Topic: The Legend of Zelda: Breath of the Wild

@FishyS
Depends what you mean by harder monster.

If it's Lynels, I would leave them until much later; most other monsters can be defeated by using the environments and the weapons they drop. Using elemental weapons is a great help (fire on ice monsters, etc).
Going into battle full-pelt will only get you killed

@Rambler I'm just really good at not dieing while simultaneously losing all my weapons. Hard to defeat them with the weapons they drop when you have no weapons at all in the middle of a battle. >.< And I manage to destroy any specialized weapons before they are actually useful. And no, not Lynels, but for example giants and some types of guardians keep giving me issues. Sometimes wimpier things too like Yiga. It's just soooo easy to break all your weapons. And if you do die you come back to life with zero weapons...

I'm really trying not to quit this time around because I do enjoy a good 80% of the aspects of the game, but the way the game deals with weapons is ludicrous and frustrating. I realize there are lots of arguments pro and con, but personally I'm just trying to figure out if the game lets me play in a play style I can enjoy.

@FishyS for guardians you absolutely need to start parrying their beams. Don’t waste melee weapons on them, unless its the master sword.

If an automatic checkpoint leaves you weaponless, just load a previous save (save before any big battle). And get more slots for weapons with Hestu if you feel you run out of them too fast.

Parrying works even in the early game and the only shield you've got is a pot lid, but you're going to need a lot of trial and error to get the timing right. Make a hard save just before a Guardian fight with a full set of shields and repeatedly savescum until you can nail it regularly. It's not the end of the world if you can't though.

I'd stick by my prior advice that Guardians just aren't worth fighting in the early game though. All the stuff they drop is pretty much useless until you've opened up the Ancient Tech Lab in Akkala and, by that point, you should have the gear to be actively farming them.

Guardian Scouts, in shrines, are a different matter. You will get very good, if somewhat fragile, weapons and shield from them, as well as needing to win the fight to complete the shrine. However, get the Minor Test of Strength worked out before moving on to the Modest or Major tests. The enemies in them are a lot spongier and their weapons hit harder, even if the basic tactics are the same.

Losing all your shields and weapons inside a shrine before winning is especially annoying. I get the impression I am doing some things in the 'wrong' order, but I thought that was the point of an open world game. Regardless, I have temporarily gotten some fancier gear but still manage to near instantly destroy it all. >.<

As for big monsters, I like to kill them when I see them because otherwise I'll be picking apples and suddenly get 1-shot before I even know a monster is close. I would rather kill them first if I happen to notice them. Which would be easier if all my equipment wasn't broken half the time >.< By far the worst aspect of the game. I realize some people argue 'its not that bad' but considering almost every other aspect of the game is non-controversially good, it seems like they could have done better with equipment also.

Anyways, sorry for griping. Thank you all for the advice. This is literally the 4th time I've started the game and this time I am (so far) getting past my frustration and continuing longer, so we'll see if I can beat it... If I do maybe I'll join everyone in TotK a few months late.

While I don't mind the balance of weapons breaking vs discovering new ones over the normal course of gameplay, it was particularly irritating when you'd come across a damage sponge enemy like a Lynel that you'd break all of your weapons on. Before late game, of course, when your weapons would be tough enough to mostly withstand those sorts of encounters.

@Ralizah
But if you jump on a Lynel's back, your weapons are not affected.

Yeah, you can stun a Lynel with a perfect parry and jump on its back for free damage with no weapon or shield degradation, so it's entirely possible to take one down in the early game. It's going to take a long time if your best weapon is a travelers sword though.

Also, you've got to know how to fight them and, not knowing about their attack patterns or the timings, you'll probably just get pasted whenever you miss a parry.

Are you upgrading your armor at the fairy fountains? Once you get an armor set up to around level 8 or above, it should be pretty easy to avoid the one hit kills you refer to. The Hylian armor is probably the easiest to upgrade, as it only requires low level Bokoblin parts from what I remember.

Hi all, as i am unable to buy TotK at the moment, I decided to go back to BotW instead and finally play the DLC.

Problem is, I haven't played this game since it came out. I did 100% it then, I did all the shrines and korok seeds, got all the upgrades, looks like I completed the scanning library and beat all the monsters etc.

But all these years later I have no idea how the game plays or where anything is, I am a bit lost.

All the DLC quests popped when I booted the game. I thought I best do some side quests so I can get used to the controls and how the game plays before I start the champions ballad. But unfortunately, I started with the ancient bridle quest and have no idea where the clue is referencing 🤦‍♂️

Any tips for a lapsed player? Best weapon to use, best armour to use? How does the durability system work? Is it even a factor this late in the game with an OP link? I honestly just can't remember a lot at all and would love some guidance on how to (re)start this game so I can play the DLC content

Cheers!

Edit: More questions 😅

Do I just let weapons get destroyed or is there a way to repair them? Can you swim underwater? I feel so lost coming back to this game

I also have this game and the DLC with it, havent started playing it yet, I believe you can search youtube for a walk thorugh.

@ralphdibny lol Sounds like you should just replay the game, and do a run with DLC content this time.

No, there's no way to repair weapons, or to stop them from breaking. The flow of the game is one where you're cycling through weapons all the time. Gradually, as you play the game, you'll come across stronger weapons that take longer to break, but they'll still break eventually. Even the master sword breaks (although it repairs itself after a timer counts down). The universe is impermanent, and so are your weapons.

I've read some comments where people talked about trying to hoard their good weapons or something, but that's unnecessary. Use everything you have where appropriate (stronger weapons on Lynels, bosses, and stronger variations on normal enemies; weaker weapons on bog-standard Bokoblins and the like).

No underwater swimming in either this or TotK.

I'd suggest a walkthrough on the first DLC quest with the Master Sword (Trial of the Sword, I think?), as that can get pretty frustrating on your own. Full disclosure, I used a walkthrough for those trials, especially the last one. Playing for a significant amount of time and then dying and going back to the beginning of a trial is just the worst.

@Ralizah cheers, defo not Gona do a full run-through of the main game now though 😅. I honestly played it for like 3 months the first time around!

Thanks for the other bits of info, might have to just give it a bit of a play and try and get used to it. It's a weird sensation to revisit a game that I might as well have been breathing for 3 months like 5 or 6 years ago and just not have a clue how anything works now

@kms108 @mjharper thanks, walkthrough/video guide might make sense. Just as a crash course to get me familiar with the game again

I have to learn it again just to play late game content but don't get the gentle difficulty curve of the base game 😅

@ralphdibny In the botw pause menu, press R to get to the save, load, options menu. In there, there is an Abilities list. So, you can see a list of many of Link's abilities, and you can open each one to see what the controls are for each of those abilities.

Also, if you start a new game with another switch user, and just play the four shrines of the great plateau section, each of those four shrines are where you are introduced to each of link's sheika slate abilities. That might be enough to get you mostly up to speed? Since you've played the great plateau before, you still probably remember enough to breeze through it in about an hour. After the four shrines, I think the old guy gives you the paraglider. Or, actually, I think he does a "one more thing" move, and gives you one more shrine or mission before giving the glider. He's a rascal.😉

@WoomyNNYes haha thanks yeah doing the great plateau again might be a good idea actually. Will have to see how it works because I'm playing on Wii U. I could just do it in Master mode and stop after the great plateau. I feel like I will be too tempted to carry on though 😅

Cheers for the tips!

@ralphdibny
Completely off topic, but you a flash fan?

@blindsquarel yeah how could you tell? 😂

I actually haven't watched the programme in a few years tho tbh so I'm not up to date on it!

@ralphdibny
You only have the best character in the show as your username.

Don’t watch the new season. Other than episode 9 and 10, it might be the worst superhero content ever made.

@blindsquarel 😂 I actually fell off the show around the time they sacked off Dibbers, he was kind of the heart of the show at that point giving much needed levity to proceedings