Rob V

Act 1 was tough... and pretty epic for a mission. It felt like it "might" be a conclusion of sorts. I knew there was no way the game could be over but with how long it played out, I wasn't 100% sure either way lol.

james2025a

Well i have burnt myself out on Assassins Creed and have very few things left to do in that game, so played this for an hour today. Sure the developers for both games must be the same as both gamed have very similar feels and aspects. I LOVED Shadow of Mordor and nice to see its more of the same, but on a grander scale. I might have to change th difficulty setting though. Played for an hour and didnt get bit once, let alone killed. Playing on the normal setting, but probably change that.

Looking forward to spending serious tine on this the coming weeks.

Update: Well i guess AC: Origins has had some effect as playing this isn't proving quite as great as i imagined it would. Still a superb game, but it feels very lacking in any story and just running around killing. Its early days, so sure it will improve.

james2025a

I have played a few more hours and its gotten me more involved. I am trying to get skill points so i can get the skill that allows me to automatically pick up dropped items. Nothing worse than seeing lots of stuff to grab in the middle of a battle and not being able to stop and grab them. That skill will help.

I really dont like how you don't seem to be able to move between locations other than through the map. I wanted this to be a single large world that you can roam around. Having to fast travel between places always takes me out of a game. Its basically like going back to GTA: Vice City when you had a load crossing the bridge. Always pissed me off, and one of the main things about San Andreas that they addressed and got right.

The game continues to be surprisingly easy. I have not had any significant challenge yet. Still a long ways to go, and sure that will change, but i have taken on chiefs who are at least 10 levels above me and between them without any problem. I expected to get my ass kicked as it sure did when i began playing the first game. By the end of that though i was a master.

Rob V

Yep, I grabbed that skill as well as the "easy Jedi mind trick" skills for Caragors and Orcs. I like being able to teleport to the bad guys and make them work for me.

james2025a

Well i am around level 28. Did my first seige and won. There didnt seem to any real end battle and it felt a little bit disappointing, but sure its just going easy. I have been branding as many chiefs as possible to my side. Game is fun, especislly as it has some level of unpredictability.

james2025a

Well i have taken over a couple of fortresses and finally came across some challenging foes. I tried branding a chief onto my side, orc resisted so i beat him and tried branding again. Turnes him into a maniac and upgraded him by 15 levels (to a level 45). Found him out again and he is immune to arrows, fire, poison, executions and stealth. Only things that work against him are direct attack and creatures. I have fought this twat 5 times and he has made it away every time. About ten mins after the last battle i had another chief turn into a maniac level 47. I managed to kill him after he got away 3 times. I am enjoying it a lot more now it has some challenge.

davidh777

Yeah, the first siege is weird that way.

My go-to moves are arrows, fire, and frost so the guys who are immune to those are bad news. It's frustrating to keep beating them and seeing them get away because they're iron will. And as far as I can tell, lowering them never changes their will.

james2025a

Ok, so i have gotten pissed off with this game now for a reason concerning the regions. I have not yet complete the second Act of the story (how many acts are there?) and i have conquered all the sieges of the forts. On the map there are maybe only 4-5 chiefs that are left unconquered onto my team, and i have collected everything i can see and done all quests other than the main storyline. I am level 40 and leveling up now takes some serious XP. So i look at the map and see several other regions that looks like they need to be conquered. I have played through the story more and none of them open up. I quickly checked online to see how many regions and it appears like i have hit the current max. So i am guessing these are all regions that will be opened up with future DLC.

THAT PISSES ME OFF.

When i started playing the game i felt that the world was massive and i had a lot to do, now i feel seriously underwhelmed that within a week i have pretty much done everything i need to do at this point in the game. Can someone confirm if any of the other regions (like the Black Gate for example) open up during the game, or if i am correct that they are gonna be DLC?

I have the Season Pass with the game as i bought the Gold Edition, but i hate this shit with games these days. It feels like they sell a half made game and then con you into having to buy the second half of the game.

Rob V

I'm not as far along as you, but I highly doubt you need DLC to finish. The maps are confusing for sure... You must've missed something. Somebody on this board must be done with the game by now, right? I'm interested to find out now.

james2025a

From what i read there are many places on the map that are currently inaccessible, even when you have completed the main storyline. These are locations on the map that will be specifically designed to be given content once DLC arrives. You can only check the lore of the place at this time. Utter bullshit.

Update: I have just seen a video on Youtube that was released prior to the game coming out and it claimed to have 23 fortresses. An utter lie. I see people in the comments confirming there are only 5 fortresses. This to me is a clear con of the general public in misleading advertising. Once again....bullshit.

And a shame, as i like the game, but compared to Assassins Creed: Origins, this one comes out the loser. The only thing that will keep me coming back is to clear up any chiefs and once i have all chiefs on my side i won't touch it again until DLC. I have done a few online revenge challenges, but even they have been a doozy.

davidh777

Coincidentally, I was exploring some of those other areas on the map the other day and finding them inaccessible. I also have the Gold edition, but would be pretty surprised if the DLC was required to finish, as the first game wasn't like that. That said, it wouldn't be unheard of--but would suck--to make significant changes to favor IAP or DLC in a sequel (as I've previously complained about Plants vs Zombies in this thread).

I still haven't taken another shot at the third fort, but am wondering if I'm missing something because I can't get into the Nazgul stronghold in one of the existing areas. I'm sure the answer is online somewhere so I'm going to ignore it for now and keep playing.

Poisoned grog is still my favorite way to clear out a party.

james2025a

If you are talking about the level in the storyline where you have to take on a Nazgul along with a horde outside the tower thats bathed in green light, yeah...its a pain, but you dont conquer that fortress. I quickly found that my level was not sufficient to take on that Nazgul and came back to it after grinding some leveling. I have found the storyline for the game to be rather dull and whilst i havr conquered all forts and completed every task, i still havnt finished the main campaign. I will do over Christmas, but my anger at the limit of this game, compared to what was advertised, has sent me on to other games for the moment.

davidh777

Last night I did unlock that step to tackling the fortress but got killed a number of times by the Nazgul and gave up. I did conquer a different fortress and have to take another shot at the one I failed at. Using the bow to kill and dominate really helped in that battle.

I got kind of hooked on the online vendettas. I don't win every time, but it's kind of fun to take on a stronghold fresh and pick off the captains before the main target. In one case, the guy I dominated ended up killing the main guy.

Rob V

I'm finally to Act IV; which is annoying to say the least. You need to defend all of your conquered forts against hordes of high level chiefs. You also need to spend an endless fortune on fort and leadership upgrades. I defended 4 or 5 forts successfully and then lost one... so I basically had to totally start over with that area, re-conquer the land and I'm sure I'll have to defend it again. Love the game but now it is just dragging on.

davidh777

That sounds really annoying!

I took another shot at the fortress I didn't conquer before and failed a few more times. Part of the problem is that this particular chief gets enraged at betrayal, so when I dominate someone to restore my health, he gets a boost. Also, my blocks of his QTE attacks never seem to work--pretty sure I'm hitting those buttons in time.

Rob V

I haven't gone back in a while to play just because it sounds so tedious... something like 11 forts to defend and your financial resources go fast.

james2025a

Well i completed the game over the weekend and went onto the infamous Act IV. I defended the first two forts no problem and was doing well with the third only for a Caragor to jump me, i miss the button press, it kills me and i end up losing the fort. I was pissed at this. I hate how the Caragors basically one hit kill you unless you hit a couple of buttons quickly. I can undertsand them depleting a lot of energy, but not one hit kills.

Anyway, i went through the arduous process of killing all the captins, recapturing the fort and killing the main guy (who was a bastard to kill). I even went on to defend another fort, but this mess kind made me think if its really worth continuing. I can't say i enjoyed going through the same shit all over again when a mistake was made. Literally a two second mistake ended up costing me about 3 hours of my life.

The only good thing is that i have not spent any money playing through the game and i have made every upgrade to every fort so far and still have tonnes of cash for the last one or two forts.

A number of games on the horizon for the next month so this game will probably go back to gathering dust.

Rob V

^^ I'm with you... I quit after defending 4 forts. I lost one, spent HOURS reclaiming it and spent whatever Middle Earth currency I had. There is no way I'm defending all 10 at this point. What a shitty way to wrap up an otherwise solid game.

davidh777

I still play here and there and upgrade my character, but it feels like eons since I actually moved forward in the game (currently at 71%, which I know can mean nothing). I did finally kill off a captain 18 levels higher than me after I accidentally created him in the combat pits, so that was satisfying. Maybe I can build up and finally take over the fortress that's been sticking in my craw.

But yeah, I'm not sure how committed I am to finishing at this rate. Has anyone tried the Galadriel story?

Rob V

So my son beat the game... he defended all 10 (or so) fortresses and I gotta say, the ending was lame as hell.

I must've missed some important cut-scene explaining how / why the wars ended, but the cut-scene I saw was along the lines of "and then the war ended and everyone was happy. The end."

james2025a

Well I completed the game, done about 4 or 5 fortresses and about 91% completion. I have been spending a lot of time in the pits and have around 3 to complete. Still got about 10 levels to go before capping out and trying to get every warrior in every army at my level. Not difficult, just time consuming. I will keep going back to this between new game releases.

Oh and I have played 5% of Galadriel. Seems ok.

Osiris3657

I grabbed this game from my backlog and have been playing it the last few weeks. Beat it last night, 92% completion. It was fun, as good as the 1st game. I absolutely hated fighting against enemies who had cursed weapons. I died several times when going against them. I also amused myself by placing a deranged orc as an Overlord after he saved me from death in the battle against the Overlord. One thing I also didn't care for is that the "murien" (the game's form of currency) is hard to build up. I was excited about building up my defenses and assault forces, and giving war chiefs special abilities, gangs, etc....but that money runs out real quick. You have a grind for countless hours in order to properly build your armies.

Did anyone play the DLC? I glanced at the expansion pass. 35 fucking dollars? And it came out 2 years ago? I'd love to continue playing, but that's a steep price. Worth it?

LorenzoL

I think when it was first released, there was a cheat/exploit to build up the currency. I’m not sure if they patched it.

I don’t have the DLC but I will wait until it’s discounted at a much cheaper price.

davidh777

hermit

i just got it for next to nothing. fun game, but open world games exhaust me. too much to do, i want to do everything at the same time. i'm just beginning act 2, and i hear the story is lame, but brutally killing orcs is very satisfying.