Shadows of Mordor

I think the combat system is solid.. the issue IMHO with Shadow of Mordor is that the enemies become too easy once you have a few of the key upgrades, and they never really introduce new enemies that pose challenges. I still think it's one of, if not the most, FUN melee combat games I've played though.
 
Bismo Funyuns said:
Wow, looks kind of boring actually, is he playing on easy mode or hard mode? At the very least dodge rolling like that should cost stamina or some resource.
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He's 75% of the way through. Combat is trivialized far before that. End game is basically an Uruk management game and making them fight against eachother which is fun in upon itself. Combat is good enough to where while you are playing the main game, it's a fun challenge and upgrades are major.
 
Stiler said:
It is funny, an dalso true.

I enjoyed the hell out of this game, but the combat, just like both AC and Batman games, to me is just mind numbingly shallow, there's not a lot of "Depth" behind it aside from counter counter counter, over and over and over and over.

It's like since the early 2000's every game developer suddenly forgot how to put "depth" into melee combat.

Ever since Severance (aka Blade of Darkness) it seems that no one knows how to get it right.

Dark Souls is about the closest one but to me that is still not as good or in depth as Severance.
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I have to admit I enjoyed Dragon`s Dogma a lot. Besides that and DS games, nothing that interesting has cropped up. Give DD a try if you can... I really wish Namco would release PC version of it.
 
Colonel Sanders said:
I think the combat system is solid.. the issue IMHO with Shadow of Mordor is that the enemies become too easy once you have a few of the key upgrades, and they never really introduce new enemies that pose challenges. I still think it's one of, if not the most, FUN melee combat games I've played though.
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SilverSliver said:
He's 75% of the way through. Combat is trivialized far before that. End game is basically an Uruk management game and making them fight against eachother which is fun in upon itself. Combat is good enough to where while you are playing the main game, it's a fun challenge and upgrades are major.
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Can you ramp up the difficulty setting if it gets too easy, or do you think that guy is already playing on hard?
 
Bismo Funyuns said:
Can you ramp up the difficulty setting if it gets too easy, or do you think that guy is already playing on hard?
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No there is no difficulty. The game goes from hard early game to super easy late game. You can handicap yourself by not unlocking all the non-mandatory upgrades. There are still certain encounters that can be difficult depending on the Warchief. I found one that was immune to everything except Fire damage, I had to pull him into multiple barrels to get him low enough to execute.

There's also certain challenges that can be pretty difficult to meet their criteria.

I like this game, it's a fun game to play. All games shouldn't be made excruciatingly difficult. If someone wants to play a nightmare of a game then play Dark Souls.
 
I'd just like to point out that having depth doesn't mean it has to be "super difficult."

Dark Souls games (to me) don't have as much depth as Severance, yet DArk Souls is a harder game because of its mechanics.
 
NickJames said:
No there is no difficulty. The game goes from hard early game to super easy late game. You can handicap yourself by not unlocking all the non-mandatory upgrades. There are still certain encounters that can be difficult depending on the Warchief. I found one that was immune to everything except Fire damage, I had to pull him into multiple barrels to get him low enough to execute.

There's also certain challenges that can be pretty difficult to meet their criteria.

I like this game, it's a fun game to play. All games shouldn't be made excruciatingly difficult. If someone wants to play a nightmare of a game then play Dark Souls.
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I thought I read you could ramp up difficulty by forwarding time a bunch.
 
Stiler said:
I'd just like to point out that having depth doesn't mean it has to be "super difficult."

Dark Souls games (to me) don't have as much depth as Severance, yet DArk Souls is a harder game because of its mechanics.
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Personally, I think DS combat is pretty clunky, overall. I'm sure it's intended to be that way to keep the difficulty up.

SoM combat is by no means hard. Even early on, all you need to worry about it pressing Y at the right time to counter. When you have an essentially maxed out character, the combat becomes a joke. You can literally mow down an entire army without worrying about dying. I don't mind it though. I actually kind of enjoy being an overpowered monster once in a while.
 
In my case, in this sort of action game, if I'm not dying lots of times with each combat encounter, it usually feels boring, like I'm not improving as a player.

For example, I often die 20 or 30 times fighting large groups like the ones in the video, in heavily modded Skyrim, with ASIS massively increased spawns, improved AI so the enemies heal each other and use potions, NPCs can reflect your shouts back at you, or use spells from spell mods, Deadly Combat, Deadly Dragons, etc.

It's epic because you keep saving and dying and reloading and trying to figure out how to stay alive another 3 seconds to kill one of these damn necromancers before they resurrect 20 more buddies with 5 dragons breathing fire on your ass and a pack of mammoths coming down the hill.

It's a rewarding feeling when 4 hours later you finally manage to succeed against overwhelming odds, step, by step, saving, dying, reloading, surviving 5 more seconds, dying, reloading, etc. And that was just some small random bandit camp.

I've never played Dark Souls or the Batman games, but I guess the Mordor combat system is somewhat similar? Maybe there will be some sort of mod to enhance difficulty at higher level?
 
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Bismo Funyuns said:
In my case, in this sort of action game, if I'm not dying lots of times with each combat encounter, it usually feels boring, like I'm not improving as a player.

For example, I often die 20 or 30 times fighting large groups like the ones in the video, in heavily modded Skyrim, with ASIS massively increased spawns, improved AI so the enemies heal each other and use potions, NPCs can reflect your shouts back at you, or use spells from spell mods, Deadly Combat, Deadly Dragons, etc.

It's epic because you keep saving and dying and reloading and trying to figure out how to stay alive another 3 seconds to kill one of these damn necromancers before they resurrect 20 more buddies with 5 dragons breathing fire on your ass and a pack of mammoths coming down the hill.

It's a rewarding feeling when 4 hours later you finally manage to succeed against overwhelming odds, step, by step, saving, dying, reloading, surviving 5 more seconds, dying, reloading, etc. And that was just some small random bandit camp.

I've never played Dark Souls or the Batman games, but I guess the Mordor combat system is somewhat similar? Maybe there will be some sort of mod to enhance difficulty at higher level?
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The way to describe Batman-style gameplay is that it is all about using the right tool / power at right time on enemies. Usually there are a lot of "fodder" type enemies that are killable by almost any move or combos you can think of, mixed with a bunch of more specialized enemies that are actually dangerous.

Difficulty comes from 1) having to worry getting hit by something else while trying to kill the guy in front of you and 2) using the right ability to special enemies in order not to get repulsed or damaged. Added to this are usually combo meters, which basically give you bonus damage or instant kill moves on enemy of your choice if you manage not to get hit by enemies while you string up series of hits on them. Then you also have your bosses and minibosses, which seem to be an important feature in SoM, with varying abilities.
 
I agree with what others are saying : the combat doesn't seem very difficult. However, I find that I'm having a lot of fun just playing the game and finding different ways to take down my enemies. Early on, I got overwhelmed by two captains in one of the orc towns and decided to run as I was low on health and I wanted to "thin the herd'. I ran past some barrels - turned around and shot them and dropped both captains and a whole mess of orcs.

I've been playing more of the side stuff and leveling up, which may have been a mistake as now I feel pretty powerful. I just finished taking out all the warchiefs and have unlocked almost all of the abilities and upgrades.

And I'm still having a blast with the game. I don't think a game has to be difficult to be fun, it just has to keep your interests. And this game is doing it for me!
 
Bismo Funyuns said:
In my case, in this sort of action game, if I'm not dying lots of times with each combat encounter, it usually feels boring, like I'm not improving as a player.

For example, I often die 20 or 30 times fighting large groups like the ones in the video, in heavily modded Skyrim, with ASIS massively increased spawns, improved AI so the enemies heal each other and use potions, NPCs can reflect your shouts back at you, or use spells from spell mods, Deadly Combat, Deadly Dragons, etc.

It's epic because you keep saving and dying and reloading and trying to figure out how to stay alive another 3 seconds to kill one of these damn necromancers before they resurrect 20 more buddies with 5 dragons breathing fire on your ass and a pack of mammoths coming down the hill.

It's a rewarding feeling when 4 hours later you finally manage to succeed against overwhelming odds, step, by step, saving, dying, reloading, surviving 5 more seconds, dying, reloading, etc. And that was just some small random bandit camp.

I've never played Dark Souls or the Batman games, but I guess the Mordor combat system is somewhat similar? Maybe there will be some sort of mod to enhance difficulty at higher level?
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Difference is in games like Skyrim you can manually save and reload constantly. That's why they include a quicksave system. In a game like Shadows of Mordor or Dark Souls there is no save system, it's all respawn point based. Both games increase in difficulty the more you die, Dark Souls more so than SoM. The combat in SoM is nothing like Dark Souls. In Dark Souls you are kind of handicapped by the horrible combat system and clunky interface and controls. The entire game is a lock-on, dodge, attack system but the game has non-scaling NPC difficulty so some things might kill you in 1 hit or cause you to get knocked off a mountain. SoM is essentially Arkham Asylum or Assassins Creed(if you played that instead). You attack, press a button to counter, attack again, vault over enemy, attack. You can also setup ambushes or stealth takedowns to make life easier, it's pretty cool.

brennok said:
I thought I read you could ramp up difficulty by forwarding time a bunch.
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Sort of, forwarding time causes certain Uruk's to become more powerful and attain stronger positions, doesn't really make it more difficult in the long run, I guess if you kill off enough high ranking Uruks you could forward time to have new ones take their place so they become more common in encounters.
 
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I prefer skyrim with the combat mods like dual to this game. Too cartoony and repetitive.
 
Bismo Funyuns said:
In my case, in this sort of action game, if I'm not dying lots of times with each combat encounter, it usually feels boring, like I'm not improving as a player.

For example, I often die 20 or 30 times fighting large groups like the ones in the video, in heavily modded Skyrim, with ASIS massively increased spawns, improved AI so the enemies heal each other and use potions, NPCs can reflect your shouts back at you, or use spells from spell mods, Deadly Combat, Deadly Dragons, etc.

It's epic because you keep saving and dying and reloading and trying to figure out how to stay alive another 3 seconds to kill one of these damn necromancers before they resurrect 20 more buddies with 5 dragons breathing fire on your ass and a pack of mammoths coming down the hill.

It's a rewarding feeling when 4 hours later you finally manage to succeed against overwhelming odds, step, by step, saving, dying, reloading, surviving 5 more seconds, dying, reloading, etc. And that was just some small random bandit camp.
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That sounds about as fun as shooting myself with a staple gun.

Don't get me wrong, I like a challenge. Something that takes a few tries to figure out the right strategy is fine, but 4 goddamn hours of fucking around with saving and reloading? No fucking way.
 
Parja said:
That sounds about as fun as shooting myself with a staple gun.

Don't get me wrong, I like a challenge. Something that takes a few tries to figure out the right strategy is fine, but 4 goddamn hours of fucking around with saving and reloading? No fucking way.
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Yeah sometimes I feel it breaks the immersion if I am dying repeatedly. Some people just like playing every game like a puzzle, trying to figure out the next move to win.
 
I had the fun of trying to take out Tugog last night.... while he was accompanied by a Power 13 companion (whose name I forget) no less......

Killed off the generic adds easy enough with the bow but GDI that other orc with him was making it hellish until I found a spot to repeatedly stealth drop on him and stab him in the face then run away to do it again.

Thinking I'll be happy when I start to get a little "overpowered" just so I get a break from my hands killing me trying to work the controller through some of these fights..... :D
 
Stiler said:
I'd just like to point out that having depth doesn't mean it has to be "super difficult."

Dark Souls games (to me) don't have as much depth as Severance, yet DArk Souls is a harder game because of its mechanics.
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I support this message. If you can understand and execute the mechanics, then the difficulty is an abstraction.
 
Limahl said:
I had the fun of trying to take out Tugog last night.... while he was accompanied by a Power 13 companion (whose name I forget) no less......

Killed off the generic adds easy enough with the bow but GDI that other orc with him was making it hellish until I found a spot to repeatedly stealth drop on him and stab him in the face then run away to do it again.

Thinking I'll be happy when I start to get a little "overpowered" just so I get a break from my hands killing me trying to work the controller through some of these fights..... :D
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Go after the bodyguards individually and take them out before you take down the warchief. Makes those warchief battles much more manageable.
 
Parja said:
Go after the bodyguards individually and take them out before you take down the warchief. Makes those warchief battles much more manageable.
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The big issue was that they wouldnt separate at all. The 13 goon was right on his heels the whole time and trying to slip in to get either one, the other would nearly one shot kill me. I spent around 20-30 minutes trying to get one of them to drift away from the other without any luck.

Even using my drop stealth attack over and over nearly got me killed a few times.

It was a challenge, thats for sure. :p
 
Limahl said:
The big issue was that they wouldnt separate at all. The 13 goon was right on his heels the whole time and trying to slip in to get either one, the other would nearly one shot kill me. I spent around 20-30 minutes trying to get one of them to drift away from the other without any luck.

Even using my drop stealth attack over and over nearly got me killed a few times.

It was a challenge, thats for sure. :p
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I'm saying don't go after the bodyguards within the warchief instance. Get intel on the bodyguards, then target each bodyguard separately outside of the instance. Outside of the instance, you'll find them off doing their own thing like any other captain.
 
Fail said:
If you can understand and execute the mechanics, then the difficulty is an abstraction.
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the_matrix_still_1.jpg
 
Parja said:
I'm saying don't go after the bodyguards within the warchief instance. Get intel on the bodyguards, then target each bodyguard separately outside of the instance. Outside of the instance, you'll find them off doing their own thing like any other captain.
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I figured I had to do them together since they popped together as a team with around 6-8 generic orc trash mobs.

*shrug* Oh well. I got Tugog dead, there was no way I was going to tackle that Power 13 one at the time. He was way over my ability to deal with at the time.

I really need to play more though and get the story rolling. I spend way too much time just sneaking around stealth killing everything that moves. :D
 
Limahl said:
I figured I had to do them together since they popped together as a team with around 6-8 generic orc trash mobs.

*shrug* Oh well. I got Tugog dead, there was no way I was going to tackle that Power 13 one at the time. He was way over my ability to deal with at the time.

I really need to play more though and get the story rolling. I spend way too much time just sneaking around stealth killing everything that moves. :D
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Nah. The trick is to either kill the bodyguards or brand them and turn the bodyguards against the Warchief.
 
SilverSliver said:
Nah. The trick is to either kill the bodyguards or brand them and turn the bodyguards against the Warchief.
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I'm nowhere near close to unlocking that ability yet, so for me, it wasnt an option, and the hard way was the only way to get it done.

I need to do a lot more story missions I think so I can get some of these cool abilities.

Maybe this weekend I'll get the time to play... maybe.
 
Finished this game last weekend. It was really fun and whatever bits of story that I paid attention to were at least somewhat entertaining. I think the hardest part was taking on a warchief with 5 body guards. I pretty much had to chain my ultimates and jump/vault dodge with getting off executes. I think it took me about 30 minutes to finish that fight... well, technically anyway because one of the bodyguards had D up the whazoo and only was vulnerable to regular attacks or caragor finisher... but he had fast health regen so I ended up bailing. I can only imagine if one of them had poison, it would have been impossible.


All-in-all, it was a pretty good game with plenty to do though admittedly, I found myself resorting to the same combo over and over again (stun/vault, flurry with crit stack to reach 5x and execute). I wish there was a bit more depth in the basic attack subset. My biggest complaint is probably the ending... I was expecting a bigger effort on my part than QTE.
 
I finished the game a few days ago. The ending left alot to be desired. I was like "thats it?". But as a whole the game is very good. I think the biggest problem is pacing.

I felt when you finally have all the abilities at your disposal the game was nearly done. I wish it was little longer or they gave you more abilities sooner. I kinda wish they were was more the nemesis system when you branded captains and warchiefs.

As a whole I still think the game is great. I'm hoping there is a sequel, and there is the kind of improvement like going from AC1 to AC2.
 
Yeah, I think they built a great core system of gameplay here, so hopefully they can do a sequel and build off of that. I'd love to see a more Skyrim-type take on Middle-Earth, where you can explore some of the other famous areas in the lore.
 
Mak54291 said:
Can't find the change log.
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Check the recent news for the game. It's listed there.

Middle-earth: Shadow of Mordor, build v1636.29

Photo Mode:
Photo Mode added to Shadow of Mordor. For more information, check here[shadowofmordor.wikia.com].

Updates:
Various bug fixes and improvements
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Excelent game, best game in a while.

If they could merge the combat and abilities with a game like The Witcher 3 promeises to be it would be GOT
 
You can visit a lot of middle-earth locationsin LoTRO actually. (Well, except for the areas not implemented yet)
Moria is pretty nice in that game. But as you said, Middle-earth in the Skyrim mold would be really nice. :)
 
kamxam said:
... But as you said, Middle-earth in the Skyrim mold would be really nice. :)
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This was being done until WB sent the copyright Nazis after it.

The modders should have used far less obvious names.
 
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