Horizon: Forbidden West - Disassemble all

LarryC wrote:

Still no ropecasters and traps are still limited, so I guess they understood that those things are broken AF and decided to control them aggressively.

You just missed it. Ropecaster is available for 149 shards in Barren Light.

As for traps, like I said previously, you can upgrade your pouch and it’s cheap and easy to get it to at least level 2 (9 traps of each kind) early on. There’s also several trapper armor sets that increase your number of slots and/or the speed in which you can place them. There are also new trap types. So you have more ways to use them.

vypre wrote:
LarryC wrote:

Still no ropecasters and traps are still limited, so I guess they understood that those things are broken AF and decided to control them aggressively.

You just missed it. Ropecaster is available for 149 shards in Barren Light. As for traps, like I said previously, you can upgrade your pouch and it’s cheap and easy to get it to at least level 2 (9 traps of each kind) early on. There’s also several trapper armor sets that increase your number of slots and/or the speed in which you can place them.

There are also new trap types. So you have more ways to use them.

Ah. Thanks. I'll go back and see what it can do. You can't set more than a few traps without investing a fair number of skills points and armor to boost them.

By default, you could set 15 traps at once in HZD. In HFW, the base is you can set a maximum of 2 traps. I do agree that HZD's standard was excessive.

The Shredder Gauntlet has been an awesome weapon to learn. I have yet to try the javalin thing even tho I have one. I picked up the ropecaster to deal with all the flying things, but I've only really needed it once. I'm headed to the second cauldron after bouncing around doing a long string of quests I had tabled. It feels good to be back in this world experiencing all the interesting world-building like Plainsong and the Utaru.

Dominic Knight wrote:

The Shredder Gauntlet has been an awesome weapon to learn. I have yet to try the javalin thing even tho I have one. I picked up the ropecaster to deal with all the flying things, but I've only really needed it once. I'm headed to the second cauldron after bouncing around doing a long string of quests I had tabled. It feels good to be back in this world experiencing all the interesting world-building like Plainsong and the Utaru.

That seems like a really cool weapon. Do share what you've learned!

Larry, I also just discovered there are armor coils to add to your trap placement limit as well.

vypre wrote:

Larry, I also just discovered there are armor coils to add to your trap placement limit as well.

I assume you can make it as silly as HZD at some point, but it's sensibly gated behind a lot of gear and higher end skills.

I do find myself liking the Warrior Bows a great deal more than I expected. Very short range bows with rapid firing and burst firing capabilities doesn't seem like it would make a lot of sense, but it totally does.

One of the reasons I'm playing on Normal is because I'm playing on co-pilot mode, and it works quite well! My daughter is the primary player and I'm acting as the "supporting intelligence." I ping her Focus to remind her of things she wants to know about, I manage her first aid, and I bring up the weapon wheel when she's trying to shoot and there's no ammo.

Of course, I also full on take over when she finds she's in over her head.

I love how you can dye armor now. Sometimes its the little things!

AcidCat wrote:

I love how you can dye armor now. Sometimes its the little things!

And face paints too, but there are only a few places where you can apply them.

I had a very pleasant weekend playing this game.

vypre wrote:

Just FYI - I thought it had “opened up” when I arrived in the Barren Light / Chainscrape valley and responded to you a couple of posts back. It’s less linear than the tutorial, but it REALLY opens up after you complete the embassy.

I'll take that advice Vypre, I was gonna polish of everything in the Chainscrape area before moving on as I'm enjoying the exploration & the combat encounters with the various pockets of machines along the river.

vypre wrote:

And just FYI, just a couple tips without any spoilers…

1.) Do EVERYTHING you can before heading to the embassy. You will unlock a lot of useful gear that will be extremely helpful and you may not encounter a vendor version until much later in the game.

1a.) When I say “everything” you will always know when you can’t access something due to equipment or abilities you don’t have. Aloy will straight up start making comments that you can’t find a way through. Listen to her; she’s not making idle conversation. Any locations blocked off in this way won’t show as completed on your map until you access the “gated” areas and accomplish specific goals.

2.) Not too long in the main story after you leave the embassy, you will unlock three quests that can be done in any order - they are leveled 17, 22, and… something a little higher. I would personally recommend heading immediately to the level 22 quest and doing at least the first part of it. Even if you’re a fair amount lower level than that, I promise you’ll be ok and you will know when you get to the part that I’m recommending you finish before running off anywhere else.

That's great to know about the gear, I'll not be leaving without it

On your 1a tip, I've heard Aloy talk like this a couple of times, in the mines & when lining the hologram up with the lodge. I'll keep an ear out for more of that stuff.

Your last recommendation is interesting, I'm guessing you potentially get the

Spoiler:

shieldwing

on that level 22 quest then?

No. Not that one. You get that one quite early. There are later unlocks, which I will not spoil because they're awesome.

LarryC wrote:

No. Not that one. You get that one quite early. There are later unlocks, which I will not spoil because they're awesome.

Oh that's actually good to know, I'm busting to get my hands on it as early as possible. Cheers!

LarryC wrote:
Dominic Knight wrote:

The Shredder Gauntlet has been an awesome weapon to learn. I have yet to try the javalin thing even tho I have one. I picked up the ropecaster to deal with all the flying things, but I've only really needed it once. I'm headed to the second cauldron after bouncing around doing a long string of quests I had tabled. It feels good to be back in this world experiencing all the interesting world-building like Plainsong and the Utaru.

That seems like a really cool weapon. Do share what you've learned!

The Shredder Gauntlet is high in tear, so it's nice to use to help get components off enemies. If you hit a component that can come off, you might be able to pop it off on the first hit. The ammo comes back to you like a boomerang, but you'll still have to make it. The first time you can get your hands on one is either in Barren Light or Plainsong.

The spike thrower is great against widemaws - at least according to a friend who has used it. I have yet to try it myself as I've been much more capable with the other weapons. When I get to the hunting grounds, I'll give it a try.

Stele wrote:

Good news. No crunch

Riiiiight

TheGameguru wrote:
some other zach wrote:

Did I miss something explaining why Aloy decided to run off after saving Meridian and not take any of her upgraded equipment?

On a positive note - the accessibility settings make the game so much more fun. Absolutely loved everything about the first game aside from inventory management (minor gripe) and combat. I’m so bad at the aiming in combat and the additional slow down options are making fun for me.

She mentions in the intro area that she lost it.

This actually made me chuckle. It went something like:

Varl: So you seem to travel light these days

Aloy: Yeah, I ran into some trouble on the way here and lost... some things. But I have this bag full of focuses now!

Dominic Knight wrote:

The spike thrower is great against widemaws - at least according to a friend who has used it. I have yet to try it myself as I've been much more capable with the other weapons. When I get to the hunting grounds, I'll give it a try.

I didn’t use a lot of traps in the first game and that has held true so far in Forbidden West, but there’s a skill - in the Machines tree, I think - that basically turns the spike thrower into a trap thrower. In other words, you can shoot them into the ground immediately in front of a machine as a remote instant trap. I plan to try that out in the very near future.

Orphu wrote:
Stele wrote:

Good news. No crunch

Riiiiight

IMAGE(https://i.imgflip.com/50mj9r.png)

Is anyone bothering with the Machine Mastery skill path?

I'm about level 10, just caught up with

Spoiler:

Sylens and his ball

and haven't found a cauldron yet. Therefore I can only override Chargers, so whenever I have points to spend, there's always a more immediate need than the Machine skills. I like the idea of hacking machines though, and it feels like it would gel well with Stealth, which I have point points into.

15 hours in and I just completed my first cauldron. I was a bit underleveled for it. Machine mastery does seem like a late game skill tree.

Any valor abilities that people have put a more points into? I have the stealth cloak and the shield, but I haven't leveled them up at all.

I’m level 17 and I maxed out Power Shots in the Hunter tree. At max level it gives me five +200% damage shots for zero ammo use, and pretty much permanent concentration while active. I rely on my sharpshooter bow a lot and it works real well with my play style.

That sounds good Serengeti... I've been thinking I need to try to make use of the valor abilities more.

At first, I thought I might focus on a skill tree, but I've been kind of spreading my points around. I don't really have a plan to be honest, but on normal difficulty, it doesn't seem like I'll screw anything up to bad.

I love that you can create a "job" for stuff you want to upgrade and then it creates a quest and shows you a region to look for the upgrade items. I got all my pouches to level 2 this way... although the spot they gave for squirrels wasn't great and I had to look online for a better spot:

Spoiler:

South of the Daunt relic ruins there's two.

Orphu wrote:
Stele wrote:

Good news. No crunch

Riiiiight

I don't know where you're from, but working culture in the Netherlands is not the same as what we may be used to with western companies. And, developer experiences tend to leak on the internet. I see no reason not to give Guerilla the benefit of the doubt, unless somebody more familiar with Dutch culture wants to tell us that everything I've read about them having firm work/life separation and being very outspoken is wrong.

It's hard to not be cynical about this sh*tty industry, but I also refuse to accept that it's impossible to have created a high-quality product without crunch. Most good development managers know you get diminishing returns, or even negative productivity (in the form of bugs and poor decisions), with overwork; and that the "crunch" in the gaming industry is a symptom of generally poor management. Is it impossible to believe a company might be successfully applying what most people accept to be good principles?

The fact that it was pretty significantly delayed leads me to believe the claims. I think it was originally supposed to be a PS5 launch game or near about?

I definitely remember it was supposed to be a PS5 launch game. And when they made the announcement, I was more than happy to wait - both for a PS5 and for the game. Its the whole marshmallow experiment. So yeah, I'd rather wait and get a better game than see them put out a disaster like Cyberpunk 2077 or Battlefield 2042. If you make a sh*tty product just to get it out there, you'll lose your base and tank the brand. I'll buy anything Guerilla makes if it means rewarding them for not using "crunch" to complete a game.

I’ve been investing heavily in passives and nearly have them all from the Warrior, Survivor, and Infiltrator trees. I haven’t started Trapper or Machine Guru yet, but intend to soon.

I have a few Valor abilities, but the only ones I really use so far are Overshield and the first one from the Warrior tree that improves crit rate. For active abilities I have three - the first two spear combos and the skill that overpowers your overdrawn bow shots.

I’m level 41 and polished off a fair bit of side missions on top of that, so I have a pile of skill points. I’ve used them to purchase active skills as well as passive ones. I found active skills and their relationship with Stamina and Valor interesting. Stamina and Valor are additional resources you manage in HFW in the course of executing your attacks. Of course, your Dodge is always free and the iframes on it are pretty considerable.

Triple Notch makes a return of course and is a front-costed skill. That is, you pay the Stamina cost when you nock your additional arrows, not when you fire them. This makes prepping the triple shots relevant, but not dominating. While getting three shots off “for free” sounds amazing, and it is, the cost of doing so repeatedly means you will rapidly run out of Stamina for anything else if you make triple-notching a staple firing routine. You may only Triple Notch with the Hunter Bow, which is now specialized to be primarily a medium-range weapon. There’s no penalty with using it at short range, but the draw requirement for full damage means it’s not the best weapon at melee ranges.

Burst Shot is the Warrior Bow’s version of Triple Notch and it costs only a little more, considering you notch twice. It instantly fires a shotgun of 3 shots in front of you. This is extremely effective for applying status ailments very quickly at short range. Warrior Bows don’t require you to draw them as much as other weapons before they fire, so you can quick-shot your machine enemies to destruction very quickly with these weapons.

Focused Shot is the sniping active. It requires a moderate amount of Stamina, and adds a respectable damage buff to SharpShot hits. More importantly, it allows you to zoom in very closely, allowing you the ability to snipe parts or heads from ridiculous ranges. Long range is long in HFW. SharpShot Bows deal a lot of damage per shot, but they’re very slow to draw, even to fire at minimum power, so they’re not very good close range weapons. In general, you use Focused Shot strategically, not tactically. I still use Braced Shot at all ranges. Few machines function well after a Braced Shot to the faceplate.

Ultra Shot is the long range skill for the Boltblaster. The Boltblaster is a medium (not short) range weapon option that fires a rapid fire burst of ammo at once for each time you draw. Ultra Shot doesn’t give you the same damage output as Braced Shot for SharpShot Bows, but it consumes a lot less Stamina. This makes it useful in scenarios where you don’t want to blow everything on a Braced Shot. Boltblasters themselves may not appeal to everything, because using one slows down your movement, nerfs your dodging, and requires a lengthy reloading animation. You can’t escape the reloading animation. When you select an ammo type from a Boltblaster, you’ll enter the reloading animation automatically at the start. However, what it lacks in convenience, it makes up for in sustained damage. If you can set it up right, you can unload a boatload of damage very quickly, without consuming Stamina.

Those are the active skills I’ve been abusing so far. I’ve heard great things about the Spike Throwers, but I wasn’t too impressed with the Prototype Spike Thrower, despite using Easy Loot as well as acquiring it very early. I’ve still bought a few recent ones and will try to figure them out with active and passives equipped.

One of the main reasons I'm not encouraged to use Spike Throwers is actually because they use Metal Bones, which is a rare drop, and I still haven't figured out a way to farm the thing. I don't main the Boltblasters for the same reason, even though they're a lot cheaper to use because each craft using 2 Metal Bones yields more damage.

I started last night and played the first couple of hours. I know the initial section cops some flak for being a very linear tutorial, but I actually appreciated it. With so many different systems and the overall visual density it was a bit overwhelming at first. By the end of the night though I felt like I was starting to get my legs under me.

By the way I noticed it defaults to Resolution Mode even though I'm playing on a 1080p TV. Changing to Performance Mode felt a lot smoother to me, with what I assume would be no downside in my case. Also motion blur was on by default, and it seemed to look much sharper without it on my TV.

I do recommend turning on Custom Difficulty settings and turning "Easy Loot."

A lot of parts are destructible and will be destroyed if you kill the machine without detaching them first. It's unrealistically harsh, IMO, but a lot of folks like that sort of game so it's on by default. You will still destroy parts in Easy Loot mode if you are indiscriminate with your Impact and Explosion damage and hit them with more of those types of damage than Tear damage. But barring that, you get the parts.

I do believe I'm a little past halfway in the game and thus far, it's made buying and upgrading weapons and armor easy, but it's not a non-issue. I do still have to choose which weapons I'll upgrade, and if I want a bunch of new weapons with moderate upgrade levels, I have to make Jobs to quest for them.

You can actually also just buy Machine Parts by farming Scrappers for Processed Metal Blocks. Salvagers and Hunters will usually trade a wide range of machine parts for them. But if you're doing that, anyway, I don't see why you don't just turn on Easy Loot on to begin with.

Do try and deploy traps. Traps that weren't trip wires in HZD weren't very powerful. I'm finding the traps in HFW to be significantly beefier.

I finally turned on Easy Loot. I was waiting until I got frustrated with getting a specific drop, and my breaking point was trying to get a tusk from a hippo-like creature. Wow - you get a lot more resources!

I double checked to see if difficulty levels affect trophies - they do not. The only missable trophies are scanning some machines that only appear in the finale of the game, so you may want to make a hard save before then.