I really dislike the parts are destroyed when the machine dies mechanic

[Hillbilly_Dave]

I'll preface this by saying that I'm sure I'm not the first to gripe about this mechanic. With that out of the way, I understand the gameplay reason, to give the player an extra reason to try to take them off, which provides a little extra challenge and accuracy requirement if you need a specific part, BUT with most parts, taking them off removes an ability from the machine so that it can't hurl fireballs or whatever at you so you already have an incentive to remove them. It just makes no actual sense why the vast majority of machine parts break and disappear if you don't knock them off first. Like, the antlers on machines as an easy example. It just doesn't make sense that they'd "break" if the machine dies while they're still attached to it. If anything, breaking them off should be what destroys them in most cases unless you use a specific weapon and/or ammo type to do it. Following that train of thought, it should actually be the opposite of what it is; shooting the special parts off with normal weapons or explosives makes the machine easier to fight but you lose those parts. If you want the parts you need to kill the machine without removing them or use a special weapon/ammo to remove them.

[GODzilla]

So...I never changed this setting on the PS5, but there was an option to change to the old style of harvesting parts. Unless they did not include that in the port, why not just switch this setting on?

[GlowWorm]

There is a feature under the game difficulty settings which prevents still-attached machine parts from being destroyed upon machine death. If you find the mechanic annoying, change the setting.

(I have observed that Leap Lasher Power Cells in particular might be bugged, and still get destroyed even with that setting.)

[『Insperatus』]

They changed the fighting mechanics in this game to be more challenging. I hated it at first, but after deep diving on some fighting mechanics, I got it and it didnt bother me as much. I just got better at where I am aiming than spamming. Makes you appreciate the mechanic and challenge.

[Viper]

This is a gameplay mechanic that adds a lot of depth to the combat. I f you want a certain part knock it off.

[Hillbilly_Dave]

Originally posted by GODzilla:

So...I never changed this setting on the PS5, but there was an option to change to the old style of harvesting parts. Unless they did not include that in the port, why not just switch this setting on?

I remembered that option being in the PS4 version but couldn't find the setting in the Steam port. Even if I do find it, I'm not sure I want to enable it because I feel like that might make it too easy to get the necessary parts for upgrades and trading. I feel like the part costs of upgrades and trading are balanced around the extra challenge of needing to actually harvest the parts manually.

[FDNTrinity]

I love the mechanic. It adds a lot to the gameplay. I love going out hunting specific machine parts to get some upgrade. But if you don't like it, just change it in the settings and stop complaining...

[longjohn119]

Shooting off antlers is a great way to make some cash ..... By level 15 I probably sold at least 50 of them ..... The hunter bows are kind of weak for killing but for stripping parts they are the best. Unless it's a hoard of machines I spent my time stripping off as many parts as I can before I give them the coup de grace to finish them off. Actually it's a big mistake most time to use an elemental arrows to hit an elemental canister because it destroys all the parts. To me it's better to just strip those canisters with a hunter bow and plain arrows which takes away that attack and then just strip off the rest or kill it if necessary. It's the best way to get upgrade parts or to make extra cash so you can purchase upgrade parts. The guys that hand out the Salvage Contracts also carry a lot of rare parts you can buy for upgrades and the contracts themselves also give you some upgrade parts

Play smarter not harder ........

[LordDeimosIV]

I haven't found this feature annoying tbh. It's a nice gameplay feature and forces you to tear parts you need off before you kill something.

[Hillbilly_Dave]

Originally posted by Viper:

This is a gameplay mechanic that adds a lot of depth to the combat. I f you want a certain part knock it off.

Yes. As I said, I understand the gameplay reason for the mechanic, it just doesn't make sense as a thing that happens if you think about it. There's not a lot of real world comparisons that I can make; the best I can do is hunting animals. Imagine you're alive 5000 years ago and need to harvest animal pelts to make clothing so you don't freeze and die. You go out and kill a deer. When it dies, it's skin just disintegrates because you didn't take it off before it died. Like I said, not a super great real world comparison but as we don't have machines that we "kill" for parts that's the best I can do.

I don't actually mind the mechanic itself, it just bothers me because it doesn't really make sense for a lot of the machine parts like the antlers I mentioned originally. Some parts could be fairly easily explained, like various liquid canisters. If the machine dies the valves and such connecting the canisters to the machine open and the contents quickly leak out. The sparkers are just capacitors so if the machine dies while they're still attached the power is siphoned out as all the still functional parts of the machine keep consuming power until there's none left. (this is why when you reboot devices simply turning them off and then on again might not resolve the issue but disconnecting the power source while the device is on will resolve the issue. The capacitors inside the device are all drained when you do that and forces the device to boot up completely from scratch when you power it up again).

I just wish the game had made the effort to explain why that happens. I realism it's probably just my touch of the tism that makes it bother me way more than it should but I wouldn't be so hung up on it if it was actually explained in game why that happens. I guess I can just headcanon it that Hephaestus started building the machines so that most of their parts self destruct if the machine dies as a way to try to prevent humans from hunting them.

[Serg]

Originally posted by Hillbilly_Dave:

I'll preface this by saying that I'm sure I'm not the first to gripe about this mechanic. With that out of the way, I understand the gameplay reason, to give the player an extra reason to try to take them off, which provides a little extra challenge and accuracy requirement if you need a specific part, BUT with most parts, taking them off removes an ability from the machine so that it can't hurl fireballs or whatever at you so you already have an incentive to remove them. It just makes no actual sense why the vast majority of machine parts break and disappear if you don't knock them off first. Like, the antlers on machines as an easy example. It just doesn't make sense that they'd "break" if the machine dies while they're still attached to it. If anything, breaking them off should be what destroys them in most cases unless you use a specific weapon and/or ammo type to do it. Following that train of thought, it should actually be the opposite of what it is; shooting the special parts off with normal weapons or explosives makes the machine easier to fight but you lose those parts. If you want the parts you need to kill the machine without removing them or use a special weapon/ammo to remove them.

you can set custom difficulty if you want to disable just that mechanic friend...

[Viper]

Originally posted by Hillbilly_Dave:

Originally posted by Viper:

This is a gameplay mechanic that adds a lot of depth to the combat. I f you want a certain part knock it off.

Yes. As I said, I understand the gameplay reason for the mechanic, it just doesn't make sense as a thing that happens if you think about it. There's not a lot of real world comparisons that I can make; the best I can do is hunting animals. Imagine you're alive 5000 years ago and need to harvest animal pelts to make clothing so you don't freeze and die. You go out and kill a deer. When it dies, it's skin just disintegrates because you didn't take it off before it died. Like I said, not a super great real world comparison but as we don't have machines that we "kill" for parts that's the best I can do.

I don't actually mind the mechanic itself, it just bothers me because it doesn't really make sense for a lot of the machine parts like the antlers I mentioned originally. Some parts could be fairly easily explained, like various liquid canisters. If the machine dies the valves and such connecting the canisters to the machine open and the contents quickly leak out. The sparkers are just capacitors so if the machine dies while they're still attached the power is siphoned out.

I just wish the game had made the effort to explain it. I wouldn't be so hung up on it if it was actually explained in game why that happens. I guess I can just headcanon it that Hephaestus started building the machines so that most of their parts self destruct if the machine dies as a way to try to prevent humans from hunting them.

NO game is programmed to make sense for the most part. Its a fantasy video game. Its programmed to be fun. DO you think any person could do the things Aloy does. There are 100s of things in this game that are not possible in the real world.

[Hillbilly_Dave]

Originally posted by Viper:

Originally posted by Hillbilly_Dave:

Yes. As I said, I understand the gameplay reason for the mechanic, it just doesn't make sense as a thing that happens if you think about it. There's not a lot of real world comparisons that I can make; the best I can do is hunting animals. Imagine you're alive 5000 years ago and need to harvest animal pelts to make clothing so you don't freeze and die. You go out and kill a deer. When it dies, it's skin just disintegrates because you didn't take it off before it died. Like I said, not a super great real world comparison but as we don't have machines that we "kill" for parts that's the best I can do.

I don't actually mind the mechanic itself, it just bothers me because it doesn't really make sense for a lot of the machine parts like the antlers I mentioned originally. Some parts could be fairly easily explained, like various liquid canisters. If the machine dies the valves and such connecting the canisters to the machine open and the contents quickly leak out. The sparkers are just capacitors so if the machine dies while they're still attached the power is siphoned out.

I just wish the game had made the effort to explain it. I wouldn't be so hung up on it if it was actually explained in game why that happens. I guess I can just headcanon it that Hephaestus started building the machines so that most of their parts self destruct if the machine dies as a way to try to prevent humans from hunting them.

NO game is programmed to make sense for the most part. Its a fantasy video game. Its programmed to be fun. DO you think any person could do the things Aloy does. There are 100s of thins in this game that are not possible in the real world.

The "it's just a game it doesn't need to be realistic" is almost always a poor argument because while yes, there are plenty of things in all games, including this one, that are not realistic, like many of the things that Aloy is capable of doing, narratives need to be consistent with how their world works unless they're going to explain why something in their world is different from all the other effectively identical instances in their world. As an example, all the parts that can only be harvested after the machine is killed. If those aren't destroyed when the machine is killed, why are the upgrade and currency parts destroyed? What makes them different other than game development choices?

Another example is game physics. Even if they change the values most games adhere to real world physics (gravity etc) and those that don't generally explain why. If you're playing a game that 99% adhere's to real world physics then for one portion just lets you super jump through the air without any explanation as to why, most players would assume it's a bug, not intentional because the other 99% of the game doesn't let you do that.

[Viper]

Originally posted by Hillbilly_Dave:

Originally posted by Viper:

NO game is programmed to make sense for the most part. Its a fantasy video game. Its programmed to be fun. DO you think any person could do the things Aloy does. There are 100s of thins in this game that are not possible in the real world.

The "it's just a game it doesn't need to be realistic" is almost always a poor argument because while yes, there are plenty of things in all games, including this one, that are not realistic, like many of the things that Aloy is capable of doing, narratives need to be consistent with how their world works unless they're going to explain why something in their world is different from all the other effectively identical instances in their world. As an example, all the parts that can only be harvested after the machine is killed. If those aren't destroyed when the machine is killed, why are the upgrade and currency parts destroyed? What makes them different other than game development choices?

Another example is game physics. Even if they change the values most games adhere to real world physics (gravity etc) and those that don't generally explain why. If you're playing a game that 99% adhere's to real world physics then for one portion just lets you super jump through the air without any explanation as to why, most players would assume it's a bug, not intentional because the other 99% of the game doesn't let you do that.

Sorry but no game is realistic. This world exists no where and its just a story. You see Machine Dinasaurs running around. If you cannot suspend reality you need to find another hobby.

[Hillbilly_Dave]

Originally posted by Serg:

Originally posted by Hillbilly_Dave:

I'll preface this by saying that I'm sure I'm not the first to gripe about this mechanic. With that out of the way, I understand the gameplay reason, to give the player an extra reason to try to take them off, which provides a little extra challenge and accuracy requirement if you need a specific part, BUT with most parts, taking them off removes an ability from the machine so that it can't hurl fireballs or whatever at you so you already have an incentive to remove them. It just makes no actual sense why the vast majority of machine parts break and disappear if you don't knock them off first. Like, the antlers on machines as an easy example. It just doesn't make sense that they'd "break" if the machine dies while they're still attached to it. If anything, breaking them off should be what destroys them in most cases unless you use a specific weapon and/or ammo type to do it. Following that train of thought, it should actually be the opposite of what it is; shooting the special parts off with normal weapons or explosives makes the machine easier to fight but you lose those parts. If you want the parts you need to kill the machine without removing them or use a special weapon/ammo to remove them.

you can set custom difficulty if you want to disable just that mechanic friend...

Yes I remember that being an option when I originally played on my PS4 but I cannot find it on the Steam version. Even setting to a custom difficulty which does give a few extra options, I don't see anything about part harvesting. Am I looking in the wrong place? I checked under accessibility and didn't see it there, either.

https://steamcommunity.com/id/hillbilly_dave/screenshot/2504637799927146168/

EDIT: It just occurred to me that I might only be able to do that from the main menu rather than in game.

[Helifax]

Originally posted by GlowWorm:

There is a feature under the game difficulty settings which prevents still-attached machine parts from being destroyed upon machine death. If you find the mechanic annoying, change the setting.

(I have observed that Leap Lasher Power Cells in particular might be bugged, and still get destroyed even with that setting.)

The components can still be destroyed with Easy Loot. So if you destroy them you will not loot them.
Easy loot only makes that components (that are tagged as destructible on death) are lootable. This does not prevent you from detaching or destroying them though :) So make sure you don't explosion spike throw it death ;))