Game Discussions sadistic game design...why?

[Leper Messiah]

I LOVE TIE Fighter....I'm replaying it now and I've got up to Battle 10 - New Threats - Mission 3 - Under the Gun. OMG what sick dev thought this was a good mission? It's as bad as the worst of the bad in Xwing, the missions are not "organic" they are puzzles, with an exact order of solution with little or often NO leeway...you follow the course to complete the puzzle or it does not get completed. Bloody awful and I HATE that way of level design (it's why I also HATE boss fights). IT was Xwings biggest flaw IMO and for most of the time TIE avoided that until the later battles.

1 instant failure if you fail to take out all but one rocket fired at the only primary goal (keep a freighter safe)
2 overwhelming numbers once your wingmen chicken out (not that they are particularly usefull in this mission being of the "can't hit a barn door with a fricken NUKE" level of gunnery skills.
3 the smegging "jinking" the ai does even flying in a striaght line which usually times it so that 3 of my four laser which were fired dead on cert to hit actually miss.

if I had hair it would be gone.

And I'm playing it on easy as I'm old(ish)....easy? Someone at Lucasarts should have looked up the meaning of that word, because they clearly didn't understand it.

Now, I know I know <deep breath>...... I'm ranting about a 20+ year old game, but if I don't I feel I'm going to pop a vein in my head.

I'm in a similar position with XWvTIE Balance of power playthrough, Rebels mission 11 I think, Asteroid base get's smegged everytime, but that's poor single player balancing IMO as I have to inspect a corvette before it get's destroyed and while I'm doing that the ai does it's usual nuke missing a barn door malarky in my absence against the Asteroid base attackers until I get back, but it's usually too late by then.

On top of all that I had to endure the XW Alliance YW training mission yesterday.....gah...who desiged these mission, all that mission does is reinforce the fact that the Ywing is the worst craft I've had the misfortune to use in a game, it truly is a lump of excement.

ah...I feel better that's out of me!

 

[AkenBosch]

I get your feelings, but I also clearly remember completing the TIE Fighter campaign back in the days without so much of a trauma, so the only conclusion I can get out of this is...yes, we got old.

(I'm having a bit of the same feeling playing Doom Eternal...and struggling in places at "Hurt Me Plenty" difficulty, just one step above the easiest...if there's people doing that at Ultra-Violence, the only reasonable conclusion is that I left my reflexes behind in the early 00's)

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Looter shooters with over the top RNG rewards are way worse than static campaign missions.

 

[Leper Messiah]

I get your feelings, but I also clearly remember completing the TIE Fighter campaign back in the days without so much of a trauma, so the only conclusion I can get out of this is...yes, we got old.

(I'm having a bit of the same feeling playing Doom Eternal...and struggling in places at "Hurt Me Plenty" difficulty, just one step above the easiest...if there's people doing that at Ultra-Violence, the only reasonable conclusion is that I left my reflexes behind in the early 00's)

Yup reflexes.....I struggle so bad to hit the jinking effers, although to be fair the TM warthog Joystick is rather heavier and harder to move than my old joysticks! Don't happen to know where I can get a TIE *.plt file do you? With all battles complete just so I can experience the missions!

 

[Leper Messiah]

Looter shooters with over the top RNG rewards are way worse than static campaign missions.

I agree, although I'm not having a go at static campaign missions per se, just ones that are sadistic puzzle-like!

I was musing and thought a MUCH better campaign system would be one where you do missions and as long as you don't get killed you can even complete missions if important things don't happen...e.g. protect Capital ship A.....fail and in the final mission Capital ship A doesn't turn up to help in the final fight....or ensure certain weapon tech gets made, fail that and that tech isn't avaiable for later missions. So you are guaranteed to play ALL the missions, just that how well you do in the campaign missions previsously have a big bearing on the overall campaign outcome.

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Yes, that was the gameplay of the past. Or "Another World". Stepped wrong sequence - reload. Still, the leash was a bit longer in Tie Fighter, but I'm no completionist, so I never tried to make all missions 100%. I kinda told myself it needed a choice for either order or fleet with the secondary and secret mission goals.

 

[Fishy]

Yeah, some X-Wing/TIE Fighter missions are a bit extreme in the requirements. You get over it, but it's painful at times. Back in the days, that first A-Wing mission (escorting the medical frigate?) absolutely wrecked me. This was the first one which required targeting and destroying torpedoes directly, and some extreme power juggling to boost up to the next waves of bombers before they get in range while still having enough juice to down them fast enough. Basically, these games stay true to the fundamental truth which is that escort missions suck.

 

[Leper Messiah]

Yeah, some X-Wing/TIE Fighter missions are a bit extreme in the requirements. You get over it, but it's painful at times. Back in the days, that first A-Wing mission (escorting the medical frigate?) absolutely wrecked me. This was the first one which required targeting and destroying torpedoes directly, and some extreme power juggling to boost up to the next waves of bombers before they get in range while still having enough juice to down them fast enough. Basically, these games stay true to the fundamental truth which is that escort missions suck.

Yup, so so SO true! Escort/protect missions are in general VERY badly done in almost all games!!

 

[Navigare Necesse Est]

Yup, so so SO true! Escort/protect missions are in general VERY badly done in almost all games!!

Yeah, I ragequit TW1 over it.

 

[Ronzer]

Not to mention, or you're ok with?? that if you happen to accidentally fire a shot that hits an empire ship, they all forget about the rebels and concentrate all efforts to take you, in your shieldless TIE fighter, out. It does teach one to be careful and not only aim at, but make sure not to shoot in a direction that an Empire ships flight path may be. Revive pilot? Yup. Good times.

 

[AkenBosch]

Maybe the only good memories of escort missions I have are from Freespace 2, they were tight, but rarely frustrating if you cared to equip the right ship with the right weapons for the job...also they usually had primary and secondary objectives and a threshold for failure, so it was hardly a matter of "let just a single torped through and it's back to briefing", you just needed to keep losses to a given minimum.
And, as mentioned above, there were several missions were saving some ships or equipment was vital in having it showing up for later missions. The nickname might be a slight giveaway for my bias , but I still think that FS/FS2 were the peak of campaign based space shooters.
Of course no one in his right mind would invest in something like that these days ...

 

[Leper Messiah]

Maybe the only good memories of escort missions I have are from Freespace 2, they were tight, but rarely frustrating if you cared to equip the right ship with the right weapons for the job...also they usually had primary and secondary objectives and a threshold for failure, so it was hardly a matter of "let just a single torped through and it's back to briefing", you just needed to keep losses to a given minimum.
And, as mentioned above, there were several missions were saving some ships or equipment was vital in having it showing up for later missions. The nickname might be a slight giveaway for my bias , but I still think that FS/FS2 were the peak of campaign based space shooters.
Of course no one in his right mind would invest in something like that these days ...

Totally agree with you, I loved those 2 and I'm utterly gobsmacked at how badly freespace 2 did in sales. Should have sold millions....what the hell were gamers thinking back then? I thought I recognised that name.......I just loved Robert Loggia's voice in the missions breifings as well! Class games, I must dig them out some time.

 

[AkenBosch]

Totally agree with you, I loved those 2 and I'm utterly gobsmacked at how badly freespace 2 did in sales. Should have sold millions....what the hell were gamers thinking back then?

It was 1999 and gamers were thinking Unreal Tournament, Quake 3 and "the future is multiplayahhhh"...also, everyone was waiting with baited breath for Freelancer, Chris Roberts' BDSSE that promised just about everything and a little more...wait were did I see that already

 

[Iron Golem]

I felt this way about Hello Neighbor, a game my kid made me get. You can only make progress by looking up walk through of other people doing it. Entirely convoluted and random without looking up help. We are stuck on the grocery store level. The physics and accuracy are so terrible and wonky we can't get all the items in the carriage before time runs out.

She knows I hate it so she always says you promised me we'd beat this you have to try again!

The type of game that makes you want to punch your own face.