Ghost of Tsushima Catch All

Vector wrote:

You didn’t play beyond Act 1, right? Because there are definitely enemies that are near immune to certain attacks or dodge almost 100% of the time.

I'm trying to remember which ones. I feel like just about every enemy is susceptible to most of the tools the whole game, with the exception being when the shield guys have their shields up. Specifically:

Spoiler:

even if I aimed for the head of a shield guy with a blow dart, it would just plunk right off the shield.

Otherwise I feel like Clock's comparison is pretty spot-on. But maybe I'm just not remembering immunities since there were so many other options available.

I'm nearing the end of my time with this game and getting that sweet feeling of impending nostalgia you get when you're finishing up a game you're really enjoying but don't quite want it to end. Which is strange, of course, because I'm deliberately choosing to not play 2/3rds of the game.

But I'm having a great time! And my open world Spider-sense is telling me that I'm near the end of the game because I've unlocked all the ghost weapons, learned all the stances, unlocked all the charm slots, and bought all the cosmetics. I just passed the point of having liberated half the starting area with about ten more encampments left to clear and a handful of side missions to still explore. I haven't come close to maxing out the skill tree, but I have enough points now that I've been able to max out the abilities that most interested me while starting to dabble in alternate ways of playing—that's my sweet spot for a skill tree, where getting points is still exciting, but I'm not feeling like I can't afford the techniques I most want.

And at any point, I can go do the last mission of the first act and be done with the game. It's pretty much been the ideal experience so far, and I'm glad that I made the decision early on to truncate the game to the right size for me. I just now looked up the armor sets and weapon (singular) that I don't yet have access to, and I'm fine with not getting those. None of them really sound like game-changers.

So far, I'd say Act 1 of this game is one of the best experiences I've had in gaming so far this year.

I'd be interested to know how many hours you put into playing it this way.

Howlongtobeat puts completing the main story at 22 hours, so I'm curious what difference there is in your time running around in act 1 vs. just having mainlined the story of the game.

This isn't to say you played it "wrong" or anything -because who cares how other people do or don't play games- just a curiosity.

ccesarano wrote:
Vector wrote:

You didn’t play beyond Act 1, right? Because there are definitely enemies that are near immune to certain attacks or dodge almost 100% of the time.

I'm trying to remember which ones. I feel like just about every enemy is susceptible to most of the tools the whole game, with the exception being when the shield guys have their shields up. Specifically:

Spoiler:

even if I aimed for the head of a shield guy with a blow dart, it would just plunk right off the shield.

Otherwise I feel like Clock's comparison is pretty spot-on. But maybe I'm just not remembering immunities since there were so many other options available.

Spoiler:

Them and the Straw Hats dodging the majority of your main attacks. This is especially noticable on higher difficulties.

r013nt0 wrote:

I'd be interested to know how many hours you put into playing it this way.

Howlongtobeat puts completing the main story at 22 hours, so I'm curious what difference there is in your time running around in act 1 vs. just having mainlined the story of the game.

This isn't to say you played it "wrong" or anything -because who cares how other people do or don't play games- just a curiosity.

I've wondered about that, too! There's no in-game clock, so I don't know for sure, but I would estimate that I've spent at least 20 hours with it so far and probably have a few more to go. I definitely feel like I could have chosen to spend the same amount of time to focus on the story quests and get through all three acts in the same amount of time. I just enjoyed the exploration and discovery element more than the storytelling and put my focus there instead.

Version 1.1 Update out on October 16th, bringing with it updates like charm/gear load-outs tied to which outfit you're wearing, New Game + which includes increased challenge, a new merchant with dyes and cosmetics, and new charms and a horse exclusive to that mode, as well as the multiplayer Legends, featuring two-player story missions, four-player survival mode, and a Raid coming a few weeks after release.

Full details on the PlayStation Blog.

I'm really hyped for this Legends mode, not gonna lie.

That seems like a really substantial update.

Gear/charm loadout would have been really nice.

Shadout wrote:

Gear/charm loadout would have been really nice.

...you mean a different execution than the very first thing in that video, detailed in the PS Blog post as such?

Once you’ve installed version 1.1, you’ll now find the option to enable Armor Loadouts, which allow you to assign all Charms and vanity items to each armor set to quickly swap between loadouts to match your playstyle and roleplaying preferences.

No sorry, I mean, it would have been nice to have what they are adding in the patch, when I was playing the game.

I read it more as "Would have been really nice when the game came out and I was actually playing it."

I could, of course, be mistaken. But that's absolutely how I feel, at any rate.

e: I was right! heh

Edit: Slow on the draw.

Ah, okay. Well, you weren't the only one to feel that way. At least you'll have it on a replay, should you ever do so.

I have been plodding through this game for the last month or so. I have limited time for gaming (as many of you can likely relate to), but I also have a terrible case of OCD, so I usually have to find as many collectibles and finish as much of the quests as possible. So a game like this usually lasts me a long time.

Anyways, after a slow start, things have finally started to click and I just completed Act I and most of everything in the first area (I think). The combat feels fluid and looks super cool. The story is good enough to keep me interested and I like the ally system with quests ala Mass Effect 2. I can already see the differences with the enemies from Act I to Act II, the game really forces you to understand the combat and be able to switch your stances on the fly. It is repetitive, but that's my jam as long as I'm having fun with what they are asking me to do, and so far so good.

I may take a break as I usually try and play some October appropriate games for this month. I really need to get back to TLoU II and that seems like a good reason to do so.

It is well worth your time but I will say if you make it to act 3 you can just power through the main quests. I didn't find a huge variety of enemies or interesting side quests in act 3 so really just blow through to see the story stuff.

I am nowhere near running out of steam yet, but it probably helps that I only have the real opportunity to take over the TV to play this once or twice a week at most. I've liberated the first region and am now mopping up sidequests (which remain enjoyable as story vignettes) and hitting up ?'s I missed when exploring prior to finishing the liberation efforts.

I'm also looking forward to getting over to the second region and resuming the main quest and secondary character storylines!

Really excited for the Legends co-op update next week and highly curious about the raid.

IMAGE(https://i-chzbgr-com.cdn.ampproject.org/ii/w820/s/i.chzbgr.com/full/7420272640/h79928372/drove-us-nuts)

So firstly, shameless self-promotion as my buddy and I did a podcast on the game.

But for the real meat of this post, started playing the Legends mode with a buddy last night. It has some potential legs, though it would need some additional updates first. The "Bronze" difficulty, which you're clearly designed to play first, is basically a stretched out tutorial. The first mission gets you back into the swing of things with the controls and general three-chapter structure, the second introduces enemies that have magic spells and can regenerate enemy health, and the third mission introduces what are effectively elemental enhancements to your weapons, how they'll be necessary to take down foes with elemental affinity, and also how they can be used for "platforming". The third mission left me particularly curious how the Raid would look when it releases.

To clarify on the platforming, you can see invisible platforms with an elemental symbol above it. A player with that element imbued into their blade can jump onto that platform and materialize it. At the end of mission two chapter two, the players can work together by creating, say, the Moon platform first, and then having the one imbued with Sun create the matching platform beyond that, leading to a sort of leap-frog style of platforming.

It was a very minor part, but given my experience with Destiny, it has me curious how they'll implement such things in Raids.

Speaking of, Destiny and other live-service games were clearly an influence. After each mission you obtain common, uncommon, and I imagine rare, super rare, and exotic gear (we've seen grey and green, so blue, purple, and orange/yellow/gold are no doubt in the cards as well). This gear will tweak your stats a bit, and you can increase your class' abilities and yatta yatta yatta. It's not incredibly intrusive and basically gives you something to do between missions.

The earlier stages are honestly pretty easy, but it feels like a different enough experience from Ghost of Tsushima that it's honestly surprising they gave it away for free. Even though you have far fewer abilities available at once (and now that I think about it, standoff seems to have no place in Legends mode), they're slowly adding mechanics that fill in for all the tools and powers that you're missing. I'm really excited to see what this mode has in store. I'm a bit concerned that it's all free, in that nothing is free, and therefore they either plan on monetizing somehow or Sony will just give up on updates real quick.

Regardless, it's a cool mode so far. I'm seeing if I can stream Survival with some friends tonight, but it might have to be the two-player Legends mode (one of my friends uninstalled the game and the other actually sold it once he was done).

ccesarano wrote:

I'm seeing if I can stream Survival with some friends tonight, but it might have to be the two-player Legends mode (one of my friends uninstalled the game and the other actually sold it once he was done).

I sent you a message on PSN as well, but I’d be happy to join you this evening if you have room for me.

vypre wrote:

I sent you a message on PSN as well, but I’d be happy to join you this evening if you have room for me.

We'll be aiming for around 8pm. Guess we'll see if survival is fine with three people since no one else is available.

Just to show how little I know about streaming, I went back to watch the stream after we all logged off to find my voice wasn’t coming through. A little Google-fu later and I discovered there’s a PlayStation setting to enable voice sharing. Huh.

I also went ahead and finished all my remaining Bronze tier story missions, hit max Bronze gear score level (35), and earned myself a snazzy new sword cosmetic.

vypre wrote:

Just to show how little I know about streaming, I went back to watch the stream after we all logged off to find my voice wasn’t coming through. A little Google-fu later and I discovered there’s a PlayStation setting to enable voice sharing. Huh.

D'oh! I forgot to ask/inform you about that. Guess we were all caught up in the moment, as well as the disaster that is trying to invite someone into a Party chat through the quick menu.

I also went ahead and finished all my remaining Bronze tier story missions, hit max Bronze gear score level (35), and earned myself a snazzy new sword cosmetic.

I don't think I'll be able to play tonight, and probably won't be able to Thursday, but if you want to do some Silver level stuff on Saturday evening I can probably sign on and do that. Or, if my other two friends are a bit caught up, we can do more survival.

Which, for the sake of those reading this thread, is a pretty decent horde mode. We were "over-leveled" for Bronze but it still managed to be a challenge with just three of us. The idea is to defend three separate points from waves of invaders, earning magatama with each kill and I believe successful defense of the points. Every fifth round, a boss unit appears and boosts the reward tier you earn upon defeating them. If you lose a defense point, it's gone until the next boss is defeated. With enough Magatama you can earn the ability to summon things like a spirit bear, team healing, or combusting opponents into flames near every ghost (which I wasted because I thought it was a constantly running ability for some reason).

I kind of like the challenge of the Legends on Silver difficulty better, but given how big a difference there was between Bronze and Silver there, it could be that Survival won't really shine until we play it on Silver as well. Either way, it makes me really hyped to see what the Raid is like.

Really good game mode, I think, and may have just pushed this to #1 GotY for me.

Is anyone experiencing server disconnects? I just got the game a few days ago and every 10 minutes or so, it tells me I'm disconnected from the server (my connection seems just fine and don't know why it cares anyway). It's super annoying and interrupts whatever I'm doing. It's ruining the game for me.

Do you actually disconnect? Last night I had two instances where I received a disconnect notification, but I didn't actually disconnect from the multiplayer session. I also continued streaming to Twitch, even though it failed to update viewer count or comments.

I hadn't properly logged out of the Legends mode, however, so I'm wondering if you need to log out fully rather than just putting the system to sleep.

ccesarano wrote:

Do you actually disconnect? Last night I had two instances where I received a disconnect notification, but I didn't actually disconnect from the multiplayer session. I also continued streaming to Twitch, even though it failed to update viewer count or comments.

I hadn't properly logged out of the Legends mode, however, so I'm wondering if you need to log out fully rather than just putting the system to sleep.

I don't think so but, then again, I never connect either. I'm not playing multiplayer. I'm just playing the story.

From the limited info I can find, that’s supposedly a PSN issue with the latest update, not GoT. Sony is working on a fix. Despite what the error says, most people aren’t getting disconnected and it is more annoying than anything.

I don't really ever do this with these open-world type games, but Ghost of Tushima is just so beautiful and compelling that it's surprising me with some real staying power.

I just recently finally wrapped up the first region: all main story, secondary story, and side story missions complete; 100% liberation status; all locations found and completed as far as I can tell as well.

Moved into the middle region to start the second act, and am impressed at how different the environment manages to be. Makes exploring continue to be a joy! I'm also enjoying running into some new enemies, a bit more challenge, and continuing the secondary stories in particular.

Glad you are enjoying it. I found it wonderful and short enough that I am thinking of replaying.

Hey all. There’s a modest discount on this for the Black Friday sale. I’m curious how much RPG ness there is? If there’s more that’s actually better for me. Will I be looting cool armour and weapons? Playing with stats?

Maclintok wrote:

Hey all. There’s a modest discount on this for the Black Friday sale. I’m curious how much RPG ness there is? If there’s more that’s actually better for me. Will I be looting cool armour and weapons? Playing with stats?

Have you played any recent Assassin's Creed games? It's like those but in Japan and without the modern day stuff. I enjoyed it, but you may get open world burn out at some point.