DangerousCook
Rear Admiral
First of all, if you are not in the mood for a (probably) unoriginal topic full of complaining and ranting then you should stop reading now!
I've been playing through WC3 for the first time in a long time, and it is a fantastic experience. I think that it's in all likelihood the best game of the entire series, and I can see myself playing it again even once I've completed this run...
BUT
Why in the name of all things holy did they design the last mission of Disc 3 (the first Excalibur/first atmospheric mission) the way they did? It is such a terrible, terrible mission—it's counterintuitive, un-fun, and illogically difficult. From a design standpoint, it's gotta be the worst mission of the game.
To start things off, you're flying the mission alone. Sure, you get an Excalibur out of the deal, but as far as I can tell you are given absolutely no explanation why you have to go solo on this one. I would've been happy with a Hellcat-flying redshirt...anything!
The Darkets are obviously fine, but once you get planetside you're introduced to the Ekapshis. Up to this point, there have been no fighters with as high a likelihood of crashing into you. Their tactics involve A.) swarming and making your Excal actually feel sub-par or B.) trying to coax you into crashing. Now don't get me wrong, I think the Kilrathi tactics are actually pretty smart, and it's one of the many things I appreciate about this game, but this mission defines Kilrathi tactics at their most annoying.
Also, since you've entered the atmosphere, any power adjustments you made at the beginning of the mission (say the common reduction of Damage Repair) are completely reset, so if you want to restore those settings you need to do it while being shot at.
Now let's say you die at this point, which is by no means a bold assumption. The mission actually restarts in the atmosphere. It's as if the designers are saying "we know that we made this mission uber-ridiculously hard—hmm, let's make a concession to the player so that he doesn't actually go through with shooting himself in the face."
In the event that you get through the Ekapshis at given nav point, you have to assume you're golden, right? But wait, the designers decided arbitrarily that they needed to trick you this mission. Sure, your autopilot may come on, but if you actually do so and leave distant tanks (in the form of orange blips that cannot be targeted and are not in visual range) alive, you will lose the mission.
Which brings us to the tanks. You can't target them! This means you can't determine if they're in gun range, and you have to aim at these small annoying specs that are shooting you en masse. Do I need to mention that the Excalibur's gun capacitors drain quickly enough as it is?
So great, you've somehow eliminated the first set of tanks. Time to autopilot. But guess what? You (by some fluke of nature) arrive at the next nav point dead in the middle of surrounding tank fire. It's like Blair took a nap during auto, which apparently is also just the worst autopilot system ever made.
So we've got no wingman, fighters that try luring you into crashing (or simply just crash into you), resetting of your Power allocations, false autopilot signals, targets that are vital to mission success that you...can't target, an autopilot system that sends you into the middle of enemy fire, and finally a mission that when failed for any number of reasons (death, ejecting, autopiloting when they...tell you to) loses you the entire game. No "losing path" that you can avoid or fight your way out of, no...you just lose.
I'm fine with making a mission hard, but this one does it in all the wrong ways. It deprives you of a wingman, it tries to trick you, makes it illogically harder to hit vital targets etc. etc. etc. Just make the mission harder in the ways that the other missions are hard, I say.
Yes, this is a ton of complaining, but I otherwise love this game. I just found this mission so appalling in its design. I'm curious to hear if anyone agrees or disagrees. Thanks.
I've been playing through WC3 for the first time in a long time, and it is a fantastic experience. I think that it's in all likelihood the best game of the entire series, and I can see myself playing it again even once I've completed this run...
BUT
Why in the name of all things holy did they design the last mission of Disc 3 (the first Excalibur/first atmospheric mission) the way they did? It is such a terrible, terrible mission—it's counterintuitive, un-fun, and illogically difficult. From a design standpoint, it's gotta be the worst mission of the game.
To start things off, you're flying the mission alone. Sure, you get an Excalibur out of the deal, but as far as I can tell you are given absolutely no explanation why you have to go solo on this one. I would've been happy with a Hellcat-flying redshirt...anything!
The Darkets are obviously fine, but once you get planetside you're introduced to the Ekapshis. Up to this point, there have been no fighters with as high a likelihood of crashing into you. Their tactics involve A.) swarming and making your Excal actually feel sub-par or B.) trying to coax you into crashing. Now don't get me wrong, I think the Kilrathi tactics are actually pretty smart, and it's one of the many things I appreciate about this game, but this mission defines Kilrathi tactics at their most annoying.
Also, since you've entered the atmosphere, any power adjustments you made at the beginning of the mission (say the common reduction of Damage Repair) are completely reset, so if you want to restore those settings you need to do it while being shot at.
Now let's say you die at this point, which is by no means a bold assumption. The mission actually restarts in the atmosphere. It's as if the designers are saying "we know that we made this mission uber-ridiculously hard—hmm, let's make a concession to the player so that he doesn't actually go through with shooting himself in the face."
In the event that you get through the Ekapshis at given nav point, you have to assume you're golden, right? But wait, the designers decided arbitrarily that they needed to trick you this mission. Sure, your autopilot may come on, but if you actually do so and leave distant tanks (in the form of orange blips that cannot be targeted and are not in visual range) alive, you will lose the mission.
Which brings us to the tanks. You can't target them! This means you can't determine if they're in gun range, and you have to aim at these small annoying specs that are shooting you en masse. Do I need to mention that the Excalibur's gun capacitors drain quickly enough as it is?
So great, you've somehow eliminated the first set of tanks. Time to autopilot. But guess what? You (by some fluke of nature) arrive at the next nav point dead in the middle of surrounding tank fire. It's like Blair took a nap during auto, which apparently is also just the worst autopilot system ever made.
So we've got no wingman, fighters that try luring you into crashing (or simply just crash into you), resetting of your Power allocations, false autopilot signals, targets that are vital to mission success that you...can't target, an autopilot system that sends you into the middle of enemy fire, and finally a mission that when failed for any number of reasons (death, ejecting, autopiloting when they...tell you to) loses you the entire game. No "losing path" that you can avoid or fight your way out of, no...you just lose.
I'm fine with making a mission hard, but this one does it in all the wrong ways. It deprives you of a wingman, it tries to trick you, makes it illogically harder to hit vital targets etc. etc. etc. Just make the mission harder in the ways that the other missions are hard, I say.
Yes, this is a ton of complaining, but I otherwise love this game. I just found this mission so appalling in its design. I'm curious to hear if anyone agrees or disagrees. Thanks.