Phatose on 11/10/2014 at 01:29
Just slo-mo ranged attacks. Need that to make arrows and especially warp slashes useful in close range combat.
Zerker on 11/10/2014 at 12:32
Yeah I guess, but I never feel I should be using it in close range combat. If I need to take out an archer, I find I'll usually just vault over someone and climb the wall. I guess I could keep that in mind for the few cases where it would be more efficient, but I really don't think I need a rune to recover focus on last chance success. That just seems... weird.
Phatose on 11/10/2014 at 23:18
I actually pull out the bow in melees a lot. I've been caught trying to leap over a berzerker I didn't realize was there too many times, and honestly, if you're got 2 beserkers and 2 shielders in a pack, pulling out the bow and headshotting them is the fastest way to get rid of them short or explosives.
henke on 12/10/2014 at 07:25
Yeah I use the bow in close combat a lot too, for shield guys and explosive barrels and whatnot.
Quote Posted by Phatose
Just slo-mo ranged attacks.
There is another concievable use for the focus as well: it lets you move at regular speed while slowing down everyone else. So if you're chasing down some guy and want to catch up on him just hold down the aim button and you'll move in on him fast. Alternatively you can use shadow strike or pin his leg with an arrow, of course.
Quote Posted by Zerker
Is it one of those circle things with another circle beside it? You have to move the small circle into the big circle and THEN press whatever QTE button shows up.
If that's not it, try grab (RB).
It's not the first one (Last Chance), it's just a red circle that fills up counterclockwise(iirc) and you have to mash some button to make it stop. Wish I could tell you if RB does the trick but it hasn't happened again. And now that I have the Caragor counter ability I doubt it'll ever happen again.
I'm getting close to the end. 3 main missions to go. Loving the second map and the Brand ability. :D
Can I say how nice it is to see Monolith knocking it out of the park again? They haven't been delivering quality stuff like this since FEAR and Condemned came out nearly a decade ago. :)
faetal on 12/10/2014 at 10:45
Is this setting anyone's world on fire? It looked very promising from the vids, but I'm not seeing a huge amount of love for it.
henke on 12/10/2014 at 11:29
Have tried reading THIS THREAD? There's plenty of love for it! Maybe there's not a lot of outright gushing, but that's mainly because none of it feels particularly new, or unlike anything we've played before. Nor is the story anything special. It's simply a really really well-made game that makes great use of it's open world and relies more on emergent gameplay than setpieces to provide the "holy shit moments". It's a ton of fun, but it's not gonna be my game of the year or anything. In fact at the moment I'd say it's heading for #4 on my year end list.
faetal on 12/10/2014 at 21:14
Yeah, I've been keeping up with the thread, but no one is being too effusive about it. The gulf between how great it seemed in the videos (to me) and how you all seem to be rating is is noticeable.
Basically, if you were all being blown away, I'd consider getting it full price. As it stands, I think I can wait for sales.
henke on 13/10/2014 at 07:28
Yeah alright.
Also I finally figured out the Caragor attack QTE. It's the circle button! I thought the inner circle was just part of the clock-graphic but it's supposed to be the PS4 circle button. D'oh! :p
Malf on 13/10/2014 at 14:33
I got around to completing this on Friday.
It's a very good game, but I think it has serious pacing problems.
In particular, it takes far too long to unlock all of the Sauron's Army features.
I feel like this stuff should have been fully featured within the first quarter of the game or even earlier, but as it stands you get access to full control in probably what amounts to the last sixth of the game. By this time, I had pretty much unlocked all of my combat abilities and attribute upgrades. And while I was still enjoying the combat, I'd pretty much become un-killable and it was losing its lustre.
So instead of really feeling like I was playing with the politics of the Orc army and getting engrossed in the fates of my Captains and their adversaries, I was simply picking a mission and killing everything. It didn't really seem to matter in the long run who was boss and who wasn't. The number and type of quests remained identical either way.
And no matter how many captains were mine, the game-play pretty much remained the same with the only noticeable difference being the occasional blue-eyed Orc joining the ruckus.
I initially compared it to Din's Curse while commenting over on RPS, and while I still hold to that, I feel that it could still serve to learn more from games like that. The consequences of your meddling are much better defined in Soldak games.
In Shadow Of Mordor, all that happens is another Orc steps in to replace the one you've just killed. With there being no one place your character calls home, and no resources you have to protect, the whole system loses a sense of urgency.
Still an incredibly enjoyable experience and best described as a stabby Batman.
Edit: Oh, and another problem with the Sauron's Army feature is that the system requires the player's direct interaction in order for things to advance. Captains won't resolve conflicts until either you intervene directly in proceedings or die. It would be a lot better if things were able to continue and resolve themselves without the player being present or dying. That would give a much better sense of a living, breathing system.
henke on 13/10/2014 at 19:26
Just finished it.
This is the most pure fun game of the year. Everything about the gameplay is designed to stimulate the pleasure centers of your brain. The way you can aim at an enemy 200 meters away and at the press of a button you're standing next to him with your sword through his throat, the way you can infiltrate a stronghold, stealthily brand a bunch of dudes, and then hit the "activate sleeper agents" button and have them all go nuts. It's a more truly open world assassination game than the Assassin's Creed games have ever been. Your targets aren't just standing around in their predetermined spot waiting for you to activate the mission that means you get to kill them, but instead they're out there, going about their business and it's up to you to work out where they are, what their weaknesses are, and what the best course of attack is.
There's a lot of other things I wanna mention as well. Small, brilliant things that totally didn't need to be in the game, but it's oh so satsfying that they are. Like how Talion twirls his sword around before the sheathes it, the fact that you can throw dudes of ledges, or the way the orks chant the names of their Warchiefs when they arrive on the scene (I always raised a fist and chanted along when this happened. It might be rooting for the wrong team but their chants are oh so infectious! "Gruuuuu-blik! Gruuuuu-blik! Gruuuuu-blik!" :D) When you sit down with Shadow of Mordor it's like you're hooking yourself up to a feel-good machine and for the next hour or so you'll just have positive feelings flowing out of the screen and into yourself.
The storytelling is kind of a mess though. I don't know if it's just coz I'm a big dum-dum or what but a lot of it confused me. Like I could've swore I killed The Black Hand halfway through the game, so why am I fighting him again at the end? And who was the other end boss, the one with the horrible mouth? And who was the white haired guy in Celebrimbor's flashbacks? Was that supposed to be Sauron? Or Saruman? Speaking of Sauron, I hated that the showed up for the last fight. Totally cheapening him, even more so to have him be your opponent in a damn QTE fight. Bleh. And I couldn't even make sense of the geography. This whole time I though we were in Mordor, but the end is presented as if Mordor is on the other side of the gate? I thought that was the inside of the gate I'd been starring during the entire game but it's the outside? Or is Mordor on both sides of the gate?
Would someone who paid closer attention please explain this stuff to me?
