Is there a better way to grind to level 50 after the story?

[Vault-TecPhantom]

28 minutes ago, mega-tallica said:

 

That makes sense, I really did not like Death Stranding either as a game but the game engine is quite impressive from a graphics and performance standpoint. Not so much on the gameplay side though. A game of endless, repetitive carrier missions? No thank you. And the story was nothing but Kojima trying to prove how good of a writer he is. The whole game just comes off as existing simply to stroke Kojima's ego but ultimately is an absolute bore to play. I wish we got Silent Hills instead. 

 

We're on the same page as far as the state of modern gaming compared to older generations. The younger generation seems to have totally different perspectives and opinions on what games should be so the games these days are reflecting that. Easy, formulaic, story driven games is the new standard. Since most people on this site seem to lean on the younger side, it's gotten me into quite a bit of trouble in my short time here. My opinions tend to be contrarian to the current popular ones. The younger generation is obsessed with graphics and performance, I'm from the generation where the gameplay is the most important thing by far and graphics and performance is secondary. Nowadays that's been flipped and it makes it very frustrating to not only appreciate the new generation of games that cater to the graphics snob generation but also fit in with the current gaming community that has completely different perspectives than I do most of the time. Product of getting older I suppose. 

 

Those early PS3 titles had some ridiculous trophy lists, that's for sure. That was before trophy hunting became a thing and developers just came up with some ridiculous, off the wall trophy requirements that are extremely difficult, some literally impossible. Now that trophy hunting is a fairly decent sized niche group in the gaming community, developers have caught on and are making trophy lists easier as a way to market the game to trophy hunters and make them sell more copies and it works. Trophy hunters will play a game whether they like it or not just to get the trophies for it if it's easy enough. The indie game market has definitely benefited from this exploit as well which is why there's a whole genre of games that are extremely short and extremely easy to get the platinum that require next to no effort. You're basically paying for a platinum trophy and there's entire forums and channels on YouTube that dedicate their time to finding these quick, easy platinum games. It's really trivialized the whole thing but it's also brought in a lot more people to the trophy hunting world so I suppose that's a plus. 

 

It's still frustrating to read all the whining and moaning when a game comes out and it has a difficult trophy list or a few particular hard ones. It's a weird form of entitlement to expect every games trophy list to be as easy and exactly what you want all the time. Diversity is good. Too many easy games being released nowadays, there's still very much a need and craving for games that are more difficult to balance it out. Even the 'hard' games of today are a cakewalk compared to many games of the past. Difficulty has been extremely dumbed down for sure. 

 

I'm sorry but there are some exceptionally bad takes here. I am what you might consider of the older variety and from my experience it's the older generation that has a warped perception of games, conflating nostalgia for old-school difficulty with bad, undeveloped game design.  Graphics are subjective, sure, and it largely depends on what type of gaming you're making as to whether it matters or not, but performance actively affects gameplay. A game with bad performance can render a game unplayable, especially during combat. Many older games ran well because they were less demanding of the hardware. Today, games are more ambitious which leads to all manner of performance issues and why you often hear complaints about performance (and bugs). That has nothing to do with age but understanding how game design work.

 

Lastly, difficult trophies are fine as long as the requirement is reasonable and doesn't force you to play the game in a nonsensical way or cause problems to your health (that dreadful permadeath requirement in Wolfenstein 2 New Colossus springs to mind...)

[mega-tallica]

6 minutes ago, Vault-TecPhantom said:

 

I'm sorry but there are some exceptionally bad takes here. I am what you might consider of the older variety and from my experience it's the older generation that has a warped perception of games, conflating nostalgia for old-school difficulty with bad, undeveloped game design.  Graphics are subjective, sure, and it largely depends on what type of gaming you're making as to whether it matters or not, but performance actively affects gameplay. A game with bad performance can render a game unplayable, especially during combat. Many older games ran well because they were less demanding of the hardware. Today, games are more ambitious which leads to all manner of performance issues and why you often hear complaints about performance (and bugs). That has nothing to do with age but understanding how game design work.

 

Lastly, difficult trophies are fine as long as the requirement is reasonable and doesn't force you to play the game in a nonsensical way or cause problems to your health (that dreadful permadeath requirement in Wolfenstein 2 New Colossus springs to mind...)

 

I never said all new games are bad, I just think the general style of modern games are moving away from the style I enjoy. Of course nostalgia has a lot to do with that. Whatever generation you grew up in is always the best in your mind. It'll be no different than the current generation thinking these new games are the best games ever when the next generation takes over after them bringing their own new standards and opinions. Warped perception works the other way too. You don't know what you missed if you never experienced it. 

 

Yes, the games are more ambitious from a technical standpoint because they have the technology to do it but I feel the gameplay of modern games has suffered as a result. Pushing the tech to make everything look better, but not necessarily play better or be fun to play and make you come back to it just to experience it again. AAA video games have become more Hollywood productions of sorts where, like Hollywood, they establish a formula that works and they stick to it. Make things look as aesthetically pleasing as possible to distract you from the fact the game itself is not as good as how it looks. 

 

Games of the past were ambitious too, for their time. Of course looking back now they look archaic and simple. There was a time when people hailed the original Tomb Raider's as having amazing graphics and the notorious dinosaur was used as a tech demo for many years for the PS1. That was ambitious back then per the tech that they had but of course now compared to Horizon or whatever, it looks like a joke. Games like Gran Turismo were so technologically ambitious back then that they still hold up today even for modern standards. It's not that modern games are more ambitious, it's just that they have better technology to make these bigger games stuffed with content and that's a big difference. And they can fix a game post-release, couldn't do that back in the day. You had to spend the extra development time to make sure the game wasn't a glitchy, buggy mess because there was no fixing it later and I think that also inherently improved the quality of many older games. Now, many games are released 3/4th's complete and maybe they'll fix it weeks/months later. That has nothing to do with being more ambitious for why this is happening and has more to do with developers wanting to save some money. A lot of money. Instead of hiring the thousands of playtesters it would require to test these new massive games they're making and spending all that money, they push a lot of the playtesting onto the first wave of buyers who are paying the developers to playtest their own game. Making money while saving money. It's brilliant from a business standpoint, why wouldn't they take advantage of that? But it's only advantageous to them as long as people still trust them to fix the issues post-release and are still willing to play the games in the early states they come in. 

 

There were a lot of bad games back then too, don't get me wrong. Downright horrid games and there's downright horrid games made today, they just happen to look better than the horrid games of the past did. I'm not saying all games pre-PS4 were good and all new games suck, if that's how you interpreted what I'm trying to say then yeah, that is a horrible take but that's not really what I'm saying nor am I saying that easier games mean they're undeveloped or bad. That's not even close to what I said so hopefully I did a better job elaborating this time. 

 

I never even said Horizon 2 is a bad game because it's not, it's just painfully boring like many other games of its kind. The only thing that makes it stand out is again, the aesthetics. It looks absolutely fantastic and the art design and level of detail is fantastic on the machines and world in general. That though to me, does not make the game inherently better just because it looks good. That's like saying a book is good just because the artwork on the cover looks good. Yeah, that's cool to look at and oh and ah over but what's the book about? That's what I look for and want to know, not just what it paints itself as on the surface. 

[Optinooby]

Yea, you DEFINITELY won't get to level 50 doing ONLY trophy related tasks, you actually only hit about level 40.

 

It's not a big problem, just kinda annoying as all the guides are saying 'You will hit level 50 while doing all other trophies' and so they don't even provide any optimal farming methods XD!!

 

For farming, I've still gotta try some other things first, but I found a spot up on the far northern edge of the map from the center. 2 x Tremor Tusks spawn there so you can get  12k every minute or so depending how quick you are killing them.

[ClarkZuckerberg]

Wow this thread got derailed fast lmao. Came here hoping for some tips but just people telling others how they should play/spend their time. I've done all trophies except level 50 and am level 43. I feel I've explored all that I want out of this game but just want to pick up the plat before deleting it and moving on. Guess I'll look elsewhere for tips.

 

21 hours ago, Optinooby said:

Yea, you DEFINITELY won't get to level 50 doing ONLY trophy related tasks, you actually only hit about level 40.

 

It's not a big problem, just kinda annoying as all the guides are saying 'You will hit level 50 while doing all other trophies' and so they don't even provide any optimal farming methods XD!!

 

For farming, I've still gotta try some other things first, but I found a spot up on the far northern edge of the map from the center. 2 x Tremor Tusks spawn there so you can get  12k every minute or so depending how quick you are killing them.

 

Yeah found it odd that PowerPyx of all people would be saying this. They know the trophy game inside and out usually. Thanks for the tip, I'll try that.

[ImAPirateSoSueMe]

22 hours ago, Optinooby said:

Yea, you DEFINITELY won't get to level 50 doing ONLY trophy related tasks, you actually only hit about level 40.

 

It's not a big problem, just kinda annoying as all the guides are saying 'You will hit level 50 while doing all other trophies' and so they don't even provide any optimal farming methods XD!!

 

For farming, I've still gotta try some other things first, but I found a spot up on the far northern edge of the map from the center. 2 x Tremor Tusks spawn there so you can get  12k every minute or so depending how quick you are killing them.

I did everything required for trophies before the last mission and hit 50 no problem. Beating the game was my last trophy.

[ClarkZuckerberg]

On 2022-03-06 at 3:06 AM, Optinooby said:

For farming, I've still gotta try some other things first, but I found a spot up on the far northern edge of the map from the center. 2 x Tremor Tusks spawn there so you can get  12k every minute or so depending how quick you are killing them.

 

Couldn't find the spot you were talking about, but I went to a spot with 1x Tremortusk on sort of an frozen ice lake just circling it by himself. Campfire right next to it. Loaded up with fast travel kits so I could travel fast away after killing the machine, then use the camp fire I travelled to to return with for "free". Turned story mode on. Was level 43. Took 1.5 hours to get to level 50. 5625xp per kill. Took about 1-1.5 minutes per kill all-in. Considering many side quests/errands that could take you 10+ minutes each (minimum) might give you similar XP, this felt like the best use of time management by far.

 

So thanks for the idea! Not bad at all for how many levels I needed.

[Optinooby]

9 hours ago, ImAPirateSoSueMe said:

I did everything required for trophies before the last mission and hit 50 no problem. Beating the game was my last trophy.

 

Yea the finer details get overlooked, you have 'all the requirements for trophies', but amongst all that, player X may kill every enemy they pass as they go through the game even though those enemies can be ran past, or may farm a bit, do non-trophy related SQs, get extra collectibles, try to upgrade expensive or extra gear so some extra farming is entailed with that etc etc.

 

All that extra stuff is not required for trophies, it all depends on the player.

 

Those of us who are only level 40+ after every other trophy is proof that minimal trophy related tasks take you only to level 40ish.

 

Getting to level 50 is completely out of the Guide Authors control as that solely relies on the player and how they play which can never be predicted, ESPECIALLY when Trophy Guides also tell you in Step 1 of the Roadmap 'play the game how you want because nothing is missable except for x'.

 

All a Guide Author can control is the minimum, but most the Trophy Guides for HFW are assuming you will play like the author or play a certain way at least even though they advise to play how you want!!

 

It's not a big problem, all the Trophy Guides out there for this are pretty awesome and of course 'serve there purpose'

 

I guess those of us who are having to farm are 'just saying'

 

7 hours ago, ClarkZuckerberg said:

 

Couldn't find the spot you were talking about, but I went to a spot with 1x Tremortusk on sort of an frozen ice lake just circling it by himself. Campfire right next to it. Loaded up with fast travel kits so I could travel fast away after killing the machine, then use the camp fire I travelled to to return with for "free". Turned story mode on. Was level 43. Took 1.5 hours to get to level 50. 5625xp per kill. Took about 1-1.5 minutes per kill all-in. Considering many side quests/errands that could take you 10+ minutes each (minimum) might give you similar XP, this felt like the best use of time management by far.

 

So thanks for the idea! Not bad at all for how many levels I needed.

 

Sorry you couldn't find it, it's sorta off north of where you were actually, right on the north edge on another snowy mountain.

 

I was going to make a guide for it, but I'll wait as I wanna get a optimal build for it first around Heavy Weapons. The weapons on the Tremortusk are so powerful.

 

You only have to go 100steps away from the site and they respawn, no need to fast travel.

 

I went to all the sites for all the heavy machines, this site is the only one with 2 x Heavy Machines together

Edited March 7, 2022 by Optinooby

[Control_Fu]

In my experience, if you complete side missions and also collect collectibles like drones, vista points etc then you level-up very fast. And if you don't want to do that, then change your game difficulty to story mode and kill common machines like bristleback, stalkers etc. They die very quickly on story mode and you can level up pretty fast. 

 

Plus this way, you can gather some shards and machine parts that can come in-handy for you, if you start playing again on normal or higher mode. 

[espjh2]

After finishing the campaign and doing tasks only requried for trophies, by the end of it all I was around level 46. I ended up doing the Hunting Grounds 'Heavy Weapons Trial' to get the remaining levels. Kill the Tremortusk for around 5K per kill, rinse and repeat. Did not take long at all.