I don't know how to play this game anymore

[Rocket]

It started off great and I was loving it until about 10-20 hours in.

There's too much resource management, not enough idea on what you need to actually keep or get rid of, Too many trades involved in purchases, so if I see a bunch of this stuff that would mean I need to grind again, so I'm either constantly in the menus wasting hours of my day on selling 1 thing at a time, or back to the field enemies which is aggravating me to tears.

Too many weapons and armor to buy to even know what to buy.

Too many directions to go where the levels don't match my character's progression or weapons or armor.

The slings are slow and lob about 30 feet while the enemies move super fast, the bows are all different with different arrows and only 4 weapon slots, you don't get enough ammo to finish combat, your damage is 100 max with blast, teardown is a pain at any range due to enemy movement speed in combat.

I can't find whatever rope weapon people talk about, I probably spec'd wrong, the trials are annoying.

I give up, what am I doing wrong? Snarky answers get a block and I don't care if I uninstall. Means nothing to me, I can play other things.

[cswiger]

Originally posted by RocketJump:

I give up, what am I doing wrong?

You're playing a game that you clearly don't want to play.

Go right ahead and uninstall. I enjoyed finishing HZD, but whether someone else chooses to play it to completion or decides to give up is their decision, not mine.

[Bird_Dog]

Ok. I'm not sure how to answer that.
I found the ressource management rather straight forward. You need ridge wood for crafting arrows? Gatther ridgewood. Need blaze? Go kill and loot some machines that have blaze (Grazers and any combat machine that has fire-based attacks).
What exactly is it that confuses or frustrates you?

What to keep and what to get ridd off? Can be a bit more difficult.
Rule of thumb: Keep what required some effort or luck to get and sell whatever is easy to come by. If you need the later for some crafting project, just go get it anew. Will only take a few minutes in general.

You can sell things in bulk. It's "G" in the trade menue off the top of my head.

What armour to buy? Depends on what you want to fight. Want to fight a fire based machine? Get fire protection.
Other than that, the more modification slots, the better.

With weapons, ask yourself what gaps there are in your tool set and get a weapon that seems to fit into that gap. Then try it out.
Also there's a tier system for weapons, outfits and mods: green -> blue -> purple. If you like a certain weapon, get the purple version of it.

Slings can be tricky to aim but are very usefull weapons.
Hold LMB to increase the throw range and also aim up to get even further. Use them for slower or unaware machine or practice to anticipate the movements of your prey and lead the shots.

When you run out of amo, increase your amo capacity by crafting better pouches and quivers and don't forget that you can craft new amo on the fly in combat.
Just as you can access your inventory and change your loadout - including your outfit -mid-battle.

Rope caster? Don't bother with it until you can upgrade it with some good (read: purple) handling mods. For base rate of fire is just too low to not be frustrating.
Once you can tie down a trampler in under 4 seconds, that thing will make you feel like a dirty scrubb for using it...

Trials are annyoing yes. They also get you some realy good weapons.

[Supafly]

Haven't finished this on PC, yet, started playing it again but stopped to relearn Forbidden west before the DLC on PS5. Hoping I'm not mixing things between games.

I only tended to sell stuff that tagged use is selling for shards and low level modifications. Animal parts I held all of the rarer skin/bones for crafting.

Sometimes sell 1 or more if I really need a few more shards to make a purchase.

As for gear I tend to have my preferred bows, tripcaster and slingshot. However as you level/explore the upgrades frequently screw that up as the next better bow means your other bows are lacking.

For the harder Machines Ice to make brittle and impact to do dmg is my normal plan of attack. Unless machine strong to Ice, obviously

Fact is when you want to upgrade it can require a lot of grinding for resources. If you can plan and handle using weaker gear until you can buy the next piece of equipment that'd be the easier option.

When you get 30-35 head to Frozen Wilds. Has some better equipment that could save you bothering to upgrade some stuff

[Rocket]

Originally posted by Bird_Dog:

Ok. I'm not sure how to answer that.
I found the ressource management rather straight forward. You need ridge wood for crafting arrows? Gatther ridgewood. Need blaze? Go kill and loot some machines that have blaze (Grazers and any combat machine that has fire-based attacks).
What exactly is it that confuses or frustrates you?

What to keep and what to get ridd off? Can be a bit more difficult.
Rule of thumb: Keep what required some effort or luck to get and sell whatever is easy to come by. If you need the later for some crafting project, just go get it anew. Will only take a few minutes in general.

You can sell things in bulk. It's "G" in the trade menue off the top of my head.

What armour to buy? Depends on what you want to fight. Want to fight a fire based machine? Get fire protection.
Other than that, the more modification slots, the better.

With weapons, ask yourself what gaps there are in your tool set and get a weapon that seems to fit into that gap. Then try it out.
Also there's a tier system for weapons, outfits and mods: green -> blue -> purple. If you like a certain weapon, get the purple version of it.

Slings can be tricky to aim but are very usefull weapons.
Hold LMB to increase the throw range and also aim up to get even further. Use them for slower or unaware machine or practice to anticipate the movements of your prey and lead the shots.

When you run out of amo, increase your amo capacity by crafting better pouches and quivers and don't forget that you can craft new amo on the fly in combat.
Just as you can access your inventory and change your loadout - including your outfit -mid-battle.

Rope caster? Don't bother with it until you can upgrade it with some good (read: purple) handling mods. For base rate of fire is just too low to not be frustrating.
Once you can tie down a trampler in under 4 seconds, that thing will make you feel like a dirty scrubb for using it...

Trials are annyoing yes. They also get you some realy good weapons.

I know all this.

I am stuck at Stormbird in the ice mountain past a wooden bridge in a valley.

I have some purple weapons like shadow sharpshooter and shadow sling and also blast sling but it's not like they do enough damage. Tear arrows are basically worthless with how fast some of these enemies move so knocking off weapons is like flipping a coin. And stormbird has EIGHT of the things that let him fly and each takes 2 hits with 2 arrows. Hard point isn't much better than standard arrows for direct damage.

Yes I have freeze bombs. Too bad he has 1 million health or something and flies into outer space and dive bombs or blankets the entire ground. 10 freeze bombs and now you have to craft mid battle and keep dodging wasting more resources.

Im also stuck at some fight in a quarry with 2 fast machines after killing all the humans there. There's an ai partner helping me but he gets downed pretty fast.

My last alternative from what I haven't tried yet is to conquer 3 camps from the black captain lady.

Selling resources is easy. Selling resources and not knowing what you still need later is the stuff of nightmares.

It'd be nice if selling was in a list instead of a grid. It'd also be nice if it told you directly what they can make instead of generically.

The armor all seems pretty weak. 30 defense wow. And it all including weapons cost so much that making a mistake seems like a terrible idea and then still there's new weapons you'll need for the massive variety of enemy weaknesses which as mentioned are super hard to hit past the first shot.

I am not bad at games. Maybe this one because concentration lasts all of 2 seconds before it empties and needs to refill.

And don't get me started on how the weapon wheel barely slows down time considering how many ammo types there are and how confusing it gets when you swap weapons out because of the aforementioned 4 weapon slots.

And how clunky item usage is on kbm.

I've been gaming for 30+ years and I feel like I don't know my head from my butt in anything except maybe watcher and strider fights unless stealth is an option which often enough, it isn't.

The spear is useless outside of stealth and critical hits for tougher enemies, so everything costs money and resources. You can't upgrade it either.

So I have to gamble on what I think I need vs what I actually need and the ammo costs a ton. 90 for 5 tear arrows. Yeah great. Missing those on Stormbird is a blast.

I've been mostly upgrading my capacities but that's a slog too.

Raccoons and rats are barely found anywhere. Turkeys too. I have most capacities maxed believe it or not. It's a lot like Far Cry 5 and New Dawn and Primal in that sense.

Don't get me wrong I loved the game up until this point but now I'm constantly frustrated.

[Supafly]

If your struggling with armour, personally I hate switching armour depending on targets, go for the Shield Weaver armour. Need to get all the powercells to unlock it.

https://www.gamesradar.com/how-to-get-horizon-zero-dawns-secret-armor-that-makes-aloy-almost-invincible/

[Rocket]

Originally posted by Supafly:

Haven't finished this on PC, yet, started playing it again but stopped to relearn Forbidden west before the DLC on PS5. Hoping I'm not mixing things between games.

I only tended to sell stuff that tagged use is selling for shards and low level modifications. Animal parts I held all of the rarer skin/bones for crafting.

Sometimes sell 1 or more if I really need a few more shards to make a purchase.

As for gear I tend to have my preferred bows, tripcaster and slingshot. However as you level/explore the upgrades frequently screw that up as the next better bow means your other bows are lacking.

For the harder Machines Ice to make brittle and impact to do dmg is my normal plan of attack. Unless machine strong to Ice, obviously

Fact is when you want to upgrade it can require a lot of grinding for resources. If you can plan and handle using weaker gear until you can buy the next piece of equipment that'd be the easier option.

When you get 30-35 head to Frozen Wilds. Has some better equipment that could save you bothering to upgrade some stuff

I don't even know where these places are on the map. I'm constantly searching on Google for items, weapons, resources, etc. It'd be nice if the map was clearly marked by territory instead of in a mess of icons and campfires.

If I'm missing something or unaware of an easier way to use the map I'll actually be happy about it.

[Bird_Dog]

Ok, Now I'm even more at a loss as to how to help you.

You are fighting Stormbirds and are at the quary where you meet Olin and fight the two Corruptors (that's part of the City of the Sun quest) but you haven't done the Revenge of the Nora quest (that's my read of "conquer 3 camps for the black captain lady" anyway)??

As to doing damage, Hard Point Arrows from the Shadow Carja hunting bow, precision arrows from a sharpshooter bow or bombs from a blast sling are your direct damage dealers. Idealy you freeze your traget first. Then you do a lot more damage. Failing that, just set them on fire and let them burn.

Most of the things that seem to confuse or otherwise bother you are things that honestly never were an issue for me at all.

Some weapon not suited for a certain type of enemy? Then don't use it on that enemy. Change your approach. Tripwires are an excelent tool for dealing with smaller, fast pack hunters like scrapers.
Even just the green one you buy in the turorial part is usefull. A shocked enemy will lie down to have a little snooze. Use that time to shoot a dangerous component off its back.
Figuring out what strat works for what enemy is a big part of this game.

Beyond that, I realy don't know what to tell you.
maybe this game isn't for you?

[Supafly]

Originally posted by RocketJump:

I don't even know where these places are on the map. I'm constantly searching on Google for items, weapons, resources, etc. It'd be nice if the map was clearly marked by territory instead of in a mess of icons and campfires.

If I'm missing something or unaware of an easier way to use the map I'll actually be happy about it.

For Frozen wilds DLC you'll get a Main quest for it when high enough. You can go there before but it might be a bit too difficult. Sure it's around level 30 you'll get a quest. Entrance is in the North East area of the map.

Reason why I suggest going there when you can is because the weapons there give you the ability to use Overdraw, essentially draw and hold it for a little then release to hit harder.

Be sure to do the Tutorials in the Quest log to learn the weapons and best techniques.
Hunting grounds can be a pain, Get easier with different gear and skills. In Meriden you can trade 15 x half, 15 x full and 15 x Blazing sun tokens for gear. even if you can't get full or blazing you may as well get the 15 x half suns as they will give you experience of using dif weapons and ways to tackle different machines.

EDIT: Oh and don't forget to look in notebook for the machines to learn there weaknesses to ensure you're exploiting them. For the harder Machines I always try to Tear the most damaging weapon/s I can with my first 1-2 shots from range

[Rocket]

Originally posted by Bird_Dog:

Ok, Now I'm even more at a loss as to how to help you.

You are fighting Stormbirds and are at the quary where you meet Olin and fight the two Corruptors (that's part of the City of the Sun quest) but you haven't done the Revenge of the Nora quest (that's my read of "conquer 3 camps for the black captain lady" anyway)??

As to doing damage, Hard Point Arrows from the Shadow Carja hunting bow, precision arrows from a sharpshooter bow or bombs from a blast sling are your direct damage dealers. Idealy you freeze your traget first. Then you do a lot more damage. Failing that, just set them on fire and let them burn.

Most of the things that seem to confuse or otherwise bother you are things that honestly never were an issue for me at all.

Some weapon not suited for a certain type of enemy? Then don't use it on that enemy. Change your approach. Tripwires are an excelent tool for dealing with smaller, fast pack hunters like scrapers.
Even just the green one you buy in the turorial part is usefull. A shocked enemy will lie down to have a little snooze. Use that time to shoot a dangerous component off its back.
Figuring out what strat works for what enemy is a big part of this game.

Beyond that, I realy don't know what to tell you.
maybe this game isn't for you?

As mentioned weapons and ammo are too expensive forcing a grind. Grinding enemies for shards and resources is a slog.

I probably messed myself up by going for shadow weapons instead of weaker weapons like carja weapons

Early on you don't need much aside from the default stuff. So once I needed new weapons the stores were carrying shadow weapons so I splurged on 2 of them which cost me all my money.

Yes the side quests and main quests send you in different directions and the recommended levels don't correspond with anything since levels give you skills, not like an rpg or something where attack power goes up aside from 10hp. If you spec wrong the game is harder.

While the direction i go is in my control its still an open world game. Also remember I'm not playing at launch so I'm not sure where the line between the main game and the dlc is.

If I'm going in whatever direction, it's because the game allowed me to.

As far as the stormbird I'm not sure what I could do to make that fight easier even with new skills. You need certain weapons but it's still a skill fight.

I can mess around I guess and put it off until later and see if my skills develop further.

I havent come across any good farming spots for shards anywhere. The easier enemies certainly don't give many shards.


I could do the camps next if that's easiest, some games wall you off from content when you continue the main questlines so I look at side content fairly often.

[Rocket]

Imagine not debugging your game and instead allowing enemy projectiles to lock you into environments.

https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2973009703

[Rocket]

The game has gotten much easier ever since I built up some money. You really don't want to get in a position where you're out of ammo crafting resources and money.

I'm much much farther along now and even took down the Stormbird.

[Winner.2000.T]

Originally posted by RocketJump:

The game has gotten much easier ever since I built up some money. You really don't want to get in a position where you're out of ammo crafting resources and money.

I'm much much farther along now and even took down the Stormbird.

me to and now I am playing it again but my advice is if your a beginner just do the main story and if you don't want to fight machines and you if you don't have to just done fight them....
I have friends that play this game but they don't play it that much and they die allot against that bigger machines because they do it when there not ready for the fight

[Winner.2000.T]

and I have almost 20,000 shards just because I hunt allot and sell every thing that has no use for me and the mods I also sell if I don't want or need it....
just keep the thing you need (always try to keep only 250 ridgewood and atleast 2 stacks of the other resources you use for ammo. Always use the mods you get if it will help or improve your weapon or armour and if there is no use for it just sell it)

[Raider Deci]

Originally posted by RocketJump:

The game has gotten much easier ever since I built up some money. You really don't want to get in a position where you're out of ammo crafting resources and money.

I'm much much farther along now and even took down the Stormbird.

Sometimes you just have to go on a hunt, use overdrive to let the machine fight each other so you use as little resources as possible and then pick up the scraps. Sell everything you dont need. My constant headache and major money-sink was definetly wires throughout the game.

[Rocket]

Originally posted by Winner.2000.T:

and I have almost 20,000 shards just because I hunt allot and sell every thing that has no use for me and the mods I also sell if I don't want or need it....
just keep the thing you need (always try to keep only 250 ridgewood and atleast 2 stacks of the other resources you use for ammo. Always use the mods you get if it will help or improve your weapon or armour and if there is no use for it just sell it)

You never know what you need until the game tells you you need it.

I still hate the resources cap, even at the maximum of 120. It's not like its difficult but it's a time sink and I don't always have time to play. Gathering resources is the least fun part of the game.