Middle Earth: Shadow of War

Yeah, Tear shamed both of them a lot and I can kinda understand the frustration - it's in no way telegraphed that these guys can't lose Iron Will.

Heck, I'm pretty sure there are no other captains apart from Bruz' blood brothers that can't be recruited - well, there's Zog, but the guy actually has Unbreakable as well, if I recall correctly, so at least you're made aware of that fact.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Jul 20th 2018 at 11:22:18 AM

Yeah, Zog and Daz have Unbreakable so they telegraph it. Gaz and Baz really oughta have some special trait instead of a regular Iron Will - "Stronger than Iron" perhaps.

Tbh this reminds me that I really should've kept Daz alive for longer just to see all his convo options. And the two earlier ones too, to see how they behave around the other orcs and missions.

Edited by Adannor on Jul 20th 2018 at 1:19:12 PM

So I have been thinking about picking this up. Have they made the changes they announced a little while back?

Which changes specifically? They're kinda continuously rolling that ball of adding and changing stuff.

Stripping out the loot chest structure and tweaking balance.

Yeah it came out this week, the patch with said changes.

Good to go. Picking this up.

Need to finish this game. I enjoyed it but AC: origins rocked up and grabbed my attention more. Glad they got rid of the loot boxes, unobtrusive as they were.

Also want to try the Mercenary DLC - that looks fun.

For those on Xbox waiting for a big sale I would check the store. I picked up the Gold Edition for about 40$ US. Which includes the DLC and the full game.

So far so good. For a while every other time I went out to roam around I would get several ambushes sometimes bang in the middle of a fight. I have unlocked the majority of the primary skills I just need to finish unlocking the sub-skills. I have had exactly one betrayal to date. I have seen some interesting orks dressed up in oddball regalia, met the outlaws and butchers who make up the bulk of my army in one of two regions.

Having a Caragor on call is really nice as is a really pimped out Body Guard.

Welp, picked up the game today. It's pretty good, and the combat isn't as bad as it felt it was when watching footage of the game. I already owe five beers to the gondorian captain that repeatedly saved my ass while fighting various stuff, including a no chance boy(although it might have been different guys but since they're all generics I'm going to assume there's a single one, and that he's a fucking badass), but at least I've got some sweet revenge over captains who killed me. Looking forward to get my ring back though.

Edited by Yumil on Aug 8th 2018 at 4:31:38 PM

I need to get back into this game once I'm done with God of War and Kingdom Hearts and whatnot >.> I might as well start it over though.

Amen. I feel I lost track of the story and should probably begin again. Did enjoy it so much. Think i read about the GRINDR WARS at the end of the game and it just went "meh" to me.

You know.... the war where you get piled on by a shit tonne of people in your local area. Anyway, I had only just got my first stronghold so don't think I was too far along.

Yeah I've rushed through the main game, shrugged at the shadow wars and then since like a month after release I'm letting it sit while they roll up all the DL Cs and expansions and etcetera.

Oh wow. that's jsut great. I wrote that post just early enoguh to immediately eat my words.

On one side, I got a guy who came back as THE MACHINE. I think it's the third time I kill him and I more or less admitted he's not going to stay dead anytime soon. Good news is he's a weakling in direct combat so he's a good source of loot. At least it's not tearofgrace's take on the machine.

On the other hand, I got utterly destroyed by a captain to a point it's almost not even funny. A tank (so, a shield + a guaranted revive If I don't finish him without a QTE), gives no shit to executions, has a cursed blade and can fucking heal.

I think the only chance I have to win is if I manage to repeat the scenario that happened once where I managed to clean the place of mooks before taking him on, having a bunch of grog jars to poison (he's weak to poison) and NOT finish him off in melee.

Edited by Yumil on Aug 8th 2018 at 11:11:55 AM

Yeah, that's a cool dynamic about this game. On the one hand, there are captains you can wreck no problem. On the other, there are captains that can wreck you know problem, not to mention those first captains can come back and also wreck you know problem.

The Overlord fights have really turned me off. No stealth, no strategy, and fuck you if you run into something without an exploitable weakness. Grinding up Uruks that have a shot of taking him out is tedious as all hell.

A shame really, I was enjoying the game otherwise.

Not to mention all those stupid crossbow orcs in the galleries.

Yeah, the Overlord fights really take the fun out of it. No stalking the halls of the fort in a game of cat and mouse, no luring them into ambushes or traps, and just simply beat your head against the wall until it falls.

I'm still a bit disappointed that what I assumed from the previews they showed became a fact on release: The overlord arenas are more or less completely interchangeable.

A different paint job based on tribe, but otherwise it's basically just the same throne room, regardless of what fortress you're attacking

Kinda wish there was some more in-depth design to distinguish fortresses overall and the throne rooms in particular.

Yeah same. I had the "wait a sec, what's this bull about unique arenas, they are all identical". Hell, they even had nice stealth-allowing structure in the nemesis arena that's used all of twice, but nothing for the fortresses that are constantly engaged.

Welp. I like how things turned out surprisingly okay for me. The machine got decaptiated during an execution by another captain sooooooooo I guess he's gone for good since decaptiation tends tods to be more definitive than beating the crap out of them.

Annnnnd I cheesed the fuck out of the tank guy by repeatedly climbing very high on a tower, having him lose sight of me, and stealth stab him. I'm surprised he didn't adapted to that, but I'll take it.

And then before i knew it I somehow killed every single captain I had interacted with in the region right at the point where I had to move to cirith ungol. It feels pretty damn good to tie up those loose ends. Although i kinda hope that the next time I come back I get a greeting from the machine.

Cirith ungol's going pretty well so far. i'm getting better at not dying and improvising, and it feels really good when you pull out of something ridiculous alive.

Most of the time at least.

Edited by DrunkenNordmann on Aug 9th 2018 at 5:06:57 PM

nothing beats the satisfaction of killing an orc that repeatedly killed you. Just killed my only serious nemesis in cirith ungol with a migthy shot in the head on top of tower. Between this game and monster hunter world on pc, I have officially no free time once again.

bruz why are you so fucking funny.

Bruz is great, I love him.

Also, Tuka the Crippler. I have bad memories of him. I'm actually offended he didn't come back one last time as my nemesis.