strangecargo

@jbreezycp said:

I don't think I had the sniper rifle for this encounter (or perhaps mine wasn't upgraded and I ran out of ammo). I can definitely see it working out though, as I managed to get the job done the first time with the hand cannon. I think the point I was trying to make was that for me, at least, the game got a ton more fun (and easier) once I stopped trying to play it like other shooters and started really leaning into all of the mechanics made available to me.

The thing about the upgraded Charge/Shotgun combo is that it works equally well for Lady Comstock, Patriots, and especially Handymen. The momentarily invulnerability combined with the Electric Punch/Overkill stun effect and the 2X damage boost from Brittle Skinned is incredibly effective in taking down packs of enemies as well as the heavy hitters. I think Handymen and Lady Comstock are both immune to stun, but invulnerability + 2X damage is enough to handle them as long as you're efficient about Salt conservation. The +Salts from Blood to Salt gives you some extra sustain. I was using Executioner to great effect before I found that piece of gear, but I think it was a little too dicey in the risk/reward department during the longer fights.

It just occurred to me that during the window of Charge invulnerability, a point-blank Rocket Launcher blast (and maybe the Nitro Vest) would be gloriously messy. I might have to try that when I get home.

I think the modern (and unfortunate) trend in game design is to tune the default/normal difficulties so that players can ignore/underutilize many gameplay mechanics yet still succeed; it isn't until you turn up the difficulty that you're really required to play many games as they were designed.

In the case of BioShock Infinite, I think this is definitely the case. I played through the game the first time on Hard and had major issues getting past the same encounters that many people have complained about. It wasn't until the first Siren battle that I had my "Aha!" breakthrough. I finally decided to rethink my approach after 2 hours of trying (I'm stubborn) and discovered that the encounter was a trivial 15 second affair with the Hand Cannon and Murder of Crows w/Crow Traps Aid. This approach didn't work for the second encounter with Lady Comstock (the minions in the bank are immune to crows), so I had to come up with a different strategy (in this case, Shotgun + Charge w/Charge Aid). Once I had gotten it into my mind that I could be very creative (and non-traditional, in FPS terms) with my gameplay, I started having a lot more fun. In fact, I liked the Shotgun + Charge combo so much, I further explored that style of play for my 1999 Mode play through, where I luckily found all the right gear:

• Hat: Electric Punch (70% chance for melee to stun for 4 seconds)
• Vest: Blood to Salt (40% chance for salts on kill)
• Pants: Brittle Skinned (melee targets take 2x damage for 5 seconds)
• Boots: Overkill (killing with excessive damage stuns nearby enemies)

Since Charge and skyline/skyhook attacks both count as melee attacks, this was a lot of fun and allowed one set of gear to work in basically all situations. I upgraded Charge with Charge Aid (grants invulnerability and starts recharging shields immediately after Charge) and used Return to Sender heavily in the late game. This equipment/vigor combo totally changed the pace of combat for me. My gameplay loop went from the traditional shooter tropes (popping in and out of cover, waiting for my shields to recharge, backpedaling frantically away from heavies) to something that felt quite similar to the Vanguard class from Mass Effect (rush in, kill before the invulnerability runs out, chain stun, repeat until everything is dead).

After my first time through, I considered the biggest difficulty spikes to be the Lady Comstock encounters and some of the big, chaotic battle arena sequences. After playing BioShock Infinite a second time, however, I think the hardest part of the game is the first battle sequence, right after the raffle, where you have to deal with two turrets and several armed guards with no shields and nothing but the pistol and the expensive version of Possession. It's at this point that you have nothing but the most basic tools to work with and the game feels like most any other shooter.

I think you could fault the game a bit for not encouraging the creative approach to gameplay more, but I have to admit that I was pretty embarrassed at myself for playing a BioShock game like a traditional shooter to begin with. Considering how much time I spent playing the previous games, I should have learned my lesson the first two times.

It's interesting that opinions on Hard/1999 seem to vacillate between "too hard" and "kind of easy", particularly because the suggested play styles of the people in the "easy" camp vary so greatly. I think that's a testament to the depth of the systems that there are so many ways to succeed, but I think one of BioShock Infinite's flaws is that you can get away with old-school FPSing for so long. Many games have early gear/skill check sequences (ie: how they teach you to use Possession) to introduce you to certain ideas; I can't help but think that this game could have benefitted from some kind of "creative problem solving check" to get you in the right mindset.

I suspect this is more of a thing where developers are getting familiar with motion controls, since XBONE and PS4 seem to be including and/or requiring motion controls.

@thedigitalistic: What mouse are you using? I think mine (the sadly discontinued G9x) has some sort of compatibility issues. I don't have another mouse to try, but even with the sensitivity turned up and the DPI turned all the way up on the mouse, it tracks way slow.

Now if they'd only fix the weird throwing trajectory/bounce physics...

Did anybody else run into that guy that wanted to teach Booker how to Greco-Roman wrestle? I think it was even earlier in the game, right as you first start walking through the streets of Columbia.

I gave the KB/M combo a try last night, but it felt pretty sluggish, regardless of the DPI settings on my mouse or the sensitivity slider in the settings menu. I couldn't get the controls to come anywhere close to how shooters feel on my PC :(

On the plus side, it seems the recent update did something positive to the gamepad controls. Playing with the controller last night felt way more responsive/tight than it did a few days ago. Anybody know what changes were made? I couldn't find any mention of it on the official site...

Does taking points in grenadier make throwing grenades any easier? Every time I throw a grenade, I have the same issue as Patrick in the QL, where it just takes a totally random bounce or goes nowhere near where I intended.

I'm definitely not new to playing shooters with a controller, but I find the analog stick controls a little floaty/weird. Maybe the acceleration curve is just too steep for me (ie: the reticle either moves too slow or too fast), or it could just be an issue of control latency. I'm not really sure. Has anybody else had similar issues?

Also, I noticed that Dust 514 supports KB/M controls. How do they compare? I don't really have any good way to play with KB/M in front of my TV, but if it's worthwhile, I could hook up my PS3 to my PC monitor to at least try it out.

Ah, thanks everybody for filling me in on the AUR vs. ISK items. Make sense. The UI in the store is a little hard to follow, so I wasn't able to figure this out on my own.

I had a pretty hard time even *approaching* some of the NULL cannon emplacements in this game. If someone with an HMG didn't kill me as I approached, some other guy had no problem finishing me off once I got close, despite taking 2-3 shotgun blasts to the face. (Seems like a sound strategy, on their part, btw. Makes me wish I rolled with friends in this game). I feel like some of these guys were listed as having ~650 HP of *shields* in the death screen. Is that a thing?