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Horizon Zero Dawn |OT| The Land After Time

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Combichristoffersen

Combovers don't work when there is no hair
Yeah, for me the first Cauldron was the hardest, mainly because I wasn't ready in terms of knowledge and equipment. The others were way easier in comparison.

It was kinda hard, but what was most annoying was how I kept falling off a ledge and dying when fightng the seekers and that shield bot. I'd kill all the seekers and whittle the shield bot down to almost no health left, and then fall off a ledge and die, lol. Think I died like that 3-4 times before I completed the cauldron.
 

Darklor01

Might need to stop sniffing glue
The explosion when you burn canisters filled with flammables never gets old. It's "holy shit" every time.

LOL.. that first time you hit one of those and you're like.. HOLY S***!!!

After that, .. You can't wait to try to set up the biggest set of explosions outside of a Hollywood movie set. So satisfying.
 
Yup, I think you nailed it. And someone eluded to it earlier also, but leveling is far less impactful in this game than learning to deal with certain scenarios and having knowledge of what your enemies are capable of.

There are a few abilities that definitely help (triple arrow knocking and the long roll), but even those are still less important than having a comprehensive understanding of how to approach each enemy, and knowing what their abilities are.

For me personally, that's huge. I've been doing everything before the main quest stuff, and even at level 45, starting to just get into the Meridian quests, it's still challenging. That's a tough tight rope to walk; letting a player have the freedom to "over level" but still presenting challenge.
They should patch a new difficulty where you can't pause the game to menu screen during combat. Now that would be the ultimate test, lol. I'll never be able to beat the game if this game don't have pause like Souls game.

The pause menu, is my crutch to calm myself down, check robots info and weakness and change weapon and outfit to suit the combat.

Without the pause menu, I think I'll panic and forgot all the robot weakness and strategy etc.
 

Dave_6

Member
Man, this game. Had to be up at 5:45 this morning and stayed up playing till 1.

I've gotten to
Meridian
and I've done maybe two quests there. How far along am I story wise? I can't get enough of it.
 
I was thinking about linking Horizon's tribes with Game of Thrones houses and I got this:
Nora = Starks
Shadow Carja = Lannisters
Oseram = Baratheon
Banuk = Mix of Greyjoy and Targeryan
Carja = ??

And there's another tribe that I don't know much about, Therack or something like that.
 

SerTapTap

Member
I believe when you get close to them it will give a quest where the instructions always ends up as "get to the core"

So they do count as quests

Almost everything is technically a quest just to help you keep track.

I would just do the cauldrons whenever you find them, starting with the side quest one you first hear about though. They're not particularly hard other than the possibility that the boss monster is something you haven't fought before. A few are very unusual, but I forget which is which and level really doesn't mean a great deal in this game, if you have a decent amount of "shadow" gear you're ready to take on anything, the rest is skill.

Explosion with shock and freeze canisters are pretty rad too

Shocksplosion is the best. The affected bot takes itself and everything around it offline, then you can hit all the rest of the weaknesses before they get back up for even more booms.

Those things are so aggressive that between spin dashing away from fireballs and charges that I really can't puncture a sack until it's half dead any way. The fights are intense. Granted that was before I got the Shadow Bow.

I try not to get too close to them, or anything really unless I have to. After you get within a certain range you're going to be spending like more than half your time doing dodge rolls against bigger enemies.
 

MaKTaiL

Member
I'm having a hard time with Ropecaster. Sometimes the shot lands and ties the enemy to the floor. Other times it doesn't do anything at all and I waste one rope. Before anyone say anything I know I have to shoot multiple times until the enemy gets locked down. But some of those shots just go to waste. What am I doing wrong?

For example, I shot a Ravager 6 times and only 3 of those actually worked. He was then locked down to the floor.
 

SerTapTap

Member
I'm having a hard time with Ropecaster. Sometimes the shot lands and ties the enemy to the floor. Other times it doesn't do anything at all and I waste one rope. Before anyone say anything I know I have to shoot multiple times until the enemy gets locked down. But some of those shots just go to waste. What am I doing wrong?

They seem to be able to pull off ropes, so you have to hit them many times in fast succession. Thunderjaws in particular seem to pull them off almost exactly as fast as you can rope 'em up. Also if they take any form of damage the ropes break extremely quickly but I'm not 100% sure if that's only after they're taken down all the way.

I think where you hit them might matter too, but I'm not sure. I don't rope very often and I usually go for head or body shots. Also they're pretty short ranged, but I don't think you lose the ammo unless it hits.

Also if you're using the green tier ropecaster, the higher ones are much better. They're the only weapons where the upgraded one is just plain more effective.

Speaking of, does upgrading the "tear" stat of the ropecaster make it pull down faster or no? Because it doesnt' seem to actually inflict tear damage like the Tearblast arrows.
 
I try not to get too close to them, or anything really unless I have to. After you get within a certain range you're going to be spending like more than half your time doing dodge rolls against bigger enemies.
How do you take the bigger enemies out before they become a melee problem? I can set up electric traps, but not blast traps for some odd reason...granted I haven't used my Carja Tripcaster or any of the ropecasters so that might be part of my problem.
 
So I became a
Thrush
of the Hunting Lodge and
now I'm depressed. I was in the camp of thinking that this game would be a fun time hunting robo-dinos and everything else would be superfluous, but the story, the world and its history has a way of really sneaking up on you.
 

MaKTaiL

Member
They seem to be able to pull off ropes, so you have to hit them many times in fast succession. Thunderjaws in particular seem to pull them off almost exactly as fast as you can rope 'em up. Also if they take any form of damage the ropes break extremely quickly but I'm not 100% sure if that's only after they're taken down all the way.

I think where you hit them might matter too, but I'm not sure. I don't rope very often and I usually go for head or body shots.

Also if you're using the green tier ropecaster, the higher ones are much better. They're the only weapons where the upgraded one is just plain more effective.

Speaking of, does upgrading the "tear" stat of the ropecaster make it pull down faster or no? Because it doesnt' seem to actually inflict tear damage like the Tearblast arrows.
I'm using the purple one with tear mods.
 

Bitmap Frogs

Mr. Community
Bellowbacks seem to have the least severe weakpoints of all enemies, there doesn't seem to be any easy/major way to disable them and breaking their important parts takes so much damage they're usually half dead by then anyway.

Bellowbacks are easy my friend - I have been farming them for the heart and I have a method.

It goes like this: a triple sniper arrow to the back container is half their life. Another triple shot to the neck blows up another half. You finish them up with a well placed arrow to the face.

*Disclaimer: my sharpshooter bow has 3 40% damage mods
 

zkorejo

Member
Don't play with my heart. I need to believe.


I'm afraid I've got some Bad News...
tenor.gif


There are a gold Lodge war bow, lodge blast sling and Lodge ropecaster though. You'll have to complete the hunters trials with all blazing suns to get them.

Other than that, I would also like to know if there are any other special weapons.
 
Bellowbacks are easy my friend - I have been farming them for the heart and I have a method.

It goes like this: a triple sniper arrow to the back container is half their life. Another triple shot to the neck blows up another half. You finish them up with a well placed arrow to the face.

*Disclaimer: my sharpshooter bow has 3 40% damage mods
I need to prioritize the Tinker ability. I can't switch my mods out.
 

silva1991

Member
I don't understand why they decided to put one behemoth icon on the map.

They need to patch this and put at least 2 more locations icons.
 
They should patch a new difficulty where you can't pause the game to menu screen during combat. Now that would be the ultimate test, lol. I'll never be able to beat the game if this game don't have pause like Souls game.

The pause menu, is my crutch to calm myself down, check robots info and weakness and change weapon and outfit to suit the combat.

Without the pause menu, I think I'll panic and forgot all the robot weakness and strategy etc.

I could see that. Even if they decided to do that, I think they'd need to do some work on the UI.

As it stands, trying to cycle through potions/calling mount etc on the d pad while you're in the heat of battle is totally not feasible at all. It isn't a major hindrance, but could be better.

Also, I really wish you could unlock more slots on your weapon wheel. I feel like I'd use the broader assortment in the arsenal if I had access to all of it, all the time. Seems like a simple fix too. Just have a modifier while you're in the weapon wheel to show another page of weapons.

As it stands, I haven't used the rattler once, and i rarely if ever use the slings, because it's annoying to go into the inventory menu to swap them in and out.

Again, these are all nitpicks, but certainly improvements i'd welcome in a sequel.
 

Redders

Member
Bellowbacks are easy my friend - I have been farming them for the heart and I have a method.

It goes like this: a triple sniper arrow to the back container is half their life. Another triple shot to the neck blows up another half. You finish them up with a well placed arrow to the face.

*Disclaimer: my sharpshooter bow has 3 40% damage mods

That's quite disclaimer haha, I dislike fighting them but it's far easier now I have purple weapons.

How many have you defeated before you got a heart from them? I've killed around 7 so far with no luck.
 
I'm afraid I've got some Bad News...
tenor.gif


There are a gold Lodge war bow, lodge blast sling and Lodge ropecaster though. You'll have to complete the hunters trials with all blazing suns to get them.

Other than that, I would also like to know if there are any other special weapons.

There's also a
Tearblaster, which is like a tear firing air shotgun thing, if you finish the lodge questline
 

vypek

Member
Nice.. thanks for letting me know. What does it do though?.. I'm guessing its
like a tearblast arrow but is more like a rattler?

Blasts air so hard that it rips off components from the enemy. One round at a time so its not quite like the rattler but does have a strong tearing effect as the name implies :)
 
Got tired of farming so I turned it down to normal. Went straight back to hard. Game felt too easy now that I'm used to hard. I might drop down the difficulty when I'm replenishing materials and then go back
 
Do any of the other outfits besides the sneaking one and the protection against melee actually matter that much?

I'm farely early in the game (
Just spoke to the Sun King at level 24
) but it seems like if you wear the first one and snipe from far away, you can swap the latter in if enemies start getting too close. Unless I'm just not far enough to see the significance, the robots that shoot out fire or ice can be dodged pretty easily, it's just those rush in melee attacks for me.

I just want to know if I should start investing in other outfits
 

Mindlog

Member
Yup, I think you nailed it. And someone eluded to it earlier also, but leveling is far less impactful in this game than learning to deal with certain scenarios and having knowledge of what your enemies are capable of.

There are a few abilities that definitely help (triple arrow knocking and the long roll), but even those are still less important than having a comprehensive understanding of how to approach each enemy, and knowing what their abilities are.

For me personally, that's huge. I've been doing everything before the main quest stuff, and even at level 45, starting to just get into the Meridian quests, it's still challenging. That's a tough tight rope to walk; letting a player have the freedom to "over level" but still presenting challenge.
I have a different takeaway from that and in particular
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.
Just as the game may be too easy with certain combinations it's also too easy to die in many fights without pounding potions. The game is heavily reliant on icons to present information. Even with all the information I need the camera isn't very adept at keeping up with multiple threats from multiple directions and elevations. In many ways it reminds me of random jeep enemies in Far Cry 2 except these drive their jeeps right over you.

Also potion quick nav is less than optimal.
Holding down should bring up a radial menu. Solve the rock problem by just putting one in your hand when you select that item.
How do you take the bigger enemies out before they become a melee problem? I can set up electric traps, but not blast traps for some odd reason...granted I haven't used my Carja Tripcaster or any of the ropecasters so that might be part of my problem.
The Tripcaster can kill many enemies in one go with enough ammo. Also like someone above said putting enemies into the frozen state (I use the War Bow) makes them highly susceptible to damage.

Ropecasters are neat, but I have no room in my rotation for them. Hunter Bow, Sharpshooter Bow, Tripcaster, War Bow.
 

SerTapTap

Member
How do you take the bigger enemies out before they become a melee problem? I can set up electric traps, but not blast traps for some odd reason...granted I haven't used my Carja Tripcaster or any of the ropecasters so that might be part of my problem.

Elemental effects can help a lot: blowing any power/fuel/freeze cell will inflict damage and stagger on anything. And the Ropecaster can tie down an enemy even with a single shot; their movement range is limited to the length of the rope even if only one rope is on. You can leave them tied down for an impressively long time if you rope them all the way up and don't hurt them (taking almost any damage and they seem to get right back up though).

I also try to hit and run a lot. Knock a few Tearblast arrows into annoying components, move from where I am before the attack hits and so on. Also explosives seem to stagger basically anything at least briefly which can be useful. I usually opt for my elemental weapons (and all 3 bows) instead of the blast sling/tripcaster though.

I'm using the purple one with tear mods.

Weird. I think I've noticed what you're seeing, maybe hitting armor doesn't work? It does feel like once in a while a shot won't count, but most things still go down in short order as long as I don't get interrupted..

I could see that. Even if they decided to do that, I think they'd need to do some work on the UI.

As it stands, trying to cycle through potions/calling mount etc on the d pad while you're in the heat of battle is totally not feasible at all. It isn't a major hindrance, but could be better.

Also, I really wish you could unlock more slots on your weapon wheel. I feel like I'd use the broader assortment in the arsenal if I had access to all of it, all the time. Seems like a simple fix too. Just have a modifier while you're in the weapon wheel to show another page of weapons.

As it stands, I haven't used the rattler once, and i rarely if ever use the slings, because it's annoying to go into the inventory menu to swap them in and out.

Again, these are all nitpicks, but certainly improvements i'd welcome in a sequel.

Yeah I removed all my resistance potions just to make the menu easier to cycle through. It's probably the most annoying issue I have with the game.

And like I said earlier, a second wheel would be great. There's kind of JUST too useful many weapons, even if you've got strong favorites, to never switch. Even totally disregarding the tearblaster, tripcaster, and the frankly awful bolt SMG thing I switch pretty often. But with two sets of four I'd be totally fine.

I don't understand why they decided to put one behemoth icon on the map.

They need to patch this and put at least 2 more locations icons.

There's at least two, but yeah, they're very rare. It did feel super cool to suddenly stumble into one though. I thought I must be missing some crazy story boss monster.
 

Apt101

Member
I'm afraid I've got some Bad News...
tenor.gif


There are a gold Lodge war bow, lodge blast sling and Lodge ropecaster though. You'll have to complete the hunters trials with all blazing suns to get them.

Other than that, I would also like to know if there are any other special weapons.

fuck
 

Bitmap Frogs

Mr. Community
That's quite disclaimer haha, I dislike fighting them but it's far easier now I have purple weapons.

How many have you defeated before you got a heart from them? I've killed around 7 so far with no luck.

I do two camps that are near bonfires, 3 per camp that's 6... And I've done two rounds so that makes twelve kills without a heart. Plus a couple random kills, 14.
 
Nice.. thanks for letting me know. What does it do though?.. I'm guessing its
like a tearblast arrow but is more like a rattler?

That sounds about right

meant to be used at almost point blank range. unfortunately i haven't used either it, or the rattler, so i can't say whether they're similar. You can only upgrade capacity though. It comes as a purple and has no mod slots. I should probably try it out... I just prefer to engage from distance
 

Staf

Member
Can i main line the story without missing out on the side quests? I really like a lot of the side quests so far and don't want to miss out on content!
 

J4g3r

Member
I really need more than 4 weapons slots in this game.

Something like how Nioh maps consumables would be great.

Also took down my first Stormbird last night, god damn that was tough.
 

SerTapTap

Member
Absolutely.

And if you want a hint, don't waste the sharpshooter slots on tear mods.

Wait really? I figured that'd be the best one, I mostly use that bow for tearblast though. The "boss" tier things don't seem to lose parts in a single shot.

Nice.. thanks for letting me know. What does it do though?.. I'm guessing its
like a tearblast arrow but is more like a rattler?

It's a tear-only shotgun with super low range. It kinda sucks, just use the bow with Tearblast arrows. It's a cool idea, but only having a single ammo type kinda ruins it. Same reason I don't like to use the (much more useful) ropecaster too often.

Can i main line the story without missing out on the side quests? I really like a lot of the side quests so far and don't want to miss out on content!

Yes, nothing's missable
 
Absolutely.

And if you want a hint, don't waste the sharpshooter slots on tear mods.

Wait really? I figured that'd be the best one, I mostly use that bow for tearblast though. The "boss" tier things don't seem to lose parts in a single shot.

Eh, I'm kinda with Bitmap. Granted, I can knock two or three tear arrows, but I'd rather knock an extra tear arrow and then buff damage (what all three slots are for me) so when you're using the high damage arrows on sharpshooter bow (name escapes me), for something like a thunderjaw weakspot, you're really pouring on the damage.
 
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