Middle of War: Earth Shadow - aka Batman Mordor Knight 2

So if I run into a captain that is an axe guy before I have the freeze powers unlocked, I best run away or use something fancy (barrels, cargor, etc) since I can’t really hit him much besides a few strikes after jumping over him?

Act 1: orcs, kill them!
Act 2: orcs, kill them!
Act 3: orcs, kill them!
Act ∞: orcs, kill them!

You don’t need to freeze him, (B) (on xbox controller) will stun him before you unlock freeze, this allows attacks.

Sorry if I seem dense. Can B or Circle be tapped at any time? Do I need to vault over then tap it? Do I need to hold it to complete a drain? I wish the game told me more or let me practice in some way. I keep trying to tap in different ways, but the captain seems to just ignore it an then do a parry if I attack or a wild triple swing after an A or X prompt. I can’t seem to generate an opening.

There’s a ton of options for hud and tutorial elements you can change to your liking.

You can just tap to stun (or freeze when unlocked), Holding B/Circle will drain (or control when unlocked).

Have you played any of the Batman games? It’s basically the same combat system.

Not really. I played a demo of the first one and that was it. I think that is the problem. Shadow of a War is such an echo of certain games, that it sees no reason to teach someone how to play the game. I’m learning more, but it’s not exactly clear beyond the obvious button reactions. Sometimes button combinations are shown in quest or skill screens (something I can digest without being rushed), but not always.

Just last session I had an enemy that poisons shows up and some text prompt flew up on the screen then left before I could read it (middle of combat) in a dicey captain fight where I was wounded and ambushed by a second higher level captain. I had another instance where my map area turned into the eye of Sauron, but I’m not sure why (I think it’s from being cursed). For that matter, I can curse with my dagger every 42 seconds, but not sure what that even does.

I have all pop up UI options on, but that’s sort of it. Outside of semi-random helper text that populates during combat, the game is silent on how to play. The combat itself, due to the Nemesis system, doesn’t give a lot of breather time to learn and experiment.

That all said, I’m learning. I’m just treating Shadow of War as a Rogue-lite even though I am pretty sure that is not the intention.

So not much life in this thread, did anyone finish the game? Hit 100%?

How was it overall?

fuck this shit. sitting this out because of microtransactions and i buy every game.

I’m playing it and enjoying it so far, but still somewhat early (I have yet to take my first fortress). And I kind of stopped for a bit to play AC: Origins. I’ll get back to it soon enough, I think.

I’ve been playing it nonstop. I can post more later today. Current opinion is very positive, with a couple personal dislikes, but nothing too terrible.

Lots of rambling ahead.

Okay, so I’ve been spending a lot of time in this game recently. I always ignore achievements and just run around willy-nilly doing pretty much whatever I want, so this means I spend a lot of time aimlessly just doing shit without any specific goal in mind other than lopping off orc heads, collecting stuff, taking over forts, frequently playing online vendetta missions and/or grinding experience/gems or something. Usually the story falls by the wayside, and by the time I get around to playing story missions I’ve out-leveled everything by a solid 20 levels–this makes for lots of time and little story progression in most of these types of games for me, which is typically just how I like it (although I do usually finish stories eventually).

Anyway, here are some Xbox One stats for my time spent with Shadows of War so far:

My first impression of the game was pretty negative, because there were far too many cut scenes, that initial starting zone just sucked the life right out of the game for me… and every single human that jumped in to “assist me” with anything made me want to throw my controller through my television. Oh my god, I can’t tell you how freaking aggravating it was to turn around and constantly find some dickweed in my way as I’m chopping down toothy green invaders. I hate that first zone so much, you have no idea. What a wretched environment.

But then I finished all the quests and found all the collectibles there and I moved on (well, I’m headed back there pretty soon here, but still). The next zone initially sucked because it’s a huge cave system connected by long corridors. It took me a while to come to terms with the fact the maps in this game were just going to suck compared to the first one, so I might as well just ignore that aspect of the game and focus on everything else. That’s when the game finally started to click for me.

The combat is just as good as the first, thankfully, since it was the main draw for me and the initial gameplay videos were obviously played by amateurs who could never get into a fucking rhythm and just flailed around. The new skill system isn’t any better or wore than the old one, as I wasn’t particularly fond of that one either, but they both get the job done. My biggest complaint about the skill system is that they decided to force the player to choose between two very specific skills that I would consider a must-have for this game, dominating enemies vs draining enemies for elf shot. There is absolutely no way I would ever play this game in a billion years without the ability to drain an opponent for elf shot. I must always have elf-shot on hand, at all times. I like my battles as big as I can make them (screw trying to kill some dude setting off the alarm, if I could go trigger the thing myself I would), and the last thing I want to do is leave the fray to go find elf shot. So I find it mightily perplexing that I am forced to choose between dominating an enemy vs replenishing my elf-shot without being forced to stop all the fun and go scurrying about for a refill on some ledge somewhere. Screw that noise.

So this means I am getting 0% use out of the entire domination system… besides captains, of course, who I’ll dominate every change I get. Loot is mostly worthless but plentiful, so I don’t worry about missing out on any of that by dominating every captain I see. They might as well have not even included the ability to dominate anything but beats as captains since it will never see play in my games. Too bad, it looks like it could be fun, but it isn’t worth the sacrifice to me.

I could also replenish elf-shot by choosing a certain parry aug, but then I have to forgo killing grunts on parry, and that isn’t an option either. So basically, unless I end up with an item that gives me elf-shot in sufficient quantities that I can just respec to something else (I’ve had a couple elf-shot refillers, but they don’t get the job done), I won’t be experiencing certain aspects of the game.

Okay, so the combat redeemed the game for me. I also love the new fire system. I enjoy lighting things/enemies on fire, watching the blaze spread, and using it to kill all sorts of stuff. And I’m enjoying the grind of taking over and beefing up fortresses (I have 4 at the moment). I enjoy the online stuff too, and I like that it gives me something to do besides janky scripted story missions. I’ve never felt the need to buy any of the microtransaction stuff, because it’s more fun for me to just grind this stuff; although I do wish training orders were easier to get a hold of, as those are the only thing I’m having trouble grinding out on a regular basis (loot and epic and legendary mobs are easy enough to get without loot boxes, but training orders are a major pain to come by).

There are other things that bug me, like the fact the lighting is shit compared to the first game, and the weird fact that the orcs in this game are completely blind to pretty much everything not standing directly in their field of view 4 feet in front of them. They are dumb as stumps here compared to the first game, and I’m not really sure why. I’d have to go out of my way to get their attention, so traipsing around enemy fortresses is pretty much a breeze, except for the occasional vigilant archer.

Oh, and enemy captains stalk you day and fucking night. If you like being ambushed, just dominate and mount a beast once or twice, you’ll get jumped immediately. There are lots of little triggers in the game that will set you up for an immediate ambush, so it’s always easy to find better skilled (better skills/weaknesses, but you’ll still have to rank them up) followers to populate your forts and assault squads.

Oh, and dominated bodyguards are all but 100% completely worthless, all they do is GET IN THE WAY. Even if I dominate an archer captain, the minute I pull him out, he’ll be right in the middle of the damn fray. So I never, ever, ever, ever pull out my bodyguards (well, almost never). Totally worthless. Man, I wish my attacks didn’t fuck them up. I can’t even somersault around without freezing the stupid fucking idiots. What a waste.

In the end I’m glad I bought the game. I probably sound overly harsh in areas, but that’s just the grognard in me speaking. I like the game, and at the moment microtransactions don’t seem to affect me given my style of play.

Sad to hear that the maps are worse in this, I thought the 2 maps in the first game were horrible/bland.

:(

There are different environments here. Cosmetically they’re fine, I just don’t care for the layouts.

Good write-up. The elf-shot/domination thing practically ruined the skill system. I’d also add the flying on drakes should have been glorious, but the controls/feedback are terrible.

I enjoyed this game for a couple of days because of the combat mechanics, but nevertheless consider it a major disappointment. The game was a gigantic missed opportunity to develop the nemesis system. And screw the first 10 hours.

Thanks to completing a certain group of quests, I just unlocked the ability to dominate Orc enemies with my bow. This means I don’t need to choose between domination or draining for elf shot anymore, I can do both without respeccing mid-battle (or scavenging surroundings). Too bad it took so long for me to stumble across this skill, but it is a VERY WELCOME ability. Woo woo.

Seems there was a bit of free DLC released in November and December, anyone mess with any of it?

Shadow of War: The Blade of Galadriel DLC Trailer (Cinematic Story)

Damn that uncanny valley effect is strong in this one. Someone’s got some weird ass teeth / mouth.