Horizon Zero Dawn Catch-All

Spoiler:

#tedfarodidnothingwrong

#thankyouforcomingtomytedtalk

Finally taking a dive on this. Around level 20 and enjoying it. Feels like Witcher 3 with Robots.

Finally picked up the game recently (Steam) and just made it to the more desert like area and promptly got smacked down by a giant ice spewing bird in the sky. Super glad the game changed things up so dramatically as the new enemies I've really only had one encounter with were nice and fresh and renewed interest where the old area was losing my interest fighting the same watcher, scrapper, sawtooth, etc. groups. I was also reminded how lazy I was getting in traversal and combat as I got myself into some pretty big trouble. Glad I decided to move on instead of all the grindy side quests.

Is this the sort of game where you always stay fragile and cautious, or the sort of game where you start weak but get way powerful?

Hunting robot dinosaurs sounds awesome. I'm looking for a game that lets me do cool things and get awesome powers and also lets me make mistakes along the way. A game where I have to be perfectly stealthy would just build on the real-world stress I want to get away from.

misplacedbravado wrote:

Is this the sort of game where you always stay fragile and cautious, or the sort of game where you start weak but get way powerful?

Hunting robot dinosaurs sounds awesome. I'm looking for a game that lets me do cool things and get awesome powers and also lets me make mistakes along the way. A game where I have to be perfectly stealthy would just build on the real-world stress I want to get away from. :)

I eventually felt way powerful, but that was, like, post-game. You will, however, more quickly get to a point where you feel pretty competent and powerful.

After the tutorial's slightly challenging required stealth portion, the stealth is pretty optional. You can use it to start a fight to your advantage, but soon, you'll rarely feel that you NEED to be stealthy. Mostly you can just run away or circumvent foes instead of needing to sneak past them.

misplacedbravado wrote:

Is this the sort of game where you always stay fragile and cautious, or the sort of game where you start weak but get way powerful?

Hunting robot dinosaurs sounds awesome. I'm looking for a game that lets me do cool things and get awesome powers and also lets me make mistakes along the way. A game where I have to be perfectly stealthy would just build on the real-world stress I want to get away from. :)

Before I finished the game, I was basically just pointed Aloy straight down where I needed to go, and any machine unfortunate enough to annoy me enough became spare parts.

Here's a random hunt against Tramplers you can watch. No spoilers. Nothing story-driven and Tramplers aren't exactly a dramatic new machine to get excited about.

beeporama wrote:
misplacedbravado wrote:

Is this the sort of game where you always stay fragile and cautious, or the sort of game where you start weak but get way powerful?

Hunting robot dinosaurs sounds awesome. I'm looking for a game that lets me do cool things and get awesome powers and also lets me make mistakes along the way. A game where I have to be perfectly stealthy would just build on the real-world stress I want to get away from. :)

I eventually felt way powerful, but that was, like, post-game. You will, however, more quickly get to a point where you feel pretty competent and powerful.

After the tutorial's slightly challenging required stealth portion, the stealth is pretty optional. You can use it to start a fight to your advantage, but soon, you'll rarely feel that you NEED to be stealthy. Mostly you can just run away or circumvent foes instead of needing to sneak past them.

I used a stealth build almost exclusively throughout the game. So once I got in to combat I was pretty vulnerable and that kept combat difficult for quite a lot of the game.

It wasn't until I started experimenting with the various traps, the rope and trip casters, that things got a bit easier - but still kept the combat interesting.

The only part I did feel over powered was near the end of the game. I had done the entire expansion area before completing the last three or four main story missions. So by the time I got to those story missions I was pretty over powered compared to what was thrown at me. Didn't really need stealth at all. But I felt I earned that power. Particularly after tackling the demon variants of the robots in the expansion which were so difficult at times.

There are also difficulty levels. The first time I played it, I got frustrated at my lack of power, so when I played it a few years later I dropped it to Easy difficulty. That made the game fun for me.

Major game spoilers in spoiler tag.

Spoiler:

Apparently, none of these scientists have played Horizon Zero Dawn:

https://www.cnn.com/2021/11/29/ameri...

I saw that and thought about that immediately. I just beat the game last week so it was fresh in my mind, too. Had a great time. The open world was the weakest part of an almost all positive experience, which I posted about in the Finished Any Games Lately thread. Still looking forward to Forbidden West when it comes to PC.

So I finally picked this one up during the Epic sale, and am enjoying it so far. (Just finished The Proving -- wow, Aloy is going to have some trauma from that...)

One odd thing though: during my last session, the audio switched from headset to speakers during cutscenes and then switched right back again for gameplay. Has this happened to anyone else? I'm playing on Windows 10, with speakers connected to motherboard audio and a HyperX headset that uses a USB connection.

I have both speakers and headset attached, but it's both via audio jacks. Speakers in rear, headphones in front. Never had that happen via the Steam version.

Apparently, there's a VR game coming out too when the new VR stuff comes out for PS5.

I finally got back into this from my run years ago. Looks like I fell off after about a dozen hours, and was 2 main quests from Meridian. So I've been trying to relearn how to play the last few days. Did a couple side quests, almost died. Found the first vault. Really almost died a few times, had to chug some potions. But got through it last night.

Looks like when I played before I took a beeline straight to the double and triple arrows powers. So that makes my bow feel pretty great. But I do need to branch out and try the other weapons I think. I have a rattler and a trip caster and used them a bit. But I have not bought a sling or rope caster yet.

Edit: Yeah my last post about playing was Dec 2017. Just a4 year break haha. Want to try to finish before the sequel.

Yeah, I'm currently torn between starting from scratch, trying to relearn things from my last save in 2019, or just deciding it wasn't my thing and maybe watching a summary video or two before trying the new one. I'm starting to gravitate on never doing the first option anymore. (Absolutely nothing worse than replaying an open-world game from the start only to bounce off at pretty much the same spot you did last time.)

There are some hunting grounds quests. And some weapons quests. I think I'm going to try to do those and hopefully get more familiar with the weapons I already have.

I figure I've wasted maybe an hour of progress by wandering around fumbling through things. But that's still 11 hours saved from starting over to get back to this point.

I was only ok on the game until I got to and past Meridian. Once the story shifted a bit towards the old world, I really got into the game. The hunting grounds tests are probably not the best place to go to re-familiarize yourself. I'd suggest looking at those weapon quests, though to get you thinking about how to use weapons, and then just go hunt some watchers and such and play around with different weapons as your primary means of destruction.

mrtomaytohead wrote:

I was only ok on the game until I got to and past Meridian. Once the story shifted a bit towards the old world, I really got into the game.

I just got to Meridian and then distracted myself from the story with shopping, hunting, and more shopping and hunting.

I was going to take on the second Cauldron next. If I'm close to finding out more about how the world got this way, though, that's an argument in favor of focusing on the story for a while and visiting the Cauldron later.

I was much happier with the game once I switched the difficulty to easy.

EDIT

Aristophan wrote:

There are also difficulty levels. The first time I played it, I got frustrated at my lack of power, so when I played it a few years later I dropped it to Easy difficulty. That made the game fun for me.

And I made this exact point months ago. Sorry.

It’s a point worth making, I think. I’ve dropped off this game at least twice because the systems are very complex and the difficulty curve is punishing on Normal until mid-late game.

I will probably give this another go, from scratch, on Easy. I love the whole vibe of the game but kept bouncing off the big monster fights after dying for the tenth time, so I’ve never got past Meridian. Which is a shame because from the descriptions above that’s where it would probably really start capturing my interest.

I think it bears mentioning that getting to Meridian is a very early game quest and they will absolutely throw end game machines at you along the way. The designers have zero chill like that. They're not impossible to defeat, but at that stage in the game, you're probably best advised to make a run for it.

Yeah, that giant flying thunderbird wiped the floor with me a couple times. Run for your life!

misplacedbravado wrote:

If I'm close to finding out more about how the world got this way, though, that's an argument in favor of focusing on the story for a while and visiting the Cauldron later.

Story time! Go, go, go!

I did do the first hunters guild trials last night. Just 2 tries to ace each of the 3. Fun stuff. Gained a couple levels.

Got back on main quest after that. Although I didn't have any campfire unlocked near it so hoofing it for a while and had to stop. Hoping to get to Meridian this weekend and make some progress.

mrtomaytohead wrote:

Yeah, that giant flying thunderbird wiped the floor with me a couple times. Run for your life!

Off the top of my head, there's very few times you have to defeat a giant monster to finish the game, and one of those (arguably, a string of those) is the final battle. Cauldron's are the main times you need to defeat a creature to progress, but those are actually optional (although I'd argue they're worth doing because of what you get, and for the change of pace and scenery). Most of the time you can just run away and ignore things like a Stormbird or a Thunderjaw, including at least one time when it's part of the main story quest.

I am the Brave Sir Robin of Aloy's world.

Oh, once I powered up a bit and learned how to use a good array of weapons, i would fight those things on sight. I was level 60 for the last 4 missions or so. And I ran through the Frozen Wilds right after some mission took me close to the entrance. I definitely over-leveled through most of the 2nd half of the game.

Just finishing up my new playthrough, haven't played since the game came out and a couple things struck me - it's still gorgeous, it's more challenging than I remember, and it's shorter than I remember. I think I finished up the main quest in something like 20 hours? Still have a few things to do in Frozen Wilds.

Anyway it was fun playing again and I think it was a good refresher on combat before Forbidden West.

AcidCat wrote:

I think I finished up the main quest in something like 20 hours?

That's good to know. I was thinking about trying to squeeze in a 2nd play through before Forbidden West, but I didn't want to dedicate too much time. I might try to just main path it as well. Plus, I never checked out Frozen Wilds, so I'll finally do that too.

AcidCat wrote:

I think I finished up the main quest in something like 20 hours?

Dang I'm already at 15 hours and on my way to Meridian. Going to take a bit longer for the first time I guess.

How Long To Beat suggests 25-45 for main or main+extras. Guess I've done some extra already hehe.

Yeah I only did a couple side quests, so the potential is definitely there to spend more time with the game.

Oh yeah, any extras can add tons of time. I dropped just shy of 80 hours, and did most of the content, including Frozen Wilds, but didn't explore much south / west of Meridian. Then again, I tend to take more time to do anything than what How Long to Beat says.