Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor

[Paingod]

I fucking hate ghuls!

Their big weakness is that they take one hit from anything to kill. I found that the thrown daggers make easy work of thinning the herd before they get to you, especially if you have the triple throw. Swinging wildly and without grace can help build up the 8 hits needed to make your sword glow/set on fire and then you can hit "R" (not sure what the controller button is) to do a Wraith Flash (AoE) that will kill any within 15 feet of you. If all else fails, Dodge/Roll ("Space" on keyboard controls) to lunge and roll over them and keep doing it until you're out of the hoard, run a bit, and then turn around and hack/dagger them down as they run at you.

It was the Ghul Matron that made me in a big way.

Last night I convinced a bunch of Uruks to kill a Graul for me. There's an artifact in the back of his cave, but I can't seem to find it. I wanted him gone so I could poke around better... I had to drag about 20 of the buggers in, then keep the beast stunned with arrows while they hacked it to pieces. Still didn't find the artifact; I'll have to research that one. It seemed to be just behind a wall I couldn't pass.

I blew through a some of the Commanders; I have two left now. Still, the hardest thing I've fought was that Ghul Matron. I even fostered my pet Uruk Captain to level 19 and 'harvested' him - for a chintzy Bow Rune that I didn't need; it was a strong useless rune, but still useless. I suppose there's limited value in bothering to do that again.

[Paingod]

The Graul cave-item was easy to get once I realized I could shoot down walls with arrows.

I fought a second Ghul Matron last night, she was easy as pie. She foolishly closed herself in with me. I used a combination of thrown daggers to stagger her back, and timed sideways rolls to dodge her spit. When she got pissy and called for help, I had enough focus and arrows to finish her off before anything could hit me. Overall, a darn boring fight.

I have to scratch off "Hardest Captain to Kill" and re-award it. I've got a level 20 captain that's now fully promoted. I've killed him at least three or four times and he just keeps coming back. He takes minimal damage from any hit, blocks leaping over him, is immune to arrows and daggers, and has immunity to finishers and stealth. The only thing I can really do was just continually stagger him with "E" (Wraith Punch) over and over and over until he dies. A lot of punching. A lot.

Took out a Graul for the hunting quest, second attempt. The first was going really well until a Catagaur spawn ran in and ripped it's throat out... so my second attempt involved not just whittling down the Graul while riding a mount (charge, hit, pass through, circle around, charge, hit, pass through - it keeps it from hitting me) but I also had to defend it from several Uruk and Catagaur spawns that wandered into the area. Good fight.

[GreenGoo]

Anyone who can be staggered with wraith punch can be combo'd with well timed sword attacks. Stagger, swing, swing, swing, combat-finisher, stagger, swing, swing, swing, combat finisher.

[Paingod]

Anyone who can be staggered with wraith punch can be combo'd with well timed sword attacks. Stagger, swing, swing, swing, combat-finisher, stagger, swing, swing, swing, combat finisher.

Nope

I'd stagger him, swing, swing, swing, combat finis*BLOCKED*, pushed back. Swing, swing, swing, swing, (he falls to the ground), ground finis*BLOCKED*, pushed back. Arrows and daggers bounced off him. If an Uruk has "Combat Master" it stops a lot of good combat shots and high-damage finishing moves. Hitting him with the regular sword attack either did negligible or no damage, so just hacking him to death was going to take forever. I think his only 'weakness' was for explosives, and we were fighting in an open field.

[Daehawk]

Well well well. Ive tried to play this 3 times and have reinstalled for a 4th go. But this time I noticed a wrong setting Ive never noticed before which may improve the entire game for me. I saw that it was set to 50% res...wrong non native res this entire time. i set it correctly to 2560x1080 and ran the benchmark and it averaged 67 fps with a max of 117 and a min of 47.

[KDH]

I love this game .. if I remember correctly, you mentioned that you didn't like the re-spawning orcs. For me, the game is a stealth-orc-killer simulator. I am not always in the mood to push the story forward, so I just hang-out and stab orcs in the ear .. I've played thru 3 or 4 times to various points, mainly because the game keeps losing my save-file .. but I still enjoy it

[KDH]

...

... Shadow of War will have microtransactions but content will not be gated

ah, well .. I've been a little worried about what I've been seeing, with regards to textures, modeling, and even story-telling .. this explains it, they have visions of sugar-plums dancing in their heads

<in-toto>

hile Middle-earth: Shadow of War will feature loot boxes that can be unlocked using in-game currency, developer Monolith Productions have confirmed that if you want to expedite matters, you can spend your real-life money on them, too.

According to a recent blog on the Warner Bros. blog, the developer announced that two different loot goodies will be available: Loot Chests, and War Chests. Loot Chests will contain weapons and armour, as well as XP Boosts, while the latter provide Orc followers of different types and strengths to put towards your army. There’ll also be Training Orders to customise and level up.

You’ll also be able to purchase XP Boosts and Bundles (which are "packaged up Loot Chests, War Chests, and Boosts") separately, too.

To gather cash in-game currency, called Mirian, you need to take out Treasure Orcs and Orc followers, destroying stuff, or finding stashes hidden throughout the game world. But you can also use your real-life hard-earned cash on Gold, too.

"Gold is a form of in-game currency awarded in small amounts at specific milestones and for participating in community challenges," say developer Monolith. "It can also be purchased for real money [...] by adding funds to your Steam Wallet. Along with Mirian, Gold can be used to purchase Loot Chests, War Chests and Boosts from the Market."

How small or what those milestones might entail remains unclear, although Monolith want us to know that "no content in the game is gated by Gold" and "all content can be acquired naturally through normal gameplay."

However, in the Q&A section at the bottom of the page, the developers add that players can "save time" if they use Gold, as it "allows you to get your hands on them immediately, cutting down some of the additional time that would have been spent winning more battles, tracking nemeses, completing quests and assaulting fortresses."

In better news, the developers are using Shadow of War as a platform to introduce the first ever black character to Lord of the Rings. Not only that, but he’s going to have an entire DLC set around him.

Middle-earth: Shadow of War is set to release on October 10, 2017.

[Daehawk]

Its EA. I wish they'd bottom up. If they went away we'd lose of a lot of games for a little bit but better and more interesting stuff would return. I remember the 90s when you could still buy a game on underwater treasure hunting and diving, SEAL teams in Vietnam, Overhead space adventures.

[Max Peck]

The market crap doesn't seem like a big deal to me. If I don't want to buy gold I can simply ignore that it's an option. It's a single-player game, so there's no incentive to spend money to be competitive with other players who have deep pockets and more money than time. If someone else wants to spend money in order to spend less time playing the game, more power to 'em.

[Kasey Chang]

Well, most games that have online component already have "accelerator packs", and even GTA online have those "fat shark" or whatever that's called? currency online thing. It's basically an early unlock of some weapons you get any way, right?

[Paingod]

The market crap doesn't seem like a big deal to me. If I don't want to buy gold I can simply ignore that it's an option. It's a single-player game, so there's no incentive to spend money to be competitive with other players who have deep pockets and more money than time. If someone else wants to spend money in order to spend less time playing the game, more power to 'em.

The flip side is hoping that the game isn't artificially grindy in order to make you feel like you need to spend money just to move forward. While I enjoyed slaughtering Orcs in the first game, even the myriad of ways to kill them got tedious after a little while. Having to spend 10 hours hunting "Treasure Orcs" will be prohibitive for "fun" - however, if there are enough of them "in due course" then it's not an issue.

[Blackhawk]

The concern with things like this isn't that you can't ignore it. The concern is that the slower you advance, the more likely an accelerator/cash unlock is to appeal. It incentivizes the developer to add extra grind to the game.

[AWS260]

The concern with things like this isn't that you can't ignore it. The concern is that the slower you advance, the more likely an accelerator/cash unlock is to appeal. It incentivizes the developer to add extra grind to the game.

This exactly. I loved the first game, but I think I'll wait and see what folks have to say about this before purchasing the second.

[Sectoid]

This has got my girdle all gooey for Shadow of War. Perhaps I'm wearing it wrong.

[IceBear]

This has got my girdle all gooey for Shadow of War. Perhaps I'm wearing it wrong.

I'm wearing mine wrong too then

[Smoove_B]

So...uh, yeah. Looks like I won't be getting this any time soon - it's a 97.7 GB download.

It’s not entirely clear why the PC version of Shadow of War is so large. Some have speculated that it includes higher-resolution textures on top of everything else, while others think it might just be a compression thing. Regardless, it’s a big one. Your hard drive, much like your life, will soon be occupied by a mess of orcs.

If it's because of 4K textures, they need to let you opt out of that. Using my Gozinta math, it would take me about 7 days of constant downloading to get a 97GB game with my sorry-ass DSL. Of course my modem is going to melt before that happens, so I'm guessing it might be closer to 14 days - maybe too long for the return window. Amazing.

EDIT: System specs page on STEAM indicates 70GB available. Not sure what to believe here, though anything north of a 30GB download = pain. GTA 5 will never leave my HDD because of it.

[Max Peck]

So...uh, yeah. Looks like I won't be getting this any time soon - it's a 97.7 GB download.

It’s not entirely clear why the PC version of Shadow of War is so large. Some have speculated that it includes higher-resolution textures on top of everything else, while others think it might just be a compression thing. Regardless, it’s a big one. Your hard drive, much like your life, will soon be occupied by a mess of orcs.

If it's because of 4K textures, they need to let you opt out of that. Using my Gozinta math, it would take me about 7 days of constant downloading to get a 97GB game with my sorry-ass DSL. Of course my modem is going to melt before that happens, so I'm guessing it might be closer to 14 days - maybe too long for the return window. Amazing.

EDIT: System specs page on STEAM indicates 70GB available. Not sure what to believe here, though anything north of a 30GB download = pain. GTA 5 will never leave my HDD because of it.

I just started the pre-load, and it's 65.6GB.

[RunningMn9]

You can download it at my house Smoove.

[$iljanus]

So...uh, yeah. Looks like I won't be getting this any time soon - it's a 97.7 GB download.

It’s not entirely clear why the PC version of Shadow of War is so large. Some have speculated that it includes higher-resolution textures on top of everything else, while others think it might just be a compression thing. Regardless, it’s a big one. Your hard drive, much like your life, will soon be occupied by a mess of orcs.

If it's because of 4K textures, they need to let you opt out of that. Using my Gozinta math, it would take me about 7 days of constant downloading to get a 97GB game with my sorry-ass DSL. Of course my modem is going to melt before that happens, so I'm guessing it might be closer to 14 days - maybe too long for the return window. Amazing.

EDIT: System specs page on STEAM indicates 70GB available. Not sure what to believe here, though anything north of a 30GB download = pain. GTA 5 will never leave my HDD because of it.

I’m glad I preordered the PS4 version!

[Smoove_B]

You can download it at my house Smoove.

I'm guessing the round-trip drive would take longer than the actual download, correct? Unreal.

[RunningMn9]

I'm guessing the round-trip drive would take longer than the actual download, correct? Unreal.

The actual download would take about an hour.

[Daehawk]

You guys realize you are in the Shadow of Mordor thread and not the Shadow of War thread right?

[Scoop20906]

Are you guys buying this game on Steam? I am unable to. Just curious. I think I will wait for impressions anyway.

[Max Peck]

Are you guys buying this game on Steam? I am unable to. Just curious. I think I will wait for impressions anyway.

Yes, I bought it on Steam.

It looks like the game is unlocked now (my pre-load is unpacking as I type), so maybe Steam is temporarily in limbo between pre-order and release mode.

[Smoove_B]

You guys realize you are in the Shadow of Mordor thread and not the Shadow of War thread right?

I didn't -- I did a search for Shadow of War and this thread came up first, I think, because of chatter earlier in the thread. Or maybe my DSL search is too sloooow.

[Scoop20906]

Are you guys buying this game on Steam? I am unable to. Just curious. I think I will wait for impressions anyway.

Yes, I bought it on Steam.

It looks like the game is unlocked now (my pre-load is unpacking as I type), so maybe Steam is temporarily in limbo between pre-order and release mode.

That must be it. Thanks!

[Daehawk]

Back to trying Mordor again. Figure Id get more enjoyment out of the sequel if I finished the first and knew the story. Im actually doing a lot better but sometimes the game still tosses crap at me. I started a fight with a captain and a 2nd one joined. In the old days Id be toast but I can now handle a captain np. So 2 would have been ok I think...I think. But then 2 worgs or giant wild dogs jumped in. They killed one captain and I got credit and saw the ruin to grab. As I went towards it while the other captain was on the ground I got killed by the dog and the other captain got my credit and ranked up and I respawned across the map. DOH. Normally Id load a save but cant really do that here plus its a feature for that kinda stuff so just rolling with it.

[Smoove_B]

Reading all of updates in random gaming threads, I'm beginning to think you're a masochist.

[Daehawk]

Im not even sure anymore. In the beginning 24 years ago it was my dream. Now at times its still great and as great as once before long ago. A lot of other times its simply because its the only hobby I have.

[Baroquen]

I'm making a major push at completing the first game. I've played it in the past and enjoyed it, but drifted off to other things. This time, I've made much more progress so I'm hoping to keep at it and finish.

By then, I'm hoping the SoM gold edition drops a little more in price.

[Daehawk]

The Shadow of War Definitive Edition is coming out this month.

https://www.bluesnews.com/s/192269/midd ... this-month

[Daehawk]

Still dying. Picked up a challenge to kill 10 archers. NP...BUT at around 8 a captain shows up and starts bothering me..actually hitting me with throwing axes while Im aiming at archers. THEN another captain to go along with the first. So then I miss my death save and die. I just DO NOT understand the thinking of how this game is made. Worse there is NO difficulty setting. Shit respawns instantly and when doing one thing 5 other things kill me. I have tried this game 5 times. This time its actually working for me but I still die. Im doing way better but still die to stupid developer shit.