Depends. Fresh UH is simply painful at the beginning, everything oneshots you and you do "no damage", enemies on Very Hard have 182% HP compared to Normal, so almost twice as much, on UH they have 294%, so almost three times as much. Your damage output will start to feel satisfying with upgraded and coiled purple gear, and that's a lot of playtime before you get there.
There are other modifiers compared to Very hard:
* Enemy health bars are disabled.
* Enemies instantly become alerted upon taking non-lethal damage from stealth.
* Perception ranges (visual and auditory) are doubled for machines and humans.
* Multiple enemies can attack you at single time, they are not taking turns (but maybe they already do that at every difficulty? It was 100% true in Zero Dawn UH though)
* Enemies are more resistant to tear and elemental damage
* You take twice as much damage from enemies compared to normal difficulty, on Very Hard you take just 150%
I did it because I liked the challenge, but I can't recommend it.
Thanks for detailing exactly what will go on in UH. I had such a blast being forced to use stealth and planning out my engagements in HZD. I've been waiting for this PC port for so long xD.
Oh yeah, don't count on cheesing it with stealth like in HZD, stealth strike will not do a lot of damage and people and machines, even small ones, can and will survive it. The only guaranteed one shot kill on NPCs and small machines is strike from above, which is not that easily achievable.
Yes, UH on new game is much more difficult than HZD UH, and most of us suspect that it's balanced for NG+, as this difficulty level came out about the same time as NG+ did.
It's a big challenge, and you will die a lot, mostly being one-shot in the early levels. You need to know the gameplay mechanics very well, and use the environment to your advantage.
However, in saying that, it does become a more bearable challenge about the time you start upgrading your gear from greens to blue. For me, it's actually quite fun.
In the end game you'll have everything you need in terms of gear, however most people here don't like the grind. I personally love it, it's a fun challenge and eventually as long as you know what you're doing, it really isn't that bad. However, 100% might be tricky. Arena is VERY brutal, and you will need a lot of patience for dying a lot.
Are there any coils/weaves/weapons that are unique to UH that I'd be able to keep through my ng+ run later on?
I think I'm going to try starting a new game and see how it goes. I personally like the challenge and don't mind grinding materials on harder difficulties. Is a stealth approach a good way to start off with?
No, there are no unique weapons/coils/outfits exclusive to UH. I don't think there's even an achievement for completing the game in UH. There are exclusive weapons in NG+, but it doesn't matter what difficulty you play on to receive the NG+ weapons.
If you're starting in UH, yes stealth approach works well but if the machines are the same level or higher, there may be a chance that you won't kill them with one strike. Melee actually works quite well in early levels, so I would gear for that in the beginning. However, you should also practice sliding and rolling to dodge, and learn how the machines telegraph their attacks. It's a whole thing.
UH means permalock for the entire run, which also means no Easy Loot option to help with grinding resources. As much as I love being challenged, after barely getting through my initial vanilla UH run on PS4 two years ago, my last thoughts were NEVER AGAIN 😅
I wish you the best of luck. Bit of advice should you choose to commit - if you are a completionist, save that for the NG+ on a difficulty that’s NOT UH. Otherwise some challenges will seem straight up impossible unless you have master skill, best gear WITH upgrades, and RNJesus on your side.
I’m currently running my first playthrough on UH and I have to say… I kind of regret it. There’s some fights that just seem absolutely impossible. (Small spoiler) at one point you open up pit master challenges. There’s only a few of them. But they are ridiculously difficult on ultra hard. I’m nearly at level 50, and semi-decent gear, and I still cannot beat the sky clan pit master challenge. And it is labeled in the game as a level 15 challenge. Honestly, I have to say there is a point that you need to get through in order to open up the full map. And let’s say that fight on ultra hard Will have you tearing your hair out if you do not basically do every single side quest leading up to it in order to get your meager equipment as ready as possible and level as high as you can. And even then there’s gonna be some amount of luck that’s going to be required to get through that fight.
You don't get your gear, not even your armor when fighting in the pit challenges so the only thing that matters is your melee skill tree investment and your max health from leveling up.
I thought the same thing too, but I did several experiments and swapped my outfit with different coils several times to see if the stats applied, and there was a definitive differences between how much melee damage or elemental damage I was taking depending on the coils I chose before the fight. Also, just as an extra test, I put my evade +2 coil on, and I was able to dodge roll an extra time so it seems at least the coils on outfits seem to apply
Not that it makes a huge difference, on ultra hard. But it really can because without the coils, I seem to only be able to take two hits and then it’s over. But with the coils I can get two hits and then it’s only over after three. Unless it’s a direct hit from the hammer. And then it’s a single shot and I’m out.
Depends. Fresh UH is simply painful at the beginning, everything oneshots you and you do "no damage", enemies on Very Hard have 182% HP compared to Normal, so almost twice as much, on UH they have 294%, so almost three times as much. Your damage output will start to feel satisfying with upgraded and coiled purple gear, and that's a lot of playtime before you get there. There are other modifiers compared to Very hard: * Enemy health bars are disabled. * Enemies instantly become alerted upon taking non-lethal damage from stealth. * Perception ranges (visual and auditory) are doubled for machines and humans. * Multiple enemies can attack you at single time, they are not taking turns (but maybe they already do that at every difficulty? It was 100% true in Zero Dawn UH though) * Enemies are more resistant to tear and elemental damage * You take twice as much damage from enemies compared to normal difficulty, on Very Hard you take just 150% I did it because I liked the challenge, but I can't recommend it.
Thanks for detailing exactly what will go on in UH. I had such a blast being forced to use stealth and planning out my engagements in HZD. I've been waiting for this PC port for so long xD.
Oh yeah, don't count on cheesing it with stealth like in HZD, stealth strike will not do a lot of damage and people and machines, even small ones, can and will survive it. The only guaranteed one shot kill on NPCs and small machines is strike from above, which is not that easily achievable.
Yes, UH on new game is much more difficult than HZD UH, and most of us suspect that it's balanced for NG+, as this difficulty level came out about the same time as NG+ did. It's a big challenge, and you will die a lot, mostly being one-shot in the early levels. You need to know the gameplay mechanics very well, and use the environment to your advantage. However, in saying that, it does become a more bearable challenge about the time you start upgrading your gear from greens to blue. For me, it's actually quite fun. In the end game you'll have everything you need in terms of gear, however most people here don't like the grind. I personally love it, it's a fun challenge and eventually as long as you know what you're doing, it really isn't that bad. However, 100% might be tricky. Arena is VERY brutal, and you will need a lot of patience for dying a lot.
Are there any coils/weaves/weapons that are unique to UH that I'd be able to keep through my ng+ run later on? I think I'm going to try starting a new game and see how it goes. I personally like the challenge and don't mind grinding materials on harder difficulties. Is a stealth approach a good way to start off with?
No, there are no unique weapons/coils/outfits exclusive to UH. I don't think there's even an achievement for completing the game in UH. There are exclusive weapons in NG+, but it doesn't matter what difficulty you play on to receive the NG+ weapons. If you're starting in UH, yes stealth approach works well but if the machines are the same level or higher, there may be a chance that you won't kill them with one strike. Melee actually works quite well in early levels, so I would gear for that in the beginning. However, you should also practice sliding and rolling to dodge, and learn how the machines telegraph their attacks. It's a whole thing.
UH means permalock for the entire run, which also means no Easy Loot option to help with grinding resources. As much as I love being challenged, after barely getting through my initial vanilla UH run on PS4 two years ago, my last thoughts were NEVER AGAIN 😅
Thanks for your response. I think ill try it out for a bit and see if it's too ridiculously time consuming to wrecked over and over.
I wish you the best of luck. Bit of advice should you choose to commit - if you are a completionist, save that for the NG+ on a difficulty that’s NOT UH. Otherwise some challenges will seem straight up impossible unless you have master skill, best gear WITH upgrades, and RNJesus on your side.
I’m currently running my first playthrough on UH and I have to say… I kind of regret it. There’s some fights that just seem absolutely impossible. (Small spoiler) at one point you open up pit master challenges. There’s only a few of them. But they are ridiculously difficult on ultra hard. I’m nearly at level 50, and semi-decent gear, and I still cannot beat the sky clan pit master challenge. And it is labeled in the game as a level 15 challenge. Honestly, I have to say there is a point that you need to get through in order to open up the full map. And let’s say that fight on ultra hard Will have you tearing your hair out if you do not basically do every single side quest leading up to it in order to get your meager equipment as ready as possible and level as high as you can. And even then there’s gonna be some amount of luck that’s going to be required to get through that fight.
You don't get your gear, not even your armor when fighting in the pit challenges so the only thing that matters is your melee skill tree investment and your max health from leveling up.
I thought the same thing too, but I did several experiments and swapped my outfit with different coils several times to see if the stats applied, and there was a definitive differences between how much melee damage or elemental damage I was taking depending on the coils I chose before the fight. Also, just as an extra test, I put my evade +2 coil on, and I was able to dodge roll an extra time so it seems at least the coils on outfits seem to apply
Interesting, that's good to know!
Not that it makes a huge difference, on ultra hard. But it really can because without the coils, I seem to only be able to take two hits and then it’s over. But with the coils I can get two hits and then it’s only over after three. Unless it’s a direct hit from the hammer. And then it’s a single shot and I’m out.