Current Events > God of War has fantastic combat.

(+) Yeah! (+)

Finally got to play it since it's on PC now. Playing on hardest difficulty, just got past the draugr pit so only like an hour in but first impressions are great. Combat is weighty, brutal and flows well. Counters and parries make sense, although the inputs for your light and heavy abilities (idk what they're called, runes or something) feels wonky. Even if they've long since cooled down, I gotta mash LB + RB quite a bit to fire it off sometimes.

I only have a few apprehensions. Afraid of the gear / loot pool system. Would really hate if this devolves into the usual +5% damage axe is better than the one I was using, and the I read down all the previews on the axe and shield tree and they... kind of suck. And there's not many of them. Very HZD/Days Gone minimalist skill tree that doesn't look fun to grind out xp for, unless the game has more stuff to unlock hidden away.

The loot system is really weirdly done in GoW 2018. IIRC you really only care about the highest level gear you find, its effects and stats don't even matter. Your overall level is determined by your gear's level and if you stick with low level junk that has better effects than the higher level's you screw yourself against enemies. You always want to be at the highest level possible to avoid meeting too many skull icon enemies you can't block or parry, especially on Give Me God of War difficulty.

If it sounds weird and pointlessly complicated, that's because it is.

People who play the hardest difficulty the first playthrough lol... Epic fail.

Complaints about the combat is actually one of the more common criticisms I've seen of the game and I hand-to-god don't understand it. It's just so fun.

I will say that if I remember correctly, the gear is more or less just stats with few-to-no interesting set bonuses and the like.

pegusus123456 posted...

Complaints about the combat is actually one of the more common criticisms I've seen of the game and I hand-to-god don't understand it. It's just so fun.

I will say that if I remember correctly, the gear is more or less just stats with few-to-no interesting set bonuses and the like.

People play a game for 20 seconds and come online to whine about it right away.

They can't just chill and enjoy the game. Gotta be a whiny wussy lol.

I hate the combat. It's overly cinematic with slow mo up the wazzoo. It and the way the characters dance around makes it weird to have proper reactions to goings on. It also just becomes boring to watch the same slow motion animations when you're trying to enjoy the flow of combat. They're "wow cool" the first few times, but then they just keep happening every time :/ The changing of making magic resource dependent to on a cooldown is extremely detrimental to combat as it's less about atrition and choice of usage and more about chucking your axe at enemies to slow them down while you run down a timer. The equipment level system is one of the most obnoxious things I've ever experienced in a video game as it kills all build variety and it makes encounters uncertain. You can have fought the same enemy ten times and rather than knowing how to deal with it on the 11th time it suddenly shrugs off everything you do to it. In general the equipment system is really bad, but aside from the level attached to it it's mostly non-offensive, just a huge waste of development resources. Also Atreus' combat voice work is incredibly annoying.

That said, I do like the axe's weight and swing style and its interplay with the fist mode.

Although, playing the game on the highest difficulty just sounds like the worst experience. I think I tried it for a short bit and found the enemies' health just bloated to ridiculous proportions. It completely killed the momentum of encounters and made it a chore to play. I played on either standard or the difficulty right above that.

LadyxKiller posted...

People who play the hardest difficulty the first playthrough lol... Epic fail.

...And? I do it for 99% of the games I play. It's fun, I like to be challenged since I don't have a lot of time in the week to play games, I like it to count for something.

Really cool thing with the loot system is, if you miss anything in a dungeon you can just buy it from the vendors in the forgotten loot section. Beats having to backtrack for that one material.

DeadBankerDream posted...

I hate the combat. It's overly cinematic with slow mo up the wazzoo. It and the way the characters dance around makes it weird to have proper reactions to goings on. It also just becomes boring to watch the same slow motion animations when you're trying to enjoy the flow of combat. They're "wow cool" the first few times, but then they just keep happening every time :/ The changing of making magic resource dependent to on a cooldown is extremely detrimental to combat as it's less about atrition and choice of usage and more about chucking your axe at enemies to slow them down while you run down a timer. The equipment level system is one of the most obnoxious things I've ever experienced in a video game as it kills all build variety and it makes encounters uncertain. You can have fought the same enemy ten times and rather than knowing how to deal with it on the 11th time it suddenly shrugs off everything you do to it. In general the equipment system is really bad, but aside from the level attached to it it's mostly non-offensive, just a huge waste of development resources. Also Atreus' combat voice work is incredibly annoying.

That said, I do like the axe's weight and swing style and its interplay with the fist mode.

Although, playing the game on the highest difficulty just sounds like the worst experience. I think I tried it for a short bit and found the enemies' health just bloated to ridiculous proportions. It completely killed the momentum of encounters and made it a chore to play. I played on either standard or the difficulty right above that.

Hmm should I read this random person's super long whiny complaint or just enjoy the game myself? Tough choice...

I wish I could agree but I don't. When it's just melee draugrs you can get a flow where you hit some until they're tossed to the ground then turn around and hit the ones surrounding you and repeat that. But when you start adding the ones that lob poison balls or the revenants that dance around the room faster than the game's camera and cast multi lane ranged spells, well Kratos doesn't have the maneuverability to compensate for that shit. Also, there's very poor enemy variety. With how far I've played the game's done two of those giants mini bosses and there still hasn't been a new actual boss fight yet.

LadyxKiller posted...

People play a game for 20 seconds and come online to whine about it right away.

They can't just chill and enjoy the game. Gotta be a whiny wussy lol.

LadyxKiller posted...

Hmm should I read this random person's super long whiny complaint or just enjoy the game myself? Tough choice...

LOL you are PISSED that some people don't like a game as much as you

I don't even think my complaint was that long :/

LadyxKiller posted...

Hmm should I read this random person's super long whiny complaint or just enjoy the game myself? Tough choice...

You just switched horses

First you whine people who hate the combat only played for 20 seconds

Now you're complaining people who hate the combat played too much and are too intricate and detailed

it'd super fanboyesq