• Hey, guest user. Hope you're enjoying NeoGAF! Have you considered registering for an account? Come join us and add your take to the daily discourse.

Horizon Zero Dawn |OT2| Red Head Redemption

Bunga

Member
Very useful info thanks so much! What is 'tear' damage? Is it only caused by certain weapon/ammo types? I'll have to look out for it next time I play.

Yes that's right. Once you upgrade your standard Hunter bow a couple of times you'll get access to Hardpoint Arrows which have huge Tear damage. Load the bow with Tear modifications and it starts wrecking stuff. Arrows from the Sharpshot Bow should also do some Tear damage though. Tearblast Arrows (also from Sharpshot Bow) also provide an area of effect Tear damage.
 

Spladam

Member
Very useful info thanks so much! What is 'tear' damage? Is it only caused by certain weapon/ammo types? I'll have to look out for it next time I play.

Also, hunting small animals replaces the components you need for healing potions. Tear will also knock off armor plating (anything really) to expose weaknesses on machines, and the explosive Tear arrows, the Tearblast, are game changers. Use them to knock guns off of Ravagers and Thunderjaws and then kill mad shit with said gun.

Once you knock the heart armor plate off of Thunderjaws, tie them down and use their own disk launcher on them, makes quick work of them.

All dangerous machine fights start with Tear arrows to a certian part, taking abilities away from the machine type. Thunderjaws, it's the face (cannon) then the disk launcher in the back, Ravager it's the gun on the back, and Trampler it's the horns on the head. Use your slow motion focus shot to tear blast these parts off at the start of the fight.
 

Bunga

Member
Tearblast Arrows are also insane vs Stalkers. One arrow will often knock 3 components off making them a doddle to finish off with electric arrows and critical hits.
 
It's good to understand what the elemental (fire, ice, shock) arrows/bombs do and don't. They don't do increased damage to weak parts by themselves. In fact, they usually do very little damage at all.

What they do is, when you accumulate enough hits/damage with them, you fill a circular bar and it triggers a status: fire catches the whole Machine on fire and causes DOT; ice freezes the Machine and vastly multiplies any damage it takes while frozen; shock disables/stuns it for a while. Parts with an elemental weakness make this process faster. Certain parts will also trigger an explosion that deals massive damage when hit with a certain element.
 
It's good to understand what the elemental (fire, ice, shock) arrows/bombs do and don't. They don't do increased damage to weak parts by themselves. In fact, they usually do very little damage at all.

What they do is, when you accumulate enough hits/damage with them, you fill a circular bar and it triggers a status: fire catches the whole Machine on fire and causes DOT; ice freezes the Machine and vastly multiplies any damage it takes while frozen; shock disables/stuns it for a while. Parts with an elemental weakness make this process faster. Certain parts will also trigger an explosion that deals massive damage when hit with a certain element.

So basically you can't play this game with HUD off. I discovered this the hard way wondering why combats seemed impossible.

Anyway, I have a question: I've now visited all the maps, every camps, every town, corrupted area possible, and I still haven't found the three missing batteries for the armor side quest. What am I missing?
 

Playsage

Member
So basically you can't play this game with HUD off. I discovered this the hard way wondering why combats seemed impossible.

Anyway, I have a question: I've now visited all the maps, every camps, every town, corrupted area possible, and I still haven't found the three missing batteries for the armor side quest. What am I missing?
Except you can. The elemental status meter can't be toggled off (Unless you can do it with the last patches)
 

pmunk

Member
Started Horizon last night and played for a few hours.

Between this and Prey I'm breaking out of a little gaming rut I had going on quite nicely. Can't wait to get back into this early next week.
 

Spladam

Member
So basically you can't play this game with HUD off. I discovered this the hard way wondering why combats seemed impossible.

Anyway, I have a question: I've now visited all the maps, every camps, every town, corrupted area possible, and I still haven't found the three missing batteries for the armor side quest. What am I missing?
All of them besides the one found
in the bunker are found in main quest locations.
 

TP-DK

Member
Just finished it today. What a great game, I loved that each time I encountered a new machine I was like "Oh shit", and had to learn it's attack patterns and weaknesses to take it down.

The machine I found to be the hardest was definately the
one that dug under the ground, it said that it's weakness was if you were stayed quiet, but that never seemed to work for me.

The biggest surprise for me was the story, I really didn't expect it to be so good (especially not after the last Killzone) but I was really intrigued by it, and even though I usually isn't a big fan of reading lore and stuff in most games I just had to read/listen to everything I came by here.

Regarding the ending:
Do you guys thing Sylas (think that's his name :p )
were planning to start Hades up again, or was just after all the info Hades had about the old world?
 

Dan

No longer boycotting the Wolfenstein franchise
I wish there was an in-game way to find the datapoints you've missed. I only found a fraction of the ones available in the general world, and missed a couple in whatever the last category was, I think lore about the various tribes/towns. I see there are some guides around, so I might goof around with that at some point to pick up all the other little bits of worldbuilding.

Regarding the ending:
Do you guys thing Sylas (think that's his name :p )
were planning to start Hades up again, or was just after all the info Hades had about the old world?
I would guess he hopes to use Hades for info and figure out how to control it, but good luck with that.
 

Megatron

Member
Yes that's right. Once you upgrade your standard Hunter bow a couple of times you'll get access to Hardpoint Arrows which have huge Tear damage. Load the bow with Tear modifications and it starts wrecking stuff. Arrows from the Sharpshot Bow should also do some Tear damage though. Tearblast Arrows (also from Sharpshot Bow) also provide an area of effect Tear damage.


How much do you need to upgrade it? What kind of upgrades does it take?

Also I have freeze bombs but don't know how to use them. They don't appear when I select my sling, it's just regular blast bombs. How do I switch to freeze bombs?
 

Teggy

Member
How much do you need to upgrade it? What kind of upgrades does it take?

Also I have freeze bombs but don't know how to use them. They don't appear when I select my sling, it's just regular blast bombs. How do I switch to freeze bombs?

Not every sling can be used for every ammo type. It's like the different bows - different weapons use different ammo.
 
Not every sling can be used for every ammo type. It's like the different bows - different weapons use different ammo.

That's one of the thing I hate with Horizon: you have to keep many different weapons on your inventory just to be able to use every kind of ammos. That's one bow for fire ammos, one bow for ice/shock/corruption ammos, one bow for tear/damages ammo, and the same apply for slings and tripcasters.

The weapon wheel being limited to 4 weapons, this force you to go to the inventory to change the equipped weapons as soon as you encounter a new kind of ennemy - bascially all the time.
 
Picked this up the other day and have about spent around four hours with it and I'm not really feeling it so far, seems to be taking its sweet time to get going.

Is there a specific point at which it picks up? Or should I give up now and start something else?
 
Picked this up the other day and have about spent around four hours with it and I'm not really feeling it so far, seems to be taking its sweet time to get going.

Is there a specific point at which it picks up? Or should I give up now and start something else?

After the Proving, before that is basically extended tutorial.
 
My kids deleted the game. Now when i try to start from last save, it says building database, and stays there for ages. I cant even.....
 
TwOU1Dq.gif
 
This is the first game I got invested in after getting my PS4 Pro.

I'm literally just starting the final mission. What a journey it's been. I'll post my final thoughts at some point.
 
This game just gets better and better, love the combat and the teardown arrows got me out of so many near death situations.

I've just completed the
Maker's End: Climb Faro Automated Solutions section
and seem to have opened up a lot of the map as well.

Anyone know how far i am into the game at this point?
 

usp84

Member
Finally got this!!!!

I can't wait to play it tonight!


The installation is taking forever though,it took other games maybe a minute to install from a disc but this one is taking too long.Is this normal?
 

Planet

Member
The installation is taking forever though,it took other games maybe a minute to install from a disc but this one is taking too long.Is this normal?
Almost no disc game is small enough to be installed in a minute. The matter is not when it is done installing, but when it has enough content installed to start the game. Most games keep that portion small so you can start the game while it installs in background, but some don't make the effort and install larger portions or even the full game before you can run it.

Since I got the download version, and it downloaded while I was away, I can't say anything specific to HZD though.
 
Got my teen 16 year old brother to play Horizon, he doesn't have much experience with open world RPG games. He plays GTA, Fifa, rocket league, god of war, uncharted and the like, so this is his first open world RPG experience.

Initially he found the game too easy (OP stealth) so he bumped up the difficulty. BIG mistake. He started struggling with ammo and resources, not realizing that enemies won't just drop ammo all the time. The whole concept of gathering materials and crafting items was foreign to him.

He managed to reach Meridian recently and has been really into the game since. He ended up fighting a corrupter with nothing but stones cause he ran out of materials. Almost rage quit the game (called it the end of his Horizon career) when he could not defeat 2 snapmaws and kept on dying. I advised him to stream his play so I could watch and give him some tips.

He's doing a lot better now, messaging me his accomplishments every day and seems to be enjoying the game. I told him to back off the story quests and focus on side missions and exploration so he could level up and unlock more skills. He was level 11 when he reached Meridian and was getting destroyed by everything :p

He's still not ready to face a Thunderjaw. He even runs away from Ravagers and Tramplers, but he's learning and getting better...and then today he sent me this message:

unknown.png

3AQmK.gif
 

Spladam

Member
Got my teen 16 year old brother to play Horizon, he doesn't have much experience with open world RPG games. He plays GTA, Fifa, rocket league, god of war, uncharted and the like, so this is his first open world RPG experience.

Initially he found the game too easy (OP stealth) so he bumped up the difficulty. BIG mistake. He started struggling with ammo and resources, not realizing that enemies won't just drop ammo all the time. The whole concept of gathering materials and crafting items was foreign to him.

He managed to reach Meridian recently and has been really into the game since. He ended up fighting a corrupter with nothing but stones cause he ran out of materials. Almost rage quit the game (called it the end of his Horizon career) when he could not defeat 2 snapmaws and kept on dying. I advised him to stream his play so I could watch and give him some tips.

He's doing a lot better now, messaging me his accomplishments every day and seems to be enjoying the game. I told him to back off the story quests and focus on side missions and exploration so he could level up and unlock more skills. He was level 11 when he reached Meridian and was getting destroyed by everything :p

He's still not ready to face a Thunderjaw. He even runs away from Ravagers and Tramplers, but he's learning and getting better...and then today he sent me this message:

unknown.png

3AQmK.gif
This is great.
 

DeSo

Banned
Just picked up a PS4 Pro and this, liking it a lot so far.

A few things though. It seems the game emphasised stealth and preparation in the first few hours of the game but there have been a few encounters where stealth just wasn't an option and I'm kind of lost in these sort of situations. It seems to be use your bow and concentration (as a PC player exclusively for the last few years I'm still coming to grips with console aiming) or wildly swing at things with your spear. Odds are I'm playing the game wrong entirely, would appreciate thoughts on this. I'm only about ten hours in.

Also kind of a bummer overridden machines don't follow you around, I wanted a pet Sabertooth or something! That would be pretty overpowered though.
 
Just right now got the platinum for it. Been playing this game for just shy of 3 months (little time to play) with no other game in between. So so so damn phenomenal, really hope there's some kind of expansion (
or sequel? Sylens is up to something and clearly will do just about anything to try to recover the lost Apollo archives
) at some point because I have not had a case of 'post-game depression' this strong in a long while. Bravo Guerilla

A few questions regarding ending stuff:

Was it ever disclosed where Elysium is/was? One of the audio recordings in the Gaia bunker said that it was "just a few miles away but may as well me on the other end of the galaxy".

How the hell did Ted get access to the system (so to speak) to lock everything down and kill all the alphas? And did he just die on his own afterwards?

Any theories on the flower patterns surrounding both the Metal Flowers and Elisabet Sobeck's remains?

Only complaint I have: Since Guerilla was smart enough to just include in-game maps for the collectibles, I really wish they had done the same for the audio/video/text logs. It hasn't been since Bioshock 1 that I've cared to seek these out in a game. They're wonderfully done and they add so to the story that it's a shame so many of them undoubtedly go unread/unfound.
 

Spladam

Member
Just right now got the platinum for it. Been playing this game for just shy of 3 months (little time to play) with no other game in between. So so so damn phenomenal, really hope there's some kind of expansion (
or sequel? Sylens is up to something and clearly will do just about anything to try to recover the lost Apollo archives
) at some point because I have not had a case of 'post-game depression' this strong in a long while. Bravo Guerilla

A few questions regarding ending stuff:

Was it ever disclosed where Elysium is/was? One of the audio recordings in the Gaia bunker said that it was "just a few miles away but may as well me on the other end of the galaxy".

How the hell did Ted get access to the system (so to speak) to lock everything down and kill all the alphas? And did he just die on his own afterwards?

Any theories on the flower patterns surrounding both the Metal Flowers and Elisabet Sobeck's remains?

Only complaint I have: Since Guerilla was smart enough to just include in-game maps for the collectibles, I really wish they had done the same for the audio/video/text logs. It hasn't been since Bioshock 1 that I've cared to seek these out in a game. They're wonderfully done and they add so to the story that it's a shame so many of them undoubtedly go unread/unfound.

I believe they are working on the DLC right now, and there is all indication that there will be a sequel as well.

As for your questions:
Don' remember anything about it's location.

It was Ted's company (you can see by the company logos on the ruins) that built the system, so chances are he had the engineers put a back door into the system for himself, with access from his private bunker.

It was the sentient AI Gaia that created the metal flowers and the poetry that went with them. She was rather fond of Elizabeth, so we can assume she memorialized her remains with the flower patters. The patters themselves seem to just mark where one of the flowers were planted, and they seem to be part of the system to repopulate the vegetation (which was part of the bio mass that the robots consumed).

I believe it was suggested (I can't remember) that Ted killed himself or something. He just died in his bunker.
 
Still patiently waiting for new game plus before I go through a second play-through. I miss this game soo much though. And I miss Aloy lol.

The next I play I want dig really deep into the lore too. Gonna read and listen to as many notes as I can bear.
 
Top Bottom