The Last of Us Factions Multiplayer is Still Fantastic

the last of us is a fantastic game telling a difficult but captivating story of two people surviving in the post-apocalypse going on a journey and slowly coming together and learning more about each other and wrapping that up in a game that i've replayed many many times it plays incredibly well and it's little wonder that the game has such a legacy such as space in the public consciousness that it still endures today in people's memory but we're not here to talk about the story mode did you know it has multiplayer it's really good the last of us is multiplayer mode or factions mp as it's called is an odd little duckling that i've found myself coming back to from time to time over the years it's an absolute ride but it is somewhat overshadowed by the game's story mode in the wider public sphere it does have its own dedicated community though and i was so happy to see that they're still going strong even after all this time nine years after originally launching eight if you count the ps4 version and god knows how long since the last content update people are still playing this game if you fire this up you will have little trouble finding matches okay if you try survivors or interrogation mode in the off hours like when people are at school or work or maybe asleep you might have to wait or struggle to get a full game for a little while but supply raid you could fire that up at 4 in the goddamn morning and still find a full group of people to play with i know i have there's actually a lot to get into with this so let's break things down bit by bit the game plays very similarly to the single player every game mode is 4v4 and there's a heavy focus on teamwork across the board if you start a game and everyone sprints off in different directions you might be in for a bad time the general game flow will have you sneaking around areas trying to keep an eye out for the enemy the fact you're in third person means that sneaking in ambushing is preferred if you're going to be playing this like call of duty you're definitely in for a bad time if you sprint around you'll reveal yourself to the enemy so you're going to want to practice your best crab impression to get by unnoticed again if you played the main game a lot of this will feel familiar you even have the listening mode from the story which is useful to find where people are but it can't always be relied on it's very limited in use and you're vulnerable when using it you can also spot people for your team and anyone can do it even without a stupid little gadget even my teammates right please guys can we mark the enemies we see ah who am i to talk i forget to do it as well taking enemies down with your gun is quite mathematically precise let me explain every gun kills someone in the set number of hits three from a revolver two from a close range shotgun etc with double damage for headshots i like this you're never confused about when an enemy should have gone down we don't necessarily need different damage values for every body part at least not here anyway this also applies to the damage that you take and good sound design means you always know what you've just been hit with but if you're not careful you'll go down but you can be revived by a team mate if they're nearby this is why you want friends close at hand a friend revived is a kill denied well unless the enemy keeps shooting you all comes in close for a more specialized execution you're going to be seeing this a lot especially as you get more points from it so try not to take it personally and get mad when someone pummels the ever-loving christ out of your face there are other options at your disposal too toolboxes filled with crafting supplies are all around the maps which you can use to make things like molotovs nail bombs smoke grenades shifts again a lot of the stuff from the main game this stuff can be essential to your survival the gun is good but you don't start with a lot of bullets typically you get some from taking down enemies but it might not replace what you use to take the enemy down you're going to have to get creative to survive out there you can also craft medkits but i wouldn't do it if you can help it medical supplies are lying around the maps to pick up they're always in the same places so if you remember where they are on each map you will basically never ever need to craft them look here at one point i was desperate and i was thinking about doing so and then a friendly enemy stopped me from wasting my resources ah thanks buddy don't know what came over me there when you kill enemies or do other actions in the game you'll earn parts you spend these in an in-game store where you can purchase more ammo or armor to absorb more damage or even upgrade your weapons for the match you can access this store anytime including between deaths even in the post-apocalypse your prime subscription is still active so there's all the tools at your disposal but the game is smart about how it divvies them up obviously a team that's doing well is going to get more parts which means they're getting more armor and deadlier weapons but the game compensates for this by giving the dominating team less crafting items in toolboxes meanwhile it gives much much more to the losing team sometimes you just get like whole items i mean wow the people on top are getting incentivized to play more aggressively by getting more parts but the losing team is getting everything they need to play sneakily and defensively the well-armed aggressors and the sneaky gorilla rebels it's a tale as old as time the army means they can take some bullets but it doesn't do much against fire you'll need a good team to take full advantage of the increased supplies it doesn't matter how many bombs you have if you're just going to run into the enemy's guns the smart team when losing will regroup and hunker down although sometimes not everyone will get the memo is that guy throwing smoke grenades at himself oh god he is why i only played solo queue for the record but almost everyone seemed at least vaguely aware of what to be doing and so they should because look at these levels oh my god you gain one of these levels every seven matches so these people have played oh boy the real number's probably even higher he's just hit cap do not be intimidated by this yeah a lot of these people are good but the game isn't as unforgiving as some long-running multiplayer games something that really helps is that these skills are the same you use in single player and i've beaten that on survivor difficulty a couple of times never ungrounded though huh but even then these people aren't insurmountable some of them have spent all this time on the game and yet still act like they don't know what they're doing if you're just starting out and want to feel like you're doing a lot to help people in the match i'd focus on healing and reviving teammates do this until you can get a grip to things find a gun that gels well with you too like the revolver or the semi-automatic rifle oh yeah you can make your own class and there is a lot of variety and depth you can choose from pistols rifles bows shotguns a grenade launcher that i cannot use to save my life there's not as many guns as your modern military shooters but each gun is pretty distinctive in how it operates there's also a lot of perks you can choose from which can dramatically change how you play you can be invisible to the enemies listening mode you can help and heal your teammates you can craft gifts of random items to give to people spot enemies better defend against spotting be more stealthy be more accurate just have a shiv on you at all times the list goes on and the variety means that everyone will be doing a bunch of different things from match to match i know some people who even forsake rifles and shotguns entirely and only play with the revolver and i gave it a try i kind of admit it's not just viable but fun too the system is easy to use but complex enough to suck you in whether you want to help out your team or run off and die on your own the game might be more enjoyable if you play it with friends but i've honestly never managed to get myself a group together i tried to get my mates to play with me but they won't they don't believe me when i say that the last of us has multiplayer they mock me they tease me they say gonna ask us to play the sad game jack you want us all to be sad together but it's fine really i'm sure we'll find something to do together so now you know how the game is played how are the maps and modes supply raid is basically team deathmatch probably why it's popular you have 20 respawns each first to completely eliminate the enemy team wins simple stuff it can start slow but it'll escalate when it's just one enemy left there's a chance they might go rambo and use their ingenuity to take you out do not underestimate a single person in this the second mode is survivors this time there's no respawning but there's multiple rounds kill all the enemies to win the round win four rounds to win the match unlike supply raid crafting materials are not carried over between deaths so those little toolboxes become a focus when you spawn in this is good because it means people want to seek them out and craft things before engaging rather than just bum rushing you immediately to get the match over with though to be honest this is my least favorite game mode no respawning means if you die early you're just going to be spectating your teammates for a while and then you'll get bored and maybe pull out your phone and oh no the final mode is interrogation and is a little bit more complicated than the others now there's infinite respawns but to win you need to open the enemy's hidden lockbox first you need to reveal its location you do that by downing an enemy and then doing one of those special executions on them to well interrogate them do that to five people and you'll find out where the lock box is opening the lock box is slow at first but as the round nears its end the timer will speed up the process it's not as complicated as it sounds but this is the game mode with the lengthiest matches i almost always run out on the timer on this not great but if you want to get a ton of kills or do other specific things in a match the infinite respawns and longer match time mean that this might be what you want sometimes each of these modes are distinct and they really ask you to have a different mindset when playing you want to be more careful when you can't respawn you might want to hold off on using molotovs in interrogation because you can't ask a burning corpse any questions besides maybe asking if you feel like a hero yet the maps are playable across all game modes and i have to say there isn't a single map i can point to and say i don't like they all look different which is nice but they even play differently this one in the suburbs called suburb often has a lot of creeping and crawling around the edge of it the main street feels like a kill box but sometimes you feel like you need to get through there meanwhile this beach is more of an angry brawl my fastest matches were always here and it can get downright chaotic but i'm still having fun so that's okay some maps also have weather effects that can affect visibility how about some mist pouring in from the forest beside a dam pretty spooky it seems cold here but wait until it gets really cold you do vote on the maps beforehand and i guess i should point out there's a map in a snowy factory or quarry or something and in this recent return to the game where i've played about 70 yard matches now i only got to play this once do people not like this map i i don't know i remember liking it here in editing after the fact i find it gets even better there's an entire map i haven't even gotten to play once i'm sure i've played it before in another revisit but nobody wanted to play it so yeah i guess the community has favorites they want to pick over others something to bear in mind probably why i have so many clips from the university one thing of note is that there is a circular nature to a lot of these maps all the toolboxes are usually placed in a diamond pattern around the map and if both teams are creeping and moving quietly you can enter a phase where everyone is just sneaking around each other like some kind of weird or a boris ritual it's more common on some maps than others other maps it feels like everyone goes straight to open warfare adapt yourself accordingly if people are starting to do the scavenging mating dance around the map maybe leave a surprise for when they catch up to you or ambush them as they come around playing smart depending on the situation is the key to victory just hope that everyone is on the same page i could use voice chat i guess but personally i can't stand it especially with randoms and these european servers too i always get mixed with people who don't speak my language here's an accurate representation of that experience [Applause] so the game's great and i hope i've illustrated why i come back to it honestly it feels like the closest replacement to metal gear online back on the ps3 the teamwork the items it fits together pretty well i miss those days [Music] good to have you back oh i haven't talked about the progression system yet there is one i mentioned that you just gain a level every seven matches that's win or lose which might sound boring to you but this is just the secondary thing to level up primarily you want to upgrade your faction remember that's the name of this thing factions yeah it comes into play basically you choose aside from the main game either the hunters or the fireflies the difference is cosmetic just affecting what color your team is in matches and which voice actors you get for your buddies are you with team yuri lowenthal or team steve blum someone get over here and help me i'm [ __ ] dying over here then you need to collect supplies and matches to grow your camp you get supplies from earning points but also from picking them off enemies that you've killed or executed the better you do the more your camp grows but the more your camp grows the better you need to do to keep everyone happy and healthy if you do badly people get hungry sick and even die it's not just represented as numbers on the screen too there's this petri dish which shows the state of the camp and any dead bodies there will be grey dots on there forever you're going to be reminded of your failures there's even an activity feed where it says the names of the people in your camp and what they're doing when this launched you could link your facebook account to it and those names can be people that are on your friends list that may have been a cool novelty in 2013 but and now it just feels very icky sometimes maybe once a week events will happen diseases breaking out in your camp or attackers trying to raid you and to survive you need to perform certain actions in your next few matches get six revives eight kills with a revolver that sort of thing these can feel tough especially if you're just starting out but there's some challenges that are quite easily accessible pick the gift crafting items one or the heal teammates challenge i can finish most of those in a single match if i stick with my team but picking the same challenge again and again makes it harder to do the next time something to consider you need to survive for 12 weeks go nuts see how many survivors you can get into your camp how high can you go it's a very unique system different from any other game i've played it's quirky and charming and i don't like it i don't like it at all welcome to the critique part of the video this system could be good but as it is right now i have had to mentally block out caring about it to ensure that i can enjoy the game you need these supplies to not just grow but also to maintain your camp meaning if you do badly then the game is basically punishing you for it it sometimes doesn't feel great to lose but now a loss is a real kick in the teeth but the game can even undercut victories as well because if you didn't personally do well enough in a match then you're still going to be losing people i should never feel bad when i win in a multiplayer game that is a horrible idea plus remember those challenges if you don't do well enough on them you can lose a lot of your survivors or even miss out on rewards that's right there are boosters you can activate before a match that are tied to this system it's the main reward for doing it but sometimes you just can't get what you want sometimes the enemy team cleans up too well and you just can't get revives or maybe your aim just isn't doing so well today so then the game punishes you again it can really put a damper on the whole experience and as i've said i've basically mentally checked out of the whole system for my own sanity's sake i'm doing this thing called playing the game for the sake of playing the game it's crazy i know but that doesn't mean this system isn't still going to affect me after all my team is still playing for it there is a huge leaving problem online and i mean it's bad i could find a bunch of people leaving in almost any of the clips i've taken from this game and i solely blame the progression system for this after all if i'm playing badly why would i stick around to get chastised at the end that's not fun so why not just duck out if you want to get those higher numbers which some cosmetics are locked behind by the way you basically need to leave when you play badly and hope you do better later now you might think it's a glaring design oversight so that you can just leave and not suffer any penalties well actually if you quit a match you do get punished the game treats it as if you didn't get any supplies if you care about this sort of thing it's a harsh punishment but don't worry you can easily avoid it don't hit quit match close the game in the playstation menu you'll successfully leave the game with no penalty the only thing you'll lose is the booster you may have burned before the game started which isn't too bad this has been a known workaround for many years so i don't feel guilty about talking about it in this video to be honest i didn't even like punishing people for leaving sometimes you gotta leave you know the problem isn't little timmy needs to go get his dinner the problem is the game's structure is incentivizing people to leave don't even worry about it it'll only stress you out it's not worth it no matter what dumb hat you'll gain oh speaking of hats do you like customizing your character well there's plenty of options for you and plenty more locked behind microtransactions now charging for cosmetic items isn't new and arguably there are games doing it much more insipidly than this one it's interesting though that it has everything you can imagine despite being a game originally released in 2013 clothing emotes you can even buy new execution animations look this guy paid money to kill me this way wow now some of you won't see that as a criticism because it's just cosmetic and i understand that this is a lost battle in games and as much as i don't personally like it so long as it doesn't affect gameplay there's nothing wrong with it right well here's the weapons and perks you can also buy that's right gameplay advantage is not given to you unless you fork up and some of these are mean too there's a crossbow that will make you bleed out if you don't use a medkit immediately that sounds ludicrously op oh but that's just because we haven't met the tactical shotgun yet this gun is everywhere and it is the ultimate cheese in this game i swear this thing is just my arch nemesis at this point sure they're not invincible when they have it but it's the gun that requires the least amount of skill to use effectively that's right i'm saying all the people using this gun are bad what are they gonna do about it a common defense i've seen is that actually all players have access to these weapons and perks you just have to use the pre-made classes that have them see here i am and i haven't bought these things on principle chances are however that players can make better classes themselves compared to what's on offer here a perfect example of this is that the loads some tactical shotgun can be equipped with a suppressor if you buy it a silenced shotgun can you maybe see how this can be op this is a standard large firearm too the regular shotgun is a special weapon meaning you have to earn so much parts in a match before you can get it and even then you only get two shells compared to all of this don't even talk to me about the stubby be on three feet you're basically firing confetti it's simple you get a gameplay advantage if you pay money for these weapons and perks it's pay to win and it sucks this is the worst part of the game well maybe second worst this isn't what's made me only play this on and off it's annoying but not enough to make me stop playing the game's been left untouched for many many years and there are some standout bugs that never got fixed or updated to work better with the new hardware culling and loading can seem very janky with objects popping in right in front of your face you might think this is kind of a nitpicky thing to bring up but here it is telling me that there's a player behind this cover you can't do this everywhere though not even all the time reliably so i guess it's not the worst bug in the world yeah that title goes to this occasional very infrequent but unbelievably frustrating bug where sometimes you'll be picking up crafting supplies go to make things from them and you can't you didn't receive all the crafting supplies you were picking up look you can see i pick up blades but in my inventory they're not there you can even see the crafting symbol appear and then disappear this bug has drove me crazy for years and i finally got it on footage and in more than one instance too i'm not crazy i'm right i don't know if this bug is based on latency or if i was just picking things up in a pattern that the game found disagreeable but this is the worst thing in this game what is the point of me playing if the game is just going to occasionally lie to me it is infrequent two occurrences over 70 plus games but i hate it all the same i feel i needed to bring these points up to be fair in this review but i have to say i do keep coming back here they aren't complete deal breakers the core of this experience is special there isn't another game that does what this does right now at least as far as i'm aware i didn't think there was many submarine horror games but now i basically have a list of them there's no wonder that the game has such a following years later for a console multiplayer game that's incredible if you have a ps5 you can play the last of us remastered as part of the ps plus collection it might be getting added to that ps plus premium service too if you're still on ps4 but you can get the game absurdly cheap nowadays so despite its flaws yeah i still love the last of his factions multiplayer and i'm probably going to keep playing it for a while i'm also going to look forward to its new iteration you know the multiplayer that was cut out of the last of us part 2 and that we've been waiting for forever now people assumed it'd be a free-to-play spin-off but i don't know at this point it might be getting packaged in with that remake they're doing god why are they even doing that yeah there's a low resolution texture here or there but this game looks fine so what better way to end the video than my wish list for factions too alright firstly saw all the stuff i mentioned in my criticisms fix the bugs don't do pay to win and stop making me feel bad with your progression system okay simple enough second please try and keep it fun i understand you didn't want to say the word fun with part two but this is the multiplayer people are generally here to have fun generally can you stop dude don't try and make the violence all nasty and mean huh although saying that the original us release was actually much more violent than the one i've been playing that's right the european version is actually censored and it's probably germany's fault again i don't care about it being censored honestly look just don't do this in multiplayer okay finally and maybe this is just pie in the sky but can you not include all the faff of modern multiplayer games you don't need a battle pass you don't need loot boxes you don't need basically any of the exploitative fear of missing out nonsense that these other games have to make your game and experience feel fun and rewarding this game right here is a testament to that people are still playing it years and years later and they're enjoying themselves i'm enjoying myself i understand this game contains the early symptoms of the disease that sweeps all of these multiplayer experiences nowadays but instead of trying to design a system that exploits people's goodwill and free time maybe just maybe we could design something that's instead simple and fun i racked on the progression system in this game but it is different it took a creative spark to make it so why not work that spark again kindle the bright ideas and improve on them make something that really enhances this already fantastic game and i guarantee i'll be there in a heartbeat oh also make the golf club a melee weapon [Music] well i guess we truly were the last of us factions multiplayer

Channel: Power Pak

Views: 500,000

Keywords: The Last of Us, The Last of Us Factions, The Last of Us Factions MP, The Last of Us PS4, The Last of Us Factions PS4, The Last of Us Multiplayer, The Last of Us Multiplayer PS4, The Last of Us Gameplay, The Last of Us Factions Gameplay, The Last of Us Multiplayer Gameplay, The Last of Us Factions Review, The Last of Us Multiplayer Review, TLOU, TLOU Factions, TLOU Multiplayer, TLOU Factions PS4, TLOU Multiplayer PS4, Naughty Dog, Power Pak, Power Pak Review

Id: sSKt7R-y_F4

Length: 26min 44sec (1604 seconds)

Published: Fri Apr 22 2022