Elite roleplay: Q&A and OOC

Kasumi Goto
10 Aug 2023, 1:24pm
I updated my last(current) post with Kira’s response to Willow. Figured that was more appropriate than making an entirely new one.
Willow Thorn
10 Aug 2023, 3:56pm
Wow, its early, back in a little while.
Assume Willow will be scraping clothes and taking air samples and she totally got the full forensic kit. She's in heaven playing Inspector Gadget right now.
Kasumi Goto
10 Aug 2023, 4:07pm
So, I have a bit of a question… is the ‘Aloy’ part in Venus’ name an intentional reference to the Horizon game(s)?

Got me curious when I saw it.
Venus Duval
10 Aug 2023, 4:09pm
yes indeed it is!
Kasumi Goto
10 Aug 2023, 4:18pm
Well, I’m one to spot it. I spent a few hours too many playing Zero Dawn many times on all difficulty settings except Story mode. And a few repeats on the higher ones.

Forbidden West, well, not quite so much but still a bit(two playthroughs, started one on Ultra Hard but didn’t really get past the starting area). Also got a bit meh’d by the - somewhat understandable - decision to not port the DLC to PS4(not even the Pro version, which I have), so I’m considering waiting for it to drop on PC(first one did), rather than to buy an entirely new console for a DLC of one game. And hook it up to my TV… somehow. Some games deserve to be played on the big screen, and this is one of them where I’m concerned.
Meowers
10 Aug 2023, 4:20pm
Kasumi Gotois the ‘Aloy’ part in Venus’ name an intentional reference to the Horizon game(s)
For some unknown reason, I was totally sure it is. Lol.
Btw, sorry, I've been a sleepy mess today, so consider Meowers just sitting there and listening, all that time.
Venus Duval
10 Aug 2023, 4:22pm
I am currently on a new game plus in ultra hard of Zero Dawn right now. This is my 4thz play through of the game and I am hoping to get a 100% completion in ultra hard.

I am waiting with baited breath for Forbidden west to be ported to PC. I wish Sony was quicker with their ports
Kasumi Goto
10 Aug 2023, 4:57pm
Forbidden West definitely is still good overall, though I found the difficulty to be skewed much more toward the top end, even when playing on Hard/Very Hard. I would not be surprised if there’s enemies(the highest level ones) that can one hit kill you on Ultra Hard even with a max grade outfit.

(Which would partly bring me down the rabbit hole of how I didn’t quite get into how the combat was extended upon, sometimes in ways that I didn’t quite like or saw the sense in… such as limiting dodge rolls to consecutive two and a stumble after the third, with possibility to extend it to four.)

Story is the aspect I primarily played it for, and I think it delivers there. And at one very key point takes a turn for the… very disturbing. If you know the lore of the first game well enough, you can probably guess exactly what I mean. I’d even call it one of the, if not the, highlight, for all the wrong reasons, and yet in a good way. The writers wanted a very specific feel for that section, and they absolutely nailed it.
Meowers
10 Aug 2023, 5:27pm
Ow. I totally hate it when game difficulty is controlled by just how much HP and armour enemies have. Feels so cheap. I like to play everything I can get my hands on with maximum difficulty settings, but be it godsdamned, please, make it fair, let them throw a challenge at me using a better tactics and/or having greater numbers.
Venus Duval
10 Aug 2023, 5:30pm
Frozen wilds did this to an extent and zero dawn in general made the game more challenging overall. I actually have to use pots to survive against enemies. It's not overly difficult but if you aren't geared right it is a nightmare. Some of the enemies are stupid tough. Even with the shield weaver armor I was struggling. Frozen wilds is brutal in ultra hard
Willow Thorn
10 Aug 2023, 5:34pm
Yeah, Dawn looked great and I was into the story, but the game got repetitive so fast.
There are so many games where you climb a tower, do the icons that show up, then look for another tower. And yeah, difficulty being down to the numbers a thing has is so cheap.
Kasumi Goto
10 Aug 2023, 5:51pm
I don’t particularly mind it if it comes down to skill to survive the enemy. Which, for the most part, I thought ZD did well(most/all attacks are avoidable with correct roll timing). Forbidden West… don’t know what they did with the hitboxes, but there’s a lot more BS from some of the enemies. The Fireclaws especially. It got tiring rather quick.

They also added a lot more grind to upgrade your stuff and added significant negative resistances to some outfits. Another negative point I felt, for an exclusively SP game with no purchases aside from story DLC.
Silvia Sharpe
10 Aug 2023, 6:24pm
Fireclaws and frostclaws both suck. I had one the other day just sit there and spam me with its stupid ice boulders. It went on for a couple minutes before I managed to get to a place I could charge up a 3 arrow sharpshot hit and stunned it.
Kasumi Goto
10 Aug 2023, 6:35pm
You might’ve been outside the boundaries the AI roams(it cannot bypass them even in combat, at least in ZD… not sure if this also applies to Forbidden West, but Frozen Wilds has a slightly more apparent ‘problem’ with that due to the nature of some of the terrain). It tends to do that, then.

I actually thought they were a reasonably fun enemy to fight in their purpose-built arenas. Hated the Scorcher though, mostly because of its three swipe attack that really messes with your dodge pattern.

The Fireclaws spawned ‘in the wild’ as part of the post-DLC quest, those I didn’t like much(other than using the improved ice rail - that was fun to use and just get a really meaty hit in on a frozen target), but it made for a good boss at the end of the Cauldron.
Kasumi Goto
10 Aug 2023, 7:59pm
So what message did Venus Jenna get? Unless it’s supposed to remain a mystery, it hasn’t been mentioned. Or I just missed it.

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