How do Nioh fans feel about Rise of the Ronin potentially ditching the gear/loot system altogether?

[Mike]

So let me start of by saying that the games that Team Ninja has created since Nioh 1 are some of my favorite Action RPGs/looters. I loved Nioh1-2, Strangers Of Paradise (insane depth to builds), and even Wo Long after DLC2-3 really refined the gameplay systems and loosened the restrictions on the spirit system to allow for much more aggressive gameplay.

I read an article on GamesRader ( https://www.gamesradar.com/rise-of-the-ronin-seemingly-ditches-niohs-overwhelming-action-rpg-loot-system-and-fans-like-the-move/ ) that pretty much implied that there will not be any type of RNG based gear/loot system in the new RoTR game.

As a person that looks at modern Team ninja games like 3rd person diablo games rather the "souls-likes" (I love souls games but I don't play Nioh, SoP , or Wo Long for a souls-like experience), I'm not sure how I feel about this given the only reason I dumped hundreds of hours into their games is because the loot and the endgame systems really allowed for some crazy build creation to the point that it was almost unlimited what the player could create.

knowing that TN story telling is not their best aspects I fear this game will not retain players or offer the same level of replayablility their other games did with their inclusion of higher difficulties, loot rarities, builds, in-depth skill trees...etc.

I have no problem if this game they decided to go for a more traditional RPG with stagnant loot/gear, but I really hope that games like Nioh 2, SoP, and Wo Long will not be the last of their type. There is really no other AAA game that mergers combat depth, RNG loot systems, deep build creation,....etc like these games and I would hate to see this strange but oddly satisfying combination of genres/system mechanics to stop with Wo Long. We have TONS of Action RPGs with great combat, beautiful open worlds, good story telling,...etc, but we don't have many that combine 2-3 genres together to make something unique like the Nioh games.

Since there is not Rise of teh Ronin forum on steam (yet), I wanted to ask the Nioh players. What does everyone else think about the possibility of no loot/gear system in TN's next big game?

[Mike]

Początkowo opublikowane przez CremeCrimson:

Początkowo opublikowane przez kripcision:

lack of loot would lose potential replay value. the loot was a major reason for me that made nioh 2 / wo long great, i played elden ring and once i got to NG+ i just got bored, since almost all the items i could get from then on was just literal duplicates with no differences in them, nor improvements over the old gear.

however we shall see how rise of ronin really is after it releases, but i'm not exactly hyped for it anymore.

dopamine rat.

The loot system adds nothing to the gameplay. It's just more mental load for the player to deal with. Some people like the aforementioned dopamine junkies get their fix from numbers get bigger -- but I think it's a degenerate system. It's like youtube shorts or tiktok for gear. Cheap and ineffectual.

Początkowo opublikowane przez Mike:

No souls games (which Nioh is not) just have really good replay-ability which keeps players playing, their combat systems are like child's play compared to Nioh 2's. Nioh 2 on the other hand has good replay-ability AND a deep loot system for people to grind for hundreds and thousands of hours to perfect their builds. Also a lot of the player base of the the souls-like games (especially elden ring) mostly play PVP, not PVE which Nioh 2 is focused on.

People might not like my take but 99% of builds in Souls games play the same because the combat system is so simplified, where as in Nioh 2 thanks to the loot/stats and the deep combat mechanics, your build potential is almost limitless (even more in Strangers of Paradise)

Despite what "souls vets" say Nioh 2 is not a souls-like, which is why most of them complain about the loot system and want it removed. They are wanting Nioh 2 to be more like a souls game and remove the loot, but in reality Nioh 2 is a 3rd person diablo style looter, with combat that is deeper then any fromsoft game on the market.

EDIT: I also want to add that Dark Souls games are much much more simple then something like Nioh 2, which is another factor that makes their games more widely accepted and played by everyone. All of those streamers that beat the souls games in strange ways (DDR pad, racing wheel, with their feet, blind,...etc) are only able to do that because in reality Dark Souls games are very simplistic, all you need is patience, r1 spam, and i-frame dodge rolls and anyone can beat a Dark Souls game. Nioh on the other hand almost requires one to master the ki system, stance switches,...etc to have a decent chance at success, which is why so many souls play complain about the difficulty of Nioh 2 (they are not the same).

The brain rot on this take. Sorry dude, but "grinding hundreds of hours" to "perfect your build." Is like hearing someone say, "I love working overtime in a minimum wage job and getting paid in pizza parties as a bonus." Like, sure; you do you buddy, but it's an outdated MMORPG system that used to exist because gameplay back in the day was braindead and developers needed a system to keep players addicted.

Literally calling others preferences "brain rot" when games like Diablo 2 has been a hugely popular genre for years, is just stupid and childish.

You don't have to like loot based games like I do, but when you call someone else's opinion "brainrot" your not worth interacting with because you believe only your view/opinion is right and everyone elses opinion is wrong. I made this post to has a discussion not an argument of opinions like you seem to be focused on.

If you prefer "souls-likes" over something like Nioh 2, thats fine, but please stop wanting ALL games to fit your definition of "good", as I'm sure there are plenty of games you like that many others probably think are trash. At the end of the day we are discussing preferences NOT objective facts as you are trying to argue.

EDIT: also its far far deeper then "NUMBER GET BIG ME LIKE" as you are explaining it. For me its the freedom to create builds that play completely different from one another which is where the replayablility come in. Also the argument you made about "dopamine" could be made for the Souls like die hards that do nothing but challenge runs, speed runs,...etc. Each time they get that time down lower, or they get that perfect boss kill or run they get that dopamine hit EXACTLY like loot based games. Your argument about dopamine is pointless when ALL GAMES are created to keep players playing in different ways, its not just a phenomenon with loot based games ans only an idiot would think so.

[cacromwell3113]

Początkowo opublikowane przez cacromwell3113:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Mike:

People said the same thing about Wo Long and when they did they still complained lol. I just feel its "souls-likes" players who want all games to encompass a similar style. While I;m just saying the loot mechanics were unique in the Nioh games because they were not an after thought they were a huge part of the game.

I just don't want Wo Long to be the last of its kind that TN makes and I hope they know that many people love their game because of the gear/loot systems.

Thanks for the comment though

The way Wo Long handled loot was annoying. Team Ninja heard the "too much loot" criticism and tried to bundle the loot together and have you pick it up dark souls style. This took away the freedom you had to pick up what you wanted in Nioh. This was kind of offset with salvaging, but after a certain point you kept picking up lower tier gear with lower tier embedments with no way to filter out lower tier drops or upgrade the embedments you got from salvaging. Wo Long had more loot tiers then Nioh, but loot tiers were meaningless outside of embedments you could slot. It was an attempt to simplify things, but missed IMO.

I think a good middle way for Team ninja to appeal to "normies" who don't like to deal with copious loot drops, but still want to appeal to those who do would be to reallocate the loot grind from weapons and armor to Wo long style embedments. Weapons and armor can drop from bosses and something like the sworn brother system with NPCs. That would accomplish the streamlining they've been going for.

[Mike]

Początkowo opublikowane przez cacromwell3113:

Początkowo opublikowane przez cacromwell3113:

The way Wo Long handled loot was annoying. Team Ninja heard the "too much loot" criticism and tried to bundle the loot together and have you pick it up dark souls style. This took away the freedom you had to pick up what you wanted in Nioh. This was kind of offset with salvaging, but after a certain point you kept picking up lower tier gear with lower tier embedments with no way to filter out lower tier drops or upgrade the embedments you got from salvaging. Wo Long had more loot tiers then Nioh, but loot tiers were meaningless outside of embedments you could slot. It was an attempt to simplify things, but missed IMO.

I think a good middle way for Team ninja to appeal to "normies" who don't like to deal with copious loot drops, but still want to appeal to those who do would be to reallocate the loot grind from weapons and armor to Wo long style embedments. Weapons and armor can drop from bosses and something like the sworn brother system with NPCs. That would accomplish the streamlining they've been going for.

I get your point. Like I said if the Rise of the Ronin (if it ever comes to PC) has no loot, I'm fine with that, I just feel if they ever make a new Nioh or Wo Long games again, Loot HAS to be a part of the games, because now its a part of the games identity. I Nioh game without loot and crazy builds just won't be a Nioh game to me.

I get companies appealing to normies, but lets be real here, Team Ninja has never been the company to go to for casual friendly games lol. In fact their games have always been notorious for their difficulty and many times brutal difficulties (Ninja Gaiden series probably being their most notorious).

We all agree that the loot systems in TN games can be improved, but watering them down is not "improving" them imo. Having better loot filters and more user friendly UI, maybe even auto equip gear based on preferences, would be much better then removing systems imo.

I like Wo Long and I like the gear system in that game but its not really much different then the Nioh games, besides there being less variety in potential builds because a lot of the set bonuses, and thing like that were watered down to the point that they did not do to much in comparison to sets in Nioh 2.

Like I said I'm a huge TN fan so I'm willing to give most of their games a try, it will just be weird playing a game that plays similar to the Nioh games minus all of the builds, endgame systems,...etc lol.

[kripcision]

Początkowo opublikowane przez CremeCrimson:

Początkowo opublikowane przez kripcision:

lack of loot would lose potential replay value. the loot was a major reason for me that made nioh 2 / wo long great, i played elden ring and once i got to NG+ i just got bored, since almost all the items i could get from then on was just literal duplicates with no differences in them, nor improvements over the old gear.

however we shall see how rise of ronin really is after it releases, but i'm not exactly hyped for it anymore.

dopamine rat.

The loot system adds nothing to the gameplay. It's just more mental load for the player to deal with. Some people like the aforementioned dopamine junkies get their fix from numbers get bigger -- but I think it's a degenerate system. It's like youtube shorts or tiktok for gear. Cheap and ineffectual.

being able to constantly get better gear is fun, but to call me a dopamine rat is ironic. video games in general, going on social media, etc are all dopamine hits. you are not safe from being a victim of the dopamine release from video games. as the saying goes "the pot calling the kettle black"

remember nioh is an action RPG, if you remove the loot aspect, its no longer an rpg, its just an action game. nioh itself would still be one hell of a game without the loot, but it would not be the same.

[JtDarth]

Początkowo opublikowane przez kripcision:

Początkowo opublikowane przez CremeCrimson:

dopamine rat.

The loot system adds nothing to the gameplay. It's just more mental load for the player to deal with. Some people like the aforementioned dopamine junkies get their fix from numbers get bigger -- but I think it's a degenerate system. It's like youtube shorts or tiktok for gear. Cheap and ineffectual.

being able to constantly get better gear is fun, but to call me a dopamine rat is ironic. video games in general, going on social media, etc are all dopamine hits. you are not safe from being a victim of the dopamine release from video games. as the saying goes "the pot calling the kettle black"

remember nioh is an action RPG, if you remove the loot aspect, its no longer an rpg, its just an action game. nioh itself would still be one hell of a game without the loot, but it would not be the same.

Without the loot it would be a FAR more limited game, with a much staler endgame and less reason to try out different playstyles.
I have an obscene amount of time in the game precisely because of the variation all the different stats allows. I've taken 8 different 'theme build' characters through DotN, and 3 of those through not just underworld, but depths (up to 15, which is where the bloat creates pure frustration) as well.
If not for the game's variety of approach, driven by the impact of it's loot system, I'd have never put anywhere NEAR the frankly stupid amount of time I have in it.

Dopamine hits aren't bad, in and of themselves, and Nioh certainly cannot be placed on the same level of problematic as zoomer social media. Hell, I'd say it's far less problematic than PvP environments, particularly first person shooters, in general. It's the rare person who is getting a true dopamine hit just off of 'ooh loot'. More often than not they are getting a 'problem solving' hit from doing number crunching or seeing positive results of planning, which are both 'positive' hits instead of empty ones.

If Rise of the Ronin has no loot, that's fine. It's a different game. Now if they do a 'Nioh 3' and decide to cut back even as much as Wo Long, THEN I would have a problem. I think the biggest improvement that could be given to Nioh's loot system is to place less emphasis on graces, so that set bonuses aren't entirely outmoded, make some of the more powerful bonuses from sets show up with fewer pieces needed, and make guardian spirits more impactful, as well as reconsider how many stat bonuses that do different things are blocked off by each other when it comes to tempering. Doing that and solving the 'runaway stat bloat' problem in endgame would be the biggest improvements to the core systems that they could possibly make, aside the obvious 'more weapons/skills and better active skills balancing'.

[Nemesis]

0 interest on Rise of the Ronin

[Mike]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Nemesis:

0 interest on Rise of the Ronin

Why is that?

-No PC version on release?
-More focus oon story/open world rather then Nioh's mission based system?

Just curious.

[Alpo]

Personally, Wo Long + dlcs were so bad, I'm not interested in Team Ninja's future games anymore. So, also zero interest in Rise of who cares. No offense for the fans.

[JtDarth]

Początkowo opublikowane przez Alpo:

Personally, Wo Long + dlcs were so bad, I'm not interested in Team Ninja's future games anymore. So, also zero interest in Rise of who cares. No offense for the fans.

Yeah, Wo long was quite the disappointment. Next to no polish, regressions on things like basic QoL features, a combat system that hinges entirely around parries. Dunno why they thought that was going to go well with fans who'd already seen what they COULD do with Nioh 1, let alone Nioh 2.

[Mike]

Początkowo opublikowane przez JtDarth:

Początkowo opublikowane przez Alpo:

Personally, Wo Long + dlcs were so bad, I'm not interested in Team Ninja's future games anymore. So, also zero interest in Rise of who cares. No offense for the fans.

Yeah, Wo long was quite the disappointment. Next to no polish, regressions on things like basic QoL features, a combat system that hinges entirely around parries. Dunno why they thought that was going to go well with fans who'd already seen what they COULD do with Nioh 1, let alone Nioh 2.

Ehh I don't necessarily agree this as with the DLC the game actually opened up to some decent gameplay depth, especially compared to launch. I had this same feeling with Wo Long on release as you because release version of the game was shallow and got boring quick, however specifically at the release of DLC 2 that is when the game got A LOT better imo.

The game use to be ONLY about deflect attack, deflect attack, maybe use a martial Art or 2, rinse and repeat, and on release the spirit gauge along with the spells had WAY too much limitations on it making the player feel like they had no gameplay freedom. After DLC 2 a lot of things opened up the gameplay systems like:

- you could use up to 8 spell at ANY time with no moral needed to use them (on release the later spells could only be used halfway through a mission). Also tons of new and amazing spells were added with the DLCs.

- weapons can now have up to 6 martial arts on them at one time so there is much more variability to the gameplay (also they can be changed out now). With the much more use-able spirit meter you can literally chain as many MA together as possible to create some cool combos.

- (HUGE CHANGE) You have TWO spirit gauges now and you build up/retain spirit much long then before. This leads to actual combo oriented gameplay that allows the player many times more freedom on combat approach them the release version.

- Each weapon type got an added gimmicks to make them somewhat unique (Dual swords have perfect deflect that give crazy amounts of spirit, hammers have armor on attacks to your not hit out of them, Long sword has a stance mechanics,....etc).

- Martial Arts are actually useful now, since many have been readjusted in various ways (like some gives I-frames to dodge red attacks, some have armor, and all have been given faster start-up frames)

- There was also a now stun mechanic that allows the player to stun lock monsters like you could in Nioh 2, so combat feels much more fast paced and aggressive, rather then attack and defense.

I could go on and on about how much different the core gameplay is compared to the release version. Is it as deep as Nioh 2? Nope but it actually has its own systems to master now and in its final state the player has way more ways of defense then just deflect.

As a person who was heavily disappointing with Wo Long on release and still did not feel the game after DLC1, once DLC2 released the game became 10 times better imo and is a good TN game that has a different direction then Nioh 2. I actually had the same experience with Strangers of Paradise on release, but after the DLCs, classes, endgame,...etc that game became one of my favorite Action RPGs in recent memory.

Wo Long definitely had a disappointing launch but I personally feel the devs did a good job to make up for that with the last 2 DLCs as that is when major changes to the core system mechanics got changed/adjusted.

[Lockout]

it looks like wo long all over again, which is a bad thing. looks like they just reused a lot of assets from it.

[buttchin]

No pc, no buy
Bye bye 🤫🧏

[BoogtehWoog]

Początkowo opublikowane przez buttchin:

No pc, no buy
Bye bye 🤫🧏

Probably a year from now like Nioh 2. Let's hope, at least! And then maybe Nioh 3?!

[buttchin]

Początkowo opublikowane przez BoogtehWoog:

Początkowo opublikowane przez buttchin:

No pc, no buy
Bye bye 🤫🧏

Probably a year from now like Nioh 2. Let's hope, at least! And then maybe Nioh 3?!

I really hope so, i really love team ninja because of their combat system, i hope this game end up being good and succeed financial so someday we might get another ninja gaiden or nioh 3

[Mike]

Początkowo opublikowane przez buttchin:

Początkowo opublikowane przez BoogtehWoog:

Probably a year from now like Nioh 2. Let's hope, at least! And then maybe Nioh 3?!

I really hope so, i really love team ninja because of their combat system, i hope this game end up being good and succeed financial so someday we might get another ninja gaiden or nioh 3

I believe there is a very good chance of it coming to PC eventually just for the fact that even 1st party PS games are starting to come to PC which use to never happen (Last of Us, Horizon, Helldivers 2,.....etc), also every modern TN game has eventually came to PC in some capacity.

The newer videos of the game look much better then the early stuff, but the worst part for TN is that they are directly competing with Dragons Dogma 2 as they come out on the same day. As PC players we get to enjoy DD2 and patiently wait for RotR, but PS5 players will be fighting over the 2 on release and lets all be honest that DD2 has way more hype around it then RotR.

I feel releasing on the same day as a huge Capcom release is not the best marketing decision, especially when both are competing in the same market/genre, that being open world japanese Action ARPGs. Hopefully it still sells well, and does not get eaten up by the DD2 hype.