Horizon Zero Dawn (Official Discussion Thread)

Overriding the western-most Tallneck was a bit of a nail biter for me. Tons of machines in that area. In games that allow you to choose stealth or combat I almost always choose combat, but that area forced me to stealth through and it was awesome. In some areas this game forces me play outside my comfort zone, but in a good way. Really fun game.
 
bmg said:
Just set AF to 16 in the video driver...works fine.
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SMAA in game, AF off in game, AF in video driver, right?

I found for myself that on a single 1080ti I actually had to take 4k down one notch on resolution. It's hardly the end of the world because I can pretty much get away with everything else in spades but at 4k I just couldn't get things quite dialed in right. The game is gorgeous, smooth as butter, and I loved this on the PS4 and I think I'm going to appreciate it even more now. I'm glad more people are playing it. It's a great game.

I hope somehow Ghosts of Tsushima from Sucker Punch (which I just finished) gets this treatment some day and it isn't a three year wait because that game is something special in its own right and seeing this gives me an idea of what that can be like.
 
bmg said:
Just set AF to 16 in the video driver...works fine.
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It actually didn't work fine for me. When I tried that, I got all sorts of strange geometry pop-in, where the LOD would visibly change right up next to the camera.
 
Porter_ said:
Overriding the western-most Tallneck was a bit of a nail biter for me. Tons of machines in that area. In games that allow you to choose stealth or combat I almost always choose combat, but that area forced me to stealth through and it was awesome. In some areas this game forces me play outside my comfort zone, but in a good way. Really fun game.
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Stealth is quite powerful in this game, especially once you can override machines. The "lure" ability and Silent Strike are the first things you should unlock skill-wise, IMO.

I generally run around in the max-level stealth armor for most of the game, until I get the powered armor.
 
Aireoth said:
My only guess is they want to patch it once and walk away.
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It's already been patched twice, so...maybe? I am still waiting for performance/crash fixes as well as making the snow displacement dynamic like it was on the PS4.
 
Played for about 4 hours between last night and this morning. Zero crashes, game runs at constant 60 FPS. Definitely having fun so far, glad I picked it up.
 
Their patching is really odd.

1.00 - moderate crashing
1.01 - minimal crashing
1.02 - maximum crashing

Not sure when I'll see zero crashing
 
MavericK said:
It's already been patched twice, so...maybe? I am still waiting for performance/crash fixes as well as making the snow displacement dynamic like it was on the PS4.
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IIRC one was almost a day one, so that hardly counts. the other was to add the tools to diagnose cause.

Final will be result of those tool.
 
The game has been stable for me. I remember it being a steaming pile on launch day. I haven't had a crash since I started playing on the last patch. Performance seems fine. It isn't flawless, but it's mostly good. With all of the stuff blowing around and the weird color palette, it looks like something is up...but it's just the look of the game.
My main wish is the resolution thing. No matter what I do, the game seems to always start in 1080p rather than 4K. I have to toggle borderless to fullscreen every time. That wasn't happening on day 1, so one of the patches introduced that.

Oh yeah, I guess you have to let the game re-compile the shaders if you plan to enable AF via your video driver. You have to delete PSOCache.bin in the installation folder.
 
Done. 2 days, 17 hours and 42 minutes. Didn't feel like like a slog at all. What I like is that the enemy encounters take skill to bring down in efficient ways. It's a skill that you just have to take time to develop, I did not so much, just brute forced as needed. The world feels huge, biomes feel unique and authentic, the creature designs are awesome, art and lighting direction are amazing. Not going to jump in for New Game+ right now and no real desire to 100% the game, no fault of the game at all, I just have stuff to do :D

There is one thing that I kinda wish wasn't available. Not going to spoil it, but you'll know it when you see it.
 

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Porter_ said:
Overriding the western-most Tallneck was a bit of a nail biter for me. Tons of machines in that area. In games that allow you to choose stealth or combat I almost always choose combat, but that area forced me to stealth through and it was awesome. In some areas this game forces me play outside my comfort zone, but in a good way. Really fun game.
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That one was tough for me also, and I wasn't in a patient mood at the time, plus wasn't that well geared. I killed a few machines, ran around a bit, and then headed to the jump spot when the Tallneck was close, then jumped. I made it before the machines managed to kill me. It would be trivial now, especially with the OP Shadow Weaver armor I have now.
 
One thing you guys may want to do, if you plan on doing NG+ on Ultra Hard or something and are currently playing on less than that, would be to turn off Aim Assist - it really makes a pretty big difference in how the aiming works and you sort of have to get used to it. To be honest, though, with M/KB it's pretty easy even with it off, but it has taken me a bit of time to get used to. Not sure if I will go through again on Ultra Hard in NG+, but I might.
 
Just finished Horizon Zero Dawn, I beat the DLC in the middle of my playthrough, ended up at level 55. Thoroughly enjoyed the game, story was absolutely amazing. I had two crashes in my 41 hours of play time, not bad at all I'd say. Probably wont go back to play New Game+. Combat never felt dull and the open world never felt grindy to me. 9/10 overall.
 
Lamont said:
Done. 2 days, 17 hours and 42 minutes. Didn't feel like like a slog at all. What I like is that the enemy encounters take skill to bring down in efficient ways. It's a skill that you just have to take time to develop, I did not so much, just brute forced as needed. The world feels huge, biomes feel unique and authentic, the creature designs are awesome, art and lighting direction are amazing. Not going to jump in for New Game+ right now and no real desire to 100% the game, no fault of the game at all, I just have stuff to do :D
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You must have been razor focused on completing the main campaign, because I have only just reached the half way mark after 36 hours of play. Its just so easy to get distracted with side activities and quests which are consistently fun and don't get tedious like most other open world games. I am starting to think there is little point in doing the cup and flower collection quests because the rewards so far have been very underwhelming, but the proving grounds are a fun way of learning new strategies for dealing with machines. I also still have two more cauldrons and long necks to complete.
 
Blade-Runner said:
I am starting to think there is little point in doing the cup and flower collection quests because the rewards so far have been very underwhelming, but the proving grounds are a fun way of learning new strategies for dealing with machines.
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Yeah I agree that the rewards for those collection quests aren't great, but if you do ...
the flower one there is a small nod about it in the end that explains why the flowers exist in the first place.
 
Blade-Runner said:
You must have been razor focused on completing the main campaign, because I have only just reached the half way mark after 36 hours of play. Its just so easy to get distracted with side activities and quests which are consistently fun and don't get tedious like most other open world games. I am starting to think there is little point in doing the cup and flower collection quests because the rewards so far have been very underwhelming, but the proving grounds are a fun way of learning new strategies for dealing with machines. I also still have two more cauldrons and long necks to complete.
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I did quite a few side quests, all the longnecks and cauldrons, slacked off on the cups thing though. There were a few places that were like "This is the point of no return", so I was like "Oh, is this near end-game?" and did a few quests and level upping. But when the last mission was up, there was no mistake that it was the last mission. I might go back and finish the sides, but I really gotta hammer on my project :p.
 
52 hours apparently, I think I am level 49 or so. Really sort of slacked off on doing the main quest so I ended up doing all of the collectibles first and explored pretty much everywhere, and just recently got to the Zero Dawn area. Haven't done the DLC yet. I did already play through the whole thing on PS4 a long time ago, but still really enjoying playing it again.
 
Having played the heck out of this on the PS4 when it came out all I can say is playing it again like this is like playing it again for the first time. I'm really glad to see others have taken to it because it's a heckuva game.
 
I'll have to test out 1.03 tonight. It will be a huge gust of fresh air if I can play it w/o it randomly crashing within 5 to 10 minutes of playing.
 
Nice. This game is getting pretty close to feature complete now. The AF issue is the only major issue left as there are plenty of games with weird 30fps animation quirks that never get touched.

EDIT: Contrary to that article, my game still always opens in 1080p if the game is in Fullcreen mode. It's a pretty easy to toggle Windowed/Fullscreen to "fix" it, but that's one more thing they need to eventually fix on their side.
 
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Domingo said:
Nice. This game is getting pretty close to feature complete now. The AF issue is the only major issue left as there are plenty of games with weird 30fps animation quirks that never get touched.

EDIT: Contrary to that article, my game still always opens in 1080p if the game is in Fullcreen mode. It's a pretty easy to toggle Windowed/Fullscreen to "fix" it, but that's one more thing they need to eventually fix on their side.
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Yeah, every other time or so for me it will open in a window for some reason. I just double-tap alt-enter and that seems to fix it, but it is strange.
 
MavericK said:
Yeah, every other time or so for me it will open in a window for some reason. I just double-tap alt-enter and that seems to fix it, but it is strange.
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some games do that to me if i have an overlay enabled, like ab/rt. turn it off and they launch normally.
 
pendragon1 said:
some games do that to me if i have an overlay enabled, like ab/rt. turn it off and they launch normally.
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I do run MSI Afterburner, but I don't have the overlay enabled. I actually disabled the Steam overlay as well since that was reported to cause crashes.
 
The Steam overlay is the only one I ever use.
Horizon doesn't seem to run any better or worse in fullscreen vs. borderless on my system, so I guess I could just leave it in borderless mode.
 
Glad to hear the latest patch is making progress. I only played for about an hour, and had no issues at all, but it sounds like some could have manifested later. I got distracted by Control, so when I get back to HZD things should be good. :D
 
Since Mortal Shell is now in the bag, I'm going all-in with Horizon. Well, at least until I know what the deal with the new Nvidia cards is. If they're the bomb.com, I'll probably sell my 2080Ti and just hold off for a new card to show up. My 2080Ti can max everything out and maintain 50fps, so I have a feeling the new high-end cards can probably do 4K/60/Max. That'll also give 'em another couple weeks to patch the few issues that are left.
 
Blade-Runner said:
And snow deformation is definitely working for me now.
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According to the article there is still a hair animation issue, AF, and some 30 FPS animation issues. But they're getting there. I hope they clean it up within the next few weeks.
 
I'm glad I'm not semitone to these issues, I finished the game and expansion and thought it was incredible. Didn't know there was issues until I read what was fixed I'm the patch notes.
 
Flogger23m said:
According to the article there is still a hair animation issue, AF, and some 30 FPS animation issues. But they're getting there. I hope they clean it up within the next few weeks.
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Hair animation issue hasn't manifested for me....probably because it runs closer to 30 FPS on my machine. Might also be why I don't notice the 30 FPS machine animation issue either. G-Sync FTW!
 
Whatever update they did borked something with my settings: The Frozen Wilds icon in the upper right was in Japanese from the start, and B was "yes" amd A was "no". Now it the icon is in English and B is "no" and A is "yes".

I assume this is from X and O of PS controller, in Japan X is no and O is yes.
 
I had 2 crashes on release day and none since. There is some framerate drop occasionally with my 3700x/2080ti @ 3440x1440 but it doesn't bother me enough to give me issues even if it is kind of annoying. Probably the most interesting bug I've run into was that during gameplay I went to toggle between windowed and full screen and it changed my resolution to look like 320x240 even though it was still full screen and full resolution; but it still looked "good" in some strange way.
 
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