Ghost of Tsushima Catch All

I love waiting when I see a bunch of enemies fighting a bear. I just wait to see who it left standing because whoever it is will be very weak.

You can also Far Cry an outpost with a bear.

Spoiler:

The Mongols sometimes keep bears in cages. You can shoot the lock with your bow. If a bear sees a human, it will run out of the cage and attack. Hilarity ensues.

I was sneaking up on an outpost and watched a mongol go flying. Turns out TWO bears decided to get there first and took out over half the troops.

The dogs are the hardest goddamned enemies in the game so far, I swear. Especially if there's more than one and you don't get the jump on 'em.

The interiors in the game have such bad lighting that you can see barely anything. I remember The Division 2 was horrendous for its dark areas that were nigh on pitch black, they'd have you losing your position in a room, or running up against a wall without realising it for a second or two. I might need to tweak settings as this is problematic enough in GOT.

Not sure if it's already been mentioned, but there is a charm you can get quite early in the game that doubles the collectable stuff you get. 2x supplies, 2x bamboo etc. Pretty handy.

Also, if you want to unlock your stances quicker, when you got to a camp, you can sneak in and observe the leader first. Then kill him. Thus giving you two points towards your stance instead of just one.

Usually, when a game give me a dodge-roll, I'm doing that all day long. With this game, I have decided to learn how to parry, because it looks cooler and feels more "samurai". I upgraded the whole Deflection tree before taking the dodge roll. I'm finding the combat incredibly satisfying as a result. Quick load times when I mess up and die help too.

I think what makes many side quests playable for me is the fact that they have a simple story attached. This way even though the quest is go clear the bandit camp it feels more rewarding.

r013nt0 wrote:

The dogs are the hardest goddamned enemies in the game so far, I swear. Especially if there's more than one and you don't get the jump on 'em.

When it comes to dogs or bears, I find the slowdown bullet-time with the bow helpful. Dogs can be one shot and bears two.

Bears can be one shot too. You just need to get them in the head.

Spikeout wrote:

The interiors in the game have such bad lighting that you can see barely anything. I remember The Division 2 was horrendous for its dark areas that were nigh on pitch black, they'd have you losing your position in a room, or running up against a wall without realising it for a second or two. I might need to tweak settings as this is problematic enough in GOT.

Maybe your TV is set wrong, because I had the same issue and was able to solve it by changing my color space settings. Interiors are still dark, but I can see every detail with no problem.

IUMogg wrote:
r013nt0 wrote:

The dogs are the hardest goddamned enemies in the game so far, I swear. Especially if there's more than one and you don't get the jump on 'em.

When it comes to dogs or bears, I find the slowdown bullet-time with the bow helpful. Dogs can be one shot and bears two.

The dogs were tearing me apart until I started using the mystic art that lets you instantly charge forward with a powerful slash attack. That always kills them in one hit, plus they can’t dodge it, just need one resolve to use it.

Got all the keys and unlocked the [F]armor this morning. It's pretty cool.

I've taken down a few forts marked with red symbols, which I think means that i'm under-levelled for them. So that's quite satisfying.

There are some strange features though. If you fail, then the fort re-sets entirely. However, if you kill the Leader, and then fail... then the fort resets, but with the Leader dead.

At my current level, the Half-Bow feels like it gets me in to more trouble than it gets me out of. Hitting opponents at distance feels very hit and miss (pardon the pun). And I never have enough arrows and my damage is poor (outside of fire arrows).

Where does one get more arrows?

Also, I'm getting better at melee combat, but my dodge-roll seems to take me too far to use it effectively as a tactic. Also, once you dodge-roll the camera makes it impossible to re-acquire the enemy i rolled away from.

I'm still finding parries a problem. I cannot tell whether I've hit one, or missed by a little bit... or missed it by a mile. I think one of the problems is that the combat lacks 'weight'. Even blocking successfully doesn't offer any clear visual or audio cues.

I'm still enjoying the game, but I can see why 'Edge' gave it a 6.

detroit20 wrote:

I've taken down a few forts marked with red symbols, which I think means that i'm under-levelled for them. So that's quite satisfying.

There are some strange features though. If you fail, then the fort re-sets entirely. However, if you kill the Leader, and then fail... then the fort resets, but with the Leader dead.

At my current level, the Half-Bow feels like it gets me in to more trouble than it gets me out of. Hitting opponents at distance feels very hit and miss (pardon the pun). And I never have enough arrows and my damage is poor (outside of fire arrows).

Where does one get more arrows?

Also, I'm getting better at melee combat, but my dodge-roll seems to take me too far to use it effectively as a tactic. Also, once you dodge-roll the camera makes it impossible to re-acquire the enemy i rolled away from.

I'm still finding parries a problem. I cannot tell whether I've hit one, or missed by a little bit... or missed it by a mile. I think one of the problems is that the combat lacks 'weight'. Even blocking successfully doesn't offer any clear visual or audio cues.

I'm still enjoying the game, but I can see why 'Edge' gave it a 6.

Red just means it's an occupied zone. Clearing it and then opening the map will cause a large portion of the fog of war surrounding the fort to disperse.

You buy larger quivers using predator hides from the hunter guys. Knife icon dudes. Found in towns and survivor camps.

You'll know you parried vs blocked because it will cause the attacker to stop attacking and they will be pushed off to the side. You'll know you've performed a perfect parry because there's a very obvious particle effect and animation, including slowing down the action.

Quote isn't edit. Still.

detroit20 wrote:

There are some strange features though. If you fail, then the fort re-sets entirely. However, if you kill the Leader, and then fail... then the fort resets, but with the Leader dead.

At my current level, the Half-Bow feels like it gets me in to more trouble than it gets me out of. Hitting opponents at distance feels very hit and miss (pardon the pun).

Also, I'm getting better at melee combat, but my dodge-roll seems to take me too far to use it effectively as a tactic. Also, once you dodge-roll the camera makes it impossible to re-acquire the enemy i rolled away from.

I think the leader staying dead is to keep you from exploiting it (repeatedly suicide-bomb the leader) to grind up your stances too quickly.

Briefly during the bow "tutorial" it is mentioned that arrows have a fall at a distance. It does make it more challenging to get the instakill headshots. I hate making a "git gud" sounding post, especially because I'm not yet "gud" myself, but... with practice you start to get a feel for how far over a foe's head you need to aim to account for arrow fall.

I found the dodge roll less useful than I hoped too; it's sort of an "oh crap I need to make some distance and don't have smoke bombs" move more than a strategic part of combat for me. There is an unlockable "sidestep" move that find much more useful for what I hoped the roll would do, which is dodge and counterattack heavy/spear attacks. (But for foes where you CAN parry, although I'm not great at it, parry is the best way to counterattack. It's vital for some duels, in my experience.)

Parry and sidestep are the keys to combat. The dodge roll is really only for getting distance to heal, use a tool, or quickly shoot an arrow. Often times I'll dodge roll and have missed an opportunity to get some solid hits in.

I usually suck at properly timing parries and blocks in these sorts of games; so, the dodge roll technique was the very first skill point I assigned... Now that I know it rolls you so far away as to make counter-attacks impossible, I kind of regret it. I can still see the use for gaining some distance to heal, but I think I would have waited to pick it up a little later if I had known or seen this very discussion a little sooner.

detroit20 wrote:

There are some strange features though. If you fail, then the fort re-sets entirely. However, if you kill the Leader, and then fail... then the fort resets, but with the Leader dead.

I think this is a side effect of the way the game saves your progress. If you collect something, or if you accomplish an objective at a location, the game saves your progress, so that if you respawn you still have the item, but it doesn't show up in the world.

Bonus objectives at locations have been good for making me try out different tools. Also, it feels like the bonus objectives at a location can change, as I swear I had a location that had a "kill 3 guys with arrows" when my half bow was weaker, and when I came back to do it later, it had a different objective.

I've found that sticky bombs are amazing for some kinds of encounters.

I particularly enjoyed the sequence where I tossed two of them at a Mongol Leader while he was charging. There was a short delay between the tosses, so they stuck to different parts of him. The first blew him backwards a fair amount. This was just in time for the second one to go off, blowing him straight up into the air while the full slow-mo effect happened because it was enough to kill him. Was both cinematic and startling.

I chortled.

Typhoon kick + sticky bomb + sword strike = dead bad guy. It's pretty much an unbeatable combo if you get absolutely stuck.

But so far I've really loved this game. It's got a great balance to it. There are moments where I'm a badass and I'll take down 3 people with my standoff and just destroy the cowardly fools who survive. And there are moments where I stuff that up, trip on my own feet and get impaled by some bandit spear. Such shame...

vypre wrote:

I usually suck at properly timing parries and blocks in these sorts of games; so, the dodge roll technique was the very first skill point I assigned... Now that I know it rolls you so far away as to make counter-attacks impossible, I kind of regret it. I can still see the use for gaining some distance to heal, but I think I would have waited to pick it up a little later if I had known or seen this very discussion a little sooner.

If it makes you feel better, dodge roll is required for the rest of the "Evasion" tree, including the "Dodging Slash" which is the sidestep-counterattack we're talking about. So you wanted to get that early anyway.

Apologies for skimming the thread, but I've been enjoying just playing the game completely blind and experiencing it as raw as possible.

However, I've been so blown away by the beauty of the game and the capability of the photo mode that I felt compelled to post some of my "animated screenshots" over on the Digital Shutterbug thread, and I figured I should also crosspost it here in case other folks currently playing the game might be interested in seeing what has caught my eye so far.

Theres a lot more over in the other thread, and even more on my youtube channel, but here are some of my absolute favorites so far.

Oh, and be sure to force youtube to feed you the highest quality video possible. It will still pale in comparison to actually seeing the game in 4k with kind of the best HDR I've ever seen in a game, but at least you'll get the best possible rendition that can easily be exported from the PS4.

I thought I was being furloughed but found out today that it’s unlikely so I caved and bought this, despite the character animations looking subpar in videos. What tempted me is that I like samurai and ninja stuff but found Sekiro too hard to finish.

Happy Dave wrote:

I'm really enjoying this game. In a way, it reminds me a lot of Days Gone - an open world game with some interesting mechanics, largely dismissed by critics as formulaic, but striking a real chord with me. I'm finding the world a lot of fun to explore in a way I haven't for a while.

The word of mouth for Ghosts of Tsushima has been fantastic. Praise such as this is far and wide, and it's very tempting. I'm weighing up Ghosts of Tsushima verses Marvel's Spider-Man. With an outside possibility for Days Gone.

Glycerine wrote:
Spikeout wrote:

The interiors in the game have such bad lighting that you can see barely anything. I remember The Division 2 was horrendous for its dark areas that were nigh on pitch black, they'd have you losing your position in a room, or running up against a wall without realising it for a second or two. I might need to tweak settings as this is problematic enough in GOT.

Maybe your TV is set wrong, because I had the same issue and was able to solve it by changing my color space settings. Interiors are still dark, but I can see every detail with no problem.

I had a similar issue with my PS4 to TV setup until I tweaked a few settings. The amount of detail that became apparent in dark areas was astonishing.

I'll have to look at my TV settings, that's a bit of a relief to hear its not something to do with the game itself. Thanks for the replies!

I think there's something in the air in my living room as my Dual Shock 4 now has a drift issue, just to go along with the severe drift issue my Switch Joy cons have. Its making stealth a bit annoying as Jin will start moving forward when my left thumb isn't on the analogue stick. I only purchased my purple dual shock within the last 9 months too.

In game I happened upon a guy stranded on the middle of a long rope bridge, arrows coming at him from all sides from Mongol Archers. His family & others urging me to rescue him. I wish I had the arrow deflection skill, I got killed multiple times. I persisted with a mix of long range bow shots of my own taking out archers on the far side then dishing out a death from above takedowns on those enemies underneath me. Still a tricky enough encounter.

zeroKFE wrote:

Apologies for skimming the thread, but I've been enjoying just playing the game completely blind and experiencing it as raw as possible.

However, I've been so blown away by the beauty of the game and the capability of the photo mode that I felt compelled to post some of my "animated screenshots" over on the Digital Shutterbug thread, and I figured I should also crosspost it here in case other folks currently playing the game might be interested in seeing what has caught my eye so far.

Theres a lot more over in the other thread, and even more on my youtube channel, but here are some of my absolute favorites so far.

Oh, and be sure to force youtube to feed you the highest quality video possible. It will still pale in comparison to actually seeing the game in 4k with kind of the best HDR I've ever seen in a game, but at least you'll get the best possible rendition that can easily be exported from the PS4.

I was wondering when you or Tuffalo would share some screenshots. I don't normally do photo modes, and when I do it is usually because I want to get a screenshot that'll work for the blog. With this game, however, I've found myself just opening up the photo mode to see what I can do once in a while. It's a darn gorgeous game, it is it is.

Here are some of my own photos. I'm not much a digital shutterbug so I'll keep my pictures here for now.

IMAGE(https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/612293124542169092/736625178406027374/got-3.jpg)

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IMAGE(https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/612293124542169092/736625188917084180/got-7.jpg)

IMAGE(https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/612293124542169092/736625197007765514/got-8.jpg)

IMAGE(https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/612293124542169092/736625204264173608/got-10.jpg)

IMAGE(https://media.discordapp.net/attachments/612293124542169092/736625209112789012/got-11.jpg)

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I think I spent around 25hrs (at least) on the first chapter. Uncovered everything After entering into chapter 2.

Spoiler:

when you start chapter 2 you’re given the ability to go back and save farmhouses which help with the armor of Gosaku. Once liberated the map is revealed at least I think that was the catalyst.

It’s definitely got the crack magic going for it. The supporting characters are where the good story is at.

Agree, JC. I'm in chapter 2 and I can already tell how this is all going to go down... but those side stories are really good. Sensei Ishikawa's story is awesome!

For those of you who are completionists in Act 1, be aware that you cannot completely finish the first area without going into Act 2.

For those of you just into Act 2, I suggest you prioritize raising the army. The three quest chain eventually unlocks a new ability.