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Did I just suck or was Horizon a bit difficult?

K

kvothe

Member
I play a lot of games and I died more than usual in Horizon. I think it's because I'm more used to enemies keeping their distance and giving me more time to heal. By the end of the game I got my mind around it, but I was a little surprised by how difficult I found it off the bat.

Also, I haven't gotten deep into any of the Souls games... I'm betting Souls players found this game a breeze.
 
I died a lot as well. Mostly because, even something that is lower level than you, can kill you pretty quickly, especially in groups. I really dug that about the game.
 
The first couple of hours, stealth and traps are your friends. Once you start getting better weapons and outfits, you can go head to head with the machines, though you still have to be very agile and smart.

I found it to be a nice balance between easy and difficult.

Currently playing on Hard.
 
Once I got into the desert region I started to die more often. If you're not being aware of what's around you and letting yourself get outnumbered you will be dropped pretty quickly.

Of course once you get the special armour the remainder of the game is an absolute cake walk.
 
I played on normal and didn't find it all that difficult.

I have to admit that I spammed fire arrows, so the game would have been much more difficult for me if I didn't keep stopping and crafting fire arrows in the middle of battles.
 
I played on Hard, and yeah the game is hard. It really just requires you to always pay attention. The game can actually be pretty "easy" if you preplan accordingly, but it will absolutely trample you if you run in guns a blazing without a plan.

It's actually part of a neat trend of action games that require quite a bit of thinking, and something that has only really blossomed this gen after Crysis was quietly ignored for a decade. I'll throw HITMAN, MGSV, Horizon, and Bloodborne in the same bucket of "yeah this is an action game, but you are going to be asked to sit down and think about stuff for a bit"

Honestly I love it and hope the trend continues.
 
Nah enemies can hit hard and machine attacks can have more reach than you think, this game keeps on your toes.
 
Sometimes it reminded me of dark souls honestly. Then again the souls attack dodge thing has been adapted by a lot of other games lately too.

Edit: Especially when the machines team up on you damn
 
It's tough at first but once you start getting the skill upgrades it gets a lot easier by the end of the game I could just knock down pretty much anything with the spear heavy attack and then get it while it was on the ground.
 
I'm with you OP. In fact, it ultimately made me quit playing the game because I found the combat model (damage types, arrow types, etc) too cumbersome for my tastes. It felt like encounters took forever and they ultimately got repetitive.
 
You can't play it as an action game early in the game or you'll get wrecked. Unlocking the stealth attack and wearing stealth outfit helps a lot and once you unlock whistle everything will get really easy.

If you go full stealth build, at the end of the game you can run straight to an enemy, slide down and override it to make it fight for you. Or you can slide down and do silent strike then run away then rinse and repeat.
 
It starts off hard but by halfway through it gets fairly easy. Even Stormbirds never really posed much of a threat by the end.
 
I found it fairly easy. Only enemies that really gave me trouble were the Rockbreakers, who were seriously hard. Thunderjaws were disappointingly easy.

Easy or not though, it was always fun fighting those machines.
 
I have also found it more difficult than average action RPGs. Its all about rolling out of the way; if you get hit even once you start depleting valuable healing herbs and when those are finished, so are you!

kvothe said:
Also, I haven't gotten deep into any of the Souls games... I'm betting Souls players found this game a breeze.
Click to expand...

I got the Plat trophy for Bloodborne and Dark Souls 1 and I still found the combat challenging some times.
 
I played on Very Hard and loved the difficulty. The Machines hit hard, even the Watchers. It really adds to just how dangerous the world is at all times. It's a perfect balance of feeling like an unstoppable badass one moment, while getting humbled the next.
 
Make sure you get the bow that fires the "tear" arrows. The game got A LOT easier after I bought that.


kvothe said:
Also, I haven't gotten deep into any of the Souls games... I'm betting Souls players found this game a breeze.
Click to expand...

Lol, what's that got to do with anything? Souls players aren't any type of elite gamer.
 
Don't forget to use rope to tie enemies down if they are large. It just not natural at first because it's such an unusual weapon. The arrow multiplier perk is also very helpful for one shotting enemies in weak points. Don't forget to use the mods on your weapons too. As soon as you have the ability to freeze enemies it also helps a lot as piercing damage is upped sigfinatanly and your don't have to be precise. Played on hard and a vet souls player, got roughed up a bit at the beginning but once I got these things down it was all good.
 
Played on normal, died a dozen times or so.

Had fun despite that, i'd just do another go at things. Game has some of the most solid gameplay in a looong time.
 
The tear arrows were my best friend. Made encounters fun. Rip off a gun. Shoot enemy with their own weapon. Tie it down and hit it with its elemental weakness. Fights are fun if you're using all the weapons. When I got lazy and just used the bow they were boring and long
 
I genuinely struggled for a good bit of it, but when you get to a certain level, you start to control everything else. I'm still afraid of Stormbirds and Rockbreakers to a degree, the former is just intimidating, the latter I struggle getting a read on.
 
Auctopus said:
Make sure you get the bow that fires the "tear" arrows. The game got A LOT easier after I bought that.




Lol, what's that got to do with anything? Souls players aren't any type of elite gamer.
Click to expand...

Souls players by the very nature of the game must be more pesistent to push through the difficulty at first to get the reward later. Nearly all of my friends lack the patience, two of which even returned blood borne because they could not hack it. New combat systems can test a player, I definitely see the connection.
 
Slightly off topic, but Horizon has legitimately one of if not the best "battle systems" of any game I ever played. Really fantastic mix of tight controls, dexterity, preplanning, unpredictability, feedback rewards, combination experimentation, interesting and varied enemies, etc.

Honestly I cannot find a single fault with the machine fighting in Horizon. It's just perfect.
 
sn00zer said:
Slightly off topic, but Horizon has legitimately one of if not the best "battle systems" of any game I ever played. Really fantastic mix of tight controls, dexterity, preplanning, unpredictability, feedback rewards, combination experimentation, interesting and varied enemies, etc.

Honestly I cannot find a single fault with the machine fighting in Horizon. It's just perfect.
Click to expand...

Combat is fun but try Dragon's Dogma maybe? I definitely found the combat a bit more engaging there.
 
Handling and spamming fire arrows go hand in hand. Once you got the Shadow ropecaster, bigger enemies also become a cakewalk, if you tie them down and yous those "tear pulse" arrows to remove weaponery. Or you simply tie them down and override them.
 
Griss said:
I found it fairly easy. Only enemies that really gave me trouble were the Rockbreakers, who were seriously hard. Thunderjaws were disappointingly easy.

Easy or not though, it was always fun fighting those machines.
Click to expand...
Rockbreaker is the worst but once you break its claws it becomes just an angry puppy.
 
I was 20 hours into the game before I discovered tearblast arrows. Encounters suddenly became a lot more manageable afterward.
 
sn00zer said:
Slightly off topic, but Horizon has legitimately one of if not the best "battle systems" of any game I ever played. Really fantastic mix of tight controls, dexterity, preplanning, unpredictability, feedback rewards, combination experimentation, interesting and varied enemies, etc.

Honestly I cannot find a single fault with the machine fighting in Horizon. It's just perfect.
Click to expand...

Agreed.
 
I would say the game was challenging, but not hard on normal. Once you figure out the tactical system and get some weapon variety it becomes pretty easy, but fun as hell to take these beasts apart piece by piece.
 
I suck at lots of games but found Horizon fairly easy on Normal. I guess it just depends on your playstyle. I generally like looking for AI exploits and stuff, and there are definitely plenty of ways to outsmart the AI in Horizon.

You can get mixed up with enemies that are way out of your league from the start though, so learning to pick your fights is important.

Griss said:
I found it fairly easy. Only enemies that really gave me trouble were the Rockbreakers, who were seriously hard. Thunderjaws were disappointingly easy.

Easy or not though, it was always fun fighting those machines.
Click to expand...

Rockbreakers are pretty easy if you just keep your distance. Get about 100 feet away and hide behind a rock and there's not much they can do.
 
Imp the Dimp said:
Combat is fun but try Dragon's Dogma maybe? I definitely found the combat a bit more engaging there.
Click to expand...

Wasn't a fan of what I played. I don't generally like multi-person action games since it feels like attacks do less damage in general since you have 4x as many people
 
Bluecondor said:
I played on normal and didn't find it all that difficult.

I have to admit that I spammed fire arrows, so the game would have been much more difficult for me if I didn't keep stopping and crafting fire arrows in the middle of battles.
Click to expand...


This^^^ Least that's how I find lots of my encounters. Burn em up
 
decent challenge. higher difficulty than most mainstream stuff id say, lower than like a souls, maso-core platformer etc. that said once you understand the systems, agro range, using tear and where to shoot it (certain bots weak spots) the game becomes alot easier. still love the combat, reminds of some of my favorite old shmups wear you break pieces off of enemies and its so satisfying with the sense of weight that destruction adds, plus the great sound effects.
 
Yeah you have to be a bit careful when you start out, but by the end of the game I would just charge straight at a Thunderjaw and completely fuck it up in less like 30 seconds. It had a great arc from feeling very vulnerable to completely badass.
 
tl;dr op sucked

Fqfv2sI.gif
 
Auctopus said:
Lol, what's that got to do with anything? Souls players aren't any type of elite gamer.
Click to expand...

The way enemies get all up on you and the way you regularly have to roll out of their attacks reminds me of Souls combat.

Imp the Dimp said:
Combat is fun but try Dragon's Dogma maybe? I definitely found the combat a bit more engaging there.
Click to expand...

Ah, if this game had more Dragon's Dogma in it, I'd be so pumped. But I could say that for most games.
 
Am I the only who found Horizon too easy ?

I play all of my games in normal mode and had to play Horizon in very hard to feel a bit challenged and even then it was pretty straightforward and I very rarely died.
I basically did every secondary quest and always upgraded my stuff to the max + always carried a full set of health potions and it made it very diffucult to die. I'd use basic strategy to beat the machines (target their vulnerabilities with the approriate weapons/elemental ammo) and just hit them hard on their weakpoints. The human ennemies never posed a threath throughout the whole game
(except maybe the very last mission)
and even the elite ennemies were a breeze to kill.

Horizon is the only game this gen with TLOU that I have played in hard or very hard mode so I'm not very good at videogames. I find it surprising that I'm in the minority here.
 
Mimosa97 said:
Am I the only who found Horizon too easy ?

I play all of my games in normal mode and had to play Horizon in very hard to feel a bit challenged and even then it was pretty straightforward and I very rarely died.
I basically did every secondary quest and always upgraded my stuff to the max + always carried a full set of health potions and it made it very diffucult to die. I'd use basic strategy to beat the machines (target their vulnerabilities with the approriate weapons/elemental ammo) and just hit them hard on their weakpoints. The human ennemies never posed a threath throughout the whole game
(except maybe the very last mission)
and even the elite ennemies were a breeze to kill.

Horizon is the only game this gen with TLOU that I have played in hard or very hard mode so I'm not very good at videogames. I find it surprising that I'm in the minority here.
Click to expand...

Damn, bro. You should sign up for MLG.
 
I'm about 30 hours in, and so far the difficulty has been about perfect. Sometimes I get in over my head and get killed, but for the most part, if I plan things out a bit I can clear everything. Not too easy, but not too difficult.

Now if you really want to talk about what was difficult in Horizon, talk to me about managing resources. How the hell does everybody else manage this without having anxiety? I never know if I should hang on to stuff in case I meet a vendor that wants it, or if I should be selling certain useless things (I figured out to sell the ones that are only for shards of course)?

I've upgraded my carrying capacity to the max (100), and it's not enough. I wish there was a stash or something.
 
I died a fair bit, especially early on before figuring out weakpoints and how to make use of different tools--waited too long to buy a bow with tear arrows etc.

Overall I found it just right on normal. Kept the combat compelling enough that I never got bored and often sought out combat rather than avoiding it, without being frustratingly hard for me like Souls type games that I don't have patience for anymore.
 
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