Yeah earlier someone was bemoaning the fact that the game doesn't scale, but it seems to me that it does scale. Not EVERYTHING scales (I just got to the lynel associated with the Zora Divine Beast and it was faaaaar easier than the lynel I've been farming in the wild), but creatures on the outer regions of the continent are consistently dropping Knight/Royal gear. There's even a new "silver" color creature (seems to be tougher than black) that's started showing up.
The problem is that the enemies don't scale at the same pace as the player. On the one hand that's good because you want to feel character power progression; on the other hand I feel unkillable (which is boring - especially considering for the first several hours I had to really strategize and be creative because anything that had a "spiked" weapon was going to one shot me).
Maybe my expectations were set too high by how unexpectedly awesome the early game was?
From what I read, mobs scales as you kill them. Like, the more bokoblins you kill, the more you will see the next color ones. Same for each type of mobs. So if you explore and do shrine, gain hearts while avoiding fighting in the open world, you will scale much quicker than the mobs. But if you kill every bokoblin you see, they may scale quicker than you.
It's the Blood Moons that cause the scaling. The more overworld creatures you kill, the more Blood Moons you get - every time a Blood Moon happens it respawns the overworld (monsters, plants, ore, etc), and the monsters spawn as a higher level version. For instance, Bokoblins go from orange -> blue -> black -> white. They have more HP and better gear.
It's the Blood Moons that cause the scaling. The more overworld creatures you kill, the more Blood Moons you get - every time a Blood Moon happens it respawns the overworld (monsters, plants, ore, etc), and the monsters spawn as a higher level version. For instance, Bokoblins go from orange -> blue -> black -> white. They have more HP and better gear.
Is that true? I've had blood moons happen when I sleep or rest at a fire.
I've also had blood moons happen within like 1 minute of each other without killing anything. It's really weird, has happened probabaly 3 times now.
Anyways, I'm to the point where I'm winding down on the game. Have all memories, all the gear that I would actually use (mostly upgraded, ancient set is fully upgraded), all 4 guardians, hylian shield and master sword, beat Gannon, and around 90 shrines. Still a bunch of side quests I can finish up and a bit more material farming to finish upgrading my resist gear, but ultimately there is no real point beyond just for the hell of it.
My biggest disappointment with this game is the bosses. They made it an open world game that allowed you to collect all sorts of gear and hearts but didn't bother to scale the bosses. I had the master sword for 3/4 of the bosses and they were a joke. The Gannon fight was also extremely easy, and they should expect by then that you are powered up.
Also, didn't really think the boss dungeons were all thy great. All used the same mechanisms and it made me just wish for some classic dungeons. Hyrule castle should have also been more of a dungeon than it was, you can just run and climb right up to the boss fight.
There's a way you can get bugged Blood Moons (I've heard people seeing them like 5 times in 30 minutes), but in general they should only happen every few hours. I mostly avoided open world combat and only saw maybe 8 Blood Moons in my entire play through.
As for the dungeons/bosses, I agree a little bit. I liked the old style dungeons, but it kind of goes against the open world theme. The item durability mechanic was put in to try to prevent some of the issues with scaling, but if you rush to 13 hearts to get the Master Sword before doing any of the bosses you lose all of that.
Also I'm not sure that boss difficulty has ever been a hallmark of Zelda games. The hardest moments I can recall were dungeons as a whole, not particular bosses. Like the OOT Water Temple for example.
Hopefully they take some of the things they learned from BotW and incorporate it into a more traditional Zelda next.
Yeah, while I thoroughly enjoyed this game and thought it was fantastic, it didn't really feel too much like a Zelda game. Like you said, Hopefully we will see a more traditional Zelda with some of the more neat elements incorporated into it. Maybe I'm just fatigued with all of the open world games, but I want something with more linear progression
And for the ending
Since Gannon risks his "true form" in the final fight as a beast, does that mean that this ends that timeline split for good? I haven't followed the various lore connections between games but I was curious about that
My biggest disappointment with this game is the bosses. They made it an open world game that allowed you to collect all sorts of gear and hearts but didn't bother to scale the bosses. I had the master sword for 3/4 of the bosses and they were a joke. The Gannon fight was also extremely easy, and they should expect by then that you are powered up.
Also, didn't really think the boss dungeons were all thy great. All used the same mechanisms and it made me just wish for some classic dungeons. Hyrule castle should have also been more of a dungeon than it was, you can just run and climb right up to the boss fight.
In this game the overworld IS the game - the shrines are the insertion of puzzle elements into the overworld as a whole.
the divine beasts imo where a letdown in terms of "dungeon"
I posted this before and even on facebook talking with friends etc. - but if you "skip through" Hyrule Castle you are doing yourself a disservice - if you follow its progression in almost any of the "real ways" to get into it - front gate, side underground service entrance etc. and then progress through with a modicum of climbing or waterfall swimming - and do the internal and external grind - it is an excellent - excellent experience and great music... imo the only place in game were you get to hear the classic music you have been longing for the entire damn game - all the music in this game is so background and subtle - and I get it, I get why and I understand it - but you are not going to years from now start humming the "XYZ song" like you do from OOT etc.
Yeah, while I thoroughly enjoyed this game and thought it was fantastic, it didn't really feel too much like a Zelda game. Like you said, Hopefully we will see a more traditional Zelda with some of the more neat elements incorporated into it. Maybe I'm just fatigued with all of the open world games, but I want something with more linear progression
And for the ending
Since Gannon risks his "true form" in the final fight as a beast, does that mean that this ends that timeline split for good? I haven't followed the various lore connections between games but I was curious about that
They have not officially stated, at least not from what I have seen - the placement of BOTW in the timeline other than it is AFTER OOT- however there are essentially 2 big things that place it- the existence of korok's - as they were a direct adaptation evolution of the children of the forest into the korok form because of the worldwide flood = WindWaker timeline from Adult Link timeline after OOT - YET: in the ceremony naming link the champion - memory in front of the castle Zelda directly references SkywardSword, OOT and Twilight Princess = Twilight Princess timeline from the child link timeline --- So in game we have two strong direct clues - most people are putting it under the timeline of Twilight as they dismiss korok's - that they would have evolved into that state naturally even without the flood...even though in WW it directly tells you it was BECAUSE of the flood "how did you go from kids with faries to little tree stick leaf things?"
Anyway it goes its 10k years off of the last game at least of ANY of the 3 timelines (or 5 if you account this one timeline that includes the comics, animated cartoon and game&watch and other odd games) anywho - 9,900 years is one of the longest times between Ganon resurrections/returns - not that there has been any consistency in it, nor assumed "power levels" of ganon of a return vs resurrection or time between showings etc.
But in the end, Ganon has gotten worse than Castlevania's dracula lol - he comes because because we need another zelda game.
Almost done with GR: Wildlands, and I have BOTW on my to-do list. So question to the Wii U owners with some time invested in BOTW: is it worth playing on the Wii U?
I've been playing on the Wii U. Visually, it is very close to the Switch. The slightly higher resolution and better anti-aliasing offered by the Switch is noticeable on a large TV if you're the type to make note of such things, but most "normal" people would probably never pick up on the differences.
Where the Wii U kinda blows is in the somewhat frequent frame drops from 30fps down to 20. The Switch does this at times as well, but it's definitely worse on the Wii U. The Switch seems to handle towns and dense areas fine, whereas the Wii U will drop to a choppy 20fps and stay there until you enter a less graphically-intense area. I find this really irritating personally, but I'm not normal. Is it still worthwhile? Yes. It's certainly not a problem to spend $300 over.
Aonuma said himself that he thinks he can top this one. I wonder what he has in mind? I expect the next one or two main Zelda games will be a refinement of BOTW's formula.
I understand that's where they went with it, but other zelda games still had an overworld with puzzles and side stuff to do (though not to the degree seen in botw) AND some good dungeons. I just kinda missed the bigger dungeons with dungeon bosses. There were really only 5 bosses in the game. LTtP had what, 13 bosses?
I posted this before and even on facebook talking with friends etc. - but if you "skip through" Hyrule Castle you are doing yourself a disservice - if you follow its progression in almost any of the "real ways" to get into it - front gate, side underground service entrance etc. and then progress through with a modicum of climbing or waterfall swimming - and do the internal and external grind - it is an excellent - excellent experience and great music... imo the only place in game were you get to hear the classic music you have been longing for the entire damn game - all the music in this game is so background and subtle - and I get it, I get why and I understand it - but you are not going to years from now start humming the "XYZ song" like you do from OOT etc.
Oh I didn't skip through, I explored everywhere I could find (shrine, hylian shield, memory, etc). It's just really it is more of a big open world point of interest than a dungeon
I can understand wanting more "walk in" dungeons rather than just shrines everywhere. When I say walk in, I mean more like the castle in BoTW.
The dungeons on the beasts felt more like brain teasers or solving a puzzle than a true Zelda dungeon. Same with the Shrines. So yeah, I do hope we see some old school dungeons with hands coming out of walls and shit in the next go round.
I've enjoyed the game quite a bit. To echo several folks sentiments, my biggest dissapointment with the game has been a lack of true dungeons, the shrines just get tedious after a while.
My only other real gripe is weapon durability is annoying but that is about it
Im good with weapon durability since that is what the game is designed around, but in the next Zelda I hope they go a different direction. Would be nice to have one of each type of weapon (like 1 spear, 1 sword, 1 2h weapon, etc) that you can get and then upgrades you can get throughout the game for them
I'd be fine with continuing the durability system if they just added indestructible weapons of each type to the end-game. Hell, make each one a long quest.
In this game the overworld IS the game - the shrines are the insertion of puzzle elements into the overworld as a whole.
the divine beasts imo where a letdown in terms of "dungeon"
I posted this before and even on facebook talking with friends etc. - but if you "skip through" Hyrule Castle you are doing yourself a disservice - if you follow its progression in almost any of the "real ways" to get into it - front gate, side underground service entrance etc. and then progress through with a modicum of climbing or waterfall swimming - and do the internal and external grind - it is an excellent - excellent experience and great music... imo the only place in game were you get to hear the classic music you have been longing for the entire damn game - all the music in this game is so background and subtle - and I get it, I get why and I understand it - but you are not going to years from now start humming the "XYZ song" like you do from OOT etc.
Re Spoiler:
They have not officially stated, at least not from what I have seen - the placement of BOTW in the timeline other than it is AFTER OOT- however there are essentially 2 big things that place it- the existence of korok's - as they were a direct adaptation evolution of the children of the forest into the korok form because of the worldwide flood = WindWaker timeline from Adult Link timeline after OOT - YET: in the ceremony naming link the champion - memory in front of the castle Zelda directly references SkywardSword, OOT and Twilight Princess = Twilight Princess timeline from the child link timeline --- So in game we have two strong direct clues - most people are putting it under the timeline of Twilight as they dismiss korok's - that they would have evolved into that state naturally even without the flood...even though in WW it directly tells you it was BECAUSE of the flood "how did you go from kids with faries to little tree stick leaf things?"
Anyway it goes its 10k years off of the last game at least of ANY of the 3 timelines (or 5 if you account this one timeline that includes the comics, animated cartoon and game&watch and other odd games) anywho - 9,900 years is one of the longest times between Ganon resurrections/returns - not that there has been any consistency in it, nor assumed "power levels" of ganon of a return vs resurrection or time between showings etc.
But in the end, Ganon has gotten worse than Castlevania's dracula lol - he comes because because we need another zelda game.
There's no reason why all the shrines/beasts/guardians couldn't have been made sometime after skyward sword, buried during the other games, and dug up by science nerd zelda now.
Timeline thing is pretty much bullshit, you can interpret things any number of ways.
IIRC, Nintendo basically builds their gameplay and shit first. And when that's done they're like, "Shit I guess we need a story." So they make up some shit to along with the gameplay.
I feel like it works pretty well for them usually. I honestly don't think there was a time line until they realized their fans were trying to make one so they scurried one together.
okay now I get "this is his true form, he has given up on resurrections..." imo kind of stupid... I haven't gotten the good ending, I need to collect the rest of the memories. I did like the triforce showed up - I suppose Zelda has had all 3 this entire time? I suppose I should get all the memories then give some more thoughts on the plot... but as for timeline, I still thing it has to be 10k after the latest in any timeline , the prophecy and whatnot of why 100 years ago they searched for the robots was because of 10k years ago and the return of calamity ganon - unless we may be splitting calamity ganon from ganon or ganondorf - but I do not think he will be "gone gone" unless you revive malice or whatever and truly kill him.
April 2nd patch of CEMU has the game pretty much 100% playable. Currently the only major pending issues are cut scenes do not play and the camera can not be used. That means you can not do memory quest. Divine beasts/shrines/ganon/etc all good to go. Crazy progress.
April 2nd patch of CEMU has the game pretty much 100% playable. Currently the only major pending issues are cut scenes do not play and the camera can not be used. That means you can not do memory quest. Divine beasts/shrines/ganon/etc all good to go. Crazy progress.
