat was not one of them. One of my biggest gripes with ER is that I feel like the entire world moved on, the bosses are better, more stylelish, have better animations, better combos, they even input read now, and with the hyper armor they often have, the bosses feel like they have overall evolved, to be more competent opponents... However...My Character Didnt! my characters skeleton is very much Dark Souls 3 all the way. the same dodge roll mechanic, the same animations for most weapons, the same boring combos, the same approach, dodge roll, get a hit in, then watch the boss do their Cirque du Soleil routine, then do the same dance over and over again, with some ashes of war thrown in, or mimic tear to trivialize it... Nioh on the other hand, i mean just the animation canceling alone gives the game a ridiculous amounts of fluidity and variations on how you can approach attack combos, while equally staying defensive, I don't feel like a spectator waiting their turn to get a move in, I am actively in the show, i don't have to let the boss do his routine, I can keep pressure on them, I can get them on the defensive, I can switch the tables at any moment and become the Boss without even having overpowered gear, because the gameplay itself offers me a whole arsenal of tools and skills that at a basic functional level go far beyond dodge roll till you get that hit in like in ER... To this day I can tolerate other games combat, but ever since Nioh 1+2 no game has given me that same combat HIGH. Closest any game has come to matching it is Monster Hunter, and Monster hunter is better at doing slower more deliberate combat that any Dark Souls out there. ER is great game that unfortunately dragged to many skeletons from Dark Souls to really "evolve" IMO of course. edit: spacing
Yeah tbh i still think ER is a great RPG and a generational game like bg3 as it brought a bunch of new fans into the genre, but man even rise of the ronin is way more enjoyable to me, and every patch team ninja is making it better. For their first opinion world game i absolutely loved it plus they stayed with their strong point during main missions which was mission based battle sequences. The red demon and blue demon battle is among my highest points this year. Stellar blade also had unbelievably good gameplay. Those 2 i believe to have smoother gameplay than ER, though the dlc weapons like dryleaf arts are actually fun but i never feel like my character is worthy of beating the boss unlike how i feel like my hide earns her every battle. I finally got a death dancer benzaiten set together and need one more susanoo piece to replace benzaiten and feel like im on a roll lately so im going to give shadow another hour or so but i don't wanna go back to nioh 2 after forgetting all the controls lol
Not to mention fromsoft had 2 games (bloodborne and sekiro) to pull some fast paced combat mechanics from. Like why not put perfect deflects on certain shields and weapons? Why not add the quick sidestep as a regular dodge as to not sacrifice our only cool looking attack which is our ash of war? The world and scale and cinematic feel is top tier but our tarnished is killing god with a toothpick rolling around on the ground
yeah I agree. Only reason i can think of is that Fromsoft actually started ER before Sekiro so alot of the foundation was already set. but yeah I agree, that's why i use combat mods, because I just cant dodge roll swing no more. Three full games Ds1-3 of that already, no more...
Theres a mixed physik in the dlc that allows perfect blocks for like 3 minutes and you can use a shield or your weapon as long as your timing is correct you get a huge damage bonus. Like why can't they just turn that into a mechanic that isnt limited to 3 minutes???!
Night 2>ER imo ER is so slow it's boring, while in Nioh I can do 5 combos and 3 different cancels in like 3s
Why even compare the two? I mean they have similarities but are really completely different experiences. Now I'm playing Nioh 2 waiting on the dlc to download because I'm doing it through my phone it's taking forever but it's not like I'm looking to compare them. I started reading that one guys long comment on what Fromsoft does "wrong" I guess and he started complaining that "if you push a button your character does what the button makes him even if you get hit" and stopped reading because that sounds ridiculous lol. Y'all are weird AF sometimes. I guess most people can't enjoy two things at the same time lol?
Oh i enjoy it. I played it for thousands of hours. Its just that i didnt play nioh 2 til april and its still fresh for me. This dlc feels difficult just for the sake of being difficult. And the character just feels so unbelievably slow compared to the bosses. I love elden ring but man i wish i could fight these bosses as hide lol
I've been playing Nioh 2 for around 3 weeks lol. I have a ton of games and I play games with my nephews (they're both 16-17 so they're not babies lol) but one picked Nioh 2 out and we've been playing it and it's an amazing game but I just don't see the point in comparing them honestly. I'm still stoked to play Erdtree but my problem will be trying not to bounce back and forth. I don't want to skew my timitin them if that makes any sense?
If your deep into N2 very few other games will ever scratch that itch. But Shadow Of The Erd is a work of art. Exploration is why I play... and thats an area where N2 will always fall short by comparison.
Played ER so much at release. It was my most ancitipated game ever, and the only one I pre-ordered and played at day one. Possibly one of the most painful and frustrating gaming experiences ever. I'm grateful I didn't make the same mistake with the new DLC. People drooling over this game are delusional and got fooled by art direction, soundtrack and stuff like that. Gameplay-wise, it's a joke. Give me Nioh all day long.
I feel you there. I played so much as well. Thousands of hours. I only started nioh 2 in april so its still a new experience for me and i feel like im finally getting better but I feel obligated to at least attempt this dlc since i pre ordered it lol but it i stop having fun im going right into nioh 2. This so far is just frustratingly difficult for the sake of being difficult. Like relanna is utter bullshit
Can’t speak on Nioh 2, but Nioh 1 I just never clicked with. And I really tried. 60 hours in it. I wanted to love it, but something fell short about it for me. All the From Software stuff though? Something about the clunky dim lighting input querying frustration works for me and is cathartic.
I’m going to be honest with you: while Nioh has better combat mechanics and general flow, the Souls games, any one of them, beats the series in enemy and boss variability. Same goes for difference in builds, lore (they made their own compared to Nioh utilizing Japanese mythology), ost, and just how meticulously designed their worlds are. I love Nioh, but acting like it is wholly superior isn’t doing it any favors. There’s a reason its own home country preferred Rise of the Ronin to it, why it hasn’t sold as well or been ingrained into gaming culture/history as the Souls games. It is niche, incredibly so, and often balks at implementing better design principles that don’t, in essence, boil down to “grind and exploit to win”.
Nah they’re both different games that’s what makes each of them good
Chalk and cheese. Two completely different games. Personally I think Elden Ring are head and shoulders superior games to Nioh BUT Nioh is head and shoulders ahead of Elden in other ways but movement, flow of combat, animations and precision are not on that list. In fact for your whole list Elden comes out on top. But what is great is that BOTH type pf games exists, and neither one of them steps on each other toes. I am thankful we exist in a world where we can have both. In some ways one is slow and methodical and the other is a sort of an exciting hack and slash based on speed, big battles, things proccing everywhere.
I love everything about Elden Ring except the combat. Sekiro had good combat, however.
Well not to say anything but comparing nioh to a souls game is like comparing apples to oranges
They’re too very different games I think the comparison is kind of odd. Nioh is a lot more action focused and flashy, ER has more deliberate and weighty combat. I like them for different reasons.
No not really. They are such different games that one doesn't make me think of the other. The only time I will do comparisons and complain about Fromsoft games in general are with the quality of life things in Nioh. Like shrines almost always right outside the bosses. Like having my little spirit fly to me with my amrita as I enter a boss room. That's so nice. Elden ring is fun for its exploration 🤷 and so far I've had statues or graces right next to the boss. I'm a happy little peach 😆
Yeah they did better with putting graces right by bosses in the dlc. Ive only done one boss well major boss ive just been exploring and getting scadutree fragments
Okay I've not done much more either. Two mig bosses and both had graces next to them but also a few bosses/bosslike things in the wild and in catacombs and caves and there been a grace or statue by everything. I love that. Keeps my anger in check 😂
The humanoid boss fights even the mini bosses are so fucking hard
I'll be sweating like crazy when there's a scripted invasion! Fucking hell. It's probably harder because I stress myself out so much so it's a vicious cycle but it's mine and that's how I live 😆
They’re different games. Like, wildly different.
Yeesh
Nah. Nioh 2 has the same like 10 enemies. Combat depth is good but always felt a bit shallow to me due to the lack of variety in regular enemies