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  1. #1
    LaB0mb's Avatar Junior Member
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    Love and Hate: Far Cry 4

    Amazing world! Great visuals, great environments, it's staggering the level of detail, scope and size. Astounding!

    Having said that, there are too many predator animal attacks! They should decline as the game progresses or change but they are getting old.
    Citizens of Kyrat die from animal attacks too much!

    I liked freeing the random hostages and the random skirmishes with Pagan's guys. These things should have progressed as the game went on though, so the encounters matched their status in the game.

    The comments everyone makes are great, they are mildly funny and enjoyable. I think 5 has opportunity to make more of the comments really funny (hire a comedian).

    Love the weapons! Great visuals, I like the work it takes to hold aim. The variety, dynamics, and the experience such as using the M79 from the buzzer, are just fantastic.

    I thought you could have used more realistic bullet drop at least on hard difficulty settings. The bow in 3 was pretty useless but on 4 it's too good as are the throwing knives. they don't have nearly the drop they should.

    I didn't love getting the weapons revealed in the store. The great guns should be earned by defeating bosses and pulling their great weapons from their cold dead fingers, or finding them prominently displayed as a trophy in a case, where you smash it open and get it. It should be like taking drugs, getting a new good gun.

    In 4 the weapons were too easy to come by. As much as the firepower was awesome, taking over a fortress wasn't fun unless I made it hard by trying to get the take downs, explosive kills, head shots etc. Restricting the availability of guns so the player runs out of ammo and has to use another one could make the game more rewarding. At least on hard difficulty.

    Death animations based on where a character was shot were so great. Shoulder shots, leg shots, head shots... well done! The effects of the weapons on the environment were eye watering. Smoke, explosions, trees shaking from blasts... it's all truly enjoyable.
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  2. #2
    Well... the thing is, you'd get a ton of complaints if you did it like that too.
    At least now it's optional. You can choose to use the most overpowered guns if you want, or just stick to one weapon slot and play it ninja style. Camping on hills and sniping makes it way too easy, but again, that's optional.
    I like that I can play this game in so many ways, it really increases the replay value for me. Next time it's AK and sidearm, no suppressors, smaller ammo and explosive bags, no fast travel.
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  3. #3
    Frag_Maniac's Avatar Banned
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    ^THIS, and though powerful weapons can be had fairly early, the better ones take some doing to unlock, like the better sniper rifles and Buzzsaw. Even the Bushmaster takes Arena rank 10 to unlock, but IMO, it's an overrated weapon.

    I also kinda prefer an overall chaotic atmosphere to one having a few lame as hell boss fights. FC3's crazy scripted hallucinogenic QTE kinife and gauntlet SMG fights were pathetic. The giant zombie was also pretty lame compared to the Shangri-La stuff. The Yogi and Reggie stuff is a retreat back to immature addict land, but at least there it's more intended for humor and an introduction to the Arena and Shangri-La. The Arena is also pretty good, though IMO ranking up to 10 should unlock a better weapon than the Bushmaster. I always get by easily enough with the Shredder in the south, then progress to the Buzzsaw. The Bushmaster has a bit more powerful scope, but that's what my sniper rifle is for.

    I also see no sense in saying you want the animals to get easier as the game progresses, yet want the random Karma events to be harder. The north region has fewer civilians and Golden Path traveling about, and has more severe weather. Naturally the predators up there are going to be more desperate and threatened by humans.

    As for being bored with outposts, as mentioned you don't have to pursue the better stealth weapons early on. In fact you have to go all the way to the northernmost south region towers to get the Z93. Without it stealth is harder. In fact getting undetected status in every outpost even with the Predator Signature sniper rifle takes some doing, and is even harder to do with no suspicion raised. There are other ways to challenge yourself beside the arcade point system of Outpost Master. Some would argue it takes more mastery to take them with no suspicion raised.

    Every time I blow stealth taking an outpost and result to infiltrating and/or holing up somewhere and going loud, it's actually easier, not harder. Because of this, what's boring to me is Outpost Master, which I think was created mostly to appeal to the CoD/BF mp types that love overuse of explosive weapons. I'd be more interested if they had two types of Outpost Master, something like Stealth Master or Combat Master. Stealth Master would be centered on detection level and precise shots (headshots). Combat Master would be centered on power weapons and how fast you can overtake.
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  4. #4
    LaB0mb's Avatar Junior Member
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    I like the fighting chaos as well, and think Far Cry has excellent bot AI that makes for fun and challenging but fair battles.

    I agree Frag, FC4's drug and Shangri-La worlds and fights are much better than 3's QTE and SMG fights.

    Yes, many boss fights in games are ridiculous. Firing a dozen rockets at a boss that shows no damage and then he dies on the 13th shot, makes no sense.

    I was thinking more along the lines that a camp would have a 'commander' who stayed mostly out of sight so he couldn't be sniped, didn't silhouette with the hunter syringe so was unpredictable, had some interesting tactic and a unique personality and lines compared to the other bots and generally was more of a challenge to kill.

    He should have a good hiding spot where he could shoot from or a fox hole or a locked door you'd have to blow up, or he'd get you in a room and turn out the lights so you couldn't see him. He could have a right hand man that would work with him and he could try to escape and you'd have to shoot a moving target or something like that.

    He would be a sneaky high value target, not a super being who is hardly damaged by gun and rocket attacks like many other games with bosses. You should have a playing card that identified him and the locals should warn you about something they've heard about him and you should get something of his when he's defeated. It would make taking over a camp a more unique experience and a rewarding challenge.

    Plus, it's plausible that a camp of soldiers would have an experienced commander that would give orders and mostly stay out of sight. I think it would be awesome to make a co-op play mode where your second guy could play the camp commander. He wouldn't be able to go outside the camp area and would just have the abilities and limited weapons for that commander.

    Forget I said the animals should get easier over time, there's too many predators to begin with. I like that if I get too close to a rhino, he'll come after me, but every time I turn around in some areas I have a tiger, leopard, bear or wolf jumping on my back or attacking a Kyrat fighter. It's an annoyance and not at all an enjoyable part of the game.

    Yes, ranking to 10 in the arena is a huge accomplishment and the pay off should match. The bushmaster isn't a good enough reward.

    There should be huge points for taking an outpost without alerting anybody. Adding other criteria such as using knives only, and a speed component would be great.
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  5. #5
    I played my *** off in the arena, and when I finally died after a looooong *** battle: Rank 3.

    Screw that for what's a mid range gun at best.
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  6. #6
    Frag_Maniac's Avatar Banned
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    What you're describing for boss battles LaB0mb can be partially equated by the difficulty going HUDless and taggless provides. I do agree though that making Commanders harder to get to would be interesting, esp if they flee sometimes. That's one thing Watch Dogs did pretty well. On many side missions you had to be prepared to chase down a fleeing target. It makes the outcome more random and interesting.

    I'm getting on with the animals just fine for the most part, save for the crazy random Eagle attacks. I'm using the Buzzaw more this play through. Several times I thought I'd shot predators too close to outposts and alerted them, but it was just small squads outside the perimeter here and there. I'm getting the hang of avoiding predators once in audible range of an outpost, and the route you take and when and where you crouch move is critical there.

    Where it really gets fun for me is when I figure out just where I need to make a quick dash to to wingsuit across a small valley and escape a pack of animals on my way to setting up a snipe spot. Now and then of course I still get randomly attacked right at my snipe spot, but if I can't relocate quickly I usually just equip the bow and/or slash at them with the knife. It helps if your snipe spot has some tall rocks to use. The one tradeoff of going Buzzsaw is I'm left with no slot for a silenced assault rifle.

    I hated the Arena at first and loathed the idea of ranking to 10 to get the Bushmaster, but now I play it for fun vs the weapon. Hell, I'm going to save it for last like the Shangri-La boss battle this time. It's that good. I'll probably try the Weapon Challenge and maybe even Endless this time too. Battles mode though is really not that hard if you use stealth a lot. Even easier if you upgrade your skills a lot.

    One thing that I find kinda disappointing about outposts is there's not enough incentive to achieve total stealth without raising any suspicion, and it's a bit too easy to attain Undetected status, even going loud. Besides No Alarms and Undetected, there should be a third rating called No Suspicion or something that nets you a higher reward.
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  7. #7
    LaB0mb's Avatar Junior Member
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    The arena is a great part of the game, and it is well done, but it's just too long. Achieving rank 10 is tedious. Battling 4 teams seems the fastest.

    Some aspects of 4 get tedious. The Arena, though awesome, needed to change over time to keep it interesting. It would have been cool to have the audience in the Arena say different things indicating that they were growing more enamored of Ajay, and have Ajay somehow turn the audience against the corrupt announcer. A betting system would also have been cool, so you could wager money on whether you'd win a match or not. It would have been cool at the end to turn the audience against the announcer and shut the place down, or the audience throws the announcer into the arena or something.

    Towers were tedious. For the last half or so, of the towers, I used the buzzer landing on the wide roof section, climbing up to smash the radio, then jumping back in and flying to the next one. The different maze problems to climb the towers were somewhat interesting but overall, there were too many towers and they were too similar.

    The repetitive things like driving, gathering plants, taking over towers could have been made more interesting. Like driving, later in the game Ajay could have found something to put in the gas tank to boost the speed. He could have discovered some great vehicles and taken them back to his place to be souped up and collected or used on missions. Neat, new, interesting, crazy, awesome... but not the same over and over again, unless it's fun.
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  8. #8
    LaB0mb's Avatar Junior Member
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    I agree. I'm enjoying trying to complete a camp without any suspicion. I think once you do raise suspicion, the camp shouldn't go back to a normal routine so quickly. They should go to 'battle stations' and move to better protected positions rather than just stand around in the open or form temporary search parties. They should initiate a roving patrol with dogs to keep looking. I like the mortar, that's well done. I am also impressed by how the bots move to use their sight lines to protect each other as their numbers dwindle. If they lose people they 'cover' each other for the most part making it harder to sneak up.
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  9. #9
    Frag_Maniac's Avatar Banned
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    Last time I ranked to 10 in Battles I did it on patch 1.5 in one session without crashing, so it had to have been under 2.5 hrs. In a 50+ hour game, that's not much time really. It's only a grind if you keep dying and have to reset, which was the case my first run through. Since then I've adjusted my tactics. Slower is actually faster in Battles I find. I like to let the others thin themselves out by fast crouching around the upper concourse collecting and scouting for pickups, then finish off the stragglers. I often do a final sweep for ammo, weapons and items when there's one competitor left. Best of course if he can't see you.

    At the end of a round I make any quick final pickups if I can, then dash to the side doors behind the big rock. It's easily the best place to stay out of sight of others. When the final round comes I get on the stairs behind that big rock and ready my grenades and Molotovs, which I always save for the final round. Plus I usually grab an LMG as soon as I can to use in the final round and save it's ammo for it. If you get caught out, stealth is a nice safety net against heavies, even if they've spotted you. As long as there aren't two with LMGs it's manageable.

    I often creep around the big rock and knife slash them from behind, as well as lure the more short range flamethrower heavies toward exploding barrels. Sometimes you can even take out two LMG heavies that have spotted you if you make use of cover well. It's hilarious though in the penultimate rounds when it's down to two LMG heavies going at each other.

    This time through my first priority after Key to the North was getting the rest of the towers to get the Buzzsaw. I still climbed them all, but this time I rather enjoyed some of the treks to them. There's a few that come to mind. In the far east part of the north there's a tower that has a great on-foot trek to a location called Sky Burial just NW of there, and from there you can leapfrog to the next towers north then west rather easily via wingsuit. The tower climbing itself goes so quickly compared to treking on foot though that I don't find it tedious.

    I like the idea of souping up vehicles, but I'd prefer something along the lines of armor plating, a couple front fender mounted rockets you could fire from the drivers seat, and better handling suspension and tires. The terrain isn't that conducive to higher speeds. There were places you could get up pretty good speed in Far Cry 3, but not many here.
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  10. #10
    It's actually referenced repeatedly by Rabi Ray Rani how insanely dangerous the outdoors are. I honestly didn't start feeling safe just wandering until I got the Buzzsaw. Before that, I wouldn't even get off the gyrocopter until I was sure.
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