Nioh's Elixir problem, and why it's my fault.

 Think me, think!

Recently I finally got around to finishing my playthrough, and consequently my wrap-up blog, on the first Nioh game. If you haven't read it, I was largely complimentary on the raw moment-to-moment gameplay of the game, which I thought was both lively and complex, but not so much about the structure of the game in story, the way it introduces it's systems and it's drawn-out length. But if there is one problem I had playing the game which I didn't air, it was the way this game dealt with the Souls-like staple of having healing items. Namely Elixirs. I didn't go into it because it largely wasn't pertinent to other's enjoyment of the game, because all of my struggles and tribulations with this very system lied on my own disadvantages that I have ingrained in myself after years of playing RPGs in the wrong way. (Something I actively try to stamp out all the time.)

So what are Elixirs? Well, you're essentially looking at your Estus Flasks for this game, expendable mainstays of your quick-item slots that heal you up nicely and restock every time you rest at a shrine. And the drinking animation isn't as much as a death sentence as it was in early Souls games. (You know, when our idiot undead had to check what was in the flask everytime before he drank it.) The twist isn't anything you'll at all be unfamiliar with if you've played any of the ancillary FromSoftware games such as Demon Souls or Bloodborne, the Elixirs are limited in supply. They don't fill up magically and are actually drawn from a supply you scavenge off of enemies- except when they do get filled up magically. Getting into this really means I have to break down another one of Nioh's strangely complex systems so you'll have to bare with me.

One of the constant supernatural creatures you'll encounter across Nioh are the Kodama, little green Moogle-looking creatures that are hidden across each level and which congregate at your shrines once you 'discover' them. This is a great way of incentivising exploration, obviously, with rewards being that the more Kodama you stock up for, the better benefits they can grant you. You can stack up a buff in item discovery rates, Gold discovery rates or, and this is key, Elixir discovery and conjuration rates. You can only pick one, but when you're early on in the game and still learning systems, getting stomped on by every Yokai you see, expending Elixirs faster than you can amass them, there's only one real choice. The Elixir buff stacks on the drop rate of Elixirs, but it also adds a 'buffer zone' of stocked Elixirs, so that when you expend enough Elixirs, a certain number of complementary Elixirs will be granted upon you, free of charge. (Do you think I've written the word 'Elixir' enough yet?) And that is the hook.

Now you have to understand something about me as a player of RPGs; I hate expending items. Yes, I'm one of those terminal potion hoarders, one who piles crates upon crates of  every kind of consumable under the twisted ideal that "I'll use this one day, definitely!" all the while knowing I'm just going to watch my stash bloat up like a drowned pig. So when you throw at me a resource I'm going to expending despite myself, such as a limited supply of healing Elixirs, I'm going to start getting nervous, and everything I work towards is going to be in ensuring my Elixir supply is never in the red. Because if it does get like that, then I won't stand a chance for clearing these levels and then I'll have to grind away at lower level enemies for god-knows-how-long in order to gather the resources for each level and it will turn into a vicious cycle of scrounging up resources that are then wasted and on and on- you can see where my neurosis is kicking in, right?

And do you wanna know where it gets worse? Of course you do- so all that stuff I told you about Kodama buffs and drop rates? They're independent to each region of the game. Which means that the second you move onto another region of Japan (roughly every three or four missions) all of your drop-rates are reset and you need to scour the levels for tiny Kodama again. Suddenly the fun exploration incentive feels like a mandatory chore, the Kodama-sense support-item descriptor becomes essential gear no matter how under levelled that piece of equipment becomes, and never once in the length of the story do I ever become comfortable enough with my Elixir drop-rate to even experiment with any of the other Kodama boons. That's right, throughout this entire game, even the loot-hunter endgame, I had the Kodama Elixir boost running for every mission, all fuelled by a vain desire to never run low on Elixir's just in case the next boss is going to kick my ass and drain my supply. (To be fair, Loot drop rates aren't so helpful in the endgame because Divine equipment only ever drops as +1 and above from bosses, chests and pre-set mission rewards; trash drops are useless.)

So even by the final boss of the final DLC, I was still hoarding Elixir Kodama boons in my Shrine, despite at that point having Ninjutsu that provided endlessly rechargeable regeneration scrolls (they heal pretty slowly, to be fair)  a vampire-health effect on my weapon (it only healed a tiny bit, to be further fair) and a policy in which I would try my hardest never to drink an Elixir outside a boss battle. In fact, my neuroses were so bad, that if one boss managed to cost me around twenty to thirty Elixir's, I would absolutely take a break to go Elixir hunting. This bug got me bad. But here's the kicker, the point where I reveal how far this insanity spread, because by the time I saddled up to the Nine-Tailed Fox (Whom cost me almost eight Elixirs but I still managed to beat first try) I was looking at a stockpile of over 200 Elixirs. And yet I still didn't even consider switching my boon. Yep, I have a problem.

The idea behind this limited healing item is very sound and I appreciate it greatly; you are forced to value this limited-quantity item greatly which forces you to play better, without just accepting damage because you know you can freely heal. Plus, you have an item drop to look forward to if you happen to get an Elixir top-up after a rough run. But combine that with a player who hoards, like me, and you have a recipe for ruin. Everything becomes shrouded in 'what if' and 'just in case', and I get to the point where I'd rather stand and die than waste any of my precious healing items even when sitting at triple digits. When would I have stopped? In the thousands? Tens of thousands? This was one well meaning and decently implemented system totally bastardized by my paranoia.

This is perhaps the one thing I'm scared of in Bloodborne or Demon Souls, (if either game ever comes to a non-Sony platform) that my own insecurity will railroad me into becoming a desperate fretful hoarder who doesn't have it in him to take the necessary risks. And so maybe you can see why I didn't mention any of this in my review. This Elixir 'problem' is borne strictly from my mind, and although I've taken great strides to force myself to use more consumables and enjoy their effects in RPG games (titles like Pathfinder pretty much demand this in their harder fights) there's still some of that lingering trepidation gnawed into my psyche even now. So take it from me, don't be afraid to spend virtual resources in a well balanced game under some false construct of scarcity, because that's stupid. Don't be stupid. Don't be me.