Horizon Zero Dawn

i haven't played HZD yet, but as i understand, the game actually IS inventory management, in large part, the decisions you're talking about. Monster Hunter Rise (the first one I played) was like that, and a lot of games are in general. have you played diablo? the game is about collecting trillions of things and deciding what to wear and what to sell and what to use as crafting components. diablo ended up creating a generation of poopsockers (people who poop in a sock rather than getting up from their computer) and Diablo III was one of the best couch co-op experiences of my life, so the formula seems to work!

but anyway, there are entire websites and guides that are all about which items to keep and which ones to sell

Never played Diablo (how do you poop in a sock?). But yeah, I've seen enough HZD guides and tried to parse them and am still confused. Some sites basically say "don't worry about it there's plenty of xyz." others say to prioritize certain things over others. And yet what I've found in most of these sort of acquisitive games, from Breath of the Wild to Dark Souls, is that I end up not needing or using the vast majority of stuff I accumulate at all. I suppose I can just follow the game's lead and prioritize what it implies I should prioritize. Like when the game tells me to accumulate "blaze," do that. Or when a scan tells me a robot is vulnerable to "ice arrows" (or whatever), know to focus on getting those ingredients.

Right now I would say the focus of HZD is not inventory management but stealth and sneak attacks. But I'm early game and haven't faced anything serious yet. And maybe haven't died yet? I can't remember.

Do you mean mods or crafting resources? If mods, you might not be at a point in the game where you can equip them, but yeah, if you have similar ones but with different stats, sell the ones that have worse stats. If it's crafting resources, some are quest-related, but most of them aren't difficult to come by. You might want to look at https://horizon.fandom.com/wiki/Resources.

Or, if the item description sez it's only used for selling, just sell it.

At the same time, I'd prioritize increasing your carrying capacity, though eventually you'll still be doing inventory management.

You use the metal shards to buy new armor, weapons, and of particular usefulness is this: https://horizon.fandom.com/wiki/Golden_Fast_Travel_Pack

Sounds like I'm early enough in the game that I should just go with the flow, then.

I'm still pretty new to pseudo-open world games, but while this one does look and play like God of War a bit, it's essentially a future-Earth Breath of the Wild, right? One that makes up in plot and "realism" (for what those are worth) what it lacks in creativity and ingenuity? I can see why someone burned out on AAA open world games might not dig this, but I do like it a lot. And everything is easy after a couple of From games.

It came out at the same time as BOTW, but I can't really find the lie here:

One that makes up in plot and "realism" (for what those are worth) what it lacks in creativity and ingenuity?

HZD is forgiving in that you can do the practice challenge areas that open up and get really good at the right techniques to take out certain enemies, or you can grind a bit and kind of power through it once you get nicer gear. On the higher difficulty levels, you have to do a bit of both.

I'm playing on normal, which is fine. I'm just about to talk to Teesa (?) about my mother. A lot of cut scenes early on, which mostly seem to happen when I either have to go to the bathroom or otherwise need to turn off the game and do something else.

I generally like the AI of this game, and the various freedoms you have to approach certain situations - avoid, confront, etc.. But I ran into my first snag at a bandit or cultist or whatever base, where for whatever reason the most obvious solution just was not the most obvious to *me,* and I spent waaaay too long trying to take on these countless enemies (and giant robots) all at once, or one at a time, or trying to race past, and so on. When it turned out to be a sneaky mission that just required me to sneak. What a relief, because it wouldn't have taken me eons to snipe and run everything down to zero.

Ha, I thought I had it figured out and was prepared to play sneaky, but I didn't notice that I had already agitated all the baddies when I paused the game, so when I resumed and went to sneak they busted me pretty quickly. Fortunately I just had to take a few hits on the way to blowing up the thing to trigger the QTE, and presto - mission accomplished.

Got myself some fast travel, though I've got to admit, as with RDR2 or Breath or whatever, just roaming around is part of the fun. However, I assume as I get more powerful it'll be nice to skip some BS. Some of the robots are really tough and not really worth the time, like the Robogators or the DFA birds.

Any updates Josh? Your posts are like methadone while I wait for my sequel fix.

It's great so far. I'm at Meridian, and I've been taking the time to upgrade some stuff. I was taking out a bandit base the other day and it was the first time I ever ran out of material to craft more arrows, which has made me more aware of how I burn through resources. For example, this morning I learned that if you are one arrow short of your max and craft more, it still uses the full amount of resources rather than a proportional amount, so you shouldn't craft until you are out. I've also destroyed a few more new machines, like this giant one and some of the cyber birds; the Robogators remain the toughest. Oh, and I had another epiphany. I just came off a couple of From games, where you upgrade more or less a couple of weapons, but you're constantly finding more in the wild. Here, though, you can just buy whatever you want from a vendor, so no reason to hold off purchasing them. Oh, and I did my first Cauldron, too, which was cool.

Nothing in this game so far has been particularly challenging, but some of the enemies can be tough, and the mechanics take some getting used to. I do think this is sort of my platonic ideal in terms of visuals and gameplay, though. Like, between this, or God of War, or RDR2, I can't imagine anything on PS5 being so dramatically superior. From my limited experience these games are so smooth and cool-looking. And I don't mean that I want every game like this, I just mean for this type of game it's as good as anything I'd want. Like, if someone told me this game came out last week, not five years ago, I'd believe them.

Huh, just now I got attacked by one, maybe two ... invisible robots? With lasers? Wasn't sure what to do about it, but at least I escaped.

That'd be a pack of Stalkers

Gotta get some proximity bombs and tripwires

I think I have some of those. Is the idea that when they find you, you just bunker down and set traps, Predator-style? Or can you always just run away. This was out in the wild when I was on some other mission.

They make a distinctive noise and don't immediately cloak, iirc

You can also shoot them and take out the stealth module

Stalkers were easily my most hated machines in the early game. You can definitely run away from them, but in at least a couple quests/areas you have to kill them.

They were the first machine to take me by surprise. Usually you round a corner or something and think "Oh shit, that's something new!" But these things started attacking me before I knew what was going on.

Just finished a couple of relatively easy Meridian quests, killing some bad guys (very RDR2) and getting a couple of different machine lenses, one of which I had already. Probably time to progress the plot a bit, though I did find another town with a few more side quests and errands, so maybe not.

I took a stealth machine down. I set traps then set off one of their flares, which attracted it to is doom.

One thing I haven't quite determined yet is the advantage of riding a robot from point a to point b over just fast travel. I guess for the scenery? Or if I need to stock up but don't feel like strolling?

I do like overriding them and just watching them fight.

I went on some fun cup quests last night. One of the cups was in an area with sawtooths and a bunch of flamethrower dinos. I recruited a sawtooth as my assistant and it was really a beautiful sight

I'm a little unclear as to "what weapon I should be using" and I'm going to do a google about it

From what I can tell, certain enemies are weak to certain weapon attacks, but in a very specific way. For example, longnecks (iirc) are super weak to shock, and afaict the war bow is enough to take them down, but other animals (like sawtooths or the snapjaws) require the use of specific weapons to weaken them (remove their tanks and armor) and then once you do they're pretty easy to take down with whatever.

My biggest confusion right now is what outfit to buy/wear, or how important it is beyond cosmetics. For example (and you'll appreciate this) I've never noticed armor making much of a difference in From games, aside from very specific situations/goals. Is that true here, too? There are dozens of armor sets at various strengths, for various situations and elemental conditions. And they, like weapons, can all be repeatedly modified. Am I really supposed to be switching back and forth between outfits and modifications as the situation calls?

Google reveals that most players are running with all three bows at all times! makes sense. I got addicted to the tearjerker sharpshot situation once I got it and quickly exhausted my supplies in that regard. Something called an echo pod or something is 90 shards a pop? expensive.

It seems I should upgrade to Shadow from Carja so I'm gonna do that. I haven't been consulting much or at all while playing

some armor has inherent percentages on skills, others have a bunch of slots to slot in the best armor mods you find

you definitely want to walk the upgrade tree (light->medium-> heavy) as they become available. if you’re more into sniping and stealth, stick with projectile protection as a base, if you like melee, etc

iirc the main differences with the different factions is carja have fire resistance and oseram outfits have spark resistance. there are a couple weapons where you end up shocking yourself and the high-end oseram outfit mitigates that when you’re grinding out the weapon upgrades

no spoilers, but it’s worth peeking at a guide to make sure you don’t miss picking up the components that unlock something special

https://horizon.fandom.com/wiki/Ancient_Armory

(Do not click if you want to organically find stuff)

btw Ted Faro was a dick

I think I saw that when I was googling outfits, but if I recall correctly you can't get all the resources to unlock that until towards endgame anyway.

so far where I'm at, stealth is definitely overpowered. Or at least, I have yet to find something that is not better handled with stealth, if possible.

the tear aspect plus the right weapon gets really useful, especially in the Frozen Wilds. hard to take down some armored machines without ripping off some armor

You can't stealth oneshot the big machines, if the game even gives you the stealth attack prompt. With them, you'll have to engage directly.

You absolutely change weapons and outfits constantly, because as mh sez they all offer different advantages. At the same time, I only ever used one bow and was principally a melee attacker, and I completely overlooked several advanced offensive strategies.

And don't be too stingy with your upgrade tree, you can pretty easily unlock all of them if you do enough side quests and play the DLC (which also has the second best armor).

oh, I've totally been filling out the skill tree, those have largely been useful. In terms of weapons and outfits, I've yet to feel at a real disadvantage, but maybe that's just because I don't know what advantage they provide? like, in terms of melee, I can be taken down pretty easy if I attack a bandit camp, but on the other hand, it is me versus like 20 people, so it's no surprise they should be able to take me down. or a powerful enemy at this stage of the game, like a snapjaw, I can't imagine any armor makes that easy.

Long story short, would it behoove me to just spend a session tasking myself with obtaining the best various outfits?

nah, you end up organically getting the necessary things for the most part

Got it. This game is interesting in that it seems like a lot of weapons and outfits are sold by venders pretty early in the game, which makes them tempting.

OK, got a good rhythm going on here. Do a bunch of main quest, do a bunch of side quests and errands, do a side thing like the corruption zones or (as I find them) the cauldrons. Spend some time gathering, selling, crafting, spending. Repeat. Fought a giant underground thing in a side quest but not sure if I did it as designed, kind of an accidental cheese. I suspect I was supposed to blow up the blaze containers, but I just hid around a corner and kept shooting arrows as it appeared.

(Reviews of the new one I've skimmed predictably skew "more of the same, but even more, which is mostly great, except when it's not!", like they want to rave but feel maybe self-conscious about doing so?)

I've seen some raves and also some measured "more of the same but MORE," which is entirely fine with me as I'm in it for the story as much as anything else.

I have grown to love this game. For the first ten hours or so I wasn't sure, and I read those articles that were like "here's what you need to do, beginners" and none of them gave me the actual goods:

1. Kill enough wildlife to upgrade your resource storage so it's not a constant concern
2. Get the shadow bows

There is a rare thing happening here where I'm finding a use for almost all of the play functions. Between a hunter bow, war bow, sharpshot bow and a trip caster, I'm finding all weapons useful. Stealth is useful in certain contexts, resistance potions are a must in others, overriding certain key enemies is useful. I'm so used to having SOME aspect of play be redundant to my build and it's pretty magnificent feeling like "a full arsenal" is being used at all times

Yeah, I just took down my second cauldron, and I appreciated getting to use all (well, a lot) of my arsenal to make things easier. I felt very Home Alone as I set a bunch of traps and wires and got into position for whatever epic fight was in store. Haven't used or needed to use any resistance potions yet, at least not in purpose. I think I applied one mistakenly before the fight, but don't know which one. It was yellow.

I stalled out on this game early but the robot creatures with specific vulnerabilities do seem like a good way of making you use all the different tools? Sort of the opposite of the Dark Souls approach where there are a bunch of different ways to do damage, but it's all damage, and you pick the one that works best for you.

I do wish the weapon wheel slots could be expanded, though.

I don't know if stuff escalates as you level up, or just based on story progression or map region, but I was playing yesterday and trying to finish the tutorial for the shadow ropemaster (or whatever), which entailed getting the heart of a Robogator, when things got messy. First, I was not sure of the parameters of the quest: was I supposed to tie down the Robogator then carve out its robo heart? Unclear what I needed the ropemaster for. But as I wore down the robot (one of the tougher enemies) I was suddenly attacked by *two* other angry Robogators, and then as I retreated I was attacked by a wave of bandits, who at first I thought were allies until I noticed they were yelling and shooting at *me*. All of this while Robobirds circled (don't know why they didn't attack, too). Burned through a ton of resources just to get out of there, killing what I could.

Anyway, did kill two Robogators, but neither gave me a heart, so no idea what I did wrong, or even if I did. Regardless, it was all pretty tough, all at once!

this seems extremely BOTW-adjacent, i sunk 250+ hours into that and am plain burned out on the idea of an open world right now. i've had this saved on my PS for a long time, even did the tutorial twice without going much further. is this different enough from BOTW to pique my fancy? something about not just an open world, but a focus on inventory management and even mechanical monsters, ehh, i'm just a little offput

It's not quite as thorough as BOTW. That is, you can just play in BOTW as a sort of sandbox for long stretches, or riff on various mechanics, or try new things or whatever, if that's your thing, and this one isn't quite that, or at least those sorts of play style avenues are more limited. I stand by my initial assessment that this is like a less novel BOTW with better graphics, plot and characters/characterization, and if those things don't matter to you than it might seem a step down. Personally, I like how the plot is being driven, and Aloy as a character is a million times more interesting (as such) than Link on BOTW, even though I consider BOTW the better game, so ymmv. Like, BOTW truly felt like an open world (despite its obvious constraints). This one seems like more of the conventional AAA sorta open worlds that I've played, like God of War or RDR2, where it's less "OK, what do I do next?" and more a directed "I know what's next, but I'm going to do this other thing first." But again, I think that's probably because it has a narrative plot and afaict BOTW doesn't. \

Fwiw inventory management in this is nbd, no worse than weapon degradation in BOTW. I do think the mechanical monster are cool. Weren't there mechanical monsters in Zelda? It's really no different from that. Things you have to fight, things you can opt to avoid, different ways to fight different things, etc.

Lol

I was doing some booze errand and saw a vantage marking nearby so I went toward it

Ran into some stalkers! ok that’s fine, I corrupted them against each other

Oh no! some glinthawks in the middle of nowhere. Strange but dealt with

Then a holy stormbird? why? I exhausted myself but dealt with it, freezing then damage is a good way to butter a bread

And I get the vantage and move forward, curious, and stumble upon some epic ruins, start to intrude, and seemingly arrive at a dead end

A Google later, I find that I’ve preemptively discovered the Gaia Ruin and they are inhibiting my progress by withholding a necessary ladder until the mission is actually activated. Dang!

I tried a glitchy jump trick but it seemed far fetched so I left

I'm at the Olin excavation mission (which I'd forgotten about), with two corrupters and some cultists, and it's kind of kicking my ass, which makes me think I'm doing it wrong.

That’s a good one to do with 90% hiding and sniping iirc

Yeah, that's how I ultimately did it. I got to higher ground and just worked from there. Same with a recent corruption zone, the baddies just couldn't reach me where I was (though at the same time sometimes my bow can't reach them). Speaking of corruption zone, I was working my way through that one when a couple of glinthawks swooped in and killed the last robot for me! Aside from Aloy messing with them, what makes the robots fight each other?

And speaking of robots, I was wandering around on the map when I encountered my first roaming giant T. Rex super robot (Thunderjaw?), which I steadfastly avoided.

I ended up doing the jump glitch and I got the filthy armour early

Something I realized kinda only recently was how the fill gauges work with status ailments on enemies, that you only need to needle with fire arrows until the robot is on fire, that you only need to needle with freeze arrows until the robot is frozen, then switch to normal damage and so forth.

The only enemy I've genuinely struggled with was the first free-roaming Deathfucker. I died five times before reading up and 'getting' how overheating works etc. etc. then beat him immediately

oh my second playthrough I think I took out the first deathfucker (which is damaged iirc) in something like thirty seconds!

the one in the big warehouse space was more of a pain

Oh? I went to The Cut long before I needed to go to Grave Hoard.

I was playing this game a lot, like four hours a day, last week, and I wanted to get more work done than I was doing, and I saw Elden Ring's release date approaching, so I rented a car and drove away from my apartment and the PS5 so I could work remotely until I got caught up haha

lmao

I thought you were going to say that you rented a car and took your PS5 with you to another more isolated place to just bunker down and finish the game in preparation for Elden Ring.

The number of people I saw posting on forums about how they were getting caught up on their work in February so they could spend March in a gaming vortex was... many. I myself do not have that luxury! Hopefully I'll get a "vacation" later in March

i will never “get caught up on my work”

Rent a car, drive your PS5 to a distant & secure location, return home to work.

Usually I feel guilty if I use my limited free time to play games instead of working on music, so I'm pleased to report that I actually finished the premasters for an EP yesterday. Thanks to Miyazaki for the deadline

Took down my first full power Deathbringer. It was pretty tough, at least until I figured out what to do. The cautious player that I am, it really gives me some anxiety to spend so much time building up an arsenal that it feels like you have to use up entirely on one enemy/boss. Though of course that's an exaggeration, since at least on "normal" setting this game really throws resources at you.

I had to do some googling to bring down my first (the one in the hangar). Didn't quite understand the overheating mechanic! now I do and they're not hard. I struggle most with Stormbirds

I finished my final cauldron, the bandit-heavy one, which was a lot of fun. I liked not knowing how to get out, and how they kept throwing new challenges at me, especially the invisible robots, which are uniquely challenging (though not difficult). I love scanning the area for enemies, tagging a couple of bandits, and then hearing a shout and next thing I know the bandits are dead. I wasn't really paying attention, but I saw the red flare traps and realized, ah, invisible robot cats! And then I had to figure out how many there were, which is a good habit to keep, because the next stage had three of 'em. No problem for me, What *is* a problem is that I've somehow ended up with close to 10,000 shards and have no idea what to do with them. I've been wearing the heavy stealth outfit for 95% of the game, and so far I see no reason to change. No idea what else to spend shards on.

Took some of the tips in this thread about using multiple weapons in conjunction during tough fights and had a blast.

I tried a couple of the hunter trials (in HZD), and they were certainly tough, but I appreciated how a couple of them explicitly required the use of multiple weapons.

Just hit the massive (mandatory) exposition dump section of the game. Some good sci-fi plotting/twists, imo. I must be close to the end of the game, but I keep bumping into sidequests, which is always awkward from an emotional investment standpoint. "You are the only one that can save us from extinction! We've got no time to waste!" (five minutes later) "Can you please help me get medicine for my sick cat?"

Getting that cat medicine is a critical experience building endeavor that will only help Aloy save the world though!

You never know in this game. Some of the side quests have been pretty neat/fun.

I really liked how this game's plot unfolded. Some real emotional moments! I didn't win it yet and haven't spoilered myself about the ending

I'm super impressed by how these AAA games deliver plot. It's a neat trick, when done well, considering everyone is playing them at different speeds, or in different ways. Movies and books generally adhere to a certain rhythm and structure, but games prove even more than some of the loosest of the former that you can stretch and disrupt the rhythm of your story all you want as long as the story beats drop somewhere, eventually, in some semblance or order. Some people might hit a huge story beat a couple of hours in, others might not hit it for 10 hours. It's kind of like a cross between the staggered narrative of fiction (another format we typically pick up and put down over the course of weeks) and the more condensed nature of cinema.

I came across a random side quest with a weirdo who drinks robot blood. After I got him the required blood, he has a vision of ... "Horizon Zero West"?

love that dude

I think I just got the final power cell, and if I didn't I must have missed an earlier one somewhere ...

OK, got my super armor (sneaky to put one back in the very first location) and I think am primed for the final/end battle of the game, but instead I decided to start the DLC. I think I read something saying that while it doesn't matter whether or not you do the DLC before or after the main game (the game I guess adjusts accordingly), the writer of the story recommended doing it before you finish the main quest. I did find that kind of surprising, because even leveled up well above its suggested start number that first enemy (demonic scorcher?) was *hard*. In fact, even though I destroyed it, I suspect it's mostly there as a warning and that you're meant to find a way past it rather than fight it. Sort of like sneaking back through your homeland toward the end of the game, which is full of tough enemies you can fight if you want but you're probably better off avoiding, unless you just want the challenge and/or XP.

Frozen Wilds is definitely harder than the base game, but I am also better armed and leveled up, which means the enemies aren't *that* hard, they just take tons of your ammunition, which for the first time I sometimes run out of. Anyway, glad I am doing this now and not after the main game, since I think it would be a let down.

Ok, finished frozen wilds and the main game. Really well done! Looked great, fun to play, great writing with nice emotional beats. I wonder if there is a different path to writing these things than there is to writing a movie, for example. They hit many of the same standard emotional /plot marks, but games parcel them out at a totally different pace. Anyway, good job, people that made this game. Look forward to playing the sequel in a year or so.