Middle Earth: Shadow of War

strumpusplunket · 9 Dec 2018 at 11:29

Just fired this up last night.

What FOV setting are people playing on? The default gave me a touch of motion sickness, so I whacked it to max.

Now it looks better, but in battles the zoom-out makes it look a bit like an isometric RPG. I don't actually mind it, and it makes it feel a lot easier when there are a lot of orcs around being able to see so much of the battlefield so easily.

But it really tanks my frame rate! From 65-70fps at default (min) FOV I now get 45-55 at max (3440x1440). I might reduce the FOV a touch, but also probably need to turn a few other settings down from ultra.

Any advice on what's best to turn down with the smallest sacrifice to visual quality? And how are others finding the FOV slider?

Kainz · 9 Dec 2018 at 19:27

Wish I could help but I've already finished and uninstalled the game in order to reclaim the ton of HD space it took up. I did adjust the FoV almost immediately upon firing it up as the default one is dreadful - I just don't recall what I set it to.

I had no frame rate issues though tbh. Everything was smooth on a 1070.

strumpusplunket · 9 Dec 2018 at 21:27

Well, I dropped lighting, mesh and shadows down a notch seeing as they're the most demanding settings, and also moved the FOV slider left by about a third. Oddly enough, it seems to have made no difference at all to my frame rate - or at least no more than 3 or 4 fps.

I'm now thinking of leaving this one until I get a beefier graphics card, though as you say the inordinate amount it's taking up on my game drive is an issue there.

strumpusplunket · 14 Dec 2018 at 21:17

Have put about seven hours into this so far over the past six or seven days.

I've left the main story hanging quite early because I've been having such a blast with the nemesis system.

I was killed early on while I was getting the hang of the controls again. This created Ushak the Tark Slayer. After a while I went for revenge and killed him. Spent a while hunting other captains and experimenting with different attacks versus different weaknesses and immunities, when he ambushes me, now under the name Ushak the Machine. I killed him again and carried on. He came back again, Epic this time. And again - Legendary now. I've killed him another three times since and he keeps popping up.

He can virtually one-shot me now and he's picking up legendary abilities and immunities so I'm having to get creative with killing him. Last time I thought he'd got me. I had to use last chance and had just decided to flee to try to find an isolated orc to drain. Turned around to see how close behind he was to notice he was rushing at me right past a grog barrel. Elf shot... boom! Another death for Ushak the Machine. I'm now just faffing around the same location looking for captains, getting involved in duels, just waiting to see when he'll pop up again, and how battered he'll look next time.

Great fun!

zola25 · 15 Dec 2018 at 09:22

With regard to motion sickness, I tried this game when it was on sale and found that it's the input lag that induces it for me. I could find no way to resolve this and ended up getting a refund via Steam. I immediately went back to the revious game and it didn't have this issue, but in SoW the delay between moving the mouse and action occurring is the worst I've seen in years.

strumpusplunket · 15 Dec 2018 at 10:00

zola25 said:
With regard to motion sickness, I tried this game when it was on sale and found that it's the input lag that induces it for me. I could find no way to resolve this and ended up getting a refund via Steam. I immediately went back to the revious game and it didn't have this issue, but in SoW the delay between moving the mouse and action occurring is the worst I've seen in years.

I don't have input lag of any significance, but I have been finding that with an ultrawide display filling my view I'm a lot more sensitive to motion sickness associated with a too-narrow FOV.

SoW is fine with FOV slider about two-thirds of the way across, though. Really a joy to play now, even though my FPS is reading as only bumping along in the low- to mid-50s.

V F · 15 Dec 2018 at 11:14

strumpusplunket said:
Have put about seven hours into this so far over the past six or seven days.

I've left the main story hanging quite early because I've been having such a blast with the nemesis system.

I was killed early on while I was getting the hang of the controls again. This created Ushak the Tark Slayer. After a while I went for revenge and killed him. Spent a while hunting other captains and experimenting with different attacks versus different weaknesses and immunities, when he ambushes me, now under the name Ushak the Machine. I killed him again and carried on. He came back again, Epic this time. And again - Legendary now. I've killed him another three times since and he keeps popping up.

He can virtually one-shot me now and he's picking up legendary abilities and immunities so I'm having to get creative with killing him. Last time I thought he'd got me. I had to use last chance and had just decided to flee to try to find an isolated orc to drain. Turned around to see how close behind he was to notice he was rushing at me right past a grog barrel. Elf shot... boom! Another death for Ushak the Machine. I'm now just faffing around the same location looking for captains, getting involved in duels, just waiting to see when he'll pop up again, and how battered he'll look next time.

Great fun!

That sounds like the cook I experienced in Shadow of Mordor.

strumpusplunket · 16 Dec 2018 at 21:10

V F said:
That sounds like the cook I experienced in Shadow of Mordor.

It's great the way they've implemented this system.

But... I got to the arena last night. Faced up against a legendary orc with resistances to arrows, poison and stealth, with defender shield (so unattackable from the front) and vault breaker (so it's tricky to get behind him), and he also a huge HP pool and the determination ability that means he can heal himself completely in a few seconds. Oh, he is afraid of caragors but also a beast slayer, which means he one-shots them anyway. Ah yes, he adapts to resist frost too, it seems.

I blew up all the barrels as he chased me past them, got in a few executions, but with all his HP I could never finish him off in time whilst also being mobbed by his infinitely-spawning adds. With no other sources of fire and nothing I can damage him with except normal hits and executions (which do only about 1/6 of his health in damage) the fight just became a stalemate. Every time I had to grab a heal, he would too. So I couldn't kill him, he couldn't kill me. After about twenty minutes during which he'd healed back to full HP eight or nine times I just abandoned the mission.

Perhaps I was too low a level, so will try grinding before going back against him...

strumpusplunket · 18 Dec 2018 at 09:07

Ok, so I *finally* got this final arena guy, but he was the same every time.

Level 18, poison weapon, tank, two epic traits that didn't even include determination (but he could use that trait anyway it seems), arrow-proof, stealth-proof, his only weaknesses being to beasts (which he also instantly slays). Fire explosions take off a sliver of his health, he has a defender shield, appears to be unfreezable and almost immediately adapts to vaulting.

Plus he does that obnoxious charge and triple punch move that removes 80% of my health in one go and that can't reliably be dodged when in a crowd. If he starts the charge just as I'm countering someone, that's curtains.

I went and ground out a couple more levels and still couldn't damage him enough. This was starting to feel like a fight up there with the worst of the Dark Souls bosses, only more random and chaotic!

I watched some Youtube videos of the arena and saw people getting level 14 champions with the soft-headed trait amongst other weaknesses, so what was up with this ******* I kept getting?! Every time the same guy.

In the end the only thing that let me beat him was using rain of blades with my dagger that generates might on hit to get a full might bar once every 54 seconds from the adds, using executions on him and then dragging him to edges of the arena, rolling around and wailing on him for several minutes. I just had to avoid his charge, take the other hits, use my last chances and basically hope for the best. Got close a couple of times, and then the last time I was down to my last sliver of health on my last last chance but just about got the last necessary attack on him before he got me again.

This was a weird and unpleasant difficulty spike and seemed well out of whack for the level I met this guy at.

At least it's finally done. Is this ******* going to show up again somewhere for me?

CaptainShiznit · 27 Dec 2018 at 01:47

What difficulty setting do the majority play this on for your first run through? I'm on nemesis which I found frustrating at first but now at level 20 it seems a cakewalk after picking up skills and gear.

Bounce · 27 Dec 2018 at 16:54

Thinking of getting this in the steam sale, I haven't played the first game will that matter in anyway?

There is 70p difference between this and the first game.

HoneyBadger · 27 Dec 2018 at 17:05

CAPS_LOCK said:
Thinking of getting this in the steam sale, I haven't played the first game will that matter in anyway?

Nope! Get it bought!

d0ct0r46 · 27 Dec 2018 at 17:06

I’ve just bought this in the steam sale. I want a sp to get my teeth stuck into.

Bounce · 27 Dec 2018 at 17:15

d0ct0r46 said:
I’ve just bought this in the steam sale. I want a sp to get my teeth stuck into.

what is SP??

zola25 · 27 Dec 2018 at 17:29

^ I'd imagine Single Player.

Unseul · 2 Jan 2019 at 19:07

Can anyone tell me if there's any difference between the gold version and the definitive? Both seem to have all the dlc.

Digital X · 2 Jan 2019 at 19:20

From reddit:

Content-wise, they both have the same exact content: the base game, the two tribe expansions, and the two story expansions.

The gold edition also came with a gold war chest containing 3 orcs: 2 epic and one legendary I believe. The chest economy was modified over the summer but I believe you still get the chest if you buy this edition now and it shows up in your legacy chests in the garrison

Unseul · 2 Jan 2019 at 19:22

Cheers

.

Digital X · 2 Jan 2019 at 19:48

Welcome. I still cannot find this elusive, probably underground enemy, pulling my hair out here.

strumpusplunket · 3 Jan 2019 at 08:48

Digital X said:
Welcome. I still cannot find this elusive, probably underground enemy, pulling my hair out here.

Which enemy is this? Is it for one of the story missions?

If you're having trouble locating stuff underground, something it took me about 25 game-hours before I twigged really helped: when you highlight an objective that's underground on the map, an area will light up that indicates the underground structure it's in, so you can set yourself a waypoint marker for the nearest entrance. They can be incredibly frustrating to find otherwise.