Rise of the Tomb Raider

The game automatically puts you into stealth around enemies. Notice how Lara gets low to the ground. You don't get broken out of it until you're noticed. It worked the same way in TR 2013. Except the parts of the game that force a live encounter I've been able to go through most without ever breaking stealth. Cover works much the same way. When you move close to a wall or low structure Lara will automatically assume cover, and you can peek out to fire from it when you aim.

I liked the system quite a bit. It did not seem invasive at all. no getting stuck to a wall or piece of cover.
 
I'm almost finished...the game gave me the 'Point of No Return' notification so I decided to go back and finish up some of the remaining side collection stuff...I'm currently at 89% completion...the one thing I don't like about the game is that you can skin animals with either the bow or gun which is not realistic...they should have made it where only the bow/arrow can allow you to skin...shooting a bear in the face with a shotgun should not net you the same reward as using the bow...they made the game too easy in that regard
 
finished the game at 95% completion on the Seasoned Raider (Hard) setting (48 hours according to Steam)...really fun game...graphics looked excellent- great environments, textures, lighting, particle effects, cloth etc...PureHair looked amazing on Lara but I wish they made her hair dirtier as the game went on instead of it always appearing so clean and shiny while the rest of her gets beat up...story wasn't anything amazing but was good enough and fit the 'Tomb Raider' mythology...some nice improvements from the 2013 version including crafting made the gameplay much better...the optional tombs were the best part and I wish there were more of them



 
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I still wish I had more control over the stealth and cover mechanics. It always seems like the "automatic" functionality doesn't work the way I want.
I've had to put my gaming on hold for a few days, but should be able to blow through the rest this weekend. With SFV coming on Tuesday, I need to clear this one off my plate.

For those that won the game with a high % - did you end up maxing out all of the weapons and/or perks? Just curious. I'm at 40%'ish and it feels like I have more perks than I expected at this point.
 
I'm almost finished...the game gave me the 'Point of No Return' notification so I decided to go back and finish up some of the remaining side collection stuff...I'm currently at 89% completion...the one thing I don't like about the game is that you can skin animals with either the bow or gun which is not realistic...they should have made it where only the bow/arrow can allow you to skin...shooting a bear in the face with a shotgun should not net you the same reward as using the bow...they made the game too easy in that regard

You can keep playing after the main story is done. No worries there.
 
I'm about 20 hours/45% in and really enjoying the game. There's a certain satisfaction from sneaking around and luring baddies away and picking them off one at a time, and there are always a variety of ways to do it. The optional tombs can be a bit short, but the settings are really cool and the game play really reminds you of old school Tomb Raider. Seasoned Raider difficulty has given me trouble in a few places so far, but overall I find that I always have enough resources for ammunition (especially arrows), and the other crafting bits can accumulate fairly quickly too. My only graphical complaint (most settings High/Very High on an R9 290 at 1920x1200) is that sometimes Lara's face can get this washed out "doll" like appearance- detail everywhere in the scene except for her.

Timing of the game was really good for me as for whatever reason long ago I had set the 2013 version aside not even halfway finished and I picked it back up and finished it over the holiday break. So I was able to grab ROTTR with the day 1 discount and get right into the 2nd chapter.

The "upgrade shack" kind of confused me initially. I didn't have a whole lot of gold when I found it and wasn't sure if the stuff available would just be given to me later on in the story (why can't I just take the bad guy's gun?). I don't think that's the case so I splurged on the military rifle and laser sight last night.

I still haven't spent any in-game currency on the "cards" but from what I can tell they are just used to augment single-run mission re-plays and don't really have any effect on the campaign. I do like that they have allowed you to craft the DLC outfits and haven't greedily restricted them to cash only. I haven't purchased any DLC, but will probably pick up the Endurance mod as soon as it gets a discount.
 
For those that won the game with a high % - did you end up maxing out all of the weapons and/or perks? Just curious. I'm at 40%'ish and it feels like I have more perks than I expected at this point.

I'm at 97% completion and there are still 3-4 skill perks remaining...I spread around my skill points so I completed 1 skill and have a few perks left to complete...same with weapon upgrades...I haven't even found all the weapons for each category as there's supposed to be more but maybe you need to do that Expedition card game or DLC story to get them as I've done all the major side quests/missions (I even bought the 2 guns being sold at that Shack)...only things remaining are some survival caches/relics etc

speaking of remaining junk to collect, there are some really silly Achievements/Challenges in the game...I never go out of my way to do achievements unless they're in the flow of the game but I did do some I read about because I was bored after finishing the main story...had to look up some solutions online as well...things like shoot a chicken in the air with a fire arrow, kill a boar with a Molotov cocktail, throw 5 pumpkins into a barrel etc
 
speaking of remaining junk to collect, there are some really silly Achievements/Challenges in the game...I never go out of my way to do achievements unless they're in the flow of the game but I did do some I read about because I was bored after finishing the main story...had to look up some solutions online as well...things like shoot a chicken in the air with a fire arrow, kill a boar with a Molotov cocktail, throw 5 pumpkins into a barrel etc

Ha - I actually kind of like that. It always bums me out when achievements are only the hum-drum "finish the game on hard mode" and "collect all of this particular thing" variety.
I'd much rather have them be creative if not totally esoteric.
It always feels a little empty when you do something ridiculous for a game and nothing happens. Yet, they're handing out achievements for playing the game long enough to reach your first enemy.
I appreciate the oddball things you might not think to do or try.
 
Nice - I noticed that, too. I wasn't sure if it was a bug or if it was intentional. I just know that moving the cursor around to a different area seemed to highlight the map anyway.
 
The latest patch is the reason why I changed my negative vote for a positive one.
My GTX980 Ti SLI scales well with a constant >90% GPU usage on both GPUs.

I have maxed out the game completely except for the ingame AA, now I'm using 4K DSR (4x DSR 0% smoothness). Games looks incredibly awesome, 4x DSR 0% smoothness is in my hopinion better than in game SSAA4x, it requires less resources and it improve textures quality by a really wider margin.
Framerate averages 60FPS in a solid way now, very rare drop to 38FPS and some spikes to 80FPS but the average is solid in the 55-65 range.

Technically speaking I am satisfied now, now I can start the game and play it to see if it is the good game that reviewers are talking about :)

Good work guys.

When using DSR, are you finding that the game menu isn't resolution scaling and that the mouse alignment with the text is waay off? I have to move the mouse cursor to the middle of nowhere to highlight a menu option. Its F*%7ing annoying. Anyone else having this issue?
 
is using DSR even an option for someone like me with a GTX 970 (1920 x 1200)?...or will the performance hit be too much?
 
is using DSR even an option for someone like me with a GTX 970 (1920 x 1200)?...or will the performance hit be too much?

Try it and find out! But I suspect it may be pushing it without turning down some settings &/or overclocking.

EDIT: It also depends on what dsr factor you will use.
 
is using DSR even an option for someone like me with a GTX 970 (1920 x 1200)?...or will the performance hit be too much?

You'll have to make a trade off. Try it with FXAA on since SSAA is redundant. Personally I prefer high vs ultra with some DSR.
 
Wow. The game looks incredible at 3440x1400. Haven't had a huge amount of time to play so I just now go through the first tomb.
 
Wow. The game looks incredible at 3440x1400. Haven't had a huge amount of time to play so I just now go through the first tomb.

that's a nice looking Dell monitor...normally I hate curved screens but I think for a computer monitor it might work better then a TV...I would never get a curved HDTV
 
I have just discovered that the pistol (I'm using the Moon Shadow) with a silencer is borderline easy mode. Unless enemies are right next to one another, they can't hear you capping their buddies.
I've gotten double digit headshot chains (with a pad no less) with this thing.
 
Glad to hear about the better SLi scaling with the patch, my buddy will be happy as well with his recent upgrade to a 4k display.
 
I need help to get diving challenges. I can't get her to dive. What exactly keyboard or mouse button when you jump off the diving board ?
NVM, got it jump and right mouse button
 
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sli works for microsoft store version after the patch. i still get a couple stutters here and there even though i am still at 60% usage on both cards. Might be vram issue since game is on my fastest ssd since it defaults to my OS drive.
 
sli works for microsoft store version after the patch. i still get a couple stutters here and there even though i am still at 60% usage on both cards. Might be vram issue since game is on my fastest ssd since it defaults to my OS drive.

Still a little crazy that VRAM usage creeps upwards of 6GB after a while in this game.Hopefully those 8GB and 16GB rumors were true for Pascal cards.
 
I need help to get diving challenges. I can't get her to dive. What exactly keyboard or mouse button when you jump off the diving board ?
NVM, got it jump and right mouse button

yeah that was a bit tricky for me as well using kb/m...even after I did it a few times the controls were still weird and didn't always respond the next time so I had to try a few times
 
I can play this game maxed at 3440x1440 and FXAA with a Titan X around 50FPS. Game looks absolutely fantastic. Only about twenty minutes in though.
 
Just picked up a code for this game from another member, looking forward to see how well my R9 390 performs!
 
Just came to my attention that Valentines day is Lara's Bday!

97582563E9C3759E7A710C3353599A9560B49E00
 
the latest patch made possible to play at 4K, maxed out except AA on the system in signature.
well done. now I can enjoy the game as expected.
 
Completed the game a few minutes ago. Found all of the items and completed most of the upgrades, but didn't do a lot of the "challenges" like destroying radios and burning flags.

The final areas finally give you some enemies that have some "oomph" behind their attacks, which is nice change of pace. I generally found melee attacks to be of more use than shooting. If you take the perk that grants invulnerability after a kill, you can essentially just mash Y and take out a bunch of them. The dodge attack seems nice on the surface, but it doesn't seem to actually kill any stronger foes, so it's rarely worth doing. If shit really hits the fan - the pump shotgun is a nice back up.

Anyway, I had a good time with it. It's pretty similar to the last game, but with more Uncharted elements tossed in. The creators clearly drew some inspiration from Uncharted 2. Not like that's a bad thing.
 
I just noticed this the other day and thought it was amusing. If you set your LOD to high or lower, some of the trees in the game are rendered in 2D. But once you change it to very high, those trees are rendered in 3D. Just found that funny.
 
I just noticed this the other day and thought it was amusing. If you set your LOD to high or lower, some of the trees in the game are rendered in 2D. But once you change it to very high, those trees are rendered in 3D. Just found that funny.

How far off before they're 2D? I'll have to check that out later, but I don't think I noticed it on high when I was testing settings a while back.
 
How far off before they're 2D? I'll have to check that out later, but I don't think I noticed it on high when I was testing settings a while back.

I'm guessing it will vary from location to location, but distance didn't seem to matter. Certain trees were just rendered in 2D, regardless of how close/far you are from it.

Edit: Seems like it might just be that one location only (that I've tried). It's the area where everyone was injured/in a village. I just fast traveled to a bunch of different locations and for the ones I've fast traveled to, no 2D trees. I remember that scene being very taxing on the hardware, so maybe that's why they rendered a couple of the trees in 2D? In any case, it doesn't appear like it happens in a lot of places.
 
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sli works for microsoft store version after the patch. i still get a couple stutters here and there even though i am still at 60% usage on both cards. Might be vram issue since game is on my fastest ssd since it defaults to my OS drive.

If you read Brent's review, if you click "exclusive Fullscreen" in addition to the "normal" fullscreen choice directly above it in the menu, your SLi GPU utilization will go up by over 20%!!

By doing that simple thing, my FPS went from 36 to nearly 70 with otherwise the same settings running 5760 x 1200.
 
I don't think you can pull that option up with Microsoft store version. It goes straight to the game but I'll check when I get home
 
The tombs are more complicated than in earlier version. And that's a very good thing. They were too easy then. Now it took me some time to find a proper solution for even early stage tombs - like that water one in Soviet base.

The languages parts is interesting too. When you have to find every single letter to learn enough to get to some good prize (wish it was so fast IRL, would just read few inscriptions and master Latin in a week, instead of spending two years on it :) )

And, judging from the story, I've seen so far, it's another chapter of "how hard we can hurt Lara and see if she keeps going" :) avalanches, bears, zealots, falls, traps, and she keeps going :)
 
Completed the game a few minutes ago. Found all of the items and completed most of the upgrades, but didn't do a lot of the "challenges" like destroying radios and burning flags.

The final areas finally give you some enemies that have some "oomph" behind their attacks, which is nice change of pace. I generally found melee attacks to be of more use than shooting. If you take the perk that grants invulnerability after a kill, you can essentially just mash Y and take out a bunch of them. The dodge attack seems nice on the surface, but it doesn't seem to actually kill any stronger foes, so it's rarely worth doing. If shit really hits the fan - the pump shotgun is a nice back up

those enemies at the end didn't really seem all that different from any of the other 'human' enemies throughout the game...they looked cool when you first encounter them and I thought they were going to be a challenge but they ended up taking the same bullet to the face and going down just as easily...melee attacks were fun to tryout but I preferred my upgraded rifle and even pistol throughout most of the game...the different arrow types were also fun...I agree that the dodge move was useless and I only did it a few times in the game- 1 of them I specially did to earn an Achievement late in the game...as far as those challenges such as burning down 5 flags etc I never killed myself trying to find them but they were fun to do...every time I entered a new area I would always look at the Challenges that were available that way I would know what to look for

the game really is far too easy because of that Survival Instinct/Detective Vision thing that Lara has...it literally points out everything on the map including puzzle answers...I guess playing on the highest difficulty would be where the real difficulty comes into play
 
Am I just spoiled or does it really feel like shit when this game dips into the low 40's high 30's in FPS? I don't remember it being so bad in some games but I feel like putting this game on the shelf until I have a much more powerful PC to play it at 60 fps. I think maybe my eyes have just become spoiled, but 35-45 fps feels like a slide show.
 
Am I just spoiled or does it really feel like shit when this game dips into the low 40's high 30's in FPS? I don't remember it being so bad in some games but I feel like putting this game on the shelf until I have a much more powerful PC to play it at 60 fps. I think maybe my eyes have just become spoiled, but 35-45 fps feels like a slide show.

Yeah, I think it's especially noticeable just because it's normally smooth and the animation is fluid. When it does drop (typically near fires on my game) it's jarring and annoying.
Plus, I think it affects the gameplay a bit. A flat 30fps might not be very fluid, but it's consistent and you get used to reacting based on it. When the game goes from 60 to the 40's, it throws my reaction off.
The closest comparison I have is Assassin's Creed Black Flag. Without fixing the triple buffering issue, the FPS drops in that game are just as jarring and offputting.
 
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