Difficulty levels explained

Glabro

Spaceman
Does anyone happen to have inside knowledge on what the difficulty levels in WC 3 & 4 and Prophecy (which is different) do?

I'm trying to figure out which difficulties, if any, boost the stats of enemy fighters and which don't. I've been playing WC3 and 4 on Ace (it would seem that it's harder than Hard due to afterburner usage) and Vision engine games on Nightmare, but mission 3 in Unknown Enemy feels nigh-insurmountable to succeed in.
 
Most likely Ace.

If I recall correctly Quarto said they never bothered to test it on nightmare, though there's no reason to assume it's unwinnable.

It sounds like a lot more frustration than it's worth, though. :)
 
Not unwinnable I'm sure, only close to being so.

Anyway, thanks for the suggestions, though if anyone has info on those diff. levels, keep it coming.

I just thought everyone played Prophecy and SO on Nightmare...but now that you mention it I think Standoff was too difficult on Nightmare as well.
 
Yeah....got through the mission on the first try on Hero.

It's insane, the difference in difficulty. But that's typical for Wing Commander - the step up from ace/ hard to Crazy was big too in WC3.
 
On the difficulty levels, I seem to remember reading that anything above Ace in vision penalize the player statwise (though I can't say that for sure) and gives everything else (wingmen, enemies), a boost, as well as (slightly?) improved AI, while lower levels do the opposite, but I don't have the exact stats.
 
Where did you read that ??

I wish it was true , some times even on Nightmare the Wingmen AI

is incredibly stupid :p
 
I'm not at home with them to check, but the Official Guides to WC3/4/P give these kinds of difficulty level details.
 
Where did you read that ??

I wish it was true , some times even on Nightmare the Wingmen AI

is incredibly stupid :p

Yeah, boosting Wingmen AI and survivability would be great on the higher difficulty levels....but it's not borne out by my recent experiences with WCIII at least....

the thing that bothers me about crazy and nightmare in WC3 is that you feel like you're flying alone - as a result the only viable fighters on those difficulties, IMO, are the auto-sliding arrow and excalibur, everything else is too slow to evade the tons of gunfire and missiles that are sent your way while your wingman endlessly tangles with one or two enemies leaving the rest for you.....

Luckily even the heaviest Kilrathi capships can be taken out with an arrow, surprisingly quickly too....one wonders why they build anything other than carriers, since fighters are incredibly powerful in the WC universe....
 
Luckily even the heaviest Kilrathi capships can be taken out with an arrow, surprisingly quickly too....one wonders why they build anything other than carriers, since fighters are incredibly powerful in the WC universe....

Fighters are very powerfull in Wc3/Wc4 game engine , even in Wc1 they give quite

a punch but not in the "WC universe" .You will not see in a novel an arrow attacking supercarriers :p

Also consider the various Wc Game engines of the time and its limitations.
:)
 
Fighters are very powerfull in Wc3/Wc4 game engine , even in Wc1 they give quite

a punch but not in the "WC universe" .You will not see in a novel an arrow attacking supercarriers :p

Also consider the various Wc Game engines of the time and its limitations.
:)

Oh yes, point taken.
 
Don't get me started on capships in WC1. Those things died in much less than a minute to gunfire and were totally helpless against it.

Of course, as can be seen in later titles (even Unknown Enemy's Fralthis and Ralaris) they can't generally be taken down without a torpedo-capable craft.

I'm think this was explained as the capships getting phasic shields or something in WC2, but I'd much rather simply write it off to technological limitations.

For some reason they brought back the ability to kill anything with guns on WC3, but as far as I recall torpedoes were back to being necessary from there on out, except for the Devastator's plasma cannon, which, finally, should really put an end to development of anything but carriers for military purposes (well, except for scouting work, perhaps) as it is acknowledged in official fluff to be capable of doing what it does in game.
 
Don't get me started on capships in WC1. Those things died in much less than a minute to gunfire and were totally helpless against it.

I'm think this was explained as the capships getting phasic shields or something in WC2, but I'd much rather simply write it off to technological limitations.
.

Ok , Wc1 Capships didnt have Phase Shields .Which means that a fighter or two could try to blow a destroyer a cruiser or even a carrier without use of torpedoes and such.

But please stop comparing the gameplay ,the difficulty level and the engine limitations of each game ,its no use :)

Wc is a very fun game ,I like detroying capships with a Rapier , dont try to explaing why.If you couldnt , or if it was a hardass simulator it would not be fun to play at all.

See it that way , in Wc1 some very skilled pilots could destroy a capship with a couple of fighters ,in the game you just happen to be that pilot , but because you or I or anyone here is not a spacecraft pilot,the difficulty is reduced so anyone can play the game and have fun.:p
 
See it that way , in Wc1 some very skilled pilots could destroy a capship with a couple of fighters ,in the game you just happen to be that pilot , but because you or I or anyone here is not a spacecraft pilot,the difficulty is reduced so anyone can play the game and have fun.:p

Interesting point of view, the gameplay is indeed an abstracted version of the fiction....still it is odd cap-ships became kill-able via guns again in WC3.

I suppose Origin was trying to keep the amount of snazzy new 3D objects low, and thus multi-wing missions were out, which meant the player had to be able to kill anything in any craft.
 
Well both Wc3 and Wc4 are amazing and epic games with great gameplay and storyline

BUT , I am pretty sure ,as of the game engine and missions ,its not exactly what Origin and C.Roberts really wanted.

Correct me ,anyone if I am wrong ,but I have the feeling that in some of the missions
the briefing sometimes has nothing to do with the mission you play after.

You are supposed to destroy turrets ,protect capships from minions of Kilrathi fighters, drop some torpedoes etc. but it turns out to just shoot at a couple of fighters and destroy the capship with your Arrow`s lasers.

I think its pretty obvious sometimes that the game engine at the time couldnt support the script.

:)
 
Well both Wc3 and Wc4 are amazing and epic games with great gameplay and storyline

BUT , I am pretty sure ,as of the game engine and missions ,its not exactly what Origin and C.Roberts really wanted.

Correct me ,anyone if I am wrong ,but I have the feeling that in some of the missions
the briefing sometimes has nothing to do with the mission you play after.

You are supposed to destroy turrets ,protect capships from minions of Kilrathi fighters, drop some torpedoes etc. but it turns out to just shoot at a couple of fighters and destroy the capship with your Arrow`s lasers.

I think its pretty obvious sometimes that the game engine at the time couldnt support the script.

:)

True, I noticed that myself - some briefings were very vague, while others described things that you already knew were unneccesary/impossible game-engine wise ..

in any case you just launch into space and do it 'your way.'

awesome.
 
If I recall correctly Quarto said they never bothered to test it on nightmare, though there's no reason to assume it's unwinnable.

It sounds like a lot more frustration than it's worth, though. :)

It's winnable.. and a nightmare. The mission where you defend the base along with Ferrets stands out in my memory as a really tough one to get through. I remember thinking I finished a REALLY tough mission and thinking I just barely scraped through that one, then I find out the base is being attacked and I have a huge hoard of enemy fighters that was even larger than the group I just fought off.
 
Ok , Wc1 Capships didnt have Phase Shields .Which means that a fighter or two could try to blow a destroyer a cruiser or even a carrier without use of torpedoes and such.

But please stop comparing the gameplay ,the difficulty level and the engine limitations of each game ,its no use :)

Wc is a very fun game ,I like detroying capships with a Rapier , dont try to explaing why.If you couldnt , or if it was a hardass simulator it would not be fun to play at all.

See it that way , in Wc1 some very skilled pilots could destroy a capship with a couple of fighters ,in the game you just happen to be that pilot , but because you or I or anyone here is not a spacecraft pilot,the difficulty is reduced so anyone can play the game and have fun.:p

At least as of WC1, it wasn't supposed to be impossible in-universe. Claw Marks indicates that Skinner and Dibbles were sent, alone, to take down a destroyer in a pair of Scimitars, and nothing in the article suggests that they were part of a larger strike force. The article also doesn't indicate that there was anything about this that would have been impossible or ridiculous to attempt.

Sure, it's not entirely safe to be making so many assumptions from what an article *doesn't* say, but...
 
At least as of WC1, it wasn't supposed to be impossible in-universe. Claw Marks indicates that Skinner and Dibbles were sent, alone, to take down a destroyer in a pair of Scimitars, and nothing in the article suggests that they were part of a larger strike force. The article also doesn't indicate that there was anything about this that would have been impossible or ridiculous to attempt.

Sure, it's not entirely safe to be making so many assumptions from what an article *doesn't* say, but...

It does beg the question though, what would the point of destroyers be if they were ineffectual against fighters? Actually I've just noticed something: I don't have the original WC1 Clawmarks to check against, but in the 3DO Super Wing Commander version it actually says that Skinner and Dibbles were sent as part of a strike team. Perhaps the designers realised that the older version of events was a little improbable.
 
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