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Batman: Arkham Knight |OT| Protect Gotham Racing

Papercuts

fired zero bullets in the orphanage.
Keep playing. The radio signal part isn't but the cryptographic sequencer is.



It's far quicker to execute than ground pounds (and therefore less risky). It's a great way to boost your combo multiplier as well. Consequently it's one of my favorite moves in the game and it will be very painful going back to the prior Arkham games without it.

Another good quality of life change is actually being able to strike people on the ground even without picking them up.
 
Perfect shot means a single shot of the gun on the light since it immediately takes out a drone. I am pretty sure you also can't shoot inbetween and miss, you'll have a chain of perfect shots if you use a single shot with no misses inbetween while hitting the critical points.

Sounds fun, thanks!
 

Alienous

Member
Actually, I think it's interesting to dissect the Predator mode here too.

While I never felt they were that 'hard' in the other games, I felt way more...passive here, I guess. I felt like you could accomplish A LOT just sitting on a perch taking everyone out. The Disruptor has always been powerful, but it seems to be even moreso here--and serves as a hard counter to almost everything new they added. Like Medics, cool addition! They'll go around and pick people up, so you want to prioritize them. But I don't think I have a single instance where I actually felt their impact, as the disruptor serves to essentially be a long ranged takedown as they will incapacitate themselves. So will the mine users. So will people deploying a sentry. It's not just threat removal such as not having a sentry or mine to deal with, it straight up takes out whoever uses them in the first place. On top of that, you have complete control with the voice synth to specifically pick your targets and send them anywhere to take them down which is better than the sonic batarang ever was. On top of THAT, Fear Takedowns, as cool as they look, are...pretty damn OP as they let you clear a whole crowd that goes to check on a body(like the aftermath of a medic getting shocked).

I think it would have worked out better if the disruptor didn't fully shut down medic packs. Like maybe the first one would do that, but someone else would take over and pick up the additional medpacks and use them, so you'd have to use 3 shots of ammo to take them out of the picture(which is a hefty investment and would actually be a harder choice to make). I like the Boa Drone dudes since that's actual risk reward, get close to hack the code and turn the drone into a potential triple incap. I don't feel there was enough of that, as the current way things work would mean they basically need a massive predator section full of 20+ people, multiple medics, etc. so you can't just immediately take out the unique guys from a perch, and the whole learning aspect would come into play more(like the voice synth not working if you use it a lot, but when this actually kicks in there's generally <3 people left anyway).

I didn't dislike the predator sections really, but I felt less like a predator and more like a wizard having everyone in the room take themselves out.

Yeah, I think the game was somewhat aware of that too, because the way they seem to frame their Predator challenges are basically "leave the unique person alone until you take out the rest". They basically have to set that as a condition to make things difficult. And Batman has so many tools at his disposal you can almost nullify everything pre-emptively then just go in and choke dudes out.

The thing is, as you take guys down and enemies would start to pair up, that's where I found myself having to be tactical and considered in my approach. They probably should have had enemies protecting VIP types (like medics) from the get-go and, as you said, multiple of them. Because by the time the game puts any restrictions on your tactics (like enemies pairing up, or your
voice device
being nullified), like you said there aren't that many of them anyway.

I thought the predator sequences in general worked pretty well, though. They had a higher success rate in terms of fun than the freeflow sections, for me.
 

Dice

Pokémon Parentage Conspiracy Theorist
Guys I was wrong about this game. I thought it would be poop, but so far the only poop thing is the dialogue.

Gotham is awesome.
Batmobile is fucking awesome.
Clock tower transformation was wow.
Fear multitakedown is badass.

This is only the beginning!
 
Actually, I think it's interesting to dissect the Predator mode here too.

While I never felt they were that 'hard' in the other games, I felt way more...passive here, I guess. I felt like you could accomplish A LOT just sitting on a perch taking everyone out. The Disruptor has always been powerful, but it seems to be even moreso here--and serves as a hard counter to almost everything new they added. Like Medics, cool addition! They'll go around and pick people up, so you want to prioritize them. But I don't think I have a single instance where I actually felt their impact, as the disruptor serves to essentially be a long ranged takedown as they will incapacitate themselves. So will the mine users. So will people deploying a sentry. It's not just threat removal such as not having a sentry or mine to deal with, it straight up takes out whoever uses them in the first place. On top of that, you have complete control with the voice synth to specifically pick your targets and send them anywhere to take them down which is better than the sonic batarang ever was. On top of THAT, Fear Takedowns, as cool as they look, are...pretty damn OP as they let you clear a whole crowd that goes to check on a body(like the aftermath of a medic getting shocked).

I think it would have worked out better if the disruptor didn't fully shut down medic packs. Like maybe the first one would do that, but someone else would take over and pick up the additional medpacks and use them, so you'd have to use 3 shots of ammo to take them out of the picture(which is a hefty investment and would actually be a harder choice to make). I like the Boa Drone dudes since that's actual risk reward, get close to hack the code and turn the drone into a potential triple incap. I don't feel there was enough of that, as the current way things work would mean they basically need a massive predator section full of 20+ people, multiple medics, etc. so you can't just immediately take out the unique guys from a perch, and the whole learning aspect would come into play more(like the voice synth not working if you use it a lot, but when this actually kicks in there's generally <3 people left anyway).

I didn't dislike the predator sections really, but I felt less like a predator and more like a wizard having everyone in the room take themselves out.

A lot of that stuff would be relatively small fixes, too.

-Cap disruptor at three ammo instead of four.

-Add City's armored enemies to predator sections that require a stun+beat down to kill. Minigunners serve a similar high-level purpose, but the process of defeating them is too involved to warrant a significant number of them. Armored enemies are a nice middle ground.

-Give armored enemies special traits such as jamming, detective mode tracking, boa drones, etc.

-Multiple detective mode tracking enemies in a single fight.

-More jammer enemies in general. I hardly recall any?

-Extend NG+'s removal of fear upon being spotted to all modes.

-Increase the number of silent takedowns to replenish fear.

-Drastically increase enemies' tendency to place mines on vantage points. This would also help balance the disruptor.

-Increase cooldown on the voice synthesizer to match the previous games' sonic batarang and/or after two or three lures into takedowns, render the voice synthesizer ineffective for the rest of the fight.

-etc.

In any case, there should have been some "extreme" (in previous games' terms) AR predator maps. None of the current ones fit that bill.
 

Regginator

Member
So unless I collect all the trophies, I won't get the best ending? Oh bloody hell.

Yes, that is correct. Though honestly if you really don't like looking for them, you can just watch the extra scene on YouTube. I wouldn't blame you.


edit: I wouldn't call it the "best" ending though. It's just a little extended, 1 minute tops. It's still as unsatisfying as the base ending in my opinion.
 

Goreomedy

Console Market Analyst
Well... done with this one. That ending... you serious? Can't remember a game turning to shit like this for the last third. I want those last 10 hours of gameplay back.
 

JohnnyFootball

GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
Is there some sort of walkthrough to do the combat drone AR challenges?

Like all the tank combat challenges these are so unfairly hard, but I can't do it without getting seen. The best I could get was four before I get seen and challenge ends. Even shooting the walls doesn't seem to yield a consistent result.

I have never hated something as bad as I do these tank based AR challenges. They're not fair, they're unbalanced and many of them require luck.
 

Goreomedy

Console Market Analyst
What specifically was "shit" to you? Thought it got better as it went on myself

The game is supposed to unlock Knightfall protocol after enough Most Wanted objectives are complete. My game bugged out, and I had to complete them all. So the last 10 hours of gameplay were completing the objectives I had skipped and hated most (involving tanks and Militia clean up). I thought I would get some much needed variety from completing the Penguin and Two Face side quests, but there was no memorable boss fight for them. I didn't even know I beat Two Face, because I got him with a fucking escalator kill while in Detective mode. The predictable Arkham Knight plot line was a joke, and the many iterations of Tank battle to bring him down tested my patience. Deathstroke was a rinse and repeat of that shitty Cloudburst battle! The ending (100% version included) resolves nothing. It was so abrupt, and lazy, that I'll credit Rocksteady for trolling me good. It's like they just stopped caring at a certain point. I wish I had stopped playing after the movie studios.
 

RDreamer

Member
This riddler "puzzle" where you have to glide out of the bat mobile and hit buttons and go through a tunnel and shit makes me want to punch a baby. Jesus he controls fucking terribly in enclosed spaces. Who thought this was a good idea?
 

Golgo 13

The Man With The Golden Dong
This riddler "puzzle" where you have to glide out of the bat mobile and hit buttons and go through a tunnel and shit makes me want to punch a baby. Jesus he controls fucking terribly in enclosed spaces. Who thought this was a good idea?
There's a way to make that part a lot easier on yourself, and I discovered it by accident, if it's the one I'm thinking of. Look around a bit.
 
The game is supposed to unlock Knightfall protocol after enough Most Wanted objectives are complete. My game bugged out, and I had to complete them all. So the last 10 hours of gameplay were completing the objectives I had skipped and hated most (involving tanks and Militia clean up). I thought I would get some much needed variety from completing the Penguin and Two Face side quests, but there was no memorable boss fight for them. I didn't even know I beat Two Face, because I got him with a fucking escalator kill while in Detective mode. The predictable Arkham Knight plot line was a joke, and the many iterations of Tank battle to bring him down tested my patience. Deathstroke was a rinse and repeat of that shitty Cloudburst battle! The ending (100% version included) resolves nothing. It was so abrupt, and lazy, that I'll credit Rocksteady for trolling me good. It's like they just stopped caring at a certain point. I wish I had stopped playing after the movie studios.

Maybe it's cause I completed the side stuff while also completing the main game that I didn't feel it was bad like you felt. I do have to agree with
the Deathstroke stuff, especially when he jumps out and I thought a cool fight would commence. And you're right they could have wrapped up the story nicely but instead left it ambiguous which annoyed me as well.
I can see why you didn't enjoy it as much as I did. There were a few missed opportunities to make the game truly epic.
 
Is there any benefit to doing Hard mode other than making the game more challenging? Like more XP rewarded or anything like that?

And what are some good upgrades people recommend? I'm still pretty early in the game. I'm at the
ACE Chemicals Plant
. In particular, bat mobile and combat/gadgets upgrades. Should I prioritize some over the others? Thanks. :)
 

jediyoshi

Member
Is there any benefit to doing Hard mode other than making the game more challenging? Like more XP rewarded or anything like that?

And what are some good upgrades people recommend? I'm still pretty early in the game. I'm at the
ACE Chemicals Plant
. In particular, bat mobile and combat/gadgets upgrades. Should I prioritize some over the others? Thanks. :)

Don't think so, as long as you're keeping up with the side quests, you'll have more upgrade points than you'll know what to do with.
 
Using this downtime between the next PC patch to replay the other Arkham games.
Went through Asylum again today, and man.. I wish it were somehow possible to swap in John Noble's VA, because Scarecrow's Asylum VA is really poor in comparison now.
 

JohnnyFootball

GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
Don't think so, as long as you're keeping up with the side quests, you'll have more upgrade points than you'll know what to do with.
Not true at all.

You can't even maximize your upgrades on one playthrough even with all the sidequests and most of the AR challenges.

You should be able to easily get the upgrades you want though.

The upgrades involving shooting while gliding are a complete waste.
 

Papercuts

fired zero bullets in the orphanage.
A lot of that stuff would be relatively small fixes, too.

-Cap disruptor at three ammo instead of four.

-Add City's armored enemies to predator sections that require a stun+beat down to kill. Minigunners serve a similar high-level purpose, but the process of defeating them is too involved to warrant a significant number of them. Armored enemies are a nice middle ground.

-Give armored enemies special traits such as jamming, detective mode tracking, boa drones, etc.

-Multiple detective mode tracking enemies in a single fight.

-More jammer enemies in general. I hardly recall any?

-Extend NG+'s removal of fear upon being spotted to all modes.

-Increase the number of silent takedowns to replenish fear.

-Drastically increase enemies' tendency to place mines on vantage points. This would also help balance the disruptor.

-Increase cooldown on the voice synthesizer to match the previous games' sonic batarang and/or after two or three lures into takedowns, render the voice synthesizer ineffective for the rest of the fight.

-etc.

In any case, there should have been some "extreme" (in previous games' terms) AR predator maps. None of the current ones fit that bill.

There actually isn't a single detective mode disruptor person in the main game at all, that stuck out to me in NG+. They're only in side mission areas.

But yeah, I didn't dislike them but I guess it left me hungry for more, which could be attributed more to the paltry AR offerings. There's so much mechanical interplay for them to mess around with in these rooms so it feels like a sandbox that was only partially explored.
 

Sober

Member
A lot of that stuff would be relatively small fixes, too.

-Cap disruptor at three ammo instead of four.

-Add City's armored enemies to predator sections that require a stun+beat down to kill. Minigunners serve a similar high-level purpose, but the process of defeating them is too involved to warrant a significant number of them. Armored enemies are a nice middle ground.

-Give armored enemies special traits such as jamming, detective mode tracking, boa drones, etc.

-Multiple detective mode tracking enemies in a single fight.

-More jammer enemies in general. I hardly recall any?

-Extend NG+'s removal of fear upon being spotted to all modes.

-Increase the number of silent takedowns to replenish fear.

-Drastically increase enemies' tendency to place mines on vantage points. This would also help balance the disruptor.

-Increase cooldown on the voice synthesizer to match the previous games' sonic batarang and/or after two or three lures into takedowns, render the voice synthesizer ineffective for the rest of the fight.

-etc.

In any case, there should have been some "extreme" (in previous games' terms) AR predator maps. None of the current ones fit that bill.
I noticed that even in the AR challenges, smoke and distruptor ammo can reload/cooldown whereas before it was limited. So eventually over time you can just try again. And smoke cools down really quick. I tossed one into a group to do a fear takedown, fubbed the landing, grappeled out and about a minute later I was good to try again.
 
Not true at all.

You can't even maximize your upgrades on one playthrough even with all the sidequests and most of the AR challenges.

You should be able to easily get the upgrades you want though.

The upgrades involving shooting while gliding are a complete waste.

Hmm alright, I'll avoid the upgrades for shooting while gliding. I wasn't sure if those would be handy or not.

Is there any point in fighting any of the random enemies in the city? I noticed that they don't give any exp unless they are tied to a side mission. :/
 

MAX PAYMENT

Member
I wish this game had scenes of batman being more human.

Like go to one of his hideouts, trash a bloody bat suit and demonstrate that he can barely physically handle what's going on.
 

Papercuts

fired zero bullets in the orphanage.
Hmm alright, I'll avoid the upgrades for shooting while gliding. I wasn't sure if those would be handy or not.

Is there any point in fighting any of the random enemies in the city? I noticed that they don't give any exp unless they are tied to a side mission. :/

Not really unless you want to practice stuff.

But yeah, you need to NG+ if you want to actually max out, though you do get a ton if you keep up with sidequests.
 

JohnnyFootball

GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
A lot of that stuff would be relatively small fixes, too.

-Cap disruptor at three ammo instead of four.

-Add City's armored enemies to predator sections that require a stun+beat down to kill. Minigunners serve a similar high-level purpose, but the process of defeating them is too involved to warrant a significant number of them. Armored enemies are a nice middle ground.

-Give armored enemies special traits such as jamming, detective mode tracking, boa drones, etc.

-Multiple detective mode tracking enemies in a single fight.

-More jammer enemies in general. I hardly recall any?

-Extend NG+'s removal of fear upon being spotted to all modes.

-Increase the number of silent takedowns to replenish fear.

-Drastically increase enemies' tendency to place mines on vantage points. This would also help balance the disruptor.

-Increase cooldown on the voice synthesizer to match the previous games' sonic batarang and/or after two or three lures into takedowns, render the voice synthesizer ineffective for the rest of the fight.

-etc.

In any case, there should have been some "extreme" (in previous games' terms) AR predator maps. None of the current ones fit that bill.

In otherwords, make the game fucking suck by being stupid hard and tedious...

It drives me crazy to see people complain about things being overpowered (disruptor hardly is), but aren't willing to exercise the restraint to not use overpowering techniques.

I mean, I felt the shock gloves in Arkham Origins were a bit overpowered, so I tried to avoid using them.

Having said that, the predator AR challenges in AK suck pretty bad.
 
In otherwords, make the game fucking suck by being stupid hard and tedious...

It drives me crazy to see people complain about things being overpowered (disruptor hardly is), but aren't willing to exercise the restraint to not use overpowering techniques.

I mean, I felt the shock gloves in Arkham Origins were a bit overpowered, so I tried to avoid using them.

Having said that, the predator AR challenges in AK suck pretty bad.

I've platted the game and the predator sections are really easy even on NG+. There's nothing on the level of AC's NG+ encounters or extreme maps.

The disruptor isn't inherently unbalanced, but rather is unbalanced by everything else. Four shots with a fully upgraded disruptor can nullify pretty much everything the game throws at you in a single encounter. Medics are probably the most threatening addition to encounters in AK, and the disruptor not only prevents them from reviving, but also takes them down for free. I'm not sure what the thought process was on that one.

I noticed that even in the AR challenges, smoke and distruptor ammo can reload/cooldown whereas before it was limited. So eventually over time you can just try again. And smoke cools down really quick. I tossed one into a group to do a fear takedown, fubbed the landing, grappeled out and about a minute later I was good to try again.

Yeah, smoke bombs cool down pretty quick now. Also in AC, it was really rare to get any disruptor shots recharged in a single encounter IIRC. Personally I think you should be limited to what you start the fight with.
 

CHC

Member
In otherwords, make the game fucking suck by being stupid hard and tedious...

It drives me crazy to see people complain about things being overpowered (disruptor hardly is), but aren't willing to exercise the restraint to not use overpowering techniques.

I mean, I felt the shock gloves in Arkham Origins were a bit overpowered, so I tried to avoid using them.

Having said that, the predator AR challenges in AK suck pretty bad.

But I mean isn't that the whole point of making a decently balanced and challenging game in the first place? So players won't have to artificially set parameters for themselves to enjoy it to the fullest? I don't think it's really the mark of a well-designed game if you have to ignore major mechanics to make it interesting.
 

ZeroX03

Banned
Arkham City's Predator sections are head and shoulders above the rest. The extreme challenge maps in those games were extremely challenging, so to speak.
okay not platinum games challenging but still fair and tough, AK is just kind of easy
 

JohnnyFootball

GerAlt-Right. Ciriously.
I've platted the game and the predator sections are really easy even on NG+. There's nothing on the level of AC's NG+ encounters or extreme maps.

The disruptor isn't inherently unbalanced, but rather is unbalanced by everything else. Four shots with a fully upgraded disruptor can nullify pretty much everything the game throws at you in a single encounter. Medics are probably the most threatening addition to encounters in AK, and the disruptor not only prevents them from reviving, but also takes them down for free. I'm not sure what the thought process was on that one.

I think thats an exaggeration. Most of the encounter have anywhere from 10-15 or more enemies to deal with. So I don't feel that those gadgets made the encounters gimmes.

As for your comment "I'm not sure what the thought process was on that one." I was asking myself this on most of the batmobile sections and AR challenges.
 
I think thats an exaggeration. Most of the encounter have anywhere from 10-15 or more enemies to deal with. So I don't feel that those gadgets made the encounters gimmes.

As for your comment "I'm not sure what the thought process was on that one." I was asking myself this on most of the batmobile sections and AR challenges.

The number of enemies in the predator sections are fine. My issue is that the vast majority of enemies lack gimmicks (jamming, drones, etc) and can immediately get taken down with no issue. That would be fine for NG, but the issue persists in NG+ and AR challenges. I mean, I would be fine with the disruptor if certain encounters had, say, six medics to deal with. Then you could disrupt four of them and still have to deal with two, on top of having no disruptor ammo for anything else.

Batmobile fights are great to me when the enemies hit hard and their compositions are varied. Most of the early game fights are too simplistic to be interesting imo.

AR challenges are fucked in general and are my main issue with the game. I mean, I think many of them are fine, or even great, but there's so little of them and their difficulty (combat and predator specifically) is mostly a letdown.
 
I love the batmobile vs tanks fights and some of the chase stuff. Well, up until
the whole chase boss battle against the arkham knight and his drill vehicle. Who thought it was a good idea to zoom out as you're being chased? The least fun i've had in the entire game.
 
Arkham City's Predator sections are head and shoulders above the rest. The extreme challenge maps in those games were extremely challenging, so to speak.
okay not platinum games challenging but still fair and tough, AK is just kind of easy

I definitely agree with this and it keeps me from loving this game like the others. The AR challenges are for the most part, really easy and just pretty mediocre.

Top of the world Extreme was one of my favorites and so damn hard.

I love the batmobile vs tanks fights and some of the chase stuff. Well, up until
the whole chase boss battle against the arkham knight and his drill vehicle. Who thought it was a good idea to zoom out as you're being chased? The least fun i've had in the entire game.

Yup, the zoom out was a horrible horrible design choice.
 
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