Comment on Weekly Recommendstions Thread: What are you playing this week?
Coelacanth@feddit.nu 1 day agoUTs were perfectly balanced in NGB in my opinion. You need a perfect equilibrium between the power/damage of the move, the amount of safety it gives you (i-frames), the charge time it requires and the enemy count (essence generation). NGB hit all of these were UTs were a powerful tool that felt earned whenever you pulled them off and never too powerful.
In NG2 you get an eternity of i-frames, insane tracking that often has you teleporting around the room between enemies (like Tonfas) and a delimb system that means it’s easier for UTs to feed themselves. Which is exacerbated by the design philosophy being “kill hordes of enemies quickly” without tweaking the 2-essence-cost of a full charge UT and even reducing the basic charge time.
mohab@piefed.social 1 day ago
See, this is why I think the comparison doesn’t work. They may be called UTs and function the same as they do in NGB, but enemies behavior is different. If my only strategy is UT spamming regardless of context, I’ll get my teeth kicked in because enemies are too aggressive, volatile, and while they’re not as tanky as they are in NGB, they attack in larger numbers.
Timing in also key if I aim to use essence to instant charge UTs/OL UT. I windrun at the wrong time, and enemies will hunt me down because their tracking is also ridiculous, never mind suicide runs.
All that space between UTs is not exactly a walk in the park and there’s so much to be aware of and get right before you can reliably pull them off to the extent that undermines the game’s difficulty in a game where one mistake can easily snowball into a good chunk of your health gone.
Coelacanth@feddit.nu 1 day ago
Caveat is I have not played NG2 on Master Ninja because I already hate myself enough, I don’t need more misery . Apart from some single chapter challenge stuff I guess. But I have never felt like pulling off UTs was significantly challenging compared to relying on combos and OTs. You’re moving around so much anyway that an on-landing UT is often easy to pull off as long as you have 2 essences in the air.
What I find most fun in NG2 combat is using all the combos from the move list of the various weapons, and using OTs strategically for i-frames. But UT spam just seems so much more efficient and easy.
Maybe Master Ninja is significantly different, I don’t know.