Tricks and tips

[fragger]

We've had one for FC2, and we've had one for FC3, so I thought I'd initiate a "tricks and tips" topic for FC4.

And to get the ball rolling, here's a few (I'm figuring to help any newcomers to the game with these - those who have played are probably wise to them already):

There are places where you need to grapple, then swing across to another ledge. Once you've grappled and are hanging on the rope (don't climb up it too high) you can build up a good swing by alternating between your move forward and move backward controls. Build up a good swing, then use your release control above the target ledge to ensure you don't drop too early, fall down the rockface and brain yourself. With a little practice, this Tarzan-swing thing is kind of fun.

To help get your karma and skill levels up quickly, it's worth buying maps. You won't have a lot else to spend your money on early in the game anyway, and money will never be too much of a problem in this game - there are like ten million loot crates out there in addition to the dough and sellable junk that can be scrounged off dead baddies. When you're in a Trading screen, choose Maps and buy South Kyrat > Items. This will reveal locations to all the serial-killer Masks, Propaganda Posters, Mohan Ghale's Journals and Lost Letters (all these award bonus XPs when found) and Mani Wheels (which award Karma points). Before going north, you can also invest in Maps > Mid Kyrat > Items. Doing as many of the spontaneous pop-up Karma events as possible will also help to get your Karma level up faster, which in turn will get you cheaper stuff from shops/safehouse cabinets/Sherpas, among other things. You'll encounter heaps of these random Karma-boosting mini-missions along your way.

Make good use of the gyrocopters! They get you around very quickly, you can fire Sidearms and chuck things from them, and you can land them on the upper level of just about any Bell Tower, negating the need to do a lot of pesky platform jumping and climbing. You can take off again from there as well - unless, like me, you manage to botch the liftoff and send your gyro crashing down the middle of the tower in a rotor-flailing catastrophe...

Don't forget your baits - the animals they attract can cause your enemies a great deal of confusion and hurt, and can be quite an asset for conquering Outposts. Baits won't always w@&k though - sometimes you'll throw a bait and get a message saying something like, "No animals appear to be interested in the bait". Expect to see this if you've just wiped out all the wild animals in the immediate area... Even so, the bait will act like a rock - any enemies within earshot of its landing will hear it and go investigate. You can use plain arrows to distract enemies too, provided you don't fire too close to them.

Remember, elephants can take out more than just bad guys. They can give predatory animals a good trunk-slapping as well. I haven't attempted a one-on-one with a rhino yet - I dunno how Jumbo fares against those armoured juggernauts.

If you're being hassled by a flame-thrower dude, try to flank him and target his tanks. A few well-placed rounds will make them explode and turn the wearer into shish-kebab.

If you equip a mine and try to "place" it while you're standing, Ajay won't place the mine but will instead throw it a short distance. If you want to place a mine precisely: crouch, look down at the ground, then place. Ajay will then plant the mine precisely.

If a friendly AT (Assault Truck) stops near you and the Golden Path people get out, jump into the driver's seat and wait - after a moment, one or more of the GP guys will get back on board, as in FC3. Be careful though if you then use drive-and-shoot - I once had a gunner onboard and I accidentally blew him away whilst shooting behind me...

Finally, you might want to consider going to God mode to get through those silly and tedious Shangri-La missions. There are five of these, and even though all but the first one are optional you'll need to do at least two of them to unlock one of the Skills, which is the "Huntsman" one (reduces sway when using a bow) which in turn you'll need to subsequently unlock the "Breath Control" skill (increase time underwater, using oxygen masks and steadying sniper scopes). If you're anything like me, you'll find the Shangri-La missions to be a serious affront to the spirit of open-world, first-person-perspective shooting games. It may only be my opinionated self, but I think these missions majorly blow in a game mainly made up of majorly-maddening main missions (I may have invented a new tongue-twister there).

[PZ]

Great idea, fragger! +1

I can't add too much because I'm not that good a gamer, but if you are like me and want a boost in your weaponry, go in co-op with a partner that is well advanced in the game.  They can give you any of the weapons they have acquired

[Art Blade]

very nice, fragger :) +1 :-X

[nexor]

Slap on the back from fragger +1
Oops sorry, finger problem.......... ;D

[mandru]

 :)  :-X  +1

Edit additional: That +1 was for fragger.  :)

But on second thought PZ's tip to access unlocked weapons by playing team with someone willing to round out your armory with their acquired gear earns a +1 too.  :-X

[Binnatics]

I donate a kudo to Art, who pointed out that possibility in 'PZ's FC4 comments' :-X +1

;)

[mandru]

Binn, that's true but for someone doing a web search of "FC4 Tricks and tips" this thread would be would be the link that would pop up.

In FC2 we had a thread called "(funny) Tactics and Tips " that pulled together every possible edge that could be given to forum members and any visiting player in the game.  If there's going to be a similar useful thread (that becomes pinned at the top of the forum listings) here in FC4 it's important to get as many tips posted to make the thread useful to anyone seeking this sort of information.

Yes, I won't dispute that Art suggested that it was possible to unlock weapons in this fashion but it was on another thread that someone visiting the site might not ever find.  It's also true that PZ benefited from Art's suggestion so if PZ wants to fire off kudos in Art's direction that would be great.

I was not ignoring Art's input rather I was attempting to encourage (from all site members) an influx of material on this thread so that it could become growing healthy and highly useful.

I had been a long time Lurker here at OWG brought in by D_B's FC2 maps and stayed for the easy going group's atmosphere.  It was an unanswered question that one of the members had asked that I happened know the answer to that brought me out of the shadows and made me register to be able to reply.  I like the thought that a Tips and Tricks thread for FC4 might do the same for someone else.

This might be the wrong place to put all this off topic dialog and I'm perfectly willing to remove this post (to clean things up for appearances) once we are all on the same page and pushing this thread's topic into becoming a thread of utility worth coming back to revisit by all of us and non-member visitors to see if new help or ideas have been posted.  Who knows it may also be the draw to pull in more of the right caliber members.   :)

[PZ]

Spoken like a true moderator, mandru  :-X

I know the core of OWG membership never means any disrespect, nor does anyone want to take away any credit from others.  I can only speak for myself when I say that I simply forget consciously what I might retain subconsciously  :-()

+1 for AB though, because he was the first to post about it  :-X

[Binnatics]

Sorry Mandru, for arguing the contribution of some, by pointing at those of others. I don't mean to do that. I just wanted to point at the fact that Art had posted the tip earlier, because it seemed as if it was forgotten. Maybe a PM should've been more appropriate to do that :-D

Edit: Thinking twice I may not have chosen the right words to point out what I found of importance, so I edited my other post. Hope that's better :)

[mandru]

It's Ok Binnatics, no hard feelings.

I didn't feel like you were correcting or arguing with me and I knew that everything you'd said was true.  :)

[PZ]

I'm proud of you gents - the resolution of even insignificant disputes is at the heart of what OWG stands for - a collection of mature gamers interested n only furthering their camaraderie  :-X

[fragger]

Thanks for the kudos, chaps :)

And I am proud to be a member of this fine community :-X

When you're in a Trading screen, choose Maps and buy South Kyrat > Items. This will reveal locations to all the serial-killer Masks, Propaganda Posters, Mohan Ghale's Journals and Lost Letters (all these award bonus XPs when found) and Mani Wheels (which award Karma points).

Slight correction needs to be made here: the regional "- Items" maps will not reveal Masks. To see the locations of those, you need to buy the "- Masks" map for each region :)

[Dweller_Benthos]

Nice tips, I had forgotten the attack truck one to get a rider on the gun, nice to be reminded of that.

As for the Shangri-La missions, I'm kind of enjoying them. Sure, they may be a bit linear, and the landscape is total fantasy, but it's a nice change of pace from the regular stuff you get up to, and much better than the drugged out missions in FC3. The extent of melee combat may be a turn off if a player prefers the more weapon based stuff, so chalk that up to personal preference.

As for elephants vs. rhinos, I tried this on the one mission with Hurk where you ride the elephant out of the camp. At the top of the road, a rhino was actually helping us with the army guys who came by and made the mission much easier. Once that was all done, I tried attacking the rhino with the elephant and it didn't seem to do anything, but I didn't try too hard either. Requires more testing.

[Art Blade]

thanks for the kudos and a +1 :-X to Binnatics for his indisputable sense of justice (for "defending me") :)

[mandru]

Hmm I think I detect Team-Play loyalty.  ;)

[Binnatics]

 :)

[Art Blade]

out of loyalty, I can neither deny nor confirm any of that. :-()

[fragger]

Explosive arrows are a quick and relatively easy way to bring down choppers. One hit will nearly always do it (on Easy mode, anyway) and it saves you having to use up a weapon slot carrying something like an RPG or grenade launcher to deal with them - provided you have the recurved bow in your loadout, of course.

But then, ever since FC3 I've ALWAYS included a recurved bow with Marksman sight in my loadout. It's good for silent kills, distracting enemies, blowing things up, starting fires, and hunting smaller animals. It's like having several different weapons in one, and the normal arrows are recoverable. Plus, in FC4 if you kill an animal with arrows it counts as a "clean" kill and you get two skins from a single animal.

[Art Blade]

while building up your karma, avoid killing civilians because they count as minus fifty karma points each. I found out when I tried a blind long distance shot with a mortar, for fun, that you might still hit something or someone you didn't know was there..

Once you've reached karma level 8 (max) it will stay level 8 and that means you may henceforth kill civvies without any karma retaliation.  >:D

fragger mentioned baits, I would like you to add your buddies to the mix that you can send to assist you in fights. Use your camera to scout a post and you'll see that it shows that option if you "aim" at spots they will try to reach once you sent them. I only got one guy each time I tried but he was tough as nails and went right smack in the middle of the outpost or fortress. That will of course attract every merc's attention and you can pick cherries from afar with your silenced sniper or recurve bow. Apparently you can only send guys twice within a short amount of time while you're at it until the next time you do something like that there will be some type of cool down time.

[PZ]

Excellent tips +1 each  :-X

[Art Blade]

cheers  :)

[fragger]

Thanks PZ :) +1 from me Art, very nice tips :-X

[Art Blade]

thank you, fragger  :)

by the way, I meant "guns for hire" but didn't remember what they were called.

[PZ]

Maybe "buddies" would be a better name than "guns for hire".  I recall that our FC2 buddies would also cry and whine, begging for syrettes at the slightest discomfort.

"Guns for hire" somehow seems to be an undeserving attempt at a tough guy image when you think of what these buddies really do.

In fact, the phrase is entirely misleading because you can only have one at a time.  At best, they should be called "gun for hire"

[Art Blade]

how about "bait buddies"  -- you toss them, and mercs come running to eat them :-()