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Horizon Zero Dawn |OT| The Land After Time

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Stormbird.... WTF!
That sob knocked me off my robocow and brought along glinthawks and a trampler with him. Pretty intense fight.
Def inspired by many other recent games but I think they improved their mechanics a lot and the story and characters are interesting so I think it deserves the praise.
Yes execution is key. From the early get go GG said they were inspired by three games; binary domain, monster hunter and dragon's dogma. Nothing said about reinventing the wheel
 

LiK

Member
That sob knocked me off my robocow and brought along glinthawks and a trampler with him. Pretty intense fight.

Yes execution is key. From the early get go GG said they were inspired by three games; binary domain, monster hunter and dragon's dogma. Nothing said about reinventing the wheel

Whoa, Binary Domain? Excellent.
 

b0bbyJ03

Member
Hey all, been working overtime lately so I've had very little time with the game and every time I do play it feels like I'm rushing to get as much done as possible (I know, not the way to play this type of game) and my sessions are short and sporadic so it's been hard to put everything together in my head. Because of this I feel like I haven't picked up on some stuff so I apologize in advance for the stupid question. I don't really understand the weapons system in this game. Can someone take a moment to explain. I know that like many RPGs the color is related to its rarity and also how powerful it is but what I didn't really see is how to figure out how powerful the weapons are. I don't see like a numerical value attached to them or anything (is it there and am I just not seeing it?). Anyway, any explanation and advice would be very appreciated. Thanks!
 

Kalentan

Member
I will say the Blast Sling kind of makes the game easy mode. Just put on a bunch of damage mods and just go to town. It usually one shots human mobs, 2 shots elite humans, and takes quick works of all the big robos.
 

Valonquar

Member
Stormbird.... WTF!

Buy the elemental resist armor sets, and slot them with elemental resist mods. Those plus the resist potions make it so you can just stand there and blast the bird while eating the attacks for next to zero damage.

I wear the stealth armor 90% of the time and then swap to the elemental sets as needed, usually just the frost set for birds/crocs, shock set for stormbird/thundermaw, and fire for everything else.

Just got the shieldweave before bed last night. Seems like it might replace nearly everything.
 

Floody

Member
Ahhhh, okay. That's a solid plan.

One of the things i love is how different the fights play out. That same corrupted fight was actually easy for me. Right across the river was a Behemoth convoy and three shell walkers corrupted em all with arrows and they just strolled across the river and started shit with the rockbreakers.

The Behemoth probably chipped half off of both of them before his noble death. shell walkers did a bit more and then I just sat across the river taking pot shots to chip them down.

These types of emergent moments that are so unique are hallmarks of super well built worlds and gameplay.

One thing I have noticed though, is there do seem to be some pretty hard fences on where enemies will go. It seems difficult to control a big enemy and kite them into another group sometimes. Once they get a certain distance from their "area" they sort of refuse to follow any further, regardles off how close you are. not sure if anyone else experienced that?

It would be cool if you could control them a bit more directly, but that would literally be game breaking if you could do it with thunderjaw or stormbird....

Not sure what the answer there is, but maybe a challenge they can solve in HZD 2



Coooool. Where is the green spot? on the side? back? stomach?

Stomach, when it trys to chase and slam you it leaves it wide open for a second or two. Just have the 3 arrows ready, use concentration and it should be more than enough time to hit it.
 
I've only taken down one Stormbird and that was as part of a quest... i'd rather face two Thunderjaws at the same time than another Stormbird. They suuuccckkk.

My first encounter with a Stormbird, bugged the Stormbird. It flew high up into the sky, out of range of all weapons, and then followed me forever all across the map raining down bolts until I eventually reloaded the game.

Eh.. :D

Im on very hard so its 2 shotting me. It takes 4 of those 'part destroying' arrows to take off its chest piece but hitting the wings to attempt stopping it flying is so hard. It also keeps flying out of range of my arrows too. Will have another attempt at him later.

I took down my first Thunderjaw after 2 deaths. This fuckers killed me 9 times before I rage quit.
 

X-Frame

Member
It's so refreshing that GG and Sony just tried to put out the most complete game they could, no Day 1 DLC or even announced DLC or microtransactions or anything else.

Just, here is a complete game and we hope you like it.

That being said, I really hope they have DLC and/or expansions in the works, haha.
 

Apt101

Member
Talking general fight strategy, I like to find natural barriers I can lead the big enemies though. Then I first set up blast wires, a blast trap behind that, and finally a shock wire. Lure them in shooting, tearing away their good stuff, they blast themselves twice, and are then shocked for the final blow.

Resistance potions work really well, too. Such as ice against snapjaws. Makes their blasts hit like kittens.
 

d9b

Banned
It's so refreshing that GG and Sony just tried to put out the most complete game they could, no Day 1 DLC or even announced DLC or microtransactions or anything else.

Just, here is a complete game and we hope you like it.

That being said, I really hope they have DLC and/or expansions in the works, haha.

Thank God there's no microtransaction BS. I hope they expand the game in a way that Witcher 3 did.
 
Ya'll making me scared of trying to fight a behemoth considering I hate fighting Fire Bellowbacks.

Eh, the corrupted fights are a bit tougher because they're pretty much immune to corruption arrows (weird, right?). Those arrows are just on this side of game-breaking imho. You find any group of enemies and just fire off 2-10 of those arrows and pick off what's left.

Behemoth's aren't awful, you just need to keep your distance. Kinda like TJ, if you're in too close, when they trigger some moves, you don't have a prayer of getting far enough away.

Behemoths specifically have one that creates this "halo" of rocks that spin around them and then all blast outward. if you're real close when that triggers, you're gonna have a bad time.

I'm playin on hard, fwiw.
 

cheesekao

Member
Talking general fight strategy, I like to find natural barriers I can lead the big enemies though. Then I first set up blast wires, a blast trap behind that, and finally a shock wire. Lure them in shooting, tearing away their good stuff, they blast themselves twice, and are then shocked for the final blow.

Resistance potions work really well, too. Such as ice against snapjaws. Makes their blasts hit like kittens.
I feel that many people are sleeping on resistance potions. They make a really big difference.
 
LOL I thought mu game was bugged because I went through Caulderon XI without taking any damage at all. Like zero HP lost.

Turns out this
shield weaver
armor is just stupidly OP or something.
 

ced

Member
I think I suck at this cause the first human encounters on the main quest and the corrupter boss kicked my ass.
 

eizarus

Banned
Eh, the corrupted fights are a bit tougher because they're pretty much immune to corruption arrows (weird, right?). Those arrows are just on this side of game-breaking imho. You find any group of enemies and just fire off 2-10 of those arrows and pick off what's left.

Behemoth's aren't awful, you just need to keep your distance. Kinda like TJ, if you're in too close, when they trigger some moves, you don't have a prayer of getting far enough away.

Behemoths specifically have one that creates this "halo" of rocks that spin around them and then all blast outward. if you're real close when that triggers, you're gonna have a bad time.

I'm playin on hard, fwiw.

Thanks for the advice man. I'm playing on normal at the moment. Only realised yesterday that different bow types equip different arrows, so I've been having fun with that. can't wait to try those corruptions arrows, although i probably wont use them much; don't like it when something game breaking allows you to breeze past the game.

I think I suck at this cause the first human encounters on the main quest and the corrupter boss kicked my ass.

Time your dodges, set up wire traps and fire arrows at it's weapons. I died a couple of times on that part too.
 

MaKTaiL

Member
You know when a game is good when people start asking for DLC. At this day and age where games are bundled with Season Pass and we hate it.
 

eizarus

Banned
You know when a game is good when people start asking for DLC. At this day and age where games are bundled with Season Pass and we hate it.

This would have been the first game where I happily buy a season pass. I'm not even that far in it and would love some additional content.
 

Allonym

There should be more tampons in gaming
That sob knocked me off my robocow and brought along glinthawks and a trampler with him. Pretty intense fight.

Yes execution is key. From the early get go GG said they were inspired by three games; binary domain, monster hunter and dragon's dogma. Nothing said about reinventing the wheel

Whoa, holy shit those are all some great ass games. I'm hoping for the sequel they'll keep those but draw inspiration from Shadow of the Colossus, Bloodborne and Vanquish.
 

Floody

Member
You know when a game is good when people start asking for DLC. At this day and age where games are bundled with Season Pass and we hate it.

I need to see more of this world, and really don't wanna wait years for it, honestly I'd even be disappointed if we don't get at least 1 major expansion. The last (and only) game to do this to me was Bloodborne, which became my favourite game of all-time after the Old Hunters released.
 

vypek

Member
Ahhhh, okay. That's a solid plan.

One of the things i love is how different the fights play out. That same corrupted fight was actually easy for me. Right across the river was a Behemoth convoy and three shell walkers corrupted em all with arrows and they just strolled across the river and started shit with the rockbreakers.

The Behemoth probably chipped half off of both of them before his noble death. shell walkers did a bit more and then I just sat across the river taking pot shots to chip them down.

These types of emergent moments that are so unique are hallmarks of super well built worlds and gameplay.

One thing I have noticed though, is there do seem to be some pretty hard fences on where enemies will go. It seems difficult to control a big enemy and kite them into another group sometimes. Once they get a certain distance from their "area" they sort of refuse to follow any further, regardles off how close you are. not sure if anyone else experienced that?

It would be cool if you could control them a bit more directly, but that would literally be game breaking if you could do it with thunderjaw or stormbird....

Not sure what the answer there is, but maybe a challenge they can solve in HZD 2



Coooool. Where is the green spot? on the side? back? stomach?

Oh thats awesome. I didn't run into that convoy until I started looting the rockbreaker bodies on the field. I had a mount with me when I entered...that strider did not last long at all lol
 
Thanks for the advice man. I'm playing on normal at the moment. Only realised yesterday that different bow types equip different arrows, so I've been having fun with that. can't wait to try those corruptions arrows, although i probably wont use them much; don't like it when something game breaking allows you to breeze past the game.

Totally fair. One thing I think the game does well, is still offer challenging scenrios. Despite the corruption arrows being effective, there are still spots where the game forces you to re think strategy. Some of the optional stuff, like cauldrons, will pit you against a single difficult enemy in a small space, so corruption arrows aren't even an option (the corruption arrows force them to attack anyone nearby, friend or foe, so that can still be you, and will be if it doesn't have another target).

Also, the hunting challenges are a absolutely fantstic, and I wish they weren't optional so more people did them. You really need to think tactically and can't cheese them (or at least that i found).

Good stuff.

Oh thats awesome. I didn't run into that convoy until I started looting the rockbreaker bodies on the field. I had a mount with me when I entered...that strider did not last long at all lol

Yeah, if this OT is any indication, every one is having all kinds of emergent moments like that where things play out in the world in a unique way where you feel like you're the only person where a scenario happened in a certain way. Very rare for games to do that. I truly believe this game is something very special.
 

X-Frame

Member
One of the first QoL improvements that I think GG should add are increasing the stacks for all the Resources.

With some things going up to 50 and others going up to 5 it doesn't make sense. I look at what I have in my Resources out of 100 and it's at around 80 but I definitely don't have anywhere near 80 different items. It's more like 30.
 

SerTapTap

Member
Corruption Arrows are surprisingly useful and fun. Corrupt one in a big group of enemies then dash off while they're infighting. Robots seem to take priority over Aloy as a target as long as the robot infight started first.

Elements in general really make the game great, I barely use non-elemental weapons except for the quick bow which is basically required for my playstyle. Overloading power/blaze/freeze cells is so fun and effective, and shocking something then overriding it in the middle of a fight is so fun.

I think the health system is a bit weird, not sure if it's exactly flawed but it's totally possible to play it wrong and not realize what the problem is, which IMO is a flaw enough. I found after a point buying health potions makes way more sense than even bothering with medicinal herbs. As soon as you start feeling less pressure to save up shards I'd recommend it since farming medicinal stuff gets real annoying.

Feels like there should be some third upgrade for medicinal stuff once you start losing 90% HP in two hits but medicinal stuff is still pretty scarce.

So close to the end, around 90% completion, must just be a few story missions left. Really love the story twist, can't wait for the second game.

Try 30 hours with finally realizing that you can tag multiple enemies....

I'm 90% complete and this is the first I've heard of it. I don't really use tagging anyway other than to chase down small animals though.

Also, if someone has a solid strat for Rockbreakers, I'm all ears. Can deal with everything else pretty much no problem, but those guys are annoying, and I find myself just using corruption arrows and sitting around wating for them to kill each other, which is kinda boring...

If you're stuck on the corrupted zone with two of them, there's a Behemoth convoy right next to them you can draw close to let them fight. I corrupted everything around them and threw it at them.

More generally, top priority is to tear off all their god damn claws, hardest part of the fight by far. At least two Tearblast arrows will be required for each, maybe more (don't even bother with other weapons IMO). Highlight them with the focus and their weakpoints will glow for a while (it's hard to tell which paws are active without the highlight).

Once it's paws are ALL disabled, it's a much easier fight, basically a Thunderjaw with it's weapons disabled. Blow it's belly for a good chunk of damage and hit it's elemental weakness if you like (I forget which it is).
 

Apt101

Member
I think it can't be repeated enough what a technical achievement this game is for GG and Sony. This game, at 4K and HDR, never stutters for me. Doesn't appear to compromise in any way. Just perfect performance. So many games with far lesser visuals and much smaller scope struggle. I hope Sony throws whatever money at GG to keep them together. I want more games like this.
 
Question

When I create a Job to hunt. I check the map and there is a Yellow Perimeter, is this the area in which you hunt to get specific animal parts based on the job created? I'm having a hard time finding 2 fox bones. I kill a fox within the perimeter and shit just giving me bony meat.

Where do I go? am I in the right location within the yellow perimeter?
 
If you're stuck on the corrupted zone with two of them, there's a Behemoth convoy right next to them you can draw close to let them fight. I corrupted everything around them and threw it at them.

More generally, top priority is to tear off all their god damn claws, hardest part of the fight by far. At least two Tearblast arrows will be required for each, maybe more (don't even bother with other weapons IMO). Highlight them with the focus and their weakpoints will glow for a while (it's hard to tell which paws are active without the highlight).

Once it's paws are ALL disabled, it's a much easier fight, basically a Thunderjaw with it's weapons disabled. Blow it's belly for a good chunk of damage and hit it's elemental weakness if you like (I forget which it is).

Haha, see my earlier post. I think we used the exact same strategy =)
 

vypek

Member
I've yet to use trap items and only used resistance potions by mistake. I should try using them before I enter battle cause when I'm in the heat of battle its a lot harder for me to use the items I want to. But so far my only deaths have only come from falling down when trying to get to banuk figures or vantage points.

Question

When I create a Job to hunt. I check the map and there is a Yellow Perimeter, is this the area in which you hunt to get specific animal parts based on the job created? I'm having a hard time finding 2 fox bones. I kill a fox within the perimeter and shit just giving me bony meat.

Where do I go? am I in the right location within the yellow perimeter?

Curious about this too because I haven't created a job to hunt at all and ignored that stuff in the menu.
 

Haluko

Member
Also, if someone has a solid strat for Rockbreakers, I'm all ears. Can deal with everything else pretty much no problem, but those guys are annoying, and I find myself just using corruption arrows and sitting around wating for them to kill each other, which is kinda boring...

I had a pretty easy time with the two corrupted ones, my strategy was: I positioned myself at the edge of the river before the corrupted area. There are some crab robots and behemoth in the area. I turned those to my side (but you don't have to corrupted stuff fights everything) and then got the Rockbreakers to follow me. My little robot army helped divert and shield me a bit while I took out the claws. Don't cross over the river while you fight from a distance. All you have to do is dodge the stream of boulders while you line up your shots from across the river. I used some tear arrows and triple shot. Fyi I was around level 30. Close combat on these guys is a death sentence, at least in my stealth armo
r.
 

cheesekao

Member
Question

When I create a Job to hunt. I check the map and there is a Yellow Perimeter, is this the area in which you hunt to get specific animal parts based on the job created? I'm having a hard time finding 2 fox bones. I kill a fox within the perimeter and shit just giving me bony meat.

Where do I go? am I in the right location within the yellow perimeter?
You just gotta keep killing foxes till they drop it. No two ways around it.
 
Encountered my first stormbird while in the desert area on my way to meridian for the first time.

It bugged out and just hovered in one spot for a long time without attacking, so I used a ton of sharpshooter tear arrows on it till there was no parts left to remove, and then spent a good 3 minutes firing everything I had at it till it finally went down.

Snapmaw and shell walkers are currently tied for most annoying enemies to me. Can't seem to deal with shell walkers firing those lightning bomb things at me from far away. Not sure what to do other than use tear arrows and spam precision arrows and potions.
 
I had a pretty easy time with the two corrupted ones, my strategy was: I positioned myself at the edge of the river before the corrupted area. There are some crab robots and behemoth in the area. I turned those to my side (but you don't have to corrupted stuff fights everything) and then got the Rockbreakers to follow me. My little robot army helped divert and shield me a bit while I took out the claws. Don't cross over the river while you fight from a distance. All you have to do is dodge the stream of boulders while you line up your shots from across the river. I used some tear arrows and triple shot. Fyi I was around level 30. Close combat on these guys is a death sentence, at least in my stealth armo
r.

Haha, okay, now i'm convinced everyone is using this strategy
 

LiK

Member
Shellwalkers are really hard to dodge even with the upgrade. Constantly get beat up by them. I can override them now so it's nice to have one to help me out during a fight.
 

abundant

Member
Question

When I create a Job to hunt. I check the map and there is a Yellow Perimeter, is this the area in which you hunt to get specific animal parts based on the job created? I'm having a hard time finding 2 fox bones. I kill a fox within the perimeter and shit just giving me bony meat.

Where do I go? am I in the right location within the yellow perimeter?

Creating a Job will only point you to robots that you need parts from.
 
You just gotta keep killing foxes till they drop it. No two ways around it.

Damn, so it's a grind. Dude, I had to kill 3 Glinthawks to clear the area around the yellow perimeter, which was in the vicinity of about 4 Shell walkers. All the while hunting fucking foxes, killing 4 and only getting bony meat. There has to be a better way.
 

cheesekao

Member
Shellwalkers are definitely one of the more troublesome enemies. You wouldn't think that at first given how goofy they look. Thankfully, they normally travel in packs and hacking one of them normally does the trick.

Damn, so it's a grind. Dude, I had to kill 3 Glinthawks to clear the area around the yellow perimeter, which was in the vicinity of about 4 Shell walkers. All the while hunting fucking foxes, killing 4 and only getting bony meat. Their has to be a better way.
Foxes are everywhere. Just continue on with your quests and kill any you see on your way.
 
So, I've been reading some compliants here and there and all of them feel super minor to me, luckily here I am to go straight to the important stuff:

I've played 51hs and I'm at 75% of the game completed, didn't finish the story yet and I still have some sidequest and a lot of collectibles left.

I think I have only one story mission left.

Here's my main complain about the game (main quest but no story spoilers):

The main quest/story/mission is fantastic storywise, it's really intriguing and you visit some visually gorgeous places. What I don't like is that a thid of it is exploring ruins, reading documents and listening audios. This is minor because it hurts replays but on your first ride it's quite good.
A thing I didn't like is that the main enemies in the story are humans, I don't mind them being the ones that set things in motion but I really dislike that there are very few robots in it, most of them are Corruptors and Deathbringers and even if there are some with corrupted machines they only use like a quarter of the whole robofauna. That's really disappointing and I wish they whould have included the machines in the story much more.
I believe you can finish the main quest without facing a Thunderjaw, Stormbird, Rockbreaker even once, I'm not even sure if there's a quest for Stormbird outside the one on the Hunter's Lodge (which is more a trophy than a side quest). Maybe in my final mission there will be there but still, machines feel really underused, you end up facing all of them a lot of times in side missions or just by roaming around but again, I wish the story would have included them more.

Outside of that, everything is super minor to me and don't affect my enjoyment of the game. Main story is a big deal to me so that's a blow but this is a 9+ game to me and one of the best I've played this generation.

Can't wait to get back to it (have to work now -_-).

Edit: Also, Meridia's Quest (Erend) is my favourite quest of the game, it says main quest but for me is a side quest, kinda like the Bloody Baron quest in The Witcher.
There are a couple of really good quests outside of that one.

The music that plays at the end of
Itamen quest
:O
 
I'm not sure if this is true but standing still or not moving much against rockbreakers seem to help. Could be my friend trolling cause that sounds super counter intuitive
 

hydruxo

Member
Encountered my first stormbird while in the desert area on my way to meridian for the first time.

It bugged out and just hovered in one spot for a long time without attacking, so I used a ton of sharpshooter tear arrows on it till there was no parts left to remove, and then spent a good 3 minutes firing everything I had at it till it finally went down.

Snapmaw and shell walkers are currently tied for most annoying enemies to me. Can't seem to deal with shell walkers firing those lightning bomb things at me from far away. Not sure what to do other than use tear arrows and spam precision arrows and potions.

For shell walkers, tear off it's shell first. Then tear off it's bomb claw, then finish off his other claw. Once you do all 3 of those you can pretty much just sit there and they can't do much of anything. Precision arrows and tearblast arrows are best, but bomb sling is also good. They're extremely easy to take down once you blast their components off, just like with most other dinos in the game.
 

abundant

Member
Damn, so it's a grind. Dude, I had to kill 3 Glinthawks to clear the area around the yellow perimeter, which was in the vicinity of about 4 Shell walkers. All the while hunting fucking foxes, killing 4 and only getting bony meat. Their has to be a better way.

There isn't a better way. You just keep hunting foxes and pray you get the right part.
 

vypek

Member
Haha, okay, now i'm convinced everyone is using this strategy

I didn't but sure as hell wish I did. Lol. Everyone else figured it out but I had a hell of a time fighting these things and used up pretty much all my potions and herbs.

EDIT: Would be nice to be able to filter the map
 
So, I've been reading some compliants here and there and all of them feel super minor to me, luckily here I am to go straight to the important stuff:

I've played 51hs and I'm at 75% of the game completed, didn't finish the story yet and I still have some sidequest and a lot of collectibles left.

I think I have only one story mission left.

Here's my main complain about the game (main quest but no story spoilers):

The main quest/story/mission is fantastic storywise, it's really intriguing and you visit some visually gorgeous places. What I don't like is that a thid of it is exploring ruins, reading documents and listening audios. This is minor because it hurts replays but on your first ride it's quite good.
A thing I didn't like is that the main enemies in the story are humans, I don't mind them being the ones that set things in motion but I really dislike that there are very few robots in it, most of them are Corruptors and Deathbringers and even if there are some with corrupted machines they only use like a quarter of the whole robofauna. That's really disappointing and I wish they whould have included the machines in the story much more.
I believe you can finish the main quest without facing a Thunderjaw, Stormbird, Rockbreaker even once, I'm not even sure if there's a quest for Stormbird outside the one on the Hunter's Lodge (which is more a trophy than a side quest). Maybe in my final mission there will be there but still, machines feel really underused, you end up facing all of them a lot of times in side missions or just by roaming around but again, I wish the story would have included them more.

Outside of that, everything is super minor to me and don't affect my enjoyment of the game. Main story is a big deal to me so that's a blow but this is a 9+ game to me and one of the best I've played this generation.

Can't wait to get back to it (have to work now -_-).

Random Q; How are people tracking time played? I have no idea how many i'm at, but it's a lot.

I didn't but sure as hell wish I did. Lol. Everyone else figured it out but I had a hell of a time fighting these things and used up pretty much all my potions and herbs.

EDIT: Would be nice to be able to filter the map

Agree about filtering. There's actually 5-10 little nitpicks i have like that.

I'm constantly out of wire and need to buy a lot. You can sell in bulk, why can't you buy in bulk? Why can't i throw away treasure boxes? I've had a couple forever because i never use traps, and that's what's in em, and i'll never need more, so just let me toss the treasure box.

Again, this game is a 98/100 for me personally, but there's a few other things like what you mentioned and the couple things above that are just quality of life improvements i would have appreciated.
 
I'm not sure if this is true but standing still or not moving much against rockbreakers seem to help. Could be my friend trolling cause that sounds super counter intuitive

True, there's a quest where a guy just tells you that.


Random Q; How are people tracking time played? I have no idea how many i'm at, but it's a lot.

Home menu of the game, load game, watch how much time you've been playing on your save file. :p
 
Shellwalkers are really hard to dodge even with the upgrade. Constantly get beat up by them. I can override them now so it's nice to have one to help me out during a fight.
Who would've thought the wacky looking crab mofos would actually be tough to fight? That e3 presentation sure had us fooled
 
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