Mad Max PC ...open world...the new Shadows of Mordor?

Daehawk · Post by **Daehawk** » Fri Feb 26, 2016 6:50 am

Here is where Im at....driving to Gastown's front gate. Still no V8 engine. Guessing I get it soon. But theres a whole line of V8 engines and Ive played the entire game with a V6. Seems really late to finally get one game wise.

Toe · Post by **Toe** » Fri Feb 26, 2016 8:20 am

killbot737 wrote:
Smoove_B wrote:Geez, you guys are making me nervous. If I have to walk away from a game I've put almost 45 hour into over a car race? To say I'd be disappointed is an understatement.
You basically have to keep on the main bad guy's tail 100% and don't let his escorts sidetrack you. I'd say you don't even need armor for the race, just speed and handling (and the best thunderpoons).

Yeah, that is what I gathered, as well as needing to learn the track. There are multiple split-offs that if you take the wrong one it can throw you off his track. And it seems though every time I graze a wall or when one of the escorts bumps me, I end up coming to a grinding halt, turned 90 degrees, and getting t-boned by other escorts to the point of needing repairs, so by the time i find the healing station its pretty much over. Just too frustrating for me to want to keep trying.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Sat Feb 27, 2016 8:56 pm

I'm guessing that everything but my engine being max level (including the Thunderpoon) is what helped with the race; it took me two attempts. The first round I was weighted down too much with a grill and had sand-cup tires. Once I dropped weight and swapped to super slicks, I think I eliminated the target halfway through the first lap. I would imagine if you made a b-line for the race you might be severely under-prepared (and skilled) to handle everything.

But yeah...things escalate quite fast after that, eh? It's weird only because I've cleared the entire map of all hostiles and yet I was still getting my ass handed to me in the subsequent battles that occurred - it was like all that stuff I did was the prequel and now the game is starting.

But yeah. V8...holy underpants. I think I'm just going to drive around now and look for trouble.

Daehawk · Post by **Daehawk** » Sun Feb 28, 2016 7:11 am

Theres a lot of strangely broken scrap loot areas over at the big airport in the deep desert. Ive come across both normal scrap ones but also the ones wit ha history relic and even water that seem to either have no entrance in the marked spot of nothing at all there..no buildings no nothing. At least 3 or 5 or so.Would like to have the water one at least.

Brian · Post by **Brian** » Sun Feb 28, 2016 8:41 am

They are there. They just happen to be buried.

Have you actually gone "into" the airport yet?

killbot737 · Post by **killbot737** » Sun Feb 28, 2016 9:09 am

Yeah there are a couple of spots that you can only get to from one direction, and it's never the easy one.

Daehawk · Post by **Daehawk** » Sun Feb 28, 2016 10:33 am

Brian wrote:They are there. They just happen to be buried.

Have you actually gone "into" the airport yet?

Ya I went normal and went on the quest. Even under it I was right on a water spot but nothing was there.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Sun Feb 28, 2016 2:56 pm

Had to go back and clear out some of Jeet's territory to get me the lvl 6 harpoon. Was tired of driving by scarecrows. This allowed me to upgrade a few other things as well, including wheel spikes and finally get the flame chuckers which I've used effectively to whittle down convoys.

I really need to get me the big chief. Right now handling is so wonky that once my front end starts bouncing around things get out of control fast. Which is fun, but I think I've had enough of it for now.

Also, I've started getting nauseous after about 30 minutes of Max on foot. Which is weird since I played for 10-20 hours before this started. Driving doesn't cause any problems, but Max running around underground can start making me feel off very quickly. So I rarely play for more than 30-40 minutes at a time now.

The Dinki Di was alerting at a place that wasn't a minefield and didn't produce any mines. I just exited the game and reloaded and everything was fine after that.

Just took down a convoy in Pink Eye's Territory that was full of Armour 2 escorts. That was a lot of fun. Obviously thunderpoons were involved, but not exclusively.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Sun Feb 28, 2016 6:45 pm

Some of the indoor areas make me..uneasy as well. It's not nausea but something else -- I think that's the game's biggest fault and probably my only complaint. Sometimes you're forced into interior areas that are just way to small and the camera gets weird. Usually only during a combat scenario though. I don't think it has ever bothered me during exploration.

The Big Chief really does change things significantly out in the Wastelands as no one can keep up with you. In terms of handling, it's probably more about the tires and suspension than the engine. I also don't know if the size of the grill you have welded to the front stops your car from bouncing around either. As soon as the biggest one became available, I used it - despite it tanking my acceleration.

At 60 hours I have nothing left to do but collect random scrap, add cars to my collection (which I'm not sure I'll ever do either) and complete the main story. I guess the various races too, but I'm pretty meh about racing.

Brian · Post by **Brian** » Sun Feb 28, 2016 6:56 pm

I skipped most of the races. I think I hit all of the scrap locations but somehow, somewhere I missed one of the collectibles and didn't feel like hunting all over the map for it. I also didn't collect all of the various faction vehicles.

I did collect all of the car bodies but never used any of them as I kept my original body choice through the entire game.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Sun Feb 28, 2016 10:04 pm

As you add weight to your car you can see handling stat drop. And as you add engine you can see it go up. I'm just assuming that the V8 will help push around the 8,000 lbs of steel I ride in.

Anyway, things are going well.

If you get the survey crews, they identify all the scrap locations, and then you can just put your cursor on that site on the map and it will tell you if it has an artifact or not. So that would be one way to quickly scan the various zones to see if the item you're missing stands out.

I'm only at 47% of the artifacts myself, so I just don't see me collecting them all. That's a lot of work.

Daehawk · Post by **Daehawk** » Sun Feb 28, 2016 10:22 pm

Until last night I had the best V6 but had all the rest loaded onto the car as the best items. So my car was super heavy and moved like a cow. So last night I dropped everything down by two pieces and its a lot faster now. I still cant believe Im at Gastown and have a V6..but Im guessing its part of the story quest to get a V8.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Sun Feb 28, 2016 10:46 pm

GreenGoo wrote:I'm only at 47% of the artifacts myself, so I just don't see me collecting them all. That's a lot of work.

Yeah, that's what thought too but it wasn't that bad. Also, I'm a monkey.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Mon Feb 29, 2016 11:04 pm

Went back and cleared threat in Gutwhatever's terrain. Most of that time was spent searching for and removing minefields, although I had left 2 top dogs for some reason as well. One of those top dogs took only 2 chains of attacks from a melee weapon before he was ko'd. That seemed trivial, although admittedly I have full armour and maxed out melee weapon skills. It still seemed incredibly weak though.

Daehawk · Post by **Daehawk** » Mon Feb 29, 2016 11:09 pm

I have a pink teddy bear on the back bumper of my ride.

Daehawk · Post by **Daehawk** » Wed Mar 02, 2016 6:05 am

Here is Max, his buddy Chum, and their teddy bear....their pink teddy bear.

Daehawk · Post by **Daehawk** » Wed Mar 02, 2016 6:21 am

Does anyone know how to get in this loot base? I found it a long time ago and left it be . Now I've opened the entire map world and come back to actually clear it. But I cant find a way in. Seems to be no path up around it in the rocks and no crevice to squeeze into. I cant use harpoons on it. I was thinking either theres a way up on top of it or a way to blow the door or shoot the counterweight but nothing at all that I can find...anywhere.

This is it on the map and what the front looks like.

Brian · Post by **Brian** » Wed Mar 02, 2016 8:01 am

It'll become accessible via a main story quest.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Wed Mar 02, 2016 11:06 am

Realized that I was going to finish the game before I got the V8 (or at least clear the entire map) I just drove straight into gastown. I don't know what I expected, but since it's supposed to be Scrotus' base, I was surprised to see I could just drive in and get a couple of quests.

In any case, I'm working on the V8 quest chain now. I also pulled down a couple of scarecrows and shot a couple of snipers and now Friah's threat levels are like 2, after 5 minutes of work. I wasn't expecting that either.

So I've got Jeet's and Gutgash's terrain down to zero threat, which only leaves Pink Eye and Friah (r?)'s.

I shoulda had a V8.

Daehawk · Post by **Daehawk** » Wed Mar 02, 2016 11:17 am

Ive got all down and all bases fully upgraded and still no V8. I get that on the mission Im on now. Seems late.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Wed Mar 02, 2016 11:39 am

Daehawk wrote:Ive got all down and all bases fully upgraded and still no V8. I get that on the mission Im on now. Seems late.

Yep, I'm of the opinion that the game doesn't really push you in this direction although since I just showed up and got the starting mission, it seems like I could have shown up at any time. Except the game makes it seem like Gastown is Scotus' stronghold. i.e. final showdown/boss fight so I've avoided it to avoid ending the game while I run around collecting untold quantities of scrap.

It's a weird little break in the narrative of the game. Or at least it felt that way to me.

I meant to comment on the Tires treasure too. I've got the post card but so far I haven't been able to find the gas station. I found one that was close, but not quite close enough to the picture, and nothing around it.

Since I've bought all tire upgrades except the last one, if I don't find the gas station soon it will be too late and I'll have already bought all the tires in the game.

killbot737 · Post by **killbot737** » Wed Mar 02, 2016 11:51 am

GreenGoo wrote:
Daehawk wrote:Ive got all down and all bases fully upgraded and still no V8. I get that on the mission Im on now. Seems late.
Yep, I'm of the opinion that the game doesn't really push you in this direction although since I just showed up and got the starting mission, it seems like I could have shown up at any time. Except the game makes it seem like Gastown is Scotus' stronghold. i.e. final showdown/boss fight so I've avoided it to avoid ending the game while I run around collecting untold quantities of scrap.

It's a weird little break in the narrative of the game. Or at least it felt that way to me.

I meant to comment on the Tires treasure too. I've got the post card but so far I haven't been able to find the gas station. I found one that was close, but not quite close enough to the picture, and nothing around it.

Since I've bought all tire upgrades except the last one, if I don't find the gas station soon it will be too late and I'll have already bought all the tires in the game.

That tire quest is weird. Even if you go to the right place you can't actually get the tires until you get to a certain point in PinkEye's quests, or it may have been the main quest. It took me forever after I got the card before she acknowledged it or read it or whatever was supposed to happen.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Wed Mar 02, 2016 12:04 pm

I'm pretty sure Pink Eye gave me the card, and when I talked to her after, she said all the right things that made me believe the treasure trove was unlocked, I just had to find it. Unfortunately I don't remember what she said, beyond it's to the North.

Daehawk · Post by **Daehawk** » Wed Mar 02, 2016 11:12 pm

Yep, I'm of the opinion that the game doesn't really push you in this direction although since I just showed up and got the starting mission, it seems like I could have shown up at any time. Except the game makes it seem like Gastown is Scotus' stronghold. i.e. final showdown/boss fight so I've avoided it to avoid ending the game while I run around collecting untold quantities of scrap.

Felt that way to me also and I avoided it. I was surprised when I finally went to the gate and they didn't attack me.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Thu Mar 03, 2016 1:43 am

So ran the race and finished it first try. I assume something glitched but I'm not going to argue. Unlimited thunderpoons sure help.

I've come across a collector's worst nightmare. I missed a scrap in the underbelly and the game is not letting me go back. Once I'm in stank gum's garage, going back into the Underbelly results in an obnoxiously huge warning across my screen to the effect of: Warning! Go back to Stank Gum's Garage!

If I go too far into the underbelly the game just kills me. So I'm missing 1 scrap from the underbelly. I wonder if I can go back after and get it. Probably not.

Daehawk · Post by **Daehawk** » Fri Mar 04, 2016 10:25 am

For some reason I can no longer fast travel to Gastown. It was working and I went out and got my best set of tires that add 25% to road running and did a few scrap sites and now I cant go to Gastown without driving there. All the other sites seem to still work. Also I have 2 ! in green circle marks on Gastown and when I hover over them it says Max can upgrade his wrist, knuckledusters, and jacket to lvl 3...but I have lvl 5 in all that already.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Fri Mar 04, 2016 11:09 am

The game disables things or blocks access (like Brian pointed out) to areas at random times, likely for story related reasons. I've thought fast-travel was blocked to areas and sometimes it's just icons blocking the actual fortress icon you need to click. Other times fast travel is disabled because a storm is coming in and you need to physically race to cover in order to escape it (not fast travel away). It's not real good design, but mostly a minor annoyance. They also allow you to earn high level components for the car and for Max through raising your legendary status and/or reducing threat. Sometimes this causes you to skip lower-level upgrades or modifications that are only available through story quests. Also annoying but not a deal killer.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Fri Mar 04, 2016 12:22 pm

Daehawk wrote:For some reason I can no longer fast travel to Gastown. It was working and I went out and got my best set of tires that add 25% to road running and did a few scrap sites and now I cant go to Gastown without driving there. All the other sites seem to still work. Also I have 2 ! in green circle marks on Gastown and when I hover over them it says Max can upgrade his wrist, knuckledusters, and jacket to lvl 3...but I have lvl 5 in all that already.

It says that Max *must* upgrade his gloves, bracers and jacket to lvl 3 before you can do the mission. It's basically telling you that these upgrades are the pre-requisite for the mission. Since you already have better, you're good to go.

As Smoove points out, sometimes the game disables fast travel, as mentioned by smoove, when a storm is coming and you have to decide to run or hide from it. I think in your case it's because of the main story mission you're on (but I could be wrong).

Daehawk · Post by **Daehawk** » Fri Mar 04, 2016 12:39 pm

Maybe its a storm. Ill go outside the base and see what happens later. I was there earlier and ran and failed the big race. Maybe when I exited that mission to try later it messed something up.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Fri Mar 04, 2016 1:06 pm

The storm stuff can be wonky. 90% of the time Chum will say something and you'll get a brief message flash that is storm is coming and to seek shelter. It's easier to miss either one if you're in combat or driving and need to pay attention to the landscape.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Fri Mar 04, 2016 1:16 pm

Smoove_B wrote:The storm stuff can be wonky. 90% of the time Chum will say something and you'll get a brief message flash that is storm is coming and to seek shelter. It's easier to miss either one if you're in combat or driving and need to pay attention to the landscape.

There will be visual indicators of the storm on the horizon and you can see it draw closer as it approaches. It's pretty well done from that perspective.

There is an achievement for killing guys during a storm. I think it's 10 scrotus guys, but I don't recall specifically.

Daehawk · Post by **Daehawk** » Fri Mar 04, 2016 1:17 pm

I like storms...but Im really growing tired of Chum yelling about the mighty duster.

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Fri Mar 04, 2016 1:18 pm

Yes, usually. But I've been driving in such a way as the storm was coming at me from behind and I didn't see it. I've also had situations where the warning flashed and then I crossed into a new region on the map and the storm never actually hit me. I've taken out convoys in the storm. I wouldn't recommend it.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Fri Mar 04, 2016 1:19 pm

Daehawk wrote:I like storms...but Im really growing tired of Chum yelling about the mighty duster.

Surprisingly, I haven't grown tired of his constant comments during the 30+ hours I've played it.

The closest I've come is when leaving a base and he says "we should destroy scrotus bases" in various paraphrases.

No shit, sherlock.

Everything else is tolerable to me.

GreenGoo · Post by **GreenGoo** » Fri Mar 04, 2016 1:20 pm

Smoove_B wrote:Yes, usually. But I've been driving in such a way as the storm was coming at me from behind and I didn't see it. I've also had situations where the warning flashed and then I crossed into a new region on the map and the storm never actually hit me. I've taken out convoys in the storm. I wouldn't recommend it.

I've raced out of a storm. I was pretty much blind the entire time and it was almost pure luck combined with the minimap that saw me through it.

Daehawk · Post by **Daehawk** » Fri Mar 04, 2016 1:24 pm

Theres really only 2 phrases of Chums that annoy me....the duster one and the "Saint are you away in your own mind again? We have a mission to complete" one when Im standing not 5 feet from him fighting some guy. Sometimes if I could shoot him I would. I really wish I could bring the dog with me sometimes and have it help me attack people like in Fallout. Not that I need any help as I can kill 20 at a time...just for the feeling of it.

killbot737 · Post by **killbot737** » Fri Mar 04, 2016 1:53 pm

Daehawk wrote:I like storms...but Im really growing tired of Chum yelling about the mighty duster.

For about 75% of the game I didn't know what the hell he was talking about, I never noticed the mighty duster at all. Then one time I was in a flat desert and could finally see the dust devil sand spinning on the ground a little bit. Then I drove into it for the hell of it and it picked up the car!

Smoove_B · Post by **Smoove_B** » Fri Mar 04, 2016 1:57 pm

killbot737 wrote:
Daehawk wrote:I like storms...but Im really growing tired of Chum yelling about the mighty duster.
For about 75% of the game I didn't know what the hell he was talking about, I never noticed the mighty duster at all. Then one time I was in a flat desert and could finally see the dust devil sand spinning on the ground a little bit. Then I drove into it for the hell of it and it picked up the car!

If you're on foot it will take you for a roll as well. It can damage the car (and your health) so I appreciate the heads up. I don't normally like NPCs in a game, but I love Chum. He's the real MVP with his harpoon and helpful comments. He's a great character and a welcome addition to the story.

Daehawk · Post by **Daehawk** » Fri Mar 04, 2016 2:54 pm

Ya the duster is pretty weak looking. I dont hate him..just those two dialogs. He is a good character. Still like to punch him if I could

Daehawk · Post by **Daehawk** » Sun Mar 06, 2016 11:34 am

I run into walls like crazy in that race. Ive come close twice. Once I had 3 hits into them then hit a wall then another and another...finally blew myself up. The next close one was 2 hits into them and then for some reason my gunner who shoots the poons hid inside my car and wouldn't come out. VERY MAD right now. Sick of this stupid ass race in the middle of my Mad Max game.

EDIT: I did it!! FINALLY...then all that crap after the race.....I swear this game is madness.