Ultimate Difficulty - Help Needed

[Throw7]

I struggled through Invincible difficulty for the plat but was able to do it. Now I'm trying Ultimate difficulty and it seems comically hard. I was able to finish chapter 5 and 10, the helicarrier missions, with a bit of cheese by hiding in the ship and picking off enemies. But I'm now doing chapter 9, the refinery, and I can't even get past the first encounter.

 

I've looked for places to hide and I've tried some of the new weapons, but I die within seconds regardless of the strategy. On my Invincible run I was constantly moving to avoid enemies but it's not working on Ultimate. Most of my deaths are due to the enemies that slow you down. The problem with Ultimate difficulty is that you die in literal seconds so by the time you spot and kill the enemy that's got you in the slow beam, the other enemies have already killed you.

 

Maybe I'm just too old and my reflexes are no longer good enough but this new difficulty mode seems unfairly hard. I like a good challenge but this just seems punishing, unbalanced, and not well thought out.

 

Am I missing something? What cheese, strategies, and loadouts have worked for you? Appreciate any help you might have. Thanks!

[KyonKuchiki]

I just completed this yesterday, and I definitely agree about the punishing, unbalanced, and not well thought out part, especially with Ghost boss battles. I can't really offer any specifics against these except to keep trying. The 3x you do fight her, you don't get any checkpoints between phases on any of her encounters. The Accelerator boots may be the best for these encounters since they'll help in dodging her normal chain attacks, saving your boost for dodging her big chain attack.

 

The loadout I used was: Charge Repulsors, Accelerator boots, Repulsor core, faster healing, and the micro swarms for both auxiliary (described as 'fire and forget'). Charge Repulsors are definitely amazing when teamed up with the repulsor core, and dual full charge shots helped me to keep moving while picking off the annoying charging skull drones when I could. The micro swarms are great for dealing with the slow beam enemies, the initial drone, and the gravity mine one since it will actually kill them. It helps with stunning the charging skull drones and the land tank ones as well, making the charge shot laser Revenant drone the most annoying to deal with. Don't waste your time with the EM Charge Shot auxiliary weapon on Ultimate difficulty. Even when I fully charged and dual shot one of those, it still did negligible damage through their hard light shield, even though the point of that weapon was to damage them through the hard light shields.

 

The loadout doesn't help you though in chapter 12 when you're forced to use the Mk 1 armor, but I was able to get through the initial drone waves by Rocket Punching my way around everything, getting it down to just the drones that charge up their laser and shoot, and are only vulnerable for a bit after they shot. Even with them, I opted to punch them once their laser was done. Seeing how effective rocket punching my way through the drone waves were since it eliminates the weaker drones in one hit, stun locks the tankier ones, and most important, keeps you moving/dodging around enemy fire, I'm thinking rocket punching is the way to actually deal with most of the drone waves in all missions (but still keeping the faster healing augment vs the rocket punch augment for that slot since you're still way too much of a glass cannon)

[Throw7]

On 1/5/2021 at 7:30 AM, KyonKuchiki said:

I just completed this yesterday, and I definitely agree about the punishing, unbalanced, and not well thought out part, especially with Ghost boss battles. I can't really offer any specifics against these except to keep trying. The 3x you do fight her, you don't get any checkpoints between phases on any of her encounters. The Accelerator boots may be the best for these encounters since they'll help in dodging her normal chain attacks, saving your boost for dodging her big chain attack.

 

The loadout I used was: Charge Repulsors, Accelerator boots, Repulsor core, faster healing, and the micro swarms for both auxiliary (described as 'fire and forget'). Charge Repulsors are definitely amazing when teamed up with the repulsor core, and dual full charge shots helped me to keep moving while picking off the annoying charging skull drones when I could. The micro swarms are great for dealing with the slow beam enemies, the initial drone, and the gravity mine one since it will actually kill them. It helps with stunning the charging skull drones and the land tank ones as well, making the charge shot laser Revenant drone the most annoying to deal with. Don't waste your time with the EM Charge Shot auxiliary weapon on Ultimate difficulty. Even when I fully charged and dual shot one of those, it still did negligible damage through their hard light shield, even though the point of that weapon was to damage them through the hard light shields.

 

The loadout doesn't help you though in chapter 12 when you're forced to use the Mk 1 armor, but I was able to get through the initial drone waves by Rocket Punching my way around everything, getting it down to just the drones that charge up their laser and shoot, and are only vulnerable for a bit after they shot. Even with them, I opted to punch them once their laser was done. Seeing how effective rocket punching my way through the drone waves were since it eliminates the weaker drones in one hit, stun locks the tankier ones, and most important, keeps you moving/dodging around enemy fire, I'm thinking rocket punching is the way to actually deal with most of the drone waves in all missions (but still keeping the faster healing augment vs the rocket punch augment for that slot since you're still way too much of a glass cannon)

 

I really appreciate the response. I had pretty much given up but your tips and ideas give me some hope and I'll give them a try soon. Thanks!

[Prometheous101]

I just got fastest achiever for this game. 

Honestly what helped me the most with combat was using ground pound whenever I was in danger. 

Ground pound then use Double tap Trigger button boost to get away from enemies. 

Also ground pound is usefull as a second dodge to use on bosses (or even using just ground pound whenever the bosses shoot the balls of electricity or whatever it is.) 

Also for those drones that charge up a laser beam dodge to the left or right from where the laser is pointing at then punch them and spam them with  regular blasts.

Edited March 31, 2022 by Prometheous101

[ImmortalHulk_18]

Yeah was beating the Ultimate mode and got all the way up to ch 9 uncanny valley, and when the slow beam drones came out and paralyzed me in the fight so Ghost easily killed me I switched the difficulty down to Invincible setting.  It’s just not worth it for a silver trophy.  If anyone knows a good method of getting past those drones while dodging Ghosts chains send me a vid or post it in comments, otherwise it’s not worth the aggravation and time for just a silver trophy.

Edited December 8, 2022 by Arkham_89
Ask for info on game

[puckelberry]

On 12/9/2022 at 2:52 AM, Arkham_89 said:

Yeah was beating the Ultimate mode and got all the way up to ch 9 uncanny valley, and when the slow beam drones came out and paralyzed me in the fight so Ghost easily killed me I switched the difficulty down to Invincible setting.  It’s just not worth it for a silver trophy.  If anyone knows a good method of getting past those drones while dodging Ghosts chains send me a vid or post it in comments, otherwise it’s not worth the aggravation and time for just a silver trophy.

I know this was a month back but just punch everything. Rocket punches one hit KO the grims and move you towards them so its good at dodging but ultimate is brutal it took me an hour to finish chapter 11 swearing at the developer who decided against checkpoints in the boss fight

[ImmortalHulk_18]

I got the platinum on it a few months ago but thinking about trying another go at 100% using Throw7’s (see his comment above) load out with the Accelerator Boots and the micro swarm missiles.  It’s really all about getting those slow beam drones eliminated faster so I can concentrate on Ghost.  I had an easy time fighting the Gunsmith AI in ch 11 when I realized I could use the large rock areas on the map for cover to heal after making a run at hitting him.  I know it’s only a measly silver trophy but I want bragging rights on the 100% so bad.

[MikeCheck--]

On 2/2/2023 at 2:24 AM, Arkham_89 said:

I got the platinum on it a few months ago but thinking about trying another go at 100% using Throw7’s (see his comment above) load out with the Accelerator Boots and the micro swarm missiles.  It’s really all about getting those slow beam drones eliminated faster so I can concentrate on Ghost.  I had an easy time fighting the Gunsmith AI in ch 11 when I realized I could use the large rock areas on the map for cover to heal after making a run at hitting him.  I know it’s only a measly silver trophy but I want bragging rights on the 100% so bad.

 

Good luck

[VoidVictorious]

How hard would the 100% be for a first time VR player? Feel free to use the 1-10 scale if you like. Also did anyone experience motion sickness?

[servus99]

I just completed this DLC Trophy a few days ago. It wasnt as bad as I feared (I had a hard time doing the main game difficulty back when I bought the VR).

After taking a break from VR for 2 years, I came back to clean this up.

 

Tips and tricks:

• Play on PS5, I am pretty sure load times are way better (I hated dying back when I played on PS4, now it wasnt bad tbh)
• Use the loadout mentioned above somewhere (Faster healing, faster boost acceleration thing, smartmissile/antiarmor-missile combo worked for me)
• Always fly away to regen when you are below 40% health or so, not worth to risk it
• The enemies that charge their beam, which almost 1 hit kills you, those are the most annyoing ones, avoid them when possible, when you go for other ones first, they seem to ignore you a little bit. To kill them, wait till they charge, then boost upwards to avoid laser, then shoot down with rockets/blaster to kill them quickly
• Ghost Boss fights (hardest parts): The hardest parts for me were, just as they were 3 years ago,
  • the ghost fight in the canyon, try to not shoot many clones, and fly straight to the "real" ghost, it may take a bit of luck
  • and the 3rd phase of the Ghost fight in the cave, try to stay at the top of one of the rings, and fly round in a circle, when she charges her scream attack, boost to the side or up, after that shoot her with all you have
• Here is a video walkthrough of the full game on Ultimate difficulty:
  Spoiler

   

Hope this helps