I suppose I'm still just generally disappointed that the nemesis system wasn't used for more of a "wage a shadow war by manipulating the key powers to destroy themselves" game, rather than the current "Callabimbo: Tales of a Superpowered Orcish Accountant".
I mean, you basically said it yourself. No offens but this wasn't the case in SoM so it seems a little negative nancy to be disappointed the sequel didn't change that. SoW is no less than SoM in any way. FWIW, your followers are fairly active in targeting hostile parts of the orc hierarchy with their time, and there are some fun Nemesis moments where followers coordinate their attacks or crash a duel between two other orcs or something.
Nah, I know. I had the same feeling while playing SoW, and when I'd heard that the sequel was going to be focusing even more on the nemesis system, that's kinda what I'd expected to see... More engagement and autonomy, and therefore more focus, on the side of the AI. This is why I'm slightly disappointed; because I feel like more work went into turning Talion into an RPG dress-up dolly and padding the system with MORE ORCS and MORE CLOTHES FOR ORCS than went into making the existing orcs be more interesting and independent. Don't get me wrong, I very much appreciate the added interactions and the whole concept of betrayals... The thing is, I appreciate it to the point where I'm sad at all the stuff they *didn't* do with it.
But I do hope they take another pass at some parts of the Nemesis system. It does seem really dumb that no new Warchiefs are ever elected, and that you can do pretty much fuck all with Warchiefs once they're appointed. There seems to be absolutely no consequence for demoting a warchief. In fact it seems necessary due to eventually needing to level all these guys up to withstand Sauron's counterattack.
And I honestly wish the game tracked the history of orc captains. I think my Nemesis from SoM, after getting killed by me in the Fighting Pits, then killed by me outside the city, came back as Venomous, looking all fucked up, with a different class. So I recruited him and he's now one of my top orcs. At least I think it's him. It's hard to keep track of dudes who are revengencing themselves on you when there are like three other orcs out there with their first name and their titles and looks change constantly.
This is where I feel that there are simply too many orcs. It doesn't help a great deal to double the amount of available titles and names, if you're going to triple the number of actors using them. Over the course of one (five hour, admittedly) stream, Potates has encountered the rise and fall of two different Olog-Hai named Ar-Saku (or similar). They shared the same costumes, voice sets, first names etc., and the only way I realized it wasn't the same one back from the dead was because one was titled the "Pain-Lover", while the other was "Pain-Seeker".
It seems like the captains don't have enough room to develop their own stories and personalities in order to stand out from the crowd, despite the fact that they are uruk captains meaning that they've already had to stand out above the rank and file.
Whinging aside, I do definitely agree that having at the very least a bullet-point list of noteworthy events for captains would be very nice.
As something of a tangent, I remember a while back when I was playing Man O' War on Steam (of all things)... Now, there's a game with a whole basket of issues it needs to work through, but I remember sailing around on the open seas going from port to port thinking "Y'know,
this would be an amazing setting for the Nemesis system".
Not so much the whole Warhammer thing, although that is always good fun, but rather as a way of distinguishing the captains of the many varied vessels you'd come across in your travels.
The game launched with a very, VERY limited set of names for both captains and ships, and I found myself repeatedly hounded by mid-class warships captained by one Captain Epinosa. Now, I knew that this was purely because of trying to name a lot of ships with a very limited number of names, but I liked to pretend that it was the same pirate captain who, after first being defeated by me in one of her ill-fated raids, became obsessed with vengeance and used every resource available to her in order to commandeer new ships, hire new crew, and track down the scoundrel who'd defied her so many moons ago.
I feel that the naval setting would allow for a lot of creative usage for the system, as you now can apply a more tangible effect of their unique personalities by altering the way they handle the crew (and what kind of crew at that), the types of ship they gravitate towards, the general battle strategies they use, and whether or not they'll hunt you down and demand honorable combat or just set an ambush when you get to port. Heck, even the coming back to life thing gets a bit more credibility, because unless you're onboard their ship and shoving a dagger in their throat, it's entirely plausible that they'd either float around on some wreckage or swim to a nearby landmass instead of going down with the ship.
So, yeah... Maybe Shadow of 3, should they try and milk this series to that extent, could take place in the seas outside of Umber. Although, that said, "Shadow of Umber" would be a bit redundant...
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Topic: Middle-earth: Shadow of War (Read 76358 times)