Topic: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

@GoronBrudda you can do everything after beating final boss, don't worry

Current progress:
Divine beasts: 3
Shrines: 60
Koroks: 230
Hyrule compendium: 300
Hours played: 75

I rounded some of them since I'm not aware of the exact amount right now. Also left out the max number from each in case someone doesn't want to know them. This game is by far my favorite Zelda game. I love just roaming around and finding things. I like climbing every mountain in search of Koroks even though I'm yet to even stumble upon Hestu. I'm most likely going to 100% this game. I want to keep playing as long as I can. I would've actually liked if the Hyrule compendium were even bigger and included people, maybe even cooked food. That way you could at least store all your recipes.

@Late Thats Crazy, between my son and i, we have clocked in 2-3 hundred hours with different accounts. I have only did 50 shrines and 72 seeds and 1 divine beast, lol. I am one of those OCD people i will hunt and explore for hours, and spend hours farming foods and parts to upgrade my gear. I am an explorer in no hurry. Now i am at the point i have all Royal and Lynel weapons and can get them pretty easy and my gear is all lvl 3 so i am ready to move on.

Very small update because...work. My deluxe guide came in! Very much worth the extra money and wait. I'm going to use it to find shrines I want to have located all 120 before I take on Vah Naboris.

@ReeLongbow That's the crazy thing. I see people with many more hours and they've done far less than me. I think I'm playing at a leisure pace too. I always go by foot so I can search every nook and cranny. I have only warped 5-10 times and used a horse only when there's a quest or a minigame that requires it. Cooking is one thing that I don't really care about and that seems to take a lot of time if one decides to cook often. I've cooked like 10 times so far. I pick up so many food items along the way that I don't need to cook. I don't care about stat buffs or extra hearts. I fear they make the game too easy. If I cook something, it's almost always for stamina recovery or for a side quest. I've upgraded some gear to max and I probably could upgrade more now.

I'm currently working my way towards Death Mountain. I left the desert a couple of days ago, I've played 8 hours since and I just roamed through Faron Woods. I think I'll get to my destination in 20-30 hours. There are many places I want to explore on the way. I can finally finish couple of side quests too. I've had a Lynel picture for a Zora for who knows how long.

@Octane This is always amusing to see.
Im always the anti nintendo sony/ms fanboy, and then the next second im the zelda elitest fanboy....

And I always say the same things. It just depends on the preconcieved conceptions of who is responding. Color me however you want if it makes you feel comfortable about dismissing facts and reality.
I am under no illusion that reality or any amount of facts will change your pre concieved notions.

https://longform.org/posts/why-facts-don-t-change-our-minds

I didnt bring up brain washing, that was you and the person who responded to me. You two brought that up all on your own to avoid an uncomfortable bout of critical thinking about something you like.

I didnt claim worst generation marketing is brain washing, Dave Anthony did. I just believe him because he made multi millions by doing his thing, and there is no shortage of yous rushing to defend the 'industry' everytime someone 'attacks' it by not vomiting unanimous praise upon its every facet.
Maybe you should google his name or something. Maybe not, critical thinking is haaaard, and booooooring.

Maybe we should all just chill out a little and let people like or dislike the game, regardless of whether the western AAA market has been brain-washing us or not. Forcing the fact that the game was "intrinsically designed" down someones throat won't make them like or dislike the game any more than they already do. Games are all just entertainment anyway, so let people be "brain-washed" and play what they want if they find it fun.

gotta agree with pigeon, the game is variable for those who play it. By no means a badly designed game, but its definitely not for everyone. My favorite response to the criticisms it gets is "you're playing it wrong". Especially when the weapon durability is brought up. "you're supposed to use other ways to kill enemies, you're playing it wrong".

Which I find highly ironic, because the whole mantra surrounding this game is play the way YOU want to, not the way everyone says you should. Unfortunately for me, trying to just use my weapons was designed to be ineffective in the long run.

That said, before people bite my head off, I loved the game as it was. But it definitely should be improved next time, if they really are gonna stick to the whole open world thing.

I was hoping there'd be intricate caverns to discover through tiny cave entrances, but what we got was a very admittedly beautiful and well crafted surface world with alternate dimension portals on the form of shrines, making them feel less organic to the environment.

So this isn't a case of the Zelda cycle or whatever dismissal people will usually give to others who don't agree with them, what I see most of all is that people more or less find fun in the game, but there are some unavoidable trappings of the genre that some people just won't enjoy. Like numerous side quests, or even the open ended nature of the game to an extent.

@Operative2-0 Your playing it wrong! But seriously though, I have yet to find myself in a situation where I don't have a weapon. But even if I wouldn't have one, it's easy to find one or steal from an enemy. Actually, the bigger problem is the constant "throwing away weapons because I keep finding better ones".

I guess it wouldn't be playing it "wrong" but more "Playing it in a needlessly tedious way", which I admit, I'm sure there are much smarter ways to play. I just prefer the regular Zelda type of gameplay where I mostly just smash enemies heads in.

Ah, brainwashing arguments...I really despise them.

I'd like to think there is no brainwashing, because technically speaking you could argue everything and everyone who speaks to you are potentially brainwashing you. I could go in depth more but it's not worth it. I think it's such a horrid topic.

I much more prefer to look at it through the lens of social engineering.

Its an intrinsic based game design,it is EXTREMELY variable. Like other games of this kind that have practically gone extict over the course of the worst generation, its a mirror.

And yes, it is about playing the way you want... Within the constants established by the systemic rules of the world.

I usually hate weapon durability, but its a non issue in botw... The only thing you have to learn is to let go. The weapons start out poopy, so once someone gets one of the better weapons they dont want to let go. What they dont realize is that once they see that weapon, its not going to be in short supply. The more bad guys you kill and the more shrines you find the better equipped the bad guys and chests are. So kill em any way you want, use the most powerful weapons however you want, the more you use em the more the game puts what you like in front of you.

But whats USUALLY the case here, is these people ARENT playing the way they want. Look @pigeon hes forcing himself to do things he cant stand for no discernable reason. He said himself he doesnt like doing it. So why do these people do these things in games they can play 'any way they want'?

Because games are made, defined, and understood by the rules that dictate their design. Those rules form how we interperet what we see, how we think, and how we interperet a virtual world.

In uncharted are you going to try and run off to some cool landscape you see in the background? No, thats just a part of the background. Background is off limits in uncharted, thats part of the rules.

If you see a path in uncharted to climb with vines on the wall, and another path that by all reasonable logic you would be able to climb in real lif le that would be safe and faster, are you going to try that path in uncharted? No, you know its blocked off by invisible barriers. In uncharted you follow the blatantly obvious 'climb spots' to progress to the next area. Those are the rules,thats how the game works.

In an RPG are you going to go into a town and just start solving all the problems you already know about without following the arrow to the pointy dot in town? No, nothing will happen until the flag is 'activated'. You have to go to the dot and watch the cutscene, and then talk to the npc's so the event will activate, and then you can go and solve the problem you already knew about. Those are the rules, its how that game world works.

The very basis of videogames is behavior control. Dont project your negative connotations onto that, its just reality, and that reality is that behavioral conditioning is super important to great game design.

Take the first 5 feet of super mario bros:

You see a little dude. Nothings happening. You push a button. Something happens. Behavior control begins. The desired behavior is pushing buttons, the reward given to make the player want to perform the behavior, is that something happens. Something is more intersting than nothing so the player pushes more buttons. The player is now conditioned. The player realizes certain actions correlate to certain button presses. Left goes left right goes right a jumps.The player has internalized these rules. The player now has an understanding of the virtual world. They control the little dude by pushing buttons. You cant go into the background, the world exists on a 2d plane, left right up down thats it.

Next step. Desired behavior go right. If the player goes left nothing happens, theres an invisible wall. Jumping will get boring fast, the player will inevitably push right. When they do something new happens, the screen scrolls. The player sees new stuff. The player has been conditioned again. Desired behavior: go right, stimulus to get desired behavior, screen scrolls.

Now there is something else moving on the screen. A angry brown blob with feet. The player runs into it. The game stops the players little dude falls down. Sad music plays the screen goes back and then the player finds themselves back at the beginning.

Desired behavior: Dont run into goombas. Stimuli to get the player to perform desired behavior, negative reinforcement. Sad music, stopping the game subtraction from life counter loss of progress.

The player has been conditioned. Goombas bad!

So since the player can only go right and the goomba only goes left the player inevitably comes the solution thats the desired behavior. Jump! At this point 95% of players experience the same conditioning. The placement and speed of the goomba, the speed of the player, and the placement of the first ? Block result in this sequence of events:

The player goes right. Oh no, theres a goomba aboit to touch me NOO!!! Jump! The player hits the bottom of the ? Block. A coin pops out, the player falls on the dreaded goomba, but instead of the player dying the goomba goes squish and dies.

? Block good! Jump into it to get stuff! Jumping on goomba good!

The player has been conditioned again.

So in the first 10 seconds of super mario bros heres how much the player has been behaviorally conditioned to the rules of the gameworld:

Pushing buttons does stuff:
Left goes left
Right goes right
A jumps.

Go right to progress the game.
Dont let goombas touch you.
You can jump on goombas to kill them.
You can jump into the underside of blocks to get stuff.

Videogames are all ABOUT condifioning certain behaviors. Its what makes them work.... Which is why it was so easy to abuse.

Over the course of the last generation games heavily relying on EXTREMELY strict and overbearing, nonsensical rule structures have flooded the market, particularly from 5 western AAAAAAAA publishing houses (Not to mention nintendo destroying zelda and metroid by doing this), because they are easier and faster to make.

People have played so many that behave the same way, in games that are all so similar, that it has normalised these rule sets as the default. To the point where even if they are playing a game that is not bound by these rules, they STILL obey them out of habit.... Even if they hate it.

Oh Jebus.

1. No it cant be.

2. You guys are the ones who jumped on the brain washing train, not me. God forbid you use the infinite power of the internet to take 15 seconds and google something.

3. Behavioral Conditioning is the basic building blocks of fundamental human learning. It is not brain washing. When someone says hi to you you say hi back. Thats social conditioning, not brainwashing.

When you see a goomba you jump on it. Thats conditioning not brainwashing.

Hey guys, I was just curious about which divine beast was your favourite. Personally for me, my favourite divine beast was Naboris. This was my favourite of the bunch for I felt it had the most things building up to it - finding the women's clothing, Gerudo Town, the Yiga Clan and riding a sand seal with Riju. I also felt like it had the best Champion being Urbosa whom had a great voice, awesome dialogue and was just badass. Riju was also pretty cool as she had a fair amount of development compared to the other characters with the other beasts. As for the divine beast itself, I loved the dungeon as it wasn't straight forward due to the beast having several moving parts which you needed to consider as well as really making you aware of spacial awareness. I may be wrong, but I also felt like this was the biggest of the divine beasts and I felt it had a best variety in puzzles. Also loved the boss. It was challenging but also had a key feature, this being fast. I felt that the other bosses, whilst having powerful attacks, were too slow to actually fully utilize them. Also really loved the music when riding towards the beast as well as inside it. . Anyway these are just my thoughts, how about you guys?

@Eric258 For various reasons that i'm going to explain it's Vah Ruta:

@FGPackers Yeah my second favourite was Ruta. Who wouldn't like the true husbando Sidon XD. I also really liked the puzzles there. Using the trunk to turn the turbine separate ways as well as using it as a means to scale the beast was also really cool. I like Mipha and her characters/backstory but her voice actor kinda ruined it for me. I felt if she delivered her lines better, I may have felt more emotional attached. Still felt really bad for her tho. Sometimes it just felt a bit awkward. Same experience as you with actually enjoying the aquatic part. I usually dread them in Zelda games but I really enjoyed it here. And yeah, Rudania was very disappointing. I felt like there was so much lost potential.

Stumbled upon the greatest BotW screenshot I've ever seen this morning on Twitter.

What are the chances of opening a chest right as a horse comes by and looks straight at the camera? Its face is priceless.

^ Photbombing at its very best! ^

Is Princess Zelda mama?

I wonder if anyone can help please, I managed to destroy 3 of the 4 Canons on Vah Medoh but I ran out of Bomb Arrows, will I have to destroy all of them again when I go back to him or will I just need to destroy the remaining 1? I'm not sure if I should go to a previous save where I have lots of Bombs Arrows or if I should try & buy some. Hope that makes sense lol, thanks

@Late AHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHAHA that's really awesome