So I've been playing the New Colossus on the hardest available setting, which is what I normally do, and it is an absolutely miserable experience. I know I should drop the difficulty down but I am stubborn, but that's not the point of the thread.

I keep asking myself, what have they done wrong here? I remember The New Order being occasionally tricky, but generally fun even on harder difficulties. The main thing that's bothering me is that the basic gameplay no longer feels satisfying.

Have they actually changed anything about the way the game plays, or do I just have rose-tinted specs about the first game?

The New Order was a fairly mediocre shooter with gameplay that was good enough to not get in your way or ruin the experience. The New Colossus is just bad though

They lowered your health so on anything above normal you die insanely fast. Armor is useless since you still lose health when you get hit while having armor. The hit detection is nonexistent so you're constantly getting murdered from behind. One level later on is exceptionally bad about that. The level design is trash. It's mostly a bunch of long corridors with every enemy on the map between you and the captains so stealth is mostly useless. It was just a poorly designed game with changes that made the game frustrating rather than challenging. I just got fed up and put it on the easiest setting which is something I never do with shooters because I just wasn't having any fun playing.

You're not alone. New Colossus is definitely harder than New Order. Like significantly. I beat both on the hardest setting and one thing I would say is that the AI is fairly dumb and slow to react but if they hit you, they will bring you down in no time. The gameplay felt similar to me between the two games, but I had to be way more careful in TNC. There comes a branching point in the game where if you pick a certain path you can get up to 200 armor, plus armor drops for rapid kills (I think?) so that helps. Still an awesome game though once you adapt to the gameplay.

Not sure if you're playing on PC but a couple of days ago they released a patch to address difficulty balance and make damage indicators more prominent. Haven't tried it yet but at release it was definitely a struggle completing the campaign on the hardest setting. If it's any reassurance, it can be beaten (I'm stubborn like you). My advice is limit your sight lines to single enemies and take advantage of choke points where possible.

@dgtlty: They updated that on the consoles too, at least on the PS4 it did.

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I don't really understand the opinion that this game is bad at its shooting. It's one of the best in recent gaming and balanced fine (at least on easy and hard as long as you know what to expect, which is all you should be playing it on, I mean, come on. Right?) I am not playing anything new so I just went back to resume playing this game on I am death incarnate, and I like it. On a side note, Brian Bloom is a good voice actor. I just got done replaying The Darkness 2 on hard since it became backward compatible (loved it) and I didn't know until I finished it that Jackie Estacado was voiced by him, who also voices BJ. I mean, I can hear it now, but I couldn't as I played it. I like that they updated New Colossus so you can turn off dynamic resolution, or make it more aggressive. The only things I am not a fan of with the game is that when you start doing uberkommandant missions, it can become a bit monotonous. I am also not entirely sure if it sticks, but when I played through it on easy, I found that the stealth wasn't all that viable an option and I thought that was unfortunate.

I played New Order on Normal difficulty and was pretty frustrated by the scarcity of ammo. The encounters late in the game got so hectic that I dropped it down to easy to finish the game.

The main draw for me was to play it for the story, so I took Dan's recommendation and just played New Colossus on easy. But I still felt the poor hit detection and could die pretty quickly in a hairy situation. 90% of the game was trivalized on easy, but it made me wonder how someone could get through some areas (ourtroomcay nyoneaay?) on any other difficulty.

Colossus has about 3 sections that were getting to me (where you're in a position and dudes are pouring in). But overall, they give you enough power weapons to do ok.

The New Order had some really significant difficulty spikes, but I found the level design in the first game to be more inviting for a stealth approach.

In any case, I'm one of the people that loves the gameplay in these. I do remember having a more positive reaction to the feel of the weapons in TNO, so maybe you're onto something, or maybe I was just impressed with how much Machinegames improved the gunplay from their days on The Darkness at the time. Low expectations being surpassed and all that.

I didn't really think anything was that bad about the shooting. Qualifying that is that I played on PC so maybe mouse aiming made it easier and I also fully embraced the stealth aspects of the gameplay so I probably had less hectic encounters but I didn't even think the final robot fight was that bad.

As for what changed between the two games though, damage indicators definitely seemed a lot worse in TNC which is probably the thing I had the biggest issue with.

I'm playing and almost done with New Order now, and... it's not my favorite. The enemy spawn with captains is frustrating, damage indicators are weak, and there are definite difficulty spikes. I was hoping for Doom and got frequent cinematics and loss of weapons between levels.

The story is also silly.

If New Colossus is that but worse, then I feel validated in stopping this run at TNO.

It's much harder. I played through the New Order on the default settings a month beforehand and only got frustrated at one point. In New Colossus , it was damn near every checkpoint until I knocked down the difficulty.

I found both games pretty unspectacular from a level design and shooty shootin' perspective, but New Colossus was perceptibly harder just because it was really hard to notice whether you were taking damage or not. I purchased the season pass when I bought the game because I was really excited to do more in that game based on the early footage I'd seen, but as it became apparent the season pass content was focused on the three body mods and had an entirely different storytelling technique...let's just say I finally booted up the first episode two nights ago after that patch increasing damage signals on the edges of the screen, ran through about half of the content until I died in a fight due to carelessness and being a bit rusty with the game and rather than try again, uninstalled it immediately.

I found New Order underwhelming all the way around, but New Colossus was an amazing power fantasy on Easy (I still died a fair amount) with my favorite action movie of 2017 wrapped around it. So for me it's not that they changed anything gameplay wise, it's that they found a way to make their mediocre gameplay more compelling. I don't know how anyone could've enjoyed that experience on a regular difficulty, though, and I'm no wimp (played Horizon NG+ on Ultra Hard, Bioshock Infinite on Hard, The Witcher 3 on Hard, etc.) though I do typically prefer whatever the default is, I'll bump a game up to Hard if I'm finding it enjoyable and reasonable. Nothing about these two games feels reasonable or fun to me, except double barrel shotguns on easy mode.

One thing I will give them credit for is that they basically dropped boss fights altogether. The boss fights were easily thew orst thing about New Order; I couldn't even beat the final boss on easy after three days and dozens of tries. It was even more deflating when I looked up how that game ended and realized all I'd been struggling for was a two minute cutscene where BJ maybe-dies, except it was just a few weeks ahead of New Colossus dropping so I knew that wasn't the case.

I played the New Order when it came out, again in the run-up to The New Colossus, and again after beating The New Colossus.

The New Order, from a level design and gameplay perspective was much better.

The New Colossus raises the moments ante, but is a much worse game, overall. I still really dig it as a package, but the gameplay falls flat.

The New Order felt a lot like a first person MGSV at times. Sneaking was satisfying and effective. There were hidden paths through almost every level. I played that game about 90% with my knives and silenced pistol.

From playing both, and from what I remember, the nature of the levels in The New Order made stealth a much more viable option to deal with the commanders at least. A lot of times in Colossus, I'd see where the Commander was and just accepted the fact that I wasn't going to make it over there.

I found the game to be unenjoyable on any difficulty other than the easiest one. The game was just unfair rather than hard. Something felt really off about the aiming also, so just dropping it down to the easy and just running up to enemies and axing them was way more fun.

Fuck the haters, all the MachineGames Wolfs rival Doom 2016 in their successful refresh of classic shooters. They are both fantastic and satisfying shooters that are tactically interesting.

I just didn't have much problem with the New Colossus. The divide that was the Dream sequence was difficult, but it was supposed to be. During the second half of the game I moved from whatever was supposed to be normal, to the beginning hard difficulty. In fact, I enjoyed the gameplay more than the New Order.

I noticed I did less with the shotguns in the New Colossus, and more with the assault rifles. Stealth was a little bit less too. But not by much.

@ultimategamer69: I too share this opinion...I thought I was alone!

Play it like the new Doom. Don't stop running. Most enemies take a little while to start shooting and you can bring them down before they even shoot. Don't stop running. I used the rifle with the single shot mode for most of the game. No dual wielding. Wasn't too bad, but some levels were poorly laid out and tough to navigate. Don't stop running.

I just finished the courtroom scene on I am death incarnate. The game is relatively 'easy' as long as you get into the right positions. I upgraded the rifle which is super powerful, taking down heavies in several hits. In most of the areas, I've been able to hunker down in a place and pick off everyone just by leaning. Something about Wolfenstein that's not always necessary is aiming down the sight, which I don't always recommend as the accuracy doesn't change. It's just useful for FOV to get a better shot as you might take guys down from a long distance as you need them in the picture more.

In the courtroom part, it would have been much harder to do if you couldn't manually save, which is actually the first time I used it to good effect and noticed it manually saves where you save it (I thought it just saved the last checkpoint). I'm really liking it on I am death incarnate. Also, I don't agree with Skytylz; the game doesn't seem to want you to play it like Doom 2016: you'd get whooped more often than not. It's a good thing that enemies die fast. Find a place you know it's less likely that guys will be able to get around you and use lean to take everyone out.

I also want to add that I feel like stealth is even less of an option on hard, but less so because of one's ability to do it, and more so due to being compelled to mow everyone down so no one can shoot you in the back as you make your way through. Plus, ammo even on hard doesn't waver as long as you're not shooting willy-nilly. I suppose the fact that you can manually save does change that, but stealth is kind of a waste of time. I am surprisingly not averse to it. Enemies can still potentially lose you so you can get shots in on an unaware enemy.

The game to me is completely fair in its difficulty.

I dual wielded non-stop and was mostly fine, though I played most of the game on whatever the default was. Normal, I'd guess. But yes, don't stop running. I died a bit but it was generally fine playing like that, rather than any other FPS, once someone saw me and everything went loud. I found the sneaking to be stupidly overpowered if you get the suppressor for the pistols and SMGs, because you can just kill everyone before they can shoot or call out. I love brute forcing stealth in games whenever I can because it always feels so silly.

That said, for the last few levels I turned the difficulty to the lowest setting and holy shit does that turn the game into an insane power trip. I literally walked into every room from then-on and turned Nazis into wall-smears with dual shotguns / assault rifles and always came out with max health and armor. Honestly, I should've just done that from the beginning.

@capum15: Sneaking is definitely valid. Once you go loud though, I found it was death to ever stop moving.

Oh yeah, definitely never stop moving once it's on. The only small exceptions I found are if you break line of sight (like ducking into a building or something) to scrounge around for health and stuff. Only have a small amount of time though since they usually come looking for you.

One of my friends didn't like the gameplay (I will 100% agree with the feedback on being shot/hit basically not existing) and while talking about it, I learned they basically only used the assault rifle with a scope as soon as they unlocked it and it kinda blew my mind. That doesn't seem anywhere near as fun or cool as playing it like DOOM. I never used a single weapon when I could have two of 'em and actually regretted getting the scope instead of something more useful. Taking down an enemy quickly means one less gun shooting at you, and boy, those Nazis die super fast to two assault rifles to the chest. Or shotguns/SMGs/pistols.

I also hear about going through ammo but I barely ever had an issue with it. Sure I ran out of AR ammo using two of them, but by then I had full SMG/Pistol/Shotgun/etc ammo to go to. Switch weapons and keep killin' those Nazis. Once an area's clear, search it for supplies/collectables and head out. Also the heavy emplaced weapons are extremely powerful to use and you tend to be able to recharge them pretty often. I found the flame bomb thrower thing to be my favorite (until that one appears, at least, and then holy shit).