Horizon Forbidden West - Grapple + Glider = Aloy 2.0

[Pob]

19 minutes ago, Jamie John said:

 

So is it just four hits to power it up to the point where you can plant the resonator, or is it more than that?

It depends on what stats you've got - how quickly the spear powers up can be affected by your outfit, weaves and unlocked skills. To start with it takes a while to power up. I didn't start using the resonator blast until a good while into the game.

 

Heavy attacks power it up much more quickly, in particular the one where you hold R2 (power attack). There's also an unlockable combo that powers it up real quick (R1, R1, R1 - pause - R1).

 

You can power it up just by doing power attacks (hold R2) on the ground. They don't even need to hit anything. Might be a good way to get used to audiovisual feedback. As well as the hilt glowing blue-white, there's a tell-tale sound when it gets fully-powered.

[Vemsie]

53 minutes ago, Jamie John said:

 

Did you start on Hard? I'm playing on Normal but might crank it up in a bid to force me to engage with the stealth and combat systems more. I hardly ever use the Valor Surge thing, for example, or special attacks, as I can get by without them and forget they're there.

 

The resonator blast thing also seems inconsistent. Sometimes it appears that my spear is charged up enough, so I'll tap R2 in order to plant the weakpoint on the enemy, but it just doesn't work and I end up hitting them again, whereas other times it works perfectly. Perhaps the spear isn't charged properly, but it's difficult to tell when there's so much visual information on screen as it is. 

I started on the highest difficulty. Is that Hard?
I played Zero Dawn on Ultra Hard for my first playthrough, which was only recently added to Forbidden West. It was a good challenge but never really frustrating, apart from one Cauldron for which I seemed a bit underpowered until I came up with a strategy that worked.

[pledge]

Is there any tentative date for the 40 fps mode? My partner did the first play though and I'd been holding off for new game+ to play it myself. Even with the recent patches something just looks really off to me about resolution mode. I overuse the camera controls in 3rd person games, and in this the panning just looks really juddery. I've had no luck with various settings that are meant to improve it. I rarely notice bad frame rates so this is unusual. Performance mode seems ok but looks a bit soft after you've seen resolution mode. After the hopefully goldilocks mode. 

[cubik]

Have you got the latest updates? Performance mode is pretty much well loved now with all the visual shimmer etc. issues ironed out.

 

Performance mode is one of the best looking and silky smoothest games I've played and I'm using a 55" OLED.

[Ferine]

On 04/07/2022 at 21:07, pledge said:

Is there any tentative date for the 40 fps mode? 

There is now: today.

 

 

[pledge]

On 04/07/2022 at 21:20, cubik said:

Have you got the latest updates? Performance mode is pretty much well loved now with all the visual shimmer etc. issues ironed out.

 

Performance mode is one of the best looking and silky smoothest games I've played and I'm using a 55" OLED.

 

Yep, it is much better than when I tried it at launch. It just feels like I'm still slightly missing out.  Played a couple of days one performance though and really getting into it.

 

4 minutes ago, Ferine said:

There is now: today.

 

 

 

Perfect timing!

[HarryBizzle]

That’s cool. Will give that a go today. I haven’t used a 40fps mode before. 
 

I find I’m not massively impressed by the graphics in this. 30fps is a blurry mess in motion and 60fps isn’t as sharp as I’d like. Maybe one of these modes will improve that. 

[HarryBizzle]

Thought I’d sit down to try this new mode out and am left with the PS5 copying the update file for 15+ minutes. 

[pledge]

It seems like they have adjusted the existing modes and added ‘Balanced’, rather than the VRR modes etc being extras.

 

• Favour Resolution - still juddery for me and unusable. Didn’t try it long enough to see if any improvement over last patch.
• Favour Performance - TV shows that this is VRR, and must be the HFR mode. TV shows it as mostly 70-80 fps, sometimes over 100.
• Balanced - TV also shows this as VRR, but always 120fps/119hz. So this must be the 40hz mode.

Bit confused as the wording of the tweet made me think VRR and HFR would be separate options.

 

I ended up playing with Favour Performance. Balanced is ok but Performance now looks quite sharp and so, so smooth. I cant notice much visual difference between the two.

[HarryBizzle]

On 10/06/2022 at 09:24, Pob said:

 

Set yourself the task of only crafting at work benches, unless you really have to. This probably only comes into play later on when you've upgraded your carry capacity a little, but I found it much more fun treating shelters as 'ammo replenishment areas' and seeing if I could avoid crafting in the wild. Crafting at benches uses less resources - even more so when you upgrade the relevant skill - so there's a gameplay reason to do this, especially if you want to stretch your machine muscle as far as it'll go!

 

Can you craft arrows at benches? I can seem to figure out how, if so. I can craft traps there, but seemingly not ammo. 
 

I’ve just run out of the stuff that you need to craft acid arrows and it’s seems fairly hard to come by so if I’m wasting resources by crafting ammo in the weapon wheel, I probably need to stop!

[HarryBizzle]

8 hours ago, pledge said:

It seems like they have adjusted the existing modes and added ‘Balanced’, rather than the VRR modes etc being extras.

 

• Favour Resolution - still juddery for me and unusable. Didn’t try it long enough to see if any improvement over last patch.
• Favour Performance - TV shows that this is VRR, and must be the HFR mode. TV shows it as mostly 70-80 fps, sometimes over 100.
• Balanced - TV also shows this as VRR, but always 120fps/119hz. So this must be the 40hz mode.

Bit confused as the wording of the tweet made me think VRR and HFR would be separate options.

 

I ended up playing with Favour Performance. Balanced is ok but Performance now looks quite sharp and so, so smooth. I cant notice much visual difference between the two.

I can’t tell the difference outside of the framerate, either. It’s not like Spider-Man where you’re getting RT or something more obvious. I’ve just left it on framerate mode and can’t say it feels notably better than when it was locked at 60fps. 

[Vespa Alex]

3 minutes ago, HarryBizzle said:

 

Can you craft arrows at benches? I can seem to figure out how, if so. I can craft traps there, but seemingly not ammo. 
 

I’ve just run out of the stuff that you need to craft acid arrows and it’s seems fairly hard to come by so if I’m wasting resources by crafting ammo in the weapon wheel, I probably need to stop!

I think you unlock the ability with skill points, and then they cost less resources to craft at a bench. 

[CurryKitten]

So i finished this after 88 hours or so on it and I have a few thoughts.  First off, I like the fact that it started much like the original but then there was a twist which made things a bit new and exciting the first time facing off

 

Spoiler

against the Zeniths and the Spectors was insane - it made me wonder how we'd possible be able to go up against them 

 

There were a few things that seemed to have regressed since the first game though - mainly climbing.  In the original I knew where Alloy would go when climbing up a rock.... pretty much in the direction of my joystick, but in Forbidden West whe seems to have a mind of her own and refuses to cimb over the lip of a rock that's directly in front of here because I'm not in the right place for that.... or won't jump to the next part when it's clearly right there.  I found that odd.

 

There were too many weapons to think about.  I quite liked in the original game there were tutorial missions to make you try all the weapons out, in FW I went around collecting everything, but I tended to stick to bows and slingshots (for throwing explosive stuff) I don't feel like I scratched the surface of weapons.

 

If you went through and compulsively upgraded every pouch you will probably have noticed that when you are chasing a moon fish or a bass it would randomly disappear from the world - I guess it's left it's spawn area and the system culls it off?  It's pretty annoying when you are swimming around for hours looking for fish parts though.

 

I did love chasing the collectibles.

 

Spoiler

The Black boxes, drones and vista points usually required some thought and exploration and having to open up stuff like the ability to open metal flowers and breathe underwater was very cool

 

But this was nothing in comparison to 

 

Spoiler

Flying - I was not expecting that.  As soon as I had my Sunwing it became my only method of travel.

 

I did every single task and side mission I could, but I desperately dislike timed missions (so didn't bother with the pits, arena or hunting lodges... and I really don't like board games within video games so Strike was out for me.

 

Really enjoyed it overall, not sure what to expect from the 3rd games in the series though.

[JoeK]

Blimey, this game has got its hooks in me now. Really enjoying it very much. Despite reviewers moaning about the story being the weaker aspect of the game I'm loving it. I suspect it probably helps being so invested as I was in the original one, but the way they sowed the seeds all the way through the original to add to this one makes me smile a little. I think the dialogue is merely 'okay' (as it was in the original game), but the overarching tale it's telling is strong enough for me to really want to see how it's all going to pan out.

 

I will just say there's too much stuff everywhere, and there's faaar too many weapons for my liking but there we. That's what 'easy' mode is there for I guess  

[HarryBizzle]

I put quite a bit of time into this yesterday and am now at the bit where I can go after any of three McGuffins I need to fix Gaia. The combat is ready good in this, but I find all the weapons a bit overwhelming. I’ve only bought about 5 things but have loads more I’ve found or been given and struggle to tell the difference between many of them. But when you figure out the very quick way to take out an enormous bot, it’s brilliant. 
 

 

Aside from that, I’m kind of surprised by how poor all the rest of it feels. NPC faces stand out as really weird outside of cutscenes, the world is full of busywork and very little interesting stuff, and the writing is just horrendous. The whole character arc seems to be Aloy learning how to remove the stick that’s up her butt, the Zeniths remind me of the precursor race from Assassin’s Creed and make me want to puke as a result, and the writing is just generally incredibly weak. They introduce all these clans but when you interact with them they’re basically all identical. The tenakth, the savage warrior clan are really just a bunch of softies. I rescued a bunch of them from a flood, after being asked to by a guy who asked me very politely to do so and then when I found them they were all very soppy and sentimental about one another. 

[hereticboy]

There's just way too much stuff in this. I'm 50-odd hours in and while I was absolutely hooked on it when I started I'm just finding myself resenting the thing every time I boot up the PS5 for how much shite there is – just the sheer bloody volume of stuff to do regardless of whether it's worth it or not. I'm into the story but I had a look and I've got around five main missions left to do, but I just can't be arsed.

 

Deleted it so I don't have to look at it anymore. Hopefully one day I'll fancy jumping back in, but at the moment even looking at the icon in the home screen makes me feel knackered.

[FiveFootNinja]

So I'm about 20 hours into this now and am well and truly hooked. 

 

I put 90 odd hours into the platinum on Zero Dawn and Frozen Wilds and thought it was fantastic. This one started a little slow for me, with the various bump starts before you get fully into the Forbidden West, but now I'm here I'm invested and have started my exploration in earnest.

 

Currently level 16 and have been around most of the first portion of the main map. I'm probably a bit over levelled for the main story, as I get easily distracted by side quests and challenges, so think I may head back onto the main plot line for a bit tonight to move that along.

 

However, it's clear I still love the world, still love Aloy, and still love being a giant-robotic-dinosaur-killing-bullet-time-archer-badass.

 

If things stay as they are I expect I'll go for the 100% (and probably about 100 hours of game time).

[Cyhwuhx]

Quote

 

As The Umbrella Academy is headed for its fourth and final season, the series’ executive producer/showrunner Steve Blackman has re-upped his big, eight-figure overall deal with the streamer.

 

Under the multi-year pact, Blackman will write and produce new series and other projects for Netflix under his newly launched Irish Cowboy production banner. He is currently developing two sci-fi series: Horizon Zero Dawn, based on the PlayStation action-adventure game, and ISS drama Orbital.

 

 

https://deadline.com/2022/08/steve-blackman-horizon-zero-dawn-orbital-umbrella-academy-showrunner-netflix-deal-1235099888/

 

[Popo]

I bought this for £30 the other day from CD Keys. First impressions:

 

Much better opening than the first game - more focused, less overwhelming

Looks stunning! On a par with Last of Us Part 2; better in some ways, worse in others, but a real visual accomplishment

 

The new ways of interacting with the environment, like the grapple, and the way Aloy is better able to traverse uneven ground gives the game a much improved lookfeel

 

Having said that, it’s still not perfect - being able to change direction midair, or getting caught on ankle-high scenery is jankety jank 

 

The reduced HUD is much, much better than before - way more immersive for one thing, and means you’re better able to take in the breathtaking scenery

 

For me, this is far better than the first game so far. 

[FiveFootNinja]

Just closed off the story (in fact closed most of it off) last night. Currently sat on 90% completion but having looked at what I'd need to do for that final 10% I'm not sure I can be bothered. I am one action off the Platinum though so I'm definitely having it!  

 

I'll do a proper write up in the game completions thread, but on the whole I really liked it.

 

Pros

• It's gorgeous and plays really well
• New features/moves/tools are fun (a little bit spoilered below)
• The new machines are fun on the whole (and terrifying in places)
• Still love Aloy
• Storyline knits better with Zero Dawn than I expected
• Diverse map/locations

 

Spoiler

Wings of the Ten is great, I love bombing around on my Sunwing.

 

 

 

 

Cons

• Big play area (maybe a bit too big)
• Some of the side/extra stuff began to feel a lot like busy work in the middle portion which - while I'm a sucker for it - I later regret burning time on
• I got a recurring bug where my character would sink ankle depth into the ground (but still move around) but all the spear attacks wouldn't work requiring a reload to fix
• The climbing mechanics are miles off, sometimes I'd be pressing hard left on the stick and she'd start climbing up and right despite ample holds being available, or getting stuck on a final hold about 3cm from the top but not grabbing it. I avoided rock climbing wherever possible in the end.
• Yet again, about 80% of the weapons and tools I never got round to using as slow-mo hunter bow is still the best bit of the combat
• Lots of reading with the collectables which I found less interesting knowing the backstory/history to Zero Dawn already

 

On balance, I had a great time with it, and it is still going to get a big old review score from me. Ultimately it's a good sequel, but for me (as someone who properly fell for the first game) this one felt much bigger, but not necessarily much better. That didn't stop me putting 95 hours in so far, with a few still to go while I wrap up a couple of bits. Will I play the DLC and next game. In the words of Erend... "Hell yeah"

[FiveFootNinja]

On 06/09/2022 at 21:41, FiveFootNinja said:

Just closed off the story (in fact closed most of it off) last night. Currently sat on 90% completion but having looked at what I'd need to do for that final 10% I'm not sure I can be bothered. I am one action off the Platinum though so I'm definitely having it!  

 

I'm a filthy liar. I got the platinum and 100% completion done last night after all 🤣

 

Final play time was 98.5 hours so my original 100 hour estimate was actually pretty accurate. Great game.

[Vemsie]

I really recommend this by the way if you have the telly for it.

Looks so much better for me now. At times it looked at bit washed-out for me but after doing these steps it pops like no other PS5 game. Absolutely gorgeous.

[robotattack]

 

[Superfamifreak]

Has anyone managed to do the Energy Surge Chain trial? I’ve tried for so long but it can f*** right off!

[teddymeow]

I've gone back to this after finishing TLOU Part I.

 

It's still gorgeous but it's so "busy". Like Forza Horizon 4 & 5 - so many POI on the map and stuff being thrown at you that distracts from the main quest.

 

I'm going to persevere, mind.

[glb]

On 23/07/2022 at 13:03, FiveFootNinja said:

So I'm about 20 hours into this now and am well and truly hooked. 

 

I put 90 odd hours into the platinum on Zero Dawn and Frozen Wilds and thought it was fantastic. This one started a little slow for me, with the various bump starts before you get fully into the Forbidden West, but now I'm here I'm invested and have started my exploration in earnest.

 

Currently level 16 and have been around most of the first portion of the main map. I'm probably a bit over levelled for the main story, as I get easily distracted by side quests and challenges, so think I may head back onto the main plot line for a bit tonight to move that along.

 

However, it's clear I still love the world, still love Aloy, and still love being a giant-robotic-dinosaur-killing-bullet-time-archer-badass.

 

If things stay as they are I expect I'll go for the 100% (and probably about 100 hours of game time).

This is very similar to my first impressions after an equal amount of playtime. Got frustrated initially because the start is slow, and some of the signposting felt off.

 

However, now into a rhythm with the combat and remembering some of the methods needed to combat different machines.

 

Agree with the sentiments in the thread about the game being a bit too busy but enjoying the world for now. I did platinum the first game, and would like to add this to the collection but depends on the busywork required down the line. Should see me through to the end of the year though as I am a sucker for pootling around a big map, and I’m also playing Cyberpunk. Can see both being 100 hours plus easily.

[glb]

One thing I've not quite got the hang of doing again is shooting off machine parts, then shooting the exposed part, for example Blaze, in order to trigger an explosion. Using tear arrows and can shoot parts off but cannot seem to trigger anything else.

 

Or am I misremembering the technique from the first game?

[Pob]

33 minutes ago, glb said:

One thing I've not quite got the hang of doing again is shooting off machine parts, then shooting the exposed part, for example Blaze, in order to trigger an explosion. Using tear arrows and can shoot parts off but cannot seem to trigger anything else.

 

Or am I misremembering the technique from the first game?

 

Canister need to be shot with matching arrows e.g a blaze canister will be ignited by a fire arrow. Some canisters are shielded with armour which does need to be torn off first, exposing the canister.

[glb]

9 minutes ago, Pob said:

 

Canister need to be shot with matching arrows e.g a blaze canister will be ignited by a fire arrow. Some canisters are shielded with armour which does need to be torn off first, exposing the canister.

 

Ah, yes, that was the bit I was forgetting! Thank you

 

Although I did try a trial where you have to shoot a cannister and trigger a shockwave, but every time I shot the casing to expose the cannister, the whole part tore off. I'll try it again with a shock arrow based on the above though. Some of the trials were the biggest chore in the first game, although not all. They were really inconsistent, which is a shame because the good ones were really good.

 

I probably need to watch a 'things I wish I knew' video or similar to refresh some of the mechanics. Had to completely cheese a fight with a Thunderjaw at level 17 by hiding behind a rock, popping out and arrow-snipping it's exposed parts () for about five minutes. Hardly befitting a warrior hunter, and I felt ashamed by the thought of going back to the nearby camp afterwards, at least until my companion shouted, "we did it!" or something similar when he'd not helped one iota the cheeky bugger.

[Ferine]

16 minutes ago, glb said:

One thing I've not quite got the hang of doing again is shooting off machine parts, then shooting the exposed part, for example Blaze, in order to trigger an explosion. Using tear arrows and can shoot parts off but cannot seem to trigger anything else.

 

Or am I misremembering the technique from the first game?

If you shoot the cylindrical canisters with their matching element it will trigger an explosion.

 

Some machines also have elemental storage sacks – like the large containers on the Bellowbacks – but those can be ruptured from regular impact damage. In other words, you don't need to fuss about matching elemental damage, just him them as hard as you can.

 

A fairly common complaint of Forbidden West is that there are too many elemental types. If you want to simplify that side of things, I'd suggest prioriting:

• An accurate bow with Fire arrows, for triggering canister explosions.
• A bow with Shock arrows, for both targeting canisters and building up the stun status effect on machines by shooting them wherever.
• A decent source of Frost damage, like a Bomb Sling, so you can quickly build the status effect and make machines more vulnerable to other damage.

As elemental status effects don't stack on enemies – if you apply another it'll get rid of the earlier one – it's easy to spread yourself too thin by trying to have a tool for every single element on hand. As such I think most players will have a better time by focussing on the above to start with, perhaps expanding their repertoire once they have access to a wider selection of weapons.