Current Events > ITT: I play Middle-earth Shadow of War (spoilers)

(+) Yeah! (+)

Been going through my backlog lately, and while some titles haven't really been that great, Shadow of Mordor was definitely towards the top of the pile. Heard this one's harder, but that suits me just fine -- having some good combat will be refreshing after dealing with Assassin's Creed jank. Hopefully they let me start with orc branding instead of putting it in the game's second half...I needs me some sleeper agents. Which reminds me, I wonder if Ratbag will return...
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lmao @ random Gondor soldier killstealing my legendary opponent



At least I still get the loot.
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I remember poisoning grog barrels in the first game, but don't remember orcs so stupid, they'll see their buddies die, then take a glass themselves, then take ANOTHER if they don't die from it (warchief). Not sure if that's terrible AI or just orc behavior 101.
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I played some of the first one. Pretty fun
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Shadow of War owns.
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Yeah, this has been a step up from SoM in most ways. And, I found a new favorite hobby: shaming orcs I can't recruit. This one got so mad at me, he ran around with his flame weapon, accidentally setting himself and his friends on fire, lmao. It's a little annoying that you have to resort to shaming because of some level requirement, but I've gotten so many laughs out of it, it squares itself in my eyes.





Also, this Australian (!?) orc variant is pretty funny.



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Bruz is the best.
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does it make sense in the story/ lore that the giant spider is suddenly a hot chick?
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Guess I gotta advance a bit more to get Bruz missions. He's a lot better than Ratbag, but I still kinda want to reunite with my old minion. IIRC, he strangely disappeared in the first game and you never heard from him again.

ROBANN_88 posted...

does it make sense in the story/ lore that the giant spider is suddenly a hot chick?

I think she started as a hot chick and, via magic, became a spider. At least that's what the flashback things suggest.
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Really need to get back into playing it. Think I was only maybe a third of the way through it.
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ROBANN_88 posted...

does it make sense in the story/ lore that the giant spider is suddenly a hot chick?

It makes zero sense. You can just boil it down to sex sells of course, but there is another female character in the game they could have sexed up instead. And unlike Shelob, they created her specifically for the game, so it wouldn't conflict as much with the lore.
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ROBANN_88 posted...

does it make sense in the story/ lore that the giant spider is suddenly a hot chick?

Her mom was a shapeshifter iirc, but that's never stated and is a weak justification by fans at best.

But nothing about the Shadow series gels with the canon so who cares.
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I remember being surprised when the main Mordor map in the first game had another huge, verdant region, but this time they added...three new regions? On top of the Minas Irith (or whatever; the overrun city), the first Mordor region, and the island you go to after that. Sounds pretty good for variety -- albeit a bit overwheming -- and the high-level orcs should help grinding a bit. It was turning into a bit of a slog when killing/recruiting was only giving 600 XP a pop and you need 10000+ to level up.
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They must have a failsafe in place for when you recruit too much in a region, 'cause I just got betrayed about five times in a row, plus had my best bodyguard captured and killed (RIP Ugly Face). It hurts that some of my best foot soldiers, the ones I'd recruited and actually put time into, all defected and made me put some of 'em down. Those captains who can call reinforcements and erect banners that make all attacks faster and uncounterable are great, though... =|
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Yeah they don't want you dominating a whole region. You can still dominate most of one though. I was actually disappointed that betrayal happened so rarely in my game. It occurred maybe two times and that was it.
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Are they more likely to betray if their level is close to Talion's, I wonder? I'm LV28 or something.
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Nooooooooooo
Bruz betrayed me and took the entire region after I'd won some hard-fought slog.
What a miserable glob.

I like how annoyed Talion and Celebrimbor are, talking about loyalty and whatnot. I mean, you do realize you're basically enslaving orcs with the ring's power, right? In fact, there was a captain I killed who, on his deathbed, basically gave a "you ever think about what you're doing to us orcs?" speech, haha.

Dunno if everyone defected, but damn, I hope not. Especially that dude who wears cobwebs and talks about spiders all the time. Stole him from some online vendetta. =|
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I've tried to get into it so many times. Each time I make a little bit more progress.

I don't much like that it's essentially an RTS played from third person perspective, but based on the developer, I understand.

The game never really ever seems to get remotely any easier or smoother. Every time you get some groove going finally, the game throws a brick at your head. It's weird, I can always do all the stuff, but it always feels like I'm having to put "dark souls effort" into it, for no real discernable reason.

The orc army management thing gets kind of frustratingly tedious to me.

Maybe I should mention I've never ever ever enjoyed RTS games for some reason.
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Part of the reason it seems hard is because executions are tied to a might meter now, whereas you could (at best) get it every 4-hit combo in SoM. I'm constantly having a "time to do execution!" feeling, only to find out I'm not even close. I think SoM also had weapons imbued with poison/fire/etc. a lot easier before, which helped out. I just got my first one ("get 10 seconds of fire when hitting captain with execution") at Lv30, which seem ridiculous, either as a planned/weighted drop or RNG screw.

Most enemies will have an exploitable weakness, though. Sometimes it's an easy one, like OHKO poisoning, but sometimes you just have to do guerrilla tactics (stealth attack, flee, repeat) to weaken 'em. Their ability to mob Talion and summon endless reinforcements is awful on defense, but pretty great when you recruit 'em.

But yeah, there are some RTS-style feels when playing, especially during fortress sieges. I just did my first one and had to plan where to go, because my checkpoint holders were bleeding out and I had to go back and forth reviving 'em.
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The worst thing about Bruz's betrayal is that I would've gladly given him the overlord position if the game hadn't forced me to keep him as a regular. Still, maybe this won't be as bad as that instance above, where a whole bunch of people betrayed me in the space of five minutes, in the same house's backyard, lol.

Anyway, pic dump time! Here's my favorite pastime of late:


That war vet who gave me the "why do you hurt us?" speech (forgot I screenshotted this):


That time I finished a vendetta and Celebrimbor got stuck in a weird dancing pose:


Showing wrath to slavemasters, despite technically being one myself:


Galadriel's knight hanging out with me in the mountains (never can remember her name):


That time I fought a warchief and had all his bodyguards (right behind him) betray him, haha:


Bringing a winter wonderland to Seregoth:


Literal nobodies summoning a balrog:


Minas Morgul:


And finally, my spider-loving captain NOT betraying me! He's...just captured...

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pres_madagascar posted...

I've tried to get into it so many times. Each time I make a little bit more progress.

I don't much like that it's essentially an RTS played from third person perspective, but based on the developer, I understand.

The game never really ever seems to get remotely any easier or smoother. Every time you get some groove going finally, the game throws a brick at your head. It's weird, I can always do all the stuff, but it always feels like I'm having to put "dark souls effort" into it, for no real discernable reason.

The orc army management thing gets kind of frustratingly tedious to me.

Maybe I should mention I've never ever ever enjoyed RTS games for some reason.

You don't really have to put that much thought into the army management stuff. At least not until the final act.

And orcs do get more difficult for sure, but you also get a ton of good abilities and equipment that makes you vastly superior to them. Most of my deaths usually came from grunts while I was trying to accomplish some specific goal during a fight with a captain. But generally you can brute force most fights if you're purely there to kill.

Also, don't neglect the glaive. I used it initially and found it pretty useful, but after those first couple moments I stopped using it often. Big mistake. Once I got the Machine tribe armor which makes all glaive attacks explosive, I used it all the time. Even without that, the glaive is a good tool to give you some breathing room.
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How do you get the machine tribe armor? Or any faction armor?

I'd definitely use the glaive more if it caused orcsplosions.
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Made a mistake, it's the sword, not armor. But most of the Legendary sets are acquired by killing Legendary orcs. So the sword for example you get by killing a Legendary Slayer or Berserker from the Machine tribe. I believe the game tells you in the menu who exactly you need to kill for that specific piece of the set.

Also one thing to remember about the Legendary pieces of equipment is that the best version of a particular piece of gear only drops from Level 60 Legendary orcs. And they appear very, very late in the game. However, one thing I utilized to get the highest tier Machine Sword is Ologs. Swords are the only piece of equipment that can be destroyed by an enemy, in this case the Ologs. So when I figured this out I had a Level 40 Machine Sword. I intentionally got myself killed by an Olog with the sword equipped and he broke it. Returning to him and killing him resulted in the Machine Sword being dropped at its max level. This is something you can do with any sword in the game too.
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ROBANN_88 posted...

does it make sense in the story/ lore that the giant spider is suddenly a hot chick?

Not at all. But as others have said, many things in the series don't make sense with the established lore so whatever.
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Ahh, you don't have to do anything special for the gear, then. I thought that might be the case for the DLC tribes. Just beat some LV40 dude at a fortress and got an Armor of Horrors (terror tribe?), so I guess there's no real change to the murderizin'.

As for the broken sword thing (break on dying, higher drop on revenge), does this always happen? I haven't had any weapons broken so far.
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Shotgunnova posted...

Ahh, you don't have to do anything special for the gear, then. I thought that might be the case for the DLC tribes. Just beat some LV40 dude at a fortress and got an Armor of Horrors (terror tribe?), so I guess there's no real change to the murderizin'.

As for the broken sword thing (break on dying, higher drop on revenge), does this always happen? I haven't had any weapons broken so far.

Only when you get killed by an Olog. I remember that was one of the first things I read about the game actually, but I forgot about it while playing because I ended up never dying to an Olog I guess. I only remembered when I was browsing the subreddit and someone mentioned that method of upgrading your sword.
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I don't think I've gotten killed by an olog yet either...maybe because they're so doughy and usually have that "perk" where they take damage on headshots.

BTW, are there dwarves in the main campaign? I haven't seen any yet, but this captain has an "enraged by dwarves" boost, which makes me a bit curious about it. Maybe they'll bring back that beastmaster dude from the first game somewhere.
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Yessss, I found a shieldbearer with a ton of great qualities and zero actual weaknesses. And he was in Lithlad, a region I completely forgot was visitable, haha. This desert area doesn't seem to have any real relevance (unless it's the tail end of a questline I haven't done yet; there aren't any haedir towers here) but it's pretty great so far and the captain acquisitions have been kickass. Hopefully there'll be more recruits of this caliber as I go on.

Brownie points: the dude has an impaled head on his helmet. That's how you know you're in the majors.


EDIT: And he even randomly showed up with a captured worm. This dude is on point.
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lol @ end to Bruz's questline

He got to LV40 and I ended up mindbreaking him anyway. Since this new perk has a chance of making people into maniacs (they get stronger instead of weaker), I look forward to testing this out on my new victims....err, I mean, enlistees.
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Now that IMGTC is back up, more pics:

When you use Worse From Death, some people become deranged. Instead of their usual orc eloquence, you've basically turned them into a psycho who becomes fixated on one phrase or notion. Every time I faced this guy, including right up to his death, he wouldn't stop talking about what I did to his face.


Bruz getting the same treatment for his betrayal and short-lived usurpation:


Even other orcs are horrified by what happened...


In sillier news, some orcs talk in some type of slurred orc Cockney that makes them hard to understand (even with subtitles):


This guy wasn't deranged, but he sure put on a good act:

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I think I have two pieces from the headshot 'splosion set, so I'm eager to get everything in order.


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Shotgunnova posted...

I remember poisoning grog barrels in the first game, but don't remember orcs so stupid, they'll see their buddies die, then take a glass themselves, then take ANOTHER if they don't die from it (warchief). Not sure if that's terrible AI or just orc behavior 101.

Legendary poison gear is best btw. Hit one guy, poison him, explosion that infects other guys, ad nauseum. In a game that demands crowd control, it's a stress free setup.
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Yeah, the crowd control in this game could be a better. Even being able to charge your glaive attacks while doing some other action (like leaping over an enemy) would be helpful. I don't want to have to summon a bodyguard who throws mines and suicide bombers into every fray, haha.

In other news, I got attacked by Bruz's brothers (?) back to back. They wanted revenge, so I shamed both, then went and killed both later. One became deranged and kept talking about how Bruz was still around in a "this didn't happen, haha, of course it didn't" way of denying his death. Technically, Zog brought him back to life -- at LV1, haha -- during one of his final quests, so the bro wasn't wrong.

Speaking of Zog, I see he's a super-strong undead legendary who keeps returning. Will he drop legendaries each time he dies? Haven't really had a chance yet (the one time I randomly saw him, he fled in terror over something), but it could be an okay way of farming his faction stuff.
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If you make the other Bruz brother (heh) deranged, he starts yelling "he just wanted the fort!" over and over.
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Maybe they'll come back and I'll get the chance. As fun as mindbreaking these haughty idiots is, by the third or fourth time, you start to feel a little bad for 'em. That's why I ended up putting Bruz out of his misery, since it always felt like he was on the urge of tears or something, haha.

BTW, what's the max level for orcs? I thought it'd be LV60, but the maniac I made keeps dodging his demise, and now he's up to LV61.
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Damn, I've been doing battles on hard mode it seems, thanks to that perk that makes might bottom out every time you miss an attack, get hit or leave battle. Being able to dominate four grunts at once (which I rarely do when I can use executions) is way too good for some annoying bosses, heh.
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Oh snap, I didn't see Ethariel and 'Brimbor teaming up while leaving Talion to bleed out on Balad-dur's doorstep. Didn't expect to see him put on the Nazgul ring either, lol. Maybe that'll give her a reason to dominate stuff in her expansion? I doubt she'd have that kind of power otherwise.

Anyway, time to Rambo back in Minas Ithil. Haha, SLAMMING!
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Good game, but I liked the first one more. I think theyve fixed it since, but I remember the final act of the game being so long, drawn-out, and boring. I dont think I ever even finished it.

Also, is it my imagination, or were the graphics in War just a little worse than they were in Mordor?
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The final act could be a little boring, yeah. Anything related to siege capture and the umpteenth Nazgul sighting gets a bit tiresome, and some missions overall were just easy as piss. Maybe that's because I'm playing on the default setting, though. Hopefully the entire epilogue isn't just recapturing all the regions again, 'cause that'd be boring... ... ...although it would be nice to get my GOAT follower back from Lithlad again.

As for the graphics, I don't remember SoM looking better than this game.

PS: What the hell's with all these captains having Iron Will/Unbreakable in the epilogue? I'm trying to recruit some to do more siege crap and they're making it a bit difficult to find the best of the trash. Like, the concentration is higher in Minas Morgul than any other region so far, which is odd. Before, it was mostly a thing you'd associate with story characters or randoms with "The Unbreakable" nickname (etc.), which was fine for flavor reasons.
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rexcrk posted...

Good game, but I liked the first one more. I think theyve fixed it since, but I remember the final act of the game being so long, drawn-out, and boring. I dont think I ever even finished it.

Also, is it my imagination, or were the graphics in War just a little worse than they were in Mordor?

It's still too long and tedious, just not as bad as it was. They did add some new items to get to make playing through it a bit rewarding, but I found that ultimately it still wasn't worth it. I look at Act 4 as mainly a sandbox to play around with your abilities and the Nemesis system. But considering I already did that in Act 2, and the fact that I dislike sieges, I realized it just wasn't worth finishing the game. It's essentially over when Act 3 ends anyway. All do you get at the end of the Shadow Wars is a cutscene you can just look up on youtube if you care.
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Shotgunnova posted...

The final act could be a little boring, yeah. Anything related to siege capture and the umpteenth Nazgul sighting gets a bit tiresome, and some missions overall were just easy as piss. Maybe that's because I'm playing on the default setting, though. Hopefully the entire epilogue isn't just recapturing all the regions again, 'cause that'd be boring... ... ...although it would be nice to get my GOAT follower back from Lithlad again.

As for the graphics, I don't remember SoM looking better than this game.

PS: What the hell's with all these captains having Iron Will/Unbreakable in the epilogue? I'm trying to recruit some to do more siege crap and they're making it a bit difficult to find the best of the trash. Like, the concentration is higher in Minas Morgul than any other region so far, which is odd. Before, it was mostly a thing you'd associate with story characters or randoms with "The Unbreakable" nickname (etc.), which was fine for flavor reasons.

It actually does have to do with it being Minas Morgul. I'm not really sure why or if it's even intentional. I suppose Minas Morgul is the only fortress you can't lose as it can never be besieged. I don't know. You can shame Iron Will out of Orcs but I almost never got it to work for me when i tried.

Also if you have Lithlad, that means you have the DLC. I never got around to the two DLC despite playing the ones in Shadow of Mordor.
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ROBANN_88 posted...

does it make sense in the story/ lore that the giant spider is suddenly a hot chick?

Shelob is a demigod, whose mother was a primordial God who assumed the shape of a spider.

I'll say ehhhh.

The lore breaks near the end of the game legitimately bother me, despite being a fan of Celebrimbor in this and I was mostly fine in the first game.

The dlc is really bad though for lore and story overall.

Shotgunnova posted...

BTW, are there dwarves in the main campaign? I haven't seen any yet, but this captain has an "enraged by dwarves" boost,

Not in the main campaign, but that trait is still used.

Overall though I like the game and new features, but is still feels like a work in progress almost with the Nemesis system and everything, since the orcs are really really dumb and could be improved to make it more interesting and making your fort is pretty barebones too.
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Lithlad is DLC? Didn't know that. I do have the definitive edition of the game, though. It's basically a giant desert area with an optional fortress and a bunch of high-leveled captains running around, including Zog, who permanently (?) stays in the ranks as an enemy. Since Zog is part of the main campaign, I assumed the region was part of it, but I guess it was a nice little bonus for those climbing the ranks.

As for Iron Will, yeah, I know you can shame it out of orcs, but the chances always seemed pretty crappy when I tried it. Ultimately, I'd rather just kill all the unrecruitables and hope some better foot soldiers take their place.

The_Ivory_Man posted...

Not in the main campaign, but that trait is still used.

Overall though I like the game and new features, but is still feels like a work in progress almost with the Nemesis system and everything, since the orcs are really really dumb and could be improved to make it more interesting and making your fort is pretty barebones too.

Some of the changes/focuses in the game don't interest me, but I do like upgrading orcs with traits. I wish you could stack more traits, though, even if there was a commensurate cost involved. I think you can only have caragor mount + weapon effect + gang + a single epic trait (which stacks if the unit already has one).
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I think Zog can appear anywhere as Orcs get naturally cycled out of a region. In my game I never saw him again after his final mission. So you got lucky I guess.
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I haven't killed Zog again since he reappeared, so maybe he'll just relocate afterwards -- dunno. All the other orcs who come back have been in the same region, though, including that dude I shamed into lunacy (he came back four times, I think, before getting beheaded).
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rexcrk posted...

Good game, but I liked the first one more. I think theyve fixed it since, but I remember the final act of the game being so long, drawn-out, and boring. I dont think I ever even finished it.

IIRC that was intentional to incentivise people just doing it by microtransactions and buying high level followers or something.

Att least that's what i read. I haven't played it myself
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Ever since I got to the epilogue, I've been getting infinite loading screen glitches on some missions. It hasn't been a big deal (the dude I sent to my fight pits didn't disappear or anything), but it's still a bit annoying. Apparently this is a common problem in all versions of the game and was never fixed. If it gets more frequent, I'll just move onto to the DLC, I guess.
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ROBANN_88 posted...

rexcrk posted...

Good game, but I liked the first one more. I think theyve fixed it since, but I remember the final act of the game being so long, drawn-out, and boring. I dont think I ever even finished it.

IIRC that was intentional to incentivise people just doing it by microtransactions and buying high level followers or something.

Att least that's what i read. I haven't played it myself

That is misinformation spread by Jim Sterling and others who I bet never got to that part of the game, though their hearts were in the right place. The micro transactions didn't speed up the game at all, because even if you lost every siege on the first try and had most of your captains slaughtered, the game throws more at you in truckloads.

Something else the endgame throws at you in truckloads is money that can be used to buy upgrades and orcs, which are almost entirely pointless unless you just want to customize a few badasses on your team, but even that is short-lived in the endgame because even if you do win every siege on the first try, you're bound to lose cool captains that will then be immediately replaced.

Shadow Wars has several huge faults, and the update that cut it in half did not resolve any of them but the time spent, but none of those flaws were created to drum up micro transactions. They very much did not affect gameplay and it's all but stated that they were a Warner Bros mandate that the devs tacked on after everything else was finished.
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SmidgeIsntBack posted...

That is misinformation spread by Jim Sterling and others who I bet never got to that part of the game, though their hearts were in the right place.

Ah, i see.
Somehow, i'm not surprised
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Arghhhhh, my LV60 bodyguard who I sank tens of thousands of upgrade points into betrayed me, then I can't even revive him because he wasn't friendly at that point. I wouldn't even mind if I slighted him or something, but c'mon...nothing's more important than protecting my reckless ass in battle. Things like this hammer home how tiresome this post-game content is.

That said, I might move onto the expansions, or at least test their waters (if they're bad). What's the preferable order?
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