Current Events > Just beat Middle Earth Shadow of War. Ok game. Lol that ending. Spoilers

(+) Yeah! (+)

Crappy story in general but by the ending I was just waiting for the credits to roll.

Also lol the game actually expects me to do like a hundred fort sieges for the epilogue? Fuck that
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Iirc you had to do significantly more at release. People saw this as a way to sell the micro transactions.

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Jabodie posted...

Iirc you had to do significantly more at release. People saw this as a way to sell the micro transactions.

I actually heard that term before but since I don't really do online or modern gaming outside of single player don't know what that is, but from context assumed it's bad (anything online related is typically bad in my book)

Shadow of Mordor was the same way. I was expecting this long RPG set in the lotr universe but after 15ish hours it ended (felt like it was shorter than the movies even). What's funny is that after that final lackluster anticlimactic mission, the game had the gall to say "you beat it but but you can still screw around with the orc army mechanic! That should be aimless fun" and I was like yeah no.
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Well it brought a lot of ire because people didn't want micro transactions in their single player game. They've since removed micro transactions and adjusted the end game balance accordingly. By then, though, the damage was already done to its reputation.

Basically you could buy orc captains, exp boosters, etc. for a couple bucks each. Can't remember if they were loot boxes.

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saspa posted...

I actually heard that term before but since I don't really do online or modern gaming outside of single player don't know what that is, but from context assumed it's bad (anything online related is typically bad in my book)

Imagine paying real money for an in-game box of random orc commanders you don't have to recruit. Now imagine all the best orcs are found in those paid boxes. Now imagine the forts are almost too hard to capture without the best orcs.

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How did that work in single player, like pay money to seize a fort or buy one of the in-game weapons?
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saspa posted...

How did that work in single player, like pay money to seize a fort or buy one of the in-game weapons?

Looks like s0nic cleared it up. It was orc loot boxes. So you pay a dollar or whatever for a random orc and hope you get a good one.

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s0nicfan posted...

Imagine paying real money for an in-game box of random orc commanders you don't have to recruit. Now imagine all the best orcs are found in those paid boxes. Now imagine the forts are almost too hard to capture without the best orcs.

Oh. Ohhhhh...

Yeah that makes a lot of sense. I instantly quit after I tried one of those lame post game fort defense missions and the enemy army's level was 400something. Even after filling all my lineup I barely scratched 300. I was like yeah fuck that.

Now I see where the payment comes in. For... just a fort defense mission with no story, no cutscenes, no nothing. Fucking WB and corporations like that, they really are the worst thing to happen to gaming
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The endings to both games were... not good.

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s0nicfan posted...

Now imagine the forts are almost too hard to capture without the best orcs.

This is not true. In fact, the game throws the best orcs at you in the form of enemy warchiefs during sieges. Buying orcs didn't speed up the Shadow War at all.

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Some of it is an improvement of Shadow of Mordor, but I never felt like I got as strong as I could in shadow of mordor. There should have been an area of effect attack that made me dominate all the orcs. And the fact that I instantly lose might the second I get hit or end combat is lame. It meant that I'd lose out on a ton of execution opportunities.

But it was a fun 20 hour game, 25 with faffing about. Longer than the first one in terms of story missions. There's a lot more going on, even if it goes nowhere and is utterly pointless.
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Yeah the sieges weren't super appealing. It was just poor pacing on their part, because I spent the majority of Act 2 already messing around with the domination mechanics.

Still a great game though.

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Pandamonic posted...

The endings to both games were... not good.

Yeah... I honestly don't know the lore to the franchise so wouldn't typically be as bothered as most avid fans, but even without knowing the lore some of it was still ridiculously meh.

Shadow of Mordor was the bigger offender to me because I was not expecting such a short game where almost nothing happens. I was playing under the impression that it would "start to get good" when I reached the hand of sauron but then it ends in a lame non-boss of a fight.

With Shadow of war I was expecting a short game and to be stiffed out of a cohesive narrative and journey.
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saspa posted...

Some of it is an improvement of Shadow of Mordor, but I never felt like I got as strong as I could in shadow of mordor. There should have been an area of effect attack that made me dominate all the orcs. And the fact that I instantly lose might the second I get hit or end combat is lame. It meant that I'd lose out on a ton of execution opportunities.

But it was a fun 20 hour game, 25 with faffing about. Longer than the first one in terms of story missions. There's a lot more going on, even if it goes nowhere and is utterly pointless.

I definitely felt more powerful in Shadow of War, but the game is significantly more difficult than Shadow of Mordor, so I think that balances it out. You get a lot of awesome stuff in SoW.

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GeneralKenobi85 posted...

Yeah the sieges weren't super appealing. It was just poor pacing on their part, because I spent the majority of Act 2 already messing around with the domination mechanics.

Still a great game though.

I guess all that being said, for a game I got for free it was okay. I mean I actually like the voice acting in this game. The story may be blah but I was legit charmed by a lot of the voice acting, they definitely wouldn't be out of place in a scene from the lotr movies.

And the combat system, while derivative of arkham (but worse) and leaving a lot to be desired, was fun enough while it lasted, flaws and all. I liked the climbing mechanics, one of the outright improved parts of the sequel.

It's not a series I'd recommend or would ever revisit, but a fun few hour timesink in between other games.
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GeneralKenobi85 posted...

I definitely felt more powerful in Shadow of War, but the game is significantly more difficult than Shadow of Mordor, so I think that balances it out. You get a lot of awesome stuff in SoW.

I definitely didn't feel that way with the weapon system. Trying to sift through crappy inventory drops from orcs to find the one that would suit me was tedious. I preferred the first game where your weapons got stronger and your bow had more arrows, simple and to the point.

And I mean seriously, all the legendary weapon unlocks required you to recruit an orc level 40 or higher? Was that a joke? You beat the game at level 40...

I also didn't like that I couldn't get all the powerups, I had to choose which I wanted. That's really lame.
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Yeah with SoM, just when the game finally starts being fun, it ends with a lame QTE bossfight.
SoW on the other hand, I liked the fort sieges, had a ton of fun with them, and suddenly it's over and you're a nazgul.
It's so stupid.

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Pandamonic posted...

Yeah with SoM, just when the game finally starts being fun, it ends with a lame QTE bossfight.
SoW on the other hand, I liked the fort sieges, had a ton of fun with them, and suddenly it's over and you're a nazgul.
It's so stupid.

At first I was like "after SoM, I'm prepared for any lame ending the game throws at me" but even after bracing myself I still ended up laughing while facepalming at the sheer stupidity of it.

Everything from shelob to celebrimbor joining with elatriel, to the epilogue I just googled where it was like "and then he became that nazgul who was hunting the hobbits in the movies, but then he died and finally reunited with his family, and they all died happily ever after" just made me lol.
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It's easy to forget that the nemesis system was quite innovative at the time, and arkham combat clones were probably at their zenith. "The nemesis system elevates this otherwise mediocre game" was a common opinion.

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When I replayed the game I just stopped right before the ending of Act 2. Now whenever I wanna mess around I just fire it up to fight captains and do online sieges. Still really fun.

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I would actually like the epilogue if it weren't crammed into 10 minutes. Even before the patch shortened the Shadow War there was really no sense of how much time was passing for Talion, so the "eternal stalemate" angle felt forced. And I get that he can't just kill Sauron (though it's not like these games give a hoot about lore so maybe he should have anyway), but there needed to be some kind of win against Celebrimbor after he ditched your ass. As it stands, there isn't any closure with Celebrimbor and Talion after all their time together. And the "heaven" scene was actually good but the game doesn't earn it at all because again, it didn't seem like Talion had been fighting for very long.

Would still love a third game though.

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Yeah it sucks because again, I actually liked the main characters. I liked Talion and Celebrimbor's relationship. They were a mix of allies, possibly burgeoning friendship, but there was also a growing discontent/quarrel between them as their ideologies and motivations started to differ, that could have ultimately led to them separating, but not in the lame rushed way they did it in the last couple of minutes of the game.
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People praise that orc system but... I mean... since this isn't an action rpg, and I don't actually get stronger when beating enemies, I saw zero reason in pursuing those tedious nemesis missions outside of story related reasons. There was no exp or stat points for Talion to improve, so it just seemed like tedium with no reward.

And I could tell they spent a bizarre amount of time trying to make the orcs dialogue unique and try to give each a personality. Which was strange to me since I didn't particularly care and got tired of the unskippable dialogue of each orc basically saying "grr me kill you" in a colorful way.

They were so proud of this unique feature too, it was the thing that was supposed to elevate their trite game from mediocrity but it does wear thin
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I loved the collectable-related banter that would always go something like

Talion: What lovely craftsmanship.
Celebrimbor: YES, BUT THE ELVES COULD HAVE DONE IT BETTER.

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Rapid99 posted...

I loved the collectable-related banter that would always go something like

Talion: What lovely craftsmanship.
Celebrimbor: YES, BUT THE ELVES COULD HAVE DONE IT BETTER.

Right? I actually looked forward to it when collecting the gondorian artifacts. Would straight up skip listening to the lady drone on just to A) get back to actually playing the game and B) get to Talion and celebi's commentary

Sidenote: games that expect you to just sit there listening to a voiceover are dumb as hell. If the game had let me actually play while listening to the lady drone on about gondorian artifacts, I might have heard what she had to say. But listening to a voiceover while staring at a picture of a vase? Why do some games do this
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The balrog fight wasn't as amazing as I hoped.. was too busy trying to make sure the stupid tree didn't die to appreciate the fight, while attempting to re-enact the scene from the first movie. Every time I did try to do that I just died and I was like this game's no fun, it just wants me to shoot arrows at the glowing weakspot blah.
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Oh god I forgot about the stupid tree... wtf was that all about? Didn't make any sense.

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At first I thought it was a reference to the Ents, to that scene with the hobbits meeting the trees in the movies who help with the fight against sauron? But it doesn't really go anywhere (par for the course with this game)
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Pandamonic posted...

Oh god I forgot about the stupid tree... wtf was that all about? Didn't make any sense.

https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Carn%C3%A1n

It's something made up for the game. You can think of her sort of like a lady swamp thing / mother earth.

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Isn't there enough lore and characters in the silmarrion to make a game out of? Someone else was telling me all this cool history of middle earth with morgoth and god-like beings and whatnot,
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I liked her voice.

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saspa posted...

Isn't there enough lore and characters in the silmarrion to make a game out of? Someone else was telling me all this cool history of middle earth with morgoth and god-like beings and whatnot,

It could happen, but it would be tough since TS takes place over millennia. Maybe make a side story of one of the many stories in it. Also, I think the Tolkien estate still has the rights to it. Tolkien's son Christopher was adamant about keeping the rights to it, but I'm not sure how things are since he passed recently.

I'd love a Silmarillion game as long as it's actually faithful to the story/lore and not like that awful fan fiction of the Shadow games.

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s0nicfan posted...

https://lotr.fandom.com/wiki/Carn%C3%A1n

It's something made up for the game. You can think of her sort of like a lady swamp thing / mother earth.

The more I think about these games the more pissed off I get. Goddamn, nothing makes sense, lore-wise.

saspa posted...

Isn't there enough lore and characters in the silmarrion to make a game out of? Someone else was telling me all this cool history of middle earth with morgoth and god-like beings and whatnot,

You could basically make 10 games out of the lore from the Silmarillion. There's so much awesomeness in there, it's amazing. It's filled with great stories and characters.

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saspa posted...

Isn't there enough lore and characters in the silmarrion to make a game out of? Someone else was telling me all this cool history of middle earth with morgoth and god-like beings and whatnot,

I think part of the problem is that most of those ancient beings are dead or dormant or in another land. Balrogs are supposed to be way, way tougher than they looked like in the movies and it's easy to forget that the one Frodo encountered was defeated by one of the strongest beings currently walking middle-earth (Gandalf).

So I think what happened was a weird mix of trying to be true to the lore in terms of how strong a balrog really is, and how completely useless talion would be in fighting one, but then needing to invent some new equally powerful thing to fight it.

They probably should just not have had the balrog at all, which leaves me wondering if maybe that was a publisher mandate to have one in.

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Yeah, I know they couldn't have talion fight him with a flimsy sword, and I bet they didn't want to do just another shadow of the colossus ripoff like other games try to with big towering monster bosses.

I also recently went back to the first game and I definitely like the old combat system more in terms of quickly dispatching enemies, while in shadow of war they're just totally tedious damage sponges and I don't think they even give me xp when I beat an enemy though haven't checked.
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*Shrugs* At first I wasn't too impressed but for the past two years I keep returning to the end game to play around with the sieges or mess about with the Nemesis system.

saspa posted...

People praise that orc system but... I mean... since this isn't an action rpg, and I don't actually get stronger when beating enemies, I saw zero reason in pursuing those tedious nemesis missions outside of story related reasons. There was no exp or stat points for Talion to improve, so it just seemed like tedium with no reward.

I mean people call the Monster Hunter games ARPG's and there you don't actually grow stronger you just get better gear that have better stats and such. Shadow of War is much the same with runes and armour sets.

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Pandamonic posted...

You could basically make 10 games out of the lore from the Silmarillion. There's so much awesomeness in there, it's amazing. It's filled with great stories and characters.

It seems like the Tolkien estate just doesn't want anyone to mess with The Silmarillion. But you're right of course. There is so much potential with that when it comes to games, shows, and even new films.

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