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Uncharted 2/3 vs 4 on Hard

Well despite what the trolls usually say, Uncharted is actually a great shooter and it shines on hard.

Uncharted 4 is probably the best TPS ever. The mechanics, controls and encounter design are just masterful.

It's a shame it's buried under Druckmanns' pretentious narrative non-gameplay walking simulator spam X press triangle to inspect nothing crap.

Thankfully there's always multiplayer. Oh wait they killed that too.

This obsession you have with Druckmann has got to stop lol.
 
Little example:

In 2, the encounter where the area is taken over by tons of soldiers including a couple chaingun "mutants." Pretty sure at some point blue guardians show up.

This encounter fills me with excitement before I get in there. How many guys can I stealth? Once I'm discovered, what are my tactics? Do pick off enough regular soldiers to get the crossbow guys to show up, so I have a powerful weapons against the chaingunners? Do I find RPG guy and use his stuff and grenades for the mutant instead? Do I let them fight each other? Maybe RPG a chaingunner, then chaingun the guardians? Technology > magic?

No matter what I generally choose, I know I'll be able to move around and react to events while overall flow of battle is one of the ones described above. Even if my stealth is detected after 1 guy, I can smoothly cause enough mayhem and switch tactics to make for a recordable battle.

Facing an encounter similar to that in 4/Hard means I have to steel myself. This is going to be repetitive. AND it's going to be stressful, in an annoying way. Plan out the stealth path, and then do it methodically. Toggle between 2 different approaches to keep the drudgery/trial-error factor down a bit. If I get caught right at the start, it's over. Everyone will shoot at me from EVERYWHERE with perfect accuracy, so my goose is cooked. I have to pick guys off in some grass very carefully and never gamble.

Finally, having stealthed in satisfactory fashion, I can take on the remainder. This isn't hard, because only a few guys are left. If I get killed, I might find myself restarting from a checkpoint in the MIDDLE of the encounter, where things are quiet for no reason, and half the soldiers are dead and maybe the guardians are now here (the whole too-many-checkpoints-in-too-difficult-mode paradox I mentioned in OP). This is annoying, but restarting the encounter just seems obnoxiously un-immersive, so just go with it.

Besides, if special enemies like guardians are involved, no way 4 would let me really improvise when they're added to the battle. They'd be so deadly (as are the "mutant" chaingunners) in the given level design that I can only start engaging them right after a checkpoint with guaranteed pre-scripted cover.

I'm tired and sleepy, so I may be rambling and being unclear; my apologies. I'm just trying to convey that this encounter in 2 (on Hard), which I just played a few minutes ago, filled me with care-free anticipation when the soldiers filed in. Then I imagine what I would feel in 4 (on Hard, not Moderate) and it's more like, "how do I get through this without too many deaths while also using some semblance of creative on the fly tactics"? Not bad... but anything but "care-free anticipation." And actually it takes me out of the world, my brain screaming VIDEO GAME at itself the whole time.
 
I dont know how people can say Uncharteds difficulty didn't go downhill with 3. Go fight the skeleton soldiers in 3 on crushing and die once, enjoy your terrible checkpoint where you spawn into instant death everytime, thank me later.

Uncharted 1 has a couple moments like this too. It was never good at balance.
 

Sygma

Member
The real game changer in 4 was the suppression effect from enemies. I don't know why they even introduced that to begin with but it made some encounters nothing short of at least maddening.

And then, out of nowhere, it clicks. most of the time you want to kill people with blind fire / hip fire, and shit is by then pretty easy. I agree with the elevator bit in crushing, don't know what they were thinking

All in all I had the most fun in Uncharted 3 shooting sections, because the level design / spawns were the best of the whole series. Can't understand the cult around uncharted 2 but why not heh ?
 
Very true that blind fire and hip fire is very effective. It has ALWAYS been effective actually, but in 4/Hard it becomes THE way to shoot people. Obviously, not the best feel for a shooter either.
 

Sygma

Member
Yeah ! also using osok from sniper wasn't good at all in 4, while sniper / burst fire weapons were arguably the best ones to clean up in 3
 
This obsession you have with Druckmann has got to stop lol.

Hmmm. Whatever happened to that LastNac dude who would always insist in every Uncharted thread or any barely related thread, period, that Uncharted is at its best when it involves walking and chatter, and that the guns need to be kept to a minimum, because the walking segments is what makes the series "special," and 3 was totes move in right direction with reducing combat and increasing linear chases and talks and simplistic puzzles?

Not that I hated those parts, but the guy was obsessed with counteracting the prevailing opinion that turning Uncharted into less of a game and more of a movie was NOT a good thing, because, man, 2 was just such a critical underachiever. It was an odd stance, and he was religious about it.
 
Hmmm. Whatever happened to that LastNac dude who would always insist in every Uncharted thread or any barely related thread, period, that Uncharted is at its best when it involves walking and chatter, and that the guns need to be kept to a minimum, because the walking segments is what makes the series "special," and 3 was totes move in right direction with reducing combat and increasing linear chases and talks and simplistic puzzles?

Not that I hated those parts, but the guy was obsessed with counteracting the prevailing opinion that turning Uncharted into less of a game and more of a movie was NOT a good thing, because, man, 2 was just such a critical underachiever. It was an odd stance, and he was religious about it.

Just did a search, and... yep, he's still at it! Praising linear funneling and criticizing "wide linear," wheee! (For the record: The "wide linear" parts were tons of fun and far underused in 4. It really gave the game an exploration feel, and the large battle areas were enjoyable too. I hope TLL is full of that stuff. But of course it should be a balance still, not some kind of mega-jump the way MGS V gave us this great new wide-open thing but also took away this other great thing the series was known for, the dramatic linear scripted stuff.)

Sorry, I digress.

FWIW, the review thread suggests maybe these issues with 4 on Hard and in general may have been resolved. I'm trying to get more of a straight answer.
 
Well despite what the trolls usually say, Uncharted is actually a great shooter and it shines on hard.

Uncharted 4 is probably the best TPS ever. The mechanics, controls and encounter design are just masterful.

It's a shame it's buried under Druckmanns' pretentious narrative non-gameplay walking simulator spam X press triangle to inspect nothing crap.

Sorry, RE4 is still the best TPS. Unparalleled encounter design and pacing.

Uncharted 4 ranks up with Resident Evil 6 as "Best combat controls in a TPS dragged down for other reasons" though.
 
played my first run on hard and am glad i did (as i always do with ND games). makes one appreciate all the work that has gone into making this game when you don't just blaze through it.

on hard your pretty much forced to use stealth though.


i feel like u3 on hard was harder than u4.
 

xrnzaaas

Member
I've finished Uncharted 2 & 3 on Crushing without major problems (Uncharted 1 was more problematic), didn't have the patience to do it with Uncharted 4. The game has some pretty big difficulty spikes when you get stormed by heavily armored dudes. I gave up a few levels before the end of the game and what's funny is that I've finished the battle I was struggling with on Crushing on my first attempt on Hard. I obviously knew what to expect at that point, but it's still a huge difference in terms of difficulty.
 

Skyr

Member
Currently playing Lost Legacy on crushing.
From my memory it's even harder than 4. I die quite a lot.
If you don't play stealth in some sections you are getting annihilated.

But I dunno, maybe it's because I didn't play any console shooters for quite a while.
 
Currently playing Lost Legacy on crushing.
From my memory it's even harder than 4. I die quite a lot.
If you don't play stealth in some sections you are getting annihilated.

But I dunno, maybe it's because I didn't play any console shooters for quite a while.

There's a silenced pistol, right? How much of a factor is that? Can yiu whistle or three rocks now for the love of god? (Look... if you're going to make stealth a MAJOR thing in a game...you NEED to have obvious shit that any actual human would definitely use in that situation. Don't want to make a full move set? Don't make it a major part of the game! I mean honestly. I'm not saying I am better at game design that ND, at all, but when a game constantly feels like you're missing something obvious from your move set, there's a clear problem. Same with crouching when outside cover BTW.)
 

xrnzaaas

Member
There's a silenced pistol, right? How much of a factor is that? Can yiu whistle or three rocks now for the love of god? (Look... if you're going to make stealth a MAJOR thing in a game...you NEED to have obvious shit that any actual human would definitely use in that situation. Don't want to make a full move set? Don't make it a major part of the game! I mean honestly. I'm not saying I am better at game design that ND, at all, but when a game constantly feels like you're missing something obvious from your move set, there's a clear problem. Same with crouching when outside cover BTW.)

And not being able to throw back grenades. I've died quite a few times in U4 while searching for this feature.

As for your question, yes there is a silenced pistol in Lost Legacy and you can find ammo for it quite often. On the downside there seems to be more enemies with helmets than in U4.
 
The stealth in 4 made redeemed it a bit, but combat wise, 4 kinda sucks on hard and it was a little disappointing. 2 and 3 on hard was much better. 4 on hard doesn't let me play as "fun" as 2 and 3 did on hard. 2 for sure anyway. Didn't get as far on 3 due to getting sidetracked. 4 showed its bad side for me starting from the criminal auction escape near the beginning, while the first 4th of UC3 on hard was a-ok.

4 is probably my favorite UC game overall though, and I didnt mind the lack of combat sections because of how worse I thought the combat was handled.
 
The only thing i disliked about Hard mode on U4 was that it restricts and punishes you alot for playing with the cool new mechanics like swinging on ropes and sliding down mud/rockwalls. Ruins all the cool hollywood shootout moments :D
 

Auctopus

Member
For the amount of great games they've made, Naughty Dog is unbelievably bad at balancing difficulties.

I'd say TLOU on Survivor is the best job they've ever done but the UC games on Crushing are just full of constant bullshit.
 

*Splinter

Member
I didn't enjoy my crushing playthrough at all, every shootout felt like a chore. Not sure if that's due to getting tired with the formula or worse design somehow. I assumed the former until this thread.

Well despite what the trolls usually say, Uncharted is actually a great shooter and it shines on hard.
"People who disagree with me are trolls"

Get a fucking grip
 
I didn't enjoy my crushing playthrough at all, every shootout felt like a chore. Not sure if that's due to getting tired with the formula or worse design somehow. I assumed the former until this thread.

It's nice to be validated. I didn't know if it was just me, or what. Seems like a common reaction now. Around launch time you can never really tell about these nuances like difficulty balancing, since (a) passions run high (i.e., lots of 0/10 and 10/10 analyses, not a lot of realistic ones), and (b) many people start on Moderate and haven't had time to explore the difficulties.

I hope ND is reading.

It's actually kind of an interesting thought experiment: if some game design principal is reading this, would they actually get some kind of insight from it that they don't already have? Common sense would suggest "LOL NO, IT'S THEIR GAME, THEY'VE PLAY-TESTED AND ANALYZED THE SHIT OUT OF IT BY NOW, YOUR DINKY THREAD ISN'T GONNA DO ANYTHING!"...

...but then I think back to the Uncharted 3 Broken Aiming Debacle Of 2011, wherein a big GAF thread got a HUGE mechanical bug noticed by ND and then fixed (more accurately, an option to fix it was added to the game). They actually had a few GAFers go into their offices to show the problem in order to help get it fixed. And the most insane thing is that ND -- publicly at least -- has had no explanation for what exact code change caused the bug, nor how that change got into the code (e.g., multiplayer was fine!!!), nor how it got past QA and play-testing. All of this to me is stunning, as a software engineer myself. If I were an engineer at ND, I'd get to the bottom of that one with GREAT personal interest.

In other words, ND are amazing engineers/managers/etc., but they are only human engineers/managers/etc. after all.

(Side note: I made that thread back in 2011. I'm not suggesting any pattern here at all... just proud of that little moment in my Internet life, that's all.)
 
There's a silenced pistol, right? How much of a factor is that? Can yiu whistle or three rocks now for the love of god? (Look... if you're going to make stealth a MAJOR thing in a game...you NEED to have obvious shit that any actual human would definitely use in that situation. Don't want to make a full move set? Don't make it a major part of the game! I mean honestly. I'm not saying I am better at game design that ND, at all, but when a game constantly feels like you're missing something obvious from your move set, there's a clear problem. Same with crouching when outside cover BTW.)
Exactly. Stealth is just so lacking in Uncharted 4, and it's a shame that they make you rely on it so much. Stealth was never a good point of Uncharted games, but they put so much of it in this game, and the only thing they give you is bushes. Sometimes you can even be spotted in bushes if you're not perfectly still or a buddy messes up your detection...somehow. It's just annoying.
 

Skyr

Member
There's a silenced pistol, right? How much of a factor is that? Can yiu whistle or three rocks now for the love of god? (Look... if you're going to make stealth a MAJOR thing in a game...you NEED to have obvious shit that any actual human would definitely use in that situation. Don't want to make a full move set? Don't make it a major part of the game! I mean honestly. I'm not saying I am better at game design that ND, at all, but when a game constantly feels like you're missing something obvious from your move set, there's a clear problem. Same with crouching when outside cover BTW.)

I did not find any way to pull enemies besides letting them see you briefly so they investigate.
And even then they are moving very little towards you.

Yes there is a silenced pistol. You get them from crates and they have only 5 shots per pickup.
I don't know if you get more shots on lower difficulties.
Alot of enemies wear helmets later in the game tho so it's not that powerfull.
 
UC4 is noticeably harder on Crushing than the rest. That ship graveyard was a nightmare

Yeah, I beat 2 and 3 on Crushing but couldn't get past I think Chapter 13 or 14 in UC4.

That said, I had a ton of fun on Hard, and the gameplay is far and away the best of the series; everything is seamless to a tee.
 

Markitron

Is currently staging a hunger strike outside Gearbox HQ while trying to hate them to death
Yeah, I beat 2 and 3 on Crushing but couldn't get past I think Chapter 13 or 14 in UC4.

That said, I had a ton of fun on Hard, and the gameplay is far and away the best of the series; everything is seamless to a tee.

I'm a gamer of average skill at best, but didn't have too rough a time with the first 3 on Crushing. The only parts I had any difficulty with were the water room and church courtyard in the first, the final boss in the second and the ballroom fight in the third.

In UC4 it took me god knows how long to get past the escape section in Italy. It was mostly fine up until I arrived at Libertalia. I just couldn't get thru the first combat encounter no matter how many times I tried.
 

KORNdoggy

Member
i found 4 a lot harder, but i also found it a lot more satisfying. i liked that it forced you to move. you couldn't just sit happily behind a crate like you could in the other games. plus the new stealth systems made it all feel much more dynamic
 
Finished Uncharted Lost Legacy on Moderate. Sweet game. Didn't have the dramatic sweep of 4 but probably way more fun to re-play due to... lacking all the dramatic sweep of 4 (i.e. -- shorter game but still substantial, less climbing+banter, higher ratio of creative gameplay to total time). And yes, very sweet final set piece, really long and awesome as fuck! Though, could've used at least one more big set piece; the one on the game cover doesn't really qualify, as it's really short. (Uncharted 2 featured no fewer than 4 of them! Fucking awesome.)

Side note: While riding a hijacked 4x4, be really far away from the
train
and then press X+left stick to jump back. You will see Chloe apparently possesses tiger/cheetah-like jump power. It is quite hilarious IMO. I guarantee you the jump I executed was at least a good 15 yards.

I don't know how well it will stand up to re-plays. I really found 4 shockingly unpleasant on Hard (whereas 2 on Hard is 3rd person shooter bliss, god it's so much fun). Not sure if this will be the same way. We'll find out in a couple of years.
 

Brandon F

Well congratulations! You got yourself caught!
If more people played the Ship Graveyard in U4 on Crushing, Naughty Dog's reputation would be under assault.

I also really like Lost Legacy, but Chapter 6
against the APC on Crushing. I spent upwards 15-20 minutes slowly clearing the area of annoying guards before FINALLY taking down the APC with all the C4 in the area. Then sat and calmed my nerves not knowing a pack of reinforcements arrived and insta-killed me. No problem, I'll get a drink and relax again thinking a checkpoint hit after clearing the APC and take out these new fools.
I almost uninstalled the game when it started me at the very beginning again. No checkpoint???!!! Still have yet to launch the game since. Fuck ND for that total bullshit
 

teepo

Member
uncharted 4 is the first time i had ever changed the difficulty from hard to normal

however, i did find normal to be perfectly paced difficulty wise. it was still punishing but way less forgiving so you could do all the cool hollywood stunt shit you otherwise couldn't do on the higher difficulty settings
 
however, i did find normal to be perfectly paced difficulty wise. it was still punishing but way less forgiving so you could do all the cool hollywood stunt shit you otherwise couldn't do on the higher difficulty settings

That's how I felt just now in U: LL as well, but I found myself playing in grayscale mode far too much, which felt like I was abusing the amount of damage I could take. So it wasn't quite perfect in U: LL, but it was pretty fun.

4 may have been similar in Moderate; it was a while ago, so it's hard to remember exactly. But I remember being quite satisfied with it, other than lacking 60fps.
 
Not sure why anyone would want to play ANY of these games on hard, but 4 was an absolute rage fest lmao.

2 is so much fun on Hard. It really is! One of the best shooter campaigns I've ever played, easily. Possibly THE best. The set pieces are mostly amazing, but the "regular" stages are super-fun too. Lots of possibilities, lots of verticality. One of my favorites is a fight in Shambhala where you start off in stealth, and there are tons of human guys including a chain-gun "mutant," and once you take care of a bunch of those, blue guardian dudes show up. There are so many ways to approach that. The chain-gun guy you can kill with 4 grenades; some RPG shots from RPG soldier; get the guardians to do it; regular fire in the head (get the helmet, then headshot -- I didn't even know that until like 4th playthrough); by shooting the blue resin stuff that explodes; etc. The guardians you can kill by finding a crossbow; shooting guardian 1 and getting his crossbow; regular fire; by using chain-gun guy against them; and the blue explosive stuff.

And most importantly, on Hard you have plenty of time to get from cover to cover without perfect enemy accuracy reducing you to a corpse in seconds. So you can actually try fun stuff like using sniper weapons or climbing shit.
 
Uncharted 4 on crushing is by far the hardest game,but also the most satisfying for me,force you keep moving and it is faster paced,you can also make a stealth aproach,the others much of the time you take a cover,shoot some guy until he dies,stop shooting to healing,shot again,and enemies are stupid,you can stay at same place and make a shooting gallery,they just keeping coming without strategy,you have to worry with the grenades,and U3 make even easer,but U4 ship graveyard was a nightmare,but when I did was the most satisfying shootout in entire serie,I have a video saved
 
I blame it on the new stealth mechanics.

It really fucked up the run-and-gun flow of the core gameplay that was a staple of previous entries.
 

Ascenion

Member
Uncharted 4 just has bad encounter design, which is symptomatic of poorly balanced difficulty and combat scenarios. It's fine when you have the mobility they intend you to have. The moment it becomes a straight TPS it goes to shit. Crushing is damn unfair when you can't run. 2/3 were tough but never unfair.
 

Rndm

Member
U4 and LL are designed very poorly for harder difficulties in my opinion. It all seems very inconsistent and it feels like not much thought was put into it. Some of it has to do with the layout but a lot of it has to do with stealth from my experience. On the harder difficulties the flaws of the stleath elements become way too obvious. I'm ok with there not being a big focus on stealth and I get the feeling that the game also wants you to break out of it (or fail to stay in stealth) so you have those swing moments where all of a sudden all hell breaks loose but on the harder difficulties this feels more frustrating than fun.

Since I want to Platinum LL I still need to play it on Crushing (which similar to U4 will also be my Cell-Shaded playthrough). A friend told me I could select it from the start but I decided to just go with hard which in todays games often feels more like normal but is still not too easy. I hope that LL will be more fun than U4 on Crushing.

However the good thing about U4 and LL is that the game let's you use cheats (Slow-Mo, Bullet Time, Infinite Ammo, any gun, etc.) while still not disabling trophies. Maybe it's just because ND is nice or because they know that the game isn't always great on high difficulties.

So for anyone getting annoyed by the inconsistent difficulty and sometimes poor level/arena deisgn, just use the cheats here and there. It helped me out a ton in U4 especially towards the end of the game where ND threw all of their skills of making a fair high difficulty overboard (that boss fight in particular was just horrible).
 

Curufinwe

Member
Not sure why anyone would want to play ANY of these games on hard, but 4 was an absolute rage fest lmao.

I hope you're sitting down for this shocking bit of news, but a lot of people are much better at shooting the enemies in Uncharted than you are and enjoy the challenge of playing on Hard.
 

Egg0

Banned
I beat both UC4 and LL on crushing.

I ended up dropping the difficulty on 1-3. I think it's because the enemies were a bit more bullet spongey and at a certain point, I wanted to be done with them before 4 came out.
 

Arttemis

Member
I've only played the first two... Disgusting bullet sponge gameplay.

The first was unbearable. The second was vastly improved but still completely unappealing in regards to its gunplay and enemy health.
 

orborborb

Member
60 percent of my enjoyment of Uncharted 3 and 4 and Lost Legacy is the combat sequences on Hard in which I spend as little time behind cover as possible and attempt to stealth most of the time but once I'm spotted usually don't particularly try to hide again. 30 percent of my enjoyment is moving the camera around while climbing on things (it's no Mario Sunshine, but the reception of that game proved how small an audience there is for even a mild challenge in vertical spatial navigation) 5 percent is puzzles, and 5 percent storytelling.

On Normal the combat would drop to about 30 percent of my enjoyment.

Uncharted 1 I didn't like anything about much except as a technical showcase of the time.

Uncharted 2 I remember only really liking two or three of the combat arenas, too many bullet sponges and too much sticking behind cover. But the climbing was good, and I enjoyed the storytelling and puzzles a bit more than the later games.

with The Last of Us I could break up my enjoyment into 40 percent combat encounter mechanics/level design (on Hard), 30 percent scavenging, and 30 percent storytelling
 
I don't understand the folks getting frustrated at Uncharted 4's end sequence on crushing. At least the gameplay is tuned to perfection so you can skill your way through. It's not a bullet sponge-fest like 3 or even 2.

In many cases of Uncharted 3's crushing, you can literally tell the games polish is just not there because of how broken some of the encounters are.

The mansion section is the toughest part in Uncharted 4 because of how its a closed space, but the graveyard is absolutely fantastic once you get the feel for the area. I still feel like the djinn sections in Uncharted 3 are the cheapest section in any Uncharted game to date.

Best wishes.
 
I love Uncharted 2 and 3 on Crushing. Best part of the Platinum.

No idea what sort of balance they were going for with 4. It takes so many bullets to kill one soldier and you get killed by an enemy you can't even see. It's really awful.

It is, in my opinion, the biggest thing wrong with UC4. No matter what I do, I can't figure out how how the game is "meant" to be played on this difficulty. Everything I do feels like the game telling me "wrong, try again."

Edit: It's been nine months since I attempted the game on Crushing so my memory is a little hazy. As I read some of the posts, I'm really surprised to see the notion that enemies were spongier in 2/3 than 4. My memory says it's the other way around. I would get so annoyed on UC4 because enemies just would. not. die and I died in a millisecond. Perhaps I will have to refresh my memory. I gave up UC4 at the part where Drake is hanging off the elevator.
 

The007JiM

Member
I agree with many gafffers here.

Uncharted 2 in hard or Crushing not only feels good, also feels challenging and fun. The first encounter with the smurf people scares me until today, but the last fight before you reach the big tree was crazy and really enyoyed.

In Uncharted 3 only remember having trouble with the smashing button sequences since button indicators are turned off, specially in the last fight with Talbot. I must say i feeled some differences beetween crushing in Ps3 and the remaster like the sandstorm fight because in ps3 there's a point with infinite enemies spawning unless you continue and move forward.

Uncharted 4, liked the game but never have any issues with the exception of dying in the shipyard cementery and respawning without ammo but wasn't that imposible. Like the story but i don't want to replay the game again until a long time.

The most challenging thing was playing Uncharted 2 Remaster on Brutal diff. Still can't beat it. You can die with one bullet, literally. The helicopter chase is nightmare.

I must say i not only enyoy playing these games in hardest diff. Trying silly stuff in the easiest ones can be fun too.
 
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