the grind is the worst I've ever seen.

[Valhach]

I know this game isn't going to change, and I know this has been discussed before and people disagree. I just hope the devs see threads like these and consider them for the next game.

I love most aspects of this game -- the story, the combat, etc. But I am close to 50 years old and I have spent countless hours grinding old school RPG's. This game is the worst grind fest I can remember playing.

I love the huge selection of weapons. I love the "shoot the part off" mechanic. What I do not love is the sheer volume of components needed to upgrade items. And I hate having to skip the game to night time and reloading 5 times to get an apex to spawn, and then praying it drops whatever heart I need. Because if it doesn't, then I start all over again hoping an apex will spawn.

This is my second new game playthrough. I'm at the point where I need to upgrade legendary gear and I am remembering why I hated the fist time around. It's not fun.

We got lots of great quality of life improvements from HZD to HFW. I hope it continues to the next game.

1) Cut back some on the resources required.
2) Give option to lock day/night and or option to lock normal or apex machines.
3) increase drop rates on apex machines from their current levels.
4) make the end game fun and not just a chore.

[Holografix]

if you think this grind is bad, try Metal Gear Survive or Elden Ring. HFW grind isn't so bad.

[Hebalon]

At least you can target-farm the items with quite a high drop chance. If you think that the grind in HFW is so bad, try other games like Diablo 4: First you need to grind for some tokens, which are needed to enter a "boss" fight, which then has a 1% chance to drop a specific item, which has a 1% chance to have decent rolls on it ... so you start grinding for tokens again.

If you want to upgrade all legendary outfits and weapons in HFW - sure, that's not exactly the definition of fun. But you need only a few, and it's up to you to decide which one you want to upgrade first.

[Mav99]

I'm on my second play-through as well and while normal parts where never an issue, I thought that the grind for some Apex parts was indeed a bit annoying. But actually, I have little problems getting resources this time.

When I need a specific resource, I create a job and whenever I have this job as my active quest, I get an apex machine almost every time I fast travel to the location the job suggests. I found it surprisingly easy this time. The major difference in my first play-through was, that I created jobs as well but hardly ever set them active...

For the last upgrade I needed an Apex Rockbreaker part. The game suggested a spot south west of Vegas, near a rebel camp. I fast traveled to the closest camp fire and could see the machine on top of a dune from there. It was an Apex variant in bright daylight. There's little cover in that location, so it was hard, I almost got it, but then got killed. After re-spawning there was another Apex Rockbreaker. Got me again. Next one was not Apex so I reloaded once at the campfire and got another Apex. Still in daylight. I tried long range arrows from the nearby mountains but it was too far away most of the time. So I got closer and eventually found a spot on the dunes close enough to hit it. Interestingly, the Rockbreaker NEVER got there. It seems it's remaining within a fixed radius of it's spawning location and I stayed just outside of that. At times it came REALLY close but never attacked me directly. So apart from dodging it's ranged attacks, it was quite easy to take it down that way. :)

Anyway, long story short, I guess when you actually set the hunt for any resource as your active quest, the game helps you to get it fast. That's also very helpful to find Greenshine, btw.. ;)

[Alcator]

Fortunately, no-one is forcing you to try to upgrade the gold tier weapons, certainly not to Level 5. The game is perfectly playable with blue-tier weapons.

[Nectaria Coutayar]

Grind is nothing compared to playing the MMORPG Lineage II back in the 2000's.

[Valhach]

Origineel geplaatst door Mav99:

Anyway, long story short, I guess when you actually set the hunt for any resource as your active quest, the game helps you to get it fast. That's also very helpful to find Greenshine, btw.. ;)

This definitely works for greenshine, but I have not had better luck finding apex machines because of it.

I will add that while the large machines can be annoying to get apex hearts, the real frustration for me is the medium machines -- apex stalkers, monkeys, and elemental clawstriders. And clawstriders are the worst. I spent about 2 hours last night hunting acid and fire clawstriders without a single heart dropping. And last night was not the first night I went hunting them. The in-game notebook says they have a 60-something percent chance to drop and at this point that just seems inaccurate.

Alcator is correct that the game is playable with blue-tier weapons. I am playing "very hard" difficulty and on the Singularity mission. I got there easily with halfway upgraded blue and purple gear. The actual story and side quests are great at getting you where you need to be by playing the game normally, especially if you are on a normal or easy difficulty level.

But the end game grind is just stupid. To be fair, the game does give you options to make farming easier. Easy loot is an option, and you can lower the difficulty setting. But in a game that is otherwise fantastic, reloading should not be a core game mechanic.

They realized after HZD that picking flowers and managing inventory was not fun, so they gave us auto-pickup and a stash. Farming for coils in HZD was also not fun, and they put them on merchants for HFW. I hope they realize for the third game that reloading and fast traveling ad nauseam to find a specific variant of a machine and its drop is not fun.

[Bankai9212]

Origineel geplaatst door Holografix:

if you think this grind is bad, try Metal Gear Survive or Elden Ring. HFW grind isn't so bad.

Who in there right mind would play survive, what grind is in elden ring I’ll wait.

[Black Hole]

I agree, I think they went overboard with the grinding.

[kl250d]

Origineel geplaatst door Holografix:

if you think this grind is bad, try Metal Gear Survive or Elden Ring. HFW grind isn't so bad.

Elden ring has no grind at all? Everything is super easy to get in it

[ДЕЛИКАТНЫЙ МАЗИЛ]

кто может ко мне зайти ?

[Holografix]

Origineel geplaatst door kl250d:

Origineel geplaatst door Holografix:

if you think this grind is bad, try Metal Gear Survive or Elden Ring. HFW grind isn't so bad.

Elden ring has no grind at all? Everything is super easy to get in it

Fire Monk outfit and weapon is an example of crazy grind. there are others. HFW shows the percentage chance of something dropping, Elden Ring is blind RNG.

[Bankai9212]

Origineel geplaatst door Holografix:

Origineel geplaatst door kl250d:

Elden ring has no grind at all? Everything is super easy to get in it

Fire Monk outfit and weapon is an example of crazy grind. there are others. HFW shows the percentage chance of something dropping, Elden Ring is blind RNG.

That isn't grinding, its based on RNG even with the percentage of something dropping the core issue is the drop rate. Which has a percentage chance. Then again you don't play elden ring do you?

[The Rain King]

The "grind" is 100% optional.

[Holografix]

Origineel geplaatst door The Rain King:

The "grind" is 100% optional.

true. there's an easy loot option in the Custom difficulty toggle where you can set the machines to drop every loot 100% of the time.

op is on new game + and doesn't even know about the option 'Easy Loot.'

[Black Hole]

May not want to get stuff that easy, perhaps they want to just have to do it less to get the best loot, or upgrades.