I think this may have the most complicated combat of any soulslike I've played

[gungadin22000]

The Dark Souls series doesn't really have particularly complex combat. Hard, but not complex - dodge, block or parry giant boss attacks, retaliate when you get a window, heal, maybe use some spells or items. Basic but is a tried and trued formula that works well.

RotR takes a lot of inspiration from the Nioh series, but despite not giving the player the ability to throw fireballs or turn into a demon, I'd honestly say RoTR has the more complicated combat.

Long story short, it's due to the unbelievable variety of weapons, styles and movesets in the game. In Nioh, when you spotted a yokai, you pretty much knew exactly what it was capable of, and the human bosses had fairly predictable movesets after facing them once.

In RoTR, I find myself going on the defensive a lot more than I did in Nioh, blocking or evading attacks while trying to figure out which one of the 500 katana styles my opponent is using and how the hell their red attack counter timing works. As RotR also has more emphasis on human vs human combat, trying to work out the most efficient way to deplete your enemy's ki bar works differently than in Nioh, as Nioh's main opponents were all yokai who did not parry or counter and had a static ki bar that did not regenerate by itself.

Granted, Nioh has a lot more emphasis on ki fluxing and ki pulsing than RotR, but both of those things sorta became muscle memory after a while and didn't really add anything to the game for me. I prefer RotR's blade flash mechanic - it is less intrusive than in Nioh and is less necessary for success, which I like. I also very much enjoy the free attack on weapon switch mid-combo.

To me, RotR is therefore a more tactical game than Nioh in the sense that it is more about finding openings in your opponents defense allowing you to stagger them and then follow up with huge combos for massive damage, blade flashing or swapping weapons to get the most out of your ki bar. Nioh gives you more options to do damage with its transformations and spells, but the enemies always seemed to me to be more giant slabs of HP bars rather than reactive enemies.

This is all just my opinion, of course. Amazing game, all around.

[Lahoo Eckbert]

Yeah it's almost too complicated for it's own good. Variety of weapons/movesets is generally a very bad mix with a parry oriented play style, that's why Sekiro had one weapon and one stance.

TN wanted to implement Wo Long's play style into Nioh 2. It just didn't turn out well. It's an abomination. I doesn't feel natural.

[n1lknarf]

Originally posted by Lahoo Eckbert:

Yeah it's almost too complicated for it's own good. Variety of weapons/movesets is generally a very bad mix with a parry oriented play style, that's why Sekiro had one weapon and one stance.

TN wanted to implement Wo Long's play style into Nioh 2. It just didn't turn out well. It's an abomination. I doesn't feel natural.

It's the damn stamina system.
They should've done the wolong tug of war system.

[Tr0w]

It's manageable very early but once i got the dojo i quickly found myself getting anime'd to death by ridiculous characters to the point i think i'm just going to give up on trying to get the upgrades for those styles.

[[Rdog]Maljas]

Personally, I think its great how complex it is. I means effort is rewarded, which is something that a lot of games don't do well.

[medion_no]

Get a tank build if youre having issues with combat. You can spam medicine and fire stones both.

[WikiTora]

Very well put. I have the game on PS5, combat is amazing! Shame for the performance on PC.

[Simbolic]

Whats most complicated and frankly a real pain. Is needing to constantly switch styles since enemies are weaker to specific styles. Which makes it difficult when several enemies use different styles. Constantly changing styles and weapons makes it real pain. Since kind of forces you to play certain styles instead of using one that you might prefer. The move sets being completely different for each also really makes it all the more difficult. Making it so you can't really play the way you would want.
I would also compare this more to Wo Long then Nioh 2. Nioh 2 did have the different stances and burst counters but Wo Long was very heavy on parrying attacks. It forced you to get good at parrying attacks like this game tries to do.

[medion_no]

Originally posted by Simbolic:

Whats most complicated and frankly a real pain. Is needing to constantly switch styles since enemies are weaker to specific styles. Which makes it difficult when several enemies use different styles. Constantly changing styles and weapons makes it real pain. Since kind of forces you to play certain styles instead of using one that you might prefer. The move sets being completely different for each also really makes it all the more difficult. Making it so you can't really play the way you would want.
I would also compare this more to Wo Long then Nioh 2. Nioh 2 did have the different stances and burst counters but Wo Long was very heavy on parrying attacks. It forced you to get good at parrying attacks like this game tries to do.

Its more a recommendation than a must (Ghost of Tsushima im looking at you). You can beat perfectly fine an enemy with a style hes not weak to. I mean i do it all the time, your overall build its more relevant and you have tools to leverage the fights (rifles, shurikens, stones, etc). People forget this game is about deplinishing the blue stamina bar of the enemy.

[Tr0w]

Originally posted by medion_no:

Get a tank build if youre having issues with combat. You can spam medicine and fire stones both.

Apart from that if you want the dojo unlocks you need to beat your opponents while only being allowed to take like 2-3 hits max and some of these guys are just wildly unreasonable fights, looking at you French shield guy, two swords anime flash step guy, and anime draw cut lasers guy

[That Disgruntled Ninja]

I have like 160 hours or so between the ps5 version and the pc version and just learned that you can cancel violent gale/flash attacks with martial skills. I think the skill ceiling is just as high as Niohs if not higher

[xabre2th]

it just wolong with stamina...and it make the pacing very passive do to enemy can power though your moves in any time and delete your stamina...
also the push back on success parry allways push your character toward wall and making it hard to see....

this is even worse than wolong...

[Lahoo Eckbert]

Originally posted by n1lknarf:

Originally posted by Lahoo Eckbert:

Yeah it's almost too complicated for it's own good. Variety of weapons/movesets is generally a very bad mix with a parry oriented play style, that's why Sekiro had one weapon and one stance.

TN wanted to implement Wo Long's play style into Nioh 2. It just didn't turn out well. It's an abomination. I doesn't feel natural.

It's the damn stamina system.
They should've done the wolong tug of war system.

No it's not "just stamina."

It's enemies having constant hyper armor making you regret committing to attacks without depleting their Ki.
It's enemies chaining one red attack after another even after they get parried perfectly.
It's the different parry timing on nearly every single attack.
It's horrible distance management(enemies using charge attacks from point blank range to throw you off)
It's terrible camera angles.
It's the terrible rock paper scissors mechanic with stances.
It's useless set bonuses and item affinities(let's be honest you haven't looked at those stats on the weapons once).

[Veg]

Nah. Its actually the most simple. You perfect parry a 37 hit combo to do two attacks in return. Theres nothing more to it then that. Die until you have their combo perfectly mapped to your brain then win.

[Tr0w]

Originally posted by Lahoo Eckbert:

Originally posted by n1lknarf:

It's the damn stamina system.
They should've done the wolong tug of war system.

No it's not "just stamina."

It's enemies having constant hyper armor making you regret committing to attacks without depleting their Ki.
It's enemies chaining one red attack after another even after they get parried perfectly.
It's the different parry timing on nearly every single attack.
It's horrible distance management(enemies using charge attacks from point blank range to throw you off)
It's terrible camera angles.
It's the terrible rock paper scissors mechanic with stances.
It's useless set bonuses and item affinities(let's be honest you haven't looked at those stats on the weapons once).

The only stats that interest me are the set bonus ones, as soon as i see the rest of the Diablo random stat vomit i tune out. Man i can't stand Diablo and it's obnoxious systems, utterly trash and supremely overrated game design that people goon over because of it's pre-rendered cutscenes and their own addiction problems.

[Lahoo Eckbert]

Originally posted by Tr0w:

Originally posted by Lahoo Eckbert:

No it's not "just stamina."

It's enemies having constant hyper armor making you regret committing to attacks without depleting their Ki.
It's enemies chaining one red attack after another even after they get parried perfectly.
It's the different parry timing on nearly every single attack.
It's horrible distance management(enemies using charge attacks from point blank range to throw you off)
It's terrible camera angles.
It's the terrible rock paper scissors mechanic with stances.
It's useless set bonuses and item affinities(let's be honest you haven't looked at those stats on the weapons once).

The only stats that interest me are the set bonus ones, as soon as i see the rest of the Diablo random stat vomit i tune out. Man i can't stand Diablo and it's obnoxious systems, utterly trash and supremely overrated game design that people goon over because of it's pre-rendered cutscenes and their own addiction problems.

I have no problem with Diablo 4 type loot and item affinities as long as they mean something.
They don't mean anything in this game. 0.7% health recovery on counterspark ? Oh I couldn't care less.