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[TheOctodad]

I don't know, it seemed to me that there were a lot of instances where the game threw you in situations you could definitely predict the outcome of, but it would supersede these moments with its own little twist on these conventions (story spoilers ahead):

Spoiler

For instance, I saw Sam's death coming from a mile away, but I didn't expect his brother Henry to commit suicide immediately afterwards. Also, I think we all knew something bad was going to happen once Joel and Ellie reached the Fireflies, but man, I did not expect Joel to react so selfishly and violently to the situation. The way the Winter chapter broke the fourth wall with the leader of the bandits questioning Ellie's motivations behind murdering his crew in the prior level was also a fantastic moment that I was not expecting.

Spoiler

I agree. And I honestly expected Joel to die. I thought the most tropey moment would have been for Joel to actually die in that part, or for him to die at the end. To leave them both alive was unexpected.

In my opinion the word "trope" is thrown around far too often. You are damned if you do, damned if you don't. What possible story could be told that someone wouldn't call "trope" on?

 

[brickarts295]

Christ almighty, Grounded Veterans, how did guys manage to beat Pittsburgh? The section where

Spoiler

you give Ellie the hunting riffle

has to be one of the most nerve wrecking section of this game. That part made the

Spoiler

Hotel Basement

look like a joke.

 

[FlutterPuffs]

Spoiler

I agree. And I honestly expected Joel to die. I thought the most tropey moment would have been for Joel to actually die in that part, or for him to die at the end. To leave them both alive was unexpected.

In my opinion the word "trope" is thrown around far too often. You are damned if you do, damned if you don't. What possible story could be told that someone wouldn't call "trope" on?

Pretty much.

Anything is a trope. What matters is the execution, and TLoU's execution of its story is fantastic.

 

[Mentok]

Just finished my 2nd playthrough...considering jumping to grounded now, but I kind of want to play the mp and dlc first. How hard are the mp trophies (won't affect if I play or not, just curious)?

 

[border]

I beat the game on normal and thought it was a pretty fun challenge, and I am comfortable using the stealth mechanics.

Where do I go next? Survivor? Grounded?

 

[Scarphace]

Just beat the campaign for the first time ever and all I can say is holy shit, what a game!

Spoiler

I thought they were gonna give you a choice at the end with Ellie but keeping it the way it was opens the door for a sequel.

I was latched on to game for the second half, couldn't stop playing. Amazing Naughty Dog, just amazing!

 

[TheOctodad]

I beat the game on normal and thought it was a pretty fun challenge, and I am comfortable using the stealth mechanics.

Where do I go next? Survivor? Grounded?

Just go all out and do grounded +. You can use your normal loadouts if you do the trick people talked about.

 

[LegendX48]

Christ almighty, Grounded Veterans, how did guys manage to beat Pittsburgh? The section where

Spoiler

you give Ellie the hunting riffle

has to be one of the most nerve wrecking section of this game. That part made the

Spoiler

Hotel Basement

look like a joke.

Gotta be a ninja and don't forget that more people spawn in as soon as the initial crowd is disposed of.

 

[Chance Hale]

Christ almighty, Grounded Veterans, how did guys manage to beat Pittsburgh? The section where

Spoiler

you give Ellie the hunting riffle

has to be one of the most nerve wrecking section of this game. That part made the

Spoiler

Hotel Basement

look like a joke.

Sneak around, you can take out the entire first wave without being seen. At that point continue sneaking until spotted and drag the rest up to the second story to take out with a molotov/play cat and mouse with around the office.

The cabin part is death on grounded, horrible horrible death.

 

[milkham]

Sneak around, you can take out the entire first wave without being seen. At that point continue sneaking until spotted and drag the rest up to the second story to take out with a molotov/play cat and mouse with around the office.

The cabin part is death on grounded, horrible horrible death.

Gotta be a ninja and don't forget that more people spawn in as soon as the initial crowd is disposed of.

Christ almighty, Grounded Veterans, how did guys manage to beat Pittsburgh? The section where

Spoiler

you give Ellie the hunting riffle

has to be one of the most nerve wrecking section of this game. That part made the

Spoiler

Hotel Basement

look like a joke.

Do they always spawn in a second wave?
I just did it again and I gave up stealth right away blowing up 4 guys with a nail bomb while they're still talking about how everyone is

Spoiler

dead

choked a guy who was coming around the right side, then made it up to the guy with the high vantage point. I spent the rest of the time on the truck and ellie killed another bunch of guys when they saw me arrow a guy from above. I went down and ellie killed the last guy before i could run up to him and I didn't notice a second wave, unless they came in earlier than I was expecting.

 

[Chance Hale]

Not sure how it works if you go loud but there is definitely a very clear second wave that arrives if you play stealth as you can run around for 10 seconds or so before anyone shows up.

Cabin is way too long a sequence to not have a checkpoint. GRRRRRRR

Edit: One thing I really wish they would have changed is how long blood stains last. Always thought the wall/ground splatters were weirdly inconsistent but it seems like the splatters do actually interact with them, they just usually disappear in 2 or 3 seconds. Seems silly.

Not sure about their load claims either, pop-in is just as bad as it was on the PS3. Especially noticeable in the university section.

 

[leng jai]

Have ND said anything about a patch yet?

 

[LegendX48]

Do they always spawn in a second wave?
I just did it again and I gave up stealth right away blowing up 4 guys with a nail bomb while they're still talking about how everyone is

Spoiler

dead

choked a guy who was coming around the right side, then made it up to the guy with the high vantage point. I spent the rest of the time on the truck and ellie killed another bunch of guys when they saw me arrow a guy from above. I went down and ellie killed the last guy before i could run up to him and I didn't notice a second wave, unless they came in earlier than I was expecting.

iirc, yeah but the 2nd wave is only like 6 or 7 people. Two straight to the right of the start of the encounter, two all the way at the end of the area and I think the other two are straight to the left. I've actually bumped into them as they were spawning before back on the PS3 version but sometimes, if you go full stealth, they'll just spawn and stay put. They did on my grounded ninja run of that area.

 

[plainr_]

I beat Grounded NG+ just now! It's time to go treasure hunting.

 

[border]

Just go all out and do grounded +. You can use your normal loadouts if you do the trick people talked about.

How do I get to Grounded+ if I've only beaten Normal Mode?

 

[TheLostBigBoss]

How do I get to Grounded+ if I've only beaten Normal Mode?

You beat the game on Grounded.

 

[D23]

Finally made it to fall. Fuck that sniper part. I died so many times

 

[Tsukumo]

Christ almighty, Grounded Veterans, how did guys manage to beat Pittsburgh? The section where

Spoiler

you give Ellie the hunting riffle

has to be one of the most nerve wrecking section of this game. That part made the

Spoiler

Hotel Basement

look like a joke.

Spoiler

at the start of the fight the first group will gather under the hanged man and chat. A nail bomb or a Molotov will kill three of them for sure, maybe four if you wait for the right moment. If you die, continue, and the enemies are already dispersed, restart the checkpoint from the pause menu.
After that it's very useful to get to the upper level of the coffee shop and hide into the office in the building right to its side. All the enemies will funnel into that little... window-walk (?) and the metal planks which connect the two buildings: they are easy (multiple) targets for some devastating shotgun action. If you nest there you won't get suppressing fire from Ellie though.
If they get into the office, just switch to stealth since there are so many desks you will be able to circle around any intruder.
Another trick, that's pretty much relevant in every session where you have suppressing fire from Ellie and other characters, is to tap the aim button so that Joel will pop up from cover for a split second: it's quite an immersion-breaker but very effective at higher difficulties and the AI will be able to cheap-hit you anyway.
This is very useful in later sections: you've seen nothing XD

Grounded and Survivor difficulties should have been calibrated better. They never get into pure bullshit territory (like Fubar difficulty in Spec Ops the Line) but they make some sections downright memorable and other sections into rage fuel.

 

[blinkz]

Spoiler

at the start of the fight the first group will gather under the hanged man and chat. A nail bomb or a Molotov will kill three of them for sure, maybe four if you wait for the right moment. If you die, continue, and the enemies are already dispersed, restart the checkpoint from the pause menu.
After that it's very useful to get to the upper level of the coffee shop and hide into the office in the building right to its side. All the enemies will funnel into that little... window-walk (?) and the metal planks which connect the two buildings: they are easy (multiple) targets for some devastating shotgun action. If you nest there you won't get suppressing fire from Ellie though.
If they get into the office, just switch to stealth since there are so many desks you will be able to circle around any intruder.
Another trick, that's pretty much relevant in every session where you have suppressing fire from Ellie and other characters, is to tap the aim button so that Joel will pop up from cover for a split second: it's quite an immersion-breaker but very effective at higher difficulties and the AI will be able to cheap-hit you anyway.
This is very useful in later sections: you've seen nothing XD

Grounded and Survivor difficulties should have been calibrated better. They never get into pure bullshit territory (like Fubar difficulty in Spec Ops the Line) but they make some sections downright memorable and other sections into rage fuel.

Pretty much exactly what I did, for some reason the second wave spawned in a different spot and were not moving at all so it made taking them out easy. Not sure how I managed that but I wasn't going to complain..

Spoiler

The hardest part of grounded was the winter area with the bloater that took me a good 20 tries to finally have enough ammo and a Molotov to take out the bloater

overall it wasn't too difficult a lot of areas you can just sneak thru and the AI being a bit dumb at spotting you when they are super close helped.

Spoiler

I did have to redo 20 minutes of gameplay two times on the final mission taking out all the fireflies in the first room you fight them in since there was a lot of them and so many areas they could be in... didn't get a checkpoint until I reached the operating room.

Not planing on a G+ run since it would be so much easier with my upgrades.

 

[ExplodingKetchup]

Also in Pittsburgh in the sewers -

Spoiler

You can kill the clickers/runners in that last section where you're trapped in the room with Henry by going outside the room and looking at that doorway across from the elevator. Throw a molotov there when they first spawn and you'll get nearly all of them at once. It's pretty funny, actually.

 

[brickarts295]

Done, took the first wave (7 dudes I think) stealthily, 2nd wave, took 4 guys stealthy, manage to arrow 2 more and just straight on shot the last 2. JESUS CHRIST! This section would've been fine if they'd at least put a checkpoint after the first wave, having to redo 5-15 minutes over and over again is just annoying. Ugh, Grounded mode is gonna be the end of me, can't wait for the sniper section -_-

 

[Gaz_RB]

I don't understand the point of shaking the controller when your flashlight is getting low. Usually when there is six-axis interaction it has some sort of real life connect with what you're doing. What is the point of shaking the controller to fix the light?

Am I missing something?

You're not shaking it. At least that's not what you're supposed to be doing, and not what the animation is instructing you to do.

You're supposed to be hitting the controller against your hand, as if the flashlight wasn't working right so you hit a few times until it works.

 

[Mentok]

Done, took the first wave (7 dudes I think) stealthily, 2nd wave, took 4 guys stealthy, manage to arrow 2 more and just straight on shot the last 2. JESUS CHRIST! This section would've been fine if they'd at least put a checkpoint after the first wave, having to redo 5-15 minutes over and over again is just annoying. Ugh, Grounded mode is gonna be the end of me, can't wait for the sniper section -_-

Trick that worked for me on the sniper section:

Spoiler

Go to the left side. Drop down to the back of the white house and you'll hear "get em boys" (or something to that effect), go back up and hide behind the brick wall. Hide there with the camera angle peaking over the top, so you can see when the guys walk by you. Once they do, jump over the wall and crouch walk all the way down. When you are at the fence, prep a smoke grenade and throw it over. Once it goes off, full out sprint out from the fence, run to the left and behind that house. Then it's easy-peasy to the sniper.

Granted, this worked on a lower difficulty, but I'm willing to bet it similarly works in grounded.

 

[brickarts295]

Trick that worked for me on the sniper section:

Spoiler

Go to the left side. Drop down to the back of the white house and you'll hear "get em boys" (or something to that effect), go back up and hide behind the brick wall. Hide there with the camera angle peaking over the top, so you can see when the guys walk by you. Once they do, jump over the wall and crouch walk all the way down. When you are at the fence, prep a smoke grenade and throw it over. Once it goes off, full out sprint out from the fence, run to the left and behind that house. Then it's easy-peasy to the sniper.

Granted, this worked on a lower difficulty, but I'm willing to bet it similarly works in grounded.

Thanks, I'll definitely try this.

 

[Marvel]

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=TUaX5XQUVxo

Excellent.

 

[TheLostBigBoss]

You're not shaking it. At least that's not what you're supposed to be doing, and not what the animation is instructing you to do.

You're supposed to be hitting the controller against your hand, as if the flashlight wasn't working right so you hit a few times until it works.

...Wut

I've been doing it wrong for the past year!?

 

[Chance Hale]

Damn it, just got to the last conversation only for the trophy not to pop......36/37. I know I hit every single one.

 

[LowEndTorque]

Just finished a survivor run. The game has held up very well. Looks and plays beautifully on PS4. Gorgeous.

I love how random things just happen depending on how you decide to approach an encounter and what weapon you happen to have in your hand. Sneak up behind a guy and bash his head in with a brick... but oh shit, his buddy heard the ruckus and you didn't see him pop around the corner run up behind you and whack you over the head with a two by four. Your brick is gone but luckily you have an axe as your melee weapon and you split buddy's head open. But here comes another guy charging at you. Pull out your revolver and he runs away. So fluid and organic. And awesome.

 

[toastyToast]

I beat the game on normal and thought it was a pretty fun challenge, and I am comfortable using the stealth mechanics.

Where do I go next? Survivor? Grounded?

Might as well go Grounded.

 

[Golgo 13]

First time player and this game is blowing my mind. Just phenomenal.

 

[Alucrid]

Done, took the first wave (7 dudes I think) stealthily, 2nd wave, took 4 guys stealthy, manage to arrow 2 more and just straight on shot the last 2. JESUS CHRIST! This section would've been fine if they'd at least put a checkpoint after the first wave, having to redo 5-15 minutes over and over again is just annoying. Ugh, Grounded mode is gonna be the end of me, can't wait for the sniper section -_-

yeah i didn't expect them to take out checkpoints in grounded, was quite annoying when i found out they did

 

[Chance Hale]

Lol, you have to do the entire last sequence in one go on grounded mode despite there being multiple floors and 20 billion enemies. And then when you die you get to let the game load for 20 seconds because, "oh yeah, there are separate zones meant to be checkpointed!"

 

[unaveragekid2]

Did Left Behind with a collectible guide, which really effectively killed the immersion during the collection-heavy parts, but couldn't hold back the heavier scenes.

Spoiler

The parallel's in Riley's speech about fighting for something and Joel's speech about fighting for something are really interesting. Joel and Riley are really opposite characters, in the way they think and act and treat Ellie. Riley starts Left Behind looking like a flake and a bad friend, and comes out a hero. We're lead to believe through the whole campaign that Joel is a hero, when he really happens to be a total shithead.

I've been thinking a lot about the ending of the main game the last couple days, and how significant it is that the last section is 1) playable, and 2) from Ellie's perspective. During the hospital section, you do most of what you do because you're not even thinking about it. The game doesn't tell you you have to save Ellie, because you ARE Joel, and you know that that's what Joel wants. Saving Ellie by any means necessary is what the player wants. When you play as Ellie, you're forced to look at the actions you took from another angle, and realize that they're really unjustifiable, because the person they were supposedly done "for" wouldn't even agree with them.

Can someone confirm, one more time, that Grounded+ playthroughs unlock + trophies for the other difficulties too?

 

[Chance Hale]

The trophies/collectibles in this game are fucked. Got the trophy for finding all collectibles but not the one for finding all artifacts......and one of the conversations didn't register and I have no clue which because it's not listed in the chapter section. Annoying!

Finished Grounded mode, incredibly tense throughout but the lack of checkpoints gets very annoying in places. Often times you will die and have to wait 10-30 seconds to load the game because it pushes them back so far that you have to load back 2 or 3 zones. The last level is particularly bad. Also shows how some of the AI routines aren't quite as consistent as they should be. In the last level I'd throw a brick at the same place with a stationary guard and he'd react in 5 different ways. Which would be neat if it seemed dynamic but it just seemed kind of broken as it should have investigated.

Still one of my favorite games, just really bummed about the trophy glitches. Trophies aren't a big deal of course, but I did put the time towards finding everything so it's a bit frustrating.

Can someone confirm, one more time, that Grounded+ playthroughs unlock + trophies for the other difficulties too?

Can't confirm Grounded+ but Survivor + did in the PS3 version and finishing Grounded just now unlocked all the others so I would assume that would be the case for Grounded+ as well.

 

[Garrett Hawke]

Is it just me or does the 30fps lock look really bad? Like there are games that look a lot smoother running at 30 - this looks really... jumpy.

 

[S1kkZ]

Is it just me or does the 30fps lock look really bad? Like there are games that look a lot smoother running at 30 - this looks really... jumpy.

its not just you, the 30 frames mode sucks ass. shadow fall had the same problem, infamous second sons 30 frames mode however, is perfect.

locked 30 frames shouldnt stutter and judder like that.

 

[Jb]

Nearing the end of my Grounded playthrough.

Are you kidding me, I have to do the entire

Spoiler

hospital

section without any checkpoints? Ugh.

 

[brickarts295]

Damn it, just got to the last conversation only for the trophy not to pop......36/37. I know I hit every single one.

These are the known bugged ones:

Spoiler

-Museum: at the of the encounter where you get back together with ellie and tess, they are both standing by the window and you talk to both, you have to make sure you listen to both of them without moving.
-University: The firefly graffiti, you have press triangle on the last one you see, which is behind the building in from of the statue where you met the monkeys.
-Winter: when you're in the room with the bloater, there's 2 bodies which trigger the conversation.

 

[Cloudy]

I beat the Financial District on Hard fighting indoors forgetting that

Spoiler

Ellie could have been sniping enemies for me

lol

 

[Garrett Hawke]

its not just you, the 30 frames mode sucks ass. shadow fall had the same problem, infamous second sons 30 frames mode however, is perfect.

locked 30 frames shouldnt stutter and judder like that.

Yeah, I thought so. I hope they patch it.

 

[Chance Hale]

Nearing the end of my Grounded playthrough.

Are you kidding me, I have to do the entire

Spoiler

hospital

section without any checkpoints? Ugh.

Yep, it's pretty annoying. Ended up managing to ghost up to the stairway and on the floor up I went crazy as I had two pipe bombs and 6 diablo bullets, lol.

These are the known bugged ones:

Spoiler

-Museum: at the of the encounter where you get back together with ellie and tess, they are both standing by the window and you talk to both, you have to make sure you listen to both of them without moving.
-University: The firefly graffiti, you have press triangle on the last one you see, which is behind the building in from of the statue where you met the monkeys.
-Winter: when you're in the room with the bloater, there's 2 bodies which trigger the conversation.

Thanks, I'm hoping it was the Winter one mentioned as I do remember the dialogue cutting out halfway through North's dialogue.

I beat the Financial District on Hard fighting indoors forgetting that

Spoiler

Ellie could have been sniping enemies for me

lol

I found on Grounded mode that I would get rushed from multiple directions which staying within her range a poor idea. The side railing tunnel was still the easiest way for me once I got spotted.

 

[KGoogle]

I just finished the game on hard go to continue new game + but grounded is greyed out ?

 

[thenexus6]

I just finished the game on hard go to continue new game + but grounded is greyed out ?

You have to complete grounded to unlock grounded +

 

[giancarlo123x]

Nearing the end of my Grounded playthrough.

Are you kidding me, I have to do the entire

Spoiler

hospital

section without any checkpoints? Ugh.

It isn't that hard at all. For the first area you just need to kill one enemy so that only requires one chest shot with a revolver. Second area you only need one smoke bomb. If you need help you can watch my archived stream.

 

[HardRojo]

I just finished the game on hard go to continue new game + but grounded is greyed out ?

You can only play New game+ of the hardest difficulty you have finished and below, there is a glitch to bypass that but I don't know how it works.

 

[MaximusPayne]

So apparently the game penalized me when playing LEFT BEHIND last night. I could not get past the

Spoiler

last part with Ellie facing two waves of hunters keeping them from getting Joel (not enough ammo and they rushed a lot).

So I kicked it down to hard just to see the difference and it was pretty easy. Well I didn't finish the segment. Went back later put the chapter back on grounded and finally beat it. When getting the trophies it only said survivor. Isn't it supposed to say Grounded or did I glitch the game by lowering the difficulty to hard then restarting with that chapter back on grounded?

 

[idonteven]

So apparently the game penalized me when playing LEFT BEHIND last night. I could not get past the

Spoiler

last part with Ellie facing two waves of hunters keeping them from getting Joel (not enough ammo and they rushed a lot).

So I kicked it down to hard just to see the difference and it was pretty easy. Well I didn't finish the segment. Went back later put the chapter back on grounded and finally beat it. When getting the trophies it only said survivor. Isn't it supposed to say Grounded or did I glitch the game by lowering the difficulty to hard then restarting with that chapter back on grounded?

you can only get survivor trophy and not grounded in the left behind dlc

 

[Seanspeed]

Is it just me or does the 30fps lock look really bad? Like there are games that look a lot smoother running at 30 - this looks really... jumpy.

That's what 30fps feels like after playing it at 60. Your point of reference changes.

 

[JohnnyFootball]

So apparently the game penalized me when playing LEFT BEHIND last night. I could not get past the

Spoiler

last part with Ellie facing two waves of hunters keeping them from getting Joel (not enough ammo and they rushed a lot).

So I kicked it down to hard just to see the difference and it was pretty easy. Well I didn't finish the segment. Went back later put the chapter back on grounded and finally beat it. When getting the trophies it only said survivor. Isn't it supposed to say Grounded or did I glitch the game by lowering the difficulty to hard then restarting with that chapter back on grounded?

Maybe you should have looked at the trophy list. If you had done that you would have realized that there is no trophy for Grounded on Left Behind!

It happens.

 

[kubus]

I just finished the game on hard go to continue new game + but grounded is greyed out ?

You can only do New Game+ on the same difficulty you finished it on (or lower).

You can bypass it using a trick. You have to start NG+ on Hard and complete chapter 1. Once you're in chapter 1 (with Tess), go to the menu and then if you go to chapter select you should be able to choose Grounded now. At least that's how I think it works, I've never used that glitch.