The game has all these recipes you can discover, many requiring you to buy ingredients, and yet in the end you can just use durians and make strong healing items and not bother with the rest. A recipe book that you have to complete could have been a fun quest to have.
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Joseph Anderson - Breath of the Wild Analysis
- Thread starter nynt9
- Start date
Maybe expecting that level of combat is too much, but just because the game does many other things so well doesn't mean we should accept a flawed combat system. You can have physics and emergent gameplay while still having tighter dodge windows and better damage scaling. None of this is mutually exclusive.
Magic Mushroom
Member
Not saying it couldn't be better but it's still the best and most versatile combat system of any Zelda.
Agreed, it's a vast improvement and a good basis for future installments. Most of what Anderson suggests are basically tweaks. Important ones, sure, but the big overhaul has already been achieved.
You could just use a shock arrow, they'll drop their weapons.
There's no reliable way to obtain elemental arrows though. If there was a system to craft them that would be viable.
I didn't compare it to anything but itself. I encountered a random world enemy, lynel, which isn't even signaled as a boss by the game itself (no boss fanfare of life bar like hinox etc), and it was challenging and interesting to fight. It made me think there was more of this to come, and there wasn't. Ironically no actual boss in the game is as challenging or interesting. The ganon copy bosses are all terrible from a design perspective, all appearing as some kind of samey electrical doohickey stuff (try and remember what each one looks like and how they differ from eachother -- I bet you can't picture it. Their designs are ghastly, which is surprising when set in a game that is generally so artistically strong) and aside from the gerudo ganon none of them even pose enough of a challenge to slightly endanger the player. Two of the ganon bosses I wasn't even hit by once on my first ever attempt. Not even once.
That's not good progression. An interesting game gets more interesting and diverse and challenging as it goes, not less. The world bosses are far more interesting than the ganon bosses, and I generally liked them... But there are only three.
There's plenty of places where you can buy them. I think we're getting a bit too nitpicky here.
I beat Calamity Ganon this morning and I agree. I didn't die even once on any of the "main" bosses (the 4 divine beast ones and Calamity). Feel like they could have ramped up the challenge on them slightly as, as you said, it seems weird that the outdoor "elite" enemies like Lynels are MILES more difficult than any of the "main" bosses.
You're right. Early on I expected to be able to combine arrows with chu jelly to add elemental effects, but that never became possible.
Unlike Lynels, the main bosses aren't optional. Nintendo doesn't want the game to be punishingly difficult to complete.
My wife avoids all Lynels as they are too hard for her to enjoy, and if the main bosses in the game were anywhere near as tough as Silver Lynels, she'd have quit at the first one.
Aldric
Member
What do you mean by "reliable"? They're sold in multiple stores or you could just kill enemies shooting the kind of elemental arrows you want.
Stores have extremely limited stock and high prices, and finding enemies that shoot a particular type of arrow is not trivial, and they provide very small amounts. That's not a reliable method to obtain.
Magic Mushroom
Member
This is a good point. The game is clearly meant to be extremely flexible. You can make it as hard or easy as you want for yourself, you can sequence break etc. This is not a game aimed at a hardcore niche, it's a game aimed at a huge audience with the intention to cater to all tastes. Nintendo always does this. 3D World is not a hard game, unless you want to 100 percent it. Almost everything in BotW is optional, so players can really shape their adventure. For me, the first half of the game was probably the most challenging of any 3D Zelda as I took on Lynels, Hinoxes and Watchers fairly soon and the mobs would sometimes take me out as well.
I'm really interested in what the Hard Mode will be.
I have to say that I'm actually a bit surprised that people struggle with this concept. That's kinda how it is supposed to work.
BotW problem isn't that Ganon is "easy", but rather there doesn't seem to be a big optional boss challange past Lynels out in the world to throw you with all your gear and food at.
The bosses are too easy and not interesting -- In my opinion. A good character or enemy or boss design is memorable. It has a silhouette you can recognize. It's something you can picture in your head after seeing it. I honestly can't remember what any of the gannon shit looks like, including calamity gannon, outside of a bunch of doohickies and Knack looking crap.
I see what you're saying but how can you expect anything but a flat difficulty curve in a game that lets you explore in any direction and accomplish significant tasks wherever you go? They designed each of the dungeons and their boss as if it was your first, because they very well could be. They're all dungeons/bosses you'd expect to encounter early in a traditional Zelda game so it makes sense that bosses are trivial from a challenge point of view. Especially someone who likely spent dozens of hours playing the game already and is familiar enough with the base mechanics.
It all goes back to this quote from Joseph himself:
I think they achieved a fair balance, but you have to approach this game as ending when you feel strong enough to beat Ganon and skip the 'I need to experience everything' mentality in order to get the most out of BotW. That's why the first 40 hours of the game was pure magic for me while I can barely muster enough willpower to go back and beat the last 60 shrines and two divine beasts that remain. The reward for collecting all korok seeds supports this notion as well, that you will enjoy the game more if you stop long before you've seen everything it has to offer.
The designs and fights are indeed pretty terrible, that's a different problem though and has little to do with balance and difficulty.
Which is in line with the survival theme of the game, that you have to make do with what you've got. It provides space for the physics engine to shine by motivating you to think outside the box (or sometimes using a box to kill enemies with lol)
Eventide Island perfectly captures the essence of this. It's brilliant if you ask me
Every other survival game lets you craft weapons and ammo from the resources you can find in the world.
It would be nice? Sure, but I have like 168 shock arrows, and I didn't even bought any of them. It's not like finding those arrows are that big of a pain.
Every other game also has vehicles that gain speed when you hold the acceleration button, but Kirby Air Ride turns that concept on its head and instead your ride has full speed by default and what you do instead is hold the button at the right time to decelerate, allowing you to take corners faster and avoid crashing into the sides.
Point being that you can achieve the same thing through other means. It's counter-intuitive but it changes up the dynamics and sometimes leads to interesting results. This is what some call innovation, while others say it's an unnecessary change for the sake of it. In other words Nintendo in a nutshell.
Same, I didn't really want to say it because everybody has a different experience with this, but I always have 100+ of each type of arrows (minus the Guardian ones). They're really not rare.
Gotdatmoney
Member
You can't craft weapons. Why would you then be able to craft arrows? Especially the elemental ones that are extremely over powered?
Anyway. I would beef with the game as far as difficulty is concerned. It does get easy quick compared to the start. But I would also argue that a lot of this is probably due to lack of enemy type. Variants are okay but the game probably needed double the amount of enemies and stuff like darknuts/iron knuckles in addition to Lynels. Aggressive field enemies.
In the same notion though. The game is mass market and you cant make a game of walking lynel like enemies everywhere. You can't make the main bosses have 4000 hp and as or more aggressive than Lynels.
It definitely could have used something like challenge areas with boosted difficulty though.
Anyway. I would beef with the game as far as difficulty is concerned. It does get easy quick compared to the start. But I would also argue that a lot of this is probably due to lack of enemy type. Variants are okay but the game probably needed double the amount of enemies and stuff like darknuts/iron knuckles in addition to Lynels. Aggressive field enemies.
In the same notion though. The game is mass market and you cant make a game of walking lynel like enemies everywhere. You can't make the main bosses have 4000 hp and as or more aggressive than Lynels.
It definitely could have used something like challenge areas with boosted difficulty though.
What The Forest Taught Me
Member
BotW being as unlike previous Zelda games as it is is part of what makes it great. As far as I'm concerned, in many aspects, this is the way Zelda games should have always been.
What The Forest Taught Me
Member
Well said.
Aldric
Member
l think you're just being difficult. l don't remember how l did it exactly but l actually had 20 shock arrows even before the stealth section with the Lynel in Lanayru prior to entering Vah Ruta. l never ran out of this type of arrows during my playthrough and actually ended up with 400 of them. Never felt like they were particularly hard to come across.
I do really disagree with a lot of what Joseph Anderson says in general. Particularly his complaint about finding bosses too easy after spending 30 hours exploring and getting really good equipment.
This is present in pretty much every open world / RPG game. Any game with an open world where you can choose to do the main quest or go exploring which also includes character progression through equipment / stats etc has this. If you spend ages powering up your character then yes, the main quest is probably going to feel easy at some point - that's your reward for spending 30 hours rooting out good equipment and exploring.
If the game required that 30 hours' worth of equipment to beat the bosses people would give up - it would feel like a grind. If the game scaled the bosses to your power level then collecting the good equipment would feel like a total waste of time and completely unsatisfying. People say "make things scale", but Oblivion showed us why this was a terrible idea. You had rats able to eat hits from massive 2 handed weapons and simple highway robbers running about in the sort of armour that a mighty demon prince, lord of an entire segment of hell himself would be wearing. It was dumb and made the power progression in the game feel unsatisfying.
This is present in pretty much every open world / RPG game. Any game with an open world where you can choose to do the main quest or go exploring which also includes character progression through equipment / stats etc has this. If you spend ages powering up your character then yes, the main quest is probably going to feel easy at some point - that's your reward for spending 30 hours rooting out good equipment and exploring.
If the game required that 30 hours' worth of equipment to beat the bosses people would give up - it would feel like a grind. If the game scaled the bosses to your power level then collecting the good equipment would feel like a total waste of time and completely unsatisfying. People say "make things scale", but Oblivion showed us why this was a terrible idea. You had rats able to eat hits from massive 2 handed weapons and simple highway robbers running about in the sort of armour that a mighty demon prince, lord of an entire segment of hell himself would be wearing. It was dumb and made the power progression in the game feel unsatisfying.
This feels like a thing that you concern yourself about before you play the game, but then when you actually play you soon end up with dozens and then hundreds of shock arrows and wish they were harder to come by.
There's of course no right or wrong way to play this game, but unless one is in the very early stages of the game I'd question the survival- and combat strategies of those who run out of arrows all the time and doesn't have the funds to buy new ones (and/or hasn't discovered enough stores to find a place with them in stock).
Crafting arrows would be cool, but it's not a solution to a problem in my opinion, as I don't think there is a problem.
Pretty spot on, if it scale then what's the point of level up your hearts or anything, if it didn't make boss easy what's the point of grinding or exploring
But you can eat food in every situation definitely make the game super easy, so I think in the HARD mode they will make some adjustment
But, even make the game super easy looks like a terrible idea, it's still a good option for people who didn't good at combat -- like my gf, who really enjoy collecting food, doing side quests or just climbing, she is terrible at combat : )
Just use electric chuchu jellies or the various replenishable (at every Bloom Moon) electric swords/greatswords, they all do the same thing.
They would have to nerf arrows HARD if they were to make them craftable wouldn't they? They have fantastic utility inside and outside of battle and are a instant kill depending on the elemental enemy you fight. I like them as they are where you have to work to do a quest to get them from a steady suppply rather than giving them to you once you find x, x, and x in the wild.
I guess they could let you make weaker elemental arrows like how Red suggested with the chu jelly to mitigate this issue. Actually that brings up one of the few issues this game has, There is no chuck greene duct tape so to speak. No way to simply combine and recombine items and weapons in the inventory.
I guess they could let you make weaker elemental arrows like how Red suggested with the chu jelly to mitigate this issue. Actually that brings up one of the few issues this game has, There is no chuck greene duct tape so to speak. No way to simply combine and recombine items and weapons in the inventory.
marcbret87
Member
Yeah, that is definitely true, the boss fights are fairly bland. Honestly I wouldn't remember what each boss looks like even if my mum's life depended on it.
Regarding challenge, there is always a disonance in most games between the final boss and the optional bosses that are harder. I agree that BoTW should provide a bit more content for the hardcore audience who basically breeze through the game, like Super Mario 3D World did. We might still get that in the form of DLC though.
marcbret87
Member
That is because BoTW is not an easy game at all, but allows you to soften the difficulty of combat if you so wish. The beginning of the game, when pretty much anything can kill you in two hits, is very challenging. Even later on there many enemies which can wipe ten hearts if you don't have appropriate equipment.
Sure, in gaf many people already found how to break the game, but I am sure for the average it is not such an easy experience.
This doesn't reflect my play experience. I never had more than like two dozen of any arrow type beyond basic, and most of the time I had 0-5 of each. Not everyone plays the game the same way.
People praise how the game promotes different play styles by giving you more options, so giving the player the option to make their own arrows can't be a bad thing, no? It's just another option. Seems like you're just defending the arrow system because the game did it this way and there can't possibly be any other alternative.
I remember at some point I have like around 120 normal arrow, and around 250 shock arrow.............
I guess my play style is not use the bow often : P
Always makes me laugh
I usually have around 100 normal arrows at any given time, since I buy them anytime they are available. Shock arrows are also pretty common. I usually have 50+. They drop often. I think they are the most common elemental type.
I do agree the game could have benefited from crafting options.
SocksAndShoes
Banned
The timing on the dodges is definitely an issue. My fiance still hasn't landed a flurry attack after several hours of playtime because it's so wonky.
Game is great but there are definitely some minor issues that could be hammered out.
Game is great but there are definitely some minor issues that could be hammered out.
Maybe I have spent less time in other games where the timing might be different, so I haven't had to break old habits, but I thought the timing for parries and rushes was intuitive and natural.
The idea is that the game strips you of gear so that you are forced to use the things you have readily available for the encounter. Having the choice to consistently get the specific weapon or ammo you prefer to apply it in a given situation goes against the concept of devising plan B on the spot. You are meant to fight the same monsters, but each time under different circumstances. So I first take out the bokoblins that alert others from a distance using arrows, next time I have none left so I look for some other advantage, like for example getting up high and flying onto the tower to kill him that way. If I had the option to craft arrows on a consistent basis without much of a material cost then I would always carry arrows with me and never try alternative strategies because why would I?
It's not about providing options; the systems are there to force creativity from the player, so that the most efficient method of playing the game is to think outside the box. The most obvious flaw to this is that you decide to skip encounters altogether because the reward isn't worth the effort & resources spent. That's why the sequel must do a better job of providing a reason to engage battle with better treasure, or force you to engage by surrounding shrines with enemies like they did with the towers.
Any game that gives you the option to play however you want is bad, you gotta have counter measures to make sure that it is played in the intended manner. For example you can kite a Hinox around and spam it down using bombs, it's actually very easy to do and involves little risk. However, to balance this out the bombs do a miniscule amount of damage so it takes what feels like an hour to down those things, which gives you have an incentive to try other strategies because it benefits you.
Gotdatmoney
Member
I said it before. You can't craft any weapon in this game
Okay technically you can craft 6 but really
I also have no idea how you could play this game and never have more than 25 arrows of any type. You can buy them :/
jim2point0
Banned
Sometimes I feel the same way. But it could just be that I suck at the game. When I watch videos like this, the dodge timing seems consistent and maybe the problem is just me? But then again, I don't have these issues in other games where good dodge timing is required (Soulsborne).
Still haven't made my way through the entire video yet. It's long...