I have had captains run away after I killed the war chief screaming "I guess I'm war chief now". Pretty awesome. About half way through the story but like others have said it is all about everything else. Definitely cheat yourself if you stick to the story and nothing else. Fuck hot-head.. I will have his head eventually.
Still loving this game after 9 hours. I've only done 4 story missions so far, been liking the side stuff and just randomly wandering and getting into battles
That's pretty much what I've been doing. I've encountered the same problems while playing AC. There's just too much stuff on the map to focus on the story missions.
Game is pretty awesome but fuck Mogou the Destroyer... He's either killed me or one of his followers have every time I try to kill him and the worse part is he has this skill which if he's hurt he gets aggressive and seems to regenerate health (and only finishers seem to damage him) and him having a shield doesn't help either.
Should I steam through main missions till I get it? People seem to say don't get sidetracked too much before you get branding. I've just teamed up with a certain orc and helped him out, and I'm a few missions into following the gollum chain.
When I equip the Dark Ranger outfit I can move around but none of my controls work. The hints like "Push B to drop down" are just little black boxes and nothing happens.
Just finished. I really loved it, but the end was kind of weird to me.
So Talion and Celebrimbor decided to not "cross over" or whatever, and they're going to make a new ring to fight Sauron? Or am I taking it too literally?
According to the game I am 49% of the way through at 13 hours, so I kind of wanted to chime in on this game for people who may be on the fence about it.
There are a lot of things I really like about Mordor, but most of the things I like about it have to do with its combat. It's lightening-fast, feels extremely responsive, and is adequately violent -- lending a lot to the dark tone of the game. I'm not really a Tolkien fan, in the sense that I don't know any more about the mythos than viewings of the Hobbit and LoTR would grant me, but the storyline is also pretty adequate (even if it feels mostly shallow). It's more than I would have expected. Pretty much anything that filters into the combat (such as picking up really cool runes, and upgrading skills / acquiring new ones) is really good.
The problem for me, I guess, is that the rest of the game simply isn't that good. If your idea of a great open-world game is, say, AC IV, this is much more like the original AC in terms of content. The main missions have been, so far, incredibly dull (some of them literally boiling down to "Poision 5 barrels" or "Kill 20 guys" kind of boring), and the side-quests are effectively the same thing with a timer attached to make it more difficult. I really feel like the design of the missions is incredibly poor, and I can't understand why, considering how many things the game does that are really cool.
The Nemesis system, I feel, is an experiment that ultimately has failed in my eyes. Perhaps its the turn-based nature of it (ie, "time" doesn't really happen until you say it does, or you die, at which point the game shuffles its mostly lifeless AI entities around in terms of its social ladder). It's true that you can, say, shut down someones drinking party and in turn have an effect on how a particular units traversal up or down that ladder goes, but it doesn't occur seamlessly in the world; rather, you go to a mission icon on the map and select it, allowing the event to unfold in something that feels more like a world instance instead of the world you started in. That doesn't mean you won't find interesting things happening in the world, but they are quite limited with respect to what I believed the Nemesis system and its dynamic appendages would be capable of doing. A significant disappointment for me.
Further, you feel ultimately very little connection to the baddies you're fighting. I recognize they are unique, and they have essentially dice-roll stats which force you into playing in a particular way to be successful in fighting them (something I don't particularly like in my open-ended games -- let me choose how to approach things, don't just make an enemy immune to arrows or what-have-you). When you meet up with them, you fight, and if you win they die, and if you don't they get tougher -- but honestly, I'm not going to remember who they were. Their personality is hardly pronounced, and many times now have I had an enemy show up telling me they've fought me before and I frankly have no recollection of it because... well, because it's really just a lot of noise with very little signal.
So, yeah, the Nemesis system sounds cool, and I admit, on paper, it has kind of a ring of genius to it -- but when you're playing, very little of that matters, and it more or less becomes a very uninteresting gameplay loop of "learn how best to kill them", "kill them", wash-rinse-repeat. Is that being reductive? Maybe a little, but it's kind of a far cry away from what I imagine they envisioned when they were developing this system.
There are
two areas in the game, and both of them really don't have a lot going on
. Goddamn, they are pretty though -- playing on PC, and I've been overjoyed by how great the game looks and how well it runs. So much of the boredom of actually playing the game has been alleviated by having such a nice place to run around. Sadly, by the time I got to the second area, I felt more strongly than ever that the game had essentially "rebooted" itself, and I would be expected to engage in the same content over and over again.
I feel like I would have been happier with this game had it featured a much simpler, smaller hub area, but with many deeper, longer, more intense missions, more interesting set pieces, and much more choice with how to approach things. A Morder-meets-Deus Ex kind of thing. As it stands, the open-world gameplay here is lacking to me in the same way the original AC was lacking; Ubi has since iterated so much on the core of AC in general, that now, to put a game out there that is essentially AC in LoTR clothing, but without much of those advancements, it feels kind of cheap.
All that said, the game has incredible inertia, and I am still playing it and enjoying a lot of the fights I'm in, and that kind of thing. Everything else I was initially excited about has kind of faded in the background, including a lot of the storyline, and I'm now surviving on just exploring the beautiful areas, and fighting. A shame, I think, but perhaps a good starting foundation for a much better sequel?
There's a progress menu that tells you the specifics of all aspects of the game; collections, story missions, etc. From there you can see exactly what mission you're on out of how many.
I prefer the Bow one, but find it difficult to activate. Hot tip: the little icon in the bottom left of the screen displays the cooldown for the Bow special.
After putting in about 8 hours, mostly just messing with the nemesis system, oddly enough this game reminds me a lot of how I end up playing the Total War games.
At least the nemesis system basically makes going after your nemesis sort of rewarding which is kind of how I end up playing in the Grand Campaign in a Total War game, going up against rival countries/nations/civilizations that maybe kick your ass in a battle, making you that much more motivated to get back at them.
is incredible once you get it. I've not used it much in combat, but the fact that it's only limited by line of sight (and draw distance)... you can get really creative. "That tower is 1500km away. Easy."
Also, I've not seen any prerelease material for this game - I figured I'd end up buying it anyway once I heard it was Batman Lord of the Rings, so I had no idea that
you go to a whole new area. I had done all of the typical Mordor bit, and was totally shocked when it was "And here's this whole new place, all lush and green.
A nice surprise, in a world where stuff like that always reaches me before it comes out.
I couldn't help myself...I went back and spent close to an hour just travelling around the world, looking for artefacts, those wall things and unlocking forges. Also unlocked the mount ability, which is bloody amazing when you decide to infiltrate a stronghold.
One thing though, I hate that you can sometimes end up facing three captains at once. It becomes frustrating and the not the good kind of frustrating either. You're only real options are to either spam counter or make a break for it and hope you get away. Not at all happy with that decision in gameplay.
I couldn't help myself...I went back and spent close to an hour just travelling around the world, looking for artefacts, those wall things and unlocking forges. Also unlocked the mount ability, which is bloody amazing when you decide to infiltrate a stronghold.
One thing though, I hate that you can sometimes end up facing three captains at once. It becomes frustrating and the not the good kind of frustrating either. You're only real options are to either spam counter or make a break for it and hope you get away. Not at all happy with that decision in gameplay.
There's a progress menu that tells you the specifics of all aspects of the game; collections, story missions, etc. From there you can see exactly what mission you're on out of how many.
Man, some of the late game upgrades are beastly. Able to execute/combat brand after 5x, able to do it twice per charge, and critical hits are x3? Daammmn
Man, some of the late game upgrades are beastly. Able to execute/combat brand after 5x, able to do it twice per charge, and critical hits are x3? Daammmn
That's a really good point. SoM understands how upgrades should work. They are real, tangible upgrades to your fighting ability, movement, or survivability. Every point is noticeable and hard-earned, and always welcome... it never feels like a waste or dump-point.
That's another thing (aside from the Nemesis System) that Arkham Knight needs to learn from.
I don't know about that. I just think WB knew that some things worked in Batman and making it a somewhat copy+paste job saves those valuable development budget dollars. I mean they had the code available where needed and guys who worked on Batman games at their disposal.
That's a really good point. SoM understands how upgrades should work. They are real, tangible upgrades to your fighting ability, movement, or survivability. Every point is noticeable and hard-earned, and always welcome... it never feels like a waste or dump-point.
I actually really prefer playing with KB+M for this. More precision for archery + QTEs and having to only press F and C for execution and combat drain is way nicer.
I actually really prefer playing with KB+M for this. More precision for archery + QTEs and having to only press F and C for execution and combat drain is way nicer.
Um, this is horse shit. Try that against archers, spear throwers and defenders in the same group you think you can easily tackle one handed. Not to mention if a beast shows up.
He's only slightly exaggerating on how the combat is. Once I reached the second half of the game, 95% of the fights (including Captains/Warchiefs) was essentially Wraith Stun > three hits (5x hot streak), execute x2 repeat while occasionally needing to jump over to stun defenders, sometimes throwing triple daggers just for the hell of it or wasting arrows on teleport kills then running away or hiding if an alarm was sounded.
I wouldn't say the combat was a "chore" in most cases, but it did become one when you're in the middle of fighting one captain and then Mr Exposition #2 pops in randomly (when no other elite was around for miles) followed by Mr Exposition #3 killing the flow. Sometimes they were easy enough to handle, but if the alarm was sounded you had to reset the fights most of the time.
The weapon missions are all mostly unique if not unrewarding aside from simply breaking the tedium, especially the stealth missions so do those at least. I quit actively caring about any of the artifacts or elf etchings (forgot what they were called) once I hit the second map and I didn't bother at all with the hunting, collecting or Outcast "missions" unless I wanted to stall finishing the too short main mission. I also stopped doing ALL of the red missions after the final skill tier was unlocked unless it was one that involved killing a Bodyguard I wanted dead. In the end I just started wrapping up the "go here and grab this" stuff if it was near the location I was already at.
There are a lot of things I really like about Mordor, but most of the things I like about it have to do with its combat. It's lightening-fast, feels extremely responsive, and is adequately violent -- lending a lot to the dark tone of the game. I'm not really a Tolkien fan, in the sense that I don't know any more about the mythos than viewings of the Hobbit and LoTR would grant me, but the storyline is also pretty adequate (even if it feels mostly shallow). It's more than I would have expected. Pretty much anything that filters into the combat (such as picking up really cool runes, and upgrading skills / acquiring new ones) is really good.
Yep, and I agree 100% with the rest of your post as well. That's exactly how I felt about the game too. I wish the game was slightly longer too and had slightly more varied enemies besides just orcs to fight (Caragors don't count), because the combat and stealth mechanics are quite fun. It just gets really boring fast seeing so much green and going through the same motions.
hmm, I pre-ordered digitally on PS4, but I never got the dark ranger outfit... I tried restoring liscenses, didn't work. Anyone have other suggestions?
hmm, I pre-ordered digitally on PS4, but I never got the dark ranger outfit... I tried restoring liscenses, didn't work. Anyone have other suggestions?
If I ever get a good HDTV I'll play this on Big Picture mode and just bask at the visual beauty of this game.
Sure it'll be 30 FPS, but the High Settings I'm using don't overtask my lappy and the game looks gorgeous as is.
and the worse part is he has this skill which if he's hurt he gets aggressive and seems to regenerate health (and only finishers seem to damage him) and him having a shield doesn't help either.
