Survival Difficulty

[marciojramos]

The survival trophies are really difficulty? 

I like the franchise and will be free this month on ps plus, but I don't want to be frustrated with so much difficulty and I saw somewhere people giving a 8-9/10 rate. 

[Rowdi]

Doing it now and yes 8-9/10 seems accurate to me. Some of the times for three stars are very difficult to achieve especially on warlord stages. 

[marciojramos]

Even if I spend real money to buy boosters? 

[evs_castro]

Boosters can help but they don't matter much, what makes a big difference is:

- Having all weapons (or at least the recommended ones) upgraded to level 5.

- Having a good team.

[ONUOsFan]

I can't speak to what it's like now, but my friends and I did this back when it originally came out, and at the time it seemed like Naughty Dog's only goal in life was to take away any strategy that worked in Survival. They were constantly releasing patches and hotfixes, and literally every one made it harder than it had been. It almost seemed like they were watching YouTube for videos that detailed good strategies, then immediately changing the game to make those strategies impossible.

 

So, yeah, it was super hard back then and I can't imagine it's gotten any better.

[Fr_0zt]

Get to max level, get your weapons to at least lvl 3 and good teammates are a must.  I did the whole thing with randoms and we breezed through most of it.  That said, one of them knew how to glitch the later maps and also we got lucky on another one (#8 I think) and no real money spent. 

 

It's honestly not that hard. 

[redleaves1989]

For the "having a good team" part, you can do it with random players. I've gotten my trophy because random players (who knew all the tricks) carried me from 2nd to 10th level in around one hour and a half (already had some 3-stars here and there, but they gave me a grand tour up to the last level).

 

Best advices I can give you to get this trophy for free:

• Learn to pull your weight as much as you can. Even if you cannot headshot to save your life (like me and my feet), you must at least learn to stay in a good place and hold the fort, while being quick to react if someone else is down.
• You must be level 50. The HP & damage modifiers are no joke. Being carried by random players on hard mode will net you TONS of XP if you get any star, I think I managed to get two levels at once a few times when someone got me a three-stars.
• Do some low-level games with auto-aim on. You'll go through them quickly, while also getting the feel of the place (where enemies spawn, how to escape a tricky situation, best route from point A to B, etc...). The point is not "learn to shoot", the point is "learn where you are". Also, the time requirements are actually HARDER on Easy mode because the enemy AI is fumbling everywhere instead of coming to you to get shot quickly, so don't despair if you don't get three-stars on the first level in Easy, it's NORMAL.
• Play random matches in hard. You just need to finish level 10 to get access to Crushing difficulty, but playing random matches over and over will teach you common strategies used by good players (always follow what your comrades are doing, after a while, you'll be able to recognize the common strats), and will net you some upgraded weapons (as long as the boss is killed, you get the weapon upgrade, even without grabbing it). Also, getting the stars will net you MASSIVE XP.
• In level 9, you can exploit three of the five challenges (first is a treasure hunt, third is a siege) by going out of the map and sniping every enemy from afar. Wasn't patched as of last month, may put a video of it if needed.
• There are still some exploits for the bosses (and my random teammates DEFINITELY used them to one-shot the bosses). Look at them, they aren't that hard (even think I managed to do one at some point) and train for them on easy. They aren't patched yet, but they MAY be after the wave of players, so act fast.
• A strategy I've seen often and that may seem counter-intuitive: kill yourself when the situation demands it. The aim is TIME, so if someone DIES (and not "gets knocked out and fumbles on the ground"), they probably did it on purpose to restart the wave ASAP, so kill yourself.

EDIT: One more tip that I've found useful is to LEARN TO GAUGE the players you are with, so you can quickly know whether to stick with them, or if you should avoid losing time with players who may be worse than you. None of these are absolute, but sometimes, you don't feel like playing for XP, or you're already Lv.50 and you just want someone to carry you and nothing more, w/ever...

 

These are my own preferences/experiences, maybe some don't make sense, maybe some do, take it with a grain of salt.

 

First, check the symbol before the ID:

• None: The player has never won a star in this difficulty. Play for fun.
• One star: The player has won a few stars.
• Three stars: Already got 3-stars everywhere. A good player.
• Some kind of scroll/tombstone(?): The player already made a PERFECT RUN, aka: "All levels, in crushing, no death". STICK WITH THEM AT ALL COST. These are the kind who will one-shot bosses with exploits.

 

Some bad signs:

• Small: They are using a classic character skin, (like you are), so chances are they haven't put much time/money in the game.
• Small: Voice chat. I was expecting to have to talk (which I hate) but...no. Good players coordinate without talking.
• HUGE: Won't heal you when you get knocked out and will let you die. Avoid this player (unless you are run into firefight all the time without covering and die fifty times in ten seconds, in which case they will just ragequit, and be right to do it.).

 

Good signs:

• Crazy character skin, gun skin, hat, you're not even sure it's really included in the game or if your PS4 is glitching.
• You joined mid-game and still three-stars, so they're not running out of time and were doing good before you (remember to keep it that way).
• Uses mines instead of grenades.
• Uses anything mystical except Eldorado.
• Doesn't run around during intermission. A lot of maps got sweet spots from where you can trick the game into spawning enemies at specific points and make them come through a corridor you control. If the player is using intermission to fill that space with mines, instead of jumping like an idiot playing Counter-Strike, you're in good hands.

 

In spite of that "choose the good random to carry you", remember that beggars can't be choosers. So don't forget, and I cannot stress this enough, to first learn to pull your own weight. Seriously, if you cannot bring anything to the team you're joining, even just "mediocre player who avoids running into the fire and covers properly and makes a few kills", the other players will LEAVE after a few deaths, and they'll be right: this game must be fun for everyone and nobody wants to play with someone who's making this a chore.

 

Crushing is hard, and some players make it look easy, but if you at least get to a level of skill where you can avoid being a BURDEN, I assure you that you won't be surprised to stumble upon a group of players who will carry you for the whole game (and the trophy).

Edited April 8, 2020 by redleaves1989
It's Level 9, not 8

[Rowdi]

@redleaves1989 I’d like to see the out of map glitch for level 8 siege. Could you link it?

[redleaves1989]

3 hours ago, Rowdi said:

@redleaves1989 I’d like to see the out of map glitch for level 8 siege. Could you link it?

You can NOT use the out of bounds glitch for the siege, you MUST be in the siege bounds for all kills. Best strategy that can use the OoB glitch for the siege would be something like "two players in the siege area, and one sniper in OoB to provide support in case someone comes too close", but even that isn't very good when compared to mines, if three players put a lot around to prevent anyone from coming closer.

Found my playthrough but uploading is a pain, so I'll just link one from YouTube and provide some more instructions.

1. To exit the map, you must climb the arsenal near the siege (jump button + walk towards it).
2. Once you are on it, jump towards the wall as if you were hoping to land at the base of the plant in front of you.
3. You will be in a "float/fall" that won't last too long, but while it's on, you can roll. Roll as much as you can, and jump right after.
4. By combining multiple roll+jump without giving your character a chance to fall, you'll soon reach a place where you can stand properly.
5. It's still too close for comfort and you get get gunned down and/or sniped, so look carefully at where you're walking and make some more jumps to go a bit further.
6. When you get "behind" the scenery, you are safe and can snipe everyone from afar.
7. When every enemy is dead, jump out of the map during the intermission, you should make it really out of bounds and die+respawn very quick.

Now for more tips for the waves, using this tip:

1. First wave (41) is a treasure hunt (yeah I forgot that one), but it's rather easy, just run. Even on crushing, running+rolling+jumping shouldn't prove to be too troublesome for three persons.
2. Second wave (42) is "Head shots and melee only", or all the stuff I'm bad at, in normal circumstances. Get a good sniping weapon (M14 Custom is the best) from the Arsenal in the video. Follow the above instructions to reach your safe spot and headshot like there's no tomorrow.
3. Third wave (43) is the dreaded siege. Enemies will spawn spectres+Indra on death (aka "homing missiles + slow field"). You DON'T want to kill anyone in melee next to the siege, believe me. Actually, with all the time gained from waves 42, 44 & 45, it may even be best to LEAVE the siege area, give yourself time to regroup, then come back to the siege area once it's clean. Good strategy is also to stop using grenades like a noob (I sure used to) and put landmines all around your siege are to make sure nobody can ambush you. By now, you or your teammates should know where the traitorous "ambush wave" will come from.
4. Fourth wave (44) is a piece of cake. If you killed yourself to respawn, you shouldn't have to refill your weapon. Go back to your safe spot, and pretend you're shooting clay pigeons. You got a time limit this time but SERIOUSLY, these guys won't move much, so you'll have plenty of time to adjust for cool headshots, or just regular shots.
5. Fifth wave (45) is "Marked Man" + "Time Limit". The time limit is EVEN GREATER this time, to kill eight enemies and you got an open view of the map.
    

Also updating my previous post for more "general" tips.

[Rowdi]

11 hours ago, redleaves1989 said:

In level 8, you can exploit four of the five challenges (one of them is siege) by going out of the map and sniping every enemy from afar. Wasn't patched as of last month, may put a video of it if needed.

Level 8 is the pirate ship map with the machine gunner boss. You’re describing level 9 in your post above and, I think, this quote. I read what I have quoted as you had an exploit for the seige round on level 8 and that’s what I was interested in seeing

[ArmoredSnowman]

On 4/4/2020 at 0:31 AM, marciojramos said:

The survival trophies are really difficulty? 

I like the franchise and will be free this month on ps plus, but I don't want to be frustrated with so much difficulty and I saw somewhere people giving a 8-9/10 rate. 

Many people use glitches, like the ship glitch that makes the boss fall through the map. 

[bosstristan]

23 hours ago, ONUOsFan said:

I can't speak to what it's like now, but my friends and I did this back when it originally came out, and at the time it seemed like Naughty Dog's only goal in life was to take away any strategy that worked in Survival. They were constantly releasing patches and hotfixes, and literally every one made it harder than it had been. It almost seemed like they were watching YouTube for videos that detailed good strategies, then immediately changing the game to make those strategies impossible.

 

So, yeah, it was super hard back then and I can't imagine it's gotten any better.

Exactly! ND really screwed up with U4 Multiplayer.

 

So yeah, doing this now would be very difficult. I, by the way, expect the rarity rate of the "It" trophy to be lowered now that U4 is a PS+ game.

[MyLastRide]

23 hours ago, marciojramos said:

Even if I spend real money to buy boosters? 

Even if you waste real money, you need to be a skill player and also have good teammates.

Edited April 8, 2020 by MyLastRide

[redleaves1989]

11 hours ago, Rowdi said:

Level 8 is the pirate ship map with the machine gunner boss. You’re describing level 9 in your post above and, I think, this quote. I read what I have quoted as you had an exploit for the seige round on level 8 and that’s what I was interested in seeing

My bad, thanks for the heads-up, I'll edit the post

[Shorah-]

Survival is hard and to be honest, almost nobody does it legit.

Just look at timestamps, you'll see a lot of people having first time finishing a map and 3 stars crushing in a couple of days or weeks.

Some even got boosted on crushing with level 1 character.

Edited April 17, 2020 by Shorah-

[War-Heed]

5 hours ago, Shorah- said:

Survival is hard and to be honest, almost nobody does it legit.

Just look at timestamps, you'll see a lot of people having first time finishing a map and 3 stars crushing in a couple of days or weeks.

Some even got boosted on crushing with level 1 character.

I did it in about 2 weeks. No boosting. All with randoms through matchmaking, with no glitches. If you put the effort in (I'm currently on about 270 hours) 95% of guns at level 5 inc. Dlc and obviously level 50, then its doable. I hate the fact that people get carried through the 10 crushing stages when it takes skill to do them legit. You can always tell how much effort someone has put into it from their time on the leaderboards in game

[visionary_RAVI]

10 hours ago, fools-shadow13 said:

I did it in about 2 weeks. No boosting. All with randoms through matchmaking, with no glitches. If you put the effort in (I'm currently on about 270 hours) 95% of guns at level 5 inc. Dlc and obviously level 50, then its doable. I hate the fact that people get carried through the 10 crushing stages when it takes skill to do them legit. You can always tell how much effort someone has put into it from their time on the leaderboards in game

 

On 04/04/2020 at 10:01 AM, marciojramos said:

The survival trophies are really difficulty? 

I like the franchise and will be free this month on ps plus, but I don't want to be frustrated with so much difficulty and I saw somewhere people giving a 8-9/10 rate. 

 

On 04/04/2020 at 10:01 AM, marciojramos said:

The survival trophies are really difficulty? 

I like the franchise and will be free this month on ps plus, but I don't want to be frustrated with so much difficulty and I saw somewhere people giving a 8-9/10 rate. 

Crushing is doable playing legit

[SnowxSakura]

You can glitch kill every single boss on the boss stages, either by melee dropping them through stairs, glitching them through the boat, or break their i.frames as soon as they spawn

 

there's also a stealth kill glitch for the warlords as well