Middle-Earth: Shadow of Mordor

Has anyone else been somewhat surprised at how well-spoken some of the orcs in this game are? I had one (I think his sobriquet was "the Wise") recently. He died while on a Caragor hunt. And not to the Caragors B)

I had one named "the Elder" who had lines that could have been spoken by Christopher Lee himself. Of course, he unfortunately died before I could brand him, because I would have made that guy a Warchief in a heartbeat.

I love those guys.

On the down side, every interesting Uruk I track down keeps dying before I can brand them

I had one "The Advisor" who never killed me. Every time he'd kill me, the game would slow down like if it was a last chance... but no Quick Time Event. Instead he'd say "Not this way, too easy" or something like that, and pimp off. I'd regain control and he'd be gone. He did that three times before I could brand him. Stylishness like that deserves Warchiefdom.

I've had a number of guys that have retreated after taking enough damage. One guy (who had the sobriquet "Black Blade") liked bragging about his sword but retreated after two different times when I put up more of a fight than he expected. Then when he tried to execute a different Captain I interrupted the proceedings and killed him XD

Retreating when they take damage is normal, IMHO about 50% of the captains will do this. (And captains who run away at low health will always keep trying to run away at low health, even in future encounters).

What I mean this one dude did is that he walked off instead of dealing the killing blow. He was winning, and decided I wasn't worth his time, and just walked away like a boss instead of killing me. Three times.

I've also had a guy who ran away so fast (Faster than those guys with the ability Fast Runner) he dodged a shadow strike. I teleported to him, swung my sword at thin air. By the time the animation had ended, he was 50 feet away. The guy outruns teleportation. He ran so fast that even in focus mode, I had to lead my shot to shoot at him.

edited 12th Oct '14 8:40:30 PM by Ghilz

Obviously, he had been drinking Crimson Graug.

Some have the "strength" that they won't deal a killing blow to a defeated foe, which means you can't recover health and have to keep fighting AND they vanish from the fight.

Had it happen a couple of times: usually an Uruk who has stupid resistances and poison damage.

I much prefer the second map: there wasn't much point to interfering in the politics if the first one, beyond just wiping out captains, but with orc allies it makes a lot more sense.

And found the report on the battle of the five armies... Or the fight to unfairly gang up on the orcs. They are rather hard done by, poor sods!

@The Librarian: The very last final battle is your Warchiefs vs. theirs plus a bunch of mooks on both sides.

Here's my idea for the final boss fight and how it should have gone down; The Black Hand of Sauron should have had the same ability as Talion to dominate orcs minds, and during the final fight he takes control of your own five warchiefs and forces you to fight them all at once. Then you get a proper fight against the Hand himself who is really strong and stuff. No silly QT Es. It was a wasted opportunity really.

Also, this game really needs are hard mode, or at least an option for the first map to have higher level orcs. There's basically no point in returning there after a certain point because all the orcs are still level 5-10ish, which is ridiculously weak by the endgame. Even level 20 orcs give you little trouble once you've kitted out Talion with powerful abilities. I really hope the DLC can address some of this.

edited 13th Oct '14 2:14:22 AM by Nysos

Actually, I went back to the first map after I'd dominated all 5 warchiefs on the second, and most of the new captains are spawning at level 10+ for me.

Maybe I just need to cull the weaklings, then. Even level 20 Warchiefs give me little trouble now, though.

Yeah. Once you unlock the "combat finishers every 5 hits", "2 combat finishers per whatever," and the combat brand, the game gets a lot easier.

Really hope they patch in hard mode, (have I mentioned that enough?) or ideally some kind of uncapped difficulty for the orcs, so they just keep getting stronger and stronger until you're eventually fighting level 100 Warchiefs that can kill in one hit with no second chance and have a bunch of immunities/resistances. Now THAT would be a worthy nemesis.

Also, randomly, it would be pretty funny to see a novelization of this game, but done in the style of Tolkien's writing.

Talion brutally decapitated the orc Warchief, it's hideous malformed head rolling down the hill as its battered body fell to the ground, lifeless. The other orcs scattered, terrified of the dark ranger's wrath, but Talion was used to the bloodlust by now. Without mercy he drew his bow, slaughtering the cowardly creatures without remorse or pity. Then, a caragor ran into him and knocked him off the ledge into a fire.

Repeat for 5,000 pages.

edited 13th Oct '14 6:49:20 AM by Nysos

If it was in the style of Tolkien's writing it wouldn't actually describe the fight scenes.

It'd tell you what the tree that was next to Talion when this happened looked like.

So, I finished the game, and found that it was a top-notch Orc-killing simulator. And that's where it's best. I can't say much for how the plot interacts with Canon, except that Lithariel and her mother were very flat, and thus made Torvin the only interesting character of the second half (and damn was he interesting. I liked how Talion almost sounded like he was enjoying himself toward the end of that plotline).

Also: Riding Graugs is a pointless skill, since it's never actually useful for anything.

I'm honestly disappointed at just how useless Graug Riding is. A friend of mine actually compared it to an infamous portion of Shadow Of The Colossus in just how hard it is to actually hit anything.

Riding Caragors is somewhat more practical, at least.

Every time I think that surely I've scraped the bottom of the barrel, that surely I've exhausted all the possible options for captain appearances/gimmicks, I find something new.

In this case, that something new is a guy with a rocket crossbow. He's got a crossbow... that shoots honest to god rockets.

The "Stun when you leap over an orc" ability is ridiculously overpowered.

"I'm honestly disappointed at just how useless Graug Riding is."

You just get the "shadow arrow instant dominate" then guide it into a fortress, hop off and let it have fun by itself. Especially if there's a captain/warchief will a fear of Graugs.

edited 14th Oct '14 11:12:03 AM by AnotherGuy

Eeeeeyup. Personally, I think the fact that it prolongs your combo is probably the most useful bit.

And then the Orcs run away into the buildings and places where the Graug can't fit.

They come back. The Graug remains friendly to you, tho.

Now I'm thinking of dominating every Caragor that I come across and then hopping off of them as soon as I dominate them to send an army of monsters running around Mordor, murdering anyone they come across XD

Because Caragors don't already do that, oh no.

But they won't be trying to eat YOU, which is the important part.

Also, can I just say that using the Shadow of Acharn to Stealth Kill three Stealth Vulnerable captains in a row is DEEPLY satisfying?