I am finding this game unusually difficult on normal, am I just bad? ...I am probably just bad.

You're not alone. A lot of people have been feeling the same way. The normal fodder enemies do abnormal large amounts of damage, and you encounter them often enough to where it becomes a nuisance. Your initial movement and combat capabilities are kind of slow too, you don't have the quickness to deal with multiple enemies, and your starting stamina is very limiting.

I'm playing it on Nightmare difficulty, and it gets easier the more Neuromod upgrades you buy. It doesn't get fun until later on, because you feel like you have to put points into boring upgrades like more stamina, weapon damage, and faster movement speed before you get to the more fun upgrades.

I also pre-ordered the game, so I got the pre-order shotgun right off the bat, which made the combat in the game a lot easier in the beginning. It almost felt brokenly easy, because I rarely had to resort to using my silenced pistol or GLOO gun. Just a blast or two from the shotgun killed most of the starter enemies on Nightmare.

I am not ashamed to admit this eventually turned me off the game. Loved exploring and collecting stuff but got tired of the enemies and when I returned to earlier areas and more enemies were all over the place... Nope.

I've been playing normal on PS4. Make sure you save and quick-save a lot.

I die all the time but I am still progressing through the game just fine.

I've basically used the pistol you get at the start of the game for 85% of the combat encounters. I always go back and fabricate more ammo for it.

I think if you keep going back in and out of the same area the enemies respawn, so watch out for that. Not certain though.

It's not easy no, but then I don't think you're really supposed to fight that much early on, I kinda hid away from the bigger fucks and just stealthed around 'til I got more neuromods and weapons. I wouldn't say it's particularly hard unless you run in on 2 big guys like a lemon either though. It's at a level where it basically compliments the atmosphere pretty damn well.

Finding some spots to be a bit hard though I decided after looking at the achievements to try the game out first without going into the powers you research so between that & now running low on some ammo types, it's getting a bit rough. Then again I've maxed out the skill to carry big things so I could get to more places so I might have to start throwing more things to do more damage.

Part of me is debating now knowing what I know after about 8 or so hours to just start over & might be an easier start. The bigger fiends are rough though I know know more from the research on what will work on them versus early on of finding them & trying out weapons (or with the technofiend of trying to use turrets on it...BAD idea). Also finding that ones like the weaver & probably more foes in general if you sneak around that the pistol with maybe one damage modification works really well if you just sneak attack the fools a few times.

Definitely a game where a lot of the smaller stuff & normal phantoms, look to throw things to either take them out or at least knock them to a stunned state for a few moments to introduce them to the wrench. Also initially going outside around the time of what was in the quick look is peaceful & fun to explore but they will start tossing some enemies out at you there & first few times it's very tense as sometimes you don't notice them (also tense in once killing them of trying to loot them & find the remains floating away).

Once you get the shotgun and the first couple Typhon enhancements the "humanoid" enemies become more manageable. Before that they were destroying me daily.

Even when I beat enemies it isn't fun.

Explore more find more things. It's not easy, but it doesn't have to be hard. If people expect to mainline it like a shooter yeah they'll find it difficult and will be short on resources.

But if you explore properly you can quickly find all the ammo and weapons you need in the world to make short work of enemies. Hell the hub area you get to at the start of the game has a shotgun in it, that from what I can tell most people never bother to find (no not the preorder one which has the same stats btw), it's right there for the taking if you find it and it helps a ton. Plenty of stun gun ammo (that Brad was complaining about not finding any of) that is much better at locking down enemies. You can find a laser beam weapon in the first main area you go to after the hub, that again people who don't bother to explore and don't find.

It's only as hard as the player makes it for themselves with a lack of patience. Slow down look into more nooks and crannies and explore a bit more for hidden stuff will go a long way seriously. It's less a question of skill and more of a mentality that many players got used to that games of this type will just roll out a red carpet for any player running through them not bothering to find any of the extra stuff (im looking at you Dishonoured and Deus Ex) and still do perfectly fine with basic combat abilities. I know I might be generalizing about the exploration being at fault here, but that is very much the prevalent trend that has been found to be wanting from those who are having difficulty with the combat, they run out of resources and ammo, don't have some weapons even, or are still trying to sticky aliens with the gloo gun (when that is one of the least efficient methods to go about any combat encounter period), hence the advice.

Also (pro-tip) the heavy attack with the wrench will stunlock phantoms. You can literally kill those with 0 resource or life expenditure from the start of the game with the starting weapon if so desired and with very little effort. Even ethereal phantoms.

Eventually as you keep progressing down the skill trees and upgrade your weapons and suit you can become almost an unstoppable god that is all but immune to most types of elemental damage, regenerates health, and one shots regular phantoms with a single thought that only costs a resource that is easily, quickly and infinitely replenishable, can shut down enemy powers; and kills the toughest enemies with a few shotgun blasts while in slo mo and taking no damage. For funzies in the lategame I once let an electric phantom get stuck and stood next to him getting zapped for a minute or two, he could not out damage my passive regeneration on normal.

I played this on hard since I wanted a challenge but really didnt want to play it on nightmare because then it probably would have stopped being an enjoyable experience for me. It took me 34 hours to finish this game.

I think you have to love stealth a bit to survive in the beginning hours of this game. Later when you can invest into some neuromods and get weapon upgrades it becomes easier to do stuff that isnt as stealthy. I think that in general you will enjoy the combat more if you can play the game on a decent pc since the ps4 version felt a bit sluggish (demo at least did).

Also as i said in another thread invest into the slow motion (slow speed?) skill. At tier 2 it becomes really good since while the enemies slow down...you will actually move almost as fast as in real time. Especially combined with weapon upgrades and the critical strike upgrade tree.

I think the difficulty feels perfect on normal. I also think most games on normal are a lot easier than they used to be but that could just be me.

All these hype about Prey and still I can't buy one T^T