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Horizon Zero Dawn |OT2| Red Head Redemption

T.v

Member
Took a break from this game this week because I wanted to wait for my tv to arrive.
The difference in quality is staggering. I went from a 5 year old full HD led tv to a 4k UHD tv with HDR. Even on my regular ps4 the game is beautiful.

Am now on my way to meridian, just bought a purple hunter bow, sharpshot bow and tripcaster. I feel like they're a bit easy to get. What weapons do you guys use? I'm still missing a fourth. Heard good things about the sling, but i'll have to kill a thunderjaw for that first, and so far haven't encountered one.
 

Nydius

Gold Member
Am now on my way to meridian, just bought a purple hunter bow, sharpshot bow and tripcaster. I feel like they're a bit easy to get. What weapons do you guys use? I'm still missing a fourth. Heard good things about the sling, but i'll have to kill a thunderjaw for that first, and so far haven't encountered one.

I found the Tripcaster useful on the higher difficulty levels but less so on normal (e: and fantastic for Cauldron bosses on any difficulty). I usually ran around with the Shadow Hunter Bow, Shadow Sharpshot Bow, and the Shadow Sling as my three primary weapons and used the last slot to swap between the War Bow, Tripcaster, Ropecaster or Blast Sling, depending on situation (three of those being the Hunter Lodge reward varieties).

I liked keeping the sling around because freeze bombs are exceedingly useful in quickly putting machines into the frozen state and increasing damage against them. IIRC, the blue quality Carja Sling only requires shards and blaze to obtain and has the shock and frost bombs. The Sharpshot was a mainstay for sniping and for Tearblast arrows, especially later on the game throws more robust enemies with heavy weapons at you; You can break those weapons off and use them to your advantage.
 

T.v

Member
I found the Tripcaster useful on the higher difficulty levels but less so on normal (e: and fantastic for Cauldron bosses on any difficulty). I usually ran around with the Shadow Hunter Bow, Shadow Sharpshot Bow, and the Shadow Sling as my three primary weapons and used the last slot to swap between the War Bow, Tripcaster, Ropecaster or Blast Sling, depending on situation (three of those being the Hunter Lodge reward varieties).

I liked keeping the sling around because freeze bombs are exceedingly useful in quickly putting machines into the frozen state and increasing damage against them. IIRC, the blue quality Carja Sling only requires shards and blaze to obtain and has the shock and frost bombs. The Sharpshot was a mainstay for sniping and for Tearblast arrows, especially later on the game throws more robust enemies with heavy weapons at you; You can break those weapons off and use them to your advantage.
Just tried tearblast arrows for the first time yesterday. Didn't seem so great, but I think that was because I used it on one of those mechanical turkeys. They don't have many parts to knock off.
What modifcation's do you guys use most? On my sharpshot bow I've got a purple damage and handling one, might go for another damage in the third slot.
 

LoveCake

Member
Is the ancient armor in the bunker the most powerful armor in the game? How powerful is it?

Very, but its is more like the shield in Halo so you can still die pretty quick.

I have just finished the final quest and wow! I did it with about 30 seconds left on the clock.

This is a spoiler of sorts, but I would recommended on gathering all the allies for the final mission not least because you get to interact with them all and also the ancient armor (just in case you need it) you don't have to use it if you don't want to, using it I found the final battle easier than I thought it would be, did it on my first go, yes with about 30 seconds, I have read that you get a longer time on the first attempt than any subsequent attempts, I don't know though.

Level 43.
Time played 79hrs.
Completion 70.24%.
 
You need to do side quests to get enough skill points to unlock everything.


That's good to know. Side quest are the reason I haven't left the Embrace yet.

Question

I got a Power Cell and see that's it's a level 25 side quest.

Do I really need to be level 25 or can it be done at my current level which is 9?

I'm hoping there's more side missions in the Embrace before I leave it.

I'm looking at the map for the Embrace area/Region to see what icons are available and all I see is a Scrapper site in the Northwest part of the region.

Going to check it out... once my kid eases up on controlling the TV.
 
Finished it today. Got combat fatigue towards the end and ran past a lot of encounters. Worth it for the story.

Will never happen but would be great if next one wasn't open world.
 
That's a really long term quest. The final power cell is pretty much close to
80%
of the game.

Thanks for the heads up.


Finished it today. Got combat fatigue towards the end and ran past a lot of encounters. Worth it for the story.

Will never happen but would be great if next one wasn't open world
.


Disagree. There's only 2 open world games that manage to grab me and made me want to explore every nook and cranny. The first was Zelda Breath of the Wild and the second is Horizon. I actually care/like the characters in this game and the world it takes place in. Horizon wouldn't be Horizon if it wasn't open world.

My 4 year old is watching Goldie and Bear... I might have to make a back alley ice cream deal with her when my wife isn't looking. Lol...
 
Just finished. Managed to be away from spoilers and GAF for the entire duration of my playthrough.

Easy GOTG for me. Loved everything about it - the combat is spectacular though a tad too easy. The story was great fun and did an great job of justifying the completely ridiculous premise. I agree with other posters who worry about sequels
discovering the Zero Dawn secret was more interesting than the tribal wars
. Great music, great voice acting (<3 Ashly Burch). Loved the cast
fuck Faro though
while I am at it: fuck sylens
, the exploration.
To go from Shadowall to this is pretty spectacular to say the least.

Also, are there game with better looking humans than this? I just couldn't get over realistic each of them looked. I can't think I have ever seen anything quite like this, including on my beefy PC.
 

Nydius

Gold Member
Just tried tearblast arrows for the first time yesterday. Didn't seem so great, but I think that was because I used it on one of those mechanical turkeys. They don't have many parts to knock off.
What modifcation's do you guys use most? On my sharpshot bow I've got a purple damage and handling one, might go for another damage in the third slot.

Yeah, Tearblast arrows are fairly situational but are absolutely a must (IMO) later on when you start running into harder enemies. Even if you decide not to use their weapons against them, knocking off their heavy weapons makes them easier to manage. Well, most of the time, anyway.

As for your question regarding mods, one of the first things I focused on unlocking was the Tinker skill so I could swap mods as needed without destroying the old ones, which was especially useful throughout the entire course of the game.

For my weapons:
  • Shadow Hunter Bow: Damage, Handling, Fire. For two or three stat mods: extra damage.
  • Shadow Sharpshot Bow: Damage, Handling, Tear. For two or three stat mods: extra handling.
  • Shadow Sling: Handling, Freeze, Shock/Fire. For two or three stat mods: extra handling OR any of the sling's three elements.
  • Shadow/Lodge Blast Sling: Handling, Damage, Damage. For two or three stat mods: extra handling.
  • Shadow/Lodge War Bow: Handling, Freeze, Shock/Corruption. For two or three stat mods: extra handling OR any of the bow's three elements.
  • Shadow/Lodge Ropecaster: Handling, Handling, Handling. IIRC, the only other mod it allows is Tear which is fairly useless on the Ropecaster.
  • Shadow Tripcaster: Shock, Shock, Fire.

As for armor, I suppose it depends on what base armor you choose but I found that a disproportionate amount of machine enemies used freeze over other elements so I usually dedicated one slot to a freeze protection weave, and would usually swap that out with a corruption protection weave when fighting corruption zones (then fire for some later game encounters). I personally liked using the Nora Protector Heavy for base melee damage protection, using the top slot for ranged damage protection and the bottom slot for elemental protection. In a pinch, I could swap out them both out for stealth as needed, or double up extra ranged damage protection (for humanoid encounters, for example), or double up elemental/corruption protection.
 
I usually am the scrub that buys special edition for games I don't end up liking that much. Here for some reason I got the regular edition and .. I usually never care, but now i want the additional costumes for Aloy! D:
(I'll never get the gamestop pre-order one, too).

Speaking of which, whatever game I play I seemingly *never* can get myself to wear armor with good / relevant stats. Just randomly swap armor until I find one that I visually like.

Not an obvious first choice, but I thought Aloy looked dope in the mid-range oseram sparkworker outfit, so I kept that most of the game.
 

Nydius

Gold Member
I usually am the scrub that buys special edition for games I don't end up liking that much. Here for some reason I got the regular edition and .. I usually never care, but now i want the additional costumes for Aloy! D:
(I'll never get the gamestop pre-order one, too).

Speaking of which, whatever game I play I seemingly *never* can get myself to wear armor with good / relevant stats. Just randomly swap armor until I find one that I visually like.

Not an obvious first choice, but I thought Aloy looked dope in the mid-range oseram sparkworker outfit, so I kept that most of the game.

IMO, outside of being a personal completionist, you're not missing much. Visually, I liked the Banuk Trailblazer one except for massive head armor they put on her as if she was a Banuk Shaman. It looked more "Banuk" than the ones they put on the vendors as it was much more decorated and covered in machine parts. The Carja Storm Ranger one didn't look all that much different than the Carja Blazon outfits, a bit more feathery.

Statistically speaking, they're only useful up to the point where you can buy Heavy level armor.

I'm hoping the DLC gives us some new Banuk wares. I felt the Banuk was really underrepresented in the game and I want to know more about their tribe and machine worship so, needless to say, I'm hyped for the DLC.
 
IMO, outside of being a personal completionist, you're not missing much. Visually, I liked the Banuk Trailblazer one except for massive head armor they put on her as if she was a Banuk Shaman. It looked more "Banuk" than the ones they put on the vendors as it was much more decorated and covered in machine parts. The Carja Storm Ranger one didn't look all that much different than the Carja Blazon outfits, a bit more feathery.

Statistically speaking, they're only useful up to the point where you can buy Heavy level armor.

I'm hoping the DLC gives us some new Banuk wares. I felt the Banuk was really underrepresented in the game and I want to know more about their tribe and machine worship so, needless to say, I'm hyped for the DLC.
Yes, this is for completionism only. Agreed on the Banuk- they were the most intriguing tribe and I can't wait to know more about them (though I am a bit worried about the lack of variety a purely snow-oriented DLC might have visually.
 

LoveCake

Member
IMO, outside of being a personal completionist, you're not missing much. Visually, I liked the Banuk Trailblazer one except for massive head armor they put on her as if she was a Banuk Shaman. It looked more "Banuk" than the ones they put on the vendors as it was much more decorated and covered in machine parts. The Carja Storm Ranger one didn't look all that much different than the Carja Blazon outfits, a bit more feathery.

Statistically speaking, they're only useful up to the point where you can buy Heavy level armor.

I'm hoping the DLC gives us some new Banuk wares. I felt the Banuk was really underrepresented in the game and I want to know more about their tribe and machine worship so, needless to say, I'm hyped for the DLC.

I would like the ability to have the Shield Weaver Armour to be embedded in other armour/clothes so you can have any with the power of the Shield Weaver but in the players preferred outfit.

Much like
I usually am the scrub that buys special edition for games I don't end up liking that much. Here for some reason I got the regular edition and .. I usually never care, but now i want the additional costumes for Aloy! D:
(I'll never get the gamestop pre-order one, too).

Speaking of which, whatever game I play I seemingly *never* can get myself to wear armor with good / relevant stats. Just randomly swap armor until I find one that I visually like.

Not an obvious first choice, but I thought Aloy looked dope in the mid-range oseram sparkworker outfit, so I kept that most of the game.

I wouldn't have minded the Collector's Edition with that statue :(
 
It's 0145 AM where I live and I literally laughed out loud ticking off my wife when I read this.
I did the samething!

Yeah my plan is to stick with Horizon until I play threw it and maybe try for a platinum.

Very early game spoilers

I was fighting *very mean people* at the
proving
and I died towards the end of the fight because I kept hitting Square to melee foes.


What I love about this game so far is using the spear and the almost god like stealth Aloy has in this game. At the
proving
I stealth killed the entire row on of archers twice on the Ridge.

Gonna bunker down and do side quest in the Embrace before setting off on my journey.

LOL nice. It was kind of embarrassing but I was laughing at myself.

Seems like you've got the right rhythm for fighting against humans. Stealth against them is WAY more fun than straight up combat. Unfortunately combat against humans is somewhat of a weak-point in this game but the stealth remains cool throughout.

FYI, the journey to Meridian is freaking epic. Be prepared for a ton of surprises, both in the world, and the side-quests along the way.

Tear is broken in this game right? Seems really OP when I put like 3x Tear mods on my long bow. But boy do I love it.

Yeah its awesome, but as you imply its also part of the reason I personally changed the diffculty from normal to hard. It made the game even more fun for me.
 
Tear is broken in this game right? Seems really OP when I put like 3x Tear mods on my long bow. But boy do I love it.

3x arrow and purple bows generally feel OP, but that particular one is killer yes. But it feels so right!
I think the skill tree should have been narrower and deeper, and that it should have been way more expensive.

Also I waited until late in the game to get the free mount skill and boy was it a mistake. I LOVE RIDING SHIT IN THIS GAME. Especially, for some reason, riding really fast on steep, narrow passes up mountains. It feels so badass.

I wouldn't have minded the Collector's Edition with that statue :(
How did the statue end up looking? Nice build?
 
How does free mount work when you have multiple unlocked, whatever is closest?

Also, to a complaint I had above. More people are talking about me now which i like, slight spoilers I guess for pretty early on?

Sun king talked about me and how I was whispering to beasts to tame them and more guards around Meridian have been mentioning it.
 

LoveCake

Member
Thanks for the answers, will definitely wait to use it.

I should move on with the main quest, but there's so much to do and i love it lol. Doing the hunter's lodge quest right now.

I have been using it since I got it, you only get it very late on in the game though, I will be using it now going forwards though, I like being basically invincible.

I don't know, I didn't do the main quest then main quest for a while, I just went off and did other things, it is well worth it, like gathering all the allies as I mentioned earlier.

I would like to add, I don't think anything I have said is a spoiler, the allies maybe?, but I think that the player misses out on a lot if this isn't done.

I also recommend doing some of the
cauldrons, so you can override machines to help
.
 
I have been using it since I got it, you only get it very late on in the game though, I will be using it now going forwards though, I like being basically invincible.

I don't know, I didn't do the main quest then main quest for a while, I just went off and did other things, it is well worth it, like gathering all the allies as I mentioned earlier.

I would like to add, I don't think anything I have said is a spoiler, the allies maybe?, but I think that the player misses out on a lot if this isn't done.

I also recommend doing some of the
cauldrons, so you can override machines to help
.

Already did all the
cauldrons
, didn't know anything about the allies.
 

usp84

Member
61 hours and the game is finished!Awesome game!!!

I even got 100% and Platinum which is the first time without too much effort.


Excellent story i loved every time Aloy was at one of the facilities and she learned a little more about what happened to the world and who she really is.

The best thing about the game was when the whole map became available and you ran into all the different machines for the first time.Amazing fights overall.



Anyway i hope the DLC is good because i really want more of this game!
 

grmlin

Member
I got my last panorama, the one where suddenly a friggin
storm bird
appears. Got the panorama but ran into a at first very promising dead end.

Without spoiling me, is this late game content or maybe the DLC area?
 
Without spoilers is there long left in the game? I got to the zero dawn bunker and I was worried this was the end as the dude said finish any errands as it's a point of no return. I was abit pissed off as I was having a lot of fun with the game and thought wait this can't be it as the main quest would be incredibly short.

Obviously I completed the area and it wasn't the end. But I still feel like there isn't much left.
 

Nydius

Gold Member
Without spoilers is there long left in the game? I got to the zero dawn bunker and I was worried this was the end as the dude said finish any errands as it's a point of no return. I was abit pissed off as I was having a lot of fun with the game and thought wait this can't be it as the main quest would be incredibly short.

Obviously I completed the area and it wasn't the end. But I still feel like there isn't much left.

Story mission wise, you've only got three left after completing that one. The actual point of no return where you start the final battle is still a few missions off.

E:
How did the statue end up looking? Nice build?

I'm not a collector's edition kind of person mostly because I don't really have the space for extra stuff and last gen it felt like too much collectors edition swag was cheaply made. But I'm quite pleased with the Aloy statue. It has decent weight, decent sculpting, good detail, and doesn't look cheap or feel fragile. Had to put the arrows in the side of the Watcher's head which was a bit iffy because they wanted to bend and I was afraid they'd break but other than that, no complaints.

S4cCxfY.jpg
 

LoveCake

Member
Already did all the
cauldrons
, didn't know anything about the allies.

I just stumbled on it, when I was looking for the Shadow Armor locations and I made sure that I found everyone, there are a couple that are always there for you and it makes no difference if the rest are there or not apparently, but if you check the defences before the final you can talk to each of them and it really added to the story I felt, it just meant more due to the connections and friendships, I haven't spoiler-tagged this quest (even though its not a quest) I just think anyone is really missing out if they don't do this.

I have never been the type to re-play a game, I try and do everything or as much as I can or want to in the first play-through, so I don't rush and this isn't a game to be rushed, there is DLC coming and for a fair while apparently so I don't want to leave the game for months and then just come back for the DLC and then the same again months after, I can keep going in and playing half an hour or so every other day in the meantime still doing new stuff and progressing, I don't know if this works for everyone, well of course it doesn't, its just the way I have always played.

I still have one
cauldron
left to do.
 

JoeNut

Member
been playing a lot this weekend, i'm at level 18 on Hard difficulty, just done the
first cauldron
and i'm on my way to the gate where i
have to kill corrupted sites before they'll let me through.

The
cauldron
was hard and i have died a few times mainly from mistakes but i still think it's pretty easy. should i go to extra hard? or does it get even harder later on as i encounter more beasts?
 

T.v

Member
Yeah, Tearblast arrows are fairly situational but are absolutely a must (IMO) later on when you start running into harder enemies. Even if you decide not to use their weapons against them, knocking off their heavy weapons makes them easier to manage. Well, most of the time, anyway.

As for your question regarding mods, one of the first things I focused on unlocking was the Tinker skill so I could swap mods as needed without destroying the old ones, which was especially useful throughout the entire course of the game.

For my weapons:
  • Shadow Hunter Bow: Damage, Handling, Fire. For two or three stat mods: extra damage.
  • Shadow Sharpshot Bow: Damage, Handling, Tear. For two or three stat mods: extra handling.
  • Shadow Sling: Handling, Freeze, Shock/Fire. For two or three stat mods: extra handling OR any of the sling's three elements.
  • Shadow/Lodge Blast Sling: Handling, Damage, Damage. For two or three stat mods: extra handling.
  • Shadow/Lodge War Bow: Handling, Freeze, Shock/Corruption. For two or three stat mods: extra handling OR any of the bow's three elements.
  • Shadow/Lodge Ropecaster: Handling, Handling, Handling. IIRC, the only other mod it allows is Tear which is fairly useless on the Ropecaster.
  • Shadow Tripcaster: Shock, Shock, Fire.

As for armor, I suppose it depends on what base armor you choose but I found that a disproportionate amount of machine enemies used freeze over other elements so I usually dedicated one slot to a freeze protection weave, and would usually swap that out with a corruption protection weave when fighting corruption zones (then fire for some later game encounters). I personally liked using the Nora Protector Heavy for base melee damage protection, using the top slot for ranged damage protection and the bottom slot for elemental protection. In a pinch, I could swap out them both out for stealth as needed, or double up extra ranged damage protection (for humanoid encounters, for example), or double up elemental/corruption protection.

Sound about the same as the mod layout I'm going for. I've noticed tearblast arrows don't seem to work on all parts. They were incredibly helpful against the mole robot, made shooting off his claws a breeze, but they dont seem to work on the sacks on a bellowback, or a corruptor's weapons. And I'm sure i hit them. I've noticed the same thing with blaze canisters not exploding every time. Like sometimes they just fizzle out or something.
 

Donos

Member
I think I'm at lvl 10, but I get destroyed (overwhelmed) when I try it..

There was one camp which was full of elite bandits, the ones with skulls as icon. Encountered this around lvl 14. It's hard to headshot them with the hunter/sharpshooter bow because of the armor. Had to tackle this camp at least 5 times (on hard) and used a lot of blast tripwires. Most other camps i encountered so far, just have maybe 1-2 elite guys. Everybody else is 1 hit kill with a headshot (sharpshooter bow) so you can pick them 1by1.

Took down the first
Stormbird
and again, Tear arrows are op. Still fun fight, better than
Thunderjaw
. If you take down the shock gun on the chest first, it's way easier.

Have three very rare +37/+39 % Tear mods in my shadow sharpshooter bow and lol one Tear arrow now demolishes almost any armor/parts from normal machines.
 
Took down the first
Stormbird
and again, Tear arrows are op. Still fun fight, better than
Thunderjaw
. If you take down the shock gun on the chest first, it's way easier.

Tearblast to remove the shock gun, triple tearblast the wings to make it landbound and it's pretty much a sitting duck.
 

cjp

Junior Member
Huh, I just got an email with a code for the Platinum theme and I don't even own the game. Anyone else received it?
 

Aenima

Member
So today i just received an e-mail from sony congratulating me for obtaining the Platinum Trophy in HZD, with a code to download some reward. Its probably not news here, the thing is i dont even have finishes the game yet and my trophy cound for HZD is at 60% :D

But ill take it.

Huh, I just got an email with a code for the Platinum theme and I don't even own the game. Anyone else received it?

Ok you won :D
 

Nydius

Gold Member
Huh, I just got an email with a code for the Platinum theme and I don't even own the game. Anyone else received it?

You probably got one of my codes. LOL

I've Platinumed the game on two separate accounts and haven't gotten a code for the theme on either.

E:
have to say that is still disappointing, quite a short game tbh.

I don't know. On my first playthrough on Hard difficulty, I 100%'d the game in 65 hours. It took me just over 70 hours to achieve 100% completion with Mass Effect Andromeda on Hardcore difficulty. 60-80 hours seems about standard for a first run through of a predominantly single player open world game.
 
You probably got one of my codes. LOL

I've Platinumed the game on two separate accounts and haven't gotten a code for the theme on either.

E:


I don't know. On my first playthrough on Hard difficulty, I 100%'d the game in 65 hours. It took me just over 70 hours to achieve 100% completion with Mass Effect Andromeda on Hardcore difficulty. 60-80 hours seems about standard for a first run through of a predominantly single player open world game.

i'm not talking about 100% it to platinum it. I'm talking about the main story line.
 

Nydius

Gold Member
i'm not talking about 100% it to platinum it. I'm talking about the main story line.

Well of course if you isolate ONLY the main story missions it's going to seem short. Again, ME: Andromeda. Blow through only the main story missions and it would be about a 10-15 hour game.

ME:A only has 11 "Priority Ops" main story missions.
Dragon Age Inquisition has 10 "Path of the Inquisitor" main story missions.
Horizon Zero Dawn has 23 main story missions.
 
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