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

I'm 68% on my in-game progress bar and while I've enjoyed it, I'm starting to get a bit tired of how repetitive the combat (which is the only thing in the game) is. The nemesis system is pretty cool, but it's hardly blowing my mind. It's a nice feature to throw onto this open world game with batman combat and a LOTR setting, but it's not some revolutionary change that makes the core gameplay fundamentally different.
 
This game gets SO good when you start unlocking more and more abilities. I jumped on it way too quick when I had only unlocked 4 or 5 attributes.
 

Corgi

Banned
you know, having mostly played ps3/vita/3ds/wii u games for most of the year...

I've definitely died at least half a dozen times because i hesitate doing 'last stand' on the QTE button (playing on pc with gamepad).


Wish they just did what most games do these days in which they show the 4 face button layout and highlight the button to press...
 
As someone who barely knows anything about this game, and only saw a couple of videos half an hour ago, thank you for your impressions. This game really seems to be amazing and -at least for me - was totally unexpected. I'll see if I can grab a copy tomorrow.

Hope you enjoy it as much as I am!
 
Apparently I suck at this game. Never had issues with Batman / AC, but it seems like there are always 20 enemies surrounding me, the X to Triangle counters are throwing me off, archers/spears are kicking my ass, captain adds happen all the time even when I'm in a contained area, and I die in like 2-3 hits. Halp?!

I guess I should take it slower and not rush into the fray...but...a day may come when the courage of men fails, but it is not this day.
 
How do you perform the execution? I hit Y+B and it seems to only work 10% of the time. I've tried after a 10x combo, I've tried during the slo mo bits, I've tried when they are stunned but there doesn't seem to be any pattern. Whats the secret?
 
How do you perform the execution? I hit Y+B and it seems to only work 10% of the time. I've tried after a 10x combo, I've tried during the slo mo bits, I've tried when they are stunned but there doesn't seem to be any pattern. Whats the secret?

I am having the same issue, its like the game doesn't take my command inputs or something... even with the ground executions...
 
How do you perform the execution? I hit Y+B and it seems to only work 10% of the time. I've tried after a 10x combo, I've tried during the slo mo bits, I've tried when they are stunned but there doesn't seem to be any pattern. Whats the secret?

You get the combo and do it on a random Orc, doesn't work when their stunned
 

Apathy

Member
Apparently I suck at this game. Never had issues with Batman / AC, but it seems like there are always 20 enemies surrounding me, the X to Triangle counters are throwing me off, archers/spears are kicking my ass, captain adds happen all the time even when I'm in a contained area, and I die in like 2-3 hits. Halp?!

I guess I should take it slower and not rush into the fray...but...a day may come when the courage of men fails, but it is not this day.

Best advice i can give you is stealth kill archers before you engage. Once engaged, kill of spear guys first and always, always counter evade asap. The counter will interrupt anything you're doing and that's a good thing, there are only a few animations that give you invincibility, so it's always better to counter so you don't take damage. Don't forget to use circle to stun to buy you some space and double tap x a lot to roll around and harder to hit
 

Apathy

Member
How do you perform the execution? I hit Y+B and it seems to only work 10% of the time. I've tried after a 10x combo, I've tried during the slo mo bits, I've tried when they are stunned but there doesn't seem to be any pattern. Whats the secret?

Just want to make sure, but are you sure you racked up enough to do it? Your sword will glow and the combo number will be red when you can do the execute.
 

Q8D3vil

Member
Man, this game have no shame copying everything Arkham games and pasting it in Middle earth setting.
I like it so far though.
 

Archaix

Drunky McMurder
Ok, so I have to wait til the combo number turns red? That makes more sense. I'll try it out, thanks!


Your sword glows blue too, which is easier for me to notice in the middle of combat. I don't think it was clearly explained, I fumbled around a while not getting the hang of it until I realized the sword stopped glowing after I got an execution.

Really loving this game so far. First AAA game of the year I've found to be great. I am glad I kept up with it, I initially wrote it off as an AC clone but they really pulled things together. Great effort by Monolith.
 

Flarin

Member
Played about 5 hours last night and gotta say that it's absolutely delivered in every way for me. The beginning when you're first thrown into the open world has some REALLY bad stuttering for some reason (on PS4) but then after that it never happened again. Not sure what the deal was.

Combat feels great. Cutting Orcs heads off is super satisfying. I have to say that I thought it was pretty easy. There's simple exploits to almost never die. Killing the Captains, so far at least, has been simple as well. The only things killing me are the Caragors. So annoying :p

Having fun just completing all the side objectives as well. Looking forward to diving more into the story!
 

Bogeypop

Member
FHJF8Fg.jpg

I guess I should be thankful he didn't pull his trousers down or I'd have gotten the full downpour, and not the soak-through.
 

RoboPlato

I'd be in the dick
Do the console versions have AA? The PC version doesn't have an option available.
PS4 version definitely has some nice AA. Not sure what it is but it seems like a solid post process solution. The only places I notice aliasing is on high contrast edges on swords and even then it's much less pronounced than it usually is. PC version has built in supersampling options, which I guess Monolith thought was the better choice there.
 

RoboPlato

I'd be in the dick
This game gets SO good when you start unlocking more and more abilities. I jumped on it way too quick when I had only unlocked 4 or 5 attributes.
I love the sense of progression in this game. At first you feel just like a competent ranger fighting orcs but every upgrade past that point makes you really feel like you're getting more powerful.

BTW the first upgrade that you get to the sword and dagger for completing five legend missions looks HAWT
 
they're not even the last upgrade, you can go for them first. I did.

Oish.

I feel like the game might get too easy now. I was saving up my points to grab them early, but if it takes out the challenge I may hold off instead.

I kinda wish there was a difficulty setting. I'm loving the game but I'm afraid as I unlock more skills it'll just be more of a cakewalk. It's already pretty easy so far for me :-/
 

Bunta

Fujiwara Tofu Shop
they're not even the last upgrade, you can go for them first. I did.

Oh well, lol. I just picked the bows last one thanks to you, though. I already bought all the rune slots for the dagger and sword. It doesn't really matter, anyway, I would have upgraded everything.
 

vwluke

Neo Member
I am getting destroyed in this game. How many story missions do you guys think i should do before i start doing side stuff.
 

tmarg

Member
I'm under the understanding that if you execute a Captain he doesn't come back. Is this correct?

No, you have to remove his head, or he can come back. I've stealth executed the same asshole six times now. He's immune to everything else, so I can't really kill him any other way.
 

mrqs

Member
Just finished it.

The game is not as good as i wanted it to be. It has some great gameplay mechanics and sanbox, but story-wise is pretty shitty.
 

MAX PAYMENT

Member
Is anyone else finding this game really difficult? Any time I innovate some kind of encounter with a named enemy, 2 or 3 more just happen to show up and botch most of my assassination attempts. It's cool, but only for so long.
 
I'm not ashamed to admit that this is the first game I've ever no lifed, beaten all in basically 1 day with short breaks every hour or two. And this is a stark contrast to most of my gaming lately where I'll probably play like 2-3 hours and then need to stop because I feel myself getting bored.

I'm not even a big LOTR/middle earth/hobbit fan. I've read the hobbit, parts of book 1 of LOTR, and I've seen each movie so far... but I actually think this is the best representation of the franchise so far. I usually hate the cutscenes in many games lately, but these ones I actually enjoyed. This game has got me more interested in the franchise than anything else has before it.

And from a gameplay perspective, they did so much right. While it bears the resemblance of a patchwork of many other games, it executes them in many cases even better than the originals. I loved the combat, I loved how much of it you immerse yourself in it. And the whole system of orks rising up the chain of command and your ability to influence it... that was genius. It allowed you to pursue your own side missions in a way. You can basically tell your own story because of the way the captains remember you and you basically have history with some uruk who ambushed you and you cut him down but he didn't die quite completely and he is pissed at you. I didn't mind dying because it just added to that personal story.

I liked the difficulty ramp for the most part, however towards the end it started getting perhaps a bit too easy. I didn't unlock any of the legendary weapons (mainly because I found the side missions to unlock them were not challenging and perhaps one of the few weak points in the game, although they weren't badly designed I just didn't look forward to doing them). I didn't unlock every power because I felt like the power creep was already there and if I unlocked some of the last power ups like the critical 2 + flame sword, etc. there would be absolutely no challenge. I didn't even unlock more than 2 health bars because I felt like the game was gonna be too easy.

Overall, I have to say this could be GOTY material for me. I feel like they executed the game incredibly. I played on a PC with 1080p 60fps, I think it was medium/high settings. I didn't really check. gtx560. Played on KBM, and the default control configuration actually worked out very well. As for mouse controls, this is where it gets weird but it could be my fault for not looking hard enough. I couldn't find sensitivity controls. I couldn't find any mouse controls actually. And I think acceleration was on. But it didn't bother me and my sensivity was good enough to headshot orks in a row like a madman.
 

Sorian

Banned
I think I'm going to have to use that forward time option next time I play. I noticed I wasn't getting nearly as many random captain attacks and thinking on it, I think most of them are laid out in my army screen, I'd assume they'll pop back to life if I move time forward? I was feeling pretty bad ass last night though. It seemed I was the one ambushing most of them this time around. Also looking forward to one guy coming back since I accidentally threw him into a fire while I was fighting him and I noticed some lower orcs talking about it about an hour later.
 

BuddyL33

Neo Member
No, you have to remove his head, or he can come back. I've stealth executed the same asshole six times now. He's immune to everything else, so I can't really kill him any other way.

You can't grab him and interrogate him? Doesn't that usually lead to a beheading after?
 

Sorian

Banned
You can't grab him and interrogate him? Doesn't that usually lead to a beheading after?

No, in my experience it leads to this weird thing where you do what looks like a weak force choke and they just kind of fall over. In the army screen, it just shows them laying down so I assume they are still good.

Edit: Also, you can't grab a captain at full health, even when stealthy unless he has the clumsy trait or is running in fear.
 
I think using execute on them when they are at low health is the way to perm kill the captains. It seems like sometimes when you kill them other ways they survive. When they are low hp, I try to do an execute off the hit streak and it often beheads them or cuts their throat or stabs them in the heart.
 

Garibaldi

Member
I was wondering the same thing, got my email saying it was dispatched but no rune email (yet).

I just got mine through. Unfortunately both codes seem to be for the deadly archer rune. I've popped them an email but no doubt I'll not get the Arnor rune.
 

chris121580

Member
Few things are better than following a War Chief while he has a crew of 10 following behind him and killing each member of his crew stealthily 1 by 1 and then taking him out. This game is so good
 
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