Nioh alpha demo survey results shows eastern dissatisfaction
Team Ninja have published the results of the Nioh alpha demo survey, which shows some interesting trends in opinions.
The main complaint about the demo was the lack of tutorials, taking the top spot on the developer’s ‘Overall’ improvements section. Players also had issues with the game’s balancing of difficulty early on, saying that they would prefer the opening battles to be easier.
On the whole, western players appear to enjoy the game better and rated in higher in almost every possible facet than their eastern counterparts. Europe and American survey participants rated aspects such as controls, graphics, atmosphere and stage design far higher than those in the Asian survey, with the vast majority voting them as ‘Very Good’ or ‘Good’. The Asian survey was more critical, with a far higher percentage electing ‘Normal’, ‘Bad’ or ‘Very Bad’.
Overall satisfaction of the demo in each region was greatly varied. In the Americas, 60% rated it ‘Very Good’, 31% rated it ‘Good’ with only 9% rating it either ‘Normal’, ‘Bad’, or ‘Very Bad’. European results were a bit more balanced (and miscalculated) with 50% rating the demo ‘Very Good’, 41% rating it ‘Good’ and 11% rating it either ‘Normal’, ‘Bad’, or ‘Very Bad’.
Asian results showed a far higher level of dissatisfaction with only 18% rating the demo ‘Very Good’, 41% rating it ‘Good’, 24% rating it ‘Normal’, 12% rating it as ‘Bad’ and 5% saying it was ‘Very Bad’.
You can find the graphs and survey notes below:
OVERALL
• Add tutorials regarding the game system.
• Adjust balance mainly in the opening sections to make battles fairer.
• Improve controls and camera system.
• Improve the understandability and usability of the UI.
• Improve graphic performance
DETAILS
â– Tutorials
• Implement a training stage for tutorials on basic controls and core game actions.
â– Action & Controls
• Improve player & camera behavior during lock-on.
• Change the conditions under which the player character becomes unresponsive when the Ki Gauge is empty.
• Expand item shortcut slots.
• Revise the objects which require holding a button and the response to the hold input.
• Improve detection for the half-circle analog stick input.
â– Enemies
• Adjust attack and defense parameters of enemies.
• Revise enemy pursuit of the player.
• Revise superarmor (stagger/no stagger) for each enemy and attack.
• Adjust Revenant AI.
â– Level Design/Stages
• Improve exploration elements such as shortcuts, etc.
• Add hints to guide players to boss areas.
• Revise the display of objects that block the view of the player character.
• Adjust fire area damage.
â– UI
• Improve layout and displayed information.
• Adjust text size.
• When making an offering at a shrine, allow the player to perform all actions at once.
â– Online
• Improve online synchronization.
• Allow the host to use the Shrine menu during co-op play with a Visitor.
• Adjust the rate at which enemy parameters increase during co-op play.
â– Other
• Remove durability stat for weapons and armor.
• Adjust the drop rate for equipment.
• Add a new control type.
• Implement a flow to allow players to exit a mission.
• Fix other bugs.
