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LTTP: Last of Us. Or, Misadventures with Crappy Design.
- Thread starter EatinOlives
- Start date
Zombegoast
Member
I find TLOU a lot better than the Uncharted series. But one of my problems is the weapon drops. The way that you can kill enemies that are holding a shotgun but don't drop any ammo is just stupid. It's also dumb that some segments forces you to fight waves of infected.
Even in story the game has it's issues.
Even in story the game has it's issues.
Why didn't Ellie just shoot the guy that attack Joel in the University? She was right there and even had a gun and was using it after Joel was injured
Shambala
Member
Exactly it's like thy go out their way to find something to rant about. It's crazy
aussiedude08
Member
Playing on survivor for the first play is kinda dumb.
And since you are only in Pittsburgh you are not at the best parts of the game. Its just starting to find its way.
Some areas on survivor with no clue of what enemies are around would make many critical of the game. The sewers and town just after would be a nightmare.
And since you are only in Pittsburgh you are not at the best parts of the game. Its just starting to find its way.
Some areas on survivor with no clue of what enemies are around would make many critical of the game. The sewers and town just after would be a nightmare.
Whoa, dude.
Actually a considerable number of us already criticized the game for its average gameplay, but your frustration is probably a result of choosing a difficulty setting not suited for newcomers.
Do this ^. Enjoy the game for the story, acting and the technical marvel that it is. Don't expect much in the way of gameplay variety, especially when it comes to environmental puzzles, and you're good.
Dirk Benedict
Member
Probably the later. The game can feel unfair sometimes on the higher difficulties.
I streamed my first Grounded on Twitch and people were like "I wouldn't want to play through this" "I'd rather watch you than play this on Grounded than play it myself" "This doesn't look fun at all"
I had problems with the sniper section for awhile and that was where those comments came in.
The problem was I was always saving items because I'm like that IRL. I like conserving things. Heh. Instead of going all out, I was putting an extra burden on myself by trying to be conserving, rather than expend my stuff to quickly get by the area.
The Sniper can also be cheap, especially if you don't know where NOT to pass through.
RespectThySole
Member
Personally, I don't think the gameplay of TLoU is all that great. I mean it's functional and gets the job done, but the game is moreso praised for it's story, characters and atmosphere more than the gameplay, which is fine as long as you have the right expectations going in. Don't expect MGSV-tier design/mechanics.
I honestly think TLOU has one of the best TPS gameplay out there. The gunplay is sublime. And the melee is by far the best melee I have ever experienced in a TPS.
Yup. I went into the game with low expectations in terms of gameplay, but it was actually one of the best things in the game. I was playing on hard and it felt ok.
MaximusPayne
Member
This guy
OfTheOverflow
Member
Don't really know what you're going on about with the example with the bloater. All you have to do is go find the keycard, then turn the generator on, and then you can sprint to the door and get out before engaging in any combat.
Dirk Benedict
Member
Yeah, that wasn't too bad. I usually went the way with the stairs, through the water, only thing is sometimes an infected cheesed you as you went through the doorway, but still, after looking for patterns that was the easiest route, as the other had a bunch of infected and you crossed direct paths with the Bloater itself.
Inf3cted_b3ast
Member
This^
punching those clickers and runners in the face and then finishing them off by slamming their face on a wall or stepping on their face felt really satisfying. loved it!
I'm fucked. You've fucked me.
FantasticMrFoxdie
Mumber
Fucking this^
I don't get why some of gaf suggests Survival on the first go. I feel like you miss an entire portion of what makes the mechanics and gameplay fun. The dynamic nature of going in between action and stealth, stealth and action is a big part of what I enjoyed about the game. Survival pretty much negates that, forcing you to play stealth pretty much the whole time.
If you want a bit of a challenge do it on hard.
Common Knowledge
Member
I love the Last of Us, it's one of my favorite games, but I'm having a lot of the same issues as you right now playing on Survivor for the first time. The game absolutely DOES occasionally "direct" enemies to where you are regardless of how well you are hiding. It does it with clickers too sometimes, which is just annoying. With that said, I haven't yet reached the level of frustration you are having (probably because I've played through the game so many times already I know how to generally go about every encounter), but it's definitely something I've noticed.
The Last of Us is a great game, but there are a few moments where I just have to scratch my head at the design decisions in some areas. That courtyard area talked about in the OP is annoying cause you essentially HAVE to get caught at one point just so Ellie can shoot her rifle for the sake of the story. There are also a few parts where you get "scripted caught" and have to fight enemies head on. One of them off the top of my head is right before entering the high school with Bill. A bunch of runners are scripted to run after you after crossing a certain point between the buses.
And also, I agree the "opening up random cabinets" and 70% of the time finding nothing does get old. But I guess that's kind of the point of Survivor mode; it makes you really think about how you're using your supplies.
(Also, off topic, but regarding "stealth-directing enemies", I just want to say the game with the worst case of this is without a doubt GTA V with the cops. Once you reach 4 or 5 stars the police become superhuman mutants with X-ray vision and no matter how far away you get from them and how obscure your hiding spot is behind an alleyway, literally every cop going after you WILL before long get to that exact spot and search around. And its just a matter of hoping your wanted status goes away before it happens. It's ridiculous.)
The Last of Us is a great game, but there are a few moments where I just have to scratch my head at the design decisions in some areas. That courtyard area talked about in the OP is annoying cause you essentially HAVE to get caught at one point just so Ellie can shoot her rifle for the sake of the story. There are also a few parts where you get "scripted caught" and have to fight enemies head on. One of them off the top of my head is right before entering the high school with Bill. A bunch of runners are scripted to run after you after crossing a certain point between the buses.
And also, I agree the "opening up random cabinets" and 70% of the time finding nothing does get old. But I guess that's kind of the point of Survivor mode; it makes you really think about how you're using your supplies.
(Also, off topic, but regarding "stealth-directing enemies", I just want to say the game with the worst case of this is without a doubt GTA V with the cops. Once you reach 4 or 5 stars the police become superhuman mutants with X-ray vision and no matter how far away you get from them and how obscure your hiding spot is behind an alleyway, literally every cop going after you WILL before long get to that exact spot and search around. And its just a matter of hoping your wanted status goes away before it happens. It's ridiculous.)
Both of those are true. MGSV has it beat in gunplay and movement, but melee in TLOU is much better with really weighty and fluid animations. Bricking something is fantastic.
CrimsonSquall
Member
I just feel like if you didn't like any bit of TLOU story u have no emotions. Like this is as good as it gets in gaming storytelling, what more could u ask for
Cracklox
Member
Respectfully disagree with this. At the same time I don't think survival is best for the first playthrough either. Like alot of others, I think hard is the sweet spot. The much more limited supplies really ratchet up the tension, the ammo especially. You need to be careful about when you use your guns where you're aiming. Its probably the 1st game since the early resident evil games that had me cursing when I waste even a single bullet.
A friend of mine did his playthrough on normal and regrets not playing on hard. I watched him for a bit and he always had a tonne of ammo and supplies to do what he wanted with. Takes away from the experience a bit if you ask me.
Each for their own though
- edit - lesson learnt. read whole post before responding. We are in total agreeance it seem. Moving on
. Its not amazing, and is definitely over hyped, but I enjoyed the story enough to keep going.HyperCubed4
Member
I completely disagree. Story and characters are great, gameplay is boring and derivative. Not bad gameplay, just nothing exciting.
You aren't the only one. Hated the gameplay and the story has been done before. Made it a little past Pittsburgh and sold it. Coming from someone that loves Naughty Dog.
Gaming storytelling (AAA games) is basically shit-tier when compared to other mediums. So that is a pretty weird comment. When you've seen/read the same story before it doesn't have that same impact and having the realism constantly broken by ridiculous AI it doesn't help.
Gaming storytelling (AAA games) is basically shit-tier when compared to other mediums. So that is a pretty weird comment. When you've seen/read the same story before it doesn't have that same impact and having the realism constantly broken by ridiculous AI it doesn't help.
I had a really good time with TLoU on my first play through. The combat was slightly above average; definitely better than Uncharted but what kept me playing was the character development.
Fortunately I picked normal difficulty because if I had to repeat sections multiple times to get through I would have given up.
Sadly I tried playing again on PS4 but because I already knew all of the story beats I put the game down after only a couple of hours. Kind of wish I did a one and done because my opinion of the game has tarnished a bit after trying to replay.
Fortunately I picked normal difficulty because if I had to repeat sections multiple times to get through I would have given up.
Sadly I tried playing again on PS4 but because I already knew all of the story beats I put the game down after only a couple of hours. Kind of wish I did a one and done because my opinion of the game has tarnished a bit after trying to replay.
Laughing Banana
Weeping Pickle
OP, the Last of Us have some shitty enemy spawning system, just so you know (and you know about it already by now, lol) The encounter that you spoke of where Ellie was backing you up while you go around choking dudes, that's one of the places where the game will unceremoniously spawn hostiles without warning.
Sometimes the game even forced a fight down your throat with no way for you to avoid, even though just seconds ago the game itself said to you "be sneaky for your advantage!" before "lol jk here, a forced fight!" (the schoolbus' yard)
Sometimes the game even forced a fight down your throat with no way for you to avoid, even though just seconds ago the game itself said to you "be sneaky for your advantage!" before "lol jk here, a forced fight!" (the schoolbus' yard)
The whole thing is a character study of Joel, and Joel becomes who he is in the prologue. The entire game is about how the events of the prologue - authority figures killing a little girl out of paranoia - lead one traumatised man to lead a violent post-apocalyptic life for the next 21+ years.
He's definitely not a psychopath, because he's not pathological. It's clear that he is who he is in the bulk of the game because of what happens in the prologue. So if a policeman walked into your house and shot your wife, child, parent, whatever, because of some order from higher up, would you ever trust a policeman/the police ever again? No. And if society collapsed, chances are you'd turn your back on any sort of government because of that shit. The 20-year timeskip after the prologue leaves a blank where Joel obviously turns his back on society and any form of authority/government because of his experience, and he falls into the underbelly of an already-rotten culture where violence is the answer to everything. As Tess says, she and him have been 'shitty people for a long time'. That doesn't mean they were shitty people before the outbreak.
That's the logic that follows through from the prologue to literally the game's last second. It's masterfully done.
BouncyFrag
Member
I found playing it on hard with listen mode to be a good challenge.
GreySquirrel
Member
This is what happens when so many people say playing Last Of Us on X difficulty is the way it's meant to be played as if it's some kind of measurement/proof to how committed they are to the game.
I played on the default settings and had a fun time. It's a game
I played on the default settings and had a fun time. It's a game
Everybody lost someone due to the outbreak, but the game keeps asking me to understand that Joel is acting this way because his daughter.
Big fucking whoop. How many orphans did I make playing that game? Joel was about to fucking murder Henry right in front of his kid brother, like Joel would totally double back to save a stranger from an armored truck. He throws a tantrum when his little brother is more interested in taking care of his people instead of helping him after he barged into his life after a decade, because Joel's struggles are just so much more fucking important.
Look, TLOU was not 3deep5me. I get that it's trying to be this big character study and goddamn does it try, it just didn't work. I'm completely unable to relate to Joel as a character because he lacks even a shred of humanity and that needs to be there. There needs to at least something I can latch onto the guy and say "yes I have felt that," but that wasn't there. It's not a matter of him being an asshole, plenty of fantastic characters are complete shit, but there's nothing beyond imprinting on Ellie.
Like, shit, I care about Mario not falling down holes if only because that means I get a game over. Why the fuck would I want to see Joel's story continue when he has as much to him as the big mushroom zombies?
besides ellie you mean
You've been Gaffed. In the sense everyone here is a god and they tell you you should play in shit-bricks difficulty to trully experience the greatness of the game and all.
Reduce the difficulty level and the dumb AI and the empty cupboards wont be annoying cause you will rarely die because OP AI but your own mistakes and the items will be abundant.
Reduce the difficulty level and the dumb AI and the empty cupboards wont be annoying cause you will rarely die because OP AI but your own mistakes and the items will be abundant.
old manatee
Banned
The Last of Us is only good at specific difficulty settings. Hard difficulty without listen mode, or survivor.
Normal is a joke, listen mode is broken, and grounded mode is just badly balanced and exposes everything wrong with the AI.
Normal is a joke, listen mode is broken, and grounded mode is just badly balanced and exposes everything wrong with the AI.
Not everybody had their daughter shot - by the military - on the first night. Reading backstories it's clear that plenty of people just made it to quarantine zones and hung around. Sure, they lost family, friends - but probably 95% of those deaths on the first night were to the outbreak/infected, rather than the police.
More importantly, even if everybody else had their daughter shot on the first night, that isn't what makes the entire narrative. The context is set up perfectly - he has turned his back on society because of it, and then Ellie the deus ex machina lands in his lap, Tess dies (someone else he evidently loves, in some way) and implores him to save her, Ellie is a nice person and he starts getting hope again, yadda yadda. It's perfectly set up.
Why does that matter? Do you need to relate to every fictional character personally for them to be a good character? Why do you need to empathise to make it real, why do you need to 'feel that'?
What makes a good character is that they're idiosyncratic, just like human beings are In Real Life. I can't empathise with my fascist next-door neighbour but that doesn't mean I can't write short stories about him and study what made him the way he is. Many of the best characters in fictional history have been sociopaths, psychopaths, or insane in some way. You don't need to feel Joel's feels for him to be a good character.
Having a girl who is potentially immune to the human-destroying virus is a bit more important than trying to get a dam running, yes. Not to mention he's carrying out Tess's dying wish.
Righty ho, anyway, the game's not for you. It worked perfectly for me, and evidently for the hundreds of critics who loved it and awarded it, and evidently the hundreds of thousands who bought it and enjoyed it.
It would be nice if you didn't call the story 'awful dogshit', though. That's just unnecessary.
The story of the Last of Us would have worked with two changes:
1. We don't fight the rebels at the end and we have no information similar to Ellie.
One of the worst of the story, was the forced decision to save Ellie against her wish. I feel like the developers and me have a clear misunderstanding. The journey makes it clear, that the world is shit show and I was all in with Eliie, taking this chance to save the world. I guess, the developers actually wanted to show, that people working together and loving each other can overcome even the harshest environments. But there were many points in the story, where this wasn't enough to save them. The game forced Joel's opinion on me, what wasn't elegant at all and I hated the long final fight because of it.
2. Have Ellie leaving or fighting Joel at the end
Being such a selfish asshole like Joel needed to have consequences. He lied to her (which she clearly knows) and he became a mentally unstable person, which she can't trust and possible would drag her down. The game ends at the worst possible point and didn't felt concluded. If it's "open to interpretation", than it would be inconsistent. The story-telling up to this point was very straightforward with both characters. It just felt like sequel-bait.
And to be on topic, yes, the gameplay is very mediocre with some very bad examples of level-design.
I tried to shoot the guy with the MG, before Ellie and the two brothers would walk down the road, through the window, he was shooting. Turned out, there was nobody their and a ghost was shooting the MG. The guy was gone, so they could play the cut-scene, where he attacks you from behind. Very weird decision.
Also at the part, which is the main point of the OP, I could not continue the game, since I couldn't open the door at the end and enemies were spawning infinitely. Turned out, you HADE TO FAIL at stealth, so that Eliie can shoot somebody, so that the following cut-scene actually make sense. The gameplay truly was the bitch for the story...
Last of Us PS4 is probably one of my biggest purchase regrets in recent memory basically for this reason.
Remove the narrative from consideration (I'd already beaten and really enjoyed the game on PS3), and all you really have is a woefully shallow game, one that cranking up the difficulty just exposes a rigidly designed system that feels as if it was designed merely to be adequate enough to deliver the plot and look pretty. I remember when it came out I praised this game as "the silent hill 2 and RE4 of this generation rolled into one", and nowadays feel pretty embarrassed by my own hyberbole at the time. It's a really great game to experience, but one in hindsight I feel is better left to memory.
Remove the narrative from consideration (I'd already beaten and really enjoyed the game on PS3), and all you really have is a woefully shallow game, one that cranking up the difficulty just exposes a rigidly designed system that feels as if it was designed merely to be adequate enough to deliver the plot and look pretty. I remember when it came out I praised this game as "the silent hill 2 and RE4 of this generation rolled into one", and nowadays feel pretty embarrassed by my own hyberbole at the time. It's a really great game to experience, but one in hindsight I feel is better left to memory.
Gravy Boat
Member
It's Joel's story, not yours.
lol just don't...
@OP
No offense but you're just bad at this game, I played the remastered version because I didn't have a PS3, start on Grounded mode and finished it without really struggling ( beside that damn Sniper MF ), you just should play it on normal.
But it makes it really hard playing a game, if I not support the decision of a character and have to kill people, I see as inoccent. This isn't GTA, where I play a clean criminal and everbody is a over drawn asshole. You can not have realistic characters, build a relationship with them and at the next sequence force me to do something, which i am against. This isn't fun.
But he makes me murder innocent people for him!!!
This was ingenious, though? Forcing the player to BE a character, to really go through with what that person would go through with, was an achievement of interactive fiction.
It's something books or films could never capture. You, physically, taking your gun out and killing people that a problematic human being would kill.
It was ingenious. I felt awful playing it, I felt so bad - but that was good. That was the point. To make you feel things. Even if those things are not pleasant at all.
Is fun all that matters? This wasn't just a "game" in the pure definition of the word. You're not just trying to score points or 'play'. This was a work of interactive fiction as much as it was a videogame using game design to engage the player.
I love the game as a whole but yes I can pretty much confirm every situation you described.
For me this is a case where quality of gameplay doesn't quite justify super punishing difficulty levels.
I played the game on normal first and then did that weird trick that let's you play on survivor but with an already upgraded character. That was fine mostly but even then some the scripting can screw you over pretty bad.
It is a Naughty Dog game after all with all the good and bad things that always seem to come with that.
For me this is a case where quality of gameplay doesn't quite justify super punishing difficulty levels.
I played the game on normal first and then did that weird trick that let's you play on survivor but with an already upgraded character. That was fine mostly but even then some the scripting can screw you over pretty bad.
It is a Naughty Dog game after all with all the good and bad things that always seem to come with that.
This would be okay, if the sequence would not be this long and frustraiting. But goes on for too long, which doesn't make it cleverly not fun (like the MGS4 microwave scene) and instead simply NOT FUN.
Lol, no.
Gravy Boat
Member
You spend the whole game killing people though. It's very clear from the outset that Joel is someone who isn't afraid to kill to get what he wants. Even though the doctors weren't armed or an immediate threat, it's really no surprise that Joel would kill them.
Not every game has to offer you choices. With TLoU, they chose to tell a story. You don't get to choose how that story plays out, nor should you be able to. The lack of choice is what makes it so good. It's like watching Breaking Bad. You know that Walter White is an asshole and you want him to get what's coming to him, but you're still captivated by him as a character even if you totally disagree with everything he does.
Not only that, but not everything needs to be 'fun'. Some of the best films of all time aren't 'fun' to watch. Fun is just one emotion, TLoU tried to capture something different. 12 Years A Slave is a fantastic film, but at no point would I say it was fun or even enjoyable to watch. It was compelling for different reasons. Journey, one of my favourite games of all time, isn't 'fun' in the classic sense. But I played it because it triggered other emotional responses brilliantly.
Fair enough, that's a different thing, though. That's an issue of pacing and level design, not story or characters.
RespectThySole
Member
That's my least favorite part of the game too.
But We cant just cherry pick, the stuff which is good and ignore the rest. There is a big difference be having a good idea or intentions and actually having good execution. The quality of a story can change very strongly depending on the director, which happens all the time in movies. We talk about The Last of Us in a whole and this is a big problem of the game (Naughty Dog always fucks up their endings, it's crazy).