Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor

[Merusk]

I thought it already had one, since Blinky always chases you. That asshole.

[01101010]

Just got done last night with the first area/map. Prior to finishing the missions here, I systematically eliminated every captain and warchief till only that Ratbag was left. It was so satisfying seeing that army page completely wiped out.

The only thing that peeves me are the mini-cutscenes you get when a Captain spots you and calls you out. Breaks my rhythm completely, especially if I am assdeep in orcs. Everything else is shiny.

[Maven]

My initial experience has been positive. You'll want to have a powerful enough system to run this on at least Medium graphics settings. My system defaulted to Low which made t look like a PS2 game. I have a GeForce 560 Ti, so I could at least get 1920x1200 @ 60fps which is about PS3 or slightly better.

It took a little bit of adjusting to the character and the environment. The camera is *damn* close to the character, and aiming / camera with the gamepad isn't as smooth as I'd like due to acceleration.

Combat is more forgiving than Arkham -- if you do a counter early, the game doesn't penalize you with a broken combo or a miss, so you can spam it when you expect an attack. However, the enemy attacks don't come when I expect them to -- there's about a second delay from Arkham, which isn't terrible, but it is a bit jarring to the flow.

One downside of Arkham is how complex it got late game. So far, that hasn't been a problem. The style of combat is different. I enjoyed Akham's more physical, visceral martial arts combat, but there is something extremely satisfying in the swordplay visuals here.

Nemesis is great. Lots of variety. I was surprised to see some Orcs track me down in Open World and catching me by surprise. I'm waiting for the difficulty to go up.

Only real gripes I have so far is that the Tutorial for Flurry isn't available, and I don't feel an value added from the sheer amount of lore. Story sort of drops you in, with an unbelievable amount of acceptance from Talion of the presence of his Wraith counterpart. Beyond that, things have been good.

How do you do those lightning strikes?

[Merusk]

Just got done last night with the first area/map. Prior to finishing the missions here, I systematically eliminated every captain and warchief till only that Ratbag was left. It was so satisfying seeing that army page completely wiped out.

The only thing that peeves me are the mini-cutscenes you get when a Captain spots you and calls you out. Breaks my rhythm completely, especially if I am assdeep in orcs. Everything else is shiny.

Yeah I had that problem last night.  I'd shadow-killed a patrolling orc to get next to his captain, and right as I was swininging, mandatory interrupt scene.  Ugh.

I haven't been able to wipe-out the army yet, though.  As soon as I get down to 3-4 orcs left it seems some bottom-tier captains are always recruited.

The two most most obnoxious things to happen so far both happened to me last night.

1) Hunting the last warchief left alive, he's patrolling with 2 high-tier captains who are ranged immune. I use the "godmode multi-kill" skill and mid-fight 2-more captains come wandering in.  So there I am trying to kill a warchief and four captains  along with all the orcs that were following them.  I fled, having only killed one of them, who was arrow vulnerable.

2) Captains must have something in their AI routine that warps them across the map if a fight goes on "too long." They're always wandering up on me when I've scouted and made sure nothing was going on.  After finally killing the warchief above, I was engaged with yet another "must melee him" captain when out of nowhere a guy shows up, who I have no information on.  It's like the game said, "oh, this fight's gone on for over a minute, the army's empty so let's promote joe jackass here to a captain since he's wandering up."  

How do you do those lightning strikes?

Which lighting strikes? Flurry?  Hit E to stun, then click fast on the orc while he's got the blue glow. It's a kill if you get through the whole combo. The problem is that in a melee someoene will always need to be parried about the 3-4 swing, stopping you and not having done much damage to the orc.

[Lakov_Sanite]

I bought this a couple days ago due to peer pressure  and I have to say I've been having a blast.

The nemesis system is great and I was doing fine until I died due to poor planning. So this one orc started snowballing until he became a level 22 legendary captain....needless to say I had a vendetta against this guy.  Last night I finally took him down even though he was immune to literally everything and it was so, SO satisfying.

[Mortriden]

Screw you guys, I don't have time for another game... I'm still catching up on DA:O ffs. 

[01101010]

Just got done last night with the first area/map. Prior to finishing the missions here, I systematically eliminated every captain and warchief till only that Ratbag was left. It was so satisfying seeing that army page completely wiped out.

The only thing that peeves me are the mini-cutscenes you get when a Captain spots you and calls you out. Breaks my rhythm completely, especially if I am assdeep in orcs. Everything else is shiny.

Yeah I had that problem last night.  I'd shadow-killed a patrolling orc to get next to his captain, and right as I was swininging, mandatory interrupt scene.  Ugh.

I haven't been able to wipe-out the army yet, though.  As soon as I get down to 3-4 orcs left it seems some bottom-tier captains are always recruited.

The two most most obnoxious things to happen so far both happened to me last night.

1) Hunting the last warchief left alive, he's patrolling with 2 high-tier captains who are ranged immune. I use the "godmode multi-kill" skill and mid-fight 2-more captains come wandering in.  So there I am trying to kill a warchief and four captains  along with all the orcs that were following them.  I fled, having only killed one of them, who was arrow vulnerable.

2) Captains must have something in their AI routine that warps them across the map if a fight goes on "too long." They're always wandering up on me when I've scouted and made sure nothing was going on.  After finally killing the warchief above, I was engaged with yet another "must melee him" captain when out of nowhere a guy shows up, who I have no information on.  It's like the game said, "oh, this fight's gone on for over a minute, the army's empty so let's promote joe jackass here to a captain since he's wandering up."  

I got lucky yesterday. The day before I eliminated all the warchiefs and the row right under them. Yesterday there were 4 duels on my map so I was able to kill 8 straight away, 2 at a time. Shadow strike/execution is a godsend for the runners. Even if immune to range, it still teleports you over to them so they don't escape. I have pin, but that is too much aiming for me on the run and with little to no focus left in the tank - not to mention pin doesn't work on range immune. I think 2 orcs got promoted as I was getting close to killing all the captains, but luckily they were both in the same camp.

Combat master captains are rough going, especially if you can't vault over them with the stun. Fun though. Only drawback is that after I killed my first nemesis early on, I started decapitating every captain so none of them came back. Not that decapping takes them out completely (I don't really know actually), but I haven't had one since 'the Puny' and I went back an forth killing each other early on.

[Merusk]

It seems that decapping and animal kills do take them out for good.  I've several I'd stealth killed, drained or burned to death come back and can't think of a decap. The funniest one was Gorak the Tickler? Laugher?  I dunno. 

He was the first one I saw come back, with an eyepatch or something and how I learned the could be rezzed. He had the misfortune of being susceptible to ranged, so he died again pretty quick.  Two missions later, he jumps me near a wall. I melee with his buddies for a few minutes, climb the wall and kill him.  While I'm collecting the rune from his corpse he spawns right behind me, more machine than orc. 

I laughed out loud to hear a line that went something like, "You thought me dead but I'll have my vengeance now!"   I was full on focus, he didn't even finish the charge to get into melee.

I haven't seen him since, I wish he'd write.

[Sobelius]

It seems that decapping and animal kills do take them out for good.  I've several I'd stealth killed, drained or burned to death come back and can't think of a decap. The funniest one was Gorak the Tickler? Laugher?  I dunno. 

He was the first one I saw come back, with an eyepatch or something and how I learned the could be rezzed. He had the misfortune of being susceptible to ranged, so he died again pretty quick.  Two missions later, he jumps me near a wall. I melee with his buddies for a few minutes, climb the wall and kill him.  While I'm collecting the rune from his corpse he spawns right behind me, more machine than orc. 

I laughed out loud to hear a line that went something like, "You thought me dead but I'll have my vengeance now!"   I was full on focus, he didn't even finish the charge to get into melee.

I haven't seen him since, I wish he'd write.

I'm liking that this game delivers on the idea of players coming away with stories to tell, like yours. It's unique to you. I will never have that exact same scene, even if my scene has some similar elements. It seems these stories are born from a game that knows how to add the variable of 'player behavioral history' into it procedurally generated enemy engine.

Would love to have an orc captain offer me "cake or death?"

[schild]

Fucking pac-man would be better with a nemesis system.

This is a creepy concept. It makes the ghosts bloodthirsty. I don't know if I like that.

[Maven]

Hah, I forgot about Stun. That would make sense.

When does the passive multiplayer Revenge System come into play?

Now that I think about it, the choppiness of UI interactions is something I'd like to see addressed in sequels. Combat's flow, as I mentioned earlier, could be tightened, but the executions and other sword animations are very fluid.

Oh, how do you decap? Random execution? x8 Combat Finisher?

[Pezzle]

Random Orc you have dominated somewhere can get promoted to a captain when time advances.  I did not expect that. 

[Trippy]

Yes you have to decapitate them to keep them from coming back. On the Nemesis screen if they are lying on the ground they have a chance to come back. If in their spot their head is on a spike then they wont (head on spike is on far left side):

[Maven]

I saw that but didn't realize that was happening. Some systems aren't fully explained -- and if that one was, then others (like Flurry) are blink-and-you'll-miss-it tooltips. So Decap is x8 Combat Finisher?

[Trippy]

When does the passive multiplayer Revenge System come into play?

It's random. They will show up as a red box on the map like the other Captain sub-events. If you are just starting out, though, I would avoid those cause you can't get any advance intel on those Captains so you may not have the tools to defeat some of them yet.

Edit: note that you don't need any friends to actually get these -- the game will give you avenge events for random people if you have no friends.

I saw that but didn't realize that was happening. Some systems aren't fully explained -- and if that one was, then others (like Flurry) are blink-and-you'll-miss-it tooltips. So Decap is x8 Combat Finisher?

Yes that's one way to decap. There are other abilities later on that you can get that will make their heads explode.

[Koyasha]

Strange, captains' heads never explode for me and I don't think I've ever had a combat finisher decapitate one, either.  They just wind up getting the few animations that don't decapitate, and when doing a move that would make most heads explode, they just...don't.  It hurts or kills 'em, but the head doesn't explode for me.  The normal orcs' heads explode though.

Not that I have seen many of them come back.  The only one that's done so for me is one I killed with a headshot relatively early on.  Killed him again later on, he hasn't been back since; pretty sure his spot has been replaced now.

[schild]

Oh, man, I'd almost cleared my screen but they were all lying on the ground.

hahahahahahaha I never would've figured that out if I didn't read the thread. Would've assumed <<lore bullshit>> was bringing them back.

[01101010]

It's random. They will show up as a red box on the map like the other Captain sub-events. If you are just starting out, though, I would avoid those cause you can't get any advance intel on those Captains so you may not have the tools to defeat some of them yet.

Edit: note that you don't need any friends to actually get these -- the game will give you avenge events for random people if you have no friends.

Confirming that. I get at least one of these a day and only Yeg is on my PS4 friend's list who I know has the game. I keep getting random people's vengeance missions. If I get to it, I end up taking that target out. Have yet to get killed by one of those missions.

I also like the fact that if you get overwhelmed, you can run away much of the time. I had a few 'tracking' or 'fast runner' captains tail me for quite awhile. I usually tend to head for the nearest herb and heal up and get back to it. I also get that odd thing where I'll be in over my head fighting a captain and not get the beacon orc who gets off the signal. I'll run away and hide and all the sudden that captain is on the other side of the map. And without fail they always taunt my ass for running away - the one even threatened to chop off my feet so I stay and fight. I relieved him of his head shortly there after. Love those guys that die instantly to combat finishers...especially if they talk shit.

And does anyone like the mounted combat? Damn warg (caragore...whatever...) is kind of a pain in the ass to maneuver in tight spots and with a lot of shield carrying orcs. I tend to dismount and have the warg fight alongside me...till I get overzealous and end up killing him too.

[Maven]

Mounted fights are OK. One attack, one Bite, good-bye boss.

[01101010]

Mounted fights are OK. One attack, one Bite, good-bye boss.

As long as they are not enraged by Caragores or a beastmaster that one-shots your mount.

[Phildo]

I got massacred trying to avenge Danny B once.  I will never forgive him.

[Merusk]

Strange, captains' heads never explode for me and I don't think I've ever had a combat finisher decapitate one, either.  They just wind up getting the few animations that don't decapitate, and when doing a move that would make most heads explode, they just...don't.  It hurts or kills 'em, but the head doesn't explode for me.  The normal orcs' heads explode though.

Caps heads explode if you take the skill for head explode on drain and then interrogate them.  Now that I know they don't come back I'm going to start offing the ranged immune guys and keep the stealth & ranged vulnerables off the 'behead him' list.

[Ceryse]

I had a vengeance target kill me once; he was only level 15, but.. turned out to be stealth, ranged and martial immune, had block wraith stun and block jump abilities, poison, quick healing and power attack. His weaknesses were Graugs and guuls.. neither of which were around. Any time he would hit me he'd take off almost 2/3rds of my health, and his attacks required the spacebar to dodge.. and for some reason I suck at using the spacebar prompt for dodging, especially with catagors. I just never time it right and spamming it doesn't seem to work.

If I hadn't had such shitty luck with runes I'd probably have taken him regardless, or been deeper into the game, but I wasn't. Now, I'm been using various runes that give me health back largely because I hate poison. I need my prompts. So, I get ~35% health back on a flurry kill, ~98% chance for 10 health on arrow head shot kills, 38% chance for 5 health on any arrow kill, full health on a captain kill, and some health for head explosion kills. Been a few fights in strongholds where I'm fighting 3-5 captains, tons of orcs, see my health drop low and in relatively quick order I can get myself back to full even if poisoned.

Still hate berserkers though.

[Threash]

Speaking of the IP, why even use it if you are going to change the name of things? They are wargs and cave trolls damnit.

[climbjtree]

Not to sperg about it, but if you look in the appendices they talk about graugs being larger than trolls, and in the timeline they are about to start breeding the two.

I'm sure there's something about caragors in there as well.

[Rasix]

I'm not sure I've died in any game as much as I've died in this.  Always when they work a damn shield guy into the mix. I have to remember to possibly push two buttons? Nope.

I should possibly advance the plot a bit.  There's a lot I seem to be getting locked out of.

[Trippy]

It helps when/if you get the stun on vault ability.

[Sobelius]

I'm not sure I've died in any game as much as I've died in this.  Always when they work a damn shield guy into the mix. I have to remember to possibly push two buttons? Nope.

I should possibly advance the plot a bit.  There's a lot I seem to be getting locked out of.

I've taken the total opposite approach -- have done very little plot advancement. Spending all my time doing missions in the first map and getting as many powers, abilities, and runes before advancing story. I've almost unlocked every power on the first 3 tiers (except the story powers that haven't unlocked yet). Been very satisfying to see that I can play as fully open world as I want to experience almost everything so far -- just now unlocked seeing the warchiefs and haven't gotten the branding ability yet. I've already played 18 hours of the game and really enjoy the side quests, lore, and all the extra stuff. 

If you can get to the state where you unlock Shadow Strike (and Deadly Shadow Strike), it opens up more ways to play.  As for dying a lot, I think it's fully intended to be part of the experience. Really is no shame in running away from a fight -- circle around, find a plant to eat, stealth, come back and gank the fucker that's causing the problem in the fight (usually a spear-thrower in my case).

And is there nothing more aggravating than being low on health, almost having a captain in the green and/or down, and some other captain shows up and one shots you?? Argh!!! Nemesis indeed.

[squirrel]

Just got brand and this became a Urukemon Orc politics simulator. Fucking GoTY.

[lamaros]

Question, as I sill don't have my new pc to play: if the Mao character was an Orc and instead of magic elf powers to control people he just won their loyalty through being awesome / demonstrating he is the alpha male, would there still be the slavery accusations? Is it more from the white guy dynamic than anything else?

[Maven]

10 missions in. All Warchiefs nailed. There have been some interesting moments in the game, but the Captain patterns are starting to become more predictable. At least they aren't hurting for variety of orcs.

I haven't done a Captain over Difficulty 15 ... except for this one Vendetta that had a Lv. 19 Elite Captain. First time I got my ass handed to me. Second time I came charging in on a Chargoras that he was afraid of. He booked from his escorts and became easy prey for grabs and kills.

[Rasix]

I had an elite captain at 20, mostly because he was a damn hunter and had poisoned shots.  That guy killed me an awful lot.  I'd be close to getting him and then, bam, lucky poison shot and down I go.

Once you get the jump stun + combo reduction + shrug off one hit, your power just goes through the roof.

[Paelos]

Last time I saw a fervor like this it was over Skyrim, so I'll probably have to buy this at Christmas.

[Threash]

Early on I had plenty of deaths and several lvl 20 elite captains.  Now it would take an army of berserkers to give me trouble. I just wade in against captains without learning their strengths or weaknesses now to keep it interesting. I actually almost died last night when I jumped in a duel between two captains and the weaker one immediately machine gunned three poisoned bolts right into my gut without any warning.  It put me straight into "finish him" mode but instead of going for the finishing blow he got tackled by the other captain.

[Nija]

Oh I have some stealthy crossbow dipshit in my game that is power 35 now. When I'm low he appears on some fucking watchtower and gets a shot in at me. Never fails.

I'm gritting my teeth right now thinking about him.