[Mentalist]

Aptorian, on 28 August 2020 - 03:04 PM, said:

Mentalist, on 27 August 2020 - 07:35 PM, said:

Briar King, on 27 August 2020 - 05:49 PM, said:

The human enemies in this game are shit.

yes, the helmet-wearing bastards are annoying.

They require stealthing around, and these camps aren't no Arkham Predator encounters.

I'm getting some AI glitches where machines won't leave their little valley to attack me. Can't get upset, tho, because I need to kill 15 of these Scorchers for the achievement, and they're quite tenacious.

Did they fix that exploit where you could just whistle and lure one robot after another into a bush and stealth murder them.

Doubt it.

I don't use Lure, but there's plenty of stealth killing you can do to both humans and machines.

[Mentalist]

Took a break from the gametonight to try a bunch of limited time demos. However I played a ton Fri and Sat: got all the collectibles (except the one cup that's in cultist territory, bu I guess I'll get that one in some story mission); finished all Hunting grounds, Bandit Camps, Corrupted Zones, Cauldrons and Tallnecks. Oh, and collected all the world datapoints (too many ads, lol)

Did a bunch of side-quests in Carja territory, too. Some of these have pretty decent writing when it comes to the

Spoiler

civil war with Shadow

Gonna go back to Frozen Wilds for a bit to get some more stuff done (I want to finish that Hunting Ground... and try to get some more of those new machine kills, too), and then I'll finally go to Meridian and probably move the main story along.

[Mentalist]

1st hunting challenge down. Got 2nd place in the horde-based one, that one requires extremely precise timing to make the 3 min mark.
-also, need 1 more dead Scorcher and 2 Frostclaws for those achievements. Hit Lvl 57 due to hunting these high-level critters.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 01 September 2020 - 12:27 PM

[Mentalist]

Level 58. Man, that Chieftain's trial is a doozy.

Got 3rd place in that. Gonna go back to the main map to get the last weapon upgraded before I resume this.

[Traveller]

You should head for Meridian. And Red Maw...

[Mentalist]

Traveller, on 02 September 2020 - 05:39 AM, said:

You should head for Meridian. And Red Maw...

I probably should, but I think I wanna wrap up Frozen Wilds now. So maybe by the weekend?

Edit: finished the story of Frozen Wilds. STILL need to do that Hunting Ground and also hunt down a bunch of escaped beasties; oh, and shoot a bunch of owls until one finally drops a skin so I can craft my last ammo pouch. But other than that, dunzo. That was a nice little info-dump. Might need to try that last level again, cuz I missed a couple of datapoints.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 04 September 2020 - 07:43 AM

[Mentalist]

W00t, finally crushed that Hunting Grounds challenge. Took a while to get the timing perfect, but I finally got it. Rejigged the weapon mods to make my precision bows' triple shots do over 1k damage; and that made everything very killable.

Collected all the datapoints, too. All that's left is to kill a few more Fireclaws and I can officially vacate Frozen Wilds.

[Mentalist]

Traveller, on 02 September 2020 - 05:39 AM, said:

You should head for Meridian. And Red Maw...

So I got to Meridian (my game didn't start crashing, thankfully). Was I supposed to kill

Spoiler

Nil

after clearing up all the bandit camps? Cuz I didn't and I'm not sure if that was smart.

But apparently I gotta get a whole bunch of other trophies first, before they let me into their jerky club for jerks, so back to the Wilds.

Anyway, I'm already level 60, so no more EXP for me. Sucks that I've still got like 4 more skills to unlocks though. Also, most quest rewards are green or blue mods; while I'm already kitted out with all Rare gear + upgrades. So except for a few well-written side quests the rest is pretty much meaningless fluff.

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 07 September 2020 - 03:58 PM

[Mentalist]

I am now alternating a single main quest in some ruins with a visit to Meridian + a bunch of side-questing (mostly doing Lodge hunts, cuz they're really padding stuff out).

I do think I got all the weapons now, so I can finally clear my inventory of all the extra animal bits.

[Mentalist]

Redmaw really isn't that tough. Considering I'm Level 60, and he's only 27, lulz. Froze his ass with my Banuk war bow, and then it took 2 volley of 3 precision arrows to the CPU to kill him. (the one time I hit his weak spot + 3 arrows + he's frozen + all 3 unique damage mods from Frozen Wilds slotted into that bow = 5400 damage in one hit)



Wrapping up a few side quests and errands (Acquired Taste is one of those things an internet list told me I should really play), and then it's a clear-cut road to the end game? I think?
-once I hand in that quest, I get another skill point + that's my last skill unlocked, too! And I still got a whole bunch of main quests to do... still need 2 more cells for that power armor (I know I missed one in Mother's Heart. I'll go back there soon enough)

This post has been edited by Mentalist: 10 September 2020 - 03:13 PM

[Mentalist]

Well. That was certainly a wallop of revelations. In the next story bunker. Having finished all the side missions, except for that dang armor, because there's 2 more power cells to find.

But yeah. Some really powerful world-building there. Not really a character-driven game; but they took some crazy concepts, and really went to town with them.

[Mentalist]

Okay, wrapped up the game, 100% everything, 148 hours total.

Can't say I'm particularly engaged in the story of Aloy as a character; but the world they've built up is certainly fascinating. Curious where this story's go next.

Hopefully Forbidden West finds its way on PC eventually as well.

[Tiste Simeon]

That's bonkers that you managed to complete it 100% I'm very impressed.

[Mentalist]

Tiste Simeon, on 14 September 2020 - 06:10 AM, said:

That's bonkers that you managed to complete it 100% I'm very impressed.

To get all the Steam Achievements I still need to do a NG+ run on "Ultra Hard"; but I need a break before I attempt something like that.

As for the rest, I got stubborn when it came to the Hunting Grounds, those were the biggest challenges. Side quests were mostly pretty simple, and contributed to the game overall (Cauldrons gave me new override options; bandit camps + corruption zones made traversal safer). I also really broke the game by over-levelling, and brute-forcing my way past that gatekeeper Scorcher into Frozen Wilds really early on- which didn't really help the whole over-levelling problem. Those fancy Frozen Wilds weapons were really useful in the last few battles.

The only slightly annoying thing was having to buy all the armours to get 100%, since there were a few I never used. But that's a pretty minor complaint. Oh, and having to hunt animals for bigger pouches. That was annoying sometimes and broke the game flow for me.

Also, I spent a lot of time collecting all the world datapoints, but about a quarter of them were glorified ads. Sure, they described what life was like in 2050s, but I felt they didn't really contribute to the overall world-building all that well. I'd have preferred more on-point stuff.

Minor nitpick, really, since I really enjoyed the core game concept- like I said, it feels most similar to the Witcher, in that it's designed around having enemies who are going to have very specific vulnerabilities. The actual story of Aloy's journey (not the content of her discoveries, but her personal story) didn't do much for me; but hopefully that (and having more nuanced supporting cast) can be improved in the sequel.