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Horizon Zero Dawn |OT2| Red Head Redemption

Dany

Banned
How do two people play this game without overwriting each other's saves? Both my roommate and I just started yesterday and he's telling me I overwrote his save. I tried to be careful but the system they use is kinda garbage.

The game only has one profile for saves. You can't have multiple games going at once.
 

Planet

Member
The PS4 has a fleshed out account system, and the game simply expects you to use that. Save slots are stone age - which was mine again? Oh sorry I played on yours...
 
Finished the game last night.

Overall, I really enjoyed it. When you're engaged in battle with three or four powerful robots at once, the game is thrilling. In general, the combat in Horizon is really good and the high point of the game, easily.

I think the game really struggles to create an interesting open world. It's obviously a very beautiful game, but the world really isn't all that interesting to explore. Traversal could really be improved. It's really easy to get hung up on the game's geometry when trying to get to higher ground. It's annoying that you can only grab onto fixed points of interest. It's very similar to the Uncharted system of climbing and I'm not sure that works all that well for an open world title.

I also really don't like how the game decides to dump a bunch of text and audio exposition at the player during certain points of the game. There has to be a better way to tell a story in a game than this and I hope they can improve upon this in the next game. I'm fine with text and audio diaries if used sparingly. Speaking of Uncharted, it actually does a pretty good job with this in UC4.

Overall though, Horizon is a game I'm glad I got to experience and I look forward to the expansion this fall.
 

adamsapple

Or is it just one of Phil's balls in my throat?
Fooking finally. The second last encounter-scenario is absolutely bat shit insane on Ultra Hard difficulty. But it was all worth it. The wait for Frozen Wilds intensifies !

20170827193945gsac2.png


Also 2 more from the new photo mode just for giggles .. this was my first time playing the game since launch and all the new quality of life improvements (like menu selection for multiple items to sell at once) made it a very pleasant experience.


horizonzerodawn_20170upahe.png

horizonzerodawn_20170ssl4g.png
 

Combichristoffersen

Combovers don't work when there is no hair
How do two people play this game without overwriting each other's saves? Both my roommate and I just started yesterday and he's telling me I overwrote his save. I tried to be careful but the system they use is kinda garbage.

You use separate accounts on the PS4, like normal human beings.
 

Dalek

Member
Just finished the game with my platinum trophy today. What a year to have this and Breath of the Wild released. I can't decide which one I like most, but really who cares? They're both masterpieces.

The ending with her finding
Elisbet's body
was really moving.
 

JoeNut

Member
finished last week, GOTY for me, easily better than Zelda and i haven't played anything else.

Gonna put it down until the DLC, but have lots of side stuff to do like collectables and the training grounds to do.
 

Panzon

Member
Finally finished this yesterday and it's the first game I platinumed in years. What a ride!

Will start NG+ once the Frozen wilds comes out because now I have to play the last of us (remastered) for the first time ever
 
Finally went back and finished the Hunter Trials/obtained Platinum trophy. Forgot how much I loved this game, will probably start NG+ now. Can't wait for The Frozen Wilds.
 

Catdaddy

Member
New patch, 1.32, out, adding a "Story Mode" difficulty setting and several crash fixes.

The new difficulty setting is for people who want to experience the story without being bothered by the combat.

Yup, young ones will definitely benefit a lot from it. My SO is a lapsed gamer from the SNES era and sucks at twin-stick gaming, but she loved what she saw from Horizon. She'll definitely enjoy it a lot more, now :D

Glad they did this, my wife would actually be able to play this now. I dropped down to story mode and went after a Thunderjaw, definitely makes the encounter survivable for someone with little experience playing these games takes several hits to down it but Aloy takes very little damage. May be a fun mode for speed run.
 

Seijuro

Member
Playing this for the first time. Love it so far, the first open world game in years that can be quite challenging if you f- things up. I guess I#m about halfway through the story, met
Lance Reddick for the first time.
Are the sidequests better to be done in the course of the main story? Or should I do them after?
Do we know yet if the Frozen Wildlands will be integrated in the normal map? If so, it would probably be better to leave some sidequests to have a more "meatier" experience once that hits?
 
Playing this for the first time. Love it so far, the first open world game in years that can be quite challenging if you f- things up. I guess I#m about halfway through the story, met
Lance Reddick for the first time.
Are the sidequests better to be done in the course of the main story? Or should I do them after?
I'd do them as you come across them naturally. I'd also alternate between the two sides of the main story quests as much as possible. Do things at your level for the most fulfilling experience. You'll get a 'point of no return' notice at some point and even though you can go back and do stuff after the final mission, there's a level of finality to the ending that would be a bit awkward to me to go back and help someone do a small errand.

Came in the thread to just comment for anyone who is waffling on Ultra Hard in New Game+ or skipping because of time constraints. Beat it yesterday and only did the bare minimum side quests. Only basically used the sling and although I went through an enormous amount of supplies to get through it in total it probably only took about 4 hours when skipping all cutscenes and dialogue. Probably like 2-3 difficulty spikes but nothing too bad.

I wanted to get it done before the onslaught of games comes out this fall and to be prepped for the DLC. I don't know why but I forgot how damn fun this game is to play and run around in so I'm glad I didn't neglect the NG+.
 

Seijuro

Member
I'd do them as you come across them naturally. I'd also alternate between the two sides of the main story quests as much as possible. Do things at your level for the most fulfilling experience. You'll get a 'point of no return' notice at some point and even though you can go back and do stuff after the final mission, there's a level of finality to the ending that would be a bit awkward to me to go back and help someone do a small errand.

Thanks for the answer, that sounds reasonable.
 
When does Ultra Hard get hard? I've been playing it on NG+ and it's not too bad...so far. Or am I cheating by using the stuff I originally beat the game with? The last mission I did was the one where I help Sona take out that giant blaze canister area.
 

Earendil

Member
Question for those who have finished the game:

How long does it take after the "point of no return" to get to the end? I'm ready to start that, but I usually can't play until around 10pm. I don't necessarily want to get into something that will last three hours that late in the day. I'm old, don't judge.
 

jonjonaug

Member
Question for those who have finished the game:

How long does it take after the "point of no return" to get to the end? I'm ready to start that, but I usually can't play until around 10pm. I don't necessarily want to get into something that will last three hours that late in the day. I'm old, don't judge.
Not too long, couple hours at most.
 
Started playing this and just left the Embrace. Really loving it so far, the combat is fun, the world is gorgeous and I don't want to stop. My only gripe is Zelda spoiled me, I wish I could climb up literally everything.
 
Started playing this and just left the Embrace. Really loving it so far, the combat is fun, the world is gorgeous and I don't want to stop. My only gripe is Zelda spoiled me, I wish I could climb up literally everything.

I started with Zelda too, before moving on to HZD. I missed the climbing just a wee bit, but HZD's lush world just pulls me in. HZD's world is absolutely gorgeous. The story is great. I like how everything is revealed to you. A very well polished game. I managed to plat HZD too. It is my GotY so far.

You're in for a treat. I'm waiting for the Frozen Wilds DLC. Pre-ordered!
 

Earendil

Member
So, I decided to go ahead and finish this, got all the way to the first cut scene after the final battle, and the power went out.... I'll have to do it again to get my trophy. Sigh
 

jonjonaug

Member
Started playing this and just left the Embrace. Really loving it so far, the combat is fun, the world is gorgeous and I don't want to stop. My only gripe is Zelda spoiled me, I wish I could climb up literally everything.

It's really jarring to have to go back to "jump all over these jagged rocks to try and climb a thing if you miss the 'intended' path" design after how amazingly open BOTW is. Horizon grew on me after my initial impressions once I left the Nora area and made my way into the western half of the map (I'd put it around the middle of the 8/10 games on that list), but having to go back to what passed as "good" open world design before BOTW's open navigation and chemistry engine was still pretty hard to deal with. Especially considering that Horizon doesn't really have anything "special" going for it in its open world design besides looking pretty and being moderately well polished.

EDIT: I think my biggest disappointment with the game though isn't the world design (which is passable at best), but the difficulty of the combat. When I managed to kill a Thunderjaw the first time I encountered one without taking so much as a scratch on hard mode, I felt really let down because I expected something that looks like that to kick my fresh out of the Sacred Land butt into next week. The only truly difficult parts in the game are when you're mobbed by several fast moving enemies at once, and even that becomes easy once you raise your fire arrows to a high enough level with modifications to set any small to medium size enemy on fire in 1-2 shots. After that everything that isn't a "large" enemy becomes "set on fire->knock over with R2 while its hopping around->critical->repeat", or if you're too mobbed "set on fire->run around/into bushes if there are some until it wears off->repeat". The few enemies not susceptible to being set on fire usually have some way of killing them quickly that is fun to figure out, but once you do figure it out they quickly become trivial and despite the decent amount of enemy variety you can reduce all enemies in the game to some pretty simple formulas for killing them with a good third of the game still left to go. The game becomes even easier once you get enough resources to just buy as many health potions and blaze as you need to have near infinite healing and explosive power like what's even the point of medicinal herbs after you achieve this?

EDIT 2: lol I made a big complaint post without even meaning to so here's things I did like about the game. The combat is really fun in the second third of the game, when new enemy types start appearing but before you get into a spot where everything becomes trivial. Some of the characters were memorable and well fleshed out. I appreciated how Aloy in the main quest was focused on her own goals and really couldn't care less what the people she was involved with thought of her or what they wanted (her back and forth with Sylens was great), even if that characterization doesn't really mesh with "sidequest Aloy" going out of her way to help every single person she comes across with the most trivial of problems (I got a good laugh when Aloy told the police chief that she didn't have time for him only to immediately help him out). The cauldrons were all pretty great except for the one that pits you against a bunch of regular dudes. The walking around segments in the old bunkers where you piece together what happened to the Old World was my favorite parts of the game, a good "facing down the apocalypse" drama that leaves you with just enough tantalizing tidbits of information each time to drive you forward to the next site. In fact I found just about everything with regards to digging through the Old World technology and solving the mysteries of the machines a lot more interesting than learning about the "modern day" culture, which I felt relied a little too much on cliches and didn't go into enough detail regarding certain things.
 
It's an interesting game, especially knowing a bit about the length of time it was worked-on and how their team split went. That said I'd still be quite curious to sit down with their design staff and talk about that final battle and how it came about. I finished it this weekend at around 92 hours, did almost everything except the training grounds which I found sort of offensively banal (as someone who worked on open world games previously I feel somewhat culpable here).

You decided to have the battle against the Shadow King in a small rectilinear area, and sprinkled exploding barrels around it? How did this happen? Were the barrels focus tested in later after people had too much difficulty? Was it obvious the geometry of the room wasn't sufficiently interesting and those were added to give it spice?
The end of that sequence was a disappointing confirmation that the dialog choices didn't really create any branching in the story.

Why the gun/turret sequence? This is a mechanic that is seen once in the game, and is miserable and completely at odds with the core fantasy of the game, which is hunting dinosaurs with a bow and some other rudimentary tools. There is no epic sense of a fight when the entire point of that sequence is to keep the enemies far away. And then it's followed-up with a weak forced narrative sequence where you lose consciousness anyway. How controversial was this sequence internally? Did it start from a large scope of fighting on the run in the plains or something? A chase to the gate would have been far more exciting.

Why is the final corrupted deathbringer fight so static? Why couldn't it have taken place in a large ring around the spire, with the Deathbringer moving from one interesting play-space to another as you move around it? This would also provide a nicer linear progression in the fight in terms of introducing additional enemies, and also provide locomotion options.
Also how did this sequence end up timed? I didn't even notice the timer until it was down to around 3 minutes and then I just started slinging bombs at him to end up, which was pretty dissatisfying vs going through the mechanics that are intended here with the weak points.

As a fellow dev I can imagine how lots of this came about but I'd still be interested to speak to them about it. As it is the
lead up fight near the All Mother where you fight a Deathbringer and corruptors when you enter the Nora land, and then a few corrupted beasts as you approach the gate, and then culminates in the corrupted Thunderjaw inside, was a far more interesting sequence and should have been the pattern for the final battle in my opinion. Although there the Thunderjaw sequence suffered from a lack of scope of the 'arena', too.
But still that whole idea of fighting "in the space of the environment" is really where I wanted to see all of the serious story beats go, rather than any of the combat sequences involving humans exclusively or these largely static fights in space.

Last,
what the hell is up with all the weird blue shit in Sylens? And is the general consensus that the Odyssey was intercepted by aliens or something and they sent the Hades code? That's the only place I could see that whole bit going, but I haven't read the entire thread to know what thoughts are there
.
 
Last,
what the hell is up with all the weird blue shit in Sylens? And is the general consensus that the Odyssey was intercepted by aliens or something and they sent the Hades code? That's the only place I could see that whole bit going, but I haven't read the entire thread to know what thoughts are there
.

Sylens seems to be from the Banuk, and they do body modifications using cables and conduits sourced from the machines they hunt.

There's no real consensus on what happened to Odyssey. Personally, I find it is just to much of a Chekhov's gun to not be important somehow to the plot going forward. I dunno about aliens, but we know the company that had bought and finished it had super-advanced tech (at least fifty years ahead of mainstream tech, according to Lis) and were super-secretive. If they had an AI of their own, add to it proto-APOLLO and anything can happen, really.
 

JoeNut

Member
Why is the final corrupted deathbringer fight so static? Why couldn't it have taken place in a large ring around the spire, with the Deathbringer moving from one interesting play-space to another as you move around it? This would also provide a nicer linear progression in the fight in terms of introducing additional enemies, and also provide locomotion options.
Also how did this sequence end up timed? I didn't even notice the timer until it was down to around 3 minutes and then I just started slinging bombs at him to end up, which was pretty dissatisfying vs going through the mechanics that are intended here with the weak points.
Yeah i thought deathbringers in general weren't that great a boss, static is not really how a fight should be. that being said it was tough and i finished with 40 seconds remaining (phew!)

Last,
what the hell is up with all the weird blue shit in Sylens? And is the general consensus that the Odyssey was intercepted by aliens or something and they sent the Hades code? That's the only place I could see that whole bit going, but I haven't read the entire thread to know what thoughts are there
.

I thought it odd that he had those things in his body too, but the odyssey thing i just presumed it crashed?
 

Earendil

Member
My assumption on the Odyssey thing was that they made it to whatever planet they were going to, and someone decided to rebuild the Faro machines, or at least something like them. Whatever corrupted the original machines did it again, and those machines destroyed that planet. Then those machines started evolving past their primary programming and decided to send a signal back to Earth waking Hades, so he could awaken the original machines, destroy Earth and then all the machines meet up on Earth for a jamboree.
 

HStallion

Now what's the next step in your master plan?
My assumption on the Odyssey thing was that they made it to whatever planet they were going to, and someone decided to rebuild the Faro machines, or at least something like them. Whatever corrupted the original machines did it again, and those machines destroyed that planet. Then those machines started evolving past their primary programming and decided to send a signal back to Earth waking Hades, so he could awaken the original machines, destroy Earth and then all the machines meet up on Earth for a jamboree.

It never made it to its destination as far as we know and was lost in route. That's really all the info we have.
 
I dunno about aliens, but we know the company that had bought and finished it had super-advanced tech (at least fifty years ahead of mainstream tech, according to Lis) and were super-secretive. If they had an AI of their own, add to it proto-APOLLO and anything can happen, really.

At the risk of spoiling a William Gibson novel,
the AI + aliens deus ex machina sort of hews to the Neuromancer/Wintermute resolution at the end of Mona Lisa Overdrive
.
 

JoeNut

Member
My assumption on the Odyssey thing was that they made it to whatever planet they were going to, and someone decided to rebuild the Faro machines, or at least something like them. Whatever corrupted the original machines did it again, and those machines destroyed that planet. Then those machines started evolving past their primary programming and decided to send a signal back to Earth waking Hades, so he could awaken the original machines, destroy Earth and then all the machines meet up on Earth for a jamboree.

I'm sure one of the audio things says they didn't make it at all
 
It's really jarring to have to go back to "jump all over these jagged rocks to try and climb a thing if you miss the 'intended' path" design after how amazingly open BOTW is. Horizon grew on me after my initial impressions once I left the Nora area and made my way into the western half of the map (I'd put it around the middle of the 8/10 games on that list), but having to go back to what passed as "good" open world design before BOTW's open navigation and chemistry engine was still pretty hard to deal with. Especially considering that Horizon doesn't really have anything "special" going for it in its open world design besides looking pretty and being moderately well polished.

EDIT: I think my biggest disappointment with the game though isn't the world design (which is passable at best), but the difficulty of the combat. When I managed to kill a Thunderjaw the first time I encountered one without taking so much as a scratch on hard mode, I felt really let down because I expected something that looks like that to kick my fresh out of the Sacred Land butt into next week. The only truly difficult parts in the game are when you're mobbed by several fast moving enemies at once, and even that becomes easy once you raise your fire arrows to a high enough level with modifications to set any small to medium size enemy on fire in 1-2 shots. After that everything that isn't a "large" enemy becomes "set on fire->knock over with R2 while its hopping around->critical->repeat", or if you're too mobbed "set on fire->run around/into bushes if there are some until it wears off->repeat". The few enemies not susceptible to being set on fire usually have some way of killing them quickly that is fun to figure out, but once you do figure it out they quickly become trivial and despite the decent amount of enemy variety you can reduce all enemies in the game to some pretty simple formulas for killing them with a good third of the game still left to go. The game becomes even easier once you get enough resources to just buy as many health potions and blaze as you need to have near infinite healing and explosive power like what's even the point of medicinal herbs after you achieve this?

EDIT 2: lol I made a big complaint post without even meaning to so here's things I did like about the game. The combat is really fun in the second third of the game, when new enemy types start appearing but before you get into a spot where everything becomes trivial. Some of the characters were memorable and well fleshed out. I appreciated how Aloy in the main quest was focused on her own goals and really couldn't care less what the people she was involved with thought of her or what they wanted (her back and forth with Sylens was great), even if that characterization doesn't really mesh with "sidequest Aloy" going out of her way to help every single person she comes across with the most trivial of problems (I got a good laugh when Aloy told the police chief that she didn't have time for him only to immediately help him out). The cauldrons were all pretty great except for the one that pits you against a bunch of regular dudes. The walking around segments in the old bunkers where you piece together what happened to the Old World was my favorite parts of the game, a good "facing down the apocalypse" drama that leaves you with just enough tantalizing tidbits of information each time to drive you forward to the next site. In fact I found just about everything with regards to digging through the Old World technology and solving the mysteries of the machines a lot more interesting than learning about the "modern day" culture, which I felt relied a little too much on cliches and didn't go into enough detail regarding certain things.
The combat is pretty easy except
I got to the Sigma Cauldron last night and since I've only encountered 3 or 4 enemy types, I haven't really upgraded my weapons and am fighting a bellowback that is wrecking me. :(
 
So I got to the big twist, think I'm on the second to last mission and just kind of... stopped. Not sure why. I really need to go back and finish this one, do some side quest cleanup, etc.
 
At the risk of spoiling a William Gibson novel,
the AI + aliens deus ex machina sort of hews to the Neuromancer/Wintermute resolution at the end of Mona Lisa Overdrive
.

Yeah, that would indeed be pretty close. I mean, it's hard not to hit close to stuff Gibson wrote once you start talking about AIs in general, and the open plot of the game,
especially GAIA and its mastermind-esque role, is kinda of a mirror to some stuff you find in the Sprawl Trilogy. I mean, the subroutines like HEPHAESTUS are a fairly close parallel to the Loas.
 
Yeah, that would indeed be pretty close. I mean, it's hard not to hit close to stuff Gibson wrote once you start talking about AIs in general, and the open plot of the game,
especially GAIA and its mastermind-esque role, is kinda of a mirror to some stuff you find in the Sprawl Trilogy. I mean, the subroutines like HEPHAESTUS are a fairly close parallel to the Loas.

A lot of that stuff struck me as being very similar to Shirow's Appleseed, actually, which uses the same classical Greek naming and even has a huge AI run amok called Gaia. (Volume 2, was re-reading it last night for the 100th time.) But the loas are pretty apt, also.

Re: Odyssey failing, I guess I just assume unreliable narrators in this sort of situation, especially after the betrayal of the alphas, the lie about enduring freedom or whatever it was called, Sylens history, etc.
 
Hey guy. I was messing with the time of day in photo mode and when I resumed gameplay, I noticed that time would advance forward when I moved forward and back when I moved back. Is this a glitch or a feature? I can't find a sign of it being a feature. It almost seems like my analog stick is still affecting the slider for TOD.
 
I'm just barrelling through the main quests in Ultra Hard in anticipation of the DLC. I'm not wrong that by the time I reach the end of the story I should be able to buy any machine heart from the vendor in Meridian?
 
I'm just barrelling through the main quests in Ultra Hard in anticipation of the DLC. I'm not wrong that by the time I reach the end of the story I should be able to buy any machine heart from the vendor in Meridian?

Are you on NG+ ? Cause from what i can see from my 100% NG+ Ultra Hard that vendor doesn't sell hearts only a few lens.
 

JeffZero

Purple Drazi
Started this last week. I just reached Meridian and it's bedazzling me. I really like Aloy. I like the world, too. I'm an anthropology major so obviously there are some heavenly elements at work here. I'm... not very good at the combat, usually. I don't play many straight-up action games. I'm getting better, I guess. Sticking to Normal even though Easy is tempting me.

Most of the sidequests aren't good IMO but some of the characters that populate them are worth the hassle. The main quest has been great though. I'm not really all that drawn to farming machines for crafting but I guess I should force myself to do so. Some of the machines out on the road to Meridian are tough as nails though. And I'm not even talking about the really big ones like those Thunderjaws. I haven't even tried those, lol.
 
Started this last week. I just reached Meridian and it's bedazzling me. I really like Aloy. I like the world, too. I'm an anthropology major so obviously there are some heavenly elements at work here. I'm... not very good at the combat, usually. I don't play many straight-up action games. I'm getting better, I guess. Sticking to Normal even though Easy is tempting me.

Most of the sidequests aren't good IMO but some of the characters that populate them are worth the hassle. The main quest has been great though. I'm not really all that drawn to farming machines for crafting but I guess I should force myself to do so. Some of the machines out on the road to Meridian are tough as nails though. And I'm not even talking about the really big ones like those Thunderjaws. I haven't even tried those, lol.

Sounds like the Story mode is tailor-made for you. The main gaming loop is figuring out what machines are vulnerable to which attacks and then crafting/grinding to get that part of your arsenal sorted - if that doesn't appeal, there is no shame in making the encounters more manageable.

I feel the setting and story are worth persisting. It's a beautifully realized world with a plot that builds to a very satisfying conclusion. Don't forget to revisit places and characters as the main quest develops.
 

Davide

Member
I'm finding this to be the toughest game I've played on the PS4, I've never gotten stuck on a game before. Lots of enemies I stand no chance against in the desert and I'm confused whether I'm supposed to be able to fight them yet or run past them. I've been stuck on City of the Sun fighting against the corruptors forever now. Maybe I should be doing more side quests, I just don't feel that interesting in the world. I definitely enjoyed Breath of the Wild far more.

Seriously considering putting the game on easy, something I've never had to do before.
 

HStallion

Now what's the next step in your master plan?
I'm finding this to be the toughest game I've played on the PS4, I've never gotten stuck on a game before. Lots of enemies I stand no chance against in the desert and I'm confused whether I'm supposed to be able to fight them yet or run past them. I've been stuck on City of the Sun fighting against the corruptors forever now. Maybe I should be doing more side quests, I just don't feel that interesting in the world. I definitely enjoyed Breath of the Wild far more.

Seriously considering putting the game on easy, something I've never had to do before.

Do you scan enemies for weak points? Just abuse their elemental weaknesses and if they have heavy weapons attached like the disk launchers on the Thunderjaws then take those out first, many times which can be picked up and used against them. That and abuse your rope and trip casters.
 
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