Control by Remedy Catch All

Interesting, cceserano, thanks for sharing that. The idea that the game adapts difficulty based on the number of deaths makes me less impressed with myself for heaving cleared that area on my first try after a longer break--maybe it wasn't the mental clarity achieved by setting the game down for an evening, but just the fact that I was now playing it having died six times?

I agree completely that there are too many waves of enemies, particularly given the type of checkpointing they use. I'd be much less annoyed about dying to the fourth wave of enemies if I had a checkpoing to the start of the last wave. My experience with Control reminds me a lot of my experiences with the Uncharted series, which I love!, but which I would love even more if there were, say, 20% less combat.

Glad to see I'm not the only one who found this game a bit more difficult than I would have liked.

It's great if they had adaptive difficulty; but rather than feeling elation at breaking through something difficult, occasionally I just felt frustration followed by relief that certain parts were over. Obviously, it wasn't bad enough to keep my from finishing (even getting the platinum). But if they put the work into tweaking difficulty, they could have added a difficulty setting that changed how many times you had to die before they eased up on you...

RE: Rockets (and enemies in general) The dodge power is your friend... If you're not moving, you're gonna die.

Interesting.. I generally suck at videogames.. I play everything on easy..and yet I was fine with Control.. sure some of the bosses took multiple tries but I guess all those years playing various FROM games has made me numb to multiple boss try games. Certainly combat was unforgiving.. but I never felt that it wasnt something that I could do different that would have resulted in a better outcome. Dodge and Throw was my friend and a +dmg boosted gun.

JC wrote:

RE: Rockets (and enemies in general) The dodge power is your friend... If you're not moving, you're gonna die.

Shamus' theory was in part due to the very precise timing dodge seemed to require while he was playing, compared to what he saw when watching others play on YouTube.

Again, these are theories and have been untested. Just based on observations made during his multiple playthroughs and then comparing to other footage.

The only parts of the game I had any serious difficulty with were the first battle against Former (fridge boss) - because I didn't know you could throw his projectiles back at him then - and the Hedron Chamber fight, which is just a slog.

The rest of the game I didn't find to be especially difficult and I am a gamer of highly average skill. Several of the other boss fights that people talk about being monstrously hard like Tommasi or Anchor I found straightforward. I think when you're using your powers and different weapon forms effectively the combat in this game is extremely satisfying, and there's more cool stuff you can do I never even got to trying out (like Charge SW form or Seizing Hiss Nodes).

Now that I have acquired all the powers, I am definitely over the difficulty hump and am enjoying the combat a bit more. With all the tools together, I feel like I have a lot more options and can usually figure out a counter to any given enemy's attack. It can still be difficult to manage when there are a lot of enemies coming at me at once--especially the explode-y type--but I am mostly enjoying that challenge. I do still wish there were more generous checkpoints, though. The distance between control points certainly inspires tension and dread, but not in an enjoyable way. It's the tension and dread of "ugh I do not want to sit through the loading screen again and then fight the same cluster or two of enemies all just so I can re-try that fight I died on." I'd love for this game to have a quick save/quick load.

Looking at list of story missions, it looks like I'm about 3/4 way through now (I quit last night after dying to a named enemy in a pile of trash). I'm at a point where I'm no longer especially interested in side missions--I've done maybe 10 of them, and they are usually reasonably interesting, but the payoff of a few more ability points isn't enticing enough to me.

Most of the time, I have no problem fighting enemies in this game (I am relatively early in the game though, just found Marshall), except for one enemy - it's some kind of machine gun dude that regenerates health crazy fast. I would unload a Spin magazine into him, take maybe 20% off him, throw a couple of things while reloading and by the time I can shoot at him again, he is at full health. I fought him for like 10 minutes and eventually I died due to attrition.

I've only seen him once in one of those Emergency side missions that disappear if you die while doing them.

Any advice?

[edit] I forgot to mention that I dislike when games don't show you the entire skill tree, you need to unlock a skill to see what's next. Very stupid design, especially when there is no respec.

Hedinn wrote:

Most of the time, I have no problem fighting enemies in this game (I am relatively early in the game though, just found Marshall), except for one enemy - it's some kind of machine gun dude that regenerates health crazy fast. I would unload a Spin magazine into him, take maybe 20% off him, throw a couple of things while reloading and by the time I can shoot at him again, he is at full health. I fought him for like 10 minutes and eventually I died due to attrition.

I've only seen him once in one of those Emergency side missions that disappear if you die while doing them.

Any advice?

If there is a Healing Orb healing him then take that out first.. if its his armor that is regenerating and not his health (there are two bars for tough enemies) then use Pierce since it can penetrate armor.

Even then I usually find between throwing big items at them to take out their health and armor I can then follow up with a gun to finish them before the armor regens. I only found Pierce a requirement for a few certain boss fights.

Yeah I'm pretty sure there are no non-boss enemies that regenerate health (as opposed to armor) if they don't have a Hiss Cluster (orb things) around.

My strategy generally was to hit a guys with a big block of rock or a table to take out his armor, then switch to spin to take out their health. It worked well, because I'd run out of energy for my telekinesis and switch the service revolver and then once their armor regen'd my energy was replenished too.

I pretty much stuck with Pierce as my second weapon the whole game, takes out a lot of enemies with one shot.

Anyway just finished the main story last night, looking forward to clearing up some side missions. Fantastic game.

TheGameguru wrote:
Hedinn wrote:

Most of the time, I have no problem fighting enemies in this game (I am relatively early in the game though, just found Marshall), except for one enemy - it's some kind of machine gun dude that regenerates health crazy fast. I would unload a Spin magazine into him, take maybe 20% off him, throw a couple of things while reloading and by the time I can shoot at him again, he is at full health. I fought him for like 10 minutes and eventually I died due to attrition.

I've only seen him once in one of those Emergency side missions that disappear if you die while doing them.

Any advice?

If there is a Healing Orb healing him then take that out first.. if its his armor that is regenerating and not his health (there are two bars for tough enemies) then use Pierce since it can penetrate armor.

Even then I usually find between throwing big items at them to take out their health and armor I can then follow up with a gun to finish them before the armor regens. I only found Pierce a requirement for a few certain boss fights.

The Orb, you are probably right!

Now that I think of it, I opened the door and a bunch of enemies (one of them was that machine gun dude) pushed me out immediately. The rest of the fight happened in the corridor and the Orb was probably inside.

Thanks, I'll keep it in mind!

Even better if you have invested in Seize you can take over the Healing Orb and it will heal you instead.. granted you probably shouldnt be maxxing out Seize over the more useful skills..but I found Seize to be very useful unlike most of the guides on the internet.. I used it on most fights at least once or twice.. having 1 or 2 allies is helpful.

TheGameguru wrote:

Even better if you have invested in Seize you can take over the Healing Orb and it will heal you instead.. granted you probably shouldnt be maxxing out Seize over the more useful skills..but I found Seize to be very useful unlike most of the guides on the internet.. I used it on most fights at least once or twice.. having 1 or 2 allies is helpful.

Wow, I didn't know that was an option.

I have no idea what I will be picking for my abilities. Maxing out Health sounds like a good idea, I've also increased Energy a couple of times and improved Launch so I can throw grenades back at them now.

As of now, I have 4 points and keep agonizing where to apply them Did I mention that I hate when there is no respec?

I'm almost at the end of the main missions, and the encounter design is wearing on me. The sequence I'm on has you basically pushing a series of buttons, with a cluster of enemies at each button. I got through the first three, died on four. Reloaded, and amazingly, it restarted me on four! Hooray! After a few tries, got past four, through five, and to six. Six was a whole mess of beefy dudes with no cover, and I died. Restarted, and found myself back at four.

I'm still liking the combat, though I think I need to do a better job actually choosing what I specifically want to throw. I've mostly just been hitting the throw button and tossing whatever. I don't think I realized that bigger stuff does more damage. I should throw more big stuff.

Random thing this game has done is had me rethink how certain D&D spells would look when cast.

My cleric/sorceress for the next campaign i'm playing has the ability to "fly" up to 10 feet before or after casting a spell without taking an attack of opportunity, so NOW i'm envisioning that like the dodge ability, or the "wobbly tony stark learning to fly" movement of levitation in this game.

My old character, which we'll probably go back to at a later date in a new campaign, just took a level in wizard and took "Catapault" - a spell i'd normally not even look at, because it means you can grab objects and hurl them at enemies, which i NOW see is really, really cool thanks to this game.

Anyway, not anything to do with anything, i just thought it was neat!

I only played last night long enough to break through the encounter I'd been stuck on. I'm inclined to think the idea that this game has adaptive difficulty based on your deaths must be right...three times I got the named enemy's health bar down only about 1/3 - 1/2. Fourth time, I suddenly found myself killing him with only 4-5 pierce shots. If that is the game changing behind the scenes, it's better than nothing, but I do wish I could just set the game on easy. I wonder if they just worried the game wasn't long enough?

I do love the flying ability, particularly the way you can use it to stagger your descent going down. The first mission I went to work on after getting the ability was one in The Pit, that I could only access by going to Central Research and waiting for that slow elevator. As soon as I got the flying ability, I just leapt from the landing of the Central Research control point to the floor of the main area, then found the spot where the elevator is (which is never raised when you get there), jumped down the hole and just hit the float button a foot or so from the bottom and hovered right in. Even though they work very differently, it just feels right to me much in the same way Anthem's flight did.

Hedinn wrote:
TheGameguru wrote:

Even better if you have invested in Seize you can take over the Healing Orb and it will heal you instead.. granted you probably shouldnt be maxxing out Seize over the more useful skills..but I found Seize to be very useful unlike most of the guides on the internet.. I used it on most fights at least once or twice.. having 1 or 2 allies is helpful.

Wow, I didn't know that was an option.

I have no idea what I will be picking for my abilities. Maxing out Health sounds like a good idea, I've also increased Energy a couple of times and improved Launch so I can throw grenades back at them now.

As of now, I have 4 points and keep agonizing where to apply them Did I mention that I hate when there is no respec? :)

If it helps between main missions and side missions you will pretty much have almost enough points to max out everything. If you find a few hidden areas you can max out the skills

I received this as a gift this week and played a few hours yesterday, just past the first boss fight. I got pretty frustrated with that fight, along with the attendant load times, but otherwise I'm enjoying it. I do feel like there's a mismatch between where the reticle highlights and where your shot actually lands. I'm hoping I can start unlocking abilities soon and boost my health, because you sure are fragile starting out. The setting is really neat, the collectibles are great, and I'm looking forward to discovering more about the place.

One thing that can help if you push the right stick in you swap shoulders when aiming. Can help depending one your current cover.

Good lord, the checkpointing really is awful. I'm pretty sure I'm on the run up to the ending, and I'd like to close it out, but I just can't muster up the will to do that series of long but not terribly difficult fights a fourth time. All the times I've died in that run have been for some stupid reason or other, and there doesn't seem to be a way to really speed up the run back except "kill all the waves faster", I guess?

Chaz, I'm pretty sure I'm stuck on the same sequence as you and it is unpleasant. Worst of all, on my first run through this area, I cleared 5 of the first 6 points very smoothly, if slowly. Even the sixth was going fine until, in avoiding a rocket or something, I accidentally jumped off the edge and poof, I was toast. So frustrating.

I've found that if you can press the button all the way at one of the points without getting interrupted, you can avoid dealing with a whole bunch of enemies, but it's kind of a high risk strategy.

I really don't want to have to go back and do more side missions just to level up my abilities or farm some item upgrades, but at 7 or 8 deaths on this near final sequence of the game, I'm starting to worry that's what I need to do. Grr.

In the screen for crafting weapon mods, I see you can upgrade the level of mods available to you. Does this only affect crafting, or enemy drops and quest rewards as well?

Also, I saw a tip that said you should ignore crafting weapon mods since you get so many as drops anyway. How often did you all craft mods? Should I save those materials for weapon form upgrades?

I’m in the fifth mission, on my way to find some black rock now.

Yeah, save the materials for weapon form upgrades. I didn't craft mods until the endgame. I upgraded mod level as I went along, so I don't know if it affected drops.

Woo, I beat the game. Yay.

I completed the long and difficult combat sequence in the "Polaris" mission by totally cheesing it. I found that I could trigger the next wave of enemies, retreat to the location of the previous wave, and use Pierce to kill every enemy without ever being in range to fire at me except for the occasional stray low-damage hit. Not very satisfying, but after one too many deaths where I'd methodically plowed my way through dozens of enemies only to walk right into a flying rocket or accidentally tap jump too quickly so I fell off a ledge, I just wanted that fight done.

I was really expecting this game to be pretty high on my game of the year list, but my frustrations with the combat and the checkpoint will definitely keep this out of consideration for my top few slots. I like the characters. Love the FMV and my god (near end-game spoilers)

Spoiler:

Darling's 80's music video! SO good!

The writing on most of the collectible pickups was great, and the visual effect of the hotline calls was cool and creepy. The plot of the game wasn't quite up to my hopes--without getting into spoilers, I was scratching my head near the end of the game. Maybe I wasn't paying close enough attention, I dunno, but my understanding of what happened is a bit hazy. And the combat had some really cool elements, but as I've expounded upon at lengths, is not tuned properly for my tastes.

I also really appreciate that, in completing the full game and paying only a little attention to all the side stuff, I racked up something like 700+ achievement points on Xbox. I always find it frustrating when I put 20 hours into a game, finish it, and leave unearned like 80% of achievements. It doesn't really matter, but it feels good.

In thinking about an eventual sequel, I will be curious to see if they can find a better way to address the power curve of this game than what seems like the most standard, obvious, and kind of annoying way: after maybe an initial sequence with a very powerful Jesse, oh no, she's lost her powers for some reason and now has to re-learn each of them over the course of the game.

I'm really glad I played this, but also a little more glad that it's done than I should be.

mrlogical wrote:

I completed the long and difficult combat sequence in the "Polaris" mission by totally cheesing it. I found that I could trigger the next wave of enemies, retreat to the location of the previous wave, and use Pierce to kill every enemy without ever being in range to fire at me except for the occasional stray low-damage hit. Not very satisfying, but after one too many deaths where I'd methodically plowed my way through dozens of enemies only to walk right into a flying rocket or accidentally tap jump too quickly so I fell off a ledge, I just wanted that fight done.

Sounds like the eighth-generation version of Halo's The Library on Legendary.

In thinking about an eventual sequel, I will be curious to see if they can find a better way to address the power curve of this game than what seems like the most standard, obvious, and kind of annoying way: after maybe an initial sequence with a very powerful Jesse, oh no, she's lost her powers for some reason and now has to re-learn each of them over the course of the game.

Ah, the Metroid problem. Rocksteady avoided it by keeping all the powers and then just adding on, which was fine for City but became obnoxious in Knight unless you played the games back-to-back or invested hundreds of hours into the prior two. Metroid Prime: Echoes and Corruption tried to alleviate this by keeping some powers while dropping others.

I prefer the former, to be honest. I feel like there was a game that just replaced most of the powers you got, but that could be just me thinking of Splatoon 2. Or how the Mega Man X series kept trying to give new power-ups to each armor upgrade so it became a bit over-the-top in the end.

Those of you looking to level up, but finding the side missions daunting: look up a walkthrough for the hidden areas. Once you have all the powers and have gotten a pill from Dr. Underhill, it's pretty easy (and fun) to zip around and "find" them all.

mrlogical wrote:

Chaz, I'm pretty sure I'm stuck on the same sequence as you and it is unpleasant. Worst of all, on my first run through this area, I cleared 5 of the first 6 points very smoothly, if slowly. Even the sixth was going fine until, in avoiding a rocket or something, I accidentally jumped off the edge and poof, I was toast. So frustrating.

I've found that if you can press the button all the way at one of the points without getting interrupted, you can avoid dealing with a whole bunch of enemies, but it's kind of a high risk strategy.

I really don't want to have to go back and do more side missions just to level up my abilities or farm some item upgrades, but at 7 or 8 deaths on this near final sequence of the game, I'm starting to worry that's what I need to do. Grr.

I just beat this sequence this morning after about 20 tries...right before I had to go and get ready for work so I don't know if

Spoiler:

it's the end of the game or not.

Since I don't know and the checkpointing is SOOOO bad and I don't want to do that stupid fight for the 21st time, I had to just pause the game and leave my computer on.

I am OK with having challenging fights. My problem with the game is the horrible checkpointing.

Also, holy sh*t:

Spoiler:

The ashtray maze sequence. It's moved into the all-time top tier of game sequences for me, maybe right below the "Power" sequence in Saint's Row 3.

Poets of the Fall's track for the ashtray maze is a permanent addition to my itunes rota when walking...well anywhere, really