• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Horizon Zero Dawn |OT| The Land After Time

Status
Not open for further replies.

Hjod

Banned
So I don't know if this is a spoiler really but there is a cut-scene involved so I'm going to spoiler tag it. So beware.

I was out finishing of the vantages, and there is one far north, when you arrive in the area Aloy has a little monologue where she talks about the robots acting territorial, and when you climb up further north there is an cut-scene where a Stormbird attacks you, and she continues her monologue with that it seems like it's guarding something.

I got the vantage and got the hell out of there after I killed the Stormbird thinking I wandered in to an main quest area, I think I got there to early seeing how I'm not more than halfway through the main story and I'm level 49 haha.

So can someone confirm that I wandered into a quest area that triggered even if I didn't have the quest or did I stumble onto a secret?
 

b0bbyJ03

Member
Does completing the collectathons give skill points or something BTW? I was 7 skill points short after leveling to 50 and completing most side quests, I did a couple main missions and finished all the "get the stuff on the map" missions and checked my menu...12 skillpoints. No idea what they were from, assuming 1 skill point per main mission I should only have gotten 2-3



Weapons are simpler than they look. New level = new ammo type. The stats are usually the same except for the ropecaster (which uses different but more effective ammo each tier). Just sell the lower tier weapon when you buy the next tier (remove your mods first)

There are a couple weapons with better stats than others of the same exact type, but they're not obtained at stores.


Thanks guys! Appreciated.
 

mokeyjoe

Member
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.



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.

Yeah, there are lots of posts with people saying corruption arrows/stealth/ropecaster/sling/their preferred strategy is OP. But I think the point is if you're prepared and in control of the fight you can win easily, but when things get out of control you can also die pretty quickly. For me it's been more about learning the best way to approach each scenario, as well as being able to improvise fast when things start to head south. It's definitely a game that makes me feel like I'm improving as I play it, and that's really gratifying.
 
Guerrilla returns the favor to CD Projekt Red:

C6A8W6FWYAA80BK.jpg
That's awesome. Looking for what CD Projekt said or did.
 

duder92

Neo Member
I think I got lucky with the dual rock breakers zone. I first stumbled upon it and quickly noped my way out. After passing back through on the other side of the river I found the two rock breakers fighting a behemoth. Stood there for a good five minutes across the river as the epic battle unfolded. Behemoth took out one of the breakers, got the other one down to 1/2 health before it was taken down. I then proceeded to light up the remaining rock breakers with triple flame arrows from the safety of the river bank.

Man this game, such a joy, never have spent so much time just standing in one place and soaking up the atmosphere or watching the random beast battles.

Sucks I have to travel for work for the next week, already jonesing for my horizon fix.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?

Mesharey

Member
Did I get to the point of no return?
The mission is called "
Deep secrets of the earth
", so shall I do the remaining side missions or continue?
 

Blackthorn

"hello?" "this is vagina"
I'm having trouble with the Blast Sling tutorial. It's asking me to kill multiple enemies at once with it, but enemies never seem to be grouped up enough, and the blast isn't powerful enough.

Did anyone find an easy way to pull this one off?
 

SerTapTap

Member
So I don't know if this is a spoiler really but there is a cut-scene involved so I'm going to spoiler tag it. So beware.

I was out finishing of the vantages, and there is one far north, when you arrive in the area Aloy has a little monologue where she talks about the robots acting territorial, and when you climb up further north there is an cut-scene where a Stormbird attacks you, and she continues her monologue with that it seems like it's guarding something.

I got the vantage and got the hell out of there after I killed the Stormbird thinking I wandered in to an main quest area, I think I got there to early seeing how I'm not more than halfway through the main story and I'm level 49 haha.

So can someone confirm that I wandered into a quest area that triggered even if I didn't have the quest or did I stumble onto a secret?

I was actually referring to this moment earlier, from what other people said about
storm birds apparently not appearing in the main story
it seems like that might be a bonus for visiting that area early? Can anyone confirm? I too went up there for the Vantage before the main story brought me there.

I'm having trouble with the Blast Sling tutorial. It's asking me to kill multiple enemies at once with it, but enemies never seem to be grouped up enough, and the blast isn't powerful enough.

Did anyone find an easy way to pull this one off?

It can be easy with human enemies but only if they clump together. You can get lucky with herd robots clustering together, but the best thing I've found is to Heavy Spear attack two or more Watchers and then throw a bomb when they're near each other. A heavy strike will leave like, 10 or less HP on a normal Watcher so the extremely small AOE can still kill them if they're in it at all.
 

Ferr986

Member
So, y'all going to kill me, but I hate the hunter trials. I tend to hate timed trials and these one are even worse when they happen in areas full of random enemies, like
the ones after the tower with the area full or robobulls and roboannoyingbirds.

So, the question is, do I miss something important other than EXP and points if I skip them?
 
Aloy would make a great Witcher haha.

You know you made something great when CDPR gives you props. Hopefully they'll take some notes on HZDs combat ;).
 

TsuWave

Member
Wow, I had no clue this game was so 'low' relatively speaking. It's in the running for one of the very best I've ever played.

its robbery really. easily one of the best games this gen and the best sony first party game on ps4. personally, its one of the defining moments this gen for me and i haven't even finished the game yet.

i'm sorry to bring it up again but the USgamer score is atrocious. easily a 90+ game. should be a 92 MC minimum.

also, metacritic needs to do something about userscores, i wouldn't say get rid altogether but they need to find a way of making it work because the scores are all either 10/10 or 0/10 or w/e. last time i looked at horizon's you had userscores with comments like "this game is only in the potatostation 4 therefore it is shit" and " didn't play but game sucks lol". terrible place.
 

SerTapTap

Member
So, y'all going to kill me, but I hate the hunter trials. I tend to hate timed trials and these one are even worse when they happen in areas full of random enemies, like
the ones after the tower with the area full or robobulls and roboannoyingbirds.

So, the question is, do I miss something important other than EXP and points if I skip them?

The enemies aren't random, they're pre-set once you're on the trials. Also that robo bull area was one of the easiest ones IMO, one of them doesn't even require firing a shot lol. And yes, you miss
a side quest and 3 weapons better than you can buy from stores, a ropecaster, a war bow (I think) and a blast sling

Just retry trials a couple times, the enemy locations are pre-set so you'll get the hang of them very quickly.

It seems that the 1.03 patch fixed the heating problem while displaying the map

Oh I wondered why my PS4 was so loud when the game was idle
 
So, y'all going to kill me, but I hate the hunter trials. I tend to hate timed trials and these one are even worse when they happen in areas full of random enemies, like
the ones after the tower with the area full or robobulls and roboannoyingbirds.

So, the question is, do I miss something important other than EXP and points if I skip them?

You miss out
on some rare weapons. Basically slightly more powerful versions of normal weapons
 

Blackthorn

"hello?" "this is vagina"
It can be easy with human enemies but only if they clump together. You can get lucky with herd robots clustering together, but the best thing I've found is to Heavy Spear attack two or more Watchers and then throw a bomb when they're near each other. A heavy strike will leave like, 10 or less HP on a normal Watcher so the extremely small AOE can still kill them if they're in it at all.
Thanks, I'll give that a go.
 

Hjod

Banned
Did I get to the point of no return?
The mission is called "
Deep secrets of the earth
", so shall I do the remaining side missions or continue?

No, you can continue with the side missions after that.

I was actually referring to this moment earlier, from what other people said about
storm birds apparently not appearing in the main story
it seems like that might be a bonus for visiting that area early? Can anyone confirm? I too went up there for the Vantage before the main story brought me there.

That would be nice to know actually.
I didn't like leaving the area at all, I wanted to know what it was guarding, I wanted some mysterious loot or something.
 

Ferr986

Member
The enemies aren't random, they're pre-set once you're on the trials. Also that robo bull area was one of the easiest ones IMO, one of them doesn't even require firing a shot lol. And yes, you miss
a side quest and 3 weapons better than you can buy from stores, a ropecaster, a war bow (I think) and a blast sling

Just retry trials a couple times, the enemy locations are pre-set so you'll get the hang of them very quickly.



Oh I wondered why my PS4 was so loud when the game was idle

You miss out
on some rare weapons. Basically slightly more powerful versions of normal weapons

Ouch... oh well, I'll try. As I said I hate timed trials but I really like to acquire the
best weapons
 
There should be one when you go up to a certain place very late game...but...I explored that area BEFORE the quest required it, so maybe that was some kind of out of story event? Was really cool when it happened.

You can encounter them pretty early too, I bumped into one the first time I tried to enter the canyon area. I thought I must be underleveled or something lol. Didn't think to just run the hell past it.

I don't think it needs to be forced to be used well, especially since they're really hard to miss.

I fought them twice, but only one was because a side quest and it was more like a trophy. I wish there was a story quest related to them. Like the Thunderjaw Redmaw or Rockbreaker who has two story quests. Maybe one of the quests I have is for Stormbird, I don't know.

If you didn't face
any of the machines you mentioned.
Then you're not on the final mission of the game.

Then I'm not. :O
 
@CDPROJEKTRED Mars 2nd
We're loving #HorizonZeroDawn, congratz to the @Guerrilla team and a high five from Geralt! pic.twitter.com/cujMKBufnJ

I hope CDProject is taking notes. their next game is gonna be scifi setting, which I assume the combat will be more of a shooter, either in 1st person or 3rd person. Horizon would be a good case study on how to make excellet long range combat with big bosses to fight.
 

SerTapTap

Member
Did I get to the point of no return?
The mission is called "
Deep secrets of the earth
", so shall I do the remaining side missions or continue?

The dramatic warning is just that you can't exit that mission itself. There's no real point of no return, the game will always dump you back in a state where you can complete the final mission and any sidequests left. No missable stuff at all, which is very welcome and should get more praise IMO.

Man glinthawks are annoying. At least ice resist potions render them mostly impotent.

Use fire arrows. They'll drop to the ground while on fire making them immobile unlike most burning enemies. If you're close you can smack 'em around with the spear, but even if not at least they're out of your hair for a few. With proper Fire mods on your bow, you can even knock them down in only one hit, usually 2 unmodified.
 

Vaga

Member
Man glinthawks are annoying. At least ice resist potions render them mostly impotent.

Glinthawks are awesome. Had a close fight with about 3 broadheads. Killed them and was ready to loot when a glinthawk swoops in outta nowhere and picks up one dead robo, carries him 50 metres away, drops down then starts munching on him.

This game is crazy.
 

daveo42

Banned
So I don't know if this is a spoiler really but there is a cut-scene involved so I'm going to spoiler tag it. So beware.

I was out finishing of the vantages, and there is one far north, when you arrive in the area Aloy has a little monologue where she talks about the robots acting territorial, and when you climb up further north there is an cut-scene where a Stormbird attacks you, and she continues her monologue with that it seems like it's guarding something.

I got the vantage and got the hell out of there after I killed the Stormbird thinking I wandered in to an main quest area, I think I got there to early seeing how I'm not more than halfway through the main story and I'm level 49 haha.

So can someone confirm that I wandered into a quest area that triggered even if I didn't have the quest or did I stumble onto a secret?

I think you did because I did the exact same thing last night. Btw,
you can't actually trigger the actual quest bit up there unless you have it. There's a missing rope ladder that keeps you from entering the machine cave up there that will show up once you have the appropriate quest.
Super weird, but I'm happy they have stuff like this in place to keep you from inadvertently advancing the storyline like some other open world games.
 

SerTapTap

Member
I think you did because I did the exact same thing last night. Btw,
you can't actually trigger the actual quest bit up there unless you have it. There's a missing rope ladder that keeps you from entering the machine cave up there that will show up once you have the appropriate quest.
Super weird, but I'm happy they have stuff like this in place to keep you from inadvertently advancing the storyline like some other open world games.

Yeah, I like their method of gatekeeping. There are almost no actual areas off-limits after the Proving, but you can't accidentally proceed story or do anything major just because you're wandering around.

My favorite thing about this game is how much is done to prevent the usual anxieties and frustrations of typical open world design.
 

Wollan

Member
I hope CDProject is taking notes. their next game is gonna be scifi setting, which I assume the combat will be more of a shooter, either in 1st person or 3rd person. Horizon would be a good case study on how to make excellet long range combat with big bosses to fight.
Cyberpunk 2077 will likely be closer to a futuristic detective novel ala Bladerunner with mostly humanoid encounters. Horizon leans more towards Monster Hunter side of things in the style of Avatar.
 

SlimySnake

Flashless at the Golden Globes
Man glinthawks are annoying. At least ice resist potions render them mostly impotent.

they never gave me any trouble. I accidently used fire arrows on them the first time i encountered them and they went down like a little bitch. Like immediately drop to the ground. Once they are on the ground they are much easier to take down. A few precision arrows and melee attacks and they are done. I almost never fight them in the air.

I have also never used a resist potion and always fight in my legendary silent hunter gear. Cant afford a heavy hunter outfit because rabbit skin refuses to drop for me.

I hope CDProject is taking notes. their next game is gonna be scifi setting, which I assume the combat will be more of a shooter, either in 1st person or 3rd person. Horizon would be a good case study on how to make excellet long range combat with big bosses to fight.

This. I ended up disliking Witcher 3 because i kept forcing myself to play it, but man was that combat tedious. They need to really look at the gameplay loop in Horizon to better understand why it's FUN. I get that these guys are still relatively new at real time combat but you cant make a AAA game in 2015 and have a game that plays so poorly. The funny thing is that all they had to do was buff everything. Buff sword damage, buff magic attacks, remove magic meter requirements and make crafting and upgrading weapons easier and simpler. I played it for like 15 hours and never got a decent weapon.

With Cyberpunk, they need to keep it simple, and make sure you are having fun while you make it to the next story moment. Dont just rely on story to make the game interesting. All this high fiving is cute but they need to up their game and GG needs to stay the fuck away from these guys and focus on making the side quests more interesting.
 

shiba5

Member
Thanks guys! Appreciated.

So I don't know if this is a spoiler really but there is a cut-scene involved so I'm going to spoiler tag it. So beware.

I was out finishing of the vantages, and there is one far north, when you arrive in the area Aloy has a little monologue where she talks about the robots acting territorial, and when you climb up further north there is an cut-scene where a Stormbird attacks you, and she continues her monologue with that it seems like it's guarding something.

I got the vantage and got the hell out of there after I killed the Stormbird thinking I wandered in to an main quest area, I think I got there to early seeing how I'm not more than halfway through the main story and I'm level 49 haha.

So can someone confirm that I wandered into a quest area that triggered even if I didn't have the quest or did I stumble onto a secret?

First one.
You won't have to fight it again when you go back. I know because I did the same thing you did.
 
Well considering this game was in dev for six years (KZ3 came out in Feb 2011) during which the following studios were shut down, it's obvious where the money came from.

- Zipper Entertainment (socom guys)
- BigBig Studios
- Evolution Studios
- Guerrilla Cambridge
- Sony Liverpool (Wipeout studio)
- Incognito Entertainment (warhawk/starhawk guys)

They also havent acquired any new studios this gen, by this time last gen. they had already acquired GG, Sucker Punch, Evolution Studios and Media Molecule. While I love this game, and how massive it is, i look at the cost, the real cost, a next gen Socom, next gen MAG, next gen Motorstorm, next gen Warhawk.

This was also a game that was not made on the same budget that other AAA games are made.

Incognito was closed well before this ever started development.

Evolution Studios was likely closed due to the Driveclub debacle, where the game was delayed a year and then had a buggy launch. Self-inflicted, even though I feel for the guys since they seemed passionate about the game.

Zipper seemed to be more MAG not doing so well and the PSN crash that coincided with the launch of a new SOCOM.

You are likely connecting dots that shouldn't be connected. I highly doubt they closed a bunch of studios to gamble on a new IP, especially when the budget for this game was actually not that huge for a AAA title.
 
Ouch... oh well, I'll try. As I said I hate timed trials but I really like to acquire the
best weapons

How many trials have you completed? I didn't like them at first, but as I learned more about the ins and outs of combat, I started to enjoy the trials. The timer really puts your skills to the test, and earning a Blazing Sun just makes you feel badass.
 
decises to explore the first gauntlet and man that boss is kicking my ass on hard . I'm a level 15 (pretty sure it recommends a level 8 ) and this guy just stomps all over me lol

I shall destroy him soon. Using tear arrows but not sure what else its weaknesses are .
 

vypek

Member
That's the thing, I haven't met him. I've cleared all but one bandit camp on my own already.

Oh. Thats odd. If I remember correctly, I first met him outside of a bandit camp near the first tallneck (level 7) I ran into. I wonder if he is locked out of your game now. If he is going to be at a bandit camp he will be near the closest campfire outside the camp.
 
Status
Not open for further replies.
Top Bottom