I am pleased by this because it 100% means it's a story continuation and not some weird side thing that occurs during the story. Be pretty hard to go to the damp squib end game boss fight after a spectacular encounter (hopefully) with a Horus too. So good decision on their part.
Edit: About to start!!!
Machine pelicans do not fuck around.
Retribution for all the regular ones I've killed so far haha.
I really liked his character, I have no idea how they’ll wrap him up, he seemed like the kind of character they were going to set up as a permanent mirror to aloy throughout her journey
Also goddamn it isn’t just the incredible mocap, the detail in the faces is just stunning. Especially like old and wrinkly characters, the detail, my god
Ok they’ve done small stuff like add one or two moves like using your grapple hook to do a move on a stunned enemy. Ideally for any sequel I hope they allow you to go nuts with more use of tech and actually clamber onto larger robots with the grapple hook, incorporate shielding and counters or something, etc. the shield move you get here is a step in the right direction but kind of a dead end and a bit useless practically. I’m getting tired of dodge rolling all the time, give me tech or abilities to let me stand my ground, counter and utilise openings to like grapple onto unique grapple weak points. I hope they go that way in the futur
I’m also not too excited about the idea of hunting down a mysterious weapon in the third game as the opening of this suggests. Another macguffin isn’t my idea of exciting, I was hoping they’d go for something radical like trying to repair and rebuild the robots and bring them under our control, so they’re back doing what they were original intended to do, and you can like pokemon them and invest them in building up the defense against nemesis
Now they still might do that, but if the third game is another hunt for a button or object I’m going to be disappointed. They need to shake things up for the third game gameplay and structure wise.
Regardless, I agree that a potential 3rd game can't just be kicking the can down the road in the story. Forbidden West wasn't exactly that, but depending on how they close out the story (at whatever point, I'm not aware of any specific plans for a conclusion in a potential sequel), it kinda felt like a massive side quest relative to where it felt like it should have gone after Zero Dawn.
It wasn't bad, but it just took something that felt like an offhand, didn't really need to be resolved, thing mentioned in relative passing in Zero Dawn, and went completely in on it like it was the main story.
But it wasn't!
Though, even as I'm typing this out, I think that I'm misremembering how much of a focus the stuff that happened at the end of the game was, vs the first 2/3 or so of the game that actually was more what the story of Zero Dawn set up.
Ah well, might have a chance to load this up later. I haven't played since launch (didn't bother with any of the patches and stuff, figured I'd do it after it was all "done" including the DLC) so I'm sure I'm going to be rusty as hell.
Oh no I haven’t finished it, just starting out, but some new skills are available to you straight away. And the opening into Sylens talks about the long journey ahead preparing for nemesis and how he’s looking into a weapon or weapons to prepare
The grapple strike is really good for escaping if you can knock down smaller machines to get spacing on bigger ones.
But I absolutely agree the core problem with this combat is the inability to parry or deflect attacks, which results in just rolling around and praying not to get stunlocked by constant enemy attacks. This DLC does absolutely nothing to fix that.
Some of the new skills give me hope that they’re at least aware of it, I didn’t expect them to do anything radically different with this dlc, even tho it would’ve been nice. But I’m hoping that some of the choices they’ve made with new skills indicates the direction of bigger additions. Essentially they’re stepping in the right direction but the occasional ability isn’t enough.
But if they can do things like expand the grapple attack skill into a full system of clambering on robots, or opening up specific grapple only weak points, rather than it just being a single move you can do to a stunned enemy, it’ll help
And yep the shields you can drop in this dlc are fine for like stopping spam of projectiles in theory, but in reality enemies jump around too much for them to really work as static emplacements. It needs to be expanding into a shield system that allows aloy herself to either parry, block or some sort of similar system
The thing is I love this combat system, but I want them to use it as a core to radically expand, rather than just peppering on the occasional skills on top of your usual roll and shoot.
Also I’d really like some more unique clothing for aloy. All of her costumes and face paint is based on other tribes, which is weird cos her like defining character trait is she’s unique and a wanderer who belongs to no single tribe but helps all. She needs something that looks like only she wears it, either something new and unique or a mix of all the other tribes.
The base costume is close but there should be more options.
Holy crap, I legitimately don't remember how to play this game, and boy howdy is it not intuitive to jump into a platinumed save file with soooo much stuff.
I'm tempted to do a ng+, but I just want to play the dlc.
Not sure I can nope out fast enough on the arena. Gave it a try and it's utterly miserable. It's the perfect showcase of how awful some of the weapons are and how terrible enemy design is. The very first one has 2 clawstriders doing their shitty 3 step swipe moves, where each step is changing direction towards you. So good luck dodging them without invincibility frames. Even if you do, the scrappers then smack you with lasers before you can draw anything. At least I had my weapons, so I made it through those 3. But then they throw the snake in there with crappy weapons I don't use. Easy doesn't help that I can't hit this thing even with concentration (I guess I really suck with a controller) and point blank range as it slides all over.
Thankfully, I think I can get through the rest of the game without any of the armor or weapons from that place.
I think I found out why. Apparently if you kill some of the larger creatures in the wild multiple times, they eventually upgrade themselves (ie hiding the glowblast containers on the neck), thus making them even harder in a place like the arena where you are given lower level weapons.
So it seems smokebombs (which I rarely use) are OP in the arena. They give you the chance to take a breathe. The other thing I've noticed, I hate how long it takes Aloy to get up. So many machine attacks cause her to be thrown, it takes her a couple seconds to stand back up, which allows the machines to either ready another attack or get right up in her face.
So, it turns out the only completed save file I seem to have is from my ultra-hard run, which doesn't seem to have any option to change the difficulty.
Faced with doing the DLC for the first time like that, I've promptly restarted a NG+ run on Normal, and I guess I'm going to spend the next few days mainlining the main quest ASAP.
Except I know myself, and I know this is going to turn into another completionist run because my OCD cannot be controlled or denied.
With luck, maybe I'll start the DLC some time next month.
You folks talking about the Arena, did some later patch add more things to do there or something?
I'm just curious if there's more to do past what I had done back when the game came out.
Also, I find it annoying that with all the updates, they never fixed the sparring and hunting grounds showing up as quest markers, even after you've mastered everything. go away.
I'm not very far into the DLC, because I got off track exploring and trying to do a sidequest that I think must not be possible to do till some later point. I'm supposed to track a stormbird up into the clouds, and I can see the path, but when I get about to the clouds there's just...nothing. I watched a video walkthrough and when they do it, the path continues on into the storm, but that doesn't happen for me. So yeah, either bug or must be a later thing.
I've really got to get back into the ammo types and figure out what I'm supposed to be using, and why I had the weapons equipped that I did, last time I played. I wonder if all the DLC legendaries are like they were in Frozen Wilds, where they were just uniformly better than the base weapons.
oh man, I think I figured out why folks mention the grinding haha. I never quite understood since I just had everything for the most part. Turns out these orange weapons and armor need a ton of stuff that is random drops or you have to be super careful. I've killed 4-5 frostclaws now and only got 1 sac webbing as it's really hard to kill them without having their belly sac explode. Also I guess there is only 1 stormbird and not a campfire in sight. I think I may just have to wait till I finish more story stuff since I'm not sure how much more long rockclimbs I have in me, only to not get a single component I need.
I thought setting the settings to all loot would help, but no dice with these RNG ones I guess.
Yeah I'm another one in the "What does this button do again? And how do I do this?" camp after jumping into the DLC. Though I only had about half an hour to check it out last night which was mostly conversations and cut scenes, so hopefully it'll come back to me soon enough.
Chairman Meow on
Switch Friend Code: SW-3944-9431-0318
PSN / Xbox / NNID: Fodder185
I'd planned to go and do a few of the salvage quests and stuff I'd missed on the weekend but got distracted playing something else with a friend instead.
Stupid friends.
Chairman Meow on
Switch Friend Code: SW-3944-9431-0318
PSN / Xbox / NNID: Fodder185
Very excited to dive into this - it's weird that it has had so little hype and marketing, in my opinion, given that it apparently is a pretty essential bridge between HFW and the inevitable Horizon 3 - but the backlog is too daunting so I'm not going to get to it right away.
Read some positive things today and am eager for more HFW. It's just so gorgeous and wonderful.
All I want from the DLC is Aloy finally getting a lady to smooch. I got the impression that she was ready to go for Talanah, but then her whole quest line happened and kinda quashed that. But new lady has potential, so fingers crossed.
All I want from the DLC is Aloy finally getting a lady to smooch. I got the impression that she was ready to go for Talanah, but then her whole quest line happened and kinda quashed that. But new lady has potential, so fingers crossed.
I personally find it very refreshing that Aloy hasn't had any romance storylines. It gets old having romance shoehorned into just about every story. And by not doing one at all, it's entirely up to the players imagination if Aloy is gay, straight, ace, etc.
I've been playing this slowly since it went on PS+ Extra. I'm getting tired of the hyper-aggressive AI though. I wanted to look at difficulty options but there's not one for "calm down machines" so I went with extra health/auto-heal. I'm thinking about setting that back to default though, and going for more damage output, which automatically sets the "safe loot" option. Safe loot means you get the special loot even if you don't specifically blow off the canister/horn/tail, I think. Hearing about rare material collecting being over-prevalent in the endgame makes me think this is the way to go.
I just wish they understood the appeal of their own combat a little more. Traps and stuff are just not worth the hassle, or you're frequently up against waves of enemies, where the hard ones are last and you can't set up traps for them. So many quests where you're just dumped into combat too, no setup time. I also don't remember the first game having so many sprays, shockwaves and AOEs that are hard/impossible to dodge.
I would’ve liked aloy to be asexual or something, but whatever’s fine
Also Kotaku US spoiling stuff in this with a big article title and screenshot. Thanks Kotaku! The games only been out two days and it’s not even the weekend! Fuck you!
Posts
Retribution for all the regular ones I've killed so far haha.
Also such a bittersweet bummer to hear lance reddick again
He was such a prolithic voice actor he probably has a few projects you'll hear him in post death.
pleasepaypreacher.net
Also goddamn it isn’t just the incredible mocap, the detail in the faces is just stunning. Especially like old and wrinkly characters, the detail, my god
I’m also not too excited about the idea of hunting down a mysterious weapon in the third game as the opening of this suggests. Another macguffin isn’t my idea of exciting, I was hoping they’d go for something radical like trying to repair and rebuild the robots and bring them under our control, so they’re back doing what they were original intended to do, and you can like pokemon them and invest them in building up the defense against nemesis
Now they still might do that, but if the third game is another hunt for a button or object I’m going to be disappointed. They need to shake things up for the third game gameplay and structure wise.
Regardless, I agree that a potential 3rd game can't just be kicking the can down the road in the story. Forbidden West wasn't exactly that, but depending on how they close out the story (at whatever point, I'm not aware of any specific plans for a conclusion in a potential sequel), it kinda felt like a massive side quest relative to where it felt like it should have gone after Zero Dawn.
It wasn't bad, but it just took something that felt like an offhand, didn't really need to be resolved, thing mentioned in relative passing in Zero Dawn, and went completely in on it like it was the main story.
But it wasn't!
Though, even as I'm typing this out, I think that I'm misremembering how much of a focus the stuff that happened at the end of the game was, vs the first 2/3 or so of the game that actually was more what the story of Zero Dawn set up.
Ah well, might have a chance to load this up later. I haven't played since launch (didn't bother with any of the patches and stuff, figured I'd do it after it was all "done" including the DLC) so I'm sure I'm going to be rusty as hell.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Some of the new skills give me hope that they’re at least aware of it, I didn’t expect them to do anything radically different with this dlc, even tho it would’ve been nice. But I’m hoping that some of the choices they’ve made with new skills indicates the direction of bigger additions. Essentially they’re stepping in the right direction but the occasional ability isn’t enough.
But if they can do things like expand the grapple attack skill into a full system of clambering on robots, or opening up specific grapple only weak points, rather than it just being a single move you can do to a stunned enemy, it’ll help
And yep the shields you can drop in this dlc are fine for like stopping spam of projectiles in theory, but in reality enemies jump around too much for them to really work as static emplacements. It needs to be expanding into a shield system that allows aloy herself to either parry, block or some sort of similar system
The thing is I love this combat system, but I want them to use it as a core to radically expand, rather than just peppering on the occasional skills on top of your usual roll and shoot.
The base costume is close but there should be more options.
I'm tempted to do a ng+, but I just want to play the dlc.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
Thankfully, I think I can get through the rest of the game without any of the armor or weapons from that place.
Faced with doing the DLC for the first time like that, I've promptly restarted a NG+ run on Normal, and I guess I'm going to spend the next few days mainlining the main quest ASAP.
Except I know myself, and I know this is going to turn into another completionist run because my OCD cannot be controlled or denied.
With luck, maybe I'll start the DLC some time next month.
I'm just curious if there's more to do past what I had done back when the game came out.
Also, I find it annoying that with all the updates, they never fixed the sparring and hunting grounds showing up as quest markers, even after you've mastered everything. go away.
I'm not very far into the DLC, because I got off track exploring and trying to do a sidequest that I think must not be possible to do till some later point. I'm supposed to track a stormbird up into the clouds, and I can see the path, but when I get about to the clouds there's just...nothing. I watched a video walkthrough and when they do it, the path continues on into the storm, but that doesn't happen for me. So yeah, either bug or must be a later thing.
I've really got to get back into the ammo types and figure out what I'm supposed to be using, and why I had the weapons equipped that I did, last time I played. I wonder if all the DLC legendaries are like they were in Frozen Wilds, where they were just uniformly better than the base weapons.
Origin: Galedrid - Nintendo: Galedrid/3222-6858-1045
Blizzard: Galedrid#1367 - FFXIV: Galedrid Kingshand
I thought setting the settings to all loot would help, but no dice with these RNG ones I guess.
PSN / Xbox / NNID: Fodder185
Stupid friends.
PSN / Xbox / NNID: Fodder185
Read some positive things today and am eager for more HFW. It's just so gorgeous and wonderful.
This is where I'm at, ~9 hours in:
I just finished moving into a new apartment so I can finally start playing this...If I can see past all the boxes I now need to unpack
Enlist in Star Citizen! Citizenship must be earned!
I personally find it very refreshing that Aloy hasn't had any romance storylines. It gets old having romance shoehorned into just about every story. And by not doing one at all, it's entirely up to the players imagination if Aloy is gay, straight, ace, etc.
I just wish they understood the appeal of their own combat a little more. Traps and stuff are just not worth the hassle, or you're frequently up against waves of enemies, where the hard ones are last and you can't set up traps for them. So many quests where you're just dumped into combat too, no setup time. I also don't remember the first game having so many sprays, shockwaves and AOEs that are hard/impossible to dodge.
Also Kotaku US spoiling stuff in this with a big article title and screenshot. Thanks Kotaku! The games only been out two days and it’s not even the weekend! Fuck you!