The Combat is Way Too Difficult and Complicated.

[End_Wokeness]

I really loved HZD. The story gripped me and I appreciated how experimental the game was when it came to fighting all the different machines that were a sight to behold. This was one of my most anticipated games of the year, but something felt off while I have been playing it over the past few months. I think it finally clicked for me that I just hate how overcomplicated gameplay wise this game is. The first game definitely had the Ubisoft formula design when it came to the open world; however, that game felt really tight. The game never forced you to fight hundreds of the high level beasts to upgrade your gear. There was a linear progression to upgrading your weapons. Even something like the outposts only had like 5 locations for you to do. In this game, there is like 20 outposts and 5ish camps that are more akin to what is found in the original.

I hate how many weapons there are. I hate how much of a hassle it is to upgrade your weapons. I hate how material intensive some tools are with traps basically being nonexistent for me because of their cost. I hate how aggressive the enemies are now and how they can knock you around like crazy. I hate how long it takes for Aloy to get up. I hate how the melee works. Sure, they “improved” it by adding actual mechanics instead of just pressing two buttons but hits still don’t have impact and they just drag down the pace of fights. Why is there no parry button either?

I hate how much the enemies move around, not only do the move around way too much while you're trying to target a weakspot but there are pieces of armor that obscure said weakspot and even if you get a shot in you are asked to do that again another 3-5 times before disabling / removing the component all while running out of focus and having other enemies wail on you. I'm at the point now where I just avoid combat altogether, it's simply not fun.

Every time I have to enter combat now I just groan because it’s always a war of attrition. Stuff like the ropecaster feels real useless now due to nerfs and other tools are just so costly. I could use braced shot but that eats away components and just trivializes everything. Thus, I just resort so shooting off components regularly with the right element and then tearing off component by component.

I don’t know what it is. I want to enjoy this game more than I am. I don’t want to dislike it. I like Aloy. I like the world. The beasts are once again awe inspiring when I’m just admiring them instead of getting flailed around by them. Maybe I’m playing the game wrong. I don’t know. I just feel like HZD had this simple elegance to its combat. It struck the balance between having complexity while being accessible. That game pushed me to use all its tools. This game I just keep resorting back to the hunter bow and warrior bow (with the occasional sharpshot usage). In HZD I sought machine sites to hunt for fun while in this game I dread any fight I have to partake in. Maybe I do need to “git gud” but my problem is I just don’t feel the desire too. It’s weird when a game you were excited for just doesn’t click for you but I guess the gameplay systems for me just lost me.

[Alcator]

The reason why they made all these changes to combat is because in the first game, there was a 'BFG 9000' kind of approach that made every combat encounter ridiculously easy.

Once you figured out the exact sequence of steps, none of the machines could pose any threat to you. Aloy became "OP" (over-powered).

So, they made the machines more agile in the sequel, the weapons more 'situational' (besides the Hunter bows, which are the universal reliable weapon), and made it so that you are really motivated to combine all the tools in your arsenal.

That said, if you're not willing to learn all the tools and master their usage, you can always reduce difficulty to Easy or Story and just push through with the bare minimum of upgrades.

[Uimet]

Make sure you play the game at the right difficulty turn it down if its too hard, you can always turn it up again in the menu later into the game

as for Aloy personality, at least for the first 5 hours of the main quest she will sound rude/@sshat but she becomes somewhat of her original self later into the game

Doing quest give you skill points and such

[Uimet]

the upgrade weapon feature was a headache at first but I love it so much as I play the game it give me a sense of progression, you will love it as you get used to the game and progress further

[d.]

I still feel like with top tier gear and knowing how and what to do (the cheez slide roll), some of those big jumpy jump machines just wreck you. I'm dreading the NG+UH difficulty.

[simmery]

Zero Dawn was indeed an elegant game in just about every respect, but Alcator is right about how ridiculously overpowered Aloy became. At a certain point, thunderjaws and stormbirds become almost trivial even in ultra-hard difficulty. You could go to Rustwash, one of the most dangerous places in the game, and bully every machine in the area just because it was funny to do.

I think Forbidden West overreacts to all this by making machines a little too agile and lucky at times. Some status effects -- fire and adhesive, for example -- are not especially useful, and it's annoying how many apex enemies are strong against everything except plasma or maybe acid. Fights with human enemies can be exciting if you're good at melee, but getting good at the combos can be off-putting to a lot of players. The game is full of acquired tastes.

The upgrade paths are preposterous, but the gear can be worth the tedium and frustration. Skykiller and Sun Scourge are weapons worth slogging for. I'm not any good at melee, but the Oseram Artificer is such a great equalizer that it's worth all the stupid requirements like frostclaw and fireclaw sac webbing.

In a word, the game verges on being cheap and nasty during much of the first playthrough, but for me it's gotten a LOT better over time. I think in Horizon 3, Guerrilla should try being more balanced and less e-toughguy.

[Apoc]

I was about to suggest to use a ropecaster if you found enemies to be moving too much, but then you mentioned how useless it was. Like what?
Yes, they reduced it's ability somewhat to reliable all the time, but it still works like a charm, as long as you don't shoot the armor plates with the entry level ropecasters. And then there is a Penetrating Rope technique for it that makes that problem go away.

If you find a place with too many enemies (what's the threshold for too many?) then you always have an option to avoid them, use stealth to reduce their numbers, use traps, override machines.

I won't deny that Forbidden West is quite a bit harder than Zero Dawn, since I played both on Normal in my first playthroughs and struggled in FW as I was approaching the end, but then again, I was beelining the main quest, so that's on me. There is no shame in lowering the difficulty, although, I found that "Story" difficulty is way too easy for me.

The combat, on the whole, may seem over-complicated, but only at first. All you have to do is be patient, try out what works for you and what doesn't, and stick to what is working for you.

[Flybye]

Early in the game I set a journey out west, I bought better equipment, I made my way back out east, and everything was soo much easier to kill. It's just a matter of not falling victim to the typical you need to progress norm. I skilled myself to 3 hunter arrows, 2 sharpbow, I looted a whole bunch to buy the goodies I needed to enlarge my arrow pouches, and I stuck it out with my favorite weapons. I have so many weapons I don't even use. Just ignore them. All the options were for the sake of not having people whine about a lack of options.

[Uimet]

Originally posted by Flybye:

Early in the game I set a journey out west, I bought better equipment, I made my way back out east, and everything was soo much easier to kill. It's just a matter of not falling victim to the typical you need to progress norm. I skilled myself to 3 hunter arrows, 2 sharpbow, I looted a whole bunch to buy the goodies I needed to enlarge my arrow pouches, and I stuck it out with my favorite weapons. I have so many weapons I don't even use. Just ignore them. All the options were for the sake of not having people whine about a lack of options.

i complained about having too many weapon type too but when i am reaching the end of the story I was using every single weapon type XD I love all the weapons

[Hydra_360ci]

Thing about the ropecaster is that it's best used to demobilize stuff while you fight other stuff. In otherwords...do not attack the pinned machine unless it's the last one. (well, excpet for glithawks I guess...)

If you only pin them and not attack after, they will stay in place and out of the battle for 90 seconds. So ropecasters are now better used for crowd control, with the secondary use of keeping one still while you farm it's parts.

[Napalm®]

It definitely requires a more situational approach that HZD, which - from what I understand - was their intention.
I also raged for as few (tens of) hours trying to take down machines on UH with a hunter bow, thinking 'well it worked in the first game, why wouldn't it work now'.
But it doesn't.
More nuanced.
Some would say less fun.
But not really 'harder'.

[FFox]

is just too much stuff going on at once, besides the hit/reg system is a total downgrade, some arrow shots seem to go trough the target entirely dealing no damage because likely it never counts

[ᑕYᗷEᖇᑕᗩT]

I agree that the melee combo combat system straight blows a$$ in this game! I played HZD 3 times since buying it. I 100% this game and I know I’ll have zero desire to ever pick it up again.

[Thornok]

it is just too elongated

one long drag

[MonsterAb1]

It is a drag but I keep coming back to it. It's so bloated with odd game play decisions.

[Lunatic]

I mean, in my opinion the combat of ZD was quite boring. It was always just "Freeze the Machine -> Spam your Hunter/Sharpshoot Bow with triple notch until it's dead", which sadly worked for really any machine.

Outside of the Melee Combat, i'm personally really happy with what they changed on the side of combat, because now just spamming the same exact weapon over and over won't do much.