I've never hidden my adoration for this masterpiece of a game, going so far as to argue why I think Ellie is a better character than Elizabeth of BioShock Infinite fame. But all of the single player aspects have been universally praised by game critics and fans, so there's nothing new about me fawning over it. However, there's just barely any written content about how awesome and in-depth the multiplayer of The Last of Us actually is, despite the fact that there's a pretty strong user base that's only growing thanks to the release of the Remastered edition.

Basically, it's not like most other multiplayer shooters out there. It's not run & gun (although you could still try it), it's not all about super fast twitch reflexes and precision shooting (although it definitely helps), and it's certainly not a game where you can solo your way to victory.

It's measured, it's deliberate, it's highly team-based, and it's ultimately very rewarding because of those three things coming together. Getting kills really mean something, and pulling off perfectly synchronized attacks with friends or even unintentional moments of brilliance is nothing short of exhilarating.

The very tension you feel in playing in the single player is dialed up to 11 here because of the stealth mechanics and the randomness of human behavior.

It can be good playing it alone, but it's just so much better playing it with people in your party, especially if everyone has mics to strategize and call out for help, flanks, and ambushes. I greatly encourage people here to send friend requests to team up at the very least so you can truly appreciate what this overlooked part of the game has to offer.

I could go on and on about it, but to put it in the simplest of terms, The Last of Us' multiplayer is pretty rad.

"The Mystery Man" @danryckert himself has professed on the latest Bombcast his new found love for the multiplayer upon playing it recently in the Remastered edition. Scoops and the Wolf have also mentioned their enjoyment of Factions when they gave it a couple of hours back when TLOU was first released for the PS3.

So with all that in mind, I'd like to help get more people to try the game out, whether it's on PS4 or PS3. Besides just playing the game with you, I'm going to impart what knowledge I've gained and resources I've mined throughout the 1 whole year I've had with the Factions through this one topic.

The goal is to help newbies (and maybe even vets) to understand the fundamental intricacies of the multiplayer with information and links containing valuable information. I just want to make it clear though that I'm in no way affiliated with any of YouTube channels

Without further ado, here are the useful resources:

Channel of noted TLOU YouTuber Sancho West filled with tips, highlight reels and features of user-made gameplay variations:

Must watch videos are as follows:

General gameplay tips for Supply Raid, although most of the tips are Factions' best practices:

Stealth tips for Supply Raid, but the advice can also be applied to general play:

Not by Sancho West, but here's a useful video series about situational awareness by another respected veteran Swiftydragon:

There are two more videos in the series, but I'm sure you can find them after watching the first one.

Mission Schedule

The meta game of Factions has you gathering supplies in matches to support your clan so you can last 12 in-game weeks. Each match you get into counts as a day. Throughout these 12 weeks, you will be faced with events and missions for you to accomplish with the opportunity to either grow your clan or keep the number of population loss down. The labels "dysentery outbreak" or "Firefly/Hunter/Marauder attack" are just flavor. What you need to pay attention to are whether or not you can gain clan members or lose them, and what missions you can do.

Knowing what missions to pick and when the events will happen can help you survive your first playthrough, but they're more important for unlocking some of the hats and masks (especially the vaunted Skull Mask) with their strict population requirements.

Picking missions is just as important as knowing when they happen. For the population growth missions, you can choose to do the hard ones like "Downs with Molotovs" or whatever you feel is challenging. For the population loss missions, it's much better to play it safe and do the easiest missions. They're the mark enemies, gift items, and heal teammates missions.

Here's the schedule for when the events pop up, and the max percentage of gains/losses based on your clan size for each event:

Week 1, Day 6 +10%

Week 2, Day 4 +10%

Week 3, Day 2 -60%

Week 3, Day 7 +10%

Week 4, Day 5 +10%

Week 5, Day 3 -60%

Week 6, Day 1 -100%

Week 6, Day 6 +10%

Week 7, Day 4 +10%

Week 8, Day 2 -100%

Week 8, Day 7 +10%

Week 9, Day 5 +10%

Week 10, Day 3 -100%

Week 11, Day 1 +10%

Week 11, Day 6 -100%

Week 12, Day 4 -100%

Each event lasts 3 days (3 matches). Save the easy missions (marks/gifts/heals) for the -100% events. The requirements get higher after you pick them.

Note that you can only pick missions a total of 6 times in one 12 week journey, and each time you pick them, the requirements get higher. So for the Down Enemies mission, it starts at 3, 6 and 9, but moves up to 6, 9 and 15 the next time you pick it, and so on and so forth.

Loadout Calculator

You don't have to boot up the game to formulate a new loadout that you can also share:

http://www.tlou-loadout.com/

Created by http://www.reddit.com/user/kojain

Overhead View of Maps

Knowing the map layouts are critical to success. These include locations for the supply boxes (for Supply Raid and Interrogation) and the health kits.

For the 7 original maps: http://imgur.com/a/kzqWG/all

For the 8 DLC maps: http://imgur.com/a/jk8ZO

Weapon Damage

I edited the number of headshots and headshots+body shots for the Full-Auto and the Spectre upon finding out the initial numbers were wrong.

Knowing how many shots it takes to down an enemy with each weapon is crucial in combat.

Small Firearms

9mm - 5 body shots/2 headshots/2 body shots and 1 headshot

Revolver - 3 body shots/2 headshots/1 body shot and 1 headshot

Shorty - 2 shots in close range

Enforcer - 4 body shots/2 headshots/2 body shots and 1 headshot

Large Firearms

Semi-Auto - 3 body shots/2 headshots/1 body shot and 1 headshot

Burst Rifle - 5 body shots/2 headshots/2 body shots and 1 headshot

Full-Auto - 5 body shots/3 headshots/3 body shots and 1 headshot/2 headshots and 1 body shot

Hunting Rifle - 2 body shots/1 headshot

Bow - 2 body shots/1 headshot

Purchasables

Double Barrel - 2 shots in close range

El Diablo - 2 body shots/1 headshot

Assault Rifle - 5 body shots/2 headshots/2 body shots and 1 headshot

Shotgun - 1 shot in close range/2 mid-range

Military Sniper - 2 body shots/1 headshot to instantly execute

Machete - 3 hits

Specter - 6 body shots/3 headshots/4 body shots and 1 headshot/2 headshots and 2 body shots

Launcher - 2 hits

Other melee

2x4 - 2 hits

Modded 2x4 - 1 hit

Fists - 4 hits

I'll follow this up with more in-depth info. Feel free to list down other resources and tips you think players of different skill levels might find useful.

This is well written, thanks. I have been playing on the PS3 for some time and bow on PS4, I agree it's really well done.

My only beef with it concerns the metagame in the Survivor mode (round based, one life per round) as it grants much more supplies for a tied game than if you stomp the other team. I think if you win 4-0 you should get more than 4-3. It's a minor thing though, it's a great podcast multiplayer for me.

I never touched the multiplayer mode on PS3 and have been using the remastered version as an excuse to check it out. I really enjoy it, though whenever I run into anyone who's actually good at the game it really hammers home how awful I am at it. :P

Naughty Dog are pretty good at this whole multiplayer thing. I really enjoyed Uncharted's multiplayer modes as well (now that I think about, I'm getting excited for the inevitable multiplayer in Uncharted 4)

I was on a team and we were losing really badly, down to the point where there was one of our guys against like 8 more lives of theirs, and our final guy must have been some kinda TLOU savant or something because he managed to win the match for us. It was one of most impressive things I've witnessed in a multiplayer game, and it's the kinda thing that this game really allows for because knowledge of the map and knowing when and where to use bombs/molotovs can really turn the tide of a match.

I sucked really bad when I first started playing but I've found a loadout that works for me and now I'm close to being MVP in each game. It's really satisfying, more so than most deathmatch type games. That said, it's also really streaky, sometimes you'll feel unstoppable and then others nothing is coming together and you're getting flanked left and right for the whole match. First game that's caused me to pull an all nighter in years as well, highly recommend anyone who hasn't tried it out to at least give it a shot.

It is a lot of fun! I play mostly with random people and it's really fun to see that you're just automatically working together. I've had a couple of times where it was 2 vs 4 (i was one of the two) and you just gather up supplies, pick a spot and defend it for all your worth. It can get really intense :)

Good job OP!

Here's a tutorial series I've made. Hope it helps.

https://www.youtube.com/playlist?list=PLCIORJV-26bRR5-CATpfDrVoue1j6QodH

My current biggest problem with multiplayer is how broken it can be in terms of who you get matched up with. My friend and I (who have only advanced to weeks 5 and 4 respectively) end up getting crushed by people who have advanced to level 22 and are somehow put on the opposite team. We end up getting teamed up with similar progression levels (weeks 0-5). It didn't seem this bad on PS3.

@cale: I had a similar experience in the final round of Survivors when I was the last player alive going against a full team of four, though I didn't come out victorious. I decided I wasn't going down without a fight, so I bought armor and full ammo for my pistol and rifle and somehow managed to hold off all four of them in close quarters for a good minute and a half, even as they were throwing molotovs at me. I downed some of them several times and took out one, but eventually I was overrun. It was fun!

I find Survivors to be the best mode, because the lack of respawning keeps it focused. Supply Raid just scatters the teams around the map because people are dying and then spawning on the outskirts. The movement and guns also feel slow and methodical in a way that seems like they were balanced for Survivors anyway.

I love the actual gameplay, but I was incredibly bummed out to learn that you have to pay real money to use certain perks for custom classes. That just totally breaks any sense of progression and is frankly kind of scummy in a full priced, "definitive" version of the game.

Thanks for the compliments.

You do get rewarded for sweeping the enemy team, but it's just not gonna be as much when you can milk every round for 1000 parts each. Once you have unlocked everything though, it's no longer an issue. I remember how absolutely liberating it was when I finally got the Skull Mask in the PS3 version.

Yeah, it's pretty amazing how ND can create memorable single player experiences and still have the time, money and creativity to develop solid multiplayer that fans just latch onto for years. They're a gift to the industry.

You should really party up with people. It's considerably more enjoyable with friends since you can communicate and strategize as a team. The big moments are also that much bigger when you've got people to laugh, cheer and be amazed with.

Tell me about it. I just had two matches where I just kept getting killed by this one guy for really dumb mistakes I made, and in the very next one, I was just destroying the other team, managing almost a perfect game with 9 downs.

I watched the first video in the series, the Medi-Collector loadout. Although the loadout doesn't work anymore because of the patches removing Collector and support action synergy, the tactics are sound enough to warrant following if you play as a medic. Good job on the editing, by the way. Looks very professional!

That's my biggest issue with the game as well, and I think the only reason it's not as bad on the PS3 is because most everyone that still plays on that console have been playing for a long time so the skill disparity isn't that big! Although I guess that the issue is more glaring on that platform because of how the user base is split thanks to the TWO DLC map lobbies. A good majority of the people who play those maps are hardcore mic'd up teams. Since there is no option for party and no party lobbies, what usually happens is that four randoms with no mics face veterans and get creamed. It's not very fun for beginners with no friends playing the same game.

You can get them for free if you happen to be one of the people who bought the Season Pass for the PS3 version, but yeah, it's disappointing that ND decided to go that way, knowing that there will be more players who'll experience the game for the first time on PS4. However, I can say with authority that not having access to those weapons and skills for custom loadouts does not mean you are at an unfair disadvantage. The balancing is incredibly well done that you can have great success with all the default weapons and skills even when matched up against those with the other perks.

Don't let it hinder your enjoyment of the multiplayer, unless your principles on business behavior are more important!