The game seems unreasonably hard. Any tips?

I have been struggling with this game even on the second easiest difficulty. I do manage to progress, but I always fail five or more times before doing so.

It feels strange to me as I don't tend to have any problems with difficult game, even FPSes. I finished DOOM on Ultraviolence without much issues. It seems the design of Wolfenstein doesn't click with me, I'm not understanding how I should play and what I could do better. I can't understand how I'm supposed to dodge the enemies and their hitscan weapons, but I always end up being overwhelmed if I play slow.

I don't want to fault the game necessarly. It plays different enough than other shooters that it makes sense you should approach it a different way. I'm just curious if other people have been struggling like I did and if you have any tips on how to play better.

I think the biggest fault of the game so far is feedback. While you're unloading on those Nazis, there really isn't any indication where you're getting shot from and how much health you are losing.

I found it pretty hard early on, until you get a few upgrades for dealing with heavies. The armor piercing for the assault rifle is good. So is the nail gun for the sub machine gun. My general strategy was to kill the leaders as quickly and silently as possible,generally kill all regular guys, and then using the upgraded stuff on the heavies. Dual wielding is really helpful for this! And in general really effective if you need to move forward.

But yea this is definitely harder than Doom on Ultra since you just have way less movement, health, and tools. That changes later ,but makes it rough early on. Also it is really hard to tell when you are getting hit a lot and enemies that briefly take a knee can get lost in the sea of bodies.

I'm getting my ass handed to me over and over and over again. This is after I knocked it down from Hard to Medium on the second level. I'm now 4 hours, maybe, into it and I'm considering knocking down to the second easiest because it's really hard to have fun with this game as it stands. I'm just not digging this at all, and for this being my most anticipated game of the year, that is a huge, HUGE bummer. Health and armor don't mean shit in the game when you die so quickly and can never tell when you're taking damage. And what's the deal with spending a huge chunk of the game with 50% max health? I'm still waiting for when it gets to 100% because that shit isn't cool.

First tip, when you're outnumbered find a wall and use the lean to pop out as if it were a cover shooter, it takes them a good two to three seconds to register you're there so if you take them out in that time then you'll be alright. I'm playing on Hard and just did the bit where you save the resistance woman with the child and found that strategy helped. Second tip, running and gunning is good for when you need to relocate and it's the most satisfying way to play but also the most dangerous. Third tip, make use of the ability to save anywhere. Which I tend to take advantage of during the stealth sections, which I suck at. I played The New Order and The Old Blood on "I Am Death Incarnate" because I thought it sounded cool and made me feel like a badass but since that's now the ultra hard difficulty I doubt i'll be doing that with this game. I'm enjoying the game but I have the same complaint a lot of people had from the New Order which is I wish this game played more like DOOM and less like Far Cry. (the PC original)

One of the things I'm kind of struggling with is completely independent from the difficulty setting. The level layouts (that I've seen so far) are just plain confusing. I keep getting lost, walking around in circles for 20+ minutes trying to find where I'm supposed to go.

@bbalpert: if you hit touch pad (or select I assume) you can pull up the map, which fills in what you've seen even if you haven't found a map in the level. Also if you hit down on the d pad it'll flash the objective marker thingy.

General tips: Even though it's not a cover based game explicitly, you have to be smart about positioning and cover. Have a wall to duck behind and make sure enemies aren't coming from multiple directions. While I said to stay behind cover, it does help to be semi mobile - you don't want a ton of enemies grouped up, so I often take out a couple enemies and then run to a different part of the level. The ai seems to have the "last known position" thing going on so taking advantage of the open areas allows you to come at them from a different angle and pick off a couple more without having to get shot at a ton.

I remember the first one being hard too (probably why i never beat it lol) but would stealth be a viable solution or are you forced to fire fight most the time?

@oursin_360: stealth is viable but you will be forced into head on encounters from time to time

@colonel_pockets said:

This is my only real criticism of the combat so far. The game doesn't do enough to communicate received damage, so it's super easy to Leeroy Jenkins into an encounter and get creamed without knowing who killed you and from where. I probably just need to stop playing the game like Doom and slow things down a step.

@conmulligan: Yeah, I agree. It just sucks that it seems like they want us to play it super aggressively with the dual-wielding and the suit, but you just can't.

Once the enemy knows you are around, you need to go hit-and-run. Kill as many nazis as you can without taking damage. Once they shoot back, just run to a different form of cover/room/hallway. Most combat areas have multiple routes and the best way to survive is to use them to your advantage. It's obvious, but use any choke points to your advantage. I try to lure groups to doorways or hallways; once I have them there I dual wield machine guns and hold the triggers.

Other have mentioned, but things get easier with weapon upgrades. Get the pistol silencer to make clearing guys out in the stealth sections easier. Armor piecing for the rifle is probably the best upgrade to get early because it basically lets you 1-2 shot the drones and kill the armored guys easier.

I really hate this games health system it's just annoying it makes the game less fun but this game is still damn good.

I mentioned this in another topic but I think this game's main fault is that it lacks feedback when the player is taking damage. It is difficult to notice when you are taking damage, how severe the damage is, and what direction it is coming from. This often makes deaths feel surprising and unfair more than anything else.

It doesn't feel good or fun to play. It kind of makes me just want to go back and play TNO again.

I'm not that put off yet. I also died a lot in the New Order. I don't complain because hey, I know what that would get me.

But I am oh, 2 hours in, not too far distance wise because it's me, but I'm making progress. For normal (Bring it on) there is a ridiculous amount of guns, ammo and health all over the damn place. In one section I just stayed behind a fence plate on the second floor, and got them all with no damage. Afterwards I saw that there was venting all over the place for me to pop in and out of. I hit rough patches, and I have done that keeling over bit a few times also. But I kind of know when I am too exposed/taking damage, and the guns sure feel like you are firing something.

I'm personally am having a good time. But hey, it may change.

EDIT- complaints, even the guys in what I call English t shirts are bullet sponges, kind of ridiculous. Also ammo pick up hitting E can be jittery.

tips, reload every chance, and headshots work wonders on everything so far. Run and gun is simply no way, for my skill level anyways. Last battle just now was me finding an angle and killing everyone who approached, including the Commander, the one guy working the mounted laser was my only distance kill. Dual wield assault rifles take down the big guys surprisingly quick. The laser gun solves problems early on. Also, the enemy does approximately the same thing every time you re-try, unless you do something different.

The game is definitely tough, and I think the way to play it is to hang back behind cover rather than run-and-gun. The fact that your health doesn't regenerate (or at least not very quickly) means you want to prioritize avoiding damage over doing damage.

Unfortunately I'm not a huge fan of this playstyle, and it makes me feel like less of a badass than Blazkowicz appears to be in the game. I feel like I'm constantly hiding and trying to avoid damage rather than running right up to people and blasting them in the face. Maybe I just need some more time to get used to it.

@mike: this bums me out but i noticed it during the quick look too. They didnt seem to know what killed them 90% of the time then lowered the difficulty. I liked the new order and remember it feeling pretty good but still being difficult. Still want to check this out though.

@oursin_360: Yeah that sucks, I haven't watched the QL but that sounds like my experience as well.

This talk kinda reminds me of Return to Castle Wolfenstein for some reason. That game was brutally hard and sometimes unfair.

This and the previous game remind me of Red Faction Gorilla; annoying on normal difficulty or higher but awesome and fun as hell on easy.

Dropped the dificulty Ryckert style and my enjoyment went up 100%.

The New Order had similar issues despite the feedback being better. There were some specific sections that were just straight up unfair or just kind of trial & error like in their design. This game is worse though because as many others have mentioned, the feedback on taking damage is not clear enough. I'm still playing on Bring Em On difficulty but I'm only a couple of hours in. What I learned from New Order though is to always try and go for the stealth approach, taking out the commanders is super important. If that fails, which it often does for me, I just play it like a cover shooter 90% of the time. Find good cover and a good distance, make good use of the ability to lean out of cover, and just take potshots and keep yourself out of harms way. Also grenades are fucking powerful.

EDIT: I'm super glad they put in a quick save in the PC version for this, which they did not do for The New Order if I remember correctly. I'm so used to playing FPS games on PC quick saving every 10-15 minutes or so. It takes away some frustration when you die from some bullshit scenario.

I watched Waypoint play the opening of this game and it looked ridiculously easy; they were playing on "babyshit" mode though, or so they called it.

@geirr: Yeah they were on "Can I play, Daddy?" difficulty which is the easiest. The picture for that difficulty is a render of BJ with a pacifier and baby bonnet just to mock you.

Playing on PC, and I've found Hard to be pretty easy once you upgrade the assault rifle. That thing just rips through everything once you get all three upgrades.

@fear_the_booboo: I took the same approach that Dan Rykert did. Pop it down to the lowest difficulty and just enjoy. The older I get, the less I care about the varying levels of severity in games. Don't beat yourself up, have fun.

This is a bummer to hear. I played The New Order my first time around with it, last summer after DOOM, on the medium difficulty and had a hard time getting into a groove with the game for a variety of reasons. Many of them had to do with all the ways in which DOOM improved on what were some pretty obvious touchstones they lifted from New Order to make for a more fluid, dynamic experience, while others had to do with the oddly sloppy way the game handles going in and out of cutscenes and the outstandingly uninteresting and amateur way those cutscenes are directed. I was playing it on PS4, and came across a not-so-uncommon bug that makes the game immediately freeze upon launch, so I uninstalled it about halfway through the Wyatt storyline and didn't look back.

Given all the hype about this new one and the generally strange world we find ourselves in this year, though, I wanted to hop back into New Order and, on Dan and Vinny's go-ahead, just play it on the baby difficulty. Unfortunately, this is its own painful experience. There doesn't seem to be any of the unlocks or collectibles in this difficulty - at the very least, I remember this game pointing you towards world building materials a little more strongly than it has been for me on the Baby difficulty. But perhaps even worse, the game is still kind of hard. I'm fighting through the road blocks with my Polish friends about three hours earlier than I had been before when I was scouring the world for every map and enigma device piece I could get my hands on, but I'm still dying somewhat regularly and I find the idea of a game built around stealth with no stealth meter, map or any other indication that you're hiding or hidden other than the lack of alarm bells as absurd as I did the first time.

@bbalpert touches on something else that bugs me about the design of the first game, and thats the confusing design of everything. It's all stairwells and circular tunnel systems, to the point the number of hidden items and background documents in the game (again, apparently not on easy, but on normal difficulties) can drive you insane attempting to find them all. This manifests itself in other small ways, too. I vividly remember the first time I was in the torture garage last summer and I spent six or seven minutes looking everywhere for the "splatter protection" before I wound up just pulling up a guide. I came back to that moment a little over an hour ago, and it still took me three or four minutes to remember where they hid those goddamn goggles. There were other instances last summer, and now, where it just felt like Machine Games had a willfully obtuse approach to game design and, for me, it often saps moments of their emotional heft. It's a lot less tense when you've got a silent Nazi sitting in the chair behind you, and you keep glancing back at him with this confused shoulder shrug like, "I don't know what to do here either."

I'd like to get this game and see what it's up to myself once its on sale, but I was able to enjoy Mafia III despite its myriad flaws because at the end of the day that dev team made a game I enjoyed playing. So far, my two attempts with the first Wolfenstein game have made two things very clear: Machine Games have some big ideas that they're maybe not the best at executing (but perhaps got a bigger budget to smooth out those rough edges on this sequel?) and they also make very hard, unfriendly games that definitely hammer home how much it would suck to live in a world powered by Nazis but don't necessarily allow me the power fantasy of just mowing them down if I want it.

Doesn't help that I keep trying to play this game like Destiny 2, either!

The big thing: You can create manual saves. The checkpoints can seem a bit spread out. If you find yourself in a good situation in the middle of a fight then create a manual save.

I found that it's gotten easier the further into it I am. I'm still dying during fights but far less frequently. I agree that it was frustrating at first. Maybe it's the weapons I have or the upgrades I have gotten, or maybe I'm just better at the game now. It's certainly feels more manageable now.

You will die very quickly if you try to stand out in the open and shoot people one at a time. I've been able to run and gun through plenty of more linear sections but there are points where you do need to take cover. I make use of both. There is normally more than enough health and armour in the larger arenas for you go to keep moving and pick it up during the fight. I actually really like how the health overcharge mechanic works in this game and It's making me far more aggressive than in TNO.

@cannonballbam: I think that's fair and I have nothing against playing the game on easy. I might do that if I get too frustrated. Playing on easy just feels like I'm completely ignoring the game mechanics which feels weird though. I don't tend to have any problem with other games, hence why I'm surprised by how hard I've found The New Colossus.

As other have pointed out, the game is bad at showing you how much damage you're getting. I also think it's weird how the game gesture towards a very agressive playstyle with the speed of your character, but actually ask you to play very carefully. I've found the cover system to be very finicky, which doesn't help. I'm still unsure if it's really confusing design or just me that's dumb.

The manual saves are fast and easy, and the cheap deaths require them. It's gotten easier for me too after about the 2 hr. mark. I recommend spending your upgrades on the assault rifle first. Makes a huge difference in seeing enemies and getting far quicker and more efficient kills.

Like mentioned already, the feedback on direction of fire and damage occurring is almost non existent. Hard to understand how that could have survived through this game's development. Maybe it'll get fixed.

I dropped the difficulty to easy and the game is still kicking my ass. The combat encounters are not very well designed given the mechanics of the game. The fact that you have to mash E to pick up health packs and armor while trying to avoid enemy fire is obnoxious and adds unneeded complexity.

@fear_the_booboo: I can understand the frustration. To be honest, I didn't even think of stealth when it came to Wolf 2. I knew that I wanted to play the game at a fast, reckless place.

Versus something like Hitman where the majority of the game is built on stealth mechanics.

But I hope you find the middle ground that you're looking for. The beautiful thing is that it seems like it will cater to both our interests.

One thing I will walk back from my earlier post; I was given a warning when starting a new game that everything would be reset perks-wise, and I felt like the phrasing also implied collectibles and things as well. I can tell now that's not the case, it is still tracking everything I picked up before and the world feels more empty in many ways because I looted it so thoroughly the first time around. That's nice to know!

(Speaking on TNO, and how it is similarly difficult and vague, for those who skip to the most recent post.)

I started playing it on the third difficulty and got absolutely destroyed both in the wheelchair section and even in power armor mode, I just dumped it to Don't Hurt Me Daddy.

Took Dan's advice and no regrets here!

The advice to use manual saves is definitely worth repeating. I've had a couple very bad (and one SUPREMELY bullshit*) checkpoints.

*It autosaved in the middle of a firefight when I had 3 guys in front of me, 2 guys to my right, and one of those dual laser power armor dudes to my left, all actively shooting at me. Oh, and I had 15 health and 0 armor. I would load up that checkpoint and instantly get killed. Luckily the game does keep your 2 most recent autosaves, so I was able to load that prior checkpoint.

I had to play through the first game with bonnet and dummy, so you have my sympathies.

Pretend this is like Dark Souls!

NO...

I'm sorry :(

You really got to mix up your tactics. I'm playing on do or die, and it is definitely challenging but not impossible. The hardest part of the game for the most part is the early goings, because your health, perks, and arsenal are slim. Once you start mixing up your tactics you'll be able to unlock a variety of perks which make the game easier. There is a bit of a learning curve, but once you get the hang of it you feel pretty badass. Stealth when you can, go for head shots, pay attention to the environment, and use your grenades wisely and you'll make it though. An important tip if your playing on higher difficulties is don't dump all your weapon upgrades into a single gun right away. Your gonna use your full arsenal so i'd recommend keeping your guns pretty balanced.

Shotguns. Two of them. With ricochet.

@colonel_pockets: This, first and foremost. I recently had an encounter where I felt pretty fucking cool mowing down nazis with an assault rifle and finishing with a combat takedown, thinking I was being equal parts aggressive and careful where necessary. Only to look at my health and see I was at 10 and no armor. What the Hell, Wolfenstein? You're so damn good otherwise, this feels like a softball pitch you shouldn't have whiffed on.

I'm playing on the third difficulty (Bring 'em On, I think?) and I am constantly afraid the game will decide to GET REAL HARD and force me into a difficulty curve. I haven't exactly been breezing through the game as is already. I only just finished the Section F level, so I really, really don't think the game has actually started throwing what it's got at me.

General tips I guess would be

- look around for health/armor after a fight. Unless you're the "overcharge and go Rambo" type, there should be plenty around after an encounter.

- Keep moving. Much like Doom - and like you, I am also having trouble adjusting to this game's rhythm - I found bouncing between cover points and making enemies chase you rather than you chasing them to be effective.

- On that note, don't be afraid to retreat. I refuse to believe someone like B.J. got to be such a prolific war hero without being a momentary coward sometimes. Sometimes, running away seems to confuse the A.I. and they end up just running right into your sightlines while trying to pursue.

These all seem so elementary given how early in I am. Sorry if that's not much help (though, judging by the responses, you're not wanting there).

Despite all of the acclaim, the main reason I am really having a tough time talking myself into this game is that I didn't enjoy TNO mostly because it was challenging in a way I didn't enjoy. This thread is solidifying my stance.

I beat the game on the 5th difficulty level and only turned it down for one fight where I was having trouble understanding the gimmick (and it was one of only a few gimmicky fights, so I didn't hold it against the game). It isn't an easy game, but it also is not particularly difficult if you're comfortable with a first-person shooter. On PC, at least--I don't know how this would play on a console. This is a mouse-and-keyboard game, to me.

Never stop running. Sprint around everywhere, use your slide to get into cover, move broken-field (because the Nazis will miss you more). Find a two-weapon style that works for you; I used the nailgun-modded suppressed SMG in part because of the damage and in part because it put glowy things on my Nazi-ass targets and kept the triple-barrel shotgun in my off-hand. Regular Nazis got plugged; big Nazis got BAMmed. Pretty much my only beef with the game is how lousy the assault rifle is...but in a lot of ways I expect that's because I don't know how to use it.

BJ Blazkowicz is Doomguy and Nazis are his demons. Eat health-recovering donuts by the plateful, 5 HP at a time, and never stop shooting. You know how to play this.

This is also my experience. I don't remember New Order being that difficult, but man the first 2 hours of Old Blood was brutal for me

With M+KB, I'm finding it challenging but not frustrating on medium difficulty. I'm probably about halfway through the game, and assault rifle is my go-to weapon. Find cover, shoot nazis in the head, keep moving. Always be watching your flanks cuz those fuckers will sneak up on you and (yep!) it's easy not to notice when you're taking hits.

I'm playing on I am Death Incarnate for my first run and it can be extremely frustrating at times, especially the beginning when you don't have the upgrades to take down the armored enemies the game throws at you. I had to restart most fights multiple times early on because I just didn't know where the enemies were. After leveling the headshot perk and fully upgrading the assault rifle I have a reasonable chance of finishing most combat sections without having to restart. Headshots kill most enemies in one shot and for anything larger I just look down the scope and spam the fire button. There's still the rare occasion that the game puts me into situtations where I need to make split-second kills or I die, but those are few and I'm willing to put up with it.

I'm playing on the hard difficulty and am having a challenging, but successful experience. My only gripe is that it feels like grenades can sneak up on you. Like the game isn't good at notifying you that a grenade is about to blow up near by. Other then that it's great!

You're not the only one, I am finding the gameplay in this game frustrating as hell, and I think it's because the game is just poorly balanced. I'm definitely not a FPS expert lol, but for comparison's sake I was able to finish New Order on Bring 'Em On without much trouble, and Doom on ultraviolence, which I found tough but fair and also never frustrated me the way New Colussus has.

There are some absurd difficulty spikes in NC that just come out of nowhere, which forced me to drop it down to the easiest level, even though I had been cruising along at medium for a while before these random spikes. Like others have said the feedback on damage taken is basically non-existent, which feels unfair. Pressing a button for ammo and health/armor also becomes annoying when you're frantically running around trying to survive.

The level layouts so far just aren't as well designed as the New Order either, cover options are somewhat limited and you end up backed into a corner a lot with endless waves of enemies coming at you. And the fast movement seems to suggest to the player to approach it more like Doom and run and gun, but you immediately get destroyed with that tactic. There seem to be less options for sneaking up on the commanders too, making even the stealth elements of the game less fun than New Order, and since enemies keep spawning until you get the commanders, this just compounds the overall frustration of the gameplay.

I'm going the Ryckert route for now lol and set it to easy, so I can just run and gun and mow down some Nazis. Although this doesn't feel especially rewarding either, so there's really no sweet spot in the difficulty settings that I've found, despite having 5 options... Overall this is a real bummer since everything else around the core gameplay is so damn good.

Just finished it. It never felt great. I didn't go on super easy mode, but it still baffled me how hard the game was on easy mode. I never wanted more to talk to developpers and ask them how the game got designed, cause it doesn't feel like a game that is purposefully hard like a Cuphead is, it just seems to be randomly difficult. It's a big disappointment to me because I liked the story a whole lot.

By the way I was playing on XBOX, like many pointed out, I'm sure it's easier with keyboard and mouse but it wasn't an option for me.

Think I'll give this one a miss for now based on this thread - I always find a lack of communication from a game regarding damage super frustrating.

Also I have been completely spoilt by Metal Gear Solid V, I don't expect to have to memorize where enemies are anymore - I want emergent gameplay where I can improvise and still come out the other side rather than dying over and over.

I enjoyed the previous game but I already have a huge backlog to get through so maybe I'll pick this up next year.