Support NeoGAF

[Veelk]

You would hate the walking dead lol

The show? Oh, I do. I despise it so much. I'm so happy my friends dropped it at season 5 so I could stop hate watching it. The characters are so comically stupid, while the zombie appearances are so transparently artificial. That's my chief problem with the zombie genre as a whole. I can't believe in it because the solutions to containing or suppressing an outbreak are clear an obvious. Wear armor that the zombies can't bite through. Outrun them if they can only hobble towards you. Don't allow yourself into an enclosed area unless you've checked out the surrounding area. Simple shit.

I heard good things about the game, though I haven't played that. Or read the comic.

I should read World War Z. I have it around here somewhere and I heard it addresses a lot of the logistical complaints of Zombie tropes.

 

[tallbroski]

I do wonder what will happen when Ellie learns the truth about what Joel did to the Fireflies.

She knows Joel is lying and she accepts it because it means that she has found someone who cares for her and she also will not have the guilt that she is the cure. It was all subtle though

 

[igordennis]

I ain't even trying that bullshit. I hate it when games are frustrating to the point of stupidity. I already find some of the encounters in the game over the top, I don't need to amp it up. A lot of the fights wouldn't be different from how I played them out (I stealth whenever possible), but the enemy rushes would just be obnoxious.

I played it on Hard with Listen mode off. I feel that was the exact sweet spot I needed. I struggled with finding ammo through the whole game (I spent maybe 80% of the game with neither clip of either of my pistols full, never capped out at any ammo, hell, I had no arrows for my bow until way after Bill's town) and was forced to play smart, and the one time I tried to just go all rambo (near the end of the game, where I realized there was no point in saving anything up anymore), I barely survived despite putting all I had into it. I MIGHT try Survivor someday, but I don't think I will because I don't want to start from scratch again. I want my new game+. But I'm not even touching Grounded.

Edit: Honestly, what I really like about my playthrough is that because every bullet counted, I felt I had to make a more concious choice to make every bullet count. As a result, I ONLY shot when I felt reasonably sure that I would hit something. As a result, my hit/miss ratio is a 76% for hit, which is crazy to me, because every other game it's like in the mid 30's.

Edit 2: Also, I added a little ludonarrative cohesion (whats the opposite of dissonance) by going rambo at the firefly headquarters. The entire game, Joel fought super carefully and stealthily. I thought it was appropriate to his character that this is the one point where he would be more reckless and crazy in his fighting style. He still used cover and everything, he wasn't stupid, but he could have been a lot less brutal and more efficient than he was, which in my interpretation reflected how addled he was by the idea of losing Ellie again.

I beat grounded. I must have found like 5 bullets thorought the whole playthrough lol. Shit was hard. Survivor i feel is the best difficulty. Hard still has a bit too much supplies. In survivor you are scrounging up everything thing you can. In grounded you dont even try lol (jk you do but its a disappointment 99% of the time). Grounded is probably the most "realistic" difficulty though in terms of how much supplies you could find in zombie world 20 years in.

 

[OfTheOverflow]

Great analysis, it's testament to the depth of the game that this much can be drawn from it, whether intentionally or otherwise. It's the little touches, literally sometimes, with Joel's watch, that set this game apart. I hope Druckmann can do something similarly unconventional with U4. Ooh, on that note, would be cool if there was a Joel skin in U4.

 

[Veelk]

I beat grounded. I must have found like 5 bullets thorought the whole playthrough lol. Shit was hard. Survivor i feel is the best difficulty. Hard still has a bit too much supplies. In survivor you are scrounging up everything thing you can. In grounded you dont even try lol (jk you do but its a disappointment 99% of the time). Grounded is probably the most "realistic" difficulty though in terms of how much supplies you could find in zombie world 20 years in.

Are you exaggerating about 5 bullets? Christ...

With Hard, I found myself the equivalent of living paycheck to paycheck. I had enough bullets to get through an encounter or two if I needed to, but not for anything more than that. For me, that's the sweet spot, because I still stealthed whenever possible, so playing as conservatively as possible, I was JUST able to make it, which seemed appropriate for a character like Joel. For me, that's the sweet spot. I felt I was being rewarded for playing smart by having JUST enough to get me through, but never so much that I could rest easy. I don't think I'd be happy with anything harder.

 

[Oxn]

Are you exaggerating about 5 bullets? Christ...

With Hard, I found myself the equivalent of living paycheck to paycheck. I had enough bullets to get through an encounter or two if I needed to, but not for anything more than that. For me, that's the sweet spot, because I still stealthed whenever possible, so playing as conservatively as possible, I was JUST able to make it, which seemed appropriate for a character like Joel. For me, that's the sweet spot. I felt I was being rewarded for playing smart by having JUST enough to get me through, but never so much that I could rest easy. I don't think I'd be happy with anything harder.

Play as conservative as possible, then find a way to play even more conservative.

There are two tricks actually.

Knife or brick everyone,

Or

Use up all your ammo, and the enemies will start dropping ammo more frequently. Although u can have only a very limited amount of ammo in your inventory, u can make them drop by having none in your inventory.

 

[Veelk]

Play as conservative as possible, then find a way to play even more conservative.

Thanks for the tips. I did the former tactic for most of my Hard playthrough, and figured out the latter towards that exact part with Ellie you posted. Obviously it's more useful in Grounded than Hard, but Hard was difficult enough that the two voluntarily rambo rampages I went through left me wounded and weaponless. Though the problem is that it makes it more gamey, and brings me out of the immersion of the world, which I dislike. I was already kind of annoyed how all the survivors clearly had bullets in their guns when they were alive and shooting me, but every time I killed them, they conveniently used up all they had.

There are games where I feel the gameplay is the grand attraction, and while LoU's gameplay is certainly very good, it's not what I play it for. I play it for the story, for which the purpose of the gameplay is to depict how Joel and Ellie survive in a harsh world, rather than be a mechanics system that you toy around with for your own purposes.

It's cool that people who played Grounded found it enjoyable (I remember a thread about it where they were basically stunned by how desperately difficult it was), but I just don't need that level of difficulty in the game for myself.

 

[igordennis]

Thanks for the tips. I did the former tactic for most of my Hard playthrough, and figured out the latter towards that exact part with Ellie you posted. Obviously it's more useful in Grounded than Hard, but Hard was difficult enough that the two voluntarily rambo rampages I went through left me wounded and weaponless. Though the problem is that it makes it more gamey, and brings me out of the immersion of the world, which I dislike. I was already kind of annoyed how all the survivors clearly had bullets in their guns when they were alive and shooting me, but every time I killed them, they conveniently used up all they had.

There are games where I feel the gameplay is the grand attraction, and while LoU's gameplay is certainly very good, it's not what I play it for. I play it for the story, for which the purpose of the gameplay is to depict how Joel and Ellie survive in a harsh world, rather than be a mechanics system that you toy around with for your own purposes.

It's cool that people who played Grounded found it enjoyable (I remember a thread about it where they were basically stunned by how desperately difficult it was), but I just don't need that level of difficulty in the game for myself.

Ah yes. Grounded/survivor is definitely something different that requires you to use the game's system to your advantage more. That definitely makes it more gamey you are absolutely right, thats why i still recommend hard (with no listen mode) for first playthroughs. I was talking more about how survivor is the perfect mix of challenging yet still doable tasks. So its not the perfect "experience" but its the "perfect" gameplay (that the game can offer). Its something for you to do after you have beaten the game and liked it and want to enjoy the gameplay some more and at the same time be forced to get know the game even better by having to search every nook and cranny (so finding more stuff that organically tells the story of the world, conversations etc).

 

[Veelk]

Ah yes. Grounded/survivor is definitely something different that requires you to use the game's system to your advantage more. That definitely makes it more gamey you are absolutely right, thats why i still recommend hard (with no listen mode) for first playthroughs. I was talking more about how survivor is the perfect mix of challenging yet still doable tasks. So its not the perfect "experience" but its the "perfect" gameplay (that the game can offer). Its something for you to do after you have beaten the game and liked it and want to enjoy the gameplay some more and at the same time be forced to get know the game even better by having to search every nook and cranny (so finding more stuff that tell the story of the world, conversations etc).

You know the funny thing? During my first playthrough when the game released, I missed a lot but managed to get all the Ellie Joke conversations. This playthrough, I scoured the game for everything, but I somehow missed Ellie pulling out her pun book for every part of the game except the one with Sam. I was very annoyed.

Anyway, I probably might replay it, but to do that would require me to abandon my NG+, so if I do do it, it won't be until way later down the line. I hate not being able to upgrade everything on a first playthrough, so having all stuff upgraded from Hard would be a real nice incentive to immediately go into survivor. Without that, I'm ehing on the whole thing.