Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor

[Trippy]

You'll get it later as you advance the story. It basically makes the branded orc fight for you.

[Cyrrex]

But...I don't want to advance the story.

[Trippy]

That's cool.

[lamaros]

Advancing the story killed my interest in the game.

[Fabricated]

The story is really bad but it unlocks funner abilities. I'll probably do the thing where you brand all of the orcs, level them up to 20, then make them all be a warchief's bodyguard so you can explode all of them at once thing to get a mess of epic runes.

[Azazel]

But...I don't want to advance the story.

Make sure you at least open up the second area. You can still go back and forth, and you'll have twice the space to roam and more variety in your playground that way.

[Cyrrex]

I actually just did unlock it yesterday I think (I stopped playing after some blonde chick told me her queen wanted to meet with me?).  Anyway, it was a throwaway comment meant to imply that I rather like the open world parts of this game.  The story is fine, but I only care about it in terms of how it gives me tasks I need to accomplish scattered among the other useless stuff I am spending time on.  16 hours of game time to unlock the second area, I guess.

[Maven]

For some reason, I felt like adding a second, isolated area was a net detriment to the enjoyment of the game and Nemesis. If I reasoned it out, it has to do with two worlds, two different battlefields that aren't connected to one another meaningfully.

More landscape is good! But the coastal environment didn't feel all that appropriate to the spirit of the game. Just an observation.

[Azazel]

I read a write-up on it awhile back where the devs/writers talked about it being an earlier time in Mordor before the return of Sauron was fully complete, and that the second area around the Sea of Nurnen (which is an inland sea) is essentially "the breadbasket" of Mordor - ie an area with fertile land, not yet corrupted where all those Orcs' food is harvested from and not yet (re)corrupted. The first area is next to The Black Gate, which is quite a way away.


Also, I don't really understand what you mean by "the spirit of the game" or the different landscape being less appropriate - it showed both how Mordor as a land was, and where it was heading - nor do I see how it affects the Nemesis system at all. Not to mention the simple aesthetics of endlessly-brown games being fucking boring to look at.

[Phildo]

I found it kind of nice to have an explanation as to how that massive army of orcs was able to feed itself beyond cannibalizing everything it came across.  The movies always made them feel kind of unsustainable even over a short period.

[Maven]

I can't describe it, so let's see if I can reason it out. Once the game shifted to the new map it felt like too much of a tonal shift. I enjoyed the new environments, but some part of me said "OK, time to wrap this game up."

It had more complicated, better fortresses. More complex than the previous region. There were clear positives to the area. Maybe after exploring the first area and having that shrinkage effect where you realize the world is smaller and your power level and experience give you a sense of impunity before the Orcs, you take that to a new area and those feelings are still intact. I felt like I "knew" the game at that point.

This is only my personal experience, and I'm an experienced player of these type of games. It could simply be an effect of the game being more known by the time you hit the second area.

[Fabricated]

Only thing that annoyed me was having to spend 10 minutes running around unlocking all of the forge towers, and the fact that I'd have to spend a bunch of time gathering intel on an entirely new unknown batch of like 2-3 dozen Uruks.

[Maven]

Yeah that was pretty bad. I was going through the paces doing something I felt I needed to do rather than something I was interested in doing.

[Azazel]

I think most of us here are pretty experienced with this sort of game. It's not a forum full of 12-year-olds, after all. You are correct in that we all "knew" the game by that point and that it was very much exactly more of the same, with nothing new really added in (except riding Graugs). Some new enemy types or something would have been welcome, but I guess they had a large variety of orc appearances from the start, and it would have made no sense to be assassinating bands of, say, Black Numenorians in Nurnen.

[Morfiend]

I think most of us here are pretty experienced with this sort of game. It's not a forum full of 12-year-olds, after all. You are correct in that we all "knew" the game by that point and that it was very much exactly more of the same, with nothing new really added in (except riding Graugs). Some new enemy types or something would have been welcome, but I guess they had a large variety of orc appearances from the start, and it would have made no sense to be assassinating bands of, say, Black Numenorians in Nurnen.

I noticed that a lot of the little graphical effects on the uruks got much more varied in the second act. It wasnt a big slap in the face of "NEW STUFF" but there is a very subtle "more badassness" to the uruks.

[Azazel]

Yeah, "glowy swords" of various types and such were a lot more common in the second act.

[Venkman]

Most of my favorite powers only come on in the second area and I thought the whole branding element added a new dimension of play. I suppose you could speed-run it by branding the minimum Uruk you need to five the five Warchief need. But I ended up branding what feels like most of the place and seeing how it affected each side mission differently.

Actually, that makes me wonder: I think someone confirmed it's impossible to kill all the Uruk because they'll just keep spawning. But is it possible to brand 100% of the Uruk? Or do escaped warg thin their ranks enough to cause new unbranded Uruk to spawn?

I'd love to figure it out myself but I just don't got that kind of time anymore

[craan]

I spent some minutes in one of the orc forts after the alarm had gone up.  I wanted to see if the spawning stopped or increased over time or more powerful orcs showed up or what.

The pattern just seemed to be a big wave of orcs comes at you at once, with steady stream of reinforcements over time.  After a few minutes if I killed most of them quick enough, the survivors would flee to somewhere in the fort.  And while the alarm would still be flashing, no orcs would be visible.  I guess like being in the eye of a hurricane.  After a bit, another wave of orcs (15-ish?) would arrive and I'd go again.

I got really bored after about 30 minutes so maybe more interesting stuff happens if you can grind it out longer.  I didn't notice any differences in the pattern I mentioned except maybe more orc archers would be in one wave and another wave would have a lot of spear/shield orcs.  The number of orcs coming didn't seem to increase and no captains showed up.

[Venkman]

Ha, sounded like you stepped a loop in the Matrix

[Ginaz]

FYI, this is on sale now with a bunch of DLC for $15.

http://www.bundlestars.com/all-bundles/middle-earth-shadow-of-mordor-bundle/

[Lucas]

FYI, this is on sale now with a bunch of DLC for $15.

http://www.bundlestars.com/all-bundles/middle-earth-shadow-of-mordor-bundle/

Awesome, thanks for the heads-up! :)

[satael]

FYI, this is on sale now with a bunch of DLC for $15.

http://www.bundlestars.com/all-bundles/middle-earth-shadow-of-mordor-bundle/

Somehow $15 translates to €15.49 ($17.42) 

[Lucas]

FYI, this is on sale now with a bunch of DLC for $15.

http://www.bundlestars.com/all-bundles/middle-earth-shadow-of-mordor-bundle/

Awesome, thanks for the heads-up! :)

..... 42GB ??

[Khaldun]

It's funny...I can't think of a game where my desire to play it stopped so totally hard but where I have no ill will for it as a result. It felt like the perfect case of "that was fun, thanks, I will now forget this completely." Even the Assassin's Creed pirate game that clearly influenced it stuck with me more.

[Segoris]

I was the same way, I loved this game but I don't miss it since finishing it. I chalked that up to a lack of challenge. You need to create your own challenge (quasi-hardcore mode, etc). That helped but still not enough.

[KallDrexx]

So I just got this game for PS4, and I feel like I am missing something, especially with the praise I've read all around (not just on f13).

The controls seem extremely clumsy, I don't remember any assassins creed or batman game feeling this difficult to control.  The camera seems terrible so far and while I understand that we are in Mordor and everything should be doomish it seems extremely hard for me to pick out the Uruks from the scenery since everything is so freaking brown.

Trying to kill the first few captains I've attempted has been an episode in frustration as it's impossible to focus on one captain due to a swarm of bodyguards forcing me to counter them more than attack the captain himself.  Then when the captain is downed and I can use a finisher on him the combat always seems to push me out to a bodyguard that's 20 feet away instead of moving me towards the captain like I actually want.  Then when the captain is almost dead It's almost inevitable that I get aggroed by literally 2 more captain packs at the same time making the swarm of people I'm fighting up to 20 or so and I eventually die.  There are runes I had to leave all over the place because when I killed a captain I had to flee due to aggro packs.

Same thing inevitably happens on missions.  It tells me to assassinate this uruk with his 5 body guards, but the half the time I get aggro-ed by a captain pack who I didn't even notice that just happened to walk around the corner.

So I go around gaining intel on captains.   Captain X is apparently weak to range attacks, except I run out of elven shots before he dies so I either have to get in the middle of the swarm to fight him or he starts a retreat, which I have no desire to chase due to the likleyhood of me aggroing another captain pack.  Another captain is insta kill with stealth, yet he's surrounded by bodyguards so I'm not even sure how that's supposed to be possible.

I've never felt more like I"m missing something fundamental about a game before. 

[Segoris]

Besides a possibly wonky targeting on the console, the only issue that sounds like it's on the fault of the game is the brown. That is true primarily in the beginning when most of the terrain is brown, but that part gets much better later on when you're in green grass as opposed to brown dirt. I actually really liked the controls on this for PC compared to AC (which I thought was horrible both for controls and as a game in general).

As for issues with killing captains and what not:
-IIRC, you can take out bodyguards first, or just assassinate the captain/chief/whatever.
-Change strategies. Maybe release some caragors, try headshotting some bodyguards then running away to come back later and headshot someone else, etc. There are usually alternate methods to take out most enemies (like poisoning food).
-Use stealth whenever possible, unless you're trying to kill orcs in a specific way. As long as they don't say immune to stealth kills from your intel then attacking from the roofs make easy work of a target
-Aggro from a different pack is just an awareness issue. It happens, but usually you can check your surroundings and look for them (abuse the hell out of wraith mode which allows you to see enemies through rocks and walls)
-Check your runes, sometimes changing those helps
-For some counters, sometimes it's best to just go level up and spec in to some ability, then come back later with a stronger counter or stronger attacks/counters.

That's pretty much it for this game. As for runes you had to leave behind, you can always go back to grab the rune and then run away as the orcs will stop following at some point. Unless the console de-spawns them semi-quickly.

[Kail]

Just beat this last night, and it's definitely one of those games with a very flat difficulty curve but a high skill curve (meaning you feel way more skilled at the end than the beginning, not that it will take you years to master or anything), meaning you'll get flattened at first but towards the end of the game pretty much nothing can touch you.  I was hunting ghuls last night and read they only come out at night, so to pass the time I set off the alarm in an orc stronghold and murdered everyone for like ten minutes straight, they never even came close to killing me.  Early game, I was getting completely destroyed by the same stuff you're complaining about (fighting one captain, another one comes along, etc).  Late game it throws my "nemesis" at me, it's this hilariously weak guy from the first hour or so of gameplay who killed me twice early on before I wrecked him a few times, because I never died to anyone later than about halfway through the game.

To add to what Segoris said, this is a pretty tricky game compared to something like Assassin's Creed, you don't just run in and wail away on people with the knowledge that you'll be able to counter any attack anyone throws at you (I could never reliably dodge those spacebar moves).  Getting the lay of the land with wraith vision (captains stand out in red, you can zoom in if you spot one to see if you know who it is) is surprisingly important.  I was constantly spamming that dodge / vault move to get a better position (it keeps your combo multiplier live, it just doesn't add to it).  Finishing moves are your damage dealers, regular moves are mostly just for building combo points to do fiinishers.  Once you start getting in to those specialized orcs (shield guys and so on) I generally found it easier to go in to arrow mode and snipe them, even from point blank, than kill them however the game thinks you're "supposed" to do it (one headshot instantly kills any non-captain orc, even the shield guys).

As Segoris says, stealth is important, but it's also really easy since orcs are goddamn stupid in this game.  You can literally sneak right up to one in plain sight in the open and stealth kill him before he's finished his "I've noticed you" animation.  What helped me early on was realizing how easy it is to evade them by climbing, they have huge trouble keeping anything above them in sight and cannot climb to follow you.  Also, a lot of environmental stuff is really helpful if you arrow it.  Those hanging bits of bait attract caragors, the wasps nests cause nearby orcs to get scared, one thing it took me forever to realize is that you can arrow the campfires and they explode, which takes out pretty much all the orcs standing around it.  All this stuff is easier to spot in wraith vision, so I was abusing that pretty heavily in the late game.

I did notice some wonky movement, Talion getting hung up on ankle high stones and things, and it's damn near impossible to hit anything specific in melee, but I still thought it was pretty great.

[Merusk]

Certain runes and power abilities really made a difference in this game. Early on you had to really be stealthy and plan a lot, (so yes, Wraith-sight everything) but by the time I hit the 2nd map I was able to charge in and destroy whole orc patrols AND the adds the called in. The only real difficulty came in strongholds if I let someone get the alarm off or if one of those damn troll things jumped-in or you had more than a few Captains in a fight.

[Maledict]

this is one of those games that looks worse and worse the further away from it I get, and I was pretty dissapointed at the time.

The combat system is easily the worse in any AAA game I've played in years. It's impossible to die if you just mash jump.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AV9W2ZdmjU

It's a badly designed game, poorly implemented, that follows the exact same formula that we've been critiscing in Ubisoft open world games for years but somehow manages to make it worse by adding in extra brown and a truly awful combat system. The only redeeming feature was the interesting Nemesis system - which relies on you playing badly to actually do anything.

[KallDrexx]

lol wow.  So essentially I just kept dying cause I was fighting trying to control and direct combat instead of letting the game fight itself....  That explains a lot.

[brellium]

lol wow.  So essentially I just kept dying cause I was fighting trying to control and direct combat instead of letting the game fight itself....  That explains a lot.

It's a decent enough murder sim, I never said it was an engaging murder sim.

[Kail]

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6AV9W2ZdmjU

God, that's painful to watch.  "Here's me hitting F, I hit F again, watch me hit F, what a stupid game I can hit F in it and kill an orc."  Yeah, I get it, there are pre-canned animations on your finishers and you took all the skills that gave you more finishers.  I guess that's shocking that it helps in combat.  A decent player on a character with max tier abilities fighting common enemies is not going to run in to much difficulty.  Was he seriously expecting the game devs to put in an area where going in just flat out kills you, or what?  He's not really fucking up, he's blowing every skill he has and firing off executions and counters constantly and he's surprised when the game doesn't just straight up murder him for being there?

The spacebar thing isn't really a huge issue because it doesn't win you fights, it just stalls everything.  I guess enemies can kill each other with missed shots over time, but I'd be pretty surprised if they didn't repop faster than they died if you stuck to that.

I mean, I'm not saying the game is difficult, but holy shit.  The amount of whine in that video was off the charts.  His one complaint, as far as I can tell, is that enemies can't hit you when you're in the middle of a finisher or dodge roll, and from there he goes on this massive tirade about how there is no skill curve, unrelated to anything happening on the screen.  Like, look at the forums for this game some time, new players are getting wrecked by this shit.  Hell, look up thread here.  It's not something that people get the instant they pick up the game, you have to learn it and once you DO learn it then you can win.  That's a skill curve.  It's not something you need to meditate on top of a mountain for ten years to master, but it's not "durr, I push F to kill the orc" either.  Jesus.

[KallDrexx]

The problem is that once you get how the combat system works, it becomes dumb, which to me was the core of his complaint.

I played more and now I don't die.  Why? because I just said fuck it and let combat play itself.  Just keep massing attack until I see a triangle, hit block then proceed to keep hitting attack again until I see another triangle icon.  I litterally have to do nothing but that and everything dies.  I don't have to press any movement keys at all, in fact doing so is bad.  I don't even need to do any stuns or flurries to survive. 

So why was I dying before?  Because I kept trying to actually direct combat.  I kept trying to execution downed enemies which is extremely difficult for some reason with the control scheme.  I was trying to attack specific enemies which was not working out and stalled out attacks enough for people to hit me.  It literally plays itself except for the two buttons, and trying to be more proactive in combat gets me killed more than just letting the game kill things for me. 

That's the problem, at least in the early stages.  I imagine directed combat becomes easier as you get more abilities.

And yes, I understand it's just using Batman's combat system.  The difference is that Batman had a really good story (at least Asylum and City) and they never bombarded you with swarms of enemies, and for whatever reason I feel like they gave you enemies that you culdn't just press square to win the whole time.  They also paced out enemies in between puzzles and platforming to make it not feel like you were doing nothing the whole game but pressing 2 keys. 

[Kail]

And yes, I understand it's just using Batman's combat system.  The difference is that Batman had a really good story (at least Asylum and City) and they never bombarded you with swarms of enemies, and for whatever reason I feel like they gave you enemies that you culdn't just press square to win the whole time.

Those do come later, they just don't throw them in at first (I found the shield orcs to be a real pain).  Right now you're fighting the Shadow of Mordor equivalent of Goombas, but stuff does get a bit trickier at least.

I actually really liked the difficulty curve of this game. It definitely could have used a bit more punch at the end (the bosses especially, WTF was that lazy ass final mission) but it was nice to have a game that got easier as I got better, rather than artificially ramping up the bullshit so that your progression doesn't matter.  It gives players a lot of control over their own difficulty, I found.  You can level yourself up to be stupidly powerful and keep the orcs really weak, or you can keep away from the overpowered skills and cultivate some really strong captains if you want.  Seemed like a more organic system than just asking a player "do you want easy medium or hard" before they've even had a chance to play the game.