Farbourne
Rear Admiral
I'm curious what folks in general think about Standoff's difficulty levels. Not if the game is too hard or too easy (although that is probably a worthy thread topic as well, which I'm sure has been discussed a lot), but how the nature of the game causes the difficulty setting to have potentially unusual effects.
As I'm sure most Standoff veterans know, turning up the difficulty for the most part only affects the AI (i.e. I don't believe it raises or lowers gun or missile damage, collision detection thresholds, or enemy armor levels or anything like that). And it affects BOTH enemy and friendly AIs.
Combining that with the all-around awesomeness of the Rapier II, which many of your wingmen fly, what that seems to mean is that increasing the "difficulty" can actually make some missions easier, perhaps. But it likely depends on the mission.
So my question is: What difficulty level do you think makes Standoff the easiest? What makes it the hardest? How would you rank the difficulties? And what factors affect this?
To answer my own question: My own sense is that in the "larger" missions where you have lots of wingmen, especially in strike and fleet defense missions, the higher the "difficulty" the easier the game gets. Nightmare might actually be the easiest setting. On the other hand, "smaller" missions where it's you and few friends against the enemies, especially in "you just have to survive" missions like patrols, the game gets significantly easier if you turn the difficulty down.
If I had to pick just one difficulty level, I actually think it would be Nightmare. But I'm curious about other people's thoughts...
As I'm sure most Standoff veterans know, turning up the difficulty for the most part only affects the AI (i.e. I don't believe it raises or lowers gun or missile damage, collision detection thresholds, or enemy armor levels or anything like that). And it affects BOTH enemy and friendly AIs.
Combining that with the all-around awesomeness of the Rapier II, which many of your wingmen fly, what that seems to mean is that increasing the "difficulty" can actually make some missions easier, perhaps. But it likely depends on the mission.
So my question is: What difficulty level do you think makes Standoff the easiest? What makes it the hardest? How would you rank the difficulties? And what factors affect this?
To answer my own question: My own sense is that in the "larger" missions where you have lots of wingmen, especially in strike and fleet defense missions, the higher the "difficulty" the easier the game gets. Nightmare might actually be the easiest setting. On the other hand, "smaller" missions where it's you and few friends against the enemies, especially in "you just have to survive" missions like patrols, the game gets significantly easier if you turn the difficulty down.
If I had to pick just one difficulty level, I actually think it would be Nightmare. But I'm curious about other people's thoughts...