It would harm accessibility but TLOU 1/2 would get more acclaim for its gameplay if survivor was the only difficulty

[Foreign Jackass]

Well, OP's wrong BUT I've been playing on Hard and really happy about that difficulty. It's really making the encounters shine more, the AI has more opportunities to do what it does, and I actually love repeating the encounters.

It doesn't affect the story that much to me, and to be fair, the story's not the strongest point so far (past halfway now).

 

[Sawa]

Even so I can't help but think playing on normal or even hard gimps a lot of the improvements in gameplay mechanics and level design.

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OP please reconsider using ableist language like "gimps" to argue that harder difficulty and less accessible modes should be the default option in this game.

And why should super hard difficulty be the default option? To be honest it is probably better not to have a default option.
And please remember what is viewed as the default and what is centred or "The right way to play" frequently plays a role in all systematic oppression.

 

[cnorwood]

I feel like reviewers in general have barely talked about the gameplay when it's probably the best TPS maybe ever?

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It's no MGSV but very close. I would say one of the best

 

[ObijuanBronobi]

Also why are we talking like if Survivor is something that is super hard? It's not very hard, human enemies die in one headshot regardless. It is more of an inconvenience when approaching things than actually difficult. It's difficulty is centered on the fact you have less to work with and enemies who will spot you much easier than in other difficulties, but even given that I wouldn't say it's something difficult. It's not difficult like Dark Souls and it's not difficult like Doom Eternal either. It's just more of an inconvenience than anything else really.

 

[Pyke Presco]

After watching my girlfriend play it for about 35+ hours just to beat it on the easiest difficulty (out of five, I think?) and dying to things like walking on a beam and falling off repeatedly for like 15 minutes, or getting trapped on geometry while running from bloaters/dying after killing them and they explode because she can't get away, absolutely not. Having the easier difficulty for combat helped get her through the struggles she has with just manipulating the character movement;forget about it if she was instantly dying to every enemy on top of that.

She loves the game and the story, but she almost gave up on the first game when she couldn't beat a part where her character was hanging upside down on a chain or a snare and had to shoot things rushing her until I could do it for her. She loves the second one way better specifically because it's easier and she can completely beat it on her own; if there were a difficulty wall she probably would have quit after dying at the same spot over and over and not been able to experience the whole story.

Very hard difficulties and "playing it the way it's intended to be experienced" is absolute nonsense. I used to play halo 1/2/3 on legendary with a bunch of skulls back when I was in high school/university because it was all I played, and I went through it over and over and mastered it. Used to claim "that's the way it's meant to be played". Same thing with playing ocarina of time with only 3 hearts and the broken giants sword, etc, just increasing the difficulty artificially because I was really good at those games. But nowadays? Fuck that, I play everything on normal because odds are I'm only gonna bother going through it once, and I hate when games tie "the real ending" behind a higher difficulty setting or whatever. Just let people experience the entire game regardless of their skill level, or prepare for people to just not buy it.

For example, I've never even bothered playing the "soulsborne" games because of the narrative about their difficulty; I love fantasy, and action RPGs, and it hits all the right notes aesthetically/thematically that I would probably Really enjoy the games. But I'm not spending a bunch of money on something notoriously hard that I'll just end up getting frustrated with. Maybe I could play them and have no issues, but that's not the impression I get from reviews and discourse on the games, so that's 3 or 4 games from the same developer I just never bought. That's lose-lose all around, since I don't end up playing the games and they don't get my money. Why ask Naughty Dog to deliberately lose out on a huge chunk of their audience for what is a massively successful title that's going to make them a ton of money and pay off the last 5+ years of game development? You want a bigger audience for your media property, not smaller.

 

[Ra]

No, it would get less acclaim, for having less accessibility in its gameplay.

As I was reminded recently, "yadda yadda yadda, BUT..." pretty much stops right there.

Why does every game need to be as rigid as a FROM Software title now?

This is selfish thinking.

 

[Deleted member 6949]

The Last of Us 1 is best on hard without listen mode. Anything less and it's too easy, but when you raise the difficulty to survivor or grounded it's more like a weird puzzle game where you are going to be using a brick for everything. The Last of Us 2 has better gameplay all around, and it is more generous about letting you play around with the different systems, so survivor is way better balanced than before.

 

[Cenauru]

But something can't feel a certain way unless it matters, and a dangerous thing does not matter if it is easy.

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People who are disabled are already essentially playing games on a harder difficulty because of their conditions or disabilities. Accessibility options aren't to "make things easier", it's to combat the inherent difficulty of playing games while affected by your conditions or disabilities. For all the talk of "intended difficulty", a whole lot of people are against accessibility options when they're the thing keeping others from even reaching that intended difficulty, just because someone else might not get the same experience out of a single player game.

 

[Deleted member 13101]

One thing I agree with - games that implement higher-difficulty levels very well, don't get enough credit. This game, with all the credit it has already received, may be one of those games too.

But I think with this game, more important than the threat of dying, is actually experiencing being attacked/hit. It's still basically true that if a clicker or big-sledge-person gets to you, it gets to you and you're done - so the threat is there regardless. But the experience of being knocked flat back, or pushed aside, or dragged out, or forced into a struggle - and your obligation to make a counter-move - this is the essence of the core combat experience on offer here. If someone doesn't want these counter-moves to be so difficult to make, I'm totally okay with that. And if someone wants a difficulty level that demands near-perfection with not being hit at all by an enemy, I'm okay with that too.

Since the experience of being hit and having to make a counter-move is so well-woven into the combat, there's no reason not to provide adjustable difficulty with the surrounding parameters.

 

[Chettlar]

People who are disabled are already essentially playing games on a harder difficulty because of their conditions or disabilities. Accessibility options aren't to "make things easier", it's to combat the inherent difficulty of playing games while affected by your conditions or disabilities. For all the talk of "intended difficulty", a whole lot of people are against accessibility options when they're the thing keeping others from even reaching that intended difficulty, just because someone else might not get the same experience out of a single player game.

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People with disabilities is a completely different conversation, and I really dislike that they are lumped together with people who just don't want to play hard games.

 

[leng jai]

No, it would get less acclaim, for having less accessibility in its gameplay.

As I was reminded recently, "yadda yadda yadda, BUT..." pretty much stops right there.

Why does every game need to be as rigid as a FROM Software title now?

This is selfish thinking.

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The hypothetical of releasing a "survivor only" version was only for for the sake of creating a scenario where more people would actually try that difficulty because there would be no choice. As I've said around 20 times over in this thread by now a lot of people aren't going to even try even if they might prefer it because normal is the default. I never said that there's anything wrong with playing on normal, I said that the gameplay is better on survivor in my opinion and leverages the mechanical improvements/atmosphere more.

Survivor isn't really that hard in the grand scheme of things and pretty well balanced so I don't see why it would get less acclaim. It's certainly not impossible or completely unfair like a lot of other games' hardest difficulty. I'm not thinking about a world where Doom Eternal only had ultra Nightmare because that is way too hard for almost everyone, TW3 with only Death March because the mechanics aren't good enough to justify that or even CoD on veteran because that simply just makes the AI aimbots with unlimited grenades. Do balanced punishing games really get marked down by people because it's too hard for them? Again even in my hypothetical I'm not saying there would be no accessibility options, that's two different things from difficulty sliders.

People with disabilities is a completely different conversation, and I really dislike that they are lumped together with people who just don't want to play hard games.

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Feels like a lot of people are just coming in here and claiming something I never said.

 

[Chettlar]

Feels like a lot of people are just coming in here and claiming something I never said.

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That is Resetera for you. No Era is not a hivemind, but it is FULL of people who make a very lazy pass at what you're trying to say, extrapolate something you're trying to push, and then argue against that if there can be some moral ground to build on, and then take any argument you have asking them to consider what you actually said as an insult.

You will never have an intellectual, challenging conversation on Era like this. Because the people on here who actually want to engage with you will be drowned out by intellectually lazy, morally superior pontificators. It's even funny too because they'll take a perfectly legitimate intellectual exercise like you are doing and turn it into a moral debate when that was never your point and you should not have needed to clarify.

To hell with comments saying you should have clarified assumptions they made after the fact. You never said the accessibility should go away. You were just asking a question for the sake of wondering how that would pan out.

But it fucking breaks people's brains that you could have such an inquiry so they have to go after you and put words in your mouth. If you disagree with them, or say something that might lead to a contradiction of what they think, they'll come at you believing you have some agenda. Just look at these scores of comments arguing that options are good, when you never said they weren't. It's intellectually lazy.

I knew from the title you were not suggesting that the difficulty modes be removed. And your OP didn't give that impression either. You've not done anything wrong here. It's on the people who read into what you were saying because I dunno man I guess the complexity of "hey I wonder if the overall good choice did have a few drawbacks and whether those could have been resolved another way" is just like too much for them man, I dunno.

 

[leng jai]

The Last of Us 1 is best on hard without listen mode. Anything less and it's too easy, but when you raise the difficulty to survivor or grounded it's more like a weird puzzle game where you are going to be using a brick for everything. The Last of Us 2 has better gameplay all around, and it is more generous about letting you play around with the different systems, so survivor is way better balanced than before.

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Grounded was the point where the first game stopped being fun at all and was just tedious for the sake of it, there's a reason it was a DLC mode.

 

[Deleted member 6949]

Grounded was the point where the first game stopped being fun at all and was just tedious for the sake of it, there's a reason it was a DLC mode.

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Grounded was just trash, honestly. Survivor is good for a second playthrough when you know where everything is and when to use your resources.

 

[Deleted member 58846]

Nope. Play it however you want, I don't care. Just don't presume to tell me how I should play, or that I am playing it wrong.

 

[Deleted member 27315]

Gameplay is insane in survivor. I find it perfect.

 

[Noisepurge]

From having played both entries, i think Hard is plenty tough. Always end up with like 2 bullets left and 1 bar of health after every encounter. So, intense, but not having to reload a save every time i miss a single shot.

 

[Green]

I've come to very much appreciate all the accessibility options in part 2. So much so that I think it would be embarrassing for any game going forward to not have at least those options available.

I've flipped 180 on that opinion since playing through Part 1 with my non-gamer family. These people have never even held a PlayStation controller let alone understand tough concepts like dual thumb sticks. They thoroughly enjoyed the game, but only because I had to take over during the combat segments.

In part 2, the options are such that I don't have to step in anymore. They can just play and enjoy. I think that's awesome.

That said, for experienced gamers, the higher difficulties really set this game apart. The gameplay is just so well done that it shines.

 

[Dominic Decoco]

That is Resetera for you. No Era is not a hivemind, but it is FULL of people who make a very lazy pass at what you're trying to say, extrapolate something you're trying to push, and then argue against that if there can be some moral ground to build on, and then take any argument you have asking them to consider what you actually said as an insult.

You will never have an intellectual, challenging conversation on Era like this. Because the people on here who actually want to engage with you will be drowned out by intellectually lazy, morally superior pontificators. It's even funny too because they'll take a perfectly legitimate intellectual exercise like you are doing and turn it into a moral debate when that was never your point and you should not have needed to clarify.

To hell with comments saying you should have clarified assumptions they made after the fact. You never said the accessibility should go away. You were just asking a question for the sake of wondering how that would pan out.

But it fucking breaks people's brains that you could have such an inquiry so they have to go after you and put words in your mouth. If you disagree with them, or say something that might lead to a contradiction of what they think, they'll come at you believing you have some agenda. Just look at these scores of comments arguing that options are good, when you never said they weren't. It's intellectually lazy.

I knew from the title you were not suggesting that the difficulty modes be removed. And your OP didn't give that impression either. You've not done anything wrong here. It's on the people who read into what you were saying because I dunno man I guess the complexity of "hey I wonder if the overall good choice did have a few drawbacks and whether those could have been resolved another way" is just like too much for them man, I dunno.

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Post of the week. Reading past the title is hard.

 

[Milk]

Kinda silly to act like not reading past the title is an Era problem lol. That's an "entire internet" problem. On any forum, any discussion board, any article, ever. It's an "entirety of humanity" problem - people want to immediately throw out their two cents and put their voice in the discussion rather than wait and catch up by reading the OP and/or the pages of the thread.

Btw, agree with the OP. It does bring up an interesting thought. Could definitely see a timeline where, rather than people bashing TLOU gameplay for "just being a movie", it has a large cult following who praise the difficulty and tell others to simply "git gud".

 

[leng jai]

That is Resetera for you. No Era is not a hivemind, but it is FULL of people who make a very lazy pass at what you're trying to say, extrapolate something you're trying to push, and then argue against that if there can be some moral ground to build on, and then take any argument you have asking them to consider what you actually said as an insult.

You will never have an intellectual, challenging conversation on Era like this. Because the people on here who actually want to engage with you will be drowned out by intellectually lazy, morally superior pontificators. It's even funny too because they'll take a perfectly legitimate intellectual exercise like you are doing and turn it into a moral debate when that was never your point and you should not have needed to clarify.

To hell with comments saying you should have clarified assumptions they made after the fact. You never said the accessibility should go away. You were just asking a question for the sake of wondering how that would pan out.

But it fucking breaks people's brains that you could have such an inquiry so they have to go after you and put words in your mouth. If you disagree with them, or say something that might lead to a contradiction of what they think, they'll come at you believing you have some agenda. Just look at these scores of comments arguing that options are good, when you never said they weren't. It's intellectually lazy.

I knew from the title you were not suggesting that the difficulty modes be removed. And your OP didn't give that impression either. You've not done anything wrong here. It's on the people who read into what you were saying because I dunno man I guess the complexity of "hey I wonder if the overall good choice did have a few drawbacks and whether those could have been resolved another way" is just like too much for them man, I dunno.

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I added in the accessibility part in the title to try and show I understood the issue this hypothetical would bring but I think it actually ended up being worse.

 

[ekka4shiki]

I'm afraid if you remove easy difficulty, gaming journalists wouldn't be able to finish the game. "6/10 game is too hard."

 

[Crumpo]

The hypothetical of releasing a "survivor only" version was only for for the sake of creating a scenario where more people would actually try that difficulty because there would be no choice... a lot of people aren't going to even try even if they might prefer it because normal is the default...I said that the gameplay is better on survivor in my opinion and leverages the mechanical improvements/atmosphere more.

Survivor isn't really that hard in the grand scheme of things and pretty well balanced so I don't see why it would get less acclaim. It's certainly not impossible or completely unfair like a lot of other games' hardest difficulty.

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So this is basically the Souls argument, and I'll say the same things I say in those souls threads.

The biggest problem is people think objectively about difficulty; "this isn't that hard, everyone could complete this" when in fact the big population of gamers have a low skill level. Which means playing on Normal feels like Grounded for some people, which would make it like you're playing a level harder than survivor.

If you can acknowledge this then I think you would agree that difficulty levels need to stay, as you just need the game to be hard enough that they can't breeze through. This is why the level of customisation is great on tlou2; keep the resources low so they can't run and gun but make the game more forgiving in spotting and damage dealt.

But honestly, if there was just grounded mode I wouldn't play the game (like souls games), and a lot of people wouldn't play them. I have seen no cogent argument as to why difficulty settings ruin someone else's experience of the game. if anything, Tlou2 should be a good example of where it didn't ruin the hardcore gamers' experience by having all these settings - it's nice that they "care" so much about casuals that they might not be having the best experience, but honestly they should just leave other people alone and let them enjoy the game however they want.

 

[Chettlar]

The biggest problem is people think objectively about difficulty; "this isn't that hard, everyone could complete this" when in fact the big population of gamers have a low skill level. Which means playing on Normal feels like Grounded for some people, which would make it like you're playing a level harder than survivor.

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The problem here is you think people making the argument don't know that.

I am BAD at survivor. I am bad at the game in general. I can't hit anything. And I'm having a great time.

 

[Cup O' Tea?]

I'm enjoying the game on hard mode but I've got to a point where I've maxed out on ammo because most of my kills have been stealth or melee. I just can't seem to bring myself to actually use any ammo in this game so my guns are mostly just there for emergencies.

The same thing happened to me in the first game. I got to final level and had barely used any weaponry at all.

 

[Gen X]

Both of TLOU games I've chosen survivor for my first playthrough and I've found the latest installment to be a bit easier than the first. Haven't changed any of the accessibility options either. Not sure if it feels more generous with the items than the first or that there are less places to search such as drawers and cupboards.

 

[Deleted member 51789]

With it currently sitting at 95 on MC, does it need more acclaim? If anything, I think it would knock the scores down as it might end up too hard for some reviewers.

There are a ton of accessibility options that will help craft a tougher experience for those that want it. Accessibility should always win out.

 

[Kaswa101]

As someone who hates difficult games, fuck that.

Click to shrink...

.

 

[Ctrl Alt Del]

Naw, we absolutely need to move from "elitist" games that demand too much from players. This is coming from someone that always plays the Metro games on the Ranger Hardcore difficulty for added immersion.

 

[AudioEppa]

Then I would save $60 and YouTube the game.

As someone who played on Very Light, this is a terrible ass idea.

 

[ItchyTasty]

More acclaim? Both games got some of the best acclaim in gaming lol.

TLOU2 is amazing because they give you so many option to adapt the difficulty and accessibility settings to your liking. While yeah I think more people should dare to up the difficulty a notch, excluding people who don't like a challange does no good.

 

[leng jai]

More acclaim? Both games got some of the best acclaim in gaming lol.

TLOU2 is amazing because they give you so many option to adapt the difficulty and accessibility settings to your liking. While yeah I think more people should dare to up the difficulty a notch, excluding people who don't like a challange does no good.

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The majority of the praise doesn't come from having amazing gameplay though.

 

[oldboss]

Ok. I'm 10 hours in on hard, and have been hesitating to bump it up to survivor. This thread convinced me to do so. Can't wait to jump back in!

I feel like reviewers in general have barely talked about the gameplay when it's probably the best TPS maybe ever?

Click to shrink...

Honestly, MGS is my favorite franchise ever. It's in no small part due to the gameplay. I have to admit I enjoy TLOU2 more than MGSV on that front, even though the movesets of the respective protagonists aren't really comparable. Still, the sole addition of a prone position, and a vastly VASTLY superior AI made me enjoy this more than I ever enjoyed TPP.

 

[Crumpo]

The problem here is you think people making the argument don't know that.

I am BAD at survivor. I am bad at the game in general. I can't hit anything. And I'm having a great time.

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I don't think that's the main problem, but I see what you did there.

I don't think you struggling through the game and enjoying the struggle is indicative of the wider population, and it doesn't invalidate any of my points. if anything, your lack of empathy extends even further.

As I said, I feel like options are a good thing, and if a reviewer can't see the merits because they played on normal then that's on the reviewer. I didnt read many reviews but those that did praised the gameplay, they just praised the story and environment more.

 

[Rowsdower]

On one hand, I agree with the spirit of the OP. Playing The Last Of Us 1 or 2 on Survivor/Grounded really makes the various mechanics and gameplay stand out. I could say that's how it's mean't to be played; were you actually have two bullets, a bottle, numerous enemies and you need either to get past them or rid of them.

On the other hand, these modes are piss hard, and to me at least, frustrating. I started TLOU2 on hard, and had a tough time, but started to gel with it within a few hours. But by the halfway point of the game, I grew tired of drawn out encounters. I'm now playing on very light, exploring everywhere, and encounters go quick. I can explore to my heart's content. I'm enjoying it a lot more whereas if I stuck with hard, I think I would have started to drop out of the game.

I think games should always have options, or even with Dark Souls/Souls-like games, a weapon or skill set that makes the game easier for those who want it. Options seem like the best choice honestly.

 

[Facism]

Not going to shit on anyone playing below survivor but if you can manage it's a great way to experience both games

 

[Chettlar]

I don't think that's the main problem, but I see what you did there.

I don't think you struggling through the game and enjoying the struggle is indicative of the wider population, and it doesn't invalidate any of my points. if anything, your lack of empathy extends even further.

As I said, I feel like options are a good thing, and if a reviewer can't see the merits because they played on normal then that's on the reviewer. I didnt read many reviews but those that did praised the gameplay, they just praised the story and environment more.

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You said people only enjoyed the harder modes because they were good enough for them, and that's horseshit.

 

[Deleted member 58846]

I'm afraid if you remove easy difficulty, gaming journalists wouldn't be able to finish the game. "6/10 game is too hard."

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Yes, because gaming journalists suck at video games hahaha amirite

 

[Deleted member 198]

yeah fuck those people who want to play the game but can't all that matters it the metacritic score!

 

[Delphine]

It took me 4 years to attempt to play The Last Of Us again after giving up on it after 5 hours the first time around, because of how stressful it was to me, and how overall just downright unpleasant to play this game was in my opinion. Granted, it was the 2nd console game I'd ever played in my life after Journey (I came from PC gaming), and the learning curve was too steep for me to handle, while nowadays, I handled a replay of TLOU much better. But I still remember feeling incredibly frustrated and angry at the fact that I felt I just couldn't play a game I was definitely interested in the first place, because the gameplay was just incredibly unwelcoming and hard (despite being on the easiest mode back then), so hard that even when I was asking my SO to help, someone who had already played TLOU on survivor, they found the game being incredibly frustrating to deal with on the easy mode still. Even during our recent replay, did we find some encounters particularly unpleasant to go through (always trying to figure out if this time the game decided to be a stealth game like it makes you believe it is, or if we had to brute-force it all in a messy way).

I'm currently playing TLOU2 on light mode, even though, having thousands of hours in console gaming under my belt by now, I probably could up the challenge to a normal one, but I was unsure what I was going to deal with to begin with, because I was still afraid of what I was getting into. I like TLOU2's gameplay a thousand times better so far, I'm having a much much better experience so far, and I'm absolutely thankful to the team for doing their absolute most to make this game as accessible as it is. I personally don't need a quarter of all their options, but I'm sure there are many people who do, and I'm glad they get to play this game under their own terms, and enjoy the story, the sceneries, the characters and the gameplay in a way that fit them the best.

 

[cantbebothered]

Yes, because gaming journalists suck at video games hahaha amirite

Click to shrink...

they kinda do to be honest (not all mind you)

 

[Speedlynx]

I agree with you OP. I regret playing on normal mode for my first playthrough. Having explored thoroughly and used stealth often to save ammunition I eventually just become a one man army. Stealth and resource management no longer mattered. It was disappointing.

Should I have upped the difficulty? Probably. But I always like to experience the game the way the devs intended the first time through. They were off the mark here for sure.

This game, thematically and from a gameplay perspective, would've resonated more with a higher default difficulty setting.

There's definitely a trend of devs making their 'normal mode' easier and if you want more of a challenge, you increase the difficulty. I suspect they don't want players to feel bad for having to switch to easy mode, so they make the default mode easier. But the entire point of easier modes is for accessibility to begin with. 'Normal' should not be 'easy' such that it impedes with themes and gameplay as it does in this game :/

People, stop feeling shame for lowering the difficulty. And devs please stop catering to them.

 

[Lagamorph]

It would, and very rightfully should, get significantly less acclaim if that was the only difficulty.

 

[leng jai]

It would, and very rightfully should, get significantly less acclaim if that was the only difficulty.

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Why is that?

yeah fuck those people who want to play the game but can't all that matters it the metacritic score!

Click to shrink...

This thread has nothing to do with the actual metacritic score, I never even mentioned it. Why is everyone so defensive over a made up hypothetical situation that I already said won't and shouldn't happen?