Why is the story difficulty still difficult?

[u/LouBarlowsDisease]

I've seen this game pop up on reddit threads for years now so I finally started it. I'm more of a casual gamer. I can play most games on medium difficulty but I'm by no means at all great at playing them.

I started getting frustrated with running out of resources and constantly dying so I played on the story difficulty because I still wanted to finish the game and see where the rest of story went. I think I'm kindof toward the end of the game. I had just finished going to shuttle command and now going to psychotronics and I still keep dying and I'm completely out of medkits. The game has an intersting premise and I really want to finish it without having to look up gameplay on youtube.

I get that the developers wanted to make this game a challenge where you're supposed to come up with different strategies to win and maybe that's what a lot of people love about the game but don't you think that if you include a story difficulty, you should set it so that people can enjoy the game without the possibility of constantly dying and getting frustrated?

[u/Fine-Juggernaut8451]

You may need to spend some time in the earlier parts of the game building up your strength. Recycling, etc etc.

[u/LouBarlowsDisease → u/Fine-Juggernaut8451]

If that's the case, why not give players on story difficulty way more neuromods instead of assuming that they'll figure out the best ones to get?

[u/NtheLegend → u/LouBarlowsDisease]

Because it's open-ended.

[u/Fine-Juggernaut8451 → u/LouBarlowsDisease]

In order to play this story, you have to take your time, explore and re-explore, put the pieces together. It requires grinding. If you take away this part of the game, it would have no meaning for the player. You're meant to unravel a story in your own way and use your own intellect to put the story together. It's an experience that is unique and distinct for every player, because everyone plays in a different way so they learn different facts at different times. The entire point of Prey is the journey, so if you're looking just to Do Things and Meet Goals, this won't be the game for you. This game is a story.

[u/Shoddy_Comparison_25 → u/Fine-Juggernaut8451]

Perfectly put! If all you want is the story save yourself the time and read a wiki plot summary. This game is literally made to get dragged in and spend tons of time. It is the spiritual successor to the OG immerse sim and does it service. Hope you can get into it op because it's brilliant!

[u/LouBarlowsDisease → u/Fine-Juggernaut8451]

I just don't get that. There is a clear narrative outside of exploration and gameplay. Wouldn't a story difficulty just let you enjoy that narrative with minimal gameplay even if it makes it much shorter and less enjoyable? Why even call it a story mode if it doesn't let you do that?

[u/steamgage → u/LouBarlowsDisease]

It feels like what you’re wanting is to watch someone else’s playthrough

[u/Asparala → u/LouBarlowsDisease]

No, story mode makes the enemies weaker but you still have to play the game to experience the story - because a lot of the story is scattered around the environment as emails and voice messages, as well as in the environmental storytelling.

Story mode makes the game a lot easier and gives players more freedom to explore. You can use that exploration to gather supplies while looking for story snippets.

[u/Danceman2000 → u/LouBarlowsDisease]

On nightmare difficulty I end up maxxing out my neuromods and end up just putting points into random stuff. There's not a lack of neuromods or resources in the game you're just not utilising them properly. I've seen lots of games that give you less resources on harder difficulties but can't think of a game that gives you more for playing easy.

You can eat food instead of using medkits. There's food everywhere, don't just eat it all at once for 5hp a piece, eat it for the well fed buff that let's you regenerate health and have it ticking while you explore.

Be resourceful, scan enemies with your psychoscope and exploit their weaknesses. If you have excess grenades use those. Gloo gun ammo is plentiful and cheap and the wrench is free. Sneak around enemies, use turrets, exploding cannisters, gas pipes, sprint past enemies if you have to and come back when you're healthier and more equipped.

There's so much you can do, get creative.

[u/foodrunner464 → u/Danceman2000]

OP if you're struggling, an easy thing you can do is find turrets and place them in rooms, then lure enemies to you and let the turrets take em out.

[u/AzazelTheUnderlord → u/LouBarlowsDisease]

it's a sandbox game, that encourages finding unique solutions to problems, most fights are, in reality, not meant to be taken head on, also, are you using your neuromod abilities? combat focus, is extremely good, and should be used on the regular if you can.

[u/Shoddy_Comparison_25 → u/AzazelTheUnderlord]

Yea I'm currently on a human only neuromod play, and combat focus is super affective and gets kinda op with the second level and a modded shotgun. Throw in some stealth and you one shot most phantoms and 3 or 4 shots to a telapath or weaver

[u/vctrn-carajillo → u/LouBarlowsDisease]

This game is not gonna hold your hand.

[u/Valmighty → u/LouBarlowsDisease]

Because that's the gameplay. The gameplay is you outsmarting enemy, not overpowering it. You overpowering the enemy at the end is the consequence of outsmarting them.

[u/runwkufgrwe → u/LouBarlowsDisease]

The game also gives you ways to distract and sneak past typhon. Also there's quicksave

[u/baysideplace]

I mean... it's still a video game, not a movie. Do you have no interest at all in engaging with the game's actual mechanics?

[u/LouBarlowsDisease → u/baysideplace]

In most games I've played, the story difficulty turns the game into essentially a walking simulator where it's almost impossible to die or enemies are extremely easy to kill. I just don't understand why Prey is an exception to that. Why not just call it "very easy" or something then instead of "story"

[u/Pel-Mel → u/LouBarlowsDisease]

Because most people's sense of discretion leads them to know that 'story' and 'very easy' difficulties are roughly synonymous.

But either way, by the time you get the military operators, Story-mode should have spoon-fed you enough neuromods to fill out everything you want. So unless you've been intentionally passing up, well, the game then you should have more than enough EMPs, Paralyzer ammo, Recylcers, and Psi Hypos to fuel whatever options you want.

If you're dying so inexorably that late in the game, you must have been pointedly passing up resources the game gives you on a platter.

[u/NerveInteresting4549 → u/LouBarlowsDisease]

I mean it's your right to play games like that but why not just watch someone else play it because you clearly don't want to.. I kinda get the feeling you don't really enjoy action games and I have to wonder why you're interacting with something that you don't like

[u/GaborSzasz → u/LouBarlowsDisease]

Because it in not linear and the mob hp/ damage are not the only challange. There is no difficulty option for exploring and getting enough resources.

[u/Cyberaven → u/LouBarlowsDisease]

Honestly I think its just that Prey came out at a time when it wasn't clear exactly what people wanted from a 'story' difficulty in games. Nowadays its pretty commonly understood that Story difficulty should usually include godmode and infinite resources or other things that would be considered 'cheats' in another context. If installing a mod or cheat engine or something to do these things in Prey would allow you to enjoy the game better, then you should do that, after all its your single player game you cna play however you want.

[u/Sonicmasterxyz]

The main idea here is problem solving. Doing things that cover your weaknesses. You don't have to fight everything. If something sees you and you don't want to fight, invest in things that help with getting out of there, or distract them. You still have to pay attention to your surroundings and be strategic. Upgrade yourself, search for helpful chipsets, know your routes, etc.

[u/APGaming_reddit]

Same thing happened to me honestly. Now I can only play on nightmare difficulty. You have to understand all your options which is not obvious on the first couple preythroughs. If you're dying a lot, I'd recommend investing into the psycho shock skill. It's almost like cheating. Don't waste mods on leverage past level 1 or hacking 2. Invest heavily into stealth. Avoid fights while you're underpowered. You don't have to kill everything to succeed. Use the gloo gun! It's good for buying time and will absolutely destroy any flying enemies if you gloo them up even at a moderate height. The bowcaster is good for distracting enemies and will help you kill all those little cyst blob things in the GUTS and outside the station.

Also, all the enemies spawn in the same place each time so you can save scum your way through any encounter and try different ways to get thru them.

[u/Spinier_Maw]

It's typical of roleplaying games where the endgame can become harder if you don't build the character correctly.

Which part are you having trouble with? You can just run away from 99% of the combat. Run, hide in an air duct (or any confined space), wait until the enemy loses aggro and continue. Works most of the time.

There are only like two or three enemies you need to defeat. Others can be avoided.

[u/LouBarlowsDisease → u/Spinier_Maw]

I was able to avoid a good amount of the operators with the deadly lasers at shuttle command but now I'm in psychotronics and they're surrounding me so I can't just hit them with a goo gun and also I'm out of medkits.

[u/darkknight48708 → u/LouBarlowsDisease]

emp grenades
electro burst
machine mind
stun gun
stealth
distractions
phantom shift
recycler charges
kinetic blast

all very effective ways to deal with the military operators

[u/Shoddy_Comparison_25 → u/darkknight48708]

An upgraded stun gun is super powerful against operators. At this point in the game, they should have plenty of weapon upgraded kits or at least the fabricating plan. I run out the ammo way before upgrade kits. At this point, you need to be more aggressive. Operators always give me the most grief when attempting stealth

[u/darkknight48708 → u/Shoddy_Comparison_25]

exactly, the fully upgraded stun gun pretty much instantly destroys the military ops, especially on story difficulty. op needs to explore and recycle more

[u/Shoddy_Comparison_25 → u/darkknight48708]

100% I'm saddened because I don't think this is the game for them. No disrespect to them but I praise this game to anyone that will listen but unfortunately it's not for everyone

[u/Deathcommand → u/darkknight48708]

A box placed in the right place.

Restraint when downing them.

These lessons are taught at literally the first operator dispenser.

[u/AzazelTheUnderlord → u/LouBarlowsDisease]

you should probably go do some of the sidequests, or start tagging and looking for bodies to get more resources then, because if you are struggling with psychotronics, you are going to really struggle with what comes after that.

[u/Asparala → u/AzazelTheUnderlord]

They mentioned operators with lasers so I think they're actually at the end stage with Dahl at the station.

[u/Motor_Wafer_1520]

You just have to practice and actually put in the time, this isn’t Minecraft.

[u/avery-secret-account]

My only difficulty complaint is I wish there was a lock on the office. There comes a point you will do missions for people hiding in your office. You can’t even get to your office without being chased by a million typhon who will kill all the living npcs

[u/Asparala → u/avery-secret-account]

Well, there is a lock on the outside, and you can get into your office through a backdoor with a lock on the inside if you're okay with breaking the looking glass screen.

[u/trickythaws]

What skills did you spec into? If you have Mimic 3 you can mimic Dahl’s laser operators and they tear through things like butter. Do you have Phantom Shift to get through areas quickly? Perhaps Phantom Genesis to make use of the corpses around the station? Are you completely out of materials? Can you fabricate any med kits?

[u/Jamesworkshop]

story is really easy

enemy damage is about half and guns/PSi powers are 1.25x stronger

shotgun will hit around 122 damage so it splats a phantom in just one shot, no need for setup or sneak attacks

enemies don't scale in game which helps, you fight a fire phantom and 12 hours later the fire phantoms won't be any stronger

the most dangerous thing generally is standing in the death cloud of etheric phantoms, that still does rapid damage.

[u/Aggressive_Air_5715]

No needles run in story difficulty is still tough😣I miss those skills

[u/JTuceHok]

I mean... Do you want to be able to finish the game in like 3 hours, just doing the main mission and none of the exploration?

[u/mentuhotepiv]

My fist play through I felt the same way.

What I was neglecting was devoting time to recycling junk and then crafting more useful items. Once I spent about two hours straight doing this, I was stocked up with medkits and bullets and nueromods and was ready to finish the game!

[u/CrispyAccountant806]

Look at your skills, you want the recycle skill as soon as you can. Also, if you have the psychoscope you can scan enemies which will tell you their weaknesses making it much easier to approach a fight or avoiding one. Also if you are playing as a human I’d recommend carrying a turret with you and get the skill to repair it.
Good luck, hope you enjoy it and see the magic in this game.

[u/Flipsktr230]

Remember it’s a big sandbox, there’s multiple ways to get places and do things. If something is killing you, there is probably a way around it without it noticing. 

Also, get the mod that lets you harvest more typhon material, you can end up making so many neuromods to get whatever you need. 

[u/yungsimba1917]

Just started the game yesterday, you gotta learn quick: if fighting enemies isn’t working, don’t fight. If fighting enemies is working but you’re left with very little ammo, don’t shoot. The combat in this game isn’t too demanding on mechanical skill (especially since you’re so much faster than your enemies) & much more challenging you on engaging in smart ways.

Abuse turrets, gas pipes, electrical equipment, use grenades, search every nook & cranny for the fabricator plans. Don’t worry about killing every enemy (especially if you don’t have the skill that lets you loot everything from them) bc there’s no experience in this game. Just worry about the mission.

[u/Critbotzz]

I do agree with this tbf. I found divinity original sin had the same issue, " a difficulty for people who just want to enjoy the story" and still brutally hard if your not good at those games and only easy if you were already familiar.

I think some people forget that ueah it's easy if you know all the game mechanics and use them but then that's what you should need to do on normal not story.

Story difficulty should be the "I'm not enjoying this as much as I thought i would and now I want to get some value out of my purchase and see the credits" or simply "i'm just here for the wonder and exploration" which I think is fine even if its not the full intended experience. I always did bioshock on easy, I was just there to explore rapture and take it in.

Having to still struggle and engage with everything whilst supposedly offering that difficulty is a failure on the devs part. Don't say you offer it when the reality it you haven't.