LttP: Horizon Zero Dawn

[Paul le Fou]

Hmmm, which DLC items to get first...

I think I have to go with the basic bow first, since it seems to provide a huge upgrade to base damage. The sharpshot bow seems to do the same damage but more tear on the normal arrows, and the same tear but more damage on the others; I forget the third one because those two bows are the vast majority of my daily use. Oh yeah, the elemental bow! That one will be good too, for extra elemental stuff, though I don't end up using it all that often. (Maybe I should, especially with a boosted version.) I tend to have long draws for most of my shots anyway, so these will all be good.

I'm wondering if I should keep the others around and repurpose them as specialty ones. So instead of putting fire and damage mods on my basic bow, like now, use the new basic bow for damage and load it up with damage mods, and load the older one up with fire and use it for fire arrows. Use the old sharpshot for tearblast arrows and the new one for damage, etc. Old war bow for corruption, new for shock and ice... The only thing I wonder is if the increases on the new ones are strong enough that it's still worth spreading the mods around and the old ones wouldn't be worth using. Any thoughts?

I also want those master outfits, of course. I wear stealth most of the time, but my current setup is already extremely stealthy, such that I don't usually get noticed at all; getting the melee damage reducer would reduce damage more when I do need it (i.e. an incremental increase is more useful for damage reduction than stealth, since stealth-vs-seen is more of a binary).

 

[Cyrael]

Any thoughts?

I think this is all dependent on the difficulty you are playing on. On Normal (which I did) I never had the desire or need to highly spec a weapon to a type to be successful. I'd always junk the lower version of the weapon and never had any regerts.

 

[Paul le Fou]

So, that was some pretty good DLC! Good story, good fights, new machines were cool (even if not very numerous), good upgrades, and some interesting new weapons.

Back to the main story to finally wrap things up, I think.

Rockbreakers are still the fucking worst. My more recent fight with them was done by hiding atop a rock, but in so many other attempts they've seemed impossible to hide from, breaking through any rocks or topology I try to get up on. The corrupted zone with 2 of them luckily had a rock I could climb and stay relatively safe on. Such bullshit that you need to break off all 4 legs before they can't burrow anymore.

 

[Cyrael]

Rockbreakers are still the fucking worst.

I can't decide between these or swarms of Glinthawks as to what I hate more.

 

[Paul le Fou]

I can't decide between these or swarms of Glinthawks as to what I hate more.

UGH I hate the Glinthawk swarms. The aiming and camera are the real enemies in those fights, though. It applies to Stormbirds too, to a degree, but they at least feel like an epic fight whereas the glinthawk swarms are just annoying.

It often just feels like you can't do a goddamn thing against Rockbreakers even if you're on your game. (Have to knock off four legs, which are often underground, you lose your highlight every time they burrow, and when they burrow You Cannot Run from them popping up underneath you, good luck laying traps anywhere, their rock throws have really big, cheap-feeling hitboxes... just all-around, ugh. Just the worst.

I actually quite like the frostclaws in the DLC, not least of which because they're bears <3. The fireclaw was mostly a fun fight too, but I haven't hunted down the 5 escaped ones yet so we'll see how long I continue to think so.

 

[conchobhar]

I actually quite like the frostclaws in the DLC, not least of which because they're bears <3.

I love that the game, in- and out-of-universe, correctly identifies a giant bear as the most effective thing to kill humans

 

[Paul le Fou]

As of a few days ago, the game is finished! Clocked in at about 93 hours.

After the DLC I went and did the rest of the story stuff I had which was not very much—I think just Gaia Prime and the final encounter, plus a side quest to fuck with the shadow carja and extract the young prince and his mom. The final encounter had a lot of cool stuff, the ending was neat, this game is good.

I might be nuts because I'm thinking about going back in for NG+ already, on Hard difficulty. It won't take nearly as long because I don't need to run around exploring and collecting everything and I can beeline to story areas and quests right away. And I get even better versions of the armor and weapons! Plus I'll be OP at least for the beginning parts of the game, which will be fun.

In fact, I was thinking that I relied too heavily on my bows even before I got the way strong DLC versions, and then I used those almost exclusively for all encounters. So I think if/when I do NG+ I'm going to at least start off with a no-bows challenge. No hunter bow, no sharpshot bow. (I'm on the fence about the war bow, but maybe I'll try to avoid it to start off.) Force myself to use the other weapons I have so many of. I'm not entirely sure whether I'll extend that to the other DLC weapons too, but I think I might - again, at least to start. I guess the bomb-sling, the rattler, and the element-sling will form the core of my loadout, with tripcaster/ropecaster/tearblaster cycled in as needed. If anything, limiting tear to the shorter-ranged blaster will be the biggest hurdle, but that also won't come quite into play until a biiit later. The lack of snipe range will just train me to do more infiltration stealth, more strikes and overrides to thin the pack, etc... and get good at lobbing bombs. Anyone else done something like this? (Or now want to try?)

 

[Aleryn]

Congratulations on finishing it plus the DLC! And yes going back in for NG+ is a great idea if you're still interested in the gameplay because you're still fresh on all the nuances. Plus from what I recall the hard difficulty is reasonable if you're seasoned. And yes now -I- do want to try, though for me it'll be playing the DLC since I never had the chance before. Ugh, it'll be weird knowing Aloy full history and that the old world's culture is doomed but its such a compelling game to those it resonated with.

 

[Paul le Fou]

Congratulations on finishing it plus the DLC! And yes going back in for NG+ is a great idea if you're still interested in the gameplay because you're still fresh on all the nuances. Plus from what I recall the hard difficulty is reasonable if you're seasoned. And yes now -I- do want to try, though for me it'll be playing the DLC since I never had the chance before. Ugh, it'll be weird knowing Aloy full history and that the old world's culture is doomed but its such a compelling game to those it resonated with.

It won't be weird, really. The DLC works at any point in the main story without much added weirdness - think of it as a side-story for added depth. The DLC is probably the best part of the game, too - and has weirdly, noticeably higher production values in a lot of ways - so I recommend it without reservation!

 

[Paul le Fou]

Spoiler: Don't read unless you've finished the 'Ancient Armory' quest

I think the way they made this 'ultimate armor' from the base game still viable, but not invincible with the EMP attacks of certain enemies was really smart. I loved using it from when I got it all the way through the DLC, but they actually had some really nice armors from what I remember you could trade in bluegleam for.

Spoiler: Best Part of the DLC

BROUGHT TO YOU BY MONTANA RECREATIONS!​

Oh man, I didn't finish that quest and get the reward until after finishing the DLC. So the tower pulses, or something certain enemies use, can disable it? That's really cool. Also makes me very glad I wasn't relying on it since that would have been extremely rude!

Also, bless Mr. Montana Recreations, the greatest naturalist who ever lived.

 

[Cyrael]

Oh man, I didn't finish that quest and get the reward until after finishing the DLC. So...

Yep, exactly. It was quite the rude awakening when I wandered up thinking I was nigh invincible and suddenly I am getting ripped apart like nothing.

Made me rethink some approaches and general laziness I had fostered because of how good that armor was it the base game.

One other thing that you HAVE to be a Utahan or at least culturally adjacent that's in the game that surprised me is that the Provo, UT LDS Temple is there in roughly the right spot and is in ruins as a Bandit Camp near (a slightly off) Bridal Veil Falls.. When I first got there my jaw dropped because it's not directly called out but it is an incredibly recognizable building.

 

[Paul le Fou]

So I went for a ways with no bows, using my rattler and my two slings as primary weapons. Impressions:

Yeah, this is a lot harder. The blast sling is a lot harder to snipe with and even then isn't as long-range. They and the fire sling both do good enough damage, and the rattler handles enemies well enough at close range. One problem is that, since all your long-range damage is now bombs or fire sling, you burn through blaze pretty fast. The other thing is that the rattler is kind of unreliable even at close range - you have to nearly press the end of it into a human enemy to actually get every bolt to hit, they spread so far. The larger machine targets are a bit easier to hit consistently, at least.

At the beginning of NG+ on Hard, everything is still so easy that it's hard to gauge the difference in difficulty, but I bet once I start fighting bigger machines a non-bow run like this will get pretty difficult. I'll probably abandon it at that point, if not beforehand, at least for this run.

I'm thinking of just dropping the NG+ run entirely, too, and waiting a while before I pick it back up and resume, or start a new one, in preparation for the sequel to come out. Although, maybe I should go quickly through this one on Hard so I can unlock face paint for a full run later...

 

[Rascally Badger]

I just put the finishing touches on this earlier today. That's a damn good game. I never really got good at the combat, but I switched it to easy during a fight that was giving me a lot of trouble and enjoyed it so much I never went back. I just really liked exploring and climbing.

I did have a problem with one late game revelation

Spoiler

I do not think it is adequately explained how Ted Faro had some kind of back-door access to the project, or why. Like, I get that he was browbeaten into funding it, but how would he be allowed within 1000 miles of actually affecting anything related to it. Also, I thought no signals were supposed to get in or out, that was the whole sealing the door thing, how does he have remote access at that.

 

[lincolnic]

I picked this up on the cheap a few weeks ago, and finally started it over the weekend. Question: are campfires the only way to save, or does the game autosave periodically as well? Seems like it's the former, but you never know.

 

[Cyrael]

I did have a problem with one late game revelation...

Spoiler: Agreed, but further thoughts

I fully anticipate that Ted will continue to be a more direct threat in the sequel. It never fully confirmed how his time was spent after he vented everyone. I mean, it is an incredibly safe assumption that he died, but with Forbidden West coming out with a 'new threat' I can clearly imagine it being Faro's mind uploaded to something.

 

[Paul le Fou]

I picked this up on the cheap a few weeks ago, and finally started it over the weekend. Question: are campfires the only way to save, or does the game autosave periodically as well? Seems like it's the former, but you never know.

It's... complicated.

As far as I can tell, if you're just wandering around the world map and not doing anything of note, it doesn't autosave. You might lose collected resources, possibly even EXP, can't remember.

If you complete some sort of objective, either a map objective or story one, and then die, it will have autosaved that progress so you won't have to repeat it just because you didn't save. Or at least, you won't lose that progress when you respawn; not sure if it counts as a "save" in the sense of being able to close the game and re-start. (But you respawn at a campfire so you can save right away.) E.g., if you do XYZ and then kill all the enemies around, but don't loot them, and then die, the XYZ will still be complete when you respawn, but the enemies' bodies will be gone and/or de-spawned if they're related to that event.

If you're in the middle of a, for lack of a better word, "dungeon" (scripted story sequences/areas, indoor areas, etc.) the game will fully autosave, including being able to turn off and come back to your progress.

 

[lincolnic]

Thanks, that seems unnecessarily involved! I probably won't remember all of that, so I'm just gonna operate under the assumption of "save at campfires, the end".

 

[Paul le Fou]

That's a safe bet, just save whenever you find one - it takes one button press and 2 seconds. The only real thing to know is that if you're in a place where there is no save point and you can't really go back and save, the game will be autosaving for you.

Spoiler: Agreed, but further thoughts

I fully anticipate that Ted will continue to be a more direct threat in the sequel. It never fully confirmed how his time was spent after he vented everyone. I mean, it is an incredibly safe assumption that he died, but with Forbidden West coming out with a 'new threat' I can clearly imagine it being Faro's mind uploaded to something.

Spoiler: Seriously, endgame spoilers here

The big question that remains is, the glitch that woke up HADES/sent it haywire/led to all this was said to have come from an unknown outside origin. What could that possibly be? the only people, groups, or culture with advanced enough computer technology to understand the system, much less hack or interfere with it, was old-world. We don't know exactly what all is out there, since the game covers a very small area, but it doesn't seem too likely that there's a tribe or shaman of this world that did it, unless they found old technology that they could awaken - but what old tech would that even be? Nor do I think Sylens had anything to do with it, since he couldn't even get into a lot of the more secure ruins, much less compute with them.

(Side question, wtf is up with Sylens at the end and leading into the sequel, anyway?)

Unrelated, my girlfriend read a forehead-smacking revelation that I also had somehow missed. It didn't escape my notice that there was some Egyptian theming going on with machine names - Khopesh, Scarab, and Horus; as Zero Day approached, Ted went into lockdown in his own "pyramid" in Thebes, too. Nor did it escape my notice that triangles were a big motif for Ted's company, although I somehow completely failed to put 2 and 2 together and realize, duh, they're not triangles, they're pyramids. That's not the "oh god dammit" one, though. The "oh god dammit" one is that Faro sounds like Pharoah. Can't fuckin' believe I missed that. I mean, that's the whole point of it all.

Anyway, that wasn't unrelated at all, because if Faro has this obsession with ancient Egypt and sees himself as a Pharoah, he's probably tried to "mummify" himself somehow. Maybe that's preserved in the afterlife, but I wouldn't be surprised if he uploaded himself. Or, one other possibility, Sylens mentions offhandedly that one of the technologies the old world had was cryogenics - mummification may involve having literally preserved himself.

I mean, he seems like an obvious candidate, gigantic piece of shit that he is. (I almost hope it's him because I would very much enjoy killing him.) But also, I'm not sure what motive he would really have. Even when he wiped Apollo (that absolute motherfucker), he did so in the ostensible hope that the reborn future would live better lives and not repeat their (his) mistakes (lol what an idiot). And he always did seem truly regretful at how horribly he had fucked up. I don't know why now, he would decide that he'd rather reactivate HADES and burn it all back down to the ground. I mean, I guess 1000 years of being an AI or unfreezing can "drive someone crazy" or something but that feels cheap. Another AI? Aliens? The Texan asshole ? I dunno, I'm sure the sequel will explore that more, even if not entirely conclusively.

 

[Cyrael]

BUNCH OF GOOD SPOILER STUFF

All of this just means now I'm even more excited to play this. Hopefully the rumors of it not hitting this year aren't true.

 

[Paul le Fou]

I know it's coming out on PS4 too, but screw that, I'm gonna need a PS5 by the time that drops, aren't I? :/

Anyway I picked up my Hard NG+ run and have been burning through it, doing nothing but story quests, cauldrons, and Tallnecks. The idea is to get all the adept equipment and beat the game, so I can later do an NG+ full playthrough on (probably) the next difficulty up, and more importantly, do it with face paint. I also abandoned the no-bows experiment. Not because it was difficult, though it was slightly harder because sling-lobs and rattler-bursts are trickier to aim and more finicky about range, especially in the heat of combat. No, I switched back because...bows are just more fun.

Spoiler: Just weapons and mechanics, no story or anything

Still trying to figure out a use for my Adept non-Banuk bows. Right now I use them for status stuff - my adept sharpshot is stacked with tear while the Banuk one is for damage, my adept hunter bow is stacked with fire with the Banuk one for damage, and the War bow is stacked for Corruption while the Banuk one is ice and shock. I haven't done much, like, analysis on how that stacks up - it feels kinda like the fire bow outperforms the fire on the Banuk bow, even if that number is technically higher - it seems like not doing a full-pull for each shot lets you plug the enemy with a lot more arrows, faster; even if the number on your base bow is lower, it might get you better DPS because of fire rate, even without Handling bonuses. So like I can plug a lot more 58-power fire arrows into an enemy a lot faster than I can light them up with 68-power fire arrows that each require a full pull to get that bonus power. But of course, if I just put fire on the Banuk bow as well, I'd be sacrificing some arrow power but that fire would be way higher... I dunno, the mechanics are kind of obtuse. Also, the main downside to specializing bows like that is that it's kind of a pain in the ass because you're switching weapons in and out even more than usual.

 

[lincolnic]

I'm getting close to wrapping this one up (in the main game, I just visited Dr. Sobeck's office and escaped from the Shadow Carja after killing a Behemoth) and I've done the DLC up to the mission Firebreak as well. Without spoiling anything, are there any story reasons why I should finish the main game or the DLC first? Left to my own devices I'd probably want to finish the DLC before looping around to finish the base game, but if the plot's enriched by holding off on the DLC until after the credits roll I'm happy to do it that way.

 

[Paul le Fou]

Without spoiling anything, are there any story reasons why I should finish the main game or the DLC first? Left to my own devices I'd probably want to finish the DLC before looping around to finish the base game, but if the plot's enriched by holding off on the DLC until after the credits roll I'm happy to do it that way.

Nope! A line or two of referential dialogue added here or there, but nothing particularly important, as far as I'm aware.

 

[Cyrael]

The DLC slots in really nicely in the main story, and I recommend finishing the main quest titled 'The Mountain That Fell' to avoid any very general spoilers about things you may or may not find up in the Frozen Wilds. But to Paul's point - you can do it at any time you feel ready. I think that all the big revelations are handed out to you by the time you are at a good level to get through the DLC

 

[lincolnic]

Thanks guys! I actually finished the quest Cyrael mentioned today, so I think I'll finish up the DLC next before I finish the game.

I have to say, I've been really pleasantly surprised at how much I've enjoyed this game's story. Everything just seems very thought-out, even little details like why you only see a handful of animal species. It takes a fairly long time to start finding a lot of that stuff, but once you do the worldbuilding feels pretty consistently solid.

 

[Aleryn]

Early spoilers that resonate through the game, kind of:
Did any one pick up a strong sense of isolation and outsider's kind of damaged desire to be part of community from Aloy early in the game that seemed to disappear abruptly about halfway through or near the end of the first region of the game? In retrospect it makes sense she'd probably work through it rather quickly because of suddenly immersed among people, but I still have this nagging sense that it was a strong trait that hinted at lingering as part of her awhile.

Granted, I only did one play-through and it was years ago now.

 

[Violentvixen]

I took it as more of a "wow, those first people I was with were real assholes". She never seemed to quite be comfortable with them but accepted that people in the other areas were more open.

 

[Aleryn]

That makes sense. I picked up a longing to fit in or be part of some greater community, but you're probably right - it seems she became disillusioned after their... behavior and maybe saw greener pastures elsewhere. I probably fixated on that initial sense of desiring community[depression?] before she knew much. I should probably just start a new game+ and experience it again!

 

[Paul le Fou]

2 pm PST / 5 pm EST tomorrow, there is going to be an "extensive look at the gameplay" of Horizon Forbidden West. HYPE HYPE HYPE HYPE

 

[Cyrael]

No date yet but the new tools look fun! Hard to believe this will be on PS4 too....

 

[Sarcasmorator]

I keep considering this game but it never goes on sale. Maybe I'll use an Epic coupon on it? IDK.