What difficulty setting for first play-through?

I've switched around between the three settings to get an idea of how they balanced it out. Correct me if I'm wrong here but it seems to me that enemy HP and AI is identical across all difficulties. Audio and visual range might change? Difficulty appears to mostly relate to the availability of items. Difficulty of the stealth sections, so far, is identical for me. Clickers still 1-hit on easy same as they do on hard.

I'll continue through on hard for no other reason than it makes no difference to my play style, might as well get the trophy.

I'm getting my ass kicked on normal, am I just missing something about the way encounters work? (I'm still early, just got introduced to clickers)

I started it on Hard. Got to the part with the clicker and 3 runners and knocked it down to Normal.

Hard isn't unfair and annoying, just intense. Go for it.

edit-- all of the below was tested on 'hard' difficulty setting.

I got bored playing this game the intended way so started defaulting to speed run strategies. The AI is very very stupid. Short aggro range too. You can run straight through fights with infected most of the time so long as you understand that clickers have pretty large range on their one hit kill grab (give them minimum of double their apparent arm length to be safe). Annoyingly the paths forward do not usually allow you to interact with them -even though you clearly should be able to if this wasn't a gamey ass video game- until either all enemies are dead or all party members are close by. If it is the latter circumstance, you can employ what I will call the yakety sax strategy. Run through area of infected making sure to trigger aggro on everything near the area exit. Run them in a circle to clump them into a group and allow them to chase you out of that area. Now run to the exit. If you pulled them out sufficiently far (it's a pretty small distance) you will be able to break their aggro by the time you get to the exit and may proceed with the button prompt on the door or ladder or whatever it is.

For humans with guns, run in and out of cover like an idiot. They will chase instead of sitting behind their cover. If it isn't mandatory to kill them, you can run straight past as well so long as you serpentine and duck to break line of sight. In many guys-with-guns encounters, it seems to me that their awareness range ends at the perimeter of their designated building or walled outdoor enclosure. Often they will refuse to chase you beyond the door of building/area exit.

Pending the discovery of glitches, I suspect this game could be speed run in maybe three or four hours. I have encountered some glitchyness near walls that leads me to believe there are probably some out of bounds sequence breaks to be found.

Played it on hard my first time through. It was intense yet fun. Now I'm playing again on Survivor and, knowing the encounters from my first pass, I'm finding it not as frustrating as I thought it would be. There's a severe lack of crafting materials so you really have to be patient and resourceful. I try to conserve ammo whenever possible, kill clickers with bricks (a noisy but ammo saving tactic - if you equip the brick and then engage them with a melee combo you'll kill them in 3 hits). The enemies you kill don't drop loot as much as they do on easier difficulties but the further into the game you get, they start dropping stuff more frequently. A lot of games just get really cheap/unfair as you crank up the difficulty, but TLOU isn't one of those games. It's fair if you know the game and are resourceful. Naughty Dog really knocked it out of the park in every aspect!

@herbiebug: As far as I can tell AI and hit points are consistent on all difficulties (keep in mind I've only played on hard and survivor). I think the game just gives you less ammo and crafting materials on higher difficulties so you really have to be resourceful and literally make every bullet count.

Hard mode is great in a frustrating-but-satisfying sort of way. You really have to think things through in high stress situations and it's extremely rewarding to successfully stealth or survive a firefight by the skin of your teeth after experiencing a few or even several deaths.

Played it on hard. It wasn't difficult. I also tried to find as much stuff as I could.

I played through on normal, then normal plus, then I did chapter select for survivor, and that gave me plenty of challenge, I got to keep my upgrades from when I finished Normal and when I completed it I got survivor plus trophy.

I went normal and I think it was challenging enough. I had a hard time wrapping my head around the mechanics and gameplay initially. By the end I was still being challenged but it wasn't so hard that I died a lot. It took me just under 15 hours.

I played the demo on hard and was very sore afterwards. the demo takes place when you first enter the big buildings on the way to the capital, where you have to take on your first clicker and horde of roamers. i was frustrated after only a few tries and bagged it till release. so normal for me ;) oh yah and fuck trials of archemedies i think was the name of it on god of war. ruined the game for me.

Started on hard, but i think I'm going to normal. Game just isn't fun enough, and the challenge feels more frustrating than...challenging. Maybe with more loot I want get so pissed off when i kill 8 zombies then get one shot by a clicker. So far game just feels so overrated, I'm wondering if choosing to play on that difficulty was my mistake? After playing Bioshock infinite on hard and loving every second of it I figured I'd do the same here, not so much.

As others in this thread have discovered, difficulty only affects resources in the environment. I recommend altering your playstyle--otherwise, you'll be having the same issues on normal.

This is a hybrid of stealth and survival horror. Playing cautiously and quietly is the key.

Easy, until I get to an eye doctor I can barely see shit in this game. Man I need glasses.:(

That's how i play, or try to. Then after dying a few times, i just start blasting stuff and find a shotgun is most effective.

Stealth and movement in this game are really bad, reminds me of splinter cell honestly. It's alright when it's mroe forgiving, but these one hit clickers are really annoying when you mess up slightly (or your friendly ai gets in your way).

i loved this game on hard. im currently 50% through survivor. Nothing like seeing a collectable in a pit of clickers, "shut up Ellie, i'm goin in!" The only beef i have with this game. Is why would they only give you one choke stealth kill animation, when this game obviously revolves around being stealthy. Specially since im playing on survivor, and most cases your going to want to thin the heard before starting a fire fight.

I just beat it on hard... was pretty easy. Never was short on ammo and I shot my way through half the game I felt like. I didn't even shoot my flamethrower!