Grim Dawn Analysis

Grim Dawn Analysis

David Hunter

September 19, 2018

1 Overview

Ever since 1996, when the first Diablo was released by Blizzard, the ARPG has become a revered, beloved and also sometimes derided genre. Grim Dawn is one of the newer ARPGs, and was developed by Crate Entertainment and released on PC in February, 2016.

2 Formal Elements

Although the graphics and complexity of the action have of course improved since 1996, many elements have remained the same.

1. 3/4 top-down isometric camera angle.
2. The player controls a single character by pointing and clicking on the map, items, and characters. Number keys and hotkeys can be used to trigger abilities, or open/close menus.
3. The player will battle dozens of enemies at a time, collecting randomized items, money, and weapons and armor.
4. The player will navigate a 3D world with different buildings, caves, mines, etc to explore.

2.1 Players

The player’s character is a recovered ”Taken,” a human whose body was taken over by a being from another plane, called Aetherials, but then released. The player may choose a male or female character, and after reaching level 2, from one of six initial classes.

1. Soldier: tanky and aggressive melee damage dealers
2. Demolitionist: focuses on using guns and bombs
3. Occultist: uses curses, summoned monsters, poison and acid damage
4. Nightblade: dual-wielders, high DPS but low health,
5. Arcanist: use powerful magic spells and weapon enchantments
6. Shaman: high damage melee fighters, can also summon beasts and use lightning magic

After reaching level 10 a second class may be chosen.

The player controls the avatar as described above, by clicking on the ground, various objects, and characters. There is no direct control scheme, no dodging, swimming, or flying, or any other advanced movement options or controls.

Like most ARPGs, the player has several equipment slots for armor, accessories, and weapons. You will spend a large amount of time going over item stats, comparing them, and cogitating about which ones you should keep for later, sell, equip now, dismantle, etc.

2.2 Objectives

The avatar wakes up after the Aetherial has left your avatar’s body. Immediately, you are tasked with assisting nearby village of Devil’s Crossing by investigating what is causing so many living dead to appear. This leads to other tasks to help them out, then to help out the neighboring village, etc. These tasks will see the player slaughtering hordes of undead, insects, trolls, robbers, and religious fanatics, as well as gathering important items and materials to help out the settlements. Throughout these trials, you will come to know the threat posed by Aetherials in more detail, and essentially work your way up their hierarchy.

2.3 Rules

2.3.1 Areas

There are many areas that only unlock after a particular story point has been reached, and dozens that require materials, such as scrap or dynamite, to clear debris away and/or build a new bridge. The player may fast travel at any point, even during combat, to a previously existing portal somewhere else on the map. In general, the above ground area enemies scale to the player’s level within limits determined by the area itself. The opening areas of the game have a maximum level of around 20, for example, while mid-game areas max out around 40.

2.3.2 Combat

The combat revolves around using the left mouse button for your main attack /ability, right mouse button for a secondary ability, and the number and letter keys for others. There is no active dodge, but you can avoid certain enemy attacks by moving out of their area of influence.

If the player dies, the player will respawn at the closest main town, leaving a tombstone behind with some XP. If the player moves through to that area again, the monsters that have already been killed remain dead, but bosses regain some of their health. If the player can reach the tombstone without dying, they may regain some of the lost XP, but if they die before reaching it, it will be gone forever.

2.3.3 Stats and Leveling

The player has direct control over three main stats:

• Physique is the main influence on player health, health regeneration, and defensive ability. It is also one of the main requirements for armor, melee weapons and shields.
• Cunning is the main requirement for ranged weapons. It provides bonuses to physical, piercing, and duration damage.
• Spirit is the main requirement for spells and magical items. It gives bonuses to magical damage types.

When the player levels up, they will be given one stat point to invest in one of these stats, plus three skill points. Skills points may be invested either directly in skills or in increasing the level of one’s class. Your character has a particular level, which increases based on experience received from killing monsters, finding lore books, and completing quests. Your classes for that character also have levels, which are determined by how many skill points you invest in them. Investing points in a class gives bonuses in differing amounts to the three main stats above, in addition to increasing health and spirit. Besides these benefits, increasing your class level will also unlock further skills in that class’s skill tree at 5- or 10-level intervals. Once a skill has been unlocked, the player may use one of the three skill points to activate it or to increase the skill’s level. Depending on the skill, this could mean increasing the damage dealt, increasing the range of its effect, increasing the effect size or duration of the effect, or several other changes.

Besides your three main stats, player level also functions as a requirement for some items, so even if you have enough Physique to use a shield, perhaps you must be a level 20 character, but you are currently at 15. Tough luck.

Throughout the world of Grim Dawn, the player can find many shrines. Some of these can be repaired or restored by sacrificing items, while others have been defiled by monsters which the player must slay in order to cleanse them. Once restored or cleansed, the player will receive a devotion point. Devotion points make up the other main prong of the leveling system. The player may invest devotion points in constellations: groups of stat bonuses and skills which must be unlocked in a particular order. Each constellation belongs to a class:

• Ascendant: related to immense feats or reverence from others
• Chaotic: entropy and destruction
• Eldritch: wild forces of magic
• Order: harmony and balance
• Primordial: life, death, reality itself

and may have affinity requirements (for example, the tier two constellation Affliction requires the player to have 4 points of devotion in Ascendant, 3 points in Chaotic, and 4 points in Eldritch before it unlocks and becomes available to the player). As the player unlocks stars in a constellation, they will receive affinity bonuses with the class to which the constellation belongs. These may help to unlock more powerful constellations with higher affinity requirements. Some constellations have a special skill which may be associated with a class skill of the player’s choosing. For example, by completely investing in the Falcon constellation, the player may unlock the Falcon Swoop ability, which spawns a certain number of falcons that fly through enemies dealing damage based on the currently equipped weapon, plus a certain amount of bleeding damage over three seconds. This skill can be triggered by using a class skill. If you are playing as a Shaman, say, you could link the Falcon Swoop to the Shaman’s Wind Devil skill, which creates swirling tornadoes that deal damage to any enemies in their path. Whenever you use the Wind Devil skill, you will have a chance of also triggering the Falcon Swoop skill, increasing your damage across a broader spectrum of damage types. As long as you have Falcon Swoop it will gain experience as you do, gaining in power, duration and the number of falcons that come to your aid.

2.3.4 Reputation

Similarly to Din’s Curse and Depths of Peril, the monsters and human groups in the game have opinions of the player’s actions, and will even battle each other. The more monsters of a group that you kill, the worse your reputation with that group becomes. This will lead to more monsters spawning in, and more hero units will appear as well. For human factions, if the player has a positive relationship with them, this will allow the player to purchase items at greater discounts, access unique item crafting recipes, and a few other benefits that increase proportionately to your reputation with the faction.

2.3.5 Crafting and Inventory

Harking back to the ARPG oldies, Grim Dawn uses a grid based inventory system that inspires players to take up Tetris in order to better squeeze extra loot into it. Each item takes up a certain number of slots on the grid, from two-handed swords that take up 1x4, chest and leg armors which are 2x3, to general components and accessories which are 1x1. In general, equipable items do not stack, while consumables do. Over time, the player will receive extra bags that increase one’s inventory space, and there is a ”smuggler” character who serves a storehouse for items the player wants to keep for the long haul or to transfer to another character. Still, you will spend a large amount of time pondering whether a +3% Physique bonus outweighs a +3% attack speed.

Items come in five tiers based on value/rarity:

• Common: ordinary items, weapons, and armor. Provide no magical damage or protection.
• Magical: a common item that can have one magical prefix and/or one magical suffix.
• Rare: a magical item that has a chance of getting a rare affix (Magical Prefix+ Magical Suffix, Rare Prefix + Magical Suffix, Rare Prefix + Rare Suffix). Rare affixes provide more substantial bonuses.
• Epic: These items are unique: they have unique stats, unique art, etc, and are not based on the random generation of Prefix + Base Item + Suffix.
• Legendary: Legendary items are higher level epic items: they are unique, but just better quality. They do not start to drop until the player reaches level 50.

As the player travels around the world of Grim Dawn, they will kill thousands, possibly millions of enemies. These enemies will quite often drop loot, which the player will pick up because there was a nice jingle sound and they look shiny and special. The player must then sort through the loot. Besides equipable items, there are also materials or components that will drop. These are frequently based on body parts of the slain enemies, Ancient Armor Plate from undead enemies, or Vicious Jawbone or Bristly Fur from various animal or beast enemies. Collecting the required number of these components allows the player to create a complete piece of material which may be applied to an appropriate piece of equipment to give it a bonus, or used at a blacksmith to craft a new item. For truly high level legendary items, there will be a complex crafting chain: collecting X of material A, Y of material B, and Z of material C, then combining some of A and other materials to create a more advanced material D, combining B and something else to create material E, and possibly using a blueprint and still more materials to create a relic or other advanced item F, before finally combining it all together to get the item you wanted: AFT, which stands for About Fucking Time. Besides requiring the parts and level to craft these items at the blacksmith, you will also need enough ”iron bits,” the in-game currency.

2.4 Procedures

2.4.1 Leveling and Upgrading

Deciding how to level up your character is a recurring procedure the player will undertake. As described above, this involves three main choices: how to spend your stat point, how to invest your skill points, and finally how to invest any devotion points you received from cleansing shrines.

The second part is deciding on equipment, which will depend on your character build, skills, and what item upgrade materials you have available.

2.4.2 Exploring

The world of Grim Dawn is a large interconnected network of paths with some larger open areas. Throughout the world, the player can find numerous caves, mines, ruins, dungeons etc, which are of course filled with monsters and other creatures which the player may kill indiscriminately. There are also pieces of lore scattered around which tell a larger story of people fleeing their homes, good or at least neutral humans turning to crime and banditry, and many people being taken over by demonic invaders.

The player can also find secret hidden areas, areas not marked on the map that can only be accessed by destroying a particular wall or having a particular key. These often contain high level loot or even one-time chests, which one appear once per character on each difficulty setting.

2.4.3 Crafting

Crafting ties into many of the game systems: combat, in which the player may find needed components, the many faction-based shops and vendors which may have a critical item, and the faction-based reputation system which unlocks higher level recipes/blueprints and materials.

2.4.4 Boss-Slaying

The majority of game time will be spent moving from a hub to the next boss in the game, whether the boss is required to be killed in order to unlock the next area of the game, or is one of the ubiquitous bounties that the player may complete for the factions in the game. The bosses are typically higher level than the player (between 2-5 levels higher), and come with large health bars, powerful spells and attacks, and some unique abilities. Killing them will typically give the player XP, money, items, and a boost/deduction with several factions.

2.5 Resources

This section covers the resources in Grim Dawn.

2.5.1 Abstract

• Health: This will slowly regenerate over time given the right equipment and stats. If it goes to zero the player dies and will reappear at the last main town the player visited.
• Spirit: This is used for casting spells and using special abilities.
• Player Level: The player’s level will increase once enough XP has been acquired. Each level up increases the amount of XP required to reach the next level, and also provides +10 to both Offensive and Defensive Abilities.
• Class Level: Upon leveling up, the player will receive 3 skill points, which may be invested in skills or in increasing the player’s class level. Each class provides different bonuses per level to Cunning, Physique, Spirit, Health, Spirit Energy, Offensive Abillity, and Defensive Ability. New abilities also unlock at the 5, 10, 15,20, 25, 32, 40, and 50 marks.
• Player XP: Player XP is received by reading lore, killing enemies, and completing quests.
• Skills: Each class has approximately 30 skills, which about 2-5 new skills unlocked at each of the marks mentioned above.
• Skill Points: The player will receive between 3-1 skill points each time they level up their character. Until level 50, they receive 3 points, then the number drops to 2, again drops to 1 after level 90.
• Devotion Points: For each shrine which the player cleanses, you will receive one devotion point which can be spent as described previously.
• Celestial Power XP: Each equipped celestial power gains XP as the player gains XP. So, if you kill 10 monsters worth 100 XP each, each celestial power you have equipped will gain 1000 XP.
• Celestial Power Level: When you reach a set amount of XP for each Celestial Power, it will move to the next rank, which will increase its power.
• Stats: The stats described in 2.3.3 are all abstract resources, although they are effected by player level, class and class level, and currently equipped items.

2.5.2 Concrete

• Consumables: There are many different consumables, but the main two are health potions and spirit potions. Consumables have a cool down, so they cannot be spammed.
• Items: Items come in several different varieties: there are many types of weapons, some usable with with one hand, others requiring two; there are pieces of armor for each armor slot on the character; there are accessories, such as rings, amulets, relics, etc. These may be equipped if the player has the requisite stats, or they may be sold, dropped, or dismantled.
• Materials: The player can gather many materials throughout the world of Grim Dawn. These can be gathered from fallen enemies, received from dismantling items, or assembled from lower level materials at a blacksmith.
• Notes: The player can find dozens of different notes throughout the levels of Grim Dawn. These grant varying amounts of XP and tell the player extra backstory about what occurred.
• Blueprints: Blueprints and recipes are special consumable items that allow the player to assemble the item detailed in them at a blacksmith, provided they have the required materials and money.
• Pets: The player may only have one pet active at a time. This is usually a summoned creature that will accompany the player for as long as it has health. Pets may deal damage to enemies and keep them occupied while the player is dealing with others. They also have special abilities which increase their effectiveness.
• Money: The game uses iron bits as its cash. Chests and monsters sometimes drop iron bits, but they can also be received for completing quests, and by selling items. Money is required to purchase items from vendors, dismantle items, create items, and to respec the player’s skill and devotion points.

2.6 Conflicts

2.6.1 Stat Point Investment

The player only receives 85 stat points to spend, along with 220 skill points. This is not enough to max out your stats nor your skills, therefore, the player must choose carefully and consider which skills and stats will most benefit their class, equipment, and build.

2.6.2 Factions

The player cannot please each faction equally. While most quests and most human factions are neutral regarding each other, two in particular are diametrically opposed. Depending on who the player decides to support, the opposing faction will become your enemies.

2.7 Boundaries

2.7.1 Stat Point Investment

The player only receives 85 stat points to spend, along with 220 skill points, although these hard limits are extended in the expansion packs.

2.7.2 Level

The player may reach a max level of 85, but this is increased in the DLC.

2.7.3 NPCs

Most NPCs cannot be attacked or killed. However, their status may change depending on the player’s dialogue choices.

2.7.4 Map

Many areas of the map are initially locked to the player until they can either complete the requisite quests to unlock them, or until they can gather the needed materials to do so.

2.7.5 Inventory

The player begins with a 12 x 8 inventory grid, but will later acquire additional bags of 8 x 8 each.

2.8 Outcomes

There is one main outcome for Grim Dawn: the player defeats the final boss, a mythical creature that is attempting to bring an invading army of Aetherials into the mundane world. The player may continue to play at that difficulty to farm, or to finish any remaining quests.

3 Dramatic Elements

Grim Dawn has relatively strong story elements. The characters for the main quests’ main conversations all have voiced dialogue, but the rest of the optional dialogue and all the other characters’ dialogue is unvoiced. There are almost no scenes besides the opening one, and there are no cutscene or special animations during conversation.

3.1 Characters

The weakest part of Grim Dawn is in the characterization of the characters. They have very little personality, and will mostly only speak to the player about the mission at hand.

3.2 Story

The story begins with several people cornering an Aetherial that has taken over a human’s body. They hang the Aetherial, which then flees the body. The body is the player. You awaken after having been possessed, and are quickly given a task to help a nearby village, as usually happens when you almost die from hanging. The player will interact with the NPCs of the village, and even find survivors out in the areas now occupied by robbers and monsters. After completing the first task, it naturally leads to another, and then another; necessitating the player’s eventually departure to other settlements to seek help for the beleaguered Devil’s Crossing.

Along the way, the player will encounter other settlements and NPCs in need of assistance, and other factions. Upon reaching Homestead, the player will have the opportunity to choose between the Order of Death’s Vigil and Kymon’s Chosen. Whichever faction the player does not choose will become an enemy faction, and whenever the player encounters that faction’s units, they will be hostile.

After assisting Homestead, the player will fight their way to Fort Ikon. Rinse and repeat the previous steps.

4 Dynamic Elements

This section covers the game features that change in reaction to the player’s actions/game progress.

4.1 Day / Night Cycle

The game features a day/night cycle. As time passes, the lighting will change from day to night and back again. This seems done mostly for cosmetic reasons and does not affect the monsters or gameplay.

4.2 Enemy Spawning

The number and type of enemies that will spawn in is determined partly by the character’s level and also by the character’s reputation with the faction that they are fighting.

4.3 Faction Reputation

As the player helps out a faction, their reputation with that faction will naturally increase. Conversely, if you kill thousands and thousands of Aetherial monsters, your reputation with the Aetherials will be highly negative. A positive reputation gives the player discounts on items, access to special faction items, and even access to the faction quest table, which will randomly create new quests to help increase your reputation with the faction. A negative reputation leads to increase enemy spawns and more hero unit spawns, making that faction harder to fight against.

4.4 Patterns

This section focuses on game patterns as discussed by Ernest Adams and Joris Dormans in Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design.

4.4.1 Playing Style Reinforcement

As with many ARPGs, the player will receive tons of loot. This loot can give the player new abilities or powerful stat boosts, or even crippling penalties. The player can choose loot, stats, and skills that best match their chosen play style.

4.4.2 Dynamic Friction

Dynamic friction, like the stopping mechanism below, appears in several places in gameplay. Anything involving leveling in Grim Dawn makes use of this pattern. Experience requirements to achieve the next level increase from level to level, as do the number of points required to unlock the next tier of abilities in the class skill trees.

Faction-based bonuses and penalties require exponentially increasing values of reputation in order to receive them, and the number and level of enemies that spawn in is mostly controlled by the player’s level: most enemies will appear at or slightly above the player’s level, while hero and boss units could be at or 5 or more levels higher. Of course, the level of the enemies is also limited by the area: unless the unit is part of a randomly generated quest, the max level is determined by the area and the difficulty the player is playing on.

4.4.3 Stopping Mechanism

The stopping mechanism pattern is mostly seen in skill cooldowns: after using a skill the player must wait a minimum amount of time before being able to use it again. This time varies from skill to skill, and can be modified by skill point investment and item bonuses.

Another place is in the skill points received per level up. After reaching certain caps described above, the number of skill points decreases one by one.

4.4.4 Trade

The player may farm items and sell them for more cash at many different vendors.

5 Conclusion

Grim Dawn is a deep ARPG experience, with hours of gameplay in it. Although the story elements are not the most brilliant seen in RPG history, they are not laughable nor worthy of denigration. It allows the player to customize their character’s equipment, stats, and skills to produce varied and diverse character types and playstyles.

5.1 Potent Elements

Character customization and the lure of getting that one game changing piece of loot are powerful draws that will bring the player back again and again.

5.2 Areas for Improvement

Areas are always the same, making it somewhat more repetitive than necessary to farm for XP, items, or blueprints.

More Game Jams, Busy October

hey all,

It has been a surprisingly busy summer. Last August, I got the idea for Particularly Wavy and spent most of the last year working on that. Because of that, I didn't really do any game jams between 2017, August and 2018, May. However, in July and August this year I did participate in several game jams. The latest one was the Brackeys Game Jam, which had the theme of light. The game I created for that jam, Salvation of the Fireflies, has gotten more comments than my usual projects, so I'd like to extend my work on that a little and try to polish it up.

I've got one more coming up in a month or so, but my current focus is on two projects: a visual novel that I'm working with a very small team on, and my RPG/RTS project. For the former, we need player profile saving systems, and also systems that can interact with Fungus, which is a free plug in we are using to create the menus and dialogue. For the later, I am still hacking away at the date / time system. The goal there is to be able to create holidays, to correctly add and subtract amounts of time from a current date/time, and lastly to compute the difference between two dates/times. These actions will be necessary for making time pass correctly, waiting in game, and tracking time limits for quests.

Next month is going to be superbusy. Michi and I are planning on taking a four day hiking/camping trip to the Japanese Northern Alps, specifically Mt. Hotaka, and the very next day after we get back we're attending a performance of Mozart's The Magic Flute. The next weekend, we're going to see Frank Lloyd Wright's Imperial Hotel design near Nagoya, and the week after that we're checking out a Paul McCartney concert.

It is now six months until the next GDC, and I'm determined to go in 2019, no matter what. I really regret not going in 2018, but this time I've got enough saved up already and I plan on continuing to save throughout the year to make sure this happens.

Cheers,

Calendar and Day Cycle Updates, Back into Game Jams

Hey all,

So I am still hard at work on on my calendar and day/night cycle editor systems. I have most of the basic functionality working as I want now, and I have added a lot of sanity checks to help prevent myself or others from creating weird dates and times, such as months or time periods with negative lengths, or adding time periods with the same name (you can't have two Junes).

Besides that project, I've got a couple others either out now or in the pipeline. Just this week, I completed an extremely small project for the Shadow Game Jam. I'm planning on updating it with some more sounds effects and some slightly improved controls and graphics, but my main "stretch goal" is to get elliptical orbits working.

I also have another shadow-themed game which Michi came up with the idea for after asking me about the first game. That project is still in its extremely early stages, but I think it could be really interesting.

That's all for now, but I'll make sure to keep everyone update.

Cheers,

NieR: Automata Analysis

NieR: Automata Analysis

David Hunter

August 15, 2018

1 Overview

NieR: Automata is an action RPG developed by Platinum Games and published by Square Enix in February 2017.

2 Formal Elements

NieR: Automata is a direct sequel to NieR, which was released in 2010. NieR itself is a spin-off of the Darkengard series. Much like its predecessors, NieR: Automata combines

• flying combat reminiscent of Geometry Wars and more classic twin stick shooters,
• vertical and horizontal scrolling shoot ’em up gameplay similar to Ikagura, Aerofighter, and others
• platforming action a la Mario Brothers, Castlevania and Metroid
• 3^rd-person action combat in the style of Bayonetta or Devil May Cry
• RPG elements including dialogue choices and leveling mechanics

2.1 Players

NieR: Automata is played from various 3^rd-person perspectives: top-down, side-view, and over the shoulder. Throughout the first playthrough, the player will control several different characters:

• 2B: a female android who can fly a combat mech, and who can wield two different weapons in melee combat
• 9S: a male android who can also fly a combat mech, and who wields one weapon in melee combat. His unique ability is hacking. This allows him to unlock doors and boxes that are blocked to 2B, and in combat allows him to take control of, damage, or use as allies various robotic and android enemies throughout the game
• : A2: another female android with identical abilities as 2B. She can hack under special circumstances
• various robots at certain plot points

NieR: Automata shares several tropes with Dark Souls: although it is a single-player experience, the player may find the corpses of other players around the game world with custom messages left by those players. Further, when the player dies, their android consciousness can be easily downloaded into a new body, however, any experience and custom chips (similar to skills or abilities in other RPGs) remain in the previous body. The player must retrieve the experience and chips from the previous body before dying again, otherwise, they will be lost permanently.

2.2 Objectives

The player is tasked with eliminating a machine threat on Earth. Aliens invaded several hundred or thousand years ago, but have not been seen in centuries. Humans retreated from Earth and (we are told) live on the Moon. Meanwhile, alien-created machines and human-created androids engage in a long drawn-out proxy war on Earth’s surface. Throughout the story, the player will be forced to fight and ”kill” machines, who are claimed to be inhuman, lacking consciousness, etc, but who repeatedly demonstrate just the opposite.

The player may choose to engage in several side quests. These often reduce to fetch quests or kill 5 As, but showcase the game’s generally well-written dialogue.

2.3 Rules

2.3.1 Areas

The game is made of several discrete areas, most of which are interconnected. Some, such as the mysterious tower at the end and the Bunker, can only be reached through a loading screen. In general, new areas are unlocked through reaching plot points.

Although not a rule of gameplay per se, camera control is altered dramatically in certain areas and during certain sections of the game. During the opening, the camera follows 2B’s combat mech around the same as in a top-down shooter: it is stuck in one place while the background and enemies scroll by. The camera later changes to that of a typical third-person RPG, and still later to side-scrolling platformer. Sometimes this is triggered by reaching some story point, sometimes it is triggered by entering and exiting particular areas.

2.3.2 Combat

NieR: Automata was developed by Platinum Games. That by itself should create an image about what combat is like. In more detail, 2B and A2 have light and heavy melee attacks; both can be charged to deal more damage. Different animations are played based on what weapons are equipped. In addition, all three main androids have access to ranged attacked by using pods. Initially, the player only has access to one pod which fires plasma/laser blasts, but may later gain access to a pod with a rocket launcher and another with a lightning-like attack. Pods may be upgraded and modified with different special abilities on cooldown timers.

Players may jump and dodge during combat. An attack immediately following a successful dodge triggers a counterattack. Light and heavy attacks, ranged attacks, dodges, and jumping attacks can all be strung together in balletic combos.

2.3.3 Stats and Leveling

In NieR: Automata, XP, weapons, and chips gained by one character are shared by all playable characters. As the player completes main and side quests, hacks and or kills enemies, they will gain XP. Like many RPGs, NieR: Automata makes use of an exponential equation to determine how much XP is needed to level up: the equation 7.98 * NextLevel².6 closely matches the XP needed to reach the next level. Unlike most RPGs, NieR: Automata has a limited set of stats.

• HP: This is increased by level and determines how much damage the player can receive before dying.
• Melee Damage: Determines how much damage the player deals with melee weapons.
• Ranged Damage: Determines how much damage one’s pod attacks deal.
• Defense: Determines how much damage is absorbed.

Besides the stats above, there are many ”hidden” stats that can be affected by equipping different chips. Movement speed, shock waves to weapon attacks, speed of health regeneration, and the stats above can all be modified by chips.

2.3.4 Crafting and Inventory

NieR: Automata features light crafting elements. In general, the playable characters’ appearances can only be slightly modified by equipping hair ribbons, wigs, or other small cosmetic changes. New weapons may be found around the game world or purchased from weapon vendors, and can also be upgraded by collecting the required number of parts and spending increasing amounts of currency for each upgrade.

Chips may also be upgraded by combining two chips of the same level, producing one chip of the next highest level. Although this does require exponentially increasing numbers of chips, chip drops become increasingly frequent, and the rate at which chips drop can, of course, be modified by equipping a chip.

2.4 Procedures

2.4.1 Leveling and Upgrading

While completing quests and killing enemies, the player will gain XP and collect parts and money to be used for leveling up and upgrading equipment. Leveling occurs automatically, but upgrading chips and weapons must take place at weapon or item vendors.

2.4.2 Exploring

NieR: Automata features several diverse environment types, including a space station, forest, city ruins, amusement park, desert, and a few others. Many of these environments are multi-layered, with several stories both above ground and below ground. Although humanity no longer lives on Earth, the environments are dotted with small android and robotic villages, as well as fauna such as boar and moose, and of course the ubiquitous robotic enemies.

Exploring them works similarly to exploration in some of the best RPGs, such as The Witcher 3, The Elder Scrolls V: Skyrim, or Dark Souls. You can discover new side quests, powerful items or weapons, or simply notice touching environmental details.

2.4.3 Hacking

When playing as 9S, and in limited circumstances as A2, the player can enter hacking mode. This is a bullet hell style mini-game where the player must avoid incoming bullets and environmental hazards, and at the same time destroy enemy units and finally CPUs. There are about 50 different versions and most of these have several stages and time limits. The player usually has three ”lives” to succeed, after which they will exit hacking mode and return to the previous mode.

2.4.4 Boss-Slaying

As a Platinum Games title, NieR: Automata would not be complete without epic boss battles, and it does not disappoint. Bosses vary from huge mechas to single human-sized opponents, and they frequently have several stages which change the approach necessary to pass through or defeat them. Further, the approach is very different when playing as 9S versus 2B: since 9S has hacking capabilities, it is often more efficient to hack the boss rather than engage in melee combat (this is actually dramatically necessary for several bosses).

2.5 Resources

All resources have been described in some detail earlier.

2.6 Conflicts

2.6.1 Stat Point Investment

Through purchasing chip storage expansion packs, the player may increase their equipable chip capacity up to 128 slots. This may seem like a lot, but most of the GUI, including maps, health bar, XP bar, enemy data, etc, are actually chips that take up space. Some of these can be removed to allow more space for other chips, but removing the ”OS” chip will result in player death.

2.7 Boundaries

2.7.1 Chip Slot Investment

The maximum chip slot storage capacity is 128, and as you increase the level of your chips, they begin to take up more and more slots. It becomes really tough deciding which bonuses you want helping you all the time, and which you want to keep for particular situations.

2.7.2 NPCs

Most NPCs are invulnerable to attacks from the player.

2.7.3 Map

The map features high levels of verticality, with tall towers and deep chasms both having important roles in the story and action. There are extensive invisible walls to prevent the player from accessing areas they should not.

2.7.4 Inventory

A limited number of most items may be gathered and held in inventory at a time, usually about 99.

2.8 Outcomes

There are several outcomes. In fact, 26 official endings have been listed, one for each letter of the alphabet. However, the majority of these are for failing at some point or for ignoring a message about not leaving the combat / mission area. Only 5 outcomes really matter:

• A: this outcome is received when you beat the game the first time, playing as 2B
• B: complete the game a second time, playing as 9S
• C: complete the game a third time, playing initially as 2B and 9S, and later 9S and A2. Choose A2 at the end.
• D: complete the game a third time, playing initially as 2B and 9S, and later 9S and A2. Choose 9S at the end.
• E: complete the game a third time, playing initially as 2B and 9S, and later 9S and A2. During the credits, decide to delete your play data in order to help another player.

3 Dramatic Elements

NieR: Automata has incredibly strong story elements.

3.1 Characters

NieR: Automata has three main playable characters, but has an interesting cast of side and supporting ones from both sides of the conflict.

First and foremost is the poster child for the game: 2B. A battle model android, who for unexplained reasons enters combat while dressed as a blindfolded French maid, 2B is an experienced and hardened fighter, taciturn and often unwilling to share her emotions. She does not question things, and simply wants to get her job done, which is eliminating as many alien machines as she can.

Her partner, 9S, is a scanner model, who displays irreverence for authority, questions nearly everything, and is not afraid of showing emotions. He has a crush on 2B, but what exactly and Android crush means is not really clear.

Later, the player mets and takes control of A2, an earlier prototype for the B model. Like 2B, she is terse and competent, and shares 2B’s hate for machines.

Besides the playable characters, there are many others you will encounter through out the game. First and foremost are the leaders of the machine army, Adam and Eve, who, despite their names, are actually both male and possess similar features as 9S and 2B. Their motivation, as is typical of most villains, is ridiculous: they killed their alien masters because they were boring, and they want to capture humans in order to dissect them and understand their interesting behavior. The player will face them in battle several times throughout the game. In addition to Adam and Eve, the player will battle and destroy many different machine adversaries. Most of these lack personality, but the bosses all seem to have some kind of psychological damage.

Finally, there are numerous friendly NPCs throughout the game. The player will get to know Pascal, the leader of a group of communist pacifist robots; Jean-Paul, one of the aforementioned community’s members who enjoys waxing philosophical; Anemone, the leader of the Android resistance, who appears to have some kind of previous relationship with A2.

3.2 Story

The action begins several thousand years in the future. Earth was invaded a great time in the past by aliens, who attacked with a machine army and humans had to evacuate Earth and take up residence on the Moon. A group of androids, called YoRHa, combat the machines in humans’ stead. The androids launch a large attack on Earth to eliminate several ”Goliath” class machines, although the attack is successful, the two ”survivors” of the attack had to go kamikaze in order to destroy the machines. Since the survivors were Androids, their consciousnesses were just downloaded into new bodies.

Following this success, the survivors, 2B and 9S, are partnered together in order to make contact with the resistance and eliminate more Goliath machines. In the process, they discover that the resistance has been working together with a group of machines that appear to be conscious and even sympathetic to the Androids’ plight. 2B and 9S reluctantly agree to help these machines in exchange for information about the machines still under control of the aliens.

After more exploration and boss battles, 2B and 9S eventually encounter Adam and Eve, and later discover that the aliens have been dead for hundreds of years. Adam takes 9S hostage and 2B must kill Adam to rescue him. This leads to a climactic battle against many machines, culminating in 2B and 9S killing Eve.

If the player decides to play a second time, this playthrough allows them to control 9S. As a scanner, he has the ability to hack any machine system, unlocking doors, short-circuiting enemies, or getting access to the thoughts of other machines. This allows him greater access to the background of what is going on the 2B, and he learns much about the motivation for the machine enemies acting the way the do. He also learns that besides the aliens being wiped out, humans are extinct as well. The whole YoRHa program was created as an excuse to keep going and to keep active, instead of sinking into despair and committing suicide.

If the player decides to play a third time, the action picks up after 2B and 9S defeat Eve. YoRHa decides to launch a massive attack on the machines, and the player will alternatively take control of 2B and 9S during this effort. However, it is discovered that there was a timed logic virus, which will be released at certain points in the war, in order to reset everything and keep the machines and androids locked in battle forever. All the YoRHa androids on the bunker base in space become infected with this virus, and even 2B gets infected. When she encounters A2 while trying to get as far from everyone else as possible, she asks A2 to kill her. 9S sees only the last moments of this exchange, and swears vengeance against A2. For the rest of the game, the player will switch between 9S and A2, as they try to give meaning to their lives. 9S attempts to unlock a tower that has mysteriously appeared on Earth. They learn that android’s cores are actually machine cores, although it is not clear who created the androids, the last humans before they died, or the alien machines. The end is kind of a mess: there are more boss battles, and a final confrontation between 9S and A2. The player must choose who to control for this battle. But in either case a main character will die and a tragedy will occur.

4 Dynamic Elements

The game environment itself does not feature a large number of dynamic elements: there is no change in the weather, it is always daytime, enemies do not learn your patterns of attack, etc.

4.1 Patterns

This section focuses on game patterns as discussed by Ernest Adams and Joris Dormans in Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design.

4.1.1 Playing Style Reinforcement

The player can have two sets of equipment to switch between, three sets of chips, etc. The weapons and chips equipped can be customized to fit the player’s play style: quick weapons for dealing small amounts of damage quickly, massive weapons for all or nothing devastating swings, chips that increase your ranged damage or your movement speed.

4.1.2 Dynamic Friction

The main source of dynamic friction comes from the enemy scaling and from XP requirements. Enemy levels increase as you progress through the game, and the amount of XP required to reach the next level also increases.

4.1.3 Engine Building

There are very light elements of engine building, as the player may equip chips that alter fundamental rates in the game: chips that increase item drops, or chips that increase the XP gained.

4.1.4 Stopping Mechanism

Several supporting abilities are on timers, but these are the only stopping mechanisms in the game.

4.1.5 Trade

The player may farm items and sell them for more cash at many different vendors.

5 Conclusion

NieR: Automata is a grab-bag of many disparate elements which have attempted to be unified and united into a coherent whole. Overall, the elements succeed in gelling, creating an interesting and unique experience. The story elements, although strong, stumble at the end, failing to achieve a relatable comprehensible story arc. Instead, it seems focused trying to cause the player as much emotional trauma as possible, thus showing its hand and making this tactic ineffective and and the story insincere. Still, the unification of the story elements and themes and the gameplay, such the GUI elements being chips you can install or remove, creates a powerful immersive experience.

5.1 Potent Elements

The theme and gameplay unification, along with the combat and RPG elements stand out.

5.2 Areas for Improvement

The story’s structure is revealed to be manipulative and incoherent, near the end, designed only with the intention of making the player suffer.

Custom Calendars and Times

Hi all,

So I've fallen off the blog wagon again, but never fear, I haven't just been checking out the latest cosplay porn videos based on Nier: Automata or Overwatch. I've put work on Particularly Wavy on hold for the moment to focus on a creation tool for the Unity Editor: a tool that lets a game designer create a custom calendar.

Why would I do this? This is yet another part of my plan for creating a deeply reactive RPG/RTS smashup. I don't want to just use the default calendar system, with 365 days in the year, 12 months named their familiar names with their familiar lengths, seven days in a week, 24 hours in a day, 60 minutes in an hour, and 60 seconds in a minute. I want to set my game in a fantasy world, so it makes no sense for them to use our calendar. But, at the same time, I don't want to hard code everything for that particular game. I'd really like a tool that lets me set up the calendar how I want, and then get on with designing the rest of the game. The NPCs in the game will make plans based on this calendar, they will have needs and moods which change based on events (which happen at particular times and last for set amounts of time), quests will have time-based elements to them, such as meeting an NPC at a particular time of day, or completing a task within a time limit, and of course there will be a day/night cycle which influences NPC activity and stealth, etc, etc.

I have now began working on such a time system three times, and I think the 3 time could work. The first two were based on an extremely flexible system with classes something like the diagram below. The work flow would go something like this:

1. Create a calendar
2. Start adding time categories. The first time category added is always primitive.
3. The secondary time categories can be changed on the fly:
• their base category
• the number of base categories
• the names

As a small example, if you wanted to mimic Erikson's Malazan Book of the Fallen time system, you could first create a calender, then create a primitive time called Beat, and set the length to 1 real time second. Then, create a non-named time called Bell and set it to equal 3600 Beats, making it the same as an hour. Next, you could create a non-named time called Day, and set it equal to..., say, 24 Bells, for now, although we really don't know exactly how long it lasts. Lastly, you create a non-named time called Year and set it equal to...nobody really knows, for now let's be uncreative and set it to 365 Days. If we wanted to add months, we could to this by adding a SequentialGameTime before the Year, calling it Month, and then adding however many month names we wanted inside this category, and then setting the length to be identical, or giving each month a different number of days in it.

However, I needed to duplicate most of the code for every class because the BaseTime class is based on Unity's ScriptableObject class, which can only be created inside the Unity Editor and not during actual gameplay. This would prevent me from making a new date or time requirement dynamically, which defeats the whole purpose of creating the time system in the first place. I was also using Unity's UnityEvents, which function something like C#'s delegates and events, but are serializable, so their listeners persist after you close the program down and relaunch it. However, although they sound nice to work with, they are actually a huge pain in the ass.

So, instead of having complete flexibility, I created a system with Second, Day, and Year built in, and then allowed the designer to create subdivisions of Day and Year in order create however many or few categories they wanted.

Right now, I am at the stage of making sure that I can accurately update this system during runtime, after which I will worry about saving and loading a game time, and still later I will worry about setting times for events and conditions such as those described for NPCs and quests above. So far, it seems to be flexible enough and easy enough for me to understand what to do etc, and does not require duplicated code.

I do still plan to return to Particularly Wavy in the near future, but for now this is what I'm most interested in working on.

Nioh Game Analysis

Nioh Analysis

David Hunter

June 22, 2018

1 Overview

Nioh is an action RPG developed by Team Ninja and published by Koei Tecmo in February 2017.

2 Formal Elements

Nioh falls under the general group of games known as ”Souls-likes,” due to their similarity to the Souls series developed by FromSoftware. These games are primarily single player experiences, which allow the player to enter other player’s games online in special circumstances. The player controls a 3D avatar in a 3D world that features winding, twisted, and complexly overlapping interconnected levels. In these levels, the player will fight a variety of human and monstrous enemies, including bosses, most of which are based on Japanese history or culture. In combat, stamina management is key. Using attacks and blocking/dodging drain stamina, which can put the player in a weakened and vulnerable state. All enemies can kill the player if the player is not careful; every enemy does a lot of damage. If the player dies, they will be respawned at the nearest resting point, with their unused XP left where they died. In order to get it back, the player will have to fight back to that point. If they die before doing so, the XP is gone forever. To anyone who has played a Souls series game, Lords of the Fallen, Salt and Sanctuary, Ashen, Necropolis or DarkMaus, these features should be instantly recognizable.

2.1 Players

The player controls William Adams, an English navigator from real history who sailed to Japan and served on Tokugawa Ieyasu. The player moves a 3D avatar of William around a 3D world, interacting with NPCs, killing monsters, and finding items and equipment. The player may discover graves of other players throughout the world. Touching them will allow the player to engage in battle with an NPC controlled version of that player and if won, to pick up some of their equipment and earn Honor.

The player can even join in-game covenants based on powerful Japanese families of 1600 that offer bonuses to particular weapon types and abilities.

The player can where different armors and change their hairstyle and beard to achieve a look that is pleasing to the player.

2.2 Objectives

The game starts much like any game in the Souls series: the protagonist is thrown in prison without armor or weapons and must escape. This area serves as the tutorial of the game. During this mission, the player’s guardian spirit is stolen and taken away to Japan. The rest of the game is the player’s quest to stop the thief, an man named Edward Kelley, in his plans to use a special kind of stone called Amrita (found only in Japan), to resurrect demons and allow England to take over the world. To achieve this, the player will travel across many areas of Japan, foiling Edward Kelley’s plans.

2.3 Rules

2.3.1 Areas

Unlike the Souls games, there is no interconnected map for every area. Instead, there are self-contained areas which play like levels in a more traditional game. These levels feature the hidden items, secret paths, dark environmental story-telling, and booby traps that you would expect in a Souls game. Each area is loaded from a map screen, from which the player may also load different non-combat related areas, such as a store to trade, dismantle, and upgrade items, a tea house for online play, and a dojo for training. Like in the Souls series, saving is accomplished at a save point where the player may also level up. This is a shrine, similar to the bonfire of the Souls games. As an added twist, there are small green spirits called Kodama hidden throughout many levels. As the player finds them, they gather at the shrine. The player may use them to grant a special bonus, such as increasing item drops, elixir drops, armor drops, or weapon drops.

Although there are no minimaps as such, there is a small radar screen, which shows nearby save points, treasures, and a few other custom markers. The player may use special items to interact with the level in various ways, for example using a Travel talisman to return to the most recently prayed at shrine, or using a Harakiri sword to commit suicide, leaving the area and returning to the main map, but also losing any Amrita the player has accumulated in the mean time.

2.3.2 Combat and Magic

The player will spend a large amount of time in combat, and it features more complicated rules than the series it owes so much to. For starters, there are four stances for all melee weapons: high, mid, low, and sheathed. High attacks are highly telegraphed, slow and powerful, while low attacks are rapid, near instantaneous, and weak. Mid stance strikes a balance between the two. The sheathed stance is mainly useful for swords and dual swords, which have unique attacks from this stance. No matter the stance, the player has two kinds of attacks available: fast and strong, and unlike the Souls series, the player can unlock combos and special moves for each kind of weapon. For example, by investing in the spear skill set, the player may unlock a move where the player runs straight forward twirling the spear in a figure eight pattern until you run out of ki, or you may invest in a leg sweep to knock enemies off their feet, leaving them vulnerable to a ground thrust.

The player can use these attacks and combos to deal damage to enemies, and the player may either block enemy attacks or dodge them. Both use up Ki, which slowly recharges, allowing the player to initiate more attacks. Besides melee attacks, the player may also use ranged attacks and magic to kill enemies. Ranged ammo is extremely limited, but offers the player the chance to potentially one-hit kill distant enemies. Magic is much more limited than in the Souls series, mostly consisting of a few elemental bolt or shot style attacks, protection spells against those same elemental damage types, and a few extra status effects.

The player may also lock onto nearby enemies, but this lock-on is disabled once that enemy dies.

As described before, the combat is in many ways the same as the Souls series, but there are twists. At the end of a series of attacks, the player’s used up Ki disperses in the air around the player. The player may gather some of this Ki back by using a Ki pulse, which must be timed correctly to achieve the best result. Although inspired by Gears of War’s active reload mechanic, it makes Ki/stamina management more interesting in combat. Changing between stances further deepens the gameplay, allowing the player to adapt to better deal with the current set of challenges.

The other main change is due to guardian spirits. As the player deals and receives damage, a meter for their chosen guardian spirit fills. When it is maxed out, the player may make use of it. This triggers a dynamic animation, after which the player’s weapon’s become imbued with the power of the guardian spirit. They will use slightly different animations, do more damage, and are usually faster than the regular attack animations. Depending on the guardian spirit, there may be additional benefits or triggering conditions as well. For example, the Phoenix guardian spirit will automatically trigger if the player loses all health, allowing the player to continue to fight and possibly win through and survive. In the beginning, the player only has access to three guardian spirits, but with each boss defeated, the player gains a new one. The guardian spirits generally have an elemental damage types, plus other passive bonuses that the player receives just by having it equipped. As an example, the Nine-Tails guardian spirit gives a bonus to Divine/Ethereal item drop rates and lowers enemy defense.

2.3.3 Stats and Leveling

There are eight stats that the player may invest in when they level up:

• Body: increases life, and resistance to poison and paralysis. Increases weapon damage, mostly spears. Also unlocks samurai points.
• Heart: increases Ki. Also increase weapon damage, mostly swords and bows. Unlocks samurai points.
• Stamina: Increases life and maximum equipment load. Unlocks samurai points.
• Strength: Increases Ki pulse (how much Ki is recovered) and damage with axes, hammers, and odachi. Unlocks samurai points.
• Skill: Increases Ki pulse, and damage with dual swords, tonfas and rifles. Unlocks samurai points.
• Dexterity: Increases ninjutsu power and damage with kusarigamas. Unlocks Ninja points.
• Magic: Increases power of Onmyo magic, increases resistance to Yokai debuffs. Unlocks Onmyo points.
• Spirit: Increases power of Guardian Spirit, and the speed with which the Amrita Gauge fills.

But in order to level up one of these eight stats, the player will need to collect Amrita. This can be obtained by damaging and killing enemies, by consuming soulstones which can be found by exploring, and by completing missions. Much like the Souls series, leveling up requires an increasing amount of Amrita.

2.3.4 Crafting and Inventory

Another point of difference between the Souls series and Nioh is the crafting and inventory systems. Although the weapons and armor pieces have similar stats to those in the Souls series, items may be dismantled in Nioh to produce materials which may be sold or crafted into new weapons or armor pieces. These materials, like the items made from them, have different rarity ranks, and give different bonuses to the items. There are also numerous sets of armor that give different bonuses, depending on the number of items from the set the player has equipped.

As the player uses a weapon or Divine rank piece of armor, rather than degrade, the player increases their familiarity with it, which increases its damage (reduction).

Besides these points, there is refashioning, reforging and soul-matching. With refashioning, a player can take the stats of one item and simply replace the looks with another item, for example, by taking an Oni Sakon’s Spear and reforging it to look like a Tombikiri spear. This is mostly for cosmetic purposes. With reforging, the player may use different materials to take different bonuses or effects on the item and alter those for a randomly selected bonus. Depending on the rarity of the item, you will have access to fewer or more bonus slots. Finally, with soul matching, the player has the chance to take items they like and match them with other similar items. For example, the player may take a level 75 Tombikiri spear with excellent bonuses, and match it to a higher level Tombikiri with poorer bonuses, or even to any other higher level spear, such as a Greatspear, or Great Frog Spear. This lets the player keep equipment that they like throughout the game, and also opens up the possibility of combining the weapons to create something that has great bonuses from both items.

2.4 Procedures

2.4.1 Leveling and Upgrading

Leveling proceeds much like in the Souls series. There are no class restrictions, so the player may use any equipment or abilities that they meet the requirements for. The main decisions the play must make is how to increase their stats to most benefit their playstyle.

2.4.2 Exploring

Nioh does a fine job of making moving around a level interesting. There are many hidden items and unlockable shortcuts, and hints about the events that happened just before the player arrived.

2.4.3 Boss-Slaying

Like the lesser enemies, the bosses are each designed to be challenging to the player in different ways. Some are extremely aggressive, some are fast, some attack slowly but do massive damage, others use mostly magic attacks. Many of the bosses have stages to their battle, and several actually come back to life after the player has ”killed” them. Other take advantage of the level to move in unique ways, such as jumping off walls to launch lunging attacks on the player, flying in the air, or being confined to particular elements in the environment, such as water.

Their attack patterns must be learned, and there are often clues as to what they are weak to somewhere in the environment or in dialogue with an NPC.

2.4.4 Crafting

With the completion of the main game, the player may start one of several New Game Plus modes, which unlock a new class of items: Divine items, and later Ethereal items. These can be soul-matched with identically leveled items to produce even stronger items of the next level up, for example two Divine Level 150 Kusanagi Tsurugis (a type of sword) may be combined into one Divine + 1 Level 150 Kusanagi Tsurugi. This Divine +1 weapon has its familiarity reset to zero, but the base damage starts at the maximum of the previous Divine weapon. Another Divine + 1 weapon may be combined with the previous one to produce a +2 weapon, etc. This creates many new opportunities to craft items, but even before this the game allows the player to use soul matching to raise the level of their favorite weapons, disassemble unwanted items to salvage their parts, which can then be used to create items you do actually want. Or the player could take their favorite items and reforge them to try to get bonuses that better match their playstyle.

The only downside to these possibilities is it makes inventory management much more crucial and more of a time sink. Should you offer up an item and receive some Amrita, sell it, disassemble it, or use it and then soul match it to another? Which one makes the most sense for the player may change with the next loot drop, or upon more careful examination of one’s inventory.

2.5 Resources

2.5.1 Abstract

• Health: Losing all your health means dying and respawning back at the nearest shrine. As mentioned before, the player will lose all currently possessed Amrita as well.
• Ki : Ki determines the player’s ability to attack, dodge, and block during combat, and managing it is critical in every encounter. It is drained by running, dodging, and attacking, and slowly regenerates when not engaged in those acts. It regenerates even more slowly when blocking.
• Damage Meters: There are many kinds of special damage that the player can receive: water, lightning, fire, wind, earth and poison damage, for example. These damages fill a special meter that only becomes visible when the player receives them. If the meter fills up completely, a special status effect will take effect on the player. Poison damage, for example, will cause the player to slowly lose health until the poison meter is empty, while frost damage will slow player movement and prevent rolling until it is empty.
• Amrita: Amrita is collected from Amrita stones, killing enemies, and completing missions. It is used to level up your character and improve your spirit guardian.
• Weapon Familiarity: Depending on the rarity of the weapon, there is a familiarity limit. For Divine weapons and armor, this is 999, but it decreases with each rank below it. The higher your familiarity with a weapon, the more bonus damage you receive.
• Prestige: Prestige is awarded for completing any of a huge number of tasks in game. Killing 50 humans with a sword awards a prestige title, completing a level within a certain time limit awards another, and killing a boss or group of enemies without taking damage gives another. Dealing certain amounts of lightning, water, fire, etc elemental damage yield many more titles. In general, melee titles give points towards Ungyo, and magic titles give Agyo points.
• Agyo Points: By using magic, the player will receive prestige titles and unlock Agyo points. These can be spent on a pool of randomly generating bonuses loosing dealing with magic.
• Ungyo Points: Similarly, by engaging in melee combat, the player can receive prestige titles and unlock Ungyo points, which can be spent on a pool of randomly generating bonuses.
• Honor: Honor is acquired by killing NPC versions of player characters. It can be used to buy items, gestures, and other objects from the Teahouse.
• Level: The player starts at level one, and after collecting enough Amrita, may increase any stat. This increases the player’s level.
• Proficiency: Besides familiarity with specific instances of weapons or armor, the player gains overall proficiency with the class the weapon belongs to. Like familiarity, this increases the player’s damage bonus with that weapon class over time, and also serves as the criteria for unlocking certain missions.

2.5.2 Physical

• Weapons, Armor, Items: Depending on the player’s luck, they may receive different drop rates of different types of items throughout the game. When opening a container or after killing an enemy, these may spawn. These may be left as is, equipped, sold, dismantled, reforged, or refashioned. At shrines, they can be offered to the gods(?) in exchange for Amrita and the chance of receiving extra items, such as soulstones, elixirs, etc.
• Materials: These are received from dismantling weapons, armor, and other items, and also by defeating certain types of enemies. They can be used to craft new weapons, or sold.
• Companions: At several points during the game, the player will travel through a level together with one or more AI controlled companions. The player may also summon human players to assist them through difficult sections, much like in the Souls series. If the AI companion’s health reaches zero, they will enter a dormant state, kneeling on the ground waiting for the player to assist them, while if the human companion’s health reaches zero, they will be returned to their own game. The same will happen if the player is killed.
• Money: Unlike the Souls series, Nioh has separated XP and currency. The player can find money on the ground after killing enemies, breaking containers, and receive it as a reward for completing a mission. The player may also earn money by selling unwanted items at the Blacksmith. It can be used to buy items, or to pay the Blacksmith for special services, such as soul matching or reforging.

  Guardian Spirit: The player starts with three Guardian Spirits to choose from. These may be switched at a shrine, and the player will unlock more after completing missions and defeating bosses. After completing the base game, the player may even equip two Guardian Spirits, and switch between them on the fly (with a short cool down between switching). The game also allows the player to level up their Guardian Spirits by using Amrita. As mentioned before, when the player dies, their Guardian Spirit is left behind to guard the Amrita the player collected before dying.

2.6 Conflicts

2.6.1 Stat Point Investment

As the player invests points, it becomes apparent that around 40, the benefit of each additional point invested starts to decrease. This effect of diminishing returns forces the player to consider whether investing in a different stat might better benefit them. Further, the cost for increase one’s level increases dramatically at higher levels, further forcing the player to carefully consider each investment.

2.7 Boundaries

2.7.1 Stat Point Investment

There is a soft maximum level cap at 750, at which point the player will have 99 in each of the 8 stats.

2.7.2 NPCs

Unlike in the Souls series, non-combatant NPCs may not be attacked.

2.8 Outcomes

There are no major choices which the player must make during the game that affect its outcome. The only outcome is achieved by defeating Edward Kelley, and the final monster which he summons.

2.9 Inventory

The player may carry 500 items, some of which stack. Beyond that, they must sell, drop, or offer the items if they want to carry something new.

3 Dramatic Elements

In general, the story elements are stronger than in the Souls series, but at the same time there are no choices for the player to make.

3.1 Characters

The player takes the role of William Adams, an English ”pirate” who initially seems interested only in getting back his Guardian Spirit, Saorise. To do so, he tracks down her kidnapper to Japan and encounters many historical figures along the way, meeting with Hattori Hanzo, Tokugawa Ieyasu, and many others. While somewhat interesting, these characters serve mainly as a backdrop for the action, and as a loose narrative holding the missions together.

3.2 Story

William Adams tracks down Edward Kelley to Japan, and completes many missions all over Japan in order to thwart Kelley’s plans, or those of his allies.

4 Dynamic Elements

Much like the Souls series, Nioh lacks many dynamic elements found in other RPGs, such as NPC status tracking, reputation, dynamic weather, or a day-night cycle.

4.1 Patterns

This section focuses on game patterns as discussed by Ernest Adams and Joris Dormans in Game Mechanics: Advanced Game Design.

4.1.1 Playing Style Reinforcement

Nioh contains several examples of playing style reinforcement. By increasing stats such as Body, Heart, Strength or Skill, the player can receive Samurai Points to learn new skills related to Swords, Spears, Odachi, Axes, or Dual Swords. These new skills make it more beneficial and interesting to use one of those weapon types.

Additionally, the player may join a faction which gives bonuses to their preferred weapon, stance, or armor set. Armor sets themselves often give bonuses to particular weapons, weapon abilities, or stances, further incentivizing the player to make the most of weapons, armor, and stances that match how they like to play.

4.1.2 Dynamic Friction

Nioh contains many examples of dynamic friction. As the player progresses through the game, they increase their ability to deal and withstand damage, but so do the enemies.

With each level increase, it takes more and more Amrita to reach the next level.

Basic skills in the Magic, Samurai, and Ninja categories only take one point to unlock, but this amount increases as the player progresses further into the skill trees.

Soul matching Divine rank items requires an exponentially increasing number of higher and higher Divine items to get to the next level: +2 requires two +1’s, which require four base Divine items, while +4 requires two +3’s, which require four +2’s, which require eight +1’s, which require sixteen base Divine items.

Smithing higher level items of course requires more money.

4.1.3 Engine Building

The leveling, equipment and Guardian Spirit systems may together be taken as an example of the engine building pattern. The player may choose certain equipment and Guardian Spirits, and invest in particular stats to increase the amount of money they receive, maximize Amrita rates, or increase the amount of (rare) items they receive. It depends on the player’s goals and how (consciously) they take advantage of synergies between the systems to achieve them.

4.1.4 Stopping Mechanism

Ah, the stopping mechanism. Nioh makes use of the stopping mechanism almost as much as it makes use of dynamic friction. Ki is limited, preventing the player from spamming constant attacks and abilities. The player must wait for it to recharge.

As the player invests in stats more and more, the number of Samurai, Ninja, and Magic points they yield decreases.

After activating one’s Guardian Spirit, and in New Game Plus mode after switching between Guardian Spirits, there is a cool down timer during which the player cannot activate it again.

4.1.5 Trade

The final pattern contained in Nioh is the trade pattern. The player may sell any item in exchange for money, or offer up any item in exchange for Amrita and the chance of getting another consumable.

5 Conclusion

Nioh is not only a strong entry into the Souls-like genre, but excels in certain areas where its inspiration failed or lacked polish. The animations are much better than the early Souls games, and the combat retains the same tension while giving the player much more flexibility in how they play and use each weapon and each set of armor.

5.1 Potent Elements

The combat shines out as flexible, action-driven, and highly enjoyable. The multiple stances, Guardian Spirits, and special abilities stack together to create a complex multi-layered experience that you will probably want to come back to again and again.

5.2 Areas for Improvement

The story and the lack of choices that affect the story is Nioh’s weakest point. Managing one’s inventory is also more of a chore than it should be.