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Things that NEED to be improved in Horizon: Forbidden West
- Thread starter fanboy
- Start date
Way too many franchises are too afraid of ditching protagonists in favor of new ones. Done properly it can breathe new life and make the story super interesting. Yakuza 7 is a fantastic example of this.
You get close to enemies all the time in HZD. Having some ability to fight up close can be beneficial.
It's dumb when I pull out a bow Or a bomb two feet in front of an enemy because that's the most practical way to kill an enemy.
Good melee combat can compliment good ranged combat.
I'd like it if they gave the jumps some actual momentum to them. That feels like such a small thing, but whether or not you can change direction mid-jump and how much you can do so seriously impacts game feel for me, and I don't think the jumping in Horizon felt very good for that reason (same with the Tomb Raider reboot trilogy).
I think I heard it was already improved in the first game's dlc, but the face animations in the main game of H:ZD were very uncanny valley. At times they could look surpringly real, but then most of the time people looked like robots switching between different emotions in a moment.
Gameplay-wise, I just want more unique weapons. By the end of the game I pretty much only used explosive projectile weapons and I got by just fine. I should be forced to use certain weapons for certain robots, or at least encouraged more to experiment.
I wouldn't mind if the got rid of the loot system from the first game. Just give me one of each weapon/armor and let me customize it instead of needing one of each element and stuff like that.
Ideally, I'd like a Ratchet and Clank style system, where they can each be leveled up and customized by slotting in different ammo types and stuff like that.
That's pretty much it for me, I really liked H:ZD and I'm definitely looking forward to the sequel. I hope they can make the story half as interesting as the first one. Most of my enjoyment came from the mystery about the world itself and all of that was explained by the end of the first one.
Gameplay-wise, I just want more unique weapons. By the end of the game I pretty much only used explosive projectile weapons and I got by just fine. I should be forced to use certain weapons for certain robots, or at least encouraged more to experiment.
I wouldn't mind if the got rid of the loot system from the first game. Just give me one of each weapon/armor and let me customize it instead of needing one of each element and stuff like that.
Ideally, I'd like a Ratchet and Clank style system, where they can each be leveled up and customized by slotting in different ammo types and stuff like that.
That's pretty much it for me, I really liked H:ZD and I'm definitely looking forward to the sequel. I hope they can make the story half as interesting as the first one. Most of my enjoyment came from the mystery about the world itself and all of that was explained by the end of the first one.
More verticality. It doesn't need to be BOTW or Assassin's creed level where you can unrealistically climb on anything, but I wouldn't mind some rope and grapple type stuff.
Humans and bot combination battles. I want humans who who have learned to harness this stuff better.
More emergent type stuff that utilizes the open world. I want to be able to run into roaming herds or maybe deal with someone tracking/stalking me over large areas. There was nothing to really justify the open world aspect in the last game. If you're going to give me lots of freedom, you gotta give me something to use it on. There needs to be an incentive for exploration rather than icon glitter you throw at the map.
Humans and bot combination battles. I want humans who who have learned to harness this stuff better.
More emergent type stuff that utilizes the open world. I want to be able to run into roaming herds or maybe deal with someone tracking/stalking me over large areas. There was nothing to really justify the open world aspect in the last game. If you're going to give me lots of freedom, you gotta give me something to use it on. There needs to be an incentive for exploration rather than icon glitter you throw at the map.
GG would have to drop or totally alter entire aspects of the story to make this work. They set up several elements directly tied to Aloy to be taken care of in the sequels.
Whacking a death machine big as a house with a spear and expecting results is also in the realm of being called dumb lol.
it was a bit of a boring open world, if they can take some cues from RDR2, TW3, BOTW etc that would be much better than Ubisoft which seemed to have been their base
i loved the backstory you discovered in the game but wonder where they can go with it now in the 2nd one.
love the idea of flying mounts, come on!
i loved the backstory you discovered in the game but wonder where they can go with it now in the 2nd one.
love the idea of flying mounts, come on!
Yeah id probably go for it after Aloys whole arc is finished. Maybe after a whole triology they can set up a new protag.
If the machine has weakpoints in certain spots, it's not that weird. If an arrow can do damage, then jamming a spear can definitely do damage. Especially if you can climb onto some enemies. Grabbing onto an enemy's back or head to stab them in certain places could work quite well to adding diversity to the combat.
More melee weapon variety that actually feels like variety with different pros, cons, styles of combat etc.
Writing that makes Alloy a slightly more personality wise character than cardboard.
More depth to actually fighting and taking down one of the huge machines, make them feel like a Monster Hunter fight. Taking one down should feel like an event even towards the end. So not having too much of a power increase would be nice. Instead maybe focusing on the progress being about unlocking more options rather than just straight up power.
Make humans a bit more interesting to fight.
Writing that makes Alloy a slightly more personality wise character than cardboard.
More depth to actually fighting and taking down one of the huge machines, make them feel like a Monster Hunter fight. Taking one down should feel like an event even towards the end. So not having too much of a power increase would be nice. Instead maybe focusing on the progress being about unlocking more options rather than just straight up power.
Make humans a bit more interesting to fight.
- Better economy. There was only so much you could do before you had bought everything worth buying.
- Gyro aim.
- Better human AI.
- More spots of interest and secrets to find.
- More interesting climbing so there is some skill element involved.
- Better towns and cities.
- More varied requirements for taking down machines so it's not as much "figure out what it's vulnerable to and blast the shit out of its shields". Make them a bit more puzzleish like requiring to bait them so you can behind etc.
- Enemies took too long to take down. It's epic the first time, annoying the 100th time. It felt like you didn't really grow more powerful as you gained in levels. Fix that.
- Don't lock me in rooms and make me forced to listen to boring holographs recounting their life stories. Jeezus.
- Those weird animation pops all over the place during cutscenes were so damn distracting. Why was this never fixed?
- Find a way to actually make me care about characters and their motivations. Everybody just seemed like a colossal asshole, including Aloy which we're supposed to sympathise with. By the end of the game I was skipping dialogue left and right because it was so boring and I couldn't care less what happened to them.
- Those door combination puzzles were braindead. Either make them interesting or don't bother.
- The inventory system was annoying AF. I felt like I spent more time in there tidying this up and dismantling things than actually playing the game.
- Enough with the "follow the trail" missions. ENOUGH. It's been done enough times in enough games. We don't need more!
- Human combat.
I would like the collectables to feel more meaningful as an average. I really loved finding the vistas because it allowed you to piece together the location of the game from real-world landmarks, assuming you weren't spoiled ahead of time. Stuff like the flowers on the other hand felt very dull. Obviously there's more work required to make climbing challenges than plopping a flower down in the world, but I always wanted to go out of my way to find a vista and only collected the flowers out of obligation. Also the "reward" for finding everything in a collection was pretty unremarkable - another loot crate.
Outside of human combat, my main complaint is the inventory management, and limited storage space.
Way too much useless shit to grab, until your bags are full, then you have to go into the menu, go into the sub-menu, dissassemble random items that you may or may not need later (outside of things specifically marked junk, each item is only used for a couple of recipes from tradders), back out of the menu, then hold down the button again to try picking something up.
I get that scavenging is important for both the gameplay loop and narratively speaking, but there are so many random 'gear' crates that you'll easily fill up everything....maybe just make the stack limit bigger than '10' for the robot eyes or CPUs, idk.
Otherwise....
-Dialogue choice/consequence would be nice, but the game seems pretty heavily narrative driven, to the point where I don't know if the dialogue is intended to matter, or just give Aloy some flavor.
-Improve the viability of some of the trap weapons to make them more worth using, also.
-A few more pertinent/bigger scale side quests with rewards similar to (if slightly less OP) than the shield armor would be nice, as well...and on that note, better armor variation - there's almost no point to anything that isn't the stealth armor, or the melee resist armor until you get the shield armor. The fire/frost/corruption resist outfits are basically useless unless you're trying to either fashion souls or make things harder for yourself - especially because that's all they really are good for modifying onto, and outside of maaaaabye the ranged resist armor, none are worth using.
Way too much useless shit to grab, until your bags are full, then you have to go into the menu, go into the sub-menu, dissassemble random items that you may or may not need later (outside of things specifically marked junk, each item is only used for a couple of recipes from tradders), back out of the menu, then hold down the button again to try picking something up.
I get that scavenging is important for both the gameplay loop and narratively speaking, but there are so many random 'gear' crates that you'll easily fill up everything....maybe just make the stack limit bigger than '10' for the robot eyes or CPUs, idk.
Otherwise....
-Dialogue choice/consequence would be nice, but the game seems pretty heavily narrative driven, to the point where I don't know if the dialogue is intended to matter, or just give Aloy some flavor.
-Improve the viability of some of the trap weapons to make them more worth using, also.
-A few more pertinent/bigger scale side quests with rewards similar to (if slightly less OP) than the shield armor would be nice, as well...and on that note, better armor variation - there's almost no point to anything that isn't the stealth armor, or the melee resist armor until you get the shield armor. The fire/frost/corruption resist outfits are basically useless unless you're trying to either fashion souls or make things harder for yourself - especially because that's all they really are good for modifying onto, and outside of maaaaabye the ranged resist armor, none are worth using.
- Gyro aiming
- Better cities
- Assassins Creed like climbing
- Copy physics (water interaction; bow – arrow shot into the sky falls to the ground eventually; fire spreading on grass and trees) from the Breath of the Wild and incorporate them into the new game
- Meaningful and interesting side-quests
- Better facial animations in cutscenes, HZD was awful in this aspect – creepy doll-like effect
- Destructible environment, to some degree
- Better character interactions, in HZD they were dull
- Melee combat improvement, so it feels more satisfying (new God of War style)
- More dynamic world
The world in HZD was beautiful but completely static. It felt dead.
- Better melee combat
The bow combat was passable but melee was an afterthought.
- Better writing
The writing varied between okay and freaking awful
- PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE FIX THE DIALOGUE/NPC ANIMATIONS
Seriously, everyone was animated like a robot, children looked like terrifying demonspawn, and the voice direction was awful.
The world in HZD was beautiful but completely static. It felt dead.
- Better melee combat
The bow combat was passable but melee was an afterthought.
- Better writing
The writing varied between okay and freaking awful
- PLEASE PLEASE PLEASE FIX THE DIALOGUE/NPC ANIMATIONS
Seriously, everyone was animated like a robot, children looked like terrifying demonspawn, and the voice direction was awful.
I loved Horizon, but full disclosure, I wish it was a lot more like Breath of the Wild.
- Gyro aiming is a must.
- Climbing mechanics that are more like BOTW but a bit more realistic. Give Aloy some rock climbing tools and a stamina bar that's big enough to be convenient but not too big to kill immersion.
- Take the cauldron idea and turn them into full-fledged, Zelda-style dungeons. The cauldrons were awesome but ultimately pretty linear. The technological aspect of the cauldrons makes them really easy to incorporate puzzles into. More puzzles please.
- More reasons to explore the open world and complete side quests (more outfits, weapons, special skills, etc.).
- Improved or drastically reduced human combat encounters. The focus in development was obviously on long range and robot combat, and that's great as it is. If the human combat doesn't work, take it out. OR, put the human enemies on robots and fight them that way. You could make the robots act differently when they're being ridden by humans (more unpredictable/wild).
I think those things are achievable while taking into account the fact that it also has to work on PS4.
- Gyro aiming is a must.
- Climbing mechanics that are more like BOTW but a bit more realistic. Give Aloy some rock climbing tools and a stamina bar that's big enough to be convenient but not too big to kill immersion.
- Take the cauldron idea and turn them into full-fledged, Zelda-style dungeons. The cauldrons were awesome but ultimately pretty linear. The technological aspect of the cauldrons makes them really easy to incorporate puzzles into. More puzzles please.
- More reasons to explore the open world and complete side quests (more outfits, weapons, special skills, etc.).
- Improved or drastically reduced human combat encounters. The focus in development was obviously on long range and robot combat, and that's great as it is. If the human combat doesn't work, take it out. OR, put the human enemies on robots and fight them that way. You could make the robots act differently when they're being ridden by humans (more unpredictable/wild).
I think those things are achievable while taking into account the fact that it also has to work on PS4.
I really really liked Horizon overall. They got a lot of stuff right but there are a few pretty major areas that they could improve on that would make the game truly special.
Like others have said better melee combat, dialogue options/stiffness and bring the towns to life a little more. More long side quests like the one in the first one with the dude who has you hunt people down that you end up fighting or sparing at the end.
Like others have said better melee combat, dialogue options/stiffness and bring the towns to life a little more. More long side quests like the one in the first one with the dude who has you hunt people down that you end up fighting or sparing at the end.
The biggest improvement I'd like to see is an overhaul to the inventory system. I don''t want to spend any time cleaning up my inventory or making space for items. This isn't necessarily an improvement but I really hope they don't go the AC route and create a gigantic open world that's a chore to explore.
100% against improving the melee combat in any way. The game should build on the strength of its ranged gameplay and just wholesale remove any encounter design or enemy design that forces Alloy to rely on melee. If anything, more abilities should be added to help give Alloy more mobility. Things like crowd clearing abilities when you are just absolutely surrounded, some sort of pole vaunting ability to jump over monsters, a shield that can be deployed to temporarily shoot behind cover/have cover.
One thing I haven't seen mentioned, the sound:
1) I think the voice actors' direction could be better, sometimes the way they are speaking doesn't match what the character is actually doing or feeling, it's hard to explain but it boils down to that. I also felt like Aloy's voice was too low in volume which amplifies the feeling that some people have of her being a bland MC. I found her okay, she was soft spoken but always call people out on their shit which was a change of pace from the usual MC which tend to be overly brash.
2)I found the world music mind numbingly boring, it actually gave the game a kind of boring quality when roaming about specially in the first third of the game. I found it overly nostalgic and somewhat sombre without being dark or oppresive, so it ended up being boring. I have one hour into The Frozen Wilds and the world music is an improvement, so here's hoping for the same in Forbidden West.
I straight up would've turned off the music if it wasn't for the fact that setpieces and missions had good music.
1) I think the voice actors' direction could be better, sometimes the way they are speaking doesn't match what the character is actually doing or feeling, it's hard to explain but it boils down to that. I also felt like Aloy's voice was too low in volume which amplifies the feeling that some people have of her being a bland MC. I found her okay, she was soft spoken but always call people out on their shit which was a change of pace from the usual MC which tend to be overly brash.
2)I found the world music mind numbingly boring, it actually gave the game a kind of boring quality when roaming about specially in the first third of the game. I found it overly nostalgic and somewhat sombre without being dark or oppresive, so it ended up being boring. I have one hour into The Frozen Wilds and the world music is an improvement, so here's hoping for the same in Forbidden West.
I straight up would've turned off the music if it wasn't for the fact that setpieces and missions had good music.
+1 Inventory Management please
lmao gonna be wild this is going to come out with BOTW2
lmao gonna be wild this is going to come out with BOTW2
Much more interesting settlements, they were amongst the most boring I've ever seen in an open-world game. The main city (can't remember the name) was an enormous letdown after everyone in the game hypes it up. Big but practically nothing interesting to see or do there.
If they want to make it a shooter then they should make it a shooter.
Melee in the original was just like the basic melee you get in most shooters. They could stand to make it a little more complex, but they don't need to.
And, honestly, the approach they took was quite original. The "shooting" focused on the bow with traps playing a huge part was what I would like to see reifned and added to far more than spreading it too thin trying to copy something like MH.
Better climbing please. Go straight Assassins Creed with it. If you want to limit players from getting to certain special areas then make the surface on that part of the wall slippery or covered in corruption or something. Don't do it too much of course. I like freedom in open world games.
Better human combat is a must of course. And more animals. Other than that, I was pretty pleased with Zero Dawn and just want more of the same.
Better human combat is a must of course. And more animals. Other than that, I was pretty pleased with Zero Dawn and just want more of the same.
Well since you are asking for my opinion, I shall oblige:
From the perspective of someone who does not play a lot of games.
Level and encounter design:
General presentation:
From the perspective of someone who does not play a lot of games.
Level and encounter design:
- The ability to scale most surfaces with proper tools. Do not want that illogical AC shit where people magically scale vertical surfaces with bare hands.
- The ability to scale foes when they are tethered or in a weakened state akin to SotC so that the encounters feel more dynamic. Aloy will likely require a parachute.
- Stop with the blatant and generic padding AKA bandit settlements.
- The melee combat animations require reworking around highly mobile foes to feel more intuitive when executing combos.
- Fix the subpar human enemy AI. Given their pedigree with prior KZ titles, I was surprised at how utterly dull and predictable they were.
- Make level up upgrades physically transactional akin to Soulsborne titles. The title already has far too many game-y aspects to it (like being able to craft items in the middle of the battle).
- Fewer fetch quests and more unique (akin to Frozen Wilds) and multi-layered side quests.
General presentation:
- Make the quality of dialogue segments more akin to Frozen Wilds; more dynamic camera and character movements as well as better lip synching.
- Single player and co-op based arena modes or better yet a smaller DLC based around co-op.
Better melee would be nice. It felt really soft and floaty in H:ZD. This is just personal preference, but I'd also like more freedom in my traversal options (climbing anywhere like in BoTW, etc.)
So ruin the game, then. Cool cool cool.
Christ.
The melee could use some fleshing out but holy shit what a terrible idea.
I didn't say take the shooting away. I just said give options to people who don't want to play it like a shooter.
An upgrade system that is more meaningful. I mean what's the point of upgrading if I can kill anything with some basic move sets which I get pretty early in the game. I mean it doesn't have to be like a Fromsoft game, but a little more balance put into upgrades that make you legit more powerful to take down larger enemies would make a ton of a difference in how you approach the game.
That and less of a checklist system. More organic exploration and rewards which don't feel like a chore.
That and less of a checklist system. More organic exploration and rewards which don't feel like a chore.
Miles looked stunning on ps5 while still being on PS4 so I'm not worried about that. But yeah a bigger world with Pathless/Zelda style traversal methods like a glider would be great
and yeah Alloy could've been fleshed out more but I really liked her overall
and yeah Alloy could've been fleshed out more but I really liked her overall
In the sequel I want these things improved:
- More breathing space when exploring. In the first game there are always things trying to kill you everywhere. It's a beautiful world but you can't appreciate it when you have to run from (or avoid) enemies all the time.
- I want to be able to climb anywhere I want in the sequel and not just where there are yellow hand-holds.
- Better facial animations. That includes more realistic eye-animations and better lip-syncing.
- More breathing space when exploring. In the first game there are always things trying to kill you everywhere. It's a beautiful world but you can't appreciate it when you have to run from (or avoid) enemies all the time.
- I want to be able to climb anywhere I want in the sequel and not just where there are yellow hand-holds.
- Better facial animations. That includes more realistic eye-animations and better lip-syncing.
