How can you guys call this easy?

Have you tried it on the lowest difficulty setting ? Even if I am very rusty at playing WC I managed to get through the game without too much problems... on rookie. You just have to adapt your flying style a bit, and take care of your wingmens. Keep them alive and you'll have more ships on your wing on the subsequent missions. Please keep trying and let us know how you do !
 
Quarto and Eder's explanation for the numbers concerning the battle of Terra makes sense...for the Battle of Terra. Since when do pirates get those kind of numbers though? Also your explanation for the greater numbers being ok since you have 5 or so wingman doesn't jive either. Standoff is a game that is trying to fit into the WC2 time era...in WC2, your standard wing was you and one other pilot (on rare occassions two other pilots). That was flying off of one of the best ships in the fleet...why would the Lionheart in the backwater region of Confed fly so many pilots in their wings? Doesn't mimic WC2 at all. On one hand you're trying to imitate WC2 and on the other you're not. Doesn't jive.

Secondly, saying the reason there wasn't more ships in WC2 was an engine capability thing also doesn't jive. It'd have been no problem to add a couple of extra nav points with additional wings of Kilrathi...or to have multiple waves at the navs already established. The designers of WC2 polished their game. They knew the difficulty was just right as it was. They didn't need to have the player kill 20 ships every mission!

All that I've said, however, doesn't amount to very much because this is your game and you get to design it as you see fit. However, I wish you would just say that you did it this way because that's want you wanted to do and not try to make up an excuse that WC2 would have done it this way if they but could have. Like I said, for the Battle of Terra you absolutely want to have large numbers...it was a large engagement. But everywhere else we're involved in the numbers should be significantly smaller and on the scale of WC2 during which time period Standoff supposedly takes place.
 
There *were* missions in WC1/2's timeframe with wings greater than 2 wingmen, and I do believe there was some arbitrary limit on the number of fighters per mission set by the Origin programmers because of memory requirements or whatever. By the time of Wing Commander 4, this limitation is less of a factor, and we see more missions with 3 or 4 wingmen. In the novels, books and movie we see solos/duets and we also see whole squadrons tasked with a particularly important patrol/strike/escort.

I wouldn't recommend just doubling the number of enemies present in your average WC2 missions because you can. You have a lot of Wingmen in Prophecy or Secret Ops, but that's because the nature of the bugs allows them to field even more craft than Kilrathi or pirates did. Battles with the Kilrathi or pirates should be a little more personal on most occasions. I think the original games, particularly WC4, got the balance just right. On some missions you're alone, on most missions you have one partner, and in more extravagant situations you get a few more wingmen. It's really really great to meet up with a second wing of Rapiers to go on a capship strike in 2654. Making every mission a 5 vs 20 slugfest would kind of take the magic out of it. Having to worry about wingmen in every mission would get on my nerves too.
 
Maj.Striker said:
Quarto and Eder's explanation for the numbers concerning the battle of Terra makes sense...for the Battle of Terra. Since when do pirates get those kind of numbers though? Also your explanation for the greater numbers being ok since you have 5 or so wingman doesn't jive either. Standoff is a game that is trying to fit into the WC2 time era...in WC2, your standard wing was you and one other pilot (on rare occassions two other pilots). That was flying off of one of the best ships in the fleet...
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Ever read End Run, or Fleet Action? Or the WC3 or WC4 novels, for that matter? We serve two masters here - the books and the game. So yes, on the one hand we try to imitate the game, and on the other hand we're not, because we're trying to imitate the books. You can argue that in your opinion it would have been better for us to stick to just the game - but you certainly can't suggest that what we see in the game is in any way representative of the era. It's not - the books, which do not suffer from memory and processor limitations, are. Hell, even the game lays in plenty of indications that it's not really representative of the era - you go out there and fight great big battles against four Kilrathi fighters defending a pair of carriers, while an unimportant pilot named Dallas gets killed on an unimportant patrol by ten Drakhri. You go out there and take out K'tithrak Mang solo because you're the player, but meanwhile Admiral Tolwyn is assembling the entire Concordia wing to take out the very same base, because he's not the player.

And the same goes for pirates - you may encounter three or four pirates at one navpoint in Priv, but then you read the story of the Scarab, which has to fight off dozens of Retros to get to safety. And of course, while you may encounter just three or four pirates at one navpoint, it's possible that you'll encounter three or four pirates at every navpoint from Troy to New Detroit... which adds up pretty quickly. Remember those Delta Prime missions? You often had to kill about ten-twenty pirates solo, even though you were in supposedly unexplored space. If that's what you can find in unexplored space, why does that number seem excessive when you're going up against a pirate base?

Secondly, saying the reason there wasn't more ships in WC2 was an engine capability thing also doesn't jive. It'd have been no problem to add a couple of extra nav points with additional wings of Kilrathi...or to have multiple waves at the navs already established. The designers of WC2 polished their game. They knew the difficulty was just right as it was. They didn't need to have the player kill 20 ships every mission!
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No, they couldn't have. When I tell you that WC2 has a limit of 16 ships per mission, I'm not speculating. Back in the days before WCP, HCl worked a fair amount on WC1 and 2. Amongst other things, he documented WC1 and 2's mission format and created pretty decent mission editing tools. That 16 ship limit is a fact. And it's not just a number that the designers decided would be sufficient for anyone - it's a very real consequence of the time when the game was made, when you had to fit everything in about 600kb of memory. Each ship's stats would take about half a kilobyte, and by the time you've allocated memory for everything else, it turns out that half a kilobyte isn't as little as it might seem.

Of course, WC2, with its extremely small ship limit, is a fantastic game. But WC2 isn't a great game because it had only 16 ships per mission - WC2 is a great game because its designers were fully aware of the engine's features and limitations, and used them to their advantage. And this is what we're trying to do, too - we're not trying to remake WC2 in the WCP engine, because that's not what the WCP engine was designed for. It just wouldn't work - WCP's physics (bouncy shields!) and AI are geared for large battles, and if we tried to recreate WC2 odds, it wouldn't be a challenge (as you can see in the Sparrow mission, which isn't anywhere near as difficult as the Jazz mission - and not for the lack of trying on our part, I can assure you).
 
The problem I have is that Confed is always so out numbered. I mean you are usually fighting 3 or 4:1. That sucks. 2:1 yeah sure great but there just seem to be too many pirates. This is WCII Confed isn't on the ropes yet. The bugs were easy to kill because all their ships sucked. In Standoff you are usually fighting ships that are close to your own in capability. So there really don't need to be so many.
 
I'm the unregistered whiner.

I finally beat it, and it seemed short. Yes, it was a matter of adjusting my tactics and spamming missiles. But I still think that going against overwhelming odds in every mission just doesn't make sense. No military force sends their effectives in suicide missions systematically, hoping (wait, make that knowing) that the personal talent of a single man will be enough to save the day. Yes, I know that's how the "über-hero-maker" WCP engine is supposed to work, and that there's little you can do about it. Perhaps WCP was never meant to be too challenging.

I've just started with UE and it's even worse. Each mission is like a gauntlet you must go through to unlock the next bit of story.

I think that you guys may be mistaking gameplay mechanics with dramatic elements. While in the original WCs being outnumbered by more than 2:1 was a serious problem, it's always impressive to write a story about this ace that dealt with an entire fleet with one of his cannons destroyed, no shields, and suffering from severe hangover. After all, the authors of those books don't have to fly their own missions.

I can understand that you want to make it challenging. But just beefing up the enemy numbers somewhat substracts from the experience and gives each mission an arcade-ish feel.

My $0.02
 
PopsiclePete said:
Well, most people were complaining they had to play WCP/SO on nightmare to have a slight challenge... so the general consensus was to make Standoff harder so it really is a nightmare to use that difficulty setting.
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I don't remember all that many people ever complaining Nightmare was easy in WCP/SO. And I'm not sure easy games are all that bad. Easy games can be just great if the mission design lends itself to great replayability. If it were excruciating to get through missions in some of the earlier Wing Commander games, some people might be less inclined to explore all the branching mission paths.
 
Well I am not complaining, but WCP/SO IS easy on Nightmare once you learn how to fly.
 
cff said:
Well I am not complaining, but WCP/SO IS easy on Nightmare once you learn how to fly.
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I concur. While WC3 and 4 are incredibly hard if not almost impossible on the Nightmare setting.

WC1 was also an easy game once you learned how to kick some kitty litter. Only the Kurasawa mission was a challenge to me in retrospect. But I was a WC2 veteran by the time I got my hands on WC1, so maybe it's just me.

The WC1 expansion packs are a whole different story, however.
 
Bakhtosh Redclaw said:
.

I've just started with UE and it's even worse. Each mission is like a gauntlet you must go through to unlock the next bit of story.

I think that you guys may be mistaking gameplay mechanics with dramatic elements.
I can understand that you want to make it challenging. But just beefing up the enemy numbers somewhat substracts from the experience and gives each mission an arcade-ish feel.
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Posts like this ,make me think.Have you guys ever played (really played and finished) any other WC game before saying anything about Standoff and UE ?How many hours have you spent in Standoff ,UE ?Have you learn how to "fly" learn how to do it right ,try the game first and then judge it ;)

If you havent really expirienced any Wc game before ofcourse these great mods seem difficult to you.
 
TCSTigersClaw said:
Posts like this ,make me think.Have you guys ever played (really played and finished) any other WC game before saying anything about Standoff and UE ?How many hours have you spent in Standoff ,UE ?Have you learn how to "fly" learn how to do it right ,try the game first and then judge it ;)

If you havent really expirienced any Wc game before ofcourse these great mods seem difficult to you.
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Um, I have beat all of the WCs, expansion packs included. And none of them had that kind of outnumbering.

I have beat Standoff in Ace, too. I don't see the need to increase the difficulty level, I don't play games to get frustrated. But regardless of the overall difficulty, the numbers you go against just don't make sense. ;)
 
Agree with Redclaw here. I've played all the WC games...except for the Super Wing Commander and such. I've stated my opinions...if no one agrees that's fine. I'll say this and try to stop whining. :)

Quarto, you say you're trying to balance SO with the books and with the WC2 game. I'd say this: If you're making a game...you should make it like the WC2 game. If you're writing a fan fic...then you should make it like the books.

As for exploiting the engine to its fullest? I think you need to upgrade the AI in order to do that. Instead of coding in 20-30 enemy ships every mission...spend a little time studying and tweaking the AI scripts. That would be the best way to upgrade and enhance the game play experience.
 
Maj.Striker said:
Quarto, you say you're trying to balance SO with the books and with the WC2 game. I'd say this: If you're making a game...you should make it like the WC2 game. If you're writing a fan fic...then you should make it like the books.
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Except that we don't want to keep the books and the games separate. Ultimately, we're not trying to remake WC2, or make Fleet Action: The Game. We're trying to make something that will remind people of both those products, but which will ultimately be a completely separate Wing Commander experience. And Wing Commander are the key words here - since the books and games are all Wing Commander products, there is no reason for us to reject one or the other. And of course, we do realise that there will always be some people unhappy about this, but we really don't care, because we're not trying to make people happy - we're trying to make a good game.

As for exploiting the engine to its fullest? I think you need to upgrade the AI in order to do that. Instead of coding in 20-30 enemy ships every mission...spend a little time studying and tweaking the AI scripts. That would be the best way to upgrade and enhance the game play experience.
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That's easy to say - and impossible to do. You try upgrading the WCP AI :).
 
Maj.Striker said:
As for exploiting the engine to its fullest? I think you need to upgrade the AI in order to do that. Instead of coding in 20-30 enemy ships every mission...spend a little time studying and tweaking the AI scripts. That would be the best way to upgrade and enhance the game play experience.
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Man, we are exploiting the engine beyond it's fullest. No kidding. We're constantly tweeking it and using creative techniques to make things as interesting and as fun and as WC2-ish as we can. But tweeking the AI ? We're talking about hacking the EXE here, and replacing whole lots or routines directly in assembler...

About the amount of ships involved: the prologue had lots of enemy because it was basicly a strike against a pirate base that had just stolen a whole fighter complement; would you have prefered to go to the base solo destroying 3-4 Talons and then the base? I am sure you would have thought: "That's silly ! A pirate base with 4 Talons ?"

We're not remaking WC2, we're making a new game with a WC2 feel.

And wait until you play the next episodes. I've coded missions and seen mission layouts where you face enemies in numbers much closer to WC2. The Kilrathi are much more dangerous than the Pirates, they don't need to be showing up in large number to be dangerous.
 
PopsiclePete said:
And wait until you play the next episodes. I've coded missions and seen mission layouts where you face enemies in numbers much closer to WC2. The Kilrathi are much more dangerous than the Pirates, they don't need to be showing up in large number to be dangerous.
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That's really encouraging to hear. I'm sorry if it sounds like I was ragging on you guys a bit, the mod is very finely polished and I like it. I was merely pointing out the one aspect that I did not like of the game as opposed to all the other things that I did. :)
 
Well, some missions will have less enemy ships... I hope you'll enjoy the missions where when there are more enemies also ! ;)
 
I don't mind facing more enemies...I probably wouldn't enjoy missions were we actually outnumbered the Kilrathi. :) I'm just saying I don't like it when there's so many that it feels like nothing more than a gauntlet. It loses the "campaign/story" feel of the game to a more "arcade" style game of racking up the highest numbers.
 
Its also much harder to track all those contacts, especially when you have no real control over wingmen and a very simple targeting system when compared with X-Wing.
 
Maybe I'm missing something but what does X-Wing have to do with this particular thread?

About the difficulty of Standoff, I LOVE IT!! I can't wait to see the new additions they've made. I think they were right to tweak the player's abilities rather than the AI. IMO the thing that made WCP/SO relatively easy was how invincible your ship was. It wasn't that the AI couldn't hit you or evade you, it was that even when they hit you 10 times in rapid succession, they couldn't pierce your armor, whereas a few hits from your guns and BOOM!, bye-bye Nephilim. So making the player ships in Standoff easier to destroy levels it off to make the player just as easy to kill as the enemy, which makes sense. The Kilrathi also outnumbered Confed badly during the time that Standoff takes place, so higher enemy numbers fit too. I say keep up the good work Standoff crew. :D
 
There's also the point that the pirate Talon and Tarsus vessels are rather inferior to your milspec Stiletto, being slow, turret-less, and poorly armored and shielded. On the other hand, the Drakhri is slightly stronger than the Stiletto in everything except speed, and the Gothri would be a nightmare to face in a Stiletto since its rear turret, 2 particle and 2 neutron cannons, and high maneuverability make it hard to avoid getting hit when you get in close to use your Mass Drivers. Remember that everything except the Salthra, Strakha, and Drakhri are heavier than your Stiletto.
 
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