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There's basically 4 ways to do game mirrors: -Cube maps, which are 6 normal textures arranged into the shape of a cube with the camera in the center. These are usually prerendered, so they don't reflect what's really going on in the world, but they still look mostly convincing and can be used to add the impression of reflection to small objects or a reflective component to a more complicated surface shader. The reflection on the scope lens of your FPS gun is probably a cube map -Render a second environment, the way Duke Nukem 3D and Uncharted 4 and rearview mirrors in driving games do it. This is conceptually the simplest, you just create the reflection as actual geometry and put a transparent mirror surface between what's real and what's reflection. The hard part of this is that the behind-the-mirror room has to occupy space somewhere, and if there isn't room in the level to actually put it behind the mirror then you have to render it as a portal, which has its own costs. If you commit to portals, though, you can do the mirror by rendering the whole world a second time, complete with everything in it, from a different viewpoint, which gets you a very accurate image but is very expensive since... you're rendering the whole world a second time. -Screen-space reflections, which are exactly how you'd fake a reflection in photoshop: select part of the scene, flip it upside down, blur and tint it a little, and put it where the reflective surface is. This is extremely fast, but it has the major limitation that it can't reflect anything that isn't already being rendered. So it's great for surfaces seen at very shallow angles, like the surface of water, but you can see that the reflection goes away if you look down at it and there's nothing but water on the screen -Ray tracing. Mirrors work more or less for free when ray tracing is enabled just as a consequence of its nature, but since RT is so expensive it's not practical to get the same quality as the rest of the world (rendered with a combination of RT and rasterization techniques) in the image the mirror is displaying AAA games will use all 4 of these in various scenes and contexts, depending on how much GPU capacity can be spared in a given scene and how much cheating they think is noticeable
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# ? Apr 9, 2024 05:15 |
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# ? Jun 3, 2024 13:40 |
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The aim assist in this seems interesting. When I turned it to Stronger it doesn't seem to actually be moving my cursor towards targets; instead it seems like I just hit stuff when I aim near it. Not sure if that's what's actually happening but it's what it feels like. I'm just constantly hitting everything I aim at. I like the feature because I generally don't like aiming on controllers. BTW, what are peoples' opinions on the difference anti-aliasing options? I can't tell which I like best between SMAA, TAA, and DLAA (and also don't know which are generally the most demanding). For now I'm just using DLAA.
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# ? Apr 9, 2024 05:32 |
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Fatty posted:Thanks for all the unmarked spoiler discussion for a game that is only a couple of weeks old for most of the people actively playing it. My apologies, too little too late I know, but I went back and put mine in spoilers.
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# ? Apr 9, 2024 05:40 |
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haveblue posted:AAA games will use all 4 of these in various scenes and contexts, depending on how much GPU capacity can be spared in a given scene and how much cheating they think is noticeable
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# ? Apr 9, 2024 13:20 |
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At some point they're going to kick me out of Plainsong for constantly jumping over the edges and accidentally kicking people in the head while gliding to another walkway.
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 00:00 |
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Moon Slayer posted:At some point they're going to kick me out of Plainsong for constantly jumping over the edges and accidentally kicking people in the head while gliding to another walkway. I love that they will actually scold you for it sometimes.
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 00:05 |
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Ciaphas posted:speaking of graphics, something I've been wondering: in this screenshot, is the pixel-y dust devil in the top-left an artifact of a particular graphics setting, or just part of HFW's look? the rest of this game is so pretty that that sort of effect becomes really distracting This just makes me think of "gamers" saying Aloy has been uglified lol. She looks great, game looks greamt.
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 00:18 |
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gamers also got really upset she has peach fuzz which was really telling.
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 00:20 |
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big nipples big life posted:gamers also got really upset she has peach fuzz which was really telling. drat, they actually bother to render that?
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 00:27 |
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Ulio posted:This just makes me think of "gamers" saying Aloy has been uglified lol. She looks great, game looks greamt. (e) the dust devil, not Aloy
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 00:35 |
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im reminded of why i didnt really bother with the hunting grounds and arena on my PS4 playthrough, that poo poo is peak "we designed this for normal difficulty and didn't try to balance for anything else" and leans into the "all according to keikaku" playstyles you can do on lower difficulties instead of the "you can complete one objective without getting killed, do it, do it now" playstyle that makes sense on harder ones tried to do the raintrace grounds because i needed something i could fit into a "short" session and it was nearby. how hard could it be? > you must shoot off the tremortusk tusks while it is shocked game why the gently caress would i not just use the OP tear ammo i have to shoot off the tusk in three triple notches. who the gently caress cares if the machine is shocked. i want the tusks. they don't need to be _spicy_ tusks > MUST SHOOT OFF WHILE SHOCKED. PURGEWATER AMMO WILL HELP REDUCE ITS RESISTANCE TO SHOCK. first attempt, okay, let's try and just purgewater the tremortusk, like the game says. sorta worked, but then hello, three clawstriders are on top of you and there's no way you're gonna be able to make enough of the purge overload window to build up enough shock. i almost managed it, but exploded the stomach, which cancels everything else out with fire okay, lesson learned, to do anything on VH you need to override the clawstriders, because god help you if you try and do anything with the tremortusk while more than one of those things are able to aggro you. you need them as distraction. gently caress it, im pretty high up in machine master, i got this ... several rounds later got the clawstrider recruitment down, i can get this fucker into purged state easy, let's try getting it into shock, warrior bow spam GOOOOO--the third clawstrider has arrived, it has knocked you out, the purge is expired okay, gently caress it, i hit the sparkers a few times and got an explode overload from that. why is the game even recommending bothering with purge? i guess as a "but aha, if you want to do this quick, secret strat!" thing. anyway, gently caress purging the thing. that doesn't make the other element overloads last longer, does it? doesn't seem to noticeably so strat the third: gather 2 clawstrider friends to distract the oliphant, blow up the sparkers, switch into high tear ammo and blast the gently caress outta them tusks. this seems as effective as bothering with purge. the tusks don't take that much to detach unless your kit is hot garbage at tear. fine, easy, i can hit those np, even with needing to run right up into the instant death zone that is the immediate radius of a tremortusk to get warrior bow shots on target. i got potions, and it doesn't _usually_ pop the shock circle that still one-shots me at level 44 worth of HP nice, consistently getting a shock overload, and usually managing to follow up with some BWOM sharpshots--sometimes the far clawstrider show up and screws things up, but not usually. tremortusk goes into shock overload, i bwom off the tusks, counter goes up, ez pz. i maybe only get one off per shocker, but nbd, there's two to blow up. i got this aight, got my flow down, got my clawstrider friends, blow a sparker, get a tusk, run around some, blow the other, get another. game flashes up "return to the grounds master". i did it! right? i return and talk to the groundsmaster YOU HAVE ABANDONED THE TRIAL wat. okay let's try a few more times, im p sure it just bugged a bit. maybe i also need to kill all the machines? try again. got it again. YOU HAVE ABANDONED THE TRIAL alright, gently caress you game, story mode it is > do basically the same thing SUCCESS idk what it is exactly, maybe the elemental overload window on VH is so drat short that it doesn't always count? it's confusing af because the counter definitely goes up for at least one of them, and im p sure the "return to the pit master" thing popped up _before_ i'd shot off all the tusks, so even if i whiffed one there should still be another double gently caress that poo poo since half the time when you shock overload the thing it collapses in a heap annnnnnnnnnnd noclips its tusks straight under the earth where you can't shoot them. peak ostrich strats these are one of the few areas where Guerilla kinda dropped the ball. the actual fights in the game are proper tests of skill at higher difficulties. the arena/hunting ground challenges are tests of "can you play this exactly the way this particular intern did also gently caress you if you try anything slightly different" in a game that prides itself (and usually succeeds) on different approaches being viable it'd be better if they were more optional instead of the thing standing between you and the legendary gear. idk how they could better encourage making more use of different parts of the kit without making it a BUT THOU MUST that falls through on higher difficulties
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 07:42 |
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Qtotonibudinibudet posted:drat, they actually bother to render that? And not just on Aloy, the game's "everybody's backlit, always" signature style makes it really stand out on most faces, especially in UHD
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 21:11 |
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Ruffian Price posted:And not just on Aloy, the game's "everybody's backlit, always" signature style makes it really stand out on most faces, especially in UHD Is this why everyone seems to be vaguely lit up? I actually like the effect, makes things look crisper/clearer. This game on PC is probably the second best looking game I've played, after Cyberpunk. I had a surprisingly easy time getting it running at 4k/120fps.
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 21:36 |
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Qtotonibudinibudet posted:okay, gently caress it, i hit the sparkers a few times and got an explode overload from that. why is the game even recommending bothering with purge? i guess as a "but aha, if you want to do this quick, secret strat!" thing. anyway, gently caress purging the thing. that doesn't make the other element overloads last longer, does it? doesn't seem to noticeably so Nearing the end of the game on Ultra Hard and don't think there's been a single occasion where I've found purge useful. Frost is the only status effect that really seems worth the effort and even then only if the enemy is already weak to it, if I have to build up a separate status effect beforehand just to clear resistances it seems like my time would be better spent shooting weak spots with precision arrows. I've cleared the first hunting ground since it was relatively easy but put off the others, hopefully there are ways to cheese the more annoying ones. HZD had a hunting challenge where you were supposed to shoot the cannons off a Thunderjaw and use them to kill two Ravagers, or you could just override it and watch as it stomped them both to death and you'd clear it anyway.
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 22:12 |
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Purgewater is really nice for turning scorchers into an unthreatening moist blob at least, but I think (on Hard, as a data point) they were the only machines where I really found it more useful than just boosting my own damage.
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 22:25 |
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NoEyedSquareGuy posted:Nearing the end of the game on Ultra Hard and don't think there's been a single occasion where I've found purge useful. Frost is the only status effect that really seems worth the effort and even then only if the enemy is already weak to it, if I have to build up a separate status effect beforehand just to clear resistances it seems like my time would be better spent shooting weak spots with precision arrows. How do you generally play on Ultra Hard? I'm just playing on Normal, but feeling increasingly bad about it because I keep encountering situations where "I would have probably died if the difficulty was higher." I basically don't know how to avoid significant damage when fighting against multiple enemies (or sometimes even just one if it's very mobile). One big tip I learned that I plan on using next time I play is that apparently the slide is very effective for dodging and actually has more iframes than the dodge roll. Learning how knockdowns work also sounds pretty useful (I didn't realize you have to hit most big enemies in the legs, or that spike-throwers do a lot more knockdown damage). But other than that, not sure what to do other than cheese things with high damage and not give enemies much time. For example, I was fighting a Snapmaw yesterday and trying to avoid blowing up its frost sack thing. I couldn't for the life of me reliably dodge its frost mortar attack. I could desperate roll/dash as much as I wanted and not avoid them. I still did fine just because you can easily out-heal things on Normal, but I imagine that isn't so viable on the harder difficulties. Giant Ethicist posted:Purgewater is really nice for turning scorchers into an unthreatening moist blob at least, but I think (on Hard, as a data point) they were the only machines where I really found it more useful than just boosting my own damage. What about adhesive? That seems like it could maybe be useful on certain enemies, provided you could activate it quickly.
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 22:32 |
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NoEyedSquareGuy posted:Nearing the end of the game on Ultra Hard and don't think there's been a single occasion where I've found purge useful. Frost is the only status effect that really seems worth the effort and even then only if the enemy is already weak to it, if I have to build up a separate status effect beforehand just to clear resistances it seems like my time would be better spent shooting weak spots with precision arrows. i guess it's... maybe useful if you wanna disable enemy elemental attacks? which are indeed a major threat on tremortusks, so idk, but yeah, you could be applying something else, and so few weapons have purgewater that it's unlikely to be in your kit anyway. overload is so slow to build and so short-lived on VH+ that it doesn't seem worth the point, because you only barely get enough time to dump enough of a normally-resistant status in during purged, when you coulda just started with something the machine's week to from the start. most elemental overloads are still better triggered by popping a sparker/blaze canister/etc with the appropriate arrow type, or blowing up a sac with impact sticky is the one exception since it's very uncommon to have a machine part that can trigger it (i think rollerbacks have one and nothing else?) and can be very useful on the more mobile machines Ytlaya posted:How do you generally play on Ultra Hard? you learn pretty quickly how to play differently on the harder difficulties, especially if you're on them from the start when aloy has gently caress all health but generally only faces weaker machines. getting slaughtered by two burrowers a few times teaches you the cardinal rules of "don't get hit" and "always heal". from there at least for me, the main strategies are to reduce the number of aggro machines at once (or at least distance yourself from most of them) and to leverage range/surprise advantage to score big opening hits. for something like the snapmaw iceball lob your best bet is to be out of its range or to have something you can take cover behind (for some reason the AI is really stupid about cover and will happily try to shoot plasma beams through a rock repeatedly) Qtotonibudinibudet fucked around with this message at 22:44 on Apr 10, 2024 |
# ? Apr 10, 2024 22:36 |
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Ropecaster is great for multiple enemies. I don't remember the tie down time but it's quite awhile as long as you aren't hitting them. Slide and then roll is a lot of iframes and moves you a long way, learn to use that a lot.
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 22:37 |
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I mostly just use terrain to cheese the gently caress out of every fight I can on UH because I'm bad
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 22:41 |
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Purgewater has its edge case uses against machines with elemental attacks that can one-shot you on Ultra-Hard, or anything that you can't freeze easily. But once you have a Sun Scourge with 5 x 15% frost coils, even the most resistant machines are going to get frozen pretty quickly, so why wouldn't you just use that.
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 22:45 |
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I’m playing the game for the first time ever on ultra hard and shocking enemies, even those resistant to it, puts most enemies on skates in a way where they don’t really have a chance to do their thing. The shredders that do shock damage really put in work, and then one they get shocked the stun damage you put down is unreal. Pair it with like the delta bow for quick weak spot hits in between shredder cycles or when they are on the ground
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 22:50 |
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the weapon modding system is really poorly thought out in general. just false choices top to bottom. which is kind of weird because outfit modding works in a much more sensible way where outfit choice dictates most of your bonuses but you get to tweak or combine a little bit of a second playstyle into whatever the armor itself promotes.
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 22:50 |
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Eyud posted:I mostly just use terrain to cheese the gently caress out of every fight I can on UH because I'm smart Edit to reflect the truth. And my play style.
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 22:57 |
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I'm not the only one who puts on the appropriate armor and face paint depending on which clan's territory I'm in, right? (would that be cultural appropriation on Aloy's part?)
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 22:58 |
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Time posted:I’m playing the game for the first time ever on ultra hard
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 23:06 |
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Sivart13 posted:this feels wild to me but I remembered the game is on PC now so maybe clicky clicky helps Using gyro aim on a steamdeck lol
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 23:06 |
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Ytlaya posted:How do you generally play on Ultra Hard? Very carefully. In general: - Crouch walk through bushes until I can overload something and have it fight the other enemies - Blow all my weapon stamina using Braced Shot for ~500 damage each - Clear out whatever is left with drill spikes and precisions arrows, maybe inflict frost first if they're weak to it Would probably be worth the effort to track down some better weapons, I've been doing sidequests and errands as I come across them but the only legendary I have is the warrior bow from winning all the races which isn't all that remarkable. Mostly I've been using a fully upgraded blue quality drill spike launcher which I got from an Oseram sidequest halfway through the game. The spike ammo is kind of expensive but the drill spikes do great tear/knockdown at the same time, against Stormbirds particularly I can keep them stunned on the ground for almost the whole fight. Still requires learning all the enemy attacks since you'll inevitably end up in a situation where they're all Apex/humans or you don't have the necessary overrides yet. For fights with multiple enemies don't neglect melee, a charged heavy will knock down most small robots and then one or two critical hits will finish them off and allow you to focus on the main threat. With larger robots just about anything can kill me in one hit regardless of what armor I'm wearing so it's still a lot of Dark Souls type gameplay where I'm relying on perfect dodges to get out of the way in time. They did a good job with the power curve where it's felt challenging the whole way through but I can't point to any encounters which were really unfair. The cauldron snake killed me probably 50+ times but that was just a matter of bashing my head against it until I got the perfect run.
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 23:07 |
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Moon Slayer posted:I'm not the only one who puts on the appropriate armor and face paint depending on which clan's territory I'm in, right? You meet Hekarro, adorned in Lowland Clan Tenakth colors. He sighs and shakes his head. "Do better."
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 23:09 |
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Also smokebombs are so sick. They solve a lot of fights like the early shellsnapper that was prone to rear end blasting me when I was too dumb to learn it’s attack pattern
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 23:09 |
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The biggest trick to UH I found was the ropecaster. I basically ignored it on VH NG in favour of just brute forcing but it was key in UH. Dealing with one enemy is easy enough since you can focus on just that and not worry but as soon as more enemies join the fight it's stun lock/knockdown city for Aloy. I did my UH run on NG+ so I had access to the legendary ropecaster from the DLC, but there are some purple ones in the base game that are just as good. A tie down on a machine can last over a minute and there's no limit on how many you can have CCed so with multiple enemies I just tied everything down and dealt with them one by one w/ brittle and Warrior Bow Spread Shot. Extremely effective.
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 23:12 |
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Outfits are more determinant of your playstyle than weapons, which is maybe counterintuitive to how most games of this type work. Especially once you have access to one of the legendary armors, your loadout will start to complement its respective skill tree, rather than it being the other way around. Weapon coils are ultimately less important but still not always obvious, like for example did you know the best coils for an elemental shredder are 25% DoT or Agility coils rather than anything that actually inflicts elemental status because those coils will ALSO grant elemental buildup once their conditions are met. Did you know the best way to build around a Sharpshot Bow isn't with Ranged Master or Powershots but Critical Boost with x3 15% crit coils because then you get 100% chance to crit on every hit. Did you know that drill spikes have enormously high knockdown power and even a fully coiled Vindicator Spike Thrower will bring down an Apex Slaughterspine in 1-2 hits. Little complexities that often aren't explored but result in a huge knowledge advantage once discovered.
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 23:13 |
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exquisite tea posted:Outfits are more determinant of your playstyle than weapons, which is maybe counterintuitive to how most games of this type work. Especially once you have access to one of the legendary armors, your loadout will start to complement its respective skill tree, rather than it being the other way around. Weapon coils are ultimately less important but still not always obvious, like for example did you know the best coils for an elemental shredder are 25% DoT or Agility coils rather than anything that actually inflicts elemental status because those coils will ALSO grant elemental buildup once their conditions are met. Did you know the best way to build around a Sharpshot Bow isn't with Ranged Master or Powershots but Critical Boost with x3 15% crit coils because then you get 100% chance to crit on every hit. Did you know that drill spikes have enormously high knockdown power and even a fully coiled Vindicator Spike Thrower will bring down an Apex Slaughterspine in 1-2 hits. Little complexities that often aren't explored but result in a huge knowledge advantage once discovered. Thanks for these tidbits 🙏
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# ? Apr 10, 2024 23:45 |
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Moon Slayer posted:I'm not the only one who puts on the appropriate armor and face paint depending on which clan's territory I'm in, right?
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# ? Apr 11, 2024 00:28 |
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I tend to crutch hard on Nora Hunter armors for the concentration perks and the looong slow down. Maybe I should swap out for other armors these days because I've stopped relying on pinging hunter arrows off weakspots, instead relying on brief bursts of concentration during shredder throws or sustained bursts during tied down freezes. Like, having Concentration Plus and Deep Concentration and Concentration Regen is probably overkill.
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# ? Apr 11, 2024 00:40 |
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After watching a video about it, I'm curious about low-health builds. It actually sounds pretty powerful? You just have to be careful not to get hit twice within a couple seconds. Edit: I'm really curious what they're going to do with Sylens for the third game, since IMO he's unquestionably the best and most interesting character in the game. Everyone else feels vaguely...Whedonesque? I don't dislike them, but they feel kind of out of place in the setting. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 01:23 on Apr 11, 2024 |
# ? Apr 11, 2024 01:18 |
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Dammit, I just knocked off the important material on one of the big turtle guys, but it fell 5ft underground so I can't loot it! On the upside, it proved that my shredder gauntlet is very good at tearing stuff off. The final exploding shot (after you've caught 3) seems to act like a super-tearblast arrow.
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# ? Apr 11, 2024 03:56 |
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I don't know what I expected out of the PC release, but it deffo wasn't the rise of the Gauntlet Gang
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# ? Apr 11, 2024 04:10 |
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Finally wrapped the main game after 89 hours. It was honestly a lot and after playing them back to back I think I like ZD overall a little more than FW. Despite the over reliance on text logs it just felt like a tighter, better paced game. FW was like twice as long as ZD, and it was around 60 or 70 hours I was just feeling done but there was still so much more to go. I didn't even bother 100%ing and it still took that long. And I think FW got bogged down somewhat by adding the tomb raider caves and ruins, adding even more elements, adding away more (or at least it felt like way more) loot, the collectables, having way more map area including like a 5 hour intro area before you even get to the Forbidden West proper. And like, it was just long. I don't think any of the side quests were bad really, there were just a lot. And I had a lot more trouble with climbing in FW, so many times Aloy would jump to a climbable spot and just...not grab it and fall. I don't think it happened maybe one of twice in the 45ish hours I put into ZD but it was constantly a problem here. I wish we saw resident evil monster Ted Faro. Actually I feel like the whole Thebes area was pretty undercooked. And tbh I'm kinda meh on the idea for the third game and how that all played out at the end.. Super gorgeous game though. I had to play on medium for fps, but cranked the graphics up for photo mode and my screenshot folder is huge. The character models and facial animation in particular looked so good. I really need a break though so I'm putting off starting burning shores till tomorrow site fucked around with this message at 04:27 on Apr 11, 2024 |
# ? Apr 11, 2024 04:16 |
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As someone who had been spoiled on Zero Dawn's main plot stuff (and didn't have that mystery pushing me along as much), I think Forbidden West is generally a much more fun game. Much better side quests, combat, and more interesting/varied environments. Its open-world stuff is generally of remarkably good quality - the side quests have decent little plots and the puzzles are good. It feels like they actually filled the massive world with stuff to do that mostly doesn't feel like it's just there to fill a checklist. I think positive opinions on Zero Dawn (relative to FW) largely hinge on the core mystery being more interesting (which is kind of unavoidable, since you have big questions like "what's up with all these robot dinosaurs" to answer, while the sequel just had "what's up with the Mysterious Signal" - and the answer to that is about as good as it could have been, since the only alternative would have been something like aliens). To use probably the best comparison - the two Spider-man games - I actually think Forbidden West does a better job of fulfilling the mission of "giving us an enhanced version of its predecessor" than Spider-man 2 did. Edit: This game also does an incredible job of animating NPCs. Other games have similar face/body animation quality for major characters, but it's very impressive how good this game is with animating minor quest NPCs. Ytlaya fucked around with this message at 09:16 on Apr 11, 2024 |
# ? Apr 11, 2024 09:13 |
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# ? Jun 3, 2024 13:40 |
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Ytlaya posted:After watching a video about it, I'm curious about low-health builds. It actually sounds pretty powerful? You just have to be careful not to get hit twice within a couple seconds. It's good for highlight reels where you see Aloy one-shot an Apex Tremortusk for 32k damage from 100 yds away but IMHO it's impractical for actually playing the campaign on Ultra when a single stray attack can kill you, most fights have multiple machines, and you probably need to tear off some of the parts for crafting beforehand. For the overkill amusement factor though, it is insanely cheap.
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# ? Apr 11, 2024 13:38 |