Horizon 2: Forbidden West

Dandai · Mar 7, 2022

I want to discuss the ending, events leading up to it, and speculate on DLC so please don’t click the spoiler unless you’ve beaten the game!

Seriously, the story is pretty neat, and I don’t want to deprive you of experiencing it first hand. Don’t click unless you’ve beaten!

I’m thinking DLC will be finding the remaining AIs (probably 2 diff DLC because 2 AIs). It’ll give them a chance to expand the world outside of North America and introduce other cultures.

Horizon 3 is plainly gonna be all about the forward party of Nemesis landing on earth and then building up forces until the final conflict where you destroy it in space or befriend it and it creates synthetic human life or something. Probably Aloy sacrifices herself to save life on earth following the same cycle as her “mom” Elisabet.

The problem I’m foreseeing is how the gameplay of bows and spears against magic Clarketech (any tech sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic) will be believably compelling.

Dandai · Mar 7, 2022

Mist said:
There's actually a ton of stuff not on the map in HFW. Not just unmarked but also literally just off the map.

They're both great games but ER is making it hard for me to get into because it's just so fucking ugly and unoptimized.

I’m moving more and more towards becoming a console pleb these days. Vidya cards are so expensive, especially when I can get similar performance (at least to my caveman sensibilities) from a $500 console.

Mist · Mar 7, 2022

Dandai said:
I’m moving more and more towards becoming a console pleb these days. Vidya cards are so expensive, especially when I can get similar performance (at least to my caveman sensibilities) from a $500 console.

Yeah, I'm glad HFW forced me to actually use the PS5 and TV I bought lol, and remember, or completely relearn, how to play a shooter with a controller.

The last shooter I played through with a controller was Halo 1 unless you want to count GTA3 as a shooter.

Qhue · Mar 7, 2022

TJT said:
I think the Elden Rings story is good. Just like Bloodborne's was good. It is not narrated to you though and you are supposed to fill in the gaps yourself.

No.

The Elden Ring story that YOU have created in your mind based on the various bits and bobs that have been handed to you may be good, but that's the same sort of story someone creates based on the bio blurb on the back of a G.I. Joe figure...

This is just some JJ Abrams mystery-box bullshit where you just throw things out there and count on the creativity of the audience to "fill in the gaps" AKA do the work for you.

This isn't respecting the audience, it's making fun of the audience because you are relying on them viewing your half-thought-out edgelord non sequiturs as being the work of an auteur rather than a hack.

This isn't epic story telling. It's some taglines on Hot Topic T-shirt rack masquerading as narrative.

The only true value has been in making predictions about how pretentiously predictable "story beats" will be.

They fought and they fell in love but then he was tragically cursed and fell in love with someone else. She went nuts and is nursing a seed of reality like an infant...

Meanwhile we have Godfrey, Godfrey, Godrick and Rennala, Renalia, Ricotta etc idiocy.

Mist · Mar 7, 2022

Qhue said:
No.

The Elden Ring story that YOU have created in your mind based on the various bits and bobs that have been handed to you may be good, but that's the same sort of story someone creates based on the bio blurb on the back of a G.I. Joe figure...

This is just some JJ Abrams mystery-box bullshit where you just throw things out there and count on the creativity of the audience to "fill in the gaps" AKA do the work for you.

This isn't respecting the audience, it's making fun of the audience because you are relying on them viewing your half-thought-out edgelord non sequiturs as being the work of an auteur rather than a hack.

This isn't epic story telling. It's some taglines on Hot Topic T-shirt rack masquerading as narrative.

The only true value has been in making predictions about how pretentiously predictable "story beats" will be.

They fought and they fell in love but then he was tragically cursed and fell in love with someone else. She went nuts and is nursing a seed of reality like an infant...

Meanwhile we have Godfrey, Godfrey, Godrick and Rennala, Renalia, Ricotta etc idiocy.

I don't think that's fair.

ER and Bloodborne don't really have a plot, but they certainly do have a story and tell a story. The fact that a bunch of it is vague and memeworthy is not a bad thing at all.

People confuse plot and story a lot.

HFW is like a Bioware-style game it has a lot of fucking plot, almost too much.

HFW's biggest weakness is the complete lack of replayability. There are no builds, you will get enough skillpoints to get every skill you want. There are no meaningful choices at all.

It is a game designed for you to 100% and forget about until the next one. Aside from the lack of choices, HFW is the very best of Mass Effect meets Assassins Creed meets Monster Hunter.

Elden Ring is a gigantic game with a high degree of replayability ontop of that already massive size. It's just kinda brown and uh, the UI is really bad. Like worse than out-of-the-box Skyrim bad.

Bandwagon · Mar 7, 2022

Mist said:
They're both good, large games, HFW is a way more well-put-together game than ER overall. Has better combat too, and probably better itemization.

But it was definitely a very bad decision to go head-to-head with a huge multiplatform release on a console that people are still having a hard time getting.

I haven't really been keeping track of this thread or this release.

My only complaint with Horizon 1 was that I didn't give a shit about any of the gear. I don't even care about general min/maxing....I just want to feel it when I upgrade my "Flaming bow" to "OMFG Apocalypse Bow of Fiery Death".

Is that any better in Horizon 2?

Mist · Mar 7, 2022

Bandwagon said:
I haven't really been keeping track of this thread or this release.

My only complaint with Horizon 1 was that I didn't give a shit about any of the gear. I don't even care about general min/maxing....I just want to feel it when I upgrade my "Flaming bow" to "OMFG Apocalypse Bow of Fiery Death".

Is that any better in Horizon 2?

Yes, the itemization is super good in this game. There's no best weapon, every weapon has unique perks that level up as you upgrade each weapon with rare components. Every weapon has a different mix of ammunition types, including some rare combinations. You really have to make real decisions about how to invest your resources into upgrading the weapons. It gives you 6 weapon slots instead of 4 because of how unique each weapon is. Some purple weapons are actually better then some legendary weapons in some situations because of perks, ammo types, or because the upgrade resources are more accessible, or just because they do more damage with certain ammo types.

The javelins and shredders are also just really fun new weapons in general.

Bandwagon · Mar 7, 2022

Mist said:
Yes, the itemization is super good in this game. There's no best weapon, every weapon has unique perks that level up as you upgrade each weapon with rare components. Every weapon has a different mix of ammunition types, including some rare combinations. You really have to make real decisions about how to invest your resources into upgrading the weapons. It gives you 6 weapon slots instead of 4 because of how unique each weapon is. Some purple weapons are actually better then some legendary weapons in some situations because of perks, ammo types, or because the upgrade resources are more accessible, or just because they do more damage with certain ammo types.

The javelins and shredders are also just really fun new weapons in general.

Good enough for me.

Anyone try this on a PS4 Pro yet? I bought my Pro for the first Horizon, I have next to zero interest in a PS5 at this point though.

Qhue · Mar 7, 2022

Dandai said:
I want to discuss the ending, events leading up to it, and speculate on DLC so please don’t click the spoiler unless you’ve beaten the game!

Seriously, the story is pretty neat, and I don’t want to deprive you of experiencing it first hand. Don’t click unless you’ve beaten!

I’m thinking DLC will be finding the remaining AIs (probably 2 diff DLC because 2 AIs). It’ll give them a chance to expand the world outside of North America and introduce other cultures.

Horizon 3 is plainly gonna be all about the forward party of Nemesis landing on earth and then building up forces until the final conflict where you destroy it in space or befriend it and it creates synthetic human life or something. Probably Aloy sacrifices herself to save life on earth following the same cycle as her “mom” Elisabet.

The problem I’m foreseeing is how the gameplay of bows and spears against magic Clarketech (any tech sufficiently advanced is indistinguishable from magic) will be believably compelling.

Yeah I think your prediction is quite likely with respect to DLC as I had the exact same thought.

More detailed spoiler follows:

Horizon: Nemesis or whatever they end up calling it will almost certainly be more global in nature and, ideally, showcase a world that has had a chance to renew itself following Gaia's restoration and access to Apollo. Did we see the estimated ETA for Nemesis? I'm thinking a few year gap to allow for some global education may be appropriate. I think one way they can get around the bows and spears vs Clarketech issue could be the existing aspects of Clarktech that permeate Horizon already. The various crafters are effectively working in a kind of technomagic already with their 'primitive' creations and I could easily see this only getting more progressed with the addition of the Far Zenith tech.

Mist · Mar 7, 2022

Bandwagon said:
Good enough for me.

Anyone try this on a PS4 Pro yet? I bought my Pro for the first Horizon, I have next to zero interest in a PS5 at this point though.

Personally I'd just wait for PC if you don't have a PS5 but I'm a performance snob.

spronk · Mar 7, 2022

Bandwagon said:
Good enough for me.

Anyone try this on a PS4 Pro yet? I bought my Pro for the first Horizon, I have next to zero interest in a PS5 at this point though.

you can watch the DF video and let us know what they think. it'll probably be 2-3 years before it releases on PC

Folanlron · Mar 7, 2022

Bandwagon said:
Good enough for me.

Anyone try this on a PS4 Pro yet? I bought my Pro for the first Horizon, I have next to zero interest in a PS5 at this point though.

I've been playing it on base PS4, runs really good other then load times, and well some interesting streaming issues when the game is trying to keep up, but the most recent patches have fixed a good amount of these issues..

Flying makes it really freak out though, there is a lot of loading screens if you're just wanting too cruise around the world on the sunwing..

Mist · Mar 7, 2022

The load times on PS5 are hilariously short. I can't believe they managed to do that.

Kajiimagi · Mar 7, 2022

Bandwagon said:
Good enough for me.

Anyone try this on a PS4 Pro yet? I bought my Pro for the first Horizon, I have next to zero interest in a PS5 at this point though.

base ps4 here, zero issues other than it taking 30-40 seconds to load

Mist · Mar 7, 2022

Kajiimagi said:
base ps4 here, zero issues other than it taking 30-40 seconds to load

Yeah load times on PS5 are like 0-3 seconds. Fucking crazy.

Also crazy, endgame advanced explosive javelins with the ability that makes javelins split into 3s. Really makes large robots a lot less scary.

SimSimSalabim · Mar 8, 2022

Not only are the PS5 load times insanely fast, they’re so fast that I’ve read people complaining about the devs leaving the loading screen in on the ps5 version. “Press X to continue” really does come up almost simultaneously with the loading screen art and gameplay tooltip.

kinadin · Mar 8, 2022

Bandwagon said:
Good enough for me.

Anyone try this on a PS4 Pro yet? I bought my Pro for the first Horizon, I have next to zero interest in a PS5 at this point though.

I'm on a PS4 Pro. The game looks great, feels great, responds great, and the initial world load time or fast travel times are generally < 30 seconds. I'm not one to nitpick resolutions or FPS, though. I'm more of a "is it playable and does it look cool," type of person.

Kovaks · Mar 8, 2022

Never played the first one, would I need to go back to enjoy this or can I start here?

Mist · Mar 8, 2022

Kovaks said:
Never played the first one, would I need to go back to enjoy this or can I start here?

Yeah I'd recommend playing through the main story on normal real quick... this one does not catch you up on much.

It'd be like playing Mass Effect 2 without playing 1. It's not impossible but you're definitely going to be missing a lot.

Kajiimagi · Mar 8, 2022

Mist said:
Yeah load times on PS5 are like 0-3 seconds. Fucking crazy.

Also crazy, endgame advanced explosive javelins with the ability that makes javelins split into 3s. Really makes large robots a lot less scary.

I'll probably eventually get a PS5, I've had every other PS console. It won't be until I can walk in a store/click on a website and buy it though. Fuck lotteries, fuck scalpers.

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Horizon 2: Forbidden West

Dandai

<WoW Guild Officer>

Dandai

<WoW Guild Officer>

Mist

REEEEeyore

Qhue

Tranny Chaser

Mist

REEEEeyore

Bandwagon

Kolohe

Mist

REEEEeyore

Bandwagon

Kolohe

Qhue

Tranny Chaser

Mist

REEEEeyore

spronk

FPS noob

Folanlron

Trakanon Raider

Mist

REEEEeyore

Kajiimagi

Mist

REEEEeyore

SimSimSalabim

Molten Core Raider

kinadin

Kovaks

Mr. Poopybutthole

Mist

REEEEeyore

Kajiimagi