Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor

DeVore · 25-02-2015 12:12pm

At the start I was running away from any group of orcs that was 4 or more in size... picking off the stragglers and levelling up as best I could.

Some tips:
1. When you get to interrogate orcs (and that's pretty early on iirc) then the info on the warchiefs is absolute GOLD. I wouldn't go near a warchief without knowing his intel. it turns what could be a hard fight into a one-shot-kill sometimes.

2. Bow is imba. Its also cool as f*ck. You get all sorts of neat tricks for it like exploding arrows, slow time etc. Its bad ass and lethal (a number of chiefs are susceptible to arrows to the head and its game over).

3. The second area is great, as is the story character you meet there. He's a laugh.

4. At the start you might have to pick and choose your missions/quests in order to avoid big fights. This game REALLY REALLY rewards smart fighting. If you just run into a big group and button mash you are dead. Snipe, hide, assassinate, hide etc... you do level pretty quickly but at the start you are pretty tame (compared to the God you become lol).

Canis Lupus · 25-02-2015 1:13pm

I've just bought it the other day. Gotten to the point where Warchiefs have opened up and have killed 2 of them. Is the season pass worth getting at this stage? Does any of the DLC enter the game straight away or after the main story?

In regards to combat I find the game is a bit too easy. Fighting is more forgiving that Batman and I seem to be tearing down the attribute tree. Now that I've opened up the cone of stun one it's a piece of piddle. Speccing into the bow has made the game even easier. Just slow mo kill anything tough, stun the remainder and rinse and repeat. I worried in fact that the game will get boring as a result...

I do want to spend more time having fun with the captain/warchief system though.

Lemlin · 25-02-2015 3:57pm

pablomakaveli wrote: »

That has been my experience in the last few hours were playing. Tried to kill a warchief last night and 3 captains showed up. Managed to kill one, then another had me almost dead but decided to spare me and as i confronted the war chief the third got involved but ran away after i killed the warchief.

It is really annoying after a while.

I was like that at the start but now I haven't died in ages. I've completed everything on the first map right down to getting all the artefacts and ithiads. I recently played Far Cry 4 and the mistake I made on it was ripping through the actual missions and not doing any of the side quests so that is why I am ensuring I complete all of those on this.

I'm really enjoying it and what one of the others said above - know the intel of the warchiefs before the fight - is true. I was able to kill one warchief just with a stealth kill from above. That was the only hit it took. I've now levelled up enough that I can comfortably take on a warchief and a couple of captains, plus a horde. One captain, Folglum the Man Stalker, killed me a couple of times when I started out and he was up at Level 20 so difficult to kill. He could be hurt by my bow but not combat moves but then he was so strong it took an awful lot of arrows. I nearly had him defeated on one occasion but he turned and ran and I couldn't catch him. Eventually got him the other evening and it felt great as I took his head off!

Looking forward to starting the second map later.

Generic Dreadhead · 25-02-2015 4:31pm

Wossack wrote: »

Cause of the randomisation of the captains, the difficulty curve can be pretty severe in the beginning alright (downright unfair tbh). But it gets better as you start to get some imba skills under your belt imo.

Might be a tough ask, but I'd try and get into the second area before deciding to drop it or not - I think it really picks up once you get there

I had one guy who you couldn't shoot, couldn't stab, couldn't stealth, dealt poison damage and regained health...... all he was a afraid of was explosions.... I have to spend about 8 more hours playing until I could use explosive arrows and kill him.....

Luckshaw Lock Jaw (or something).... F**K HIM!

Mr Freeze · 25-02-2015 5:27pm

Cormac... wrote: »

Luckshaw Lock Jaw (or something).... F**K HIM!

I bet you missed him when he was gone.

Generic Dreadhead · 25-02-2015 5:38pm

Mr Freeze wrote: »

I bet you missed him when he was gone.

Yeah, was the life and soul of the game..... I was proper like "OH F**K NO!" If I was fighting some low level captain and he stumbled across me :pac:

Shiminay · 25-02-2015 5:53pm

And therein, I think, lies one of the reasons the game feels like a living and breathing world at times. You really do have that "OH SHT!" moment when a guy who's taken about 6 or 7 levels off you and has now run out of things to be vulnerable to appears whilst you're trying to brand a captain to start some in-fighting *against* the guy who you owe brutal vengeance to.

DeVore · 25-02-2015 6:45pm

I started to feel sorry for the orcs by the end

dreamers75 · 26-02-2015 9:45am

Not at the stage of god like orc murderer, still running away when outnumbered or when my carefully laid plan goes tits up because another captain wandered by.

Did notice that a steam buddy avenged my death, cheers pablomakeivaeli

Pac1Man · 26-02-2015 10:24am

DeVore wrote: »

I started to feel sorry for the orcs by the end

This is no rabble of mindless Orcs. These are the Uruk-hai, their armor thick and their shields broad.

DeVore · 26-02-2015 12:12pm

And their habit of looking over the wrong edge of a the wrong cliff is, unfortunate.

Shiminay · 26-02-2015 1:11pm

Lemlin · 26-02-2015 6:03pm

Shiminay wrote: »

And therein, I think, lies one of the reasons the game feels like a living and breathing world at times. You really do have that "OH SHT!" moment when a guy who's taken about 6 or 7 levels off you and has now run out of things to be vulnerable to appears whilst you're trying to brand a captain to start some in-fighting *against* the guy who you owe brutal vengeance to.

I've just uncovered the branding. How exactly does it work? Do I have to activitate the branded followers (I notice when I press up on the D-pad, I shout something and they tend to become more active) or will they just follow me anyway?

On the second map now and the fights are difficult again. Hadn't died in ages on Map 1 but have now died twice already on Map 2. A horde isn't as easy anymore.

Shiminay · 26-02-2015 6:22pm

Yea, you push Up and they rally to you and start fighting for you. If you're just walking around, one of your branded followers won't treat you as hostile and will, I think, act to defend you if you draw aggro from elsewhere. When you learn the skill, you then have the ability to push Down and kill every orc you've branded. I believe there's an achievement for branding every orc on the map and then killing them all at once with this

So yea, orcs may be really cruel and evil, but Talion is a full-blown psychopathic mass murderer with a death-toll of tens of thousands of orcs by the time you finish the game and play some DLC! This is why I think playing as an Orc rising through the ranks and having to judge whether or not you want to take him on or run away would be a lot of fun.

DeVore · 26-02-2015 6:44pm

yeah I got the feeling that the flavour conversations the orcs had with each other about all the mean things they did to the slaves that day was to convince us that we weren't the psychopathic villains of the piece in a kind of "I Am Legend" way. (The book, not the bastardised ending of the film which totally bailed on the whole meaning of the book

)

Kirby · 26-02-2015 7:34pm

DeVore wrote: »

yeah I got the feeling that the flavour conversations the orcs had with each other about all the mean things they did to the slaves that day was to convince us that we weren't the psychopathic villains of the piece in a kind of "I Am Legend" way. (The book, not the bastardised ending of the film which totally bailed on the whole meaning of the book )

There was an alternate ending that they filmed which you might enjoy more.

TitianGerm · 09-03-2015 11:57am

I picked this up during the Christmas Live sales and I've only started it now.
God I'm having so much fun sneaking into hideouts/compounds (whatever there called) and killing captains. I've had some great battles

I really should start more of the story though, I've only done the first 3 missions.

Q_Ball · 09-03-2015 12:15pm

I've gotten to the point in Udun where all the captains and warchiefs are less than level 10. I might dedicate an hour to see if it's possible to kill all of them without any being replaced

Wossack · 09-03-2015 12:18pm

thats an achievement I think

DeVore · 09-03-2015 12:38pm

I tried that and wrote up my results earlier in the thread.

If you are killing them one by one, at a certain point the game just forced a partial refill of the captains. I believe you can do it if you mark them all and then execute them in one go

... it might also have been a time thing, it could be that it forces a refill after a certain length of time has past...

Generic Dreadhead · 09-03-2015 12:41pm

^ Did you die at any point, or log out of the game?

DeVore · 09-03-2015 3:55pm

logged out a lot... not a problem. I was doing it without dying (which triggers a refill too) and hadn't died.

dreamers75 · 03-04-2015 12:05am

This is pushed to my backlog now and with GTA coming out its taking up precious SSD space. Anyone have it running on a non SSD any issues? Easiest option is to move it and put GTA V on the SSD but Mordor looks fantastic on 290X

Shiminay · 04-04-2015 1:23am

It's installed on one of my mechanical disks, no problems at all.

Danger781 · 10-04-2015 4:58pm

Shiminay wrote: »

It's installed on one of my mechanical disks, no problems at all.

This. No issues here at 1440p.

salamanca22 · 10-04-2015 5:01pm

Having it on an ssd will only improve loading times. Not how the game actually performs, unless it loads assets on the fly.

brevity · 17-04-2015 5:28pm

So I'm in the process of building a new PC and looking to get this game. I have a feeling that a GOTY Edition will be out at some point but in the meantime do ye think this would be a good deal?

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

Its the game and all dlc for 30€

Stone Deaf 4evr · 24-04-2015 5:02pm

I know that SoM was originally meant to be a Batman game, but after watching the Daredevil series on Neflix, I would gladly pay to see a daredevil game based off of shadow of mordor, It'd make perfect sense, the movesets are similar, street thugs could substitute straight in for Orcs etc. Dominating crims to work for you or snitch on their bosses. It'd be great.

Kirby · 25-04-2015 6:33am

Perhaps. But most of Shadow of Mordor includes big open wastelands and such. Daredevil fights in claustrophobic alley ways, small rooms and buildings. It would have to feel more like Arkham asylum....but even tighter in.

Shiminay · 25-04-2015 3:23pm

I dunno if I'd fancy a full Netflix DD tie-in game as much as a Defenders game. If you're not familiar with the plan, there are shows coming for aka Jessica Jones and Luke Cage as well as a Defenders tie in which will also feature Iron Fist.

Would be an interesting one to take GTA style with switching between the characters (all with a unique combat style and ability to make use of the environment) and maybe even special "team-up" moves for fighting bigger enemies etc. No reason the game play can't mirror or take inspiration from the progression of each tv show too.

This thing pretty much writes itself actually... someone needs to hire me...

Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor

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