What is so special about the Nemesis system?

[outcast]

So I have been playing games all the way back from C64 times and I love new developments in the gaming industry, epecially in regards to AI. This made me very interested in Shadow of Mordor and its supposedly groundbreaking AI system with the Nemesis System. However after finishing the game I really don't see what the fuss is all about.

I like the game, but I don't see how the nemesis system really added anything to the game or what is so "cool" about it. It just spits out random generated enemies with different random abilites and if they kill you they will drop some random line on how you came back to the dead etc next time they spawn on you. I just don't get it. There is no point in even participating in the power struggles and killing and influencing the the chiefs anyway since they just get replaced when they die.

Could someone explain what is so great about this because I for sure don't see it.

[Shogun]

Essentially a miracle considering who the publisher was, and considering this could have been a flop using a movie adaptation. It was a surprise sleeper hit. Thats what made it so good. Second, the system itself added personality to many enemies. Created procedural story telling between the orcs and you, it showed they sank quite some time in the production values. The system leaves itself as a foundation for nearly limitless expansion that no other game even attempts to replicate on a similar level.

Partially because the sequel was confirmed to have just straight two years of voice acting behind it. Not many games, if any.. are willing to go to those measures.

[outcast]

Originally posted by ＮｏＢｒａｉｎ Ｅｄ:

Essentially a miracle considering who the publisher was, and considering this could have been a flop using a movie adaptation. It was a surprise sleeper hit. Thats what made it so good. Second, the system itself added personality to many enemies. Created procedural story telling between the orcs and you, it showed they sank quite some time in the production values. The system leaves itself as a foundation for nearly limitless expansion that no other game even attempts to replicate on a similar level.

Partially because the sequel was confirmed to have just straight two years of voice acting behind it. Not many games, if any.. are willing to go to those measures.

Sorry, but this is about the same I have heard and it just sounds like a lot of fancy words that does not mean anything at all, my question is what exactly is so great about it? To me it just looks like a very simple system where orc spawn with random elements and then comments on if you have defeated them or they have defeated you in the past. That is about as far as it goes with some other very simple and predictable elements like sending another orc to kill another orc etc. "Procdural story telling" in what way? I don't see anything that is groundbreaking about it and I have yet to hear someone actually explain what is so great about it.

Also I did not fully get your last senatance about two years of voice acting?

[Shad]

The thing the nemesis system does is introduce actual real feeling towards uruks, rather than just getting told "you should find that guy obnoxious/scary/funny". To quote ZP.

Not only does this keep you invested in not being killed (blimey, that was a weird sentence) but it creates an environment for organic storytelling. Random Orc 75 kills you and becomes Jorge the Cracksniffer, and now it's personal.
[...]
And you'd be surprised how invested one can get in the career of a random orc, once you know his stupid name and that he likes axes and dislikes being set on fire, which is two more personality traits than most of the characters we're supposed to be rooting for.

Thus while the uruks are initially are generated randomly, they change as you interact with them.
Example: my nemesis was a random uruk who killed me and then kept powering up and kept cheating death. By the third he was obnoxiously commenting how I was was a faliure for not fully killing him in 3 attempts, and literally felt like shouting back at him "You have so many scars from our last encounters you have a bag on your head!"

[outcast]

Originally posted by Shad:

The thing the nemesis system does is introduce actual real feeling towards uruks, rather than just getting told "you should find that guy obnoxious/scary/funny". To quote ZP.

Not only does this keep you invested in not being killed (blimey, that was a weird sentence) but it creates an environment for organic storytelling. Random Orc 75 kills you and becomes Jorge the Cracksniffer, and now it's personal.
[...]
And you'd be surprised how invested one can get in the career of a random orc, once you know his stupid name and that he likes axes and dislikes being set on fire, which is two more personality traits than most of the characters we're supposed to be rooting for.

Thus while the uruks are initially are generated randomly, they change as you interact with them.
Example: my nemesis was a random uruk who killed me and then kept powering up and kept cheating death. By the third he was obnoxiously commenting how I was was a faliure for not fully killing him in 3 attempts, and literally felt like shouting back at him "You have so many scars from our last encounters you have a bag on your head!"

But that is not impressive AI in any way. It is just a script that fires a predictable taunt if he has killed you before. I don't see how that is impressive in any way.

In that case it is more impressive how the enemies starts to wear gasmasks or helmets in Metal Gear Phantom Pain if you use smoke grenades or shoot them in the head a lot etc. I still don't see anything in this Nemesis system that is impressive, groundbreaking or new in any way.

[Shad]

Originally posted by outcast:

But that is not impressive AI in any way.

I don't thing Nemesis was ever advertised as AI.

It is just a script that fires a predictable taunt if he has killed you before. I don't see how that is impressive in any way.

It's different from the way most Action and RPGs do it, by focusing less on pre-set characters. This gives more replayability.

It is a bit similar to phantom pain (which came after this game and borrowed from it). Captains will react to how they were interacted with. For example, if you burned them, they may aquire a hate of burns. Or if you kept trying using beasts on them, they could acquire immunity to these beasts.

[outcast]

Originally posted by Shad:

Originally posted by outcast:

But that is not impressive AI in any way.

I don't thing Nemesis was ever advertised as AI.

It is just a script that fires a predictable taunt if he has killed you before. I don't see how that is impressive in any way.

It's different from the way most Action and RPGs do it, by focusing less on pre-set characters. This gives more replayability.

It is a bit similar to phantom pain (which came after this game and borrowed from it). Captains will react to how they were interacted with. For example, if you burned them, they may aquire a hate of burns. Or if you kept trying using beasts on them, they could acquire immunity to these beasts.

Yes, but it is nothing revoulutinary or groundbreaking. As you say other games have stuff like it like Phantom Pain. I am stil trying to figure out what the hype is about in this system as I did not see it. Having random generated enemies is about as novel as the random generated guns in Borderlands. I mean, I don't say it is bad, it is nice and it do give it some longevity, it is just I am trying to understand what people say when they seem to think it is the greatest thing ever.

I have heard that it is more visible if you are a bad player that dies a lot etc, maybe you see the layers and strategy more in it then. I did not see anything coming close to create "Procdural story telling" or other fancy words that are thrown around about this system.

[drkRoss]

What makes it impressive for me is that you can establish more or less a rivalry between the Orks/Uruks and yourself and either kill them outright or manipulate the system.

What I liked doing was kill some of the captains, convert them and then use them to cause havoc among the ranks of the other Orks. So you can either use a direct hack and slash to get to them or you can manipulate them so the fight among themselves.

There is also a 'punishment' for getting killed by the Captain where they grow in strength, rank and become harder to kill.

I wouldn't say that the game is really innovative and groundbreaking, but it gives a little respite from the mindless AAA games focussing on Action Adventure set pieces and Stealth elements as of late.

[Dev]

The point of the nemesis system was to make the game feel alive or catered specifically to the player. Meaning each play through could be different or that each person could have a different experience. Similar to what some people got out of Xcom Enemy Unknown.

If you didn't see it or didn't "get it" then that is your experience. Personally I had a fantastic time with the game and had multiple orc "nemesis" that helped create that experience for me. It is not as simple as when the "enemies start to wear gasmasks or helmets in Metal Gear Phantom Pain". In Phantom Pain it's a matter of what you do too often having a generic affect applied to some generic enemies versus Shadow of War having an affect directly on a specific orc.

As an example: One of the first orc captains I went after happened to be near a cluster of generic orcs. I ran in and killed the orcs but one of them I killed using an arrow to the face, finished off the captain and moved on about playing the game. A few minutes later that same generic orc shows back up and remembers me "trying to kill him" but now he has a metal plate over one eye from the arrow I used. Now he deflects arrows as well, so I kick him off a cliff. The next day (irl) I get back onto the game and not 5 minutes into playing he shows back up but this time not only does he have a plate covering his eye but he has a shield and spear making it harder to basic melee him.

He threatens me and insults me and dares me to "try that again" so I do but this time he kills me... but when he has me down and is about to finish me off he says something to the affect of me not being worth it so he leaves me to be finished off by generic orcs. This causes him and the generic orc that finished me off to level up making him even stronger. Before my next attempt I notice on his stat sheet that he has an aversion to caragor. So I run in with 3 caragor chasing me and mount one just in time for the caragor to kill him for good. Or so I thought. 8 hours of play time later this bastard shows back up with a bag on his head screaming about how I ruined his beautiful face and now his only weakness is stealth attacks from above.

Now this may be some inferring on my part but all of that happened for me. That made Shadow of Mordor and it's orcs come alive for me and seemed more like a living world than almost any game I've played in the last 30+ years. I'm not going to tell you to "believe the hype" but just because you "don't get it" or simply didn't "see the difference" doesn't mean that others did not.

Originally posted by outcast:

But that is not impressive AI in any way. It is just a script that fires a predictable taunt if he has killed you before. I don't see how that is impressive in any way.

In that case it is more impressive how the enemies starts to wear gasmasks or helmets in Metal Gear Phantom Pain if you use smoke grenades or shoot them in the head a lot etc. I still don't see anything in this Nemesis system that is impressive, groundbreaking or new in any way.

Comments like this can be used to counter anything that someone might say to you. These types of statements are a matter of opinion. You can be impressed by enemies putting on a hat or you can be impressed by enemies remembering your past interactions but your impression does not change it's validity.

Video game ai is a series of if/and/or logic arguments that make a decision based on what the player does or doesn't do. That is essentially all gaming ai in a nutshell. The better ai systems in gaming can make it seem like the characters, enemies or story are not as predictable as they truly are. Your assertion as to how "impressive" you think it may be does not change it's affect on so many other people.

If you didn't get the same experience that I had then I am sorry for your loss. Shadow of Mordor as a gaming experience was one of the greatest of my life and I'm sorry that you can't say the same but please try to understand that this is the case for me and many others.

Hopefully this helped shed some light on what made the nemesis system (which is not necassarily an ai system) so well recieved by critics and fans.

[outcast]

Originally posted by drkRoss:

What makes it impressive for me is that you can establish more or less a rivalry between the Orks/Uruks and yourself and either kill them outright or manipulate the system.

What I liked doing was kill some of the captains, convert them and then use them to cause havoc among the ranks of the other Orks. So you can either use a direct hack and slash to get to them or you can manipulate them so the fight among themselves.

There is also a 'punishment' for getting killed by the Captain where they grow in strength, rank and become harder to kill.

I wouldn't say that the game is really innovative and groundbreaking, but it gives a little respite from the mindless AAA games focussing on Action Adventure set pieces and Stealth elements as of late.

The problem I have with the rivaly or sending Orks to kill other orcs etc is that I don't see much point with it, since the ranks are just filled in with new orcs. The only real "goal" with fighting the orcs int he ranks are to get more experience points. Nothing else in the world changes apart from that.

[outcast]

Originally posted by Devil Man X:

The point of the nemesis system was to make the game feel alive or catered specifically to the player. Meaning each play through could be different or that each person could have a different experience. Similar to what some people got out of Xcom Enemy Unknown.

If you didn't see it or didn't "get it" then that is your experience. Personally I had a fantastic time with the game and had multiple orc "nemesis" that helped create that experience for me. It is not as simple as when the "enemies start to wear gasmasks or helmets in Metal Gear Phantom Pain". In Phantom Pain it's a matter of what you do too often having a generic affect applied to some generic enemies versus Shadow of War having an affect directly on a specific orc.

As an example: One of the first orc captains I went after happened to be near a cluster of generic orcs. I ran in and killed the orcs but one of them I killed using an arrow to the face, finished off the captain and moved on about playing the game. A few minutes later that same generic orc shows back up and remembers me "trying to kill him" but now he has a metal plate over one eye from the arrow I used. Now he deflects arrows as well, so I kick him off a cliff. The next day (irl) I get back onto the game and not 5 minutes into playing he shows back up but this time not only does he have a plate covering his eye but he has a shield and spear making it harder to basic melee him.

He threatens me and insults me and dares me to "try that again" so I do but this time he kills me... but when he has me down and is about to finish me off he says something to the affect of me not being worth it so he leaves me to be finished off by generic orcs. This causes him and the generic orc that finished me off to level up making him even stronger. Before my next attempt I notice on his stat sheet that he has an aversion to caragor. So I run in with 3 caragor chasing me and mount one just in time for the caragor to kill him for good. Or so I thought. 8 hours of play time later this bastard shows back up with a bag on his head screaming about how I ruined his beautiful face and now his only weakness is stealth attacks from above.

Now this may be some inferring on my part but all of that happened for me. That made Shadow of Mordor and it's orcs come alive for me and seemed more like a living world than almost any game I've played in the last 30+ years. I'm not going to tell you to "believe the hype" but just because you "don't get it" or simply didn't "see the difference" doesn't mean that others did not.

Originally posted by outcast:

But that is not impressive AI in any way. It is just a script that fires a predictable taunt if he has killed you before. I don't see how that is impressive in any way.

In that case it is more impressive how the enemies starts to wear gasmasks or helmets in Metal Gear Phantom Pain if you use smoke grenades or shoot them in the head a lot etc. I still don't see anything in this Nemesis system that is impressive, groundbreaking or new in any way.

Comments like this can be used to counter anything that someone might say to you. These types of statements are a matter of opinion. You can be impressed by enemies putting on a hat or you can be impressed by enemies remembering your past interactions but your impression does not change it's validity.

Video game ai is a series of if/and/or logic arguments that make a decision based on what the player does or doesn't do. That is essentially all gaming ai in a nutshell. The better ai systems in gaming can make it seem like the characters, enemies or story are not as predictable as they truly are. Your assertion as to how "impressive" you think it may be does not change it's affect on so many other people.

If you didn't get the same experience that I had then I am sorry for your loss. Shadow of Mordor as a gaming experience was one of the greatest of my life and I'm sorry that you can't say the same but please try to understand that this is the case for me and many others.

Hopefully this helped shed some light on what made the nemesis system (which is not necassarily an ai system) so well recieved by critics and fans.

That actually sounds a bit cool with that enemy that stalked you liked that. But it is essentially the same system as Phantom Pain. You used one tactic to kill him, like arrows, and now he rewpawns with a defence against arrows. Or you killed him with cougars, and now he respawns with defence against cougars.

I really liked the game also, especially the combat and how cool it looked cutting off heads in slowmoition. It is just that the Nemesis System never was impressive in any way to me.

I have heard though that if you struggle with the game a lot the Nemesis system feels better, because that means you have to use more tacticts like using other orcs to help you etc.

The system feels very articifial and predictable to me, nothing like something that made the game feel more "alive" really. I would have liked it if things actually was "alive" and going so it was a point to the power struggle. Like the urk capatains would actually wander around the map and fight in real time with each other and kill each other (not wait around for you to trigger another generated mission), or that your branded orcs would also go kill other captains and give you passive XP etc when it happened. The whole structure of the captains and it all is just pointless and very articical and does not ultimately lead anywhere as it is now as it does not affect you in any real way and empty spots just get repoulated by new orcs.

A much better example of an adaptive AI system would be Alien Isolation. That was truly impreesive.

[outcast]

I played some more today to try out the system more and plowed out the enire board of Uruks, either killing all or branding them, so now all Uruks are dead or branded to me. And I think this is the main problem as I have hinted to before, and also seen others hint to. The game is so extremely easy that there is no use to really "use" the system or see what it has to offer. I think you really see more of it if you dies and struggle a lot etc. If you don't die or have any problems in combat the time don't advance and you don't get old Uruks to respawn back on on you and hunt you etc.

All the ablities on the Uruks are also completely useless except for the one that prevents you from doing damage to them and forcing you to kill them with stealth. All other strengths or weaknesses are completely irrelevant when all you have to do is run up to them bash them with the stun and then do combat finishers until they are dead. You need 0 strategy to just plow through them like this and there is 0 challange.

I think this is my gripe and why I did not enjoy this system very much, because I did not need to care about it because the game was so extremely easy. Why would I even care of an Uruks name when it is just a variant of another Orc with some more health to me and I will kill him one minute after seeing him. If the sequel have a difficulty adjustment so you can make the game really really hard so you are forced to actually use tacticts and play on the strentgth and weakness of the Uruks I think it is potentially I will enjoy the system much more and also get to see these Nemesis respawning on me.

They need to make the combat harder and more varied. I do love how the combat LOOKS though. It is probably the most visually beutiful combat system ever made, that if something is warranted praise. The feeling of cutting someones head off in slow motion is great and never gets old, and the blood also looks extremely good and thick compared to other games.

[Husky]

Originally posted by outcast:

I played some more today to try out the system more and plowed out the enire board of Uruks, either killing all or branding them, so now all Uruks are dead or branded to me. And I think this is the main problem as I have hinted to before, and also seen others hint to. The game is so extremely easy that there is no use to really "use" the system or see what it has to offer. I think you really see more of it if you dies and struggle a lot etc. If you don't die or have any problems in combat the time don't advance and you don't get old Uruks to respawn back on on you and hunt you etc.

All the ablities on the Uruks are also completely useless except for the one that prevents you from doing damage to them and forcing you to kill them with stealth. All other strengths or weaknesses are completely irrelevant when all you have to do is run up to them bash them with the stun and then do combat finishers until they are dead. You need 0 strategy to just plow through them like this and there is 0 challange.

I think this is my gripe and why I did not enjoy this system very much, because I did not need to care about it because the game was so extremely easy. Why would I even care of an Uruks name when it is just a variant of another Orc with some more health to me and I will kill him one minute after seeing him. If the sequel have a difficulty adjustment so you can make the game really really hard so you are forced to actually use tacticts and play on the strentgth and weakness of the Uruks I think it is potentially I will enjoy the system much more and also get to see these Nemesis respawning on me.

They need to make the combat harder and more varied. I do love how the combat LOOKS though. It is probably the most visually beutiful combat system ever made, that if something is warranted praise. The feeling of cutting someones head off in slow motion is great and never gets old, and the blood also looks extremely good and thick compared to other games.

Ain't gonna write some long ass answer but I just wanna say I loved this game and finished it twice, once on a 97% (missing just some hunting challenges kappa) but it is an easy game. I'm happy to say the next will have difficulties and the testers said hard is really hard lol.

Also I wanna say I do feel attached to some uruks, I branded one that looks really cool and did a ton of missions with him and made him a warchief, if he will die I will be sad. That is what is kinda special about the nemesis system.

The new game looks way better and improved it a lot more, check it out.