How does Forbiddden West improve upon Zero Dawn?

[RiseAgain]

What gameplay improvements does Forbidden West bring to the table? Are the sidequests improved as well?

Also, how does Forbidden West's New Game Plus mode compare to that of Zero Dawn?

[GlowWorm]

Animations in dialogs are massively improved, thru facial motion-capture. The total size of the open world is larger. Climbing spots are very liberally placed across the world. There are new traversal abilities (some of which are gated by quest completion, so I won't spoil them). The skill three is completely new and larger, and offers many more, fully-viable playstyles. There are numerous underwater areas.

(The NG+ functionality is very similar to HZD - really just minor changes on how to invoke it.)

[RiseAgain]

By the way, has the melee combat been improved in Forbidden West? The melee combat in HZD is arguably one of its weakest aspects.

[Emig5m]

Better in mostly everything except that initial first impression and diving into the unkown of the story. The main thing that I didn't like was the hardcore nerfing of the trip caster to the point I never used it anymore but used it a lot in the first game. The main thing that I liked is being able to jump off a cliff and use a glider to glide and soft land...

[GlowWorm]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von RiseAgain:

By the way, has the melee combat been improved in Forbidden West? The melee combat in HZD is arguably one of its weakest aspects.

I think you should be prepared for melee combat in HFW to be only slightly improved over HZD.

There is quite a bit more vertically in the world, and with handholds everywhere for going up, and the glider for coming down, I found traversal to be fairly fun.

[REKTs Buttz]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von Emig5m:

Better in mostly everything except that initial first impression and diving into the unkown of the story. The main thing that I didn't like was the hardcore nerfing of the trip caster to the point I never used it anymore but used it a lot in the first game. The main thing that I liked is being able to jump off a cliff and use a glider to glide and soft land...

Yeah they really killed the flexibility of it....limted deployable wites....limited the width by alot and the effectiveness.....i too barely used it in the second game....where as it was my goto in the first game.

[Carighan]

If I had to sum it up briefly, I would put it as:

Somewhat better gameplay+details, somewhat worse setting+story.

It's a wash, but if you enjoyed Zero Dawn, there's a solid chance you'll enjoy this as "more".

[ColinRoxs]

Compared to HZD this game is both an upgrade and a downgrade.

Combat is very much improved, melee for example isn't just pressing one of two buttons for one of two attacks but has actual combos and special attacks. New weapons types range from powerful to fun to interesting concepts. Though there are nerfs that happened, Sharpshot bows now have a massive accuracy penalty when moving and ropecasters are significantly worse at pinning down big machines. And some of the new machines are just annoying to fight, so that's cool.

Exploration is a bit of a sidegrade. There are a lot of cool open world things to find like NPC's out in the world can strike up a convo with you and point you to quests which is cool. But it also feels more repetitive than HZD's map for too many small reasons to name off here.

Story is not as good as HZD. I won't say anything in case you care about spoilers but the base game story was fine, but the dlc's story disappointing me, without me setting any expectations for it was a kick in the balls I didn't see coming. though animations are vastly improved and the general quest flow is a lot better than HZD.

it is A LOT more grindy. to fully level a full loadout of legendary armour and weapons prepare to hunt upwards of hundreds of machines for shards and components because the costs of upgrading get ridiculously high. BUT there is no random stats on weapons/armour mods so gone are the days of fighting thunderjaws and such to try and get max stat mods,

And for New Game + it is very similar to HZD's NG+ with some exceptions. Instead of Adept versions of all very rare weapons there is a set of legendary weapons that is acquired from all weapon and armour vendors for tokens from completing quests in NG+. And instead of it being started in a weird way like in HZD a thing appears after finishing the story that when Aloy interacts with it is starts NG+.

So there is a bunch to enjoy especially if you enjoyed HZD, but there is a number of problems I for one hope gets ironed out with the 3rd game.

[Emig5m]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von ColinRoxs:

it is A LOT more grindy. to fully level a full loadout of legendary armour and weapons prepare to hunt upwards of hundreds of machines for shards and components because the costs of upgrading get ridiculously high.

Lmao...upgrading the legendary weapons is an entire game in itself!

[RiseAgain]

What about inventory management? Is the maximum inventory size larger than HZD's? Do I have to constantly craft ammo even in the middle of combat like in HZD?

[GlowWorm]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von RiseAgain:

What about inventory management? Is the maximum inventory size larger than HZD's? Do I have to constantly craft ammo even in the middle of combat like in HZD?

Yes, you will be crafting ammo in the middle of combat.

There is now a global "stash" - any object you pick up which does not fit in your immediate inventory, is magically placed in your stash. You can access your stash from any of the many settlements or shelters anywhere in the world.

A significant change is that the most powerful ammo requires resources which you have significant limits on how many you can carry at one time on your person. If you spam every machine with attacks with your most powerful ammo, you will run out quickly and need to get more resources from your stash, and your stash is typically not available in the middle of a quest area.

[chaosonex]

Exploration and world detail is much much much worse

the ruins of san franciso total is smaller than the city in the first game.

The game also takes place over a wider part of the world in a map that's not much bigger, so the detail of the world is... bad. From the center of the Mojave I can see across the whole thing. Las Vegas is within like 5 min in game from a city on the other side of the desert. If memory serves you can stand between the two and see them both.

For comparison, in the real world they are 211 miles apart.

The first game was mostly part (PART) of colorado and into yellowstone. this one goes from the rockies, over the sierras and over to the coast.

[Nosferatu]

its actually a worse game just looks better

[Black Hole]

Hmm there are things I really like with the first game more so than the second game but mostly it's very similar but the story isn't as good, but I wouldn't say it's bad.

Less grinding and for me personally I dont like being forced to swim as you cant attack anything it's purely cat and mouse and I've never been a fan of that in games.

[Jazzratoon]

Ursprünglich geschrieben von RiseAgain:

What gameplay improvements does Forbidden West bring to the table? Are the sidequests improved as well?

Also, how does Forbidden West's New Game Plus mode compare to that of Zero Dawn?

Aloy looks weirdly worse than her appearance in Zero Dawn.

[robilar5500]

I think the story takes a half step back, but the gameplay takes a full step forward.