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 Completing the last of the shrines and wrapping up some sidequests I'd started or mentioned a long time ago. There's a lot of shorts in this game. And we haven't even seen them all. Next week we begin the first pack of the DLC with two parts of the Trial of the Sword.
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May 26, 2018 17:31
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| # ? May 20, 2024 02:46 |
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ThornBrain posted:
YOU CAN PICK THAT F*CKING LETTER BOX UP?!?    
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May 26, 2018 17:57
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Yeah. It's relaxing to just float downstream with it, but you can help it along.
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May 26, 2018 19:23
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Imagine doing that letter quest. In Master Mode. During a Blood Moon. Had to try five times.
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May 26, 2018 20:40
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I never climbed any of these pillars to get orbs, just plinked at them with arrows until they fell down. The orbs are surprisingly light enough that it works. That meant I only had to worry about golfing them up, which wasn't that hard either, except I only had metal weapons at that point so I had to switch them back and forth in a hurry.  I think it's cool to make a part of world just a monumental, extended shrine. One NPC nearby even says how it's weird and mysterious that this one place with odd ruins just has a thunderstorm non-stop!
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May 31, 2018 16:58
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Aithon posted:I never climbed any of these pillars to get orbs, just plinked at them with arrows until they fell down. The orbs are surprisingly light enough that it works. That meant I only had to worry about golfing them up, which wasn't that hard either, except I only had metal weapons at that point so I had to switch them back and forth in a hurry. You can actually reposition the balls on the pillars, stasis them and hit them right onto the plateau.
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May 31, 2018 17:12
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Zopotantor posted:You can actually reposition the balls on the pillars, stasis them and hit them right onto the plateau. That works, if you want to climb there at all! It sounds like it's much less fiddly than orb golf. Also for the laser shrine, I was stumped on that for a while until I found out that Stasis has a surprisingly long range, longer than Magnesis. So after that it was a matter of Stasising the laser emitter a couple of times so after it went away it hit the switch again. I don't remember if it worked from the other side of the room, but with that I could freely use the block, so I think it worked out.
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May 31, 2018 17:29
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This is definitely a shrine that was easier in Master mode, because I knew what to do. Come in with a full compliment of Revali's Gale. Move the orbs on the outer pillars to the front of the top of the pillars. Stasis them. Smack them with a hammer until the arrow turned reddish. Watch as they hit the plateau. Go to the center of the plateau, gale up the last pillar, knock the ball off. Put them all where they're supposed to be. Feel smug about turning off the thunderstorm.
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May 31, 2018 18:39
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   Time to begin the first DLC pack. This week, we burn through the requisite kill-them-all dungeon in the pursuit of permanently powering up the Master Sword. Both this and next week's updates are two parts, since this trial isn't really worth waiting a week to see completed, and because next week's parts are both fairly short. And maybe, just maybe, I'm ready to see this drat LP finished. After that, it's on straight to DLC pack 2. ThornBrain fucked around with this message at 17:32 on Jun 2, 2018 |
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Jun 2, 2018 17:29
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I dragon-horned up a 30 minute max-level defense boost and tanked everything rather than increase attack power. My problem wasn't inability to kill stuff; it was inability to take a hit. The first set of trials was the most difficult for me by far. I must have had to restart it a dozen times. ...So, Ni no Kuni 2 LP when?  (I'm sorry if that's a tired joke already; I don't use Twitter.) KeiraWalker fucked around with this message at 05:58 on Jun 3, 2018 |
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Jun 3, 2018 05:25
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Oh yes, make the trials look easy. Now try them in Master Mode. I still haven't gotten past the first trials in master mode! Everything is awful!
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Jun 3, 2018 06:14
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Thadius posted:Oh yes, make the trials look easy. Christ, I can only imagine. One could make the argument you should just stick with the Master Sword's default "switches on when near Ganon" thing in Master Mode, being... well, Master Mode. I think the only reason that argument makes any sense is because if you can get through the Trial of the Sword in Master Mode, you clearly don't need to. I like how you can hear Fi booting up in that last cutscene, right before Link sheathes the sword. The helmet made it impossible to see, but he closes his eyes for a minute there and is clearly just listening to her.
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Jun 3, 2018 14:44
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I don't think the Trial of the Sword is quite as good as Eventide Island (or the Great Plateau for that matter), but I still like this sort of challenge and actually think this kind of scavenging and gradual rebuilding is what the BotW engine is best suited to. That said, these trials do tend to drag on a bit and I wouldn't recommend most players attempt all three parts in one sitting. Since you didn't show it, I'll point out that one of the best pieces of advice for this challenge is to set your Sheikah sensor to treasure chests. There's a lot of good stuff to be had and some of them are surprisingly tricky to spot if you don't have the sensor telling you to look. For instance, there are two more sets of 3 Ancient Arrows available in the Final Trials, which can make a huge difference. Thadius posted:I still haven't gotten past the first trials in master mode! Everything is awful! If it's any comfort, the first trials in Master Mode are the biggest hurdle. But it's painful, it took me many attempts to get through and it's really not much fun. The reward is worth it, though. (The weirdest thing about Master Mode sword trials is that there are a few extra weapons scattered about that aren't there in normal mode, so the balance issues aren't just due to devs ignoring it, but it's still very poorly balanced.) Floor 10 (the Lizalfos one) seems to be the biggest roadblock that holds people up, and frankly it can be pretty unfair. But there are some tricks you can use if you know it's coming. As soon as you spawn in, Stasis the scout and land as many headshots as you can to kill it before it sounds the alarm. Then you have time to sneak up on the two silver ones and use sneakstrikes (if you know what you're doing you can even chain them and kill the thing before it ever notices you, though I never managed to pull that off perfectly here). I've also seen video on youtube of someone climbing up above them and dropping bundles of wood, the Lizalfos AI doesn't know to walk out of a campfire so they'll just stand there and slooooowly burn to death. The other big tip, of course, is to bring in as many buffs as you can. The most successful strategy seems to be using Attack Up for the Beginning and Middle Trials (honestly you really need it to compensate for the tougher enemies), and Defence Up for the Final Trials (since so much of what you face here are elemental foes and Stalfos that die in one hit regardless of damage). Bonus hearts and stamina are also a big help; having two extra stamina wheels at the beginning of Middle Trials really helps for those floors where you'd want to do aerial archery. I preferred to play fair without food buffs in normal mode as the trials are decently balanced there, but for Master Mode I heartily endorse telling the game to gently caress itself. The reward is well worth it, though, and goes a long way toward making the rest of Master Mode tolerable. The best aspect may actually be the increase in durability: it goes from 40 durability to 188 once fully powered, making it by far the longest-lasting weapon in the game. At 60 power you barely need other one-handed weapons, and being able to have this much damage in your inventory makes a huge difference once enemies start ranking up. I made a beeline for the MS trials as soon as I could in my Master Mode playthrough and didn't regret it at all.
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Jun 3, 2018 16:21
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Floor ten has been a roadblock a few times. But I managed to clear it once! But lord help you if you get to floor eleven. Golden Moblin waits to kick your skull into your chest cavity. Your only hope is to knock every foe into the water with bombs. If you don't, you die. I did not.
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Jun 3, 2018 18:15
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Thadius posted:Your only hope is to knock every foe into the water with bombs. If you don't, you die. I found Stasis and a spear to be more reliable for that, but YMMV. I died there several times too, it's really not a good feeling. And then the first time I got past it, I got careless and the Hinox stomped me to death. I wish I'd been counting my attempts. Suffice it to say I don't want to play the MM trials again any time soon, if ever.
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Jun 3, 2018 18:31
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Lotta effort expended when lasers and parries are infinite.
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Jun 4, 2018 17:30
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RareAcumen posted:Lotta effort expended when lasers and parries are infinite. Yeah, Thorn. 
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Jun 4, 2018 18:17
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The Crowned Beast Shrine quest took me waaaaaaaay too long to figure out because I overthought it. Also because I'm a huge nerd. Antlers aren't made of bone, game! They're more like fingernails.
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Jun 6, 2018 15:07
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I just realised, the Upsidown flying guardians are basically the equivilent of a Beamos statue. They scan in a circle and if they spot you they shoot a laser. And am I right in saying this is the only location they are used like that?
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Jun 6, 2018 22:35
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Tombot posted:I just realised, the Upsidown flying guardians are basically the equivilent of a Beamos statue. They scan in a circle and if they spot you they shoot a laser. And am I right in saying this is the only location they are used like that? They're all over Hyrule Castle too. Good point though, it never occurred to me that they were basically Beamos.
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Jun 6, 2018 23:41
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There's also the Trial Guardian move where they have the constant beam in a circle, I can't help but think some Beamos did that in some game. Though the goal in that case was not to jump over it and ride the updraft.
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Jun 7, 2018 10:25
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I'm glad they managed to work the weather gimmick into this whole thing. It wouldn't feel like a complete set of trials without it.
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Jun 9, 2018 04:21
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  Masks and Masters A relatively small DLC pack, but Pack 2 will make up for it. Also tomorrow's the one year anniversary of this LP! Yay! May I never LP a game this long again!
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Jun 9, 2018 19:11
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If I could capture images off of my Switch, Skippy, I'd show you how a gold Lynel fight goes down. Hint: It involves a lot of running and screaming and using all the loving royal weapons you can. The foes in Master Mode level up the more shrines you discover, not do. Because clearly if you've found them, you're more powerful and ready for them. The first time I found a gold Lynel, I was actually looking for a silver one and heading into a known lynel's lair. My sensor didn't go off, but my heart rate sure loving did! Lore note: Gold enemies are silver enemies that have been struck by lightning. That's your hint that electricity is less effective on them than other elements! For best results, freeze and shatter repeatedly. And yes, there is a gold version of everything. Really fucks with you when you're looking for yellow lizalfos for your rubber equipment and the one you're striking takes no damage. And then you realize the shitstorm you've signed yourself up for by aggroing a golden lizalfos!
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Jun 9, 2018 20:05
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I think the Tingle set makes NPCs recoil in shock and horror, so it's basically a reskin of the Dark Link set. Which is slightly disappointing, I'm okay with DLC outfits just being clothes, but some small but unique bonus would have been nice. Like maybe Rupee Find Up, because Tingle loves him some rupees.
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Jun 9, 2018 20:57
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I could put up with all of Master Mode except for the regenerating health. The upranked enemies are a challenge, it turns deadly quickly, but it encourages you to tackle things in careful ways. and delve into the darker areas for better weapons (there's a big tree stump with a fire greatsword near the coliseum, with enemies well placed to knock into water, good first stop after the glider). But that regenerating health runs counter to everything the rest of the changes encourage. You can't hit and run, can't choose your moments, if you don't confirm the kill then they spring right back.
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Jun 10, 2018 01:46
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That Korok in the Shrine of Resurrection actually appears there after the first time you leave the Plateau; it's not enough to get the Paraglider, you have to load in the rest of Hyrule (I think you need to land on the ground) and then return. One thing about the Travel Medallion bothers me: once you've placed it, you can't pick it back up. You can move it, sure, but you can't get rid of the warp point entirely. There must be some kind of OCD involved, but I've never really found a place it'd be useful enough to warrant ignoring that OCD impulse. There are so many warp points in the game already that I've never felt the need for it anyway (and those grapes are definitely sour too). I can never bring myself to make Link wear Majora's Mask, no matter how good it is for gameplay purposes. It's just too disturbing to me, that thing is evil and we've seen what can happen if you wear it. (As for functionality in this game, you're right, it works like a combination of the four monster masks - so it affects Bokoblins, Moblins, Lizalfos and Lynels. Doesn't seem to affect any other monsters though.) I'm of two minds about Master Mode really. It does manage to be interesting in places, but a lot of the time the way it adds difficulty tends to invalidate strategies, which contradicts the "radical freedom and exploration" attitude the original game had. The regeneration makes it very difficult to use environmental hazards like boulders, exploding barrels and so on, and rewards aggressive play and focusing on one enemy at a time, while punishing caution and kiting. (That, or it rewards avoiding combat, since so many enemies just aren't worth taking down; I agree with Bruceski that regeneration is a bad mechanic for this game.) And once you start to accumulate decent equipment (whether from platform chests or other methods) it's no different except combat is more tedious, and a larger percentage of the weapons you find are useless. On the other hand, you'll never run out of arrows, and especially not elemental arrows, thanks to all the floating platform guys (Master mode gives you so many arrows it's impossible to use them all without running out of bows, frankly). That said, I do quite enjoy the Great Plateau in Master Mode just because of how much it forces you to recontextualise everything, and use stealth/headshot tactics, get the Soldier's Bow early, prioritise the floating platforms for good weapons, etc; it's a very different experience and I think that that much of Master Mode is probably worth playing, if not necessarily the rest. And the regeneration does help make the bosses less underwhelming (especially Ganon), so I guess that's one potential positive side to it. Some other tidbits: Master Mode also removes the "mercy hitpoint" mechanic entirely. In normal mode, if you're at full health and take a hit that would one-shot you, instead you get reduced to 1/4 heart (1 HP). There is a limitation on this, if the attack is strong enough (I think it's something like 32 HP or more greater than your maximum HP) it will still kill you. Master Mode eliminates this entirely, which makes it much harder to tank your way through encounters by shovelling food. I'm entirely okay with this as a hard mode change. The other big change you didn't show is on the timing of Guardians' laser attacks - they can sort of "stutter" now, taking a split-second hesitation before firing (possibly with multiple different durations, I'm not sure) which means that the parry timing is variable and a lot harder to pull off reliably. On top of this, the regeneration makes it a much less effective tactic against anything other than Decayed Guardians anyway... Thadius posted:The foes in Master Mode level up the more shrines you discover, not do. Because clearly if you've found them, you're more powerful and ready for them. The first time I found a gold Lynel, I was actually looking for a silver one and heading into a known lynel's lair. Enemy scaling isn't actually tied to shrines or divine beasts or map completion (outside the exception of the Coliseum area, which does depend on DBs), it's based on your kills. The short version is that the game tracks how many of each enemy type you kill, up to 10 of each, and each enemy type has a point value. The total points you have from all enemy types then determines which enemies are scaled up. Some people on Reddit have documented it fairly thoroughly: technical explanation spreadsheet Note minor spoilers at the link, the name of a boss from DLC2 is mentioned. It is actually possible to kill the Master Mode Lynel before leaving the Plateau (I've done it), but it's a huge pain and I don't think it's worth it unless you're interested in it as a specific challenge. The trick is that strikes against a Lynel while mounted don't cost weapon durability for some reason, so the strategy is to practice headshots and get it into a pattern: headshot, mount, headshot, until it's dead. You can get a Knight's Claymore with a white modifier (38-45 damage) from a floating platform chest at the icy waterfall (snipe the Boko and jump down from the cliff), and make a level-2 attack up potion (1 Bladed Rhino Beetle + 4 Boko guts/Keese eyes, savescum until you get a critical with level increase) to minimise how many times you need to repeat the cycle. That Lynel is actually special for a couple of reasons. He's got bomb arrows, which no other lynel has (you do NOT want him using the bow when you fight him, approach cautiously and draw a melee weapon so he does the same). His equipment also has the maximum level of scaling regardless of your progression, so you can get 5x bows and Attack-Up crushers at any time. He also doesn't scale, which means that later in Master Mode he's a better source of weapons than the others once they've scaled up to silver/gold (same quality weaponry, less HP to grind through).
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Jun 10, 2018 02:40
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Also definitely in Master Mode you're going to make one of two beasts your first stop. Either Vah Medoh for Revali's Gale, so you can get up on those platforms for all the treasure so you might survive a minute longer, or Vah Ruta, for fishwife's healing power, so that you can bounce back with more hearts after that black moblin crushes your skull into your chest cavity two minutes after you leave the safety of the road. Also, I curse the day the guardians discovered how to stutter their lasers. Made my perfect parrying time useless against them! The next stop I made was the ancient lab in Akkala. Every Guardian gets an ancient arrow to the eye. Even the loving stationary ones! Your main focus should be attacking, perfect dodging to get a flurry rush, and to keep pressing the attack no matter what. They can't heal if you keep killing them. Remember that Moblins and Bokoblins can't swim. Water is your friend! ...Right up until it starts being infested with Lizalfos. Then you'll curse the rivers.
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Jun 10, 2018 04:34
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This is my experience with Master Mode: I loaded the game, encountered my first blue bokoblin, failed to stealth past it, broke all my weapons trying to kill it, and accidentally knocked it off a slope; by the time I got back down to it, it had regenerated most of it's health back. I went ahead and called it quits there.
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Jun 10, 2018 10:48
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I was prepared to write off Master Mode, but the octorok platforms are just too adorable.
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Jun 12, 2018 12:27
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  We begin pack 2's major story segment with a hell of a challenge. That I rarely play straight.
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Jun 16, 2018 17:00
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I'm impressed you did Rohta Chigah Shrine the hard way; the closest one of those swinging balls is connected by a rope instead of a chain so you can shoot it down, and of course you can stasis the conveyor belts too, and I couldn't beat it without doing both. I also made liberal use of Majora's Mask during the bit out on the Plateau, certainly made picking off stragglers easier, but the 'carpet bomb' strategy seems to work just as well. Also it's totally not the "One-hit Obliterator", it's the "Triumph Fork" 
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Jun 16, 2018 17:55
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I never thought of using the shield to block the lasers, that's interesting. I found it easier to just duck and walk under them, I'd think that's probably the intended solution. (Unlike some other places with lasers, you can't stasis these for some reason, I went to check that just now.)Icedude posted:Also it's totally not the "One-hit Obliterator", it's the "Triumph Fork" That's amazing, I wish I could've thought of that!
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Jun 16, 2018 19:19
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I'm honestly surprised that there wasn't a boulder drop on that final stairwell.
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Jun 16, 2018 21:36
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Right, so the one-hit-kill mode game is DMC 3. It's called Heaven or Hell Mode, and it's an absolute joke-easy mode because you turn on Gunslinger, maybe Quicksilver for the more annoying trappy sections, and walk through it. Also, I'm reasonably sure that is the first time anyone has ever uttered the phrase "It's the cloaca of liquids" before.
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Jun 17, 2018 15:46
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The first bit of this frustrated me so badly I put the game down for months afterward. Specifically that one Shrine with all the "gotcha" spike traps and even more specifically that final corridor. God I died so many times on it. SO MANY. It's too bad because when I went back and finally did the rest of the Champion's Ballad stuff, I thought it was really great and had a wonderful time with it. Just that first part. Yeesh.
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Jun 18, 2018 13:44
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Is the one hit challenge mandatory to unlock the rest of the dlc? That's kinda crappy if it is.
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Jun 18, 2018 21:49
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pointlessone posted:Is the one hit challenge mandatory to unlock the rest of the dlc? That's kinda crappy if it is. Yes. And yes.
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Jun 18, 2018 21:52
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Eventually you stop using the one-hitter to destroy foes and start using a x5 Lynel Bow with Bomb Arrows to carpet bomb the areas. They can't 1-hit you if they can't get to you! I have done this...on my normal run. I don't want to know the horrors that would await me if I went through it on Master Mode.
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Jun 18, 2018 22:22
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| # ? May 20, 2024 02:46 |
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   The real crux of the Champion's Ballad involves us taking on the same trials as our late champion friends. First up, the coolest one.
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Jun 23, 2018 17:14
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