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Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor |OT| One Title to rule them all

Levyne

Banned
Having a lot of fun with this. Yeah the story is just sort of there but engaging all the various nemesis and collecting all the things is pretty damn addicting. I'm actually glad that the map isn't too huge.

I seem to have finished all the story missions on the first map except for hunting down some chiefs. Guess that's tomorrow's job.
 

leng jai

Member
lol @ the "Avenge" mission I just did to get Zumug The Tongue back for killing Gaz.

I start by sneaking up on his little crew and realize he's only a level 5 before thinking "lol Gaz, get gud" then all of a sudden in walks one of my own Nemesis hellspawn, a level whothehellknows that shoots EXPLOSIVE CROSSBOWS

wtf

What should've been a simple stealth assassination turns into a massacre because this Orc with the crossbow is killing his own people accidentally and hitting explosive barrels/bonfires as well. Gaz's nemesis runs away because he's terrified of fire leading me on a chase right into 3 random Caragors. Needless to say everyone got wiped out, and I made extra sure to kill the crossbow enemy before he ended up as a level 15 one man kamikaze army.

Moral of the story: Don't laugh at low level enemies, or friends who've died to them.

wouldn't the moral of the story be "don't laugh at a friend being killed by a low level orc because chances are he was ganged up on by like 2-3 captains and this one ended up getting promoted for being in the vicinity"?
 

Vitor711

Member
Uh, so there's a little garrison in the second game area where things can get silly.

We're talking like 5 captains etc. I found one on top of a tower, had a nice one on one duel and then branded him. Then another captain comes along. Rise and repeat. And another. And another.

No reinforcements, no grunts, just captains. I ended up recruiting half of the army page before I was done. Things got real silly real fast.

I must be the only person who's yet to have a cool nemesis moment.
 

Rembrandt

Banned
one of these chiefs has a crossbow that shoots poisonous arrows; tips for dealing with poison? it drains my health extremely fast and idk if I heal randomly or what.
 

gdt

Member
This game is so awesome. It's Batman Arkham City LOTR style. I love it.

I'm a huge fan of Batman AC btw. The combat isn't as smooth here (there's a slight delay or something that makes Talion a little sluggish) but the side content is so good. Everything you pick up triggers a little chat between the main characters, so its all worth it. The weapon missions are cool, and the bonus XP objectives are great.
 

Apathy

Member
The thing that the game is doing so well thanks to the nemesis system is that it is giving everyone unique stories to tell about a specific pesky orc, and it's different for everyone. That is truely magical to come into the thread and not get repeat stories about anything, and see people build up these great vengeance stories.
 

BouncyFrag

Member
I finally got some time in this and its great. I love collecting artifacts getting memories from previous ages. Its little touches here and there that scratch my lore itch. Also got ambushed by some poet captain. I was like 'wat!'. I'm having a blast.

My only gripe is the default skin shows during cutscenes.
 

Levyne

Banned
I finally got some time in this and its great. I love collecting artifacts getting memories from previous ages. Its little touches here and there that scratch my lore itch. Also got ambushed by some poet captain. I was like 'wat!'. I'm having a blast.

My only gripe is the default skin shows during cutscenes.

Not only that but the cutscenes always seem a little "foggy" to me. Like it doesn't look nearly as good as normal gameplay.
 
wouldn't the moral of the story be "don't laugh at a friend being killed by a low level orc because chances are he was ganged up on by like 2-3 captains and this one ended up getting promoted for being in the vicinity"?

Just don't laugh at anything because that Mordor karma catches up to you quick.

I have like 3 captains roaming the world that only get damaged by explosions, brehs. These guys are the bane of my existence.
 

Levyne

Banned
I did die once today, in a cave full of ghuls. Luckily I had finished what I set out to do but then I died on the way back. Some random orcs got promoted for it :|
 

zkorejo

Member
lol @ the "Avenge" mission I just did to get Zumug The Tongue back for killing Gaz.

I start by sneaking up on his little crew and realize he's only a level 5 before thinking "lol Gaz, get gud" then all of a sudden in walks one of my own Nemesis hellspawn, a level whothehellknows that shoots EXPLOSIVE CROSSBOWS

wtf

What should've been a simple stealth assassination turns into a massacre because this Orc with the crossbow is killing his own people accidentally and hitting explosive barrels/bonfires as well. Gaz's nemesis runs away because he's terrified of fire leading me on a chase right into 3 random Caragors. Needless to say everyone got wiped out, and I made extra sure to kill the crossbow enemy before he ended up as a level 15 one man kamikaze army.

Moral of the story: Don't laugh at low level enemies, or friends who've died to them.

During my first hour I also ran into an Orc who was shooting explosive crossbows.. around 20 orcs plus someone throwing spares at me. It was unexpected and so awesome.. I came near my death 3 times but always ran away towards the health restoration plant. That guy killed most of his own (and other captain's men)... and I got the job done.

I killed 3 captains in that fight. It was fun.
 

mstevens

Member
How hard do you guys think the plat will be for this one? Just curious (this wouldn't influence my decision to buy or anything)
 

Corgi

Banned
Not only that but the cutscenes always seem a little "foggy" to me. Like it doesn't look nearly as good as normal gameplay.

They definitely seem prerendered.


I guess the biggest knacks i have with the combat is that its really not designed well when mobs get musou sized... which i guess is the point, running around in circles to get cover lose some of the excitement after a bit.

Berserkers also look too similar to the other units, also its quite hard to target the O attack (which i assume is fixed when you get the shotgun spread blast upgrade).

Kinda wish there was a better way to handle ranged attacks during combat. the prompts aren't really that helpful, and the arrows come pretty fast and are hard to see... kinda wish protagonist had a shield lol.


Having some issues doing the mission of taking down the 4 war chiefs. Took out one of them because he was weak to stealth kill, but the others are a bit harder lol.

Maybe i really should level up my health more. only did like 2 levels.
 

Rubim

Member
I think my game is bugged. I can't spawn a Ghul Matron.

I been through 20 Ghul nests and more waves won't come.

You have to make sure its night time.

1 - Found a Ghul Nest
2 - Kill most of then until they start to runaway (they will have a red ( ))
3 - Repeat step 2 until a matron respawn.

TLDR; Don't kill every ghoul on a nest.

An easy way to do it its on cave near Harad Basin
 
Looks like the game takes about 20 hours to 100%. Lol at that Kotaku review stating it took over that amount for 30%.

You have to make sure its night time.

1 - Found a Ghul Nest
2 - Kill most of then until they start to runaway (they will have a red ( ))
3 - Repeat step 2 until a matron respawn.

TLDR; Don't kill every ghoul on a nest.

An easy wait to do it its on cave near Harad Basin
Figured this out, but unfortunately in a cave with a Graug, so it ate everything.
 

Metroidvania

People called Romanes they go the house?
They definitely seem prerendered.


I guess the biggest knacks i have with the combat is that its really not designed well when mobs get musou sized... which i guess is the point, running around in circles to get cover lose some of the excitement after a bit.

Musou mode is my main complaint. When a captain is only weak to combat finishers, and there's 20+ orcs surrounding him (and you), it gets silly hard to keep the combo going without taking a whack to the back.

That, and sometimes, it feels like Talion gets 'stuck' when trying to dodge roll away from spear thrusts.

It feels weird coming from Arkham's more limited, fluid style of build-you-up approach to enemies (here, every cc combat skill is just locked behind various mission or Power gates), or in Ass Creed, where you can just go counter-heavy to deal with large groups.
 

Corgi

Banned
Musou mode is my main complaint. When a captain is only weak to combat finishers, and there's 20+ orcs surrounding him (and you), it gets silly hard to keep the combo going without taking a whack to the back.

That, and sometimes, it feels like Talion gets 'stuck' when trying to dodge roll away from spear thrusts.

It feels weird coming from Arkham's more limited, fluid style of build-you-up approach to enemies (here, every cc combat skill is just locked behind various mission or Power gates), or in Ass Creed, where you can just go counter-heavy to deal with large groups.

dont get me wrong, I don't think 1:1 batman enemy encounters would have worked. making stuff too easy would make nemesis system pointless.

Problem for me is when i do defeat a warchief or some scripted encounter with huge mobs, it feels more luck, than skill.

I feel like i dont have enough options for approach i guess... maybe i should scope out the environment more :p

Getting agitated that all the cool mind control stuff i hear in reviews and podcasts is a later thing :X
 

TAJ

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Not only that but the cutscenes always seem a little "foggy" to me. Like it doesn't look nearly as good as normal gameplay.

They're definitely prerendered. They're crawling with compression artifacts.
 
Looks like the game takes about 20 hours to 100%. Lol at that Kotaku review stating it took over that amount for 30%

I think if you only ever go for the story advancement missions, but if a nemesis situation runs away on you, and you get a little OCD about some aspect or other, there are a lot of hours in this game.

I found an "Epic" rune for my sword. At that moment, my last lingering guilt at not advancing my Destiny character past level 24 by re-doing a bunch of stuff I've done already, evaporated.
 

gdt

Member
I forgot to mention how cool the nemesis system is. It's incredibly entertaining. It's character development for the bad guys.

There's this one Uruk, who I swear I've killed like 4 times now and he keeps coming back. Dunno what's up with that, but I made sure to double check in the army that he's dead. Let's see if he shows up again.

Hope he does the basterd. I've fought him so many times and he carries all those scars. Burning, slashes from a caragore, left eye is gone from an arrow, etc. He says he'll get revenge for what I did to his face.

It's amazing.
 

neorej

ERMYGERD!
The only thing I miss in this game is a review option. I'd like to see a recorded history of all my captain and warchief encounters, just to relive them.
 

gdt

Member
I think if you only ever go for the story advancement missions, but if a nemesis situation runs away on you, and you get a little OCD about some aspect or other, there are a lot of hours in this game.

I found an "Epic" rune for my sword. At that moment, my last lingering guilt at not advancing my Destiny character past level 24 by re-doing a bunch of stuff I've done already, evaporated.

I'd be surprised at the time. That's super fast. I'm 12 hours in and I'm at 35%.
 

TAJ

Darkness cannot drive out darkness; only light can do that. Hate cannot drive out hate; only love can do that.
Slow motion bow headshots or fire/barrel explosions?

?
Bow headshots never kill in one shot. Sometimes three arrows through the head don't kill a generic orc.
 
The only thing I miss in this game is a review option. I'd like to see a recorded history of all my captain and warchief encounters, just to relive them.

Now there is a good use for the "power of the cloud".
Cloud servers could render in high quality a replay of each of your major take-downs from several angles, while you continue to play, then deliver them to you in a story book so you could flip back through them.
 

Kilau

Member
There's this one Uruk, who I swear I've killed like 4 times now and he keeps coming back. Dunno what's up with that,

Pretty sure you have to cut their heads off or they will keep coming back.

?
Bow headshots never kill in one shot. Sometimes three arrows through the head don't kill a generic orc.

Charge your shot up before you let it go, it kills them in one hit, the generic guys.
 

Papercuts

fired zero bullets in the orphanage.
well. jesus. I've been going warchief hunting and third on my list was Gluk the Flogger, who had a bodyguard named Rash the Messenger, who I noticed was weak to arrow strikes. So I just lamed it out and kept shooting him in the head to not deal with two guys at once, and he eventually just shouted and ran away. Since he wasn't my target, I didn't really care, and was able to pretty easily take out Gluk.

Next up, Grublik Hot-Head, an ugly bastard with a flaming headpiece on, a giant shield, and had 2 bodyguards that are incredibly annoying archers I've been dealing with previously. But he had a key weakness being vulerable to an instant stealth kill, so I tried to mosey around to get a good angle and he just fuckin' rages outta nowhere. It looked like he had a trait relating to seeing other people in his squad die so when he found one of the archers I stealth killed he went ballistic and ran around. So with that plan ruined and an entire Stronghold coming down on me, I started to run. And out of fucking nowhere comes a level 18 that I have not been able to find anywhere who keeps getting more powerful running after me too. Coupled with the last group, I now have 3 ranged attackers(and 2 of them were poisonous :|). This kept snowballing until I had SIX fucking captains chasing me all to the music shouting GRUBLIK GRUBLIK GRUBLIK. I eventually just bolted out of there and tried to hide in grass. Then I hear a scream

RNAR0Sw.jpg


RASH THE MESSENGER OUTTA NOWHERE feat. some spiffy new eye cover since I was pecking him with arrows to the face before, comes out at the absolute worst possible time, and is from the opposite direction from the horde or captains behind me(btw, this now makes 7).

By some miracle I managed to worm my way out of there and get a leaping stealth kill on Grublik which made every other captain run away. If that didn't happen they would have all gotten more powerful, and it just happened to make it so that all of the problem captains were showing up at the same spot, which would have been terrible. Fucking hell.
 

-Deimos

Member
I've pretty much annihilated all the current captains in my game, there are only a few left alive right now. I think I should start purposely leveling them to get better runes.
 

neorej

ERMYGERD!
Now there is a good use for the "power of the cloud".
Cloud servers could render in high quality a replay of each of your major take-downs from several angles, while you continue to play, then deliver them to you in a story book so you could flip back through them.
Narrated by Kate Blanchett.
 
Pretty sure you have to cut their heads off or they will keep coming back.



Charge your shot up before you let it go, it kills them in one hit, the generic guys.

yeah but how to ensure it is a decapitation? or at least influence it?

for a starter, do you need to grab them then press the kill button.
What if you interrogate them first does that make it less or more likely it'll be a decapitation.
 

Metroidvania

People called Romanes they go the house?
dont get me wrong, I don't think 1:1 batman enemy encounters would have worked. making stuff too easy would make nemesis system pointless.

Problem for me is when i do defeat a warchief or some scripted encounter with huge mobs, it feels more luck, than skill.

I feel like i dont have enough options for approach i guess... maybe i should scope out the environment more :p

Getting agitated that all the cool mind control stuff i hear in reviews and podcasts is a later thing :X

Bigger mobs are (relatively) fine for me, now that I've unlocked the A+X AOE stun, and a cone for my basic 'wraith fist' that gets bigger by my combo meter number.

But when you're dealing with a shitton of orcs + an 'almost immune to everything' 15-18 captain, it gets pretty rough to even get a combo going to unlock them, though I admittedly haven't bought the 5x replacing 8x skill.

I'm just rushing through the story now to try and unlock Brand, see how it differs combat and the Nemesis system up.
 

Corgi

Banned
yeah but how to ensure it is a decapitation? or at least influence it?

for a starter, do you need to grab them then press the kill button.
What if you interrogate them first does that make it less or more likely it'll be a decapitation.

finishers decapitate them most(all?) of the time.
 

ChawlieTheFair

pip pip cheerio you slags!
When you are fighting an orc near a ledge or cliff and you cut off his head and his head falls off the cliff but his body doesn't.

#JustTalionThings
 

Kilau

Member
yeah but how to ensure it is a decapitation? or at least influence it?

for a starter, do you need to grab them then press the kill button.
What if you interrogate them first does that make it less or more likely it'll be a decapitation.

Your problem is you're not executing the captain. While stealth or ranged kills are much easier, an Execution finishes an uruk for good. When in combat, Talion has a Hit Streak counter in the top-left corner of the screen. This keeps track of successive attacks without Talion taking damage. When your Hit Streak hits 8 (5, if you pick up a certain skill), Talion's sword glows white and you can perform an Execution on a target. Just hit Y+B (Xbox 360/Xbox One) or Triangle+Circle (PlayStation 3/PlayStation 4) when you're aimed in the direction of your target and Talion will brutally kill them, usually via beheading. You can also use a combo finisher or a stun finisher (Stun the target with Circle/B, thenb do your full attack chain).

More at the link.

http://www.usgamer.net/articles/shadow-of-mordor-strategy-guide
 

Corpekata

Banned
yeah but how to ensure it is a decapitation? or at least influence it?

for a starter, do you need to grab them then press the kill button.
What if you interrogate them first does that make it less or more likely it'll be a decapitation.

I think interrogate is pretty much a confirmed kill. I've done that to nearly all of them aside from any that are weak to ranged attacks and haven't had any come back, even if the animation doesn't actually take their head off.
 
Yeah I just read this tip on the same page

"Your first inclination in Shadow of Mordor will be to become an uruk-murdering machine, dispatching captains with extreme prejudice. There's just one problem, even if you execute every captain you come across, the game will just make another one to fill the spot. Until you get to the game's latter half and gain the ability to dominate and control Uruk, you're wasting your time trying to kill all of them. Focus on the ones that are bodyguards for Warchiefs or the occasional pesky hunters, who will harry you from one end of the map to the other. The rest you can kill if you cross your path, but in the game's first half, it's best to remain focused"

that's kind of key, really.
 
I think interrogate is pretty much a confirmed kill. I've done that to nearly all of them aside from any that are weak to ranged attacks and haven't had any come back, even if the animation doesn't actually take their head off.
Definitely not a confirmed kill. Was doing nothing but interrogations from the start, and soon had 5 undead captains on my tail. I think it's random.
 

Dominator

Member
Theres just this one evil bastard who is immune to everything except explosions and stealth attacks who keeps coming after me. I have no clue how to go about beheading him since I can't hit him. He's killed me so many times he's level 20 power lol
 

-Deimos

Member
Theres just this one evil bastard who is immune to everything except explosions and stealth attacks who keeps coming after me. I have no clue how to go about beheading him since I can't hit him. He's killed me so many times he's level 20 power lol

Does flurry work on him?

All I do is flurry and execute.
 
Theres just this one evil bastard who is immune to everything except explosions and stealth attacks who keeps coming after me. I have no clue how to go about beheading him since I can't hit him. He's killed me so many times he's level 20 power lol
So I don't suppose a fire arrow to the face is gonna stop him, considering it would literally blow his head to pieces?

Edit: Oh, immune to arrows I guess. Good luck.
 

neorej

ERMYGERD!
Yeah I just read this tip on the same page

"Your first inclination in Shadow of Mordor will be to become an uruk-murdering machine, dispatching captains with extreme prejudice. There's just one problem, even if you execute every captain you come across, the game will just make another one to fill the spot. Until you get to the game's latter half and gain the ability to dominate and control Uruk, you're wasting your time trying to kill all of them. Focus on the ones that are bodyguards for Warchiefs or the occasional pesky hunters, who will harry you from one end of the map to the other. The rest you can kill if you cross your path, but in the game's first half, it's best to remain focused"

that's kind of key, really.

There's a certain level of satisfaction looking at the army board and seeing the corpses, knowing that is your handiwork.
 

Northeastmonk

Gold Member
SoM has made me forget about Hobbits, Elves, and Dwarves all together. I think that's why I'm enjoying it so much. You aren't stopping to rekindle the love of the Elvish queen, fighting boars at a Hobbit foot camp, or searching for dead men's loot. All that is fun in its own right, but I'm more into lore from other fantasy series. I knew some people who were heavy into the MMO and I just couldn't get into it. I think the last LOTR game I finished was Fellowship of the Ring on PS2. This is showing a side of LOTR that has no mercy to its delivery.

The story has slipped under the rug. If something happens it happens in gameplay.
I'm not feeling guilty about skipping dialogue like I normally do, but there are some really great cutscenes that are entertaining.
 
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