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Hob |OT| Hobnobbing with a Hobgoblin

JonnyKong

Member
That's exactly my issue.
I think maybe I need to do the dash thing at the right time, but I'm not sure. I haven't tried that yet for some reason.

I've just done this section. You have to wait until the far left hook moves all the way to the bottom of its movement, then jump to the right, then jump again to the far right moving hook.

The only problem is I think you fall off if you're hanging on too long, so if the moving hook is taking too long to come down, quickly jump and grab again to reset your timer so to speak.

It's not actually necessary to do this by the way to progress the story, but you do get a nice weapon upgrade for doing it.
 
I just finished it. The game can be janky as fuck at times. The camera never bothered me in the start but after the first two hours I found it to be annoying and messing with some of my jumps. I played on PC and performance was not an issue at all.

I was not a fan of the mechanic where you jump from blue orb to blue orb. And then jumping up from a blue orb onto a ledge or something. Found it to be a messy mechanic. Died a few times because the character would not do what I was telling it to.

It was a good game but nothing special. Not sure how long it took me but at least 7 hours I would say.
 

JonnyKong

Member
I seem to have reached a point where I don't have an icon on my map telling me where to go next.

I've managed to find 2/4 colossus.
5/7 of those purple plant things.

Do I need to find all of these before I can finish the game?

Edit: I've found the third colossus now, but I've no idea where number 4 is, he's not on the map 🤔

Double edit: it's all good, worked it out now.
 
I seem to have reached a point where I don't have an icon on my map telling me where to go next.

I've managed to find 2/4 colossus.
5/7 of those purple plant things.

Do I need to find all of these before I can finish the game?

Edit: I've found the third colossus now, but I've no idea where number 4 is, he's not on the map 🤔
Yeah. I had trouble there too. Have you handed in those 7 plant things? After that head to the north of the map. Fuck I don't even know how to explain. Just check youtube for a walkthrough just to see the map of where to go. I just beat it and already forgot. haha.

Ah wait. Yes you need all 7 to unlock the final part. I got confused after I had 5 and checked a walkthrough because my backlog is too big to be spending 5 hours in this maze.
 

JonnyKong

Member
Yeah. I had trouble there too. Have you handed in those 7 plant things? After that head to the north of the map. Fuck I don't even know how to explain. Just check youtube for a walkthrough just to see the map of where to go. I just beat it and already forgot. haha.

Ah wait. Yes you need all 7 to unlock the final part. I got confused after I had 5 and checked a walkthrough because my backlog is too big to be spending 5 hours in this maze.

I ended up going where I had purple stuff left on my map and worked it out from there.

Anyway, just finished, a really great game that once again I'm sad more people aren't paying attention to, but what can ya do? I think the combat could have been greatly improved though, but it's not a huge issue.
 

Shin-Ra

Junior Member
Really disappointed this wasn’t polished up nicely for launch, otherwise it seems just my kind of game.
 

Sonicbug

Member
Well, about an hour into this game on a normal PS4, after about four previous crashes, I had it crash for no discernable reason and when I loaded back in I was in a place where none of the levers would work and I was trapped unable to progress. I couldn't go back either. My only option is to start over but at this point I think I'll wait for patch 27.

I've played a lot of hitchy Unity jank PS4 indy games... but this... I don't know how this passed cert.
 

charpunk

Member
PC version finally stopped crashing for me but there appears to be a memory leak or something funky going on now. After playing for a bit, the game pretty much slows to single digit framerate.

I really like the game but they really released this in a poor state. At least they have been actively trying to fix it.
 

Wozman23

Member
I've just done this section. You have to wait until the far left hook moves all the way to the bottom of its movement, then jump to the right, then jump again to the far right moving hook.

The only problem is I think you fall off if you're hanging on too long, so if the moving hook is taking too long to come down, quickly jump and grab again to reset your timer so to speak.

It's not actually necessary to do this by the way to progress the story, but you do get a nice weapon upgrade for doing it.

I had problems with that section too. At first I thought you had to
jump between the gap.
That mechanic did feel very fickle. Even up until the end of the game I wasn't quite sure how to use it.

The other thing I never figured out was one of the later upgrades,
the one that adds an uppercut to the combo
. I didn't spend a lot of time trying to figure it out, but I didn't understand if there was a button combo or some kind of proper timing you had to use.

That's the one downside of tying to make the game wordless.
 

JonnyKong

Member
I had problems with that section too. At first I thought you had to
jump between the gap.
That mechanic did feel very fickle. Even up until the end of the game I wasn't quite sure how to use it.

The other thing I never figured out was one of the later upgrades,
the one that adds an uppercut to the combo
. I didn't spend a lot of time trying to figure it out, but I didn't understand if there was a button combo or some kind of proper timing you had to use.

That's the one downside of tying to make the game wordless.

When you're looking at the map, you can press R or L to look at your abilities and it tells you there what buttons to press to use them.

Unfortunately I never found the upgrade you speak of.
 

Agent_4Seven

Tears of Nintendo
Um, guys, how am i suppose to get here (portion of the map in the middle of the screen with the butterfly and a stand which gives you in-game currency):

Xs339zv.jpg

There's a few huge and 2 or 3 small infected animals in there. I've seen a few teleportation platforms around this area but i can't find the one from which i need to start and i've searched everywhere around this portion of the map with no luck :(

If it'll help, i am currently closer to the end of the game and opened a new area of the map and
i need to get the last great core from the fallen Titan
.


P.S. Uh, finally got them.
 

dralla

Member
Just finished this up on PS4 and while I enjoyed it and think it's a damn good game, I would advise against buying it (on PS4 at least, can't speak to the PC version). It's clearly not finished. It runs poorly, there's bugs/glitches/lock-ups, the music cuts out 80 percent of the time, and there's quite a bit of jank and it's severely lacking in polish. It's too bad because the game itself is really unique and creative. I love the chill vibe of it all and progressing further into the game and
realizing the world itself is one giant interconnected "puzzle"
. Hopefully they can address the technical issues in time because the game deserves better.
 

Begaria

Member
Just finished on PC. It ran fine 90% of the time between 90-144 fps (free sync monitor), though those pan out shots drops the frame rate to the 40s. Only a few sections here and there dropped it down to 60, at worse for just a few moments one time down to 25 fps. I also had a bug happen when a pylon to do a puzzle didn't light up. Had to restart the game to get it to go. Noticed the odd graphic glitch here and there as well.

Yeah, the technical side isn't great.

But the game is *really* good. A very cool Action Adventure game, with a neat aesthetic. While I like the wordless narrative most of the time, there was some sections (mainly the ending section) where I honestly wanted some kind of narration to know precisely what the hell was happening or being emoted.
 

Wozman23

Member
When you're looking at the map, you can press R or L to look at your abilities and it tells you there what buttons to press to use them.

Unfortunately I never found the upgrade you speak of.

Thanks for the info. Never really looked at anything other than the map. I moved on to Cuphead, but if I ever want to go back and go for the speedrun, I'll have to give it a look.
 
Just beat it. Beautiful game with some excellent level design, it's really the jewell of it. Art is pretty cool too.

It doesn't run quite well on PS4 Pro, I found that the longer your play time the worse it performs, I had to close and restart the application twice because after a couple of hours the game was practically in slow motion. Also I had two or three crashes. Despite all that it didn't ruin my experience, Hob is as great as I expected.

Took me about 15hs to complete with lots of collectibles and upgrades gathered.

Beat it tonight.
Did you choose friend or foe at the end?

You can play
both so, started with good and picked bad the second time (it's pretty bad :p)
 

Saggy

Member
Just picked this up on Steam and played for a couple hours. Got to the point
just after the second armament, where I'm supposed to repair the great conduit.

I've been stuck on this bit for an hour:
https://i.imgur.com/gRxyQCB.jpg

From what I can tell after resorting to a walkthrough, the bit I have circled in the picture is supposed to be powered. Am I missing something that I need to do to power it?
 
I really want to play this but all the problems I keep reading about regarding PS4 is completely off-putting.

The game runs ok, after a long session it starts to slowdown quite often and I had to fix it by closing the app and restarting it. The good thing is that the game is easy (even on hard) and you have checkpoints everywhere, besides enemies remains dead except on special occasions so even if you have some problems with performance you're left with practically no punishment.

As I said, it didn't ruin my experience but I'm pretty forgiving so, it's a person to person thing.

I believe the game deserves to be played for how good it is.
 

Agent_4Seven

Tears of Nintendo
Just finished this up on PS4 and while I enjoyed it and think it's a damn good game, I would advise against buying it (on PS4 at least, can't speak to the PC version). It's clearly not finished. It runs poorly, there's bugs/glitches/lock-ups, the music cuts out 80 percent of the time, and there's quite a bit of jank and it's severely lacking in polish.
Yep, The game was clearly not finished and lacks polish which is very unfortunate cuz it's clearly a very good and really well-realised game. I wish i could played it on hard difficulty right from the start cuz it's very easy on normal in terms of combat. Will replay it on harder difficulty sometime next year when they'll finish fixing things and invest more time into polishing it.

As for PC port... well, it's not perfect in terms of performance as well cuz some people have problems with it, but i haven't seen huge performance problems on my rig so there's that.
 

Fudo Myo

Member
I'm playing this on PC with 4K DDS on a 1080p monitor and it looks gorgeous. Framerate is fine, it hitches now and then, but it was hitching in the exact same places in 1080p, so resolution is not the problem.

I'm 4 hours in. I'm absolutely loving it, this is one of the best games of the year for me -- I've dropped everything else to play it. I hope it gets more attention and the sales it deserves, because it seems to have barely blipped on the radar at release and is now dropping off into oblivion. Releasing about the same time as Cuphead probably didn't help.

I'm sorry to hear the PS4 experience has been poor, because PC has been fine and looks stunning.
 

Humdinger

Gold Member
I'm stuck at a part in the
water-world
level. I've gotten to the point where I have elevated the water level and taken the elevator down into the lower level, but I can't figure out what to do next. There's this big cart that you can push back and forth on a track, yet it doesn't do anything. That seems to be my only option. I've circled back to see if I missed a switch or something, and I didn't see anything. Any suggestions?

I'm on PS4 Pro and haven't had many technical problems. I did get a glitch where something wouldn't trigger, but re-loading fixed it. I've gotten a couple other glitches where I died, but the checkpoints are close together, so I don't feel like I lose much progress.

I like the game. It's got a great atmosphere, and I like the sense of progression. It's very rewarding when you get a piece of the world to move. The animals and creatures are friendly, so I feel motivated to "save" it. The occasional glitch doesn't bother me.

What does bother me is getting stuck and not being able to find a way forward. I look for walkthroughs, but most of them stop before the point I'm at. I can keep combing over the same area again and again, but it feels like a waste of my time.

When it's flowing, though, it's a really nice game.
 

Humdinger

Gold Member
The cart you're talking about goes on a rail until a broken column that blocks the way?

Yes, that's it. I move the dolly back, and there's nothing in that section ahead, just a small dark closed-off section (which maybe opens up later?). Pulling the dolly back doesn't do anything. There is a gate behind me that is locked. I can't climb on the dolly and jump to something else. To the left, there is an aquarium window, with an unlit hand switch. I've swum the area several times, and I can't find anything else.

What am I missing?
 

Wozman23

Member
I can't climb on the dolly and jump to something else.

What am I missing?

You can climb on it and jump to something else.
There's a spot just before the blockage where you can jump from the left to it, then over to a large area on the right. You never have to clear the blockage or go through that door. It is a somewhat odd design choice.
 
There are two of those in that "dungeon", that should be the first one so, if I'm correct you should place the cart just before reaching that column, align it with the platform on the left of the screen, jump on the cart and then jump to the platform on the right.
That should do it.
 

Humdinger

Gold Member
You can climb on it and jump to something else.
There's a spot just before the blockage where you can jump from the left to it, then over to a large area on the right. You never have to clear the blockage or go through that door. It is a somewhat odd design choice.

There are two of those in that "dungeon", that should be the first one so, if I'm correct you should place the cart just before reaching that column, align it with the platform on the left of the screen, jump on the cart and then jump to the platform on the right.
That should do it.

Thanks, guys. That at least helped me realize what was supposed to be happening.

Unfortunately, I jumped around like a lunatic for about 10 minutes, from every conceivable position, without any luck. Finally, I realized I had overlooked a path in the aquarium room, where I could walk up some pipes. That allowed me to get behind the first area, unlock the gate, and move the cart into the position you were talking about.

The problem was I hadn't seen that path, so I hadn't unlocked the gate and so hadn't been able to move the cart to the right position.

Thanks for the help.
 
Oh it happens, I got stuck really close to the end of the game and it was because a place I didn't want to explore until I cleaned a part of the world, it turned out that I needed to go on that route to clean the world but by the time I realized I was stuck I totally forgot about that place so I roamed around like travolta.gif
 

aristotle

Member
Oh it happens, I got stuck really close to the end of the game and it was because a place I didn't want to explore until I cleaned a part of the world, it turned out that I needed to go on that route to clean the world but by the time I realized I was stuck I totally forgot about that place so I roamed around like travolta.gif

This is me currently since I'm trying to find the collectables I've missed. I have no idea where and it's taking me forever. I wish there were markers for the dungeons. I'm sure that's where most if not all of them are. The one in the aquarium where you control the walker is perplexing me currently. I see something above me, but I have no idea how to get there. I wish someone would do a guide already. :p
 

ced

Member
Finished it today, don't know how long it took but it felt like at least 12-15 hrs.

Gripes first, PS4 Pro performance can be really bad once in awhile, and I had 2 crashes, one required me to pull power to PS4. Some jumps could be frustrating due to perspective but it was very few.

Now the good, overall was really really good.

One of the best exploration games I've played in awhile, it was always rewarding and it felt like every off the beaten path area you explored had some secret. Atmosphere, animation and story was excellent.

Spoiler tagging end game stuff:

I did 2 different endings, was there a 3rd?

How do you get down off the robot on the last checkpoint to go back and collect stuff?

How do you enter that big door to the east with a light pattern on it?
 

Wozman23

Member
Spoiler tagging end game stuff:

I did 2 different endings, was there a 3rd?

How do you get down off the robot on the last checkpoint to go back and collect stuff?

How do you enter that big door to the east with a light pattern on it?

Just two endings to my knowledge.

There is a teleporter on the robot, right outside the last room.

There are a few doors that require a max level sword, by finding all those fallen soldiers.
 

BluWacky

Member
I was rather confused by the end of the game. I wasn't exactly sure what was happening in the final room, I did A Thing which seemed to be the only thing I could do, then... cut to black, end credits. Not much of an ending.

Presumably there's more if I go back and get everything, but the rather abrupt ending put me off a little bit; I was expecting... well, probably an ending sequence! Perhaps it would have been clearer on Steam with achievements or similar; buying it on GOG I had no idea what was happening.

Despite this, I had a lot of fun with Hob; I loved the whole "putting the world back together" mechanic, and these kinds of environmental platformers are my bread and butter. I should go back and try and collect all the stuff I missed - we'll see if I do.
 

Wozman23

Member
I was rather confused by the end of the game. I wasn't exactly sure what was happening in the final room, I did A Thing which seemed to be the only thing I could do, then... cut to black, end credits. Not much of an ending.

Presumably there's more if I go back and get everything, but the rather abrupt ending put me off a little bit; I was expecting... well, probably an ending sequence! Perhaps it would have been clearer on Steam with achievements or similar; buying it on GOG I had no idea what was happening.

There's a second ending which is much better. I made the same choice the first time because I didn't really understand the choice due to its nebulousness. You just have to
select the other being, that looks like you, in the background
. You can easily see it by reloading your save which will start right before the final room.

I took the ending you did because
I didn't realize the queen was a foe. I just thought she was the female race of whatever I was and was just grateful that she cured me of whatever was ailing me
But by making that choice,
the soldier you play as fails to defeat the queen who destroyed your world, so the guardian guy goes to find another hero and the story repeats. And the sword pieces you collect are also from former soldiers who failed.

With the other ending, you
defeat the queen and restore power to your race, freeing all of the soldiers, though I'm not sure how the adversary you defeat plays into everything.
 

Humdinger

Gold Member
I'm late in the game, and the prompts for where to go (the little glowing diamond-shapes) have disappeared. Is that normal? I've followed their guidance the whole game, now suddenly they are gone. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do next.
 

BluWacky

Member
I'm late in the game, and the prompts for where to go (the little glowing diamond-shapes) have disappeared. Is that normal? I've followed their guidance the whole game, now suddenly they are gone. I'm not sure what I'm supposed to do next.

Aim to clear out the evil foliage jellyfish, which you should still be able to see on your map - you should have everything you need at your possession to do this. New prompts will appear when you do so, if you can't work out what to do yourself.
 

Humdinger

Gold Member
Aim to clear out the evil foliage jellyfish, which you should still be able to see on your map - you should have everything you need at your possession to do this. New prompts will appear when you do so, if you can't work out what to do yourself.

Ok, thanks. I'll try that. There's one purple area I hadn't cleared yet -- tried a couple times but couldn't figure it out. I'll try again.
 
It's such a shame that it runs like ass because it's a wonderful game.
I'm a few hours into this now and have yet to run into any performance problems. And I've been introduced to larger and more complicated areas.

But all these comments have me worried.
 

Oneself

Member
I'm a few hours into this now and have yet to run into any performance problems. And I've been introduced to larger and more complicated areas.

But all these comments have me worried.
Nothing game-breaking on my end (PS4 Pro). Two crashes and the obvious framerate problems. The latest patches helped though. It's just that I expected much better performance on the Pro.
 
Ok, thanks. I'll try that. There's one purple area I hadn't cleared yet -- tried a couple times but couldn't figure it out. I'll try again.

Happened the same to me so you probably just need to clear the center corrupted zone on your own. You have everything you need, just look for a way to reach the trapped bug thingy.
 

Humdinger

Gold Member
Happened the same to me so you probably just need to clear the center corrupted zone on your own. You have everything you need, just look for a way to reach the trapped bug thingy.

Yeah, that was it. I just needed to clear two more purple patches.

I finished the game. I enjoyed it. I'd give it about a 7.5, if I were to rate it.

I enjoyed the quiet exploration. I haven't played a game like this for a long time, so it was a nice change of pace. Good game to relax and just kick-back. The puzzles were challenging at times but not too tough.

My only real criticism is that I felt the game flowed better for the first 3/4, then got a little more obtuse in the last 1/4. The design seemed tighter in the first 3/4, then looser and a bit more confusing in the final 1/4.

I liked the lead up to the ending, but the ending itself sort of just fizzled out. I didn't feel like there was any conclusion. I'm still not sure what it was all about. (I do know there was an alternate ending.)

There was some glitchiness, but it didn't bother me.
 

krae_man

Member
Finally had a chance to start this. Love the atmosphere.

I feel bad for my robot friend

The scene where he's looking through the robot graveyard to find a new arm after he ripped his off to save me after I became infected with the purple goop and he finds one only for it to disintegrate into dust was so sad

Man the framerate started to take a dive right before I raised the water area. It's really, really bad at times.

Hopefully I can finish this soonish as I've got South Park to play.
 
Finally had a chance to start this. Love the atmosphere.

I feel bad for my robot friend

The scene where he's looking through the robot graveyard to find a new arm after he ripped his off to save me after I became infected with the purple goop and he finds one only for it to disintegrate into dust was so sad

Man the framerate started to take a dive right before I raised the water area. It's really, really bad at times.

Hopefully I can finish this soonish as I've got South Park to play.

Whe that happenes try to restart the application, it happened to me that after a two hs session (aprox) the game started to drop frames at an insane pace, I restarted and everything was "smooth" again.
 

krae_man

Member
Whe that happenes try to restart the application, it happened to me that after a two hs session (aprox) the game started to drop frames at an insane pace, I restarted and everything was "smooth" again.

Thanks, I'll try that.

I've had to do that a couple times anyway because the game has crashed on loading or fast travel screens a couple of times on me.
 

wouwie

Member
I've got mixed feelings about Hob. I haven't finished it yet (arrived at the
water world
) and i don't know if i will tbh. I really wanted to like this game and had been looking forward to it ever since the first reveal.

It's obvious that the developer put a lot of hard work and love into creating the game. The visuals are great most of the time and so are the sound effects and music. Traversal is fun. Discovering things and seeing the world change is nice.

However, the combat just isn't all that interesting or fun, the puzzles are easy for the most part (it's mostly a matter of finding the correct path to take) and the various upgrades aren't meaningful due to the nature of the combat. Also, story telling wise, i still don't have any clue why or what i'm doing so there is little emotional attachement or investment. Though i hope everything will make sense at some point towards the end?

Technically, the game has a lot of issues and i had a few bugs (e.g. the options aren't saved when i quit the game so i have to turn off the gore setting each time i play) and crashes. Playing on the standard PS4, the framerate is problematic to a degree that it hurts my enjoyment (which doesn't happen often). I assume that the developer most probably wasn't happy with this kind of performance when they launched the game.

I feel like Hob could have done with more polish on the technical side and more interesting gameplay, especially since the game is quite long. It's not bad and it does have some qualities but it could have been better.
 

Kadin

Member
New 1.15.x update is out.

Note the part at the bottom about the W10 Fall Creator's Update apparently helping the micro-stutter issues many (myself included) have reported.

PERFORMANCE
Reduced micro stutters most prevalent on Nvidia 10-Series GPUs*

GAME
Made it easier to knock enemies off cliffs
Improved camera position during some grapple points
Adjusted sounds on various units and events throughout the game for a better experience
Fixed some event saves to avoid being stuck if you quit in the middle of the event
You can no longer grapple in the middle of a warp
Added a higher quality shadow detail level

LOCALIZATION
Fixed some incorrect Arabic translations and controller UI

ACHIEVEMENTS/TROPHIES
Hunter achievement should now include warp and down-punch attacks

LAUNCHER
Reconfigured Shadow Detail dropdown for three settings: Low, Medium, High (previously only two settings)

*Note: If you have a Windows 10 machine with an Nvidia 10 series GPU and are seeing performance issues, please also grab the Fall Creators Update (Windows 10, version 1709). This update has been verified to resolve micro stutter issues in the game. For more information on how to update to this version of windows 10: https://support.microsoft.com/en-us/help/4028685/windows-10-get-the-fall-creators-update.


Additional Note: On PS4, the 1.13 incremental patch was styled as 1.14. We are skipping this number on PC to sync up the versions again.
 

Humdinger

Gold Member
Also, story telling wise, i still don't have any clue why or what i'm doing so there is little emotional attachement or investment. Though i hope everything will make sense at some point towards the end?

I agree.

The ending won't clear things up.
 
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