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Horizon Zero Dawn |OT| The Land After Time

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pixxxelz

Member
So I bought some shock arrows from a merchant but I can't for the life of me figure out how to use/equip them, do I need a better bow to use them or something? I'm still using my starting one.
 
Not sure you'll see this but apparently the DLC Deluxe Edition "Carja Mighty Bow" and the "Carja Storm Ranger Outfit" do indeed seemed bugged to be much more powerful than they should be.

Reddit - Guide to Understanding Weapons, Armor, Mods, and Farming 10J Shards & Easy Purple Mods

What it says about this DLC gear:

"SIDE NOTE - GLITCHED DLC GEAR:

While this won't effect everyone, I thought it would be worth mentioning. 2 Pieces of Deluxe Edition DLC gear, the Carja Mighty Bow and Carja Storm Ranger Outfit, are currently performing far better that their stats suggest they should be. The blue tier Carja Bow out-damages its purple equivalent, the Shadow Hunter Bow, by a large margin (nearly double), even though the SHB can equip 3 purple damage mods. The Blue Carja outfit, takes 10% of the damage that the highest defense purple outfit you can obtain, even when that outfit is stacked with defensive mods. Were talking hits that would do 40 damage instead doing 4 damage. This is likely unintended and may be patched out in the future, but worth noting."

That's pretty bad. I probably used it for about 1/2 of the game, so in my opinion that would have really devalued the experience. Making matters worse it's an experience I can't get back by playing the game again, as it's not novel anymore.

When I began noticing the issue I switched gear, though the sci-fi armour set is as, if not more overpowered than the Carja. I'd really recommend that everyone avoids using it unless they want to turn the game into extremely easy mode.
 

Zakalwe

Banned
So I bought some shock arrows from a merchant but I can't for the life of me figure out how to use/equip them, do I need a better bow to use them or something? I'm still using my starting one.

The three different bows have set ammo types they use. You'll have to find the bow that has shock as a damage type.
 

CHC

Member
Yesterday was the first time I figured out that you can shoot 3 arrows at once with any arrow when you get the skill, that's after admit 26 hrs of playtime when it hit me lol

I love doing that with the tear arrows (purple icon).

The slight delay and humming, following by the veritable shower of machine parts is just amazing.
 

george_us

Member
So I bought some shock arrows from a merchant but I can't for the life of me figure out how to use/equip them, do I need a better bow to use them or something? I'm still using my starting one.
Yeah you need to buy a bow that can use them. I think very rare war bows allow you to use them?
 
I'm really enjoying this game, however the combat isn't doing it for me at all. Melee is awful, while fighting groups of machines always degenerates into an imperceivable clusterfuck with a wild camera.
 
The camera controls are so responsive i wish Rockstar would dump there input lag infested engine and made RDR2 on this engine instead.

Yea, the game is so responsive, both for an open world title and one that is 30 FPS that the odd clunkiness here and there stands out even more so. Honestly, I'm loving this game so much that most of my ideas for improvements in a sequel is just minor stuff so far.
 
I'm really enjoying this game, however the combat isn't doing it for me at all. Melee is awful, while fighting groups of machines always degenerates into an imperceivable clusterfuck with a wild camera.

Melee is for fallen/tied up robots or humans. Or even the weaker ones, like the watcher.
You never walk up to anything bigger and try to take it down. You can, but they'll almost always get a hit or two in.
 

Yoshichan

And they made him a Lord of Cinder. Not for virtue, but for might. Such is a lord, I suppose. But here I ask. Do we have a sodding chance?
Regarding trials, I noticed that when I got gold, I didn't get the rewards for bronze and silver. Does this mean it's more value to purposely get bronze, silver and then lastly gold?
 

jamsy

Member
Hey GAF, so I'm level 20 and have been playing the game for a while. However, I'm still doing minimal damage to human enemies. I have to shoot them with arrows like 15 times to actually kill them. Do I need to get a new bow? I'm still using the one I started out with (albeit with a couple of minor damage modifications).
 

Tigress

Member
Got through the fist cauldron. That was neat!

I wish they'd let us rewalk through the cauldrons once they are finished. The atmosphere is so crazy and kinda horrific, I love it. I'd love to just go back and re look and be able to process it better what I saw.
 

cheesekao

Member
Hey GAF, so I'm level 20 and have been playing the game for a while. However, I'm still doing minimal damage to human enemies. I have to shoot them with arrows like 15 times to actually kill them. Do I need to get a new bow? I'm still using the one I started out with (albeit with a couple of minor damage modifications).
Either headshot them or use your spear's heavy attack and then a crit. They aren't much of a threat outside of leaders.
 

benny_a

extra source of jiggaflops
Hey GAF, so I'm level 20 and have been playing the game for a while. However, I'm still doing minimal damage to human enemies. I have to shoot them with arrows like 15 times to actually kill them. Do I need to get a new bow? I'm still using the one I started out with (albeit with a couple of minor damage modifications).
That shouldn't happen. Definitely check out the other bows, the Sharpshooter bow is more precise and will help with headshots, and if you buy a higher rarity version then you also get more damage.

Even if you don't get the sharpshooter (which you should for the other arrow types it supports) always aim for the head. Humans are pretty simple in that regard.

Also the hitbox for the heads seems not super great I feel.

I think your bows need to support them too
The War Bow is the one that has the different elemental arrows.

I know other games have trained us to ignore the text that describes items, but all the bows tell you exactly what they do and they are different classes of items, rather than different kinds of statistics as in other games.
 

Tigress

Member
The camera controls are so responsive i wish Rockstar would dump there input lag infested engine and made RDR2 on this engine instead.

Ubisoft too honestly (at least with AC it is even worse). This is the first game that does the climbing mechanism where you have to point the joystick and hope that the game reads you right that does it well. AC I find is horrible about the I want to go to a ledge that is on the upper right and I try to point up or right and it decides that I want to jump off (when I play AC I die several times to this). It's really finicky where I point to tell it to go to that ledge. Uncharted is better (mainly cause it doesn't allow you to suicide that way as it is more restrictive and assumes you don't want to just jump to your death so it outrules just plain jumping off when it's a death sentence) but it still takes some convincing sometimes to get it to let you jump to the next ledge.

The climbing here is very fluid and it is not too frustrating in misreading what you were trying to tell it to do (I did have some issues jumping down instead of up on the tallneck).

And yes, in general controlling the character is also very fluid and responsive, none of that clunky feel I usually associate with third person games (looking at it now it may be why I usually prefer first person games as I don't really associate that clunkiness as much with first person games, even Bethesda games when in first person are much better and I know some people dislike how they control).
 
The War Bow is the one that has the different elemental arrows.

I know other games have trained us to ignore the text that describes items, but all the bows tell you exactly what they do and they are different classes of items, rather than different kinds of statistics as in other games.

Yup, thats the bow, couldn't remember the name
 
Just upgraded to the PS4 Pro and after going back and forth more than a quadruple dozen times I am preferring the favor performance mode over resolution mode on my 1080p setup. The performance mode just looks cleaner, more detailed to me. The resolution mode looks softer if that somehow makes sense. I'm sure things will be difference if I had a 4k display but as of now my eyes are preferring performance mode for whatever reason. Does anyone have any idea why this might be?

My eyes are actually fine.
 
Regarding trials, I noticed that when I got gold, I didn't get the rewards for bronze and silver. Does this mean it's more value to purposely get bronze, silver and then lastly gold?

you don't get the chests but I don't think there's anything worthwhile in them. You get all the XP though
 

X-Frame

Member
Oh man, when the combat starts to click the game is so much fun fighting these massive robots.

I finally felt comfortable taking on the 3 Bellowbacks so I laid out traps and trip wires, loaded up on Fire defense, equipped Shock and Freeze weapons and coupled with Hardpoint and the Triple Arrow skill to target the weak points it's so satisfying when the sacks blow up.

I'm just getting started taking on huge robots which is awesome.
 
OvsNzaa.gif
 
I'm actually pretty surprised the cauldrons are optional, really wouldn't want to miss em. The game is so good, I've just been rambling the map and
the bank village with the tamed machines!
, and it popped a new quest. Very cool.
 

sobaka770

Banned
That is impressive. But I also think this comparison is not really complete. Aside from the lack of waterphysics and the general lack of interaction with vegitation, the world of Horizon seems much more interactive in other aspects (trees can be torn down, shaks can be destroyed) and the common enemies set in in the actual open world in Horzizon seem more impressive than the usual ones in TW3 (bandits, trolls, wolves, drowners etc.).

I think the lack of interaction with grass and water in Horizon is actually quite noticeable, which is a shame. This is the main thing which makes the Witcher feel more lifelike and sometimes throws me out of the experience. It's especially weird since the trees are destructible..

I also think that the two hands are largely technically comparable but going for different aesthetics making the comparison difficult. Witcher has more realistic villages and countryside overall, Horizon has more color and is much more stylised and "gamey".

For PS4 Horizon is a marvel of optimization though.
 

silva1991

Member
I wish they'd let us rewalk through the cauldrons once they are finished. The atmosphere is so crazy and kinda horrific, I love it. I'd love to just go back and re look and be able to process it better what I saw.

We can't?? taht's a shame.

Just did the second one and it was intense
 

X-Frame

Member
Tearblast Arrows seem like the most difficult to craft at my point in the game. I try to only use them if there is a huge benefit (like shooting the disc launchers off a Thunderjaw), but otherwise I am not really using them for other enemy components much. I don't want to run out and have no way to craft more when I really need them.

Does it become easier to craft them more towards the middle of the game? I'd say I'm in the 1/3 of the game. Echo Shells seem the limiting resource.
 
I actually get bothered by the lack of water effects but not so much the grass movement. I think it's the motion blur at the feet combined with the fast movement, my eyes sort of glaze over it. It hasn't bothered me at all.
 

vivekTO

Member
What kind of motion smoothing do you use? Your gifs always look smoother than the real thing. Is it built in to the program you make the gifs on or something?

He post processed them in After effect I guess!! and than render them out in High Quality gif , and not by some Third party Convertor with limitations .
 

Lifeline

Member
The vantage points are so weird. Like the university one where you see people walking around it and it's like the size of a massive building.

Then you see it in the game and it's about the size of a McDonalds
 

VanWinkle

Member
I think the lack of interaction with grass and water in Horizon is actually quite noticeable, which is a shame. This is the main thing which makes the Witcher feel more lifelike and sometimes throws me out of the experience. It's especially weird since the trees are destructible..

I also think that the two hands are largely technically comparable but going for different aesthetics making the comparison difficult. Witcher has more realistic villages and countryside overall, Horizon has more color and is much more stylised and "gamey".

For PS4 Horizon is a marvel of optimization though.

Horizon has more foliage, more variety in foliage, and nicer shaded foliage. The lack of interaction with the vast majority of it is unfortunate - though there's plenty of foliage that is non-interactive in W3 as well - and just a limitation of the hardware I'm sure, but I still much prefer it to basically any other game I've played/seen.

To me, the only graphical thing that can really be improved is the water/interaction. It sometimes looks pretty great but by no means the best, but the lack of interaction is what really hurts it.

By almost every metric (other than water, and those standard parts that can be pushed in every PC game like AF, LOD, etc), Horizon is a better looking game.
 
Tearblast Arrows seem like the most difficult to craft at my point in the game. I try to only use them if there is a huge benefit (like shooting the disc launchers off a Thunderjaw), but otherwise I am not really using them for other enemy components much. I don't want to run out and have no way to craft more when I really need them.

Does it become easier to craft them more towards the middle of the game? I'd say I'm in the 1/3 of the game. Echo Shells seem the limiting resource.

I use them sparingly as well, best keep them for giant robos like Thunderjaws and the like. They are way too OP in stripping component and armor off.

Use the rope caster instead. It does the same thing but requires bit more tactical play to tie down the big ones, but major advantage is that you can exploit the weakpoints as soon as the robo goes down.

Components for tearblast get more frequent as you progress. I've found that knocking off the containers carried by shell-walkers seem to give you plenty of them.
 

Skeletron

Member
I spent too much time last nught trying to finish the Shock trial where you have to shock bellow bots and shoot the canisters off their undersides. How do you get a blazing sun in that?? It takes too long to break off the canisters and each bot only has 3, when you need to break 4 or 5 apparently, so you have to do the whole thing twice.
 

j0hnnix

Member
The whole
geothermal reboot guys voice annoyed me for some reason
, this should of been switch to move it along then having to listen to the guy.
 

Auto_aim1

MeisaMcCaffrey
If you need to get OP fast farm the Thunderjaw near the starting point of Meridian journey.

Use tear arrows on both disc launchers, kill, loot, save at the bonfire and reload save again. The Thunderjaw would be right next to the bonfire.
 
This is one of the only games where I'm genuinely interested in reading the text data points and listening to the audio logs. This world is so fascinating
 

X-Frame

Member
I use them sparingly as well, best keep them for giant robos like Thunderjaws and the like. They are way too OP in stripping component and armor off.

Use the rope caster instead. It does the same thing but requires bit more tactical play to tie down the big ones, but major advantage is that you can exploit the weakpoints as soon as the robo goes down.

Components for tearblast get more frequent as you progress. I've found that knocking off the containers carried by shell-walkers seem to give you plenty of them.

Thanks Ruthless! I'll see if I can look to kill a few more of them to get some more for a nice cushion. And I agree, for how powerful they are it makes sense why they're more difficult to craft.
 

RedSwirl

Junior Member
Zelda's out now so I don't know when I'll get back on this but I'll try to peek in a little bit from time to time. I'm actually still on a rental but I'll probably buy it if I find myself wanting to clear the main story.

After a few side quests in the beginning I'll admit the enemies are actually pretty interesting to fight. That's probably the one thing Horizon does better than all the open-world games it borrows from except perhaps Zelda (and Dark Souls if you want to count that). Combat already feels better balanced and more dynamic than Skyrim or Witcher 3. Enemies have variety and clear weaknesses. This game hits the "action" part of "action RPG" better than the other big-name ones (unless you count Dragon's Dogma which I still haven't played).
 
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