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[Horizon Zero Dawn] Out now on PC and PS4!

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Posts

  • MorninglordMorninglord I'm tired of being Batman, so today I'll be Owl.Registered User regular
    edited September 2020
    Cantido wrote: »
    I'm beginning to understand why my first run of this on PS4 was so doomed. The "optional" sidequests in the beginning aren't so optional. You should do them all. I've completed Revenge of the Nora for the first time.

    Second, as much as I love stealth, the Prowler track is a trap. Nora has many inescapable fights and its not long before her arrows and spear are tickle-sticks that don't kill humans upon headshots. The combat perks are what keep Aloy alive.

    Actually, humans spotting Nora through the red grass is forcing me to unlearn the baby Nora tutorial.

    Your default bow is a tickle stick. Just stick fire mods on it and burn things with it. And use it for hunting.

    The sharpshot bow is the killer. Get that.

    Get triple shot asap. Get first sling for freeze. Freeze things. Triple shot hardpoint arrows (its a sharpshot bow thing) their weak points while they're frozen. They die. Triple shot hardpoint humans in the body, they die. Headshot in the body with a single arrow, they die.

    Also get a blast sling. Any human so much as looks like they're going to be a pain, blow them up. And walk away. It is a great help in trying times.

    Playing on hard the first time I used a lot of blast sling in human fights. There were a lot of people getting blown up it got kind of ridiculous.

    Morninglord on
    (PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
  • DrascinDrascin Registered User regular
    edited September 2020
    Cantido wrote: »
    I'm beginning to understand why my first run of this on PS4 was so doomed. The "optional" sidequests in the beginning aren't so optional. You should do them all. I've completed Revenge of the Nora for the first time.

    Second, as much as I love stealth, the Prowler track is a trap. Nora has many inescapable fights and its not long before her arrows and spear are tickle-sticks that don't kill humans upon headshots. The combat perks are what keep Aloy alive.

    Actually, humans spotting Nora through the red grass is forcing me to unlearn the baby Nora tutorial.

    The sharpshot bow can kill most humans from stealth headshots, way deep into the game. I think the only time I had a stand up fight that involved humans in this game until almost to the end was the end of the Revenge of the Nora quest, in the Circle of Metal - and even then, I killed half the camp from stealth before the mandatory alarm pinged.

    This is what my skill tree looked like by midgame. As you may notice, I might have something of a playstyle.

    Drascin on
    Steam ID: Right here.
  • OrcaOrca Also known as Espressosaurus WrexRegistered User regular
    The one change I'd make to Drascin's loadout is to prioritize triple-shot over going all the way into the stealth kills since you get most of the benefit by getting the initial stealth kill skill which costs all of 1 point.

    Triple-nocked arrows allow you to absolutely wreck the machines, and humans are much more squishy.

  • DrascinDrascin Registered User regular
    Orca wrote: »
    The one change I'd make to Drascin's loadout is to prioritize triple-shot over going all the way into the stealth kills since you get most of the benefit by getting the initial stealth kill skill which costs all of 1 point.

    Triple-nocked arrows allow you to absolutely wreck the machines, and humans are much more squishy.

    Personally, I think going up to the one that lets you stealthkill elites is a thing I need to get quickly, because otherwise you won't be able to perfect stealth areas and honestly that bothers me a lot!

    Steam ID: Right here.
  • OrcaOrca Also known as Espressosaurus WrexRegistered User regular
    Why stealth melee kill elites when you can triple-sharp-shot-arrow them from stealth!

  • AistanAistan Tiny Bat Registered User regular
    Stealth melee elites was the last skill I got, because it was blocked by stealth kill from a hanging ledge which is a thing you'd use maybe once in the entire game. That's six total skill points that I could really use elsewhere.

  • OrcaOrca Also known as Espressosaurus WrexRegistered User regular
    PC patch up to 1.04.

    I've been playing some this last week with 1.03 and haven't had a crash. I think the game is finally in a good state. This is honestly how it should have released, because anybody not all in on the game is not going to put up with the number of crashes I subjected myself to.

    If they're going to bring more games over, they really need to do better next time. It's great HZD has all these appearance options, but job 1 needs to be "doesn't crash all the fucking time".

  • Pixelated PixiePixelated Pixie They/Them Registered User regular
    Yeah, I never had any more crashes after the 1.03 patch.

    ~~ Pixie on Steam ~~
    ironzerg wrote: »
    Chipmunks are like nature's nipple clamps, I guess?
  • StormwatcherStormwatcher Blegh BlughRegistered User regular
    i don't think it was lack of work or effort, more lack of experience and ways of testing so many configurations. It's notable that APPARENTLY nvidia has more issues than AMD, considering the original game ran on AMD. Their response to the whole fuckton of issues was fast and committed, and the improvement very notable.

    Sure I'd expect and hope every port was reasonably polished on release day (much more than this game), but i don't see this as being as cynical and mercenary like the usual "fuck you got mine" we get from Square-Enix games that are not FFXIV.

    Steam: Stormwatcher | PSN: Stormwatcher33 | Switch: 5961-4777-3491
    camo_sig2.png
  • OrcaOrca Also known as Espressosaurus WrexRegistered User regular
    edited September 2020
    I'm not saying it's a cynical effort, I'm not saying it's mercenary, and I'm not making a statement about how much work they put in.

    I'm making a statement about the minimum acceptable quality for a product. Their response has been good! The improvement is, as you say, quite notable.

    But crashing once per hour (and more frequently in graphically intense areas!) for a significant population of users is not acceptable. It says their test infrastructure was not up to snuff or that they weren't given enough time to fix what should have been considered show-stopping bugs in aggregate. That's a management problem. A process problem. I'm sure the devs have been busting their asses to make it right, but it's all indicative of an insufficient process.

    I hope they've (management) learned from this for the future.

    Orca on
  • jungleroomxjungleroomx It's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovels Registered User regular
    i don't think it was lack of work or effort, more lack of experience and ways of testing so many configurations. It's notable that APPARENTLY nvidia has more issues than AMD, considering the original game ran on AMD. Their response to the whole fuckton of issues was fast and committed, and the improvement very notable.

    Sure I'd expect and hope every port was reasonably polished on release day (much more than this game), but i don't see this as being as cynical and mercenary like the usual "fuck you got mine" we get from Square-Enix games that are not FFXIV.

    Considering how well Death Stranding came out it kind of lends credence that no game ports should be running on AMD exclusive technology on PC ever again.

  • OrcaOrca Also known as Espressosaurus WrexRegistered User regular
    I've been on the other side of that when management/sales/PMs are making idiotic schedules that are unobtainable and I'm supposed to somehow make it work, but the deadline is immovable and then you release a giant turd or maybe you can finally convince management that it's worth a delay but end up with a huge amount of egg on your face for it.

    This is a management problem. The devs I'm sure have learned their lesson with no doubt late nights and weekends to pull this crap out of the fire. The devs may have even been warning management the entire time.

  • jungleroomxjungleroomx It's never too many graves, it's always not enough shovels Registered User regular
    Orca wrote: »
    I've been on the other side of that when management/sales/PMs are making idiotic schedules that are unobtainable and I'm supposed to somehow make it work, but the deadline is immovable and then you release a giant turd or maybe you can finally convince management that it's worth a delay but end up with a huge amount of egg on your face for it.

    This is a management problem. The devs I'm sure have learned their lesson with no doubt late nights and weekends to pull this crap out of the fire. The devs may have even been warning management the entire time.

    I'm 100% with this.

    This was a publisher looking to push something out, for whatever reason, before it had finished.

    And probably someone made a deal with another someone to use this game as a vehicle to show off AMD PC technology. Basically, your typical publisher fuckery like what happened with Deus Ex:MD.

  • SpoitSpoit *twitch twitch* Registered User regular
    The rumor was that the port was shopped out to a 3rd party team, anyway. While Guerilla was busy with HZD2

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  • AistanAistan Tiny Bat Registered User regular
    Then it's still a management problem since they were likely not given as much time as they would have liked to become familiar with the game and/or engine.

  • MichaelLCMichaelLC In what furnace was thy brain? ChicagoRegistered User regular
    edited September 2020
    Whew.

    Beat the main game and Wilds, completed a lot of the side stuff but not all

    Frozen Wilds was OK, didn't help that I was kind of blasting through it to get the new weapons.

    edit: The screenshot options are pretty crazy.
    1v7ejshccqcw.png

    MichaelLC on
  • CantidoCantido Registered User regular
    edited September 2020
    I have officially passed where I gave up on PS4. Because I did damn near every quest I saw, Aloy is Level 22, the Hunter Trials taught me how to fight gud, I found the correct Cauldrons in the correct order, and I can ride Broadheads, Aloy has made it to Meridian, with a Blazon outfit and the Pillar Men theme blaring.

    EDIT - Not for fanservice, but so the world knows they ain't gettin' none of this.

    Cantido on
    3DS Friendcode 5413-1311-3767
  • QuiotuQuiotu Registered User regular
    Gonna toss up my opinion about Sylens here, spoiler free. Honestly from my experience, having two nephews with this issue growing up, he isn't antagonistic so much as he's utterly antisocial.

    Sylens for me is a cut and dry case of being weapons-grade Asberger or ASD with no way of handling it in the setting. Antisocial, trouble judging emotions, organized to a fault, has a rather odd way of talking... he's post-apocalypse ASD. He'll hopefully be used in the sequel as a third party rather than an antagonist, or possibly someone that's manipulated by another that knows how to deal with his ailment.

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  • CantidoCantido Registered User regular
    Also, loot based carving is some horseshit. I have never seen a Bellowback Heart (and several others) for the Very Rare outfits.

    3DS Friendcode 5413-1311-3767
  • Pixelated PixiePixelated Pixie They/Them Registered User regular
    Cantido wrote: »
    Also, loot based carving is some horseshit. I have never seen a Bellowback Heart (and several others) for the Very Rare outfits.

    Really? That's bizarre.

    ~~ Pixie on Steam ~~
    ironzerg wrote: »
    Chipmunks are like nature's nipple clamps, I guess?
  • CantidoCantido Registered User regular
    Cantido wrote: »
    Also, loot based carving is some horseshit. I have never seen a Bellowback Heart (and several others) for the Very Rare outfits.

    Really? That's bizarre.

    I googled and found out a shop in Meridian sells a lot of various Hearts, so I got what I needed. I finally have my Very Rare Stealth outfit. Not that it matters. Stealth is worthless on human opponents. They are hive minded, and the slightest startling of one puts the entire army on aggro. I hope the sequel gets better stealth.

    3DS Friendcode 5413-1311-3767
  • SiliconStewSiliconStew Registered User regular
    Yeah, that vendor saved my sanity on getting those parts.

    Just remember that half the people you meet are below average intelligence.
  • MorninglordMorninglord I'm tired of being Batman, so today I'll be Owl.Registered User regular
    edited September 2020
    Stealth makes a massive difference on Ultra Hard in general. Enemies have near line of sight to horizon visuals with very fast buildup until you get some stealth and then you can actually stealth. Its percentage based.

    Its not just for human enemies. I do a lot of shenanigans. Breaking line of sight, manipulating buildup. It feels significantly more valuable when you are truly a mouse among titans.

    I once hid behind a tree as an enemy came over to inspect my last position. I only just managed to get behind the tree before its buildup hit alerted thanks to the stealth suit. It came to inspect my last position (the tree). I then slid out and killed it when it got too close. Pure los stealth.

    Morninglord on
    (PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
  • ForarForar #432 Toronto, Ontario, CanadaRegistered User regular
    Maybe it's because I completed the game three times over (Normal, Hard NG+, Ultra-Hard NG+), but I had at least one full stack of pretty much every heart, and often several of them (which I finally began selling when I realized just how few of these you need in most cases, and according to this very thread there's some hearts and lenses (?) you don't need at all).

    Which seems a bit odd. I get that it'd be inconsistent to have hearts or lenses useful 90% of the time and then a couple that are gray vendor trash for some reason, but it feels like an odd oversight in a game with so much attention to detail, or like cut content (armour/weapon sets or quests that used the unused ones, something like that).

    I can't say the inventory management was a highlight of the game, but at the same time, I don't mind being given constraints to work within. Even at the slight loss compared to selling to a vendor, once you have the skill to scavenge in the field, I'd just clear out the trash and most anything I had extra stacks of after crafting up my ammo to max. Some stuff I would hoard, such as blaze canisters, some would be very much feast or famine (one moment I'm sitting on several hundred wire, a few hours later I realize I'm on the cusp of being out of it).

    Once you've been through a good portion of the game, however, you also generally end up with a massive backlog of treasure packs that often have a good supply of the common resources. Boy, did I feel like a genius when I was on the verge of running out of some very necessary (like, in that moment, for this very fight) resources, and remembered I had roughly a gajillion loot boxes to crack open. Half a page of them later, I was nicely restocked in a way that probably wasn't necessarily intended, but if they're going to give me limited inventory space but unlimited resource lootbox space, whelp, those boxes just became my emergency supply bank/cache.

    It also helped once I had finished all of the upgrading and could sell/throw out a bunch of random animal bits, though I think a few were obnoxious enough to get that I may actually still have them on hand. Just in case future DLC necessitated them (which seems to have been for naught, obviously, but I don't regret a little forward thinking all the same.

    First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
  • OrcaOrca Also known as Espressosaurus WrexRegistered User regular
    There are a few random animal bits that are a pain in the ass, in the base game, and needed for some of the inventory upgrades in Frozen Wilds so it wasn't wasted! IIRC you need a couple mouse bones and fish skins.

  • ForarForar #432 Toronto, Ontario, CanadaRegistered User regular
    edited September 2020
    Right, but I mean now, knowing that HFW is coming and that FW was declared the last of the DLC, any future NG+ runs can basically just jettison pretty much everything but stuff actually used in combat at this point. I think I've officially done everything that needs robo-bits and animal-bits at this point.

    The desire to make sure I have stuff on hand "just in case" runs out when there's nothing more to buy with that stuff (yeah, I know, occasional quests and whatnot, but those aren't usually a big deal anyways).

    I'd just hoped we might get even more DLC down the road where those hording tendencies would come in handy. :-P

    Like the DLC I've long imagined where one could turn in piles of materials to an arena thing where I could pit a Snapmaw against like dozens of Watchers or something. Bonus points if there were both options to let the fights play out, or dive in and join the fray. Or some kind of horde mode.

    Forar on
    First they came for the Muslims, and we said NOT TODAY, MOTHERFUCKER!
  • AistanAistan Tiny Bat Registered User regular
    Having to kill about a dozen herds of grazers in UH to get the two hearts I needed for the adept nora protector gives me a lot more sympathy for the Shattered Hearts. Sometimes that shit just doesn't drop!

  • MichaelLCMichaelLC In what furnace was thy brain? ChicagoRegistered User regular
    Aistan wrote: »
    Having to kill about a dozen herds of grazers in UH to get the two hearts I needed for the adept nora protector gives me a lot more sympathy for the Shattered Hearts. Sometimes that shit just doesn't drop!

    I didn't break it!

  • AistanAistan Tiny Bat Registered User regular
    Oh no i've fallen into the shipping trap. Dang it Ikrie.

  • OrcaOrca Also known as Espressosaurus WrexRegistered User regular
    Aistan wrote: »
    Oh no i've fallen into the shipping trap. Dang it Ikrie.

    On the other hand, Varga. Rawr.

  • Pixelated PixiePixelated Pixie They/Them Registered User regular
    Ikrie is the best. <3<3<3

    ~~ Pixie on Steam ~~
    ironzerg wrote: »
    Chipmunks are like nature's nipple clamps, I guess?
  • AistanAistan Tiny Bat Registered User regular
    Being a two side quest character in the DLC she's probably not going to show up in Forbidden West. But dang it their chemistry is just a perfect thing to build upon for the future.

  • AistanAistan Tiny Bat Registered User regular
    Oh that's why Aloy's arms are so big in the Nora Silent Hunter Master outfit. Just like the Carja Blazon Master is simply Tahlanah's armor and body shape, the Silent Hunter Master is War Chief Sona's. At least it adds the mask and changes the wrist/boot model instead of just being a 1:1 swap like the other.

  • OrcaOrca Also known as Espressosaurus WrexRegistered User regular
    That explains dem abs.

    The Carja really like showing off those toned bellies.

  • JazzJazz Registered User regular
    HFW coming to PS4 as well has given me some more breathing room on a PS5, which is nice.

  • OrcaOrca Also known as Espressosaurus WrexRegistered User regular
    Jazz wrote: »
    HFW coming to PS4 as well has given me some more breathing room on a PS5, which is nice.

    It's coming out on PS4?

  • AistanAistan Tiny Bat Registered User regular
    Orca wrote: »
    That explains dem abs.

    The Carja really like showing off those toned bellies.

    It's very noticeable the model difference between the normal Carja Blazon and the Carja Blazon Master. In addition to the master version being way too shiny that's why I don't like it at all.

  • MorninglordMorninglord I'm tired of being Batman, so today I'll be Owl.Registered User regular
    Those feels when you miss every shot on a small bunny then giveup slide up to it and heavy melee attack it.

    Don't mind me carryon.

    (PSN: Morninglord) (Steam: Morninglord) (WiiU: Morninglord22) I like to record and toss up a lot of random gaming videos here.
  • knitdanknitdan In ur base Killin ur guysRegistered User regular
    Those feels when you miss every shot on a small bunny then giveup slide up to it and heavy melee attack it.

    Don't mind me carrion.

    “I was quick when I came in here, I’m twice as quick now”
    -Indiana Solo, runner of blades
  • FremFrem Registered User regular
    Patch 1.05 dropped on Steam. I haven't seen much mention of performance improvements in the patch notes. It was pretty stuttery for me at launch. Has it improved much for anyone?

    Path notes:
    Hi everyone,

    Patch 1.05 for Horizon Zero Dawn on PC is now available to download on Steam! If your game does not update automatically, please restart your client.

    This patch addresses additional crashes, as well as a couple of community-reported bugs such as Aloy’s hair not displaying correctly when playing with the game running above 30 FPS, controller rumble toggle and adds the option to display black side bars in cinematics when playing in ultrawide resolutions. We are continuing to investigate open issues and will update you when we have more news available.

    You can find the Known Issues and full patch notes below; if your issue isn’t among them, you can still send us your reports here.

    Thank you for your continued feedback, patience, and support!

    –Guerrilla


    Known Issues

    Some players are experiencing an out of memory error during the game optimization process.
    Some players are experiencing graphical settings issues, such as Anisotropic Filtering or HDR not working correctly.
    Some players are experiencing performance issues on specific GPUs or hardware combinations.
    We're aware of and continue to investigate issues that are not yet solved on both the player-compiled lists by u/EvilMonkeySlayer and u/Rampage572 – thank you!


    Patch Notes
    Crash Fixes
    Fixed a crash in NetPresenceManager that some players experienced when entering the game or the benchmark from the main menu
    Fixed a crash where the Steam SDK could crash on initialization when the game executable was started directly from installation folder rather than through Steam
    Fixed a crash which would occur if the player pressed ‘Stop’ in Steam immediately after pressing ‘Play’
    Fixed a startup crash when using Avast antivirus
    Fixed a crash that could occur when VRAM was about to be oversubscribed


    Graphical Improvements
    Fixed an issue with Aloy’s hair not displaying correctly when the game is running above 30 FPS
    Shader animations (e.g. hologram locks on doors, GAIA in cinematics, etc.) are no longer locked to 30 FPS, but running at unlocked framerate
    Fixed an issue with flickering textures in main quest “A Gift from the Past”
    Fixed an issue with flickering snow assets
    Fixed an issue with flickering paintings in Song’s Edge
    Fixed graphical corruption issues that only occurred on specific GPUs
    Fixed an issue where the game would open in windowed mode instead of fullscreen when the player is using another window when booting the game
    Fixed an issue where the game would not run in the correct resolution when switching from windowed to fullscreen
    Added an option to turn off “blurry sidebars” in ultrawide resolutions and display black sidebars instead


    Other Improvements
    Allow players to still boot the game even if the version of windows used is detected to be too low to run the game at a stable condition
    Added an option to turn off controller vibration/rumble
    Fixed an issue in the storing of the ‘permission to track data’ attribute of the player profile (subsequently re-asking for said permission)
    Fixed an issue where the opening cutscene music would not play if the player quits out and immediately begins a new game
    Fixed an issue where inverting mouse controls also affected dialog tree choice input

This discussion has been closed.