I started the game off on hard, which, in retrospect, is the same mistake I made during the first Bioshock. (which is a funny and weird meta-commentary on the game)

I had a really tough time with the turrets at the beginning of the game, of which there are a bajillion and they shoot you from such a distance that they are impossible to see. But, after that slowed down and I started getting enough money to get upgrades, I started making a go of it. I was enjoying myself right up until about halfway through the game where the narrative has tons of questions and no answers. Getting to those answers means slogging through fight,after fight, after fight, and death after death after death. The storyline pacing just couldn't support hard mode.

Still, I stuck with it until the fight with Lady Comstock in the graveyard. It took me about two hours to finally vanquish her. I thought to myself "GEEZ. Thank goodness I'll never have to do that again!" Except you do. Twice. About an hour into the second battle with her, I dropped the difficulty to easy and rode out the rest of the game. I just didn't have the patience for it anymore.

Anybody make it all the way to the end on hard?

I frequently felt like I just didn't have the tools necessary. None of the traps work because the badguys ALWAYS get the drop on you, no matter what, and badguys like the handyman shrug off all your tonics and can jump on you from anywhere in the map, instantly.

Oh, I should say that the reason Lady Comstock was so hard is because, if you die, she basically gets all her health back. So you have to kill her and a room full of resurrecting grunts all in one life. And the longer you take, the less resources you have to fight her with. One time it looks like she no health in her bar, so I rushed her with my shotgun to try to put an end to it. Three direct shots with the shotgun, point blank range, and her health bar goes nowhere. I end up dying by some grunt half a map away and have to do the WHOLE thing all over again.

Yeah I just beat it on hard a couple hours ago on the xbox version and yeah, it was kind of a pain in the ass. I even switched to Call of Duty controls which I don't normally do for these games just to give me a leg up on the combat. Sometimes it's like enemies have you completely surrounded and have perfect aim no mater what distance I peek out of cover.

A handful of times I had to cheese certain enemy types, especially Lady Comstock, just to pull through without losing all my money and ammo. In retrospect it would have been a much richer experience on normal for my first time through but I wanted the experience to last as long as possible and well, it certainly took longer. The story and world were good enough for me to push on and it was ultimately worth it by the end.

Yeah... I put it on hard and didn't even get to Elizabeth before i put it on normal. No problem though, good reason to play through the game again. And I got to find all those Voxophones!

I played on hard and didn't really have a problem. I died a few times the final battle, but other than that my deaths were fairly infrequent throughout the game. The key is make intelligent choices with your vigor upgrades. On hard, return to sender is your best friend, especially on the lady comstock fights. If you aren't constantly using a fully upgraded return to sender, you have made a mistake.

I played through on hard; there were definitely some genuinely hard parts. Certainly much harder than BioShock 2 or System Shock 2 on impossible.

I played on Normal all the way through to the Zeppelin fight, and then after dieing about ten times I dropped it to Easy. What was especially frustrating was that the last three times I tried that fight on normal I was on the last zeppelin and the Songbird just wouldn't refresh fast enough for me to take it down. I felt like it was pretty bullshit to turn that fight into a defense mission out of nowhere and I just got tired of it. The skylines seemed pretty worthless to me, I'm pretty sure I just spammed possession, shock jockey and crank gun to finally beat that fight.

See, I believe that. The problem I had, is because I was upgrading what I was given earliest, I rarely branched out into the later vigors and weapons. There are a bunch of weapons I never even used.

I think if i had played on normal and was playing again on Hard, it would have been much easier. I'd know what Lady Comstock and and cannot do, how to handle turrets, how to use rails, etc.

Like, I would almost never get on rails because i had no idea where they went.

Yeah, I lost that fight once, even on easy, because i had no idea I was supposed to be defending anything.

No idea why people play games on hard first time through. Usually it just buffs enemy health and makes the game a chore.

Nearin the end on hard now and only die when I was being stupid.

Poured money into the machine gun and repeater. Return to sender and devils kiss are my picks. When it gets bad I hide and just spam kiss till the world is cleansed in holy hell fire

After this run ill be doing 1999 no dollar bill machines.

I'm playing on hard and haven't quit yet. There have been sections where I've died a bunch but the death penalty is so slight I could usually force my way through every scenario. I've also found that I've adapted and have gotten much better at the game since I played it on hard. I'm not sure I would have improved as much playing on Normal.

Even on normal I was really disoriented in the firefights. Some of the maps were too big, too vertical and the enemies too accurate for the distance we both have to cover.

I am really not good at shooters and I found 1999 easy... hard was even easier than that.

What are the differences between Hard and 1999?

@beachthunder: Navigation mode is disabled, if you run out of money you cant respawn. The health of enemies and the damage they do it probably changed too but I don't know.

For me the way to kill lady comstock on hard difficulty was to use the levitate vigor (bronco) with the chain effect gear (think it was the shirt) which chains the effect to nearby enemies.

So when the enemies are floating in the air close to each other use a rocket launcher to kill them all at once.That worked pretty great at both times.

I also used posession quite a lot since it is a good way to take heat off you for a while. Posession is also a good way to control enemies that manage to sneak up close to you unnoticed.

And getting salt from killing enemies is a life saver. I think you can also buy it as an vigor ability.

Are you kidding me? I never found that one. by the time I was done in the graveyard I was just like "get me out of here". I didn't even stop to look at the graves or anything, which I regret.

I started on medium initially, and then started over on hard. I definitely appreciated health and shield upgrades more than tacking on a bit to my salt bar. The Lady Comstock fights and the final zeppelin battle were pains in the ass, though the latter helped me knock out a lot of lingering achievements... But it took me at least an hour.

FPS's are not hard on the hardest difficulty. Ever.

I will continue to play on hard, without issue.

@dudeglove: what about the several non-progression shock jockey doors?

I played through on hard and didn't find it to be particularly painful. I died a few times in the obvious places (Handyman fights, Ghost Lady, the final battle) but it wasn't too rough.

I didn't get too involved in the combat, I tended to use Possession and bringing allies in through tears to tank for me, I contributed from distance with the carbine and had the shotgun for protection if enemies got close. I'd strongly recommend trying that combination on harder difficulties as both weapons are very powerful and possession is flat out broken, allowing you to use the most powerful enemies on the field as your allies over and over again until they die in battle while weaker enemies kill themselves at the end of the spell.

I played it through on hard and must agree the turrets at the beginning are aggravating. It was smooth sailing when I had the tools to easily get pat the (mainly more salts for possession), that was until the graveyard fight. Focused too much on salts and couldn't put enough buttlets out before I died, I almost switched to normal but managed to get by. After than I cheese the next two ghost fights by hiding in cover and throwing out devil kisses. Those were the only really hard parts in found. But I felt like if imswitched to normal it would be too easy.

I didn't even know you could get on the Zeppelins. I just had Songbird take them all out. I actually lost the first time because I thought the blue life bar was for Songbird and didn't realize we were protecting a core. The 2nd time I knew what I was defending and beat that section without the core losing any health.

The more you know.

I stopped playing on Hard at the point in the story where they are following Lady Comstock around the city. I've already detailed my thoughts but didn't comment on what I would actually recommend now if nothing else changes: I would highly recommend focusing all the money you can on upgrading just one weapon and always buy up to full salt and health when you get the chance.

Yeah, there's a part in the original Bioshock, in Fort Frolic that has that same puzzle. I was proud of myself when I figured it out. I was like "all those years of zelda paid off!"

I'm playing on 1999 mode right now, and I've only died two or three times,mostly due to those fucking god-damn ass-hole snipers.

I think that's why you unlock 1999 mode after you beat the game. I just rode through on medium with the occasional easy when necessary. Second playthrough's are where I relegate harder difficultys.

Beat it on hard, the only two parts that gave me any real trouble were the Lady Comstock fights and the defense mission at the end.

naa, I started on easy.. stayed on easy.

I went straight to 1999 Mode and immediately thought "What have I done?" But I adapted to its fucked-ness and actually ended up enjoying it. Now I feel like, if I start a new game on Hard, I'll just breeze through the whole thing whistling a carefree tune.

I played on Normal my first playthrough, and 1999 mode on my second. It's really not that hard once you understand how OP your abilities are. By the time you get to the Siren fights... you have Charge. The most OP Vigor in the game after being upgraded and in combination with the double damage after melee hit gear.

Even if you didn't use charge, laying down a bunch of Shock traps and sniping/carbining her in the face while she and the zombies are stunned works well too. Or you could use Shock/Fire and kill the zombies to disintegrate them so she can't resurrect them anymore, which will let you fight her 1v1. When you fight her the 3rd time, you can use Undertow to knock all the zombies off the edge of Columbia for the same effect. etc.

I beat it on hard and the only part I had any trouble with was the end on the airship getting attacked by the Vox. I'm playing through again on 1999 mode and haven't had much trouble. I can say I'm not looking forward to the ghost fight or the airship.

Did you play on PC? In thinking about it, I imagine it's probably way easier on PC because aiming on the playstation was a pain in the butt.

I read a PC Gamer article, in which the author said that hard mode was the proper way to play the game if you are experienced at first person shooters. He made the case that the challenges presented the hard mode forced players to use tears, vigors and the skyline more often and more strategically.

After playing through the whole game on hard, and hearing Jeff's comments on the last Bombcast regarding hard difficulty, I think the PC Gamer guy is correct. Jeff said that he didn't use the skyline much, because he felt he didn't need it to clear out each "arena" of enemies. I felt like I depended on the skyline. Whenever I was getting in a tough spot, I needed to either find some quick cover or get the hell out of there, and tears were often a way to accomplish the former, while the skyline was a great way to accomplish the latter. I found myself using perks that increased my accuracy while on a skyline so that I could use the Bird's Eye Sniper Rifle to headshot dudes while flying past them - which was made easier by slowing down, changing directions, and using the skyline in ways that maybe I would have felt I didn't have to use, had I played in a lower difficulty. I also found myself dependent on using the Possession vigor to get temporary allies, I found myself dependent on turrets and other tears that Elizabeth could bring in, and stuff like that. I had to come up with stuff constantly. The challenge made the combat richer.

To be fair, I have to admit I found the beginning to be overwhelmingly hard, and lost probably way too much money there. But by the time I got to the second half I had already been thoroughly enjoying the combat, and felt that most of the times I died it was my own fault, and the result of my own carelessness and lack of strategic planning. On the podcast Jeff said that he only died a few times, always due to thinking he could essentially just Rambo a section but being wrong about that.

Also I'm definitely not a fan of the penalty for dying in this game. Taking money away from you only means you'll have less to spend on upgrades, which means the game is going to be even harder for you. At one section I kept dying over and over, and lost hundred of silver eagles. I couldn't upgrade my weapons and vigors after that, which means that, had I been better at the game, the game would essentially have been easier? Also sometimes you might be thrown on loops of dying over and over because you are spawned with less ammo and less health than when you came into that same specific challenge, which is really frustrating. But I found that generally, the more I progressed into the game, the rarer those situations became, and they never did come up more than two or three times throughout my playthrough.

Overall, I feel like I had a better, richer, more complete and varied experience with the combat in BioShock Infinite than what I would have had if I had played through it on medium or easy difficulties. Even if there were some occasional seriously frustrating encounters, I had some really great and exciting moments fighting dudes and half dudes-half machines in that game.

Yup, switched to normal then beat the game. Now I'm playing on 1999 mode and it's not too bad. Don't get me wrong, I die a lot, but it isn't like hard was back when I started. I think you just need to get acquainted with the game first.

I'm playing through on hard and the graveyard fight was really difficult. I think the game glitched though, because after dying like the tenth time and she was down to half, she disappeared and the fight was over... Still not sure to this day how to officially beat the boss

I'm playing on 1999 with no resurrections. Aside from some dumb checkpoint placements I've been having a good time, though I haven't encountered any of the enemies you're complaining about yet (I'm currently at the point where you get the electricity power).

<p>Didn't have too much trouble with Lady Comstock, just hung way back, and if possible near a bill machine. Picked her off with burst gun or carbine. What broke me was the zeppelin fight. I could not figure out a good way to kill the patriots fast enough, probably the reason was I didn't upgrade my vigors well. Will have to go round two on 1999 mode or maybe run through on normal to try for all the voxophones</p>

I have also noticed some irregularities with the presentation of the enemy health bars. Even on normal, I have had several encounters where an enemy's bar is down to a pixel and inexplicably takes several more hits to actually die. This design choice of intentionally misleading healthbars, usually referred to as 'guts', has occasionally been implemented in fighting games to draw out the tense moments at the end of the match when one or both characters appear to have little or no visible health bar remaining.

It's shitty and disingenuous. Keep that trash out of my video games please. D:

Haven't finished the game yet, but switched to easy about half way through. Not because it was difficult, perse, just more that the game is pretty stingy with the vigour refills to the point that I found myself rarely using them, and never laying traps at all due to the high vigour expense and the fact that the ai on most normal units is programmed to avoid them. Which was boring and lame.

So far my impressions of the game are consistent with those of Bioshock. Great atmosphere, great story, lame combat, bullet spongy ai, weirdly low penalty for death.

@jazgalaxy:

Ya, I'm playing it on the PC. Unless it's different on the consoles, I think 1999 mode disables auto-aim, which I of course had manually disabled anyway playing with the mouse and keyboard, so I could see it being a bit difficult if you play it with a controller. Although, that's one good thing about going with the Charge vigor + shotgun if you're having trouble, perfect aim isn't a requirement.

I played it hard and apart from a few frustrating moments, I thought it provided a fair challenge. It may have helped that I picked up some good gear (melee kills restore health, melee attacks set fire to enemy 70% of time, getting hit electrocutes enemies 50%(?) of times, and double shield recharge) early on and, by the time I got Charge with the explosion and shield restoration upgrades, the Lady Comstock fight was not too bad. Surprisingly for me I didn't die once on the final battle.

My only complaint for hard difficulty is that some of the higher tier enemies like the rocketeer and volley gunner became bullet sponges and took more time than was fun to take down.

As for 1999 mode, the poor checkpointing in the game has turned me off from trying it. The checkpoints are to infrequent and the possibility of having to replay large sections doesn't appeal to me.

I played it through on hard and thought it was pretty damn hard in spots. The AI bugged out for me in the graveyard fights and some fights with the handymen which I feel might of defeated me otherwise. I just stood and unloaded countless sniper shots into the graveyard boss's head and it still took an age to take down despite it standing perfectly still. I ended up barely buying any upgrades because I was just losing too much money in general.

I think I still would have preferred the game on hard than normal though.

Oh and handymen suck. I would kill all the other enemies and then just be left fighting the handymen for 5-10 minutes after everyone else was dead.

For the graveyard on hard, took me a few tries before I figured a winning combo - using regain salts on enemy kill and the shield vigor. Put up shield, inhale damage, get close to her and throw the shield alternate.

I quit after the first death. The fact that they take away money from you after a death is a bad game design choice. It gives you no reason to continue the game and makes it more beneficial to start the whole campaign over. If they ever fix the terrible save system where I can choose to start the whole combat scenario over without a money penalty than I'll gladly breeze through Hard.

@snail: That's good to hear, as playing on Normal, the combat was a major gripe for me. Not because of difficulty but because I never felt the game encouraged me to mix things up at all.

I spent most encounters simply shocking guys, then shooting them with the carbine rifle from a distance, before hiding behind cover to reload. As a result, I never really experimented or used skylines.

The few times I tried out skylines they just seemed to open me up to getting hit. I didn't realise until the final battle that aiming while on the skylines actually made you lock onto enemies permanently.

With this in mind I was considering playing through again on hard. What you said definitely makes it seem like the preferred option because the combat came off as really dull and undemanding on medium. It just made me assume it was poorly designed in general.

Thanks for pointing out the differences between difficulties! Now I'm excited to jump back in!

Man, I'm on the second Lady Comstock fight and I'm about ready to give up. This shit is so fucking poorly designed and frustrating it's amazing it even made it into the game. I've been playing on hard the entire time, and while I think most of the bigger fights are really cheap and way harder than they need to be, this just takes the cake. Fucking ridiculous and it kind of makes me hate the entire game. I can't believe that, even IF I get past this fight, I have to do it again. Fuck you, BioShock, Infinite. You're breaking my heart.

Yeah, this is absolutely terrible and has lead to many unfair deaths, where I'm shooting dudes that very clearly should be dead, but aren't simply so they can kill me for no reason.

The money you lose by dying is nothing compared to the money you can make by exploiting Elizabeth's AI. It seems like a 50-50 chance that if you enter a vendor window and scroll through all of the items and then back out of the window without buying anything Elizabeth will give you money (once per machine). If you stay in one area for a long time Elizabeth will give you money. If you backtrack to an area that you've already scavenged, she'll give you money. Combine that with using possession on every vending machine to get more money and you eliminate the scarcity altogether. I ended up buying upgrades for guns and vigors that I never used because I was flush with cash most of the time.

Well, you can change difficulty anytime so it should not have been a real problem.