Middle Earth: Shadow of Mordor

[Trippy]

So I've got one Warchief left, and I've done Ratbag's Warchief as well - which opened up another mission - with a yellow fist icon. So I assume I'm not far from the second area now. I have a couple of questions:

1) Can you come back to this initial map?

Yes. You can move between the maps freely after the gate is unlocked.

2) I need to kill bats. I can't find the cave where there were a ton of them, though - and I've done laps of the whole map.

I shot my first set of bats from the outside. You just need to look up a lot. They do seem to be in the air closer to the edges of the map where there are caves, though.

3) I've killed everything except for that last warchief. Most of my runes are around level 8-12. Should I be levelling the captains up higher and then hunting them down for higher level runes? What level is good/realistic/etc

If you want the epic runes you can wait till you get the death threat ability. That increases the chance those will drop. It also powers up the Captain.

Also, will the mission or killing the final warchief move me to the next map? I want to make sure I get to do everything if possible before moving to the next map.

Spoiler the answers if need be.

There's a yellow mission that will appear after you finish the war chief series. You can stay on the first map as long as you want without advancing the story by avoiding that mission.

[Phildo]

I feel like the cave with the bats was in the top right corner, but I'm not positive.

Higher level runes aren't really that much better, the increments tend to be 1% / level, so a better reason to level up the captains is to make them more challenging.

[Ruvaldt]

There is a cave with bats just southwest of the forge tower in Udun Crossing.  You can shoot three easy while walking up to the cave entrance as they start flying away.

[Azazel]

Thanks guys - and it seems I forgot one of the most important questions - does the game still generate captains after you kill all of the warchiefs?

[Merusk]

Yep. The Captains get promoted to warchiefs in time.

You're a killing machine, but you can't kill all the orcs.

[Johny Cee]

2) I need to kill bats. I can't find the cave where there were a ton of them, though - and I've done laps of the whole map.

You get a message that a creature you need to kill is around if bats/any flying critter is near you.  With the slow time focus thing, you can just look up and plink one or two pretty easily.  No need to find a specific cave.

3) I've killed everything except for that last warchief. Most of my runes are around level 8-12. Should I be levelling the captains up higher and then hunting them down for higher level runes? What level is good/realistic/etc

If you fast forward time (X on the keyboard from the map, I think) events will resolve to power up existing Captains and new ones will be promoted, and vacant Warchief spots will be filled.

Get the "death threat" ability.  You can then grapple any ork and interrogate, and then send him off to make a death threat against a Captain.  This will level that Captain up 4 ranks and give him a bodyguard, and increase the chance of dropping an epic rune. 

[Trippy]

2) I need to kill bats. I can't find the cave where there were a ton of them, though - and I've done laps of the whole map.

You get a message that a creature you need to kill is around if bats/any flying critter is near you.  With the slow time focus thing, you can just look up and plink one or two pretty easily.  No need to find a specific cave.

The game stops giving you the challenge hints after a while.

[MournelitheCalix]

I thought this game would suck, its pure gold.  After logging 45 hours I finished it.  Two things really stood out, first I loved the vindicator missions especially when your fortunate enough to get a multikiller to spawn.  Second after you beat it, for some reason the enemies don't scale to your difficulty level.  Seems like kind of a flaw of the player monitoring system.  Great game though on the whole and the first in a long while that was worth every dime I paid for it.

[Maven]

It seems like, unless you die to a Captain / Warchief, their max power level is 20.

I only put about 20 hours into the story including dicking around with the Nemesis system. I thought it odd in the finale where it said "This is your Nemesis!" and I was like "Who?" Story in the second-half ties into some previous LOTR moments, which I thought was... good, though not excellent (Sauruman).

I've uninstalled the game, though I thought it worth the money. Eventually I was able to get a FOOS (First Order Optimal Strategy) that trivialized any Nemesis encounter. The only time I had an issue was someone who was immune to everything but Fire, but that still doesn't stop Combat Branding of regular Orcs to do the work for you.

I look forward to what this system evolves into with sequels and those who 'borrow' it for their own games.

[lamaros]

I haven't died to an Orc yet, though I'm sure the stupid immune to everything but fire guy who also has the 'pops up to kill me whenever he feels like it' will get me eventually. Carragors on the other hand....

I've OCDed myself though a few hours so far without really doing missions.. some of those collect them all things have really slowed me down.

The voice acting in this is very good.

[Cyrrex]

After feeling like I had been ganked too many times (3 and 4 captains at a time), I have decided to go on the initiative today.  3 hours of nothing but hunting down and murdering the shit out of captains.  They are now my bitches, at least for as long as I choose to stay on top of them.  Great fun.  I accomplished nothing else. 

[01101010]

After feeling like I had been ganked too many times (3 and 4 captains at a time), I have decided to go on the initiative today.  3 hours of nothing but hunting down and murdering the shit out of captains.  They are now my bitches, at least for as long as I choose to stay on top of them.  Great fun.  I accomplished nothing else. 

I am going for the branding EVERYONE thing one the second map. 3/4 of the way there.

[lamaros]

Where did you rebind L-CTRL? I don't know enough about the other abilities to really start randomly rebinding.

Here's what I know I changed (Not at home so not sure of original keys. )

Left shift for sprint and associated abilities.
Spacebar for drain.
Left ctrl for climbing.(I think) Left-CTRl is just combat drain -- don't use it much
 'e' for object interaction.
 'c' for stealth. (yes, c is always crouch)
mapped a side mouse button to daggers

I remapped just based on basic moves.

I've just changed Left Ctrl to Q, and made throwing daggers 1. I will probably rebind daggers to a mouse key once I actually use it. Space as run, etc is a no brainer to me, as I'm so used to jump. At the moment it's a punch (e), bash bash bash (mouse), execute (f), bash (click), dagger kill (shift click), repeat sequence.

I need a Carragor fighting simulator to train on though, those things kill me every time. I must be pressing space too late or something.

[Rasix]

Shoot them in the head with arrows.  The time slow helps a lot.  Fuck those things.  They are the cougars of Middle Earth.

[Threash]

That's what i do, it ain't worth it to try to melee it.  Most of my leveled up captains come from dying to caragors.

[Venkman]

Is there any way to absolutely execute a decap? Even knowing now I can't ever entirely exhaust the captains pool, I still want to force the engine to generate new ones. 

[Threash]

Interrogations and flurry kills if you have the head explody thing.

[Venkman]

Interrogations and flurry kills if you have the head explody thing.

Oooh, good point. I only did that on a captain once when I already knew he was linked to a Warchief.

[Ruvaldt]

Also, if an orc is branded and you use the ability that kills all branded orcs it is a guaranteed decap as long as you are in the vicinity of said branded orc.  It's not ideal, but it is a guaranteed decap.

[lamaros]

Just going to re-iterate the quality of the voice acting, and dialogue writing, in this. The nemesis is interesting (though nothing that special without Brand), but the quality of the 'world' and characters that the voice acting brings makes this game in my view.

I just wish the combat was a little more dynamic in the smaller battles, and less of a mess in some of the larger ones. Using skills in a controlled and deliberate way to target specific orcs in a battle is... well maybe I'm just not that practised at it yet, so it's just a bit of button mashing, follow the prompts, glory. It is very very hard to die to Orcs; almost impossible if you are willing to run away when in trouble.

[Maven]

I started playing Assassin's Creed III after this game. I was getting trounced by British Redcoats because I had grokked Mordor's combat scheme. Mordor +1.

Was there a significance to the "Your Nemesis" on the second-to-last mission? The game presented me with this Orc who seemed to know me, but all I could say in response was "But for Talion, it was Tuesday."

[Ruvaldt]

For me it presented me with the first orc to ever kill me, Gundza the Whisperer.  I had slain him once before, but he came back only to kill me again.  I hadn't bothered to decap him later out of revenge, and saw him leading the charge in that mission, calling me out.

Needless to say I made a bee line right for him even in the midst of that huge group of orcs.  It was one of the most epic gaming experiences I've had in years.

[lamaros]

My nemesis, the only Orc to kill me, currently has a bag over his head holding it together. Not sure he will last to the later game.

[Merusk]

I pushed through and completed the story because as fun as this game is it's sucked up hours of my life for the last 2 weeks that I just don't have.  (Serously, another series of midnight/ 1am bedtimes until I completed it yesterday)

My nemesis was a rebirth of an earlier nemesis.  I say rebirth because it was the same name and everything, but he was missing the big iron jaw and wasn't ranged immune.

Being that was the case, he went down PDQ to my elf shots, but I ran into melee to finish him off.  It was very satisfying, but less so than the tower fight.  I only wish the hand fight would have had more to it than it did.

[01101010]

Now that I branded all the orcs on the second map, I decided to go back to the first map and do the same. Two of the orcs I butchered are back... one who I have killed 4 times, once through burning his ass up. He has a sack tied around his head with string and is flesh is a decidedly darker color. He also had some choice words for me when we met up. After wading through and converting a ton of heathen orcs, I finally convinced him to play on my team. Sadly, right after I did that, I ported over to catch a few more and saw him off in the distance with 1/2 health. Graug ate his lunch and stomped him dead. He just can't win.

Now that I got a rune that heals each time I brand an orc, I am playing missionary and converting EVERYTHING, orcs, graugs, caragores,  you name it. All I need is a small bible in my other hand at this point.

[Ingmar]

So orcs chanting: "Dûsh! Dûsh! Dûsh! Dûsh! Dûsh!" is a thing that happened in my game.

[01101010]

So orcs chanting: "Dûsh! Dûsh! Dûsh! Dûsh! Dûsh!" is a thing that happened in my game.

Think that happens anytime you spawn a Warchief. The name chanting starts and runs through the cut scene. I am ok with it. 

[Maven]

Think that happens anytime you spawn a Warchief. The name chanting starts and runs through the cut scene. I am ok with it. 

Say Dûsh! out loud.

[Pezzle]

*wooosh*

[lamaros]

Would this game be better if it was just: you are a lowly Orc fighting their way to rule the lot and take over the world? Yes, yes it would.

[Pezzle]

That is Rise of Mordor, the sequel. 

[Goreschach]

They need to shove this game into Elder Scrolls 6 so fast Jeremy Soule won't be able to sit down for a week.

[Lakov_Sanite]

They need to shove this game into Elder Scrolls 6 so fast Jeremy Soule won't be able to sit down for a week.

TES 6:Shadow of Tamriel?

[schild]

They need to shove this game into Elder Scrolls 6 so fast Jeremy Soule won't be able to sit down for a week.

TES 6:Shadow of Tamriel?

Or just an entire game based on the thieves guild or vampires guild or something. Typical elder scrolls is fucking stale at this point.

[Paelos]

Typical elder scrolls is fucking stale at this point.

I still like it and the modders do good work.