Disappointing games of 2018?

[Dirty Hipsters]

Yeah Nier reputation is far above it's execution, gameplay isn't very interesting and nothing about the story is that memorable, it's the whole "auteur" game, where praise is given for originality regardless of whether it's good or not. Oh plus you have to play trough the game 3 time to see everything, which would be fine if the gameplay was good, but it's just tedious. Soundtrack was great, can't take that away. And I'm saying all that as someone who loved drakengard 1/2.

So as someone who played through the game "properly", is the A scenario anything other than a 9 hour long set-up, or was I simply missing this game's.. brilliance? Because I didn't get anything from it, and dropped the game right after it told me to keep playing presumably because the actual interesting stuff was still ahead. And I honestly didn't feel like traversing through the same boring gameworld with the same boring combat in order to find out. I was just getting serious MGS2 vibes, and I decided to quit while I was ahead.

Then you didn't play the game properly?

"Ending" A isn't an ending. It's like if you were playing an episodic game, stopped playing after episode 2 and said "there, I beat the game, I'm done and the story was dumb" when there's still 3 more episodes and the game is still in the ramp up phase.

Unfortunately a very valid criticism of Nier Automata is that Scenario B really fucks up the pacing of the game. Scenario B is just scenario A again, but the beginning and the end are different because you you have a different character's perspective. Sadly 80% of Scenario B is exactly like scenario A, and it becomes very tedious very quickly and made me feel like my time was being wasted (which is a huge pet peeve of mine in all games).

Then you get to scenario C with is literally the other half of the story, so if you only played A you missed a full half of the game's plot, and scenario C is where all the set up from scenario A starts paying off and the story starts coming together and explaining the world.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Then you didn't play the game properly?

"Ending" A isn't an ending. It's like if you were playing an episodic game, stopped playing after episode 2 and said "there, I beat the game, I'm done and the story was dumb" when there's still 3 more episodes and the game is still in the ramp up phase.

Unfortunately a very valid criticism of Nier Automata is that Scenario B really fucks up the pacing of the game. Scenario B is just scenario A again, but the beginning and the end are different because you you have a different character's perspective. Sadly 80% of Scenario B is exactly like scenario A, and it becomes very tedious very quickly and made me feel like my time was being wasted (which is a huge pet peeve of mine in all games).

Then you get to scenario C with is literally the other half of the story, so if you only played A you missed a full half of the game's plot, and scenario C is where all the set up from scenario A starts paying off and the story starts coming together and explaining the world.

And that's exactly what I hate about this whole thing. I finished scenario A feeling like nothing had happened, like it was just some sort of ruse to lull you into a sense of nothing in particular being out of the ordinary. It was 9 hours of 'none of this really matters, just wait till things really start to happen in the other scenarios'. And I'm not going to play along with that; you entertain me NOW - I don't care how artsy and intellectual you are.

And I had heard about scenario B being even more tedious than scenario A after I had even finished it, so the thought of doing that over made me drop the game instantly. If things only start to get good in the final half/one third of a story then that's bad story telling, and if it's a necessity to the story then it's not a story worth sitting through.

And similar to MGS2 I could just feel the creator's grubby little mitts trying to toy with my mind in the most obnoxious manner.

 

[Dirty Hipsters]

Then you didn't play the game properly?

"Ending" A isn't an ending. It's like if you were playing an episodic game, stopped playing after episode 2 and said "there, I beat the game, I'm done and the story was dumb" when there's still 3 more episodes and the game is still in the ramp up phase.

Unfortunately a very valid criticism of Nier Automata is that Scenario B really fucks up the pacing of the game. Scenario B is just scenario A again, but the beginning and the end are different because you you have a different character's perspective. Sadly 80% of Scenario B is exactly like scenario A, and it becomes very tedious very quickly and made me feel like my time was being wasted (which is a huge pet peeve of mine in all games).

Then you get to scenario C with is literally the other half of the story, so if you only played A you missed a full half of the game's plot, and scenario C is where all the set up from scenario A starts paying off and the story starts coming together and explaining the world.

And that's exactly what I hate about this whole thing. I finished scenario A feeling like nothing had happened, like it was just some sort of ruse to lull you into a sense of nothing in particular being out of the ordinary. It was 9 hours of 'none of this really matters, just wait till things really start to happen in the other scenarios'. And I'm not going to play along with that; you entertain me NOW - I don't care how artsy and intellectual you are.

And I had heard about scenario B being even more tedious than scenario A after I had even finished it, so the thought of doing that over made me drop the game instantly. If things only start to get good in the final half/one third of a story then that's bad story telling, and if it's a necessity to the story then it's not a story worth sitting through.

And similar to MGS2 I could just feel the creator's grubby little mitts trying to toy with my mind in the most obnoxious manner.

I think scenario A is perfectly fine to be honest. It's necessary to establish the characters and make you care about them before things start going to shit in scenario C.

The big problem is scenario B and how it just grinds the plot to a halt. If A went right into C it would have made for a much better paced story.

Like I said though, you should think of it almost like an episodic game, and by the time you've finished scenario A you've really only played 35% of the story. It's just that most episodic games aren't 40 hour long RPGs.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Then either you're doing something very wrong (yes, I realize the hypocrisy of that statement after what I just said above) or your copy is totally busted, because that never happened to me and I was playing on Hard too. It's impossible for the first couple, or even any rock monster to one-shot you with any attack if you update your gear (on Hard difficulty anyway). The only attack to be able to do that is the area of effect attack he unleashes if you get up close and personal, and that's only if you're already missing health.

I don't even know how you can only take off a sliver of health from those guys, since their only weak spot is their chest core, and the attacks available are your axe throw, chucking dislodged rocks back at them, parrying their projectiles, and QTE punches, all of which do a good amount of damage.

And what do RPG mechanics add? A sense of change. You can't tell me God of War plays exactly the same toward the end as it does at the beginning, because it doesn't. And the reason for that is because enemies change, get stronger, get newer attacks, and so do you. Whether it's this, Resident Evil 4, classic God of War, Okami, Batman: Arkham, Horizon: Zero Damn, heck, even Shadow of the Colossus, it feels good to have a sense that you're working toward something, that you're getting stronger. It helps motivate and invigorate you to keep going in an increasingly harder world.

And Kratos maybe a god, but he's pretty much just been sitting in a log cabin for the last 100+ years, occasionally chopping some wood or hunting some boar. That's why he has such a hard time against Baldur eventhough GoW3 Kratos would've taken him apart in like 2 minutes, immortality be damned. This is the first GoW sequel where the power-down actually makes sense. If you want to criticize inconsistencies in strength, that has always been an issue with this franchise, all the way back to GoW1.

And yes, that's the idea behind the rift breaches; not really knowing. It's not dumb, it's meant to make you feel weary about what's gonna come out.

I probably didn't have the very best gear at all times, but I shouldn't have to for a character action game. I found a few Youtube vids of people fighting the optional Soul Devourer on the beach and it was purple for them as well. I'm not going to "come back" to stuff in a character action game because I'm underleveled, thus I just changed the difficulty level so the enemies weren't purple anymore, which doesn't change the fight whatsoever.

What I'm talking about that doesn't change when a game has levels for its enemies and your character is stuff like TTK for both you and the enemies. If you're the "proper" level for an area, then you and the enemies will die in basically the same amount of hits as you did say 2 levels ago. That thematically makes sense in an RPG where you start out at low levels fighting rats in a sewer to dragons and everything in-between but Kratos is a god at the start of the game, there's no reason to have levels in the game at all. I understand having xp, loot, items to give you stuff like more moves or allow to specialize in something you like. For example, there's the item that basically gives Kratos witch time and the loot that increases how fast your Rage meter builds. Having the choice of building Rage faster or an item lowering cooldowns allows the player to customize their fighting style. Stuff like that does change gameplay. But Kratos and enemies having levels dictating stuff like health/damage greatly changing TTK does nothing for the game for gameplay purposes nor does it make sense thematically. You shouldn't be extremely disadvantaged or advantaged (which also occurs in the game) in a character action game just because of numbers.

I don't mind the randomness of the Rift breaches if it didn't mean pulling out some enemy I know how to fight but is only hard because it one-shots me and takes 2-3x longer to kill. If say Bayonetta had a similar thing, it would be more along the lines of pulling out a Gracious and Glorious pair for a challenge vs just giving you some simple fight but giving you like no room for error. Fights should be challenging because the opponent is a good opponent vs just adjusting some numbers to up the challenge.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I probably didn't have the very best gear at all times, but I shouldn't have to for a character action game. I found a few Youtube vids of people fighting the optional Soul Devourer on the beach and it was purple for them as well. I'm not going to "come back" to stuff in a character action game because I'm underleveled, thus I just changed the difficulty level so the enemies weren't purple anymore, which doesn't change the fight whatsoever.

Well, what do you mean by underleveled? Just the color of the enemy level indicator? Because I've never even had those turned on. As soon as I saw footage of this game of enemies with healthbars I went into the options menu first thing and disabled it. All that shit just works distracting anyway. And as for the Soul Devourer, there's really not much difference in strength from on to another. If you can beat the one in Alfheim (probably the first most people come across) then you can beat the others. That is unless you try to raw strength it. But if you simply counter their fire/ice bolts back at them then their level and strength are virtually meaningless.

What I'm talking about that doesn't change when a game has levels for its enemies and your character is stuff like TTK for both you and the enemies. If you're the "proper" level for an area, then you and the enemies will die in basically the same amount of hits as you did say 2 levels ago. That thematically makes sense in an RPG where you start out at low levels fighting rats in a sewer to dragons and everything in-between but Kratos is a god at the start of the game, there's no reason to have levels in the game at all. I understand having xp, loot, items to give you stuff like more moves or allow to specialize in something you like. For example, there's the item that basically gives Kratos witch time and the loot that increases how fast your Rage meter builds. Having the choice of building Rage faster or an item lowering cooldowns allows the player to customize their fighting style. Stuff like that does change gameplay. But Kratos and enemies having levels dictating stuff like health/damage greatly changing TTK does nothing for the game for gameplay purposes nor does it make sense thematically. You shouldn't be extremely disadvantaged or advantaged (which also occurs in the game) in a character action game just because of numbers.

First of all I don't know what TTK stands for. But here's the thing, I don't think GoW '18 feels anymore like an RPG than classic GoW. Regardless of equipment stats you're still depended on skill in combat. Armor represents the only real RPG aspect of the game, and it only gives small boosts - You can't get super armor at the start of the game and be extremely advantaged. It's simply an extension of getting the occasional upgrade to your axe, health, and rage meter, which is a staple for this franchise. The only times I held off on a certain area was because I wanted to wait for the next Frozen Flame for my axe upgrade, a new arrow power for Arteus, or for "the other weapon". I never felt underleveled because I didn't grind enough or had better armor. And like I said, it's pretty much impossible not to have at least proper armor, unless you ignore every chest and not pick any of the items enemies drop.


If you're trying to say this game doesn't have great RPG mechanics, then no, it doesn't. But then it isn't an RPG, it doesn't control like an RPG, and it barely blocks progression like one either. At best it functions as a Metroidvania.

I don't mind the randomness of the Rift breaches if it didn't mean pulling out some enemy I know how to fight but is only hard because it one-shots me and takes 2-3x longer to kill. If say Bayonetta had a similar thing, it would be more along the lines of pulling out a Gracious and Glorious pair for a challenge vs just giving you some simple fight but giving you like no room for error. Fights should be challenging because the opponent is a good opponent vs just adjusting some numbers to up the challenge.

That's fair, but then it's optional, you can easily ignore it. And half the time nothing comes out and you'll get goodies anyway.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Well, what do you mean by underleveled? Just the color of the enemy level indicator? Because I've never even had those turned on. As soon as I saw footage of this game of enemies with healthbars I went into the options menu first thing and disabled it. All that shit just works distracting anyway. And as for the Soul Devourer, there's really not much difference in strength from on to another. If you can beat the one in Alfheim (probably the first most people come across) then you can beat the others. That is unless you try to raw strength it. But if you simply counter their fire/ice bolts back at them then their level and strength are virtually meaningless.

First of all I don't know what TTK stands for. But here's the thing, I don't think GoW '18 feels anymore like an RPG than classic GoW. Regardless of equipment stats you're still depended on skill in combat. Armor represents the only real RPG aspect of the game, and it only gives small boosts - You can't get super armor at the start of the game and be extremely advantaged. It's simply an extension of getting the occasional upgrade to your axe, health, and rage meter, which is a staple for this franchise. The only times I held off on a certain area was because I wanted to wait for the next Frozen Flame for my axe upgrade, a new arrow power for Arteus, or for "the other weapon". I never felt underleveled because I didn't grind enough or had better armor. And like I said, it's pretty much impossible not to have at least proper armor, unless you ignore every chest and not pick any of the items enemies drop.

If you're trying to say this game doesn't have great RPG mechanics, then no, it doesn't. But then it isn't an RPG, it doesn't control like an RPG, and it barely blocks progression like one either. At best it functions as a Metroidvania.

Yeah, the color of the enemy health bars tells you how under/over-leveled you are. If the enemies are purple there's a huge number disadvantage between you and the enemies, meaning they will basically one-shot you while taking 2-3x longer to kill. When I went to fight the optional Soul Devourer on the beach it was purple and one-shot killing me with anything while it was going to take much longer to kill. The fight was the same as any of the other ones I've fought but the game just made it so I couldn't make a single error to increase the challenge. Thus, I lowered the difficulty so it was like fighting it at the "proper" level.

TTK means time-to-kill. The only stat that matters for you is really only your character level because stats like strength or defense are rather meaningless. The RPG mechanics 1) aren't needed and 2) are indeed bad because your stats mean completely nothing (only your overall level means anything). The RPG mechanics matter far too much into how challenging a fight is vs just being skill-based like any other character action game whether old GOW or not. I ran into purple wolves that killed me with a single hit and every attack of theirs were unblockable as well. Then, in that very same fight, there were other wolves that weren't as high leveled and had attacks that could be blocked. So you had to depend on seeing the color of the attack coming in instead of just normally reacting to attacks as the attacks coming in aren't consistent and whether something is blockable or not is determined by character level. Then, the opposite happens as the game reaches the final 3rd or so of the game and you become extremely advantaged in fights as you become a higher level than the enemies. There were fights at the end where I could just mash Atreus' arrow attack and get instant finishers because all the enemies were green so I was literally just running around mashing square and pressing the finisher button to kill every enemy in a fight. There I wish I had the option to up the difficulty to GMGOW (vs lowering it earlier in the game) because Hard becomes joke easy. God of War has the most unbalanced difficulty I think I've ever experienced in a game; the game starts out really hard then hits a sweet spot in the middle while becoming joke easy for the last 3rd. And that is all do to the stupid RPG mechanics making enemies basically one-hit killing you at the start to you one-hit killing them basically at the end. And it has nothing to do with me getting better at the game as I played because strats against the enemies are pretty simple and basic to understand.

 

[Casual Shinji]

I ran into purple wolves that killed me with a single hit and every attack of theirs were unblockable as well. Then, in that very same fight, there were other wolves that weren't as high leveled and had attacks that could be blocked.

Okay, you keep mentioning those wolves, but where exactly were those? Because I've played through this game at least 5 times now, and I can't for the life of my recall an area that has wolves where each of their attacks will break through your guard and insta-kill you. I can't even think of any wolves that have any red attacks. The strongest ones by my recollection are the white wolves, and I think at best they have yellow attacks. Unless you're talking about the werewolf guys.

So you had to depend on seeing the color of the attack coming in instead of just normally reacting to attacks as the attacks coming in aren't consistent and whether something is blockable or not is determined by character level.

How is that different from reacting to a regular in-coming attack? It doesn't spring unblockable attacks on you in the moment - The game makes it clear right from the start that red means dodge. There's never a moment where the game teaches you a specific attack animation is blockable or unblockable always, only to then change its mind later on. When you get in a scuff you gage very quickly which enemies have blockables and which have unblockables. As long as you keep in mind no color is block/parry, yellow is parry/guard break, and red is dodge, I don't exactly see what's so confusing.

Then, the opposite happens as the game reaches the final 3rd or so of the game and you become extremely advantaged in fights as you become a higher level than the enemies. There were fights at the end where I could just mash Atreus' arrow attack and get instant finishers because all the enemies were green so I was literally just running around mashing square and pressing the finisher button to kill every enemy in a fight. There I wish I had the option to up the difficulty to GMGOW (vs lowering it earlier in the game) because Hard becomes joke easy. God of War has the most unbalanced difficulty I think I've ever experienced in a game; the game starts out really hard then hits a sweet spot in the middle while becoming joke easy for the last 3rd. And that is all do to the stupid RPG mechanics making enemies basically one-hit killing you at the start to you one-hit killing them basically at the end. And it has nothing to do with me getting better at the game as I played because strats against the enemies are pretty simple and basic to understand.

How is this different from nearly every other game with a progression system? A game like Horizon: Zero Dawn functions pretty much the same way, where early on (along with not being as familiar with the combat yet) you get killed very quickly till you finally get some better gear (and health/skill upgrades) which gives you an edge. Ultra Hard is brutal at the start, since you have crap gear, but by the middle of the game you're chugging along without too much trouble, because you're slowly gaining upgrades. Same with a game like Resident Evil 4, where in the final third of the game you're pretty much blasting everyone in half.


You say it has to do with the RPG mechanics, but what RPG mechanics; Everything that isn't the weapon/skill/health/Atreus armor/bow upgrades? Something that makes up the majority of the character progression. The start of the game is harder, because you have fewer skills at you disposal, not because your number isn't high enough. Once you get Executioners Cleave and the counter-attack, that's when things start to turn in your favor more, not when you get high enough numbers. You can't just tank enemies near the end of the game, because you have high stats.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Okay, you keep mentioning those wolves, but where exactly were those? Because I've played through this game at least 5 times now, and I can't for the life of my recall an area that has wolves where each of their attacks will break through your guard and insta-kill you. I can't even think of any wolves that have any red attacks. The strongest ones by my recollection are the white wolves, and I think at best they have yellow attacks. Unless you're talking about the werewolf guys.

Fafnir's Hoard sidequest, wolves are in one of the rooms you have to complete.

So you had to depend on seeing the color of the attack coming in instead of just normally reacting to attacks as the attacks coming in aren't consistent and whether something is blockable or not is determined by character level.

How is that different from reacting to a regular in-coming attack? It doesn't spring unblockable attacks on you in the moment - The game makes it clear right from the start that red means dodge. There's never a moment where the game teaches you a specific attack animation is blockable or unblockable always, only to then change its mind later on. When you get in a scuff you gage very quickly which enemies have blockables and which have unblockables. As long as you keep in mind no color is block/parry, yellow is parry/guard break, and red is dodge, I don't exactly see what's so confusing.

You get used to certain attacks from enemies being blockable or unblockable but when fighting the same enemy type where you have one fight where a specific attack is blockable while in another fight that attack is then unblockable, it throws you off. I don't think any other game with combat requires you to pay attention to the color of the attack due to attacks changing. You can play an Arkham game with attack lines turned off because the attacks are always consistent in their counters. You can't play God of War with the colors turned off because what's blockable changes.

How is this different from nearly every other game with a progression system? A game like Horizon: Zero Dawn functions pretty much the same way, where early on (along with not being as familiar with the combat yet) you get killed very quickly till you finally get some better gear (and health/skill upgrades) which gives you an edge. Ultra Hard is brutal at the start, since you have crap gear, but by the middle of the game you're chugging along without too much trouble, because you're slowly gaining upgrades. Same with a game like Resident Evil 4, where in the final third of the game you're pretty much blasting everyone in half.

You say it has to do with the RPG mechanics, but what RPG mechanics; Everything that isn't the weapon/skill/health/Atreus armor/bow upgrades? Something that makes up the majority of the character progression. The start of the game is harder, because you have fewer skills at you disposal, not because your number isn't high enough. Once you get Executioners Cleave and the counter-attack, that's when things start to turn in your favor more, not when you get high enough numbers. You can't just tank enemies near the end of the game, because you have high stats.

God of War is very different from Horizon because gear in Horizon doesn't have better stats. The only thing different from say the Carja bow and Shadow bow is that the Shadow bow has added element types, the base damage is the same regardless of whether you use a green or purple weapon. Even the outfits (outside of the special one) don't improve your base defense, they'll give you only a single elemental resistance or something like increased stealth. The only things that alter damage in Horizon are double/triple-shot skill and damage increase mods. In Horizon, you mainly get better because you understand the combat along with just getting better vs numbers causing you to be better/worse.

I'm literally only complaining about the "level system" meaning Kratos' level as seen here [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/sJisIaErZJg/maxresdefault.jpg] and the enemy levels, not the gear or skills. What Kratos' level is compared the enemy levels he's facing determines how hard/easy combat is. Kratos' other stats mean basically nothing (which is a bad RPG mechanic, why have stats when they don't do anything?). The game is harder at the start mainly because you fight enemies that are higher level than you vs getting more skills (because most of the skills suck anyway). I got Executioners Cleave as my 1st skill IIRC really really early because of how shit the damage was on Kratos' normal attacks. If enemies are higher level than you, they can OHKO while also being damage sponges; if enemies are lower level than you, it's basically impossible to die. All I did in some fights at the end was press square 3 times to stun an enemy and run up and press whatever the finisher button is against literally every enemy in the fight. That's not from me getting better at the game, it's due to the enemies being as strong as a piece of styrofoam. The difficulty balancing in God of War is literally the worst balancing I've experience in a game (and that's not me being hyperbolic). I found a Gamefaqs thread [https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/191627-god-of-war/76598223] complaining about the same exact thing. There's even a Forbes article [https://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2018/04/23/heres-the-only-real-fault-i-can-find-with-god-of-war/#6946c3ef1ed0] about it as well.

 

[FakeSympathy]

What?s baffling to me is when people complain about the ?RPG? factor being pointless if enemies just scale with you through the game, yet also complain if they do the opposite, which is allow the player to out level them if they so choose.

I will say after a ?Challenge? playthrough that the new GoW?s story was easier by the end than the past games, but it?s definitely still balls-to-the-wall challenging (see Muspelheim, Niflheim, Valkyries). Even the story remained challenging far moreso than what I played in say, Horizon: Zero Dawn on Hard, and I?ve been pretty diligent in each about constantly refreshing my best gear. Even the Frozen Wilds DLC has been mostly a cakewalk so far after learning the new enemies which can almost always be run from in a pinch, and lets not even get into using the literally invincible (albeit not infinitely so) shield weaver armor.

True, there are peaks and valleys of ?too hard? and ?too easy?, but there will never be a perfect solution to this because it always varies from person to person based on everything from playstyle to a general willingness to understand the game or a lack thereof. It?s really not much different than how SoulsBorne is perceived even to this day, and there are YouTuber?s out there who have completed the the toughest bosses of each without upgrading or taking damage. Others will lower the difficulty to ?Story? for Valkyries or rely on online summons for O&S even when they?re bursting with upgrades.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Fafnir's Hoard sidequest, wolves are in one of the rooms you have to complete.

Those don't kill you in one hit. None of them even have red attacks, unless maybe you still have the starting armor. They can kill you quickly because they'll swarm you, but they don't have one-hit kills.

You get used to certain attacks from enemies being blockable or unblockable but when fighting the same enemy type where you have one fight where a specific attack is blockable while in another fight that attack is then unblockable, it throws you off. I don't think any other game with combat requires you to pay attention to the color of the attack due to attacks changing. You can play an Arkham game with attack lines turned off because the attacks are always consistent in their counters. You can't play God of War with the colors turned off because what's blockable changes.

Okay, but the game never claims it isn't what it is. It works with color warnings. And even then, you quickly realize which enemies tend to have red flashes and which don't. If you face Brutes and Travelers you know they have a very high chance of having unblockables. Wulverns even have one phase where they have yellow attacks and a second phase where they go red. Not counting the rift tears, there's never really been a moment where I was caught completely off-guard by what I thought was a regular grunt which then turned into an enemy with unblockable one-hit kills. Even the times when grunt-like enemies are remarkably strong they'll look noticably different, like being colored grey or redder than usual, or having spikey crowns.

God of War is very different from Horizon because gear in Horizon doesn't have better stats. The only thing different from say the Carja bow and Shadow bow is that the Shadow bow has added element types, the base damage is the same regardless of whether you use a green or purple weapon. Even the outfits (outside of the special one) don't improve your base defense, they'll give you only a single elemental resistance or something like increased stealth. The only things that alter damage in Horizon are double/triple-shot skill and damage increase mods. In Horizon, you mainly get better because you understand the combat along with just getting better vs numbers causing you to be better/worse.

So you mean you didn't leave certain areas and enemies till you had a particular weapon or skill? Because that's pretty much the same thing. I played it on Ultra-Hard and you can bet your ass I grinded for that Sharpshot Bow before I did the Proving and had to face the Corruptor. Facing that thing with what you have from the start is utterly grueling. Things also become significantly easier once you get the Tripcaster with the explosive option. Fighting those crab robots without the Tear ability.. good luck with that. Yes, you also need to get good at the game obviously, but don't deny that certain weapons you only get later on boost your offensive capabilities tremendously.

I'm literally only complaining about the "level system" meaning Kratos' level as seen here [https://i.ytimg.com/vi/sJisIaErZJg/maxresdefault.jpg] and the enemy levels, not the gear or skills. What Kratos' level is compared the enemy levels he's facing determines how hard/easy combat is. Kratos' other stats mean basically nothing (which is a bad RPG mechanic, why have stats when they don't do anything?). The game is harder at the start mainly because you fight enemies that are higher level than you vs getting more skills (because most of the skills suck anyway). I got Executioners Cleave as my 1st skill IIRC really really early because of how shit the damage was on Kratos' normal attacks. If enemies are higher level than you, they can OHKO while also being damage sponges; if enemies are lower level than you, it's basically impossible to die. All I did in some fights at the end was press square 3 times to stun an enemy and run up and press whatever the finisher button is against literally every enemy in the fight. That's not from me getting better at the game, it's due to the enemies being as strong as a piece of styrofoam. The difficulty balancing in God of War is literally the worst balancing I've experience in a game (and that's not me being hyperbolic). I found a Gamefaqs thread [https://gamefaqs.gamespot.com/boards/191627-god-of-war/76598223] complaining about the same exact thing. There's even a Forbes article [https://www.forbes.com/sites/insertcoin/2018/04/23/heres-the-only-real-fault-i-can-find-with-god-of-war/#6946c3ef1ed0] about it as well.

All I did in some fights near the end in classic GoW was unleash a magic attack and pretty much kill everything. And the enemies at the start of GoW '18 seem way harder then they are. They're hard obviously, but where I got killed like 5 times in the first fight on my initial playthrough, I got killed zero times on my second because I'd gotten experienced at the combat. Your damage is crap at the start, but if you know the tricks you're taking out enemies very quickly. Those first two enemy sections are perfectly designed to freeze/shatter dudes. Another good example are the two wolves at the bottom of the pitt near the start; if you take both of them on at the same time they're very hard, but freeze one in place and stunlock the other with your fists and they're easy to deal with. On Hard the game starts you off with enough skills to exploit enemies early on - If they take forever to kill you're just not making use of them. I'm actually flip-flopping constantly whether I like the starting or the latter combat better, since the start forces you to think and be strategic, yet the latter allows you to unleash hell.

And I mean, you yourself love GoW1 the best, right? That game has the biggest combat exploit in the entire series and you get it with your first blade upgrade. Once you have that, any enemy that can be launced - which is about 70% of them - is just a giant pinata. And I remember you saying the reason you disliked the sequels was because they took that move out.

 

[meiam]

I'm not very far in God of war so maybe it'll change but I do like the challenge now (just made it pass the first witch, playing on hard). It's surprisingly refreshing that selecting hard actually feel like selecting hard, I hope it doesn't become a cakewalk if I do most of the optional content. I'm especially worried about the task you can do in combat (use move X number of time) the exp you get for those is really high and I think they might persist even if you die in a fight making me worried I'll over level if I die often.

My only issue with the combat is that attack sometime stun lock enemy and sometime don't and I'm having a hard time figuring out what matters, the basic enemy at level one will sometime be completely unable to do anything if I just light attack them and sometime they'll just ignore my attack and just hit me anyway (I'm really regretting grabbing the light, light, light, heavy combo as my first skill since it's essentially useless).

 

[Casual Shinji]

I'm not very far in God of war so maybe it'll change but I do like the challenge now (just made it pass the first witch, playing on hard). It's surprisingly refreshing that selecting hard actually feel like selecting hard, I hope it doesn't become a cakewalk if I do most of the optional content. I'm especially worried about the task you can do in combat (use move X number of time) the exp you get for those is really high and I think they might persist even if you die in a fight making me worried I'll over level if I die often.

I think you get a small amount of double digit exp. when you die, but you would have to die a whole lot for that to really add much. I can't say I noticed it much. What is a bit questionable and what I discovered recently is that you can inadvertedly farm exp. in a certain challenge activity later on. You do this by defeating enemies, but not actually completing the challenge.

My only issue with the combat is that attack sometime stun lock enemy and sometime don't and I'm having a hard time figuring out what matters, the basic enemy at level one will sometime be completely unable to do anything if I just light attack them and sometime they'll just ignore my attack and just hit me anyway (I'm really regretting grabbing the light, light, light, heavy combo as my first skill since it's essentially useless).

That skill gets better later on, but early in the game it's not great. Executioner's Cleave and Counter-Attack should be your go-to.

I don't know exactly how the stun-lock functions, but I do know your fists work best, since they're quicker hits. It's especially effective against wolves.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

Those don't kill you in one hit. None of them even have red attacks, unless maybe you still have the starting armor. They can kill you quickly because they'll swarm you, but they don't have one-hit kills.

They can depending on your level. Armor itself does as much as anything else you have equipped as everything you put on helps to increase your level (which is what "gives" you better defense & damage). The best armors are the best armors solely because they have more sockets to equip more enchantments, which will raise your level so much more than just the armor alone does.

Okay, but the game never claims it isn't what it is. It works with color warnings. And even then, you quickly realize which enemies tend to have red flashes and which don't. If you face Brutes and Travelers you know they have a very high chance of having unblockables. Wulverns even have one phase where they have yellow attacks and a second phase where they go red. Not counting the rift tears, there's never really been a moment where I was caught completely off-guard by what I thought was a regular grunt which then turned into an enemy with unblockable one-hit kills. Even the times when grunt-like enemies are remarkably strong they'll look noticably different, like being colored grey or redder than usual, or having spikey crowns.

I don't really care that the game claimed it or didn't claim it, I just find it to be a poor design choice. I don't think I've played a combat game where I couldn't learn enemy attacks and then turn off the indicators in subsequent playthroughs. I faced enemies throughout the game where the same attack was unblockable and then it becomes blockable later on, and sometimes the reverse when doing side stuff at low levels like the wolves getting red attacks.

So you mean you didn't leave certain areas and enemies till you had a particular weapon or skill? Because that's pretty much the same thing. I played it on Ultra-Hard and you can bet your ass I grinded for that Sharpshot Bow before I did the Proving and had to face the Corruptor. Facing that thing with what you have from the start is utterly grueling. Things also become significantly easier once you get the Tripcaster with the explosive option. Fighting those crab robots without the Tear ability.. good luck with that. Yes, you also need to get good at the game obviously, but don't deny that certain weapons you only get later on boost your offensive capabilities tremendously.

I only would leave certain areas when I would find a new big machine I didn't know how to fight or it was a group of machines that I wasn't comfortable with facing at the time. I haven't gotten the chance to play on Ultra Hard yet as that was an added difficulty via a patch, but I did get the Complete Edition with the intention of doing New Game+ on Ultra Hard while then playing the DLC obviously. At least on Very Hard, as that was the hardest difficulty, you can kill a Thunderjaw in like 10 seconds without even using a purple weapon (or Sharpshot bow) if you understand the mechanics well enough. I actually house-ruled the Sharpshot bow out of the game because it made the game way too easy stacking damage mods on it and utilizing triple-shot. I made this video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=po10D2i_tsQ] quite awhile back and you see that I use a lot of green/blue weapons because to thin out the radial wheel so there isn't 12 freaking things on it. In the stormbird fight, I did the majority of damage via a green rattler. The game doesn't require high-end gear to fight anything in the game effectively. Corruptors are the worst enemy in the game IMO because they just aren't fun to fight, there's really not much to expose/exploit and IIRC the only thing they are weak to is fire.

All I did in some fights near the end in classic GoW was unleash a magic attack and pretty much kill everything. And the enemies at the start of GoW '18 seem way harder then they are. They're hard obviously, but where I got killed like 5 times in the first fight on my initial playthrough, I got killed zero times on my second because I'd gotten experienced at the combat. Your damage is crap at the start, but if you know the tricks you're taking out enemies very quickly. Those first two enemy sections are perfectly designed to freeze/shatter dudes. Another good example are the two wolves at the bottom of the pitt near the start; if you take both of them on at the same time they're very hard, but freeze one in place and stunlock the other with your fists and they're easy to deal with. On Hard the game starts you off with enough skills to exploit enemies early on - If they take forever to kill you're just not making use of them. I'm actually flip-flopping constantly whether I like the starting or the latter combat better, since the start forces you to think and be strategic, yet the latter allows you to unleash hell.

And I mean, you yourself love GoW1 the best, right? That game has the biggest combat exploit in the entire series and you get it with your first blade upgrade. Once you have that, any enemy that can be launced - which is about 70% of them - is just a giant pinata. And I remember you saying the reason you disliked the sequels was because they took that move out.

But magic in classic GOW was a limited resource whereas in new GOW you can unleash all your "magic" (runic) attacks every single fight because they run on cooldowns vs a limited resource. It really makes late-game combat after getting the 2nd weapon feel like a MOBA in the sense that you activate all your specials to do your max damage burst every fight. I know about the shatter trick and the knock enemies off RAGE trick (which I think they patched out of the game actually) but outside of doing those tricks there's really no efficient ways of dispatching those enemies because of your level difference making your damage so shitty. Going back to Horizon, you can play the game in several different ways (if you don't find certain ways fun) and excel quite well in combat. If you took the "level system" out of GOW, it would remove the ridiculously downward difficulty slope.

I like GOW1 the best because it was at least fun to play for me because the juggling was fun. GOW combat has never been top-notch and I really don't expect it to be. It's sorta like Uncharted doesn't have to have the best shooting to be a really fun game. I just never felt the combat ever flowed well or was really fun because you couldn't do any "fun" stuff to enemies that were actually dangerous. Like, sure you could juggle and trip (via returning the axe) against the weak ass draugrs but against anything else a well executed axe recall wouldn't trip up a heavy draugr or really even make them flinch. Or the flying elves or whatever would just fly out of your combos and thus just weren't fun to fight in a similar manner as Horizon's corruptors. So many of GOW's enemies were designed to make a majority of Kratos' kit basically useless where you were funneled into only like 1 or 2 strategies.

I'm not very far in God of war so maybe it'll change but I do like the challenge now (just made it pass the first witch, playing on hard). It's surprisingly refreshing that selecting hard actually feel like selecting hard, I hope it doesn't become a cakewalk if I do most of the optional content. I'm especially worried about the task you can do in combat (use move X number of time) the exp you get for those is really high and I think they might persist even if you die in a fight making me worried I'll over level if I die often.

My only issue with the combat is that attack sometime stun lock enemy and sometime don't and I'm having a hard time figuring out what matters, the basic enemy at level one will sometime be completely unable to do anything if I just light attack them and sometime they'll just ignore my attack and just hit me anyway (I'm really regretting grabbing the light, light, light, heavy combo as my first skill since it's essentially useless).

The game becomes a cakewalk later even if you do none of the sidequests. I guess you can purposefully equip less equipment to lower your level to keep the fights challenging. You can see in the menu as you equip anything better (whether armor, enchantment, axe pommel, talisman, etc.) that your level progress will increase. Your character level is like the only thing that matters in regards to your defense and damage output really. The game's combat is so very dependent on the level of you and your enemy. The reason you can stunlock an enemy with XYZ attack one time and then next time not stun/stagger them is because their level is higher (in comparison) than yours. For example, maybe you can stagger them with XYZ attack when you're the same level as they are or even they are one level higher. But then, when they are 2 levels higher than you, that XYZ attack will no longer stagger them. That's why sometimes that attack will stagger and sometimes it doesn't. The whole level system ruins the consistency of your attacks and also their attacks. That's also why you'll have an enemy with a red unblockable attack then be yellow in a later fight because the level difference is different.

 

[Casual Shinji]

Those don't kill you in one hit. None of them even have red attacks, unless maybe you still have the starting armor. They can kill you quickly because they'll swarm you, but they don't have one-hit kills.

They can depending on your level. Armor itself does as much as anything else you have equipped as everything you put on helps to increase your level (which is what "gives" you better defense & damage). The best armors are the best armors solely because they have more sockets to equip more enchantments, which will raise your level so much more than just the armor alone does.

You would have to to work at getting armor with the least amount of defense to get that to happen.

I don't really care that the game claimed it or didn't claim it, I just find it to be a poor design choice. I don't think I've played a combat game where I couldn't learn enemy attacks and then turn off the indicators in subsequent playthroughs. I faced enemies throughout the game where the same attack was unblockable and then it becomes blockable later on, and sometimes the reverse when doing side stuff at low levels like the wolves getting red attacks.

Then that's that, but it's not the game being inconsistent.

So you mean you didn't leave certain areas and enemies till you had a particular weapon or skill? Because that's pretty much the same thing. I played it on Ultra-Hard and you can bet your ass I grinded for that Sharpshot Bow before I did the Proving and had to face the Corruptor. Facing that thing with what you have from the start is utterly grueling. Things also become significantly easier once you get the Tripcaster with the explosive option. Fighting those crab robots without the Tear ability.. good luck with that. Yes, you also need to get good at the game obviously, but don't deny that certain weapons you only get later on boost your offensive capabilities tremendously.

I only would leave certain areas when I would find a new big machine I didn't know how to fight or it was a group of machines that I wasn't comfortable with facing at the time. I haven't gotten the chance to play on Ultra Hard yet as that was an added difficulty via a patch, but I did get the Complete Edition with the intention of doing New Game+ on Ultra Hard while then playing the DLC obviously. At least on Very Hard, as that was the hardest difficulty, you can kill a Thunderjaw in like 10 seconds without even using a purple weapon (or Sharpshot bow) if you understand the mechanics well enough. I actually house-ruled the Sharpshot bow out of the game because it made the game way too easy stacking damage mods on it and utilizing triple-shot. I made this video [https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=po10D2i_tsQ] quite awhile back and you see that I use a lot of green/blue weapons because to thin out the radial wheel so there isn't 12 freaking things on it. In the stormbird fight, I did the majority of damage via a green rattler. The game doesn't require high-end gear to fight anything in the game effectively. Corruptors are the worst enemy in the game IMO because they just aren't fun to fight, there's really not much to expose/exploit and IIRC the only thing they are weak to is fire.

Point is, the upgrades the game provides significantly up your chances at winning, whether it's better weapons and armor with more mod slots, or the automatic health upgrade you reveive with each level. You can't tell me fighting a Thunderjaw or Rockbreaker with your starting kit is at all viable, unless you're a total masochist. I don't care how much skill you have, those tear arrows are a must for the big game.

But magic in classic GOW was a limited resource whereas in new GOW you can unleash all your "magic" (runic) attacks every single fight because they run on cooldowns vs a limited resource. It really makes late-game combat after getting the 2nd weapon feel like a MOBA in the sense that you activate all your specials to do your max damage burst every fight. I know about the shatter trick and the knock enemies off RAGE trick (which I think they patched out of the game actually) but outside of doing those tricks there's really no efficient ways of dispatching those enemies because of your level difference making your damage so shitty. Going back to Horizon, you can play the game in several different ways (if you don't find certain ways fun) and excel quite well in combat. If you took the "level system" out of GOW, it would remove the ridiculously downward difficulty slope.

Yeah, but by then your magic meter is big enough to clear most enemies per encounter. And the game is very lenient in giving it back, either by chests or killing enemies. Add to that the upgraded strength, the fact that you can spam it till it runs out, the debilitating effect some of them have allowing you to hack at them simultaniously, and how they boost your combo-count and consequently your red orb count, and you're pretty much a damn power house in the final third of the game. Heck, thanks to that juggle move I usually get my blades up to level 4 before I've even leave Athenes.

I like GOW1 the best because it was at least fun to play for me because the juggling was fun. GOW combat has never been top-notch and I really don't expect it to be. It's sorta like Uncharted doesn't have to have the best shooting to be a really fun game. I just never felt the combat ever flowed well or was really fun because you couldn't do any "fun" stuff to enemies that were actually dangerous. Like, sure you could juggle and trip (via returning the axe) against the weak ass draugrs but against anything else a well executed axe recall wouldn't trip up a heavy draugr or really even make them flinch. Or the flying elves or whatever would just fly out of your combos and thus just weren't fun to fight in a similar manner as Horizon's corruptors. So many of GOW's enemies were designed to make a majority of Kratos' kit basically useless where you were funneled into only like 1 or 2 strategies.

If you don't buy or use skills, then yes, there's very little you can try against heavier enemies early on. But that's why you do use those skills. Brutes won't flinch from axe throws, but with the precision recall throw (one of the first skills you can buy) they will. It'll even freeze enemies that otherwise wouldn't. With the counter-attack those early brutes can't even touch you and are left wide open for the executioner's cleave. And a well-timed axe throw against a nightmare as it's charging a projectile will cause it to shoot an enemy. The fun of the combat for me was the hectic, chaotic nature of it. The fact that you constantly have to be on the ball. Same as in Horizon, where if you pick a fight with anything that isn't a watcher or a grazer, you constantly have to be on the move, running and dodging, and going for the attack whenever there's an opening.

 

[Phoenixmgs_v1legacy]

You would have to to work at getting armor with the least amount of defense to get that to happen.

I was probably holding out until the next tier of armor became purchasable as the main story stuff wasn't really difficult at that time.

Point is, the upgrades the game provides significantly up your chances at winning, whether it's better weapons and armor with more mod slots, or the automatic health upgrade you reveive with each level. You can't tell me fighting a Thunderjaw or Rockbreaker with your starting kit is at all viable, unless you're a total masochist. I don't care how much skill you have, those tear arrows are a must for the big game.

It really wouldn't be hard to fight a Thunderjaw or Rockbreaker with only green gear. You have access to just about every element type besides corruption (which I house-ruled out as well because it makes any fight joke easy). With just greens you have damage via Hunter or Sharpshot bows, the game does literally give you the Carja/Blue Hunter bow giving you fire damage (that is given to you at basically the start of the game so it's basically a starting weapon), you have shock via the green tripcaster, and you have freeze via the green sling. What else do you need if you know how the combat mechanics work? You don't even really need tear arrows, check out any "beat Thunderjaw in X amount of seconds" Youtube vid (one guy did it in 6 seconds) and you won't see them wasting time with tear arrows. I fought and killed a Stormbird dealing damage only via green Rattler and normal Hunter bow arrows, no tear arrows. I beat a Rockbreaker on a mount without tear arrows dealing damage only via green Rattler and normal Hunter bow arrows. Both are in the video I linked. At the rate you can fire single arrows in super quick succession (which I don't do just because it doesn't look right animation-wise) you don't really need double/triple shot for increasing your damage. Nor do you need mods really. Sure you might not be able to kill a Thunderjaw in like 10 seconds with starting gear but you could probably do it in 30 seconds or so. God of War is so much more gear dependent than Horizon it ain't even funny.

Yeah, but by then your magic meter is big enough to clear most enemies per encounter. And the game is very lenient in giving it back, either by chests or killing enemies. Add to that the upgraded strength, the fact that you can spam it till it runs out, the debilitating effect some of them have allowing you to hack at them simultaniously, and how they boost your combo-count and consequently your red orb count, and you're pretty much a damn power house in the final third of the game. Heck, thanks to that juggle move I usually get my blades up to level 4 before I've even leave Athenes.

It's been since literally GOW release that I played the game so I don't know the ins and outs of the game, nor did I get into playing the game super effectively as, like I said, the game was good fun but nothing I'd really get into to master or anything. IIRC only the gorgons gave out magic on finisher kills. Anyway, I recall only using magic in a jam vs using it literally every encounter like you do the runic attacks in the new GOW. It's not like classic GOW was really ever hard when square-square-triangle literally beats everything and it even beats the single hardest part in the entire series on the hardest difficulty (the clone fight at the end of GOW1) and it's the only way to win that fight as well.

f you don't buy or use skills, then yes, there's very little you can try against heavier enemies early on. But that's why you do use those skills. Brutes won't flinch from axe throws, but with the precision recall throw (one of the first skills you can buy) they will. It'll even freeze enemies that otherwise wouldn't. With the counter-attack those early brutes can't even touch you and are left wide open for the executioner's cleave. And a well-timed axe throw against a nightmare as it's charging a projectile will cause it to shoot an enemy. The fun of the combat for me was the hectic, chaotic nature of it. The fact that you constantly have to be on the ball. Same as in Horizon, where if you pick a fight with anything that isn't a watcher or a grazer, you constantly have to be on the move, running and dodging, and going for the attack whenever there's an opening.

I didn't say all skills are bad, most of them really have no purpose other than gives you attacks different looks. Your example about brutes with counter-attack + cleave is a good use of skills for effective fighting but you're still pigeon-holed into doing really just that because your normal attacks do shit damage and you can't combo them because they don't stagger and you can't juggle them either. Whereas in Horizon, you can go about fights very differently and still be very effective. I bet I fought a lot of machines very differently than you and the reverse is probably the same as well. Whereas I bet we fought most things very similarly in GOW because of how much of your kit is basically useless against most enemies. I guess it's because I value creativity a lot more that I didn't much care for GOW along with just bad game design, especially in the RPG elements. Even taking away those RPG elements I found straight-up bad, the combat would've still be really lackluster as those RPG elements really only accentuated what I already didn't care for. Plus, basically just doing something to have an opening to do cleave over and over again (then later on spamming runics) was just inherently less fun than juggling like 10+ enemies in OG GOW. Lastly, I thought the axe was pretty wasted in regards to "fun" and creativeness it could've had as they definitely nailed the feel.