difficulty of flashpoint and missions is usually too random for its announced difficulty

[atwix]

title.

i'm trying hard setting for enemies....

on a 2,5 skull mission while having 2 mediums and 2 lights i get assassinate mission with 1 heavy, 4 mediums and 3 lights.

on a 3skull flashpoint i get a heavy and 3 mediums on a similar lance from me, and the next one i get 4 crazy good heavies in my face, on same anounced difficulty.

i rage quit yesterday over this, and won't be back most likely.

Shame.

it seems old problems from first patch are still in this game.

They could install an XO in this game that could atleast give you better intel

don't get me wrong.. harder missions then expected can be quite fun, but on hard enemy setting it can get bit over the top imho

 

[wolfhoundtoo]

Why not just tweak the settings if you don't like the opposition based on your current settings?

 

[Unruly Marmite]

If you find it too hard why are you playing on the harder setting.

Seriously. Enlighten me. I don't play something like Total War on Legendary difficulty and then complain on the forums that it's too hard, because the complaint is inherently ridiculous.

Now, if you'd said something like "I think that the skull modifiers on missions are too large and can make missions much harder than they should be" I might be inclined to discuss it. But quitting because the game is too hard on hard, when there is not only a 'normal' difficulty but also and 'easy'? Nah. Just nah.

 

[jj284b]

Its not the difficulty he is complaining about... its the spike of difficulty between missions of the same flashpoint. and btw, Total War was easy no matter what difficulty settings you chose.. it only administered hidden bonuses to AI and level of aggression.. not their "strategy" per say (i've modded TW games for 15 years...)


to me, it seems like probably weighting system of mechs is a bit out of sync... and game drops on you a lot harder enemies than it should.. after all, fighting 8 lights is a lot harder than fighting 2 heavies or assaults... especially if you have mediums..


and personally, i think spawning points for enemy reinforcements is even bigger issue... in some flashpoints you end up literally with enemy activating in your back without any chance to respond... (Kurita Flashpoint)

 

[Unruly Marmite]

Its not the difficulty he is complaining about... its the spike of difficulty between missions of the same flashpoint. and btw, Total War was easy no matter what difficulty settings you chose.. it only administered hidden bonuses to AI and level of aggression.. not their "strategy" per say (i've modded TW games for 15 years...)

Actually, having re-read it it looks more like the complaint is that the enemy forces are inconsistent, since he had 1 heavy 3 Mediums on a 3 skull flashpoint and 4 Heavies on another 3 skull flashpoint? That might be a more valid point, I'll concede, and my comment wasn't right. Though really we need to know what the missions were exactly- if one was a Payroll Extraction and the next was Wipe out the Mercs then it could make sense. And besides that, variance from displayed skulls has been a feature since release.

Total War is easy so long as you cheese it, maybe, or so long as you can work out how to work around the stupidity of the AI. But that's a discussion for a different forum, I think.

 

[ThatGuyMontag]

The game was designed with a fog of war built into the difficulty system: you're *supposed* to find the occasional unbeatable enemy lance. One of the hardest lessons to learn in this game is how much to commit to any particular mission. So sometimes you're overwhelmed and should just focus on getting the objectives and getting out. Other times you're so overwhelmed and there's no chance of getting the objective, so you should just withdraw.

Knowing which is which is, is a vital skill.

 

[Amechwarrior]

The game was designed with a fog of war built into the difficulty system: you're *supposed* to find the occasional unbeatable enemy lance. One of the hardest lessons to learn in this game is how much to commit to any particular mission. So sometimes you're overwhelmed and should just focus on getting the objectives and getting out. Other times you're so overwhelmed and there's no chance of getting the objective, so you should just withdraw.

Knowing which is which is, is a vital skill.

I agree on that in general, but for FP's it's kind of a big let down to lose all the progress due to the FP being well above par for its skull rating. I'm ok with "This is all wrong, I need to withdraw" on stand alone missions, but as part of a FP it feels like I was cheated as the previous missions in the FP, at the same skull level, were much easier. I've just taken to adding 1 skull to any FP rating as a safety measure.

 

[mjbroekman]

Some questions:

1. Was "the next one" a flashpoint mission? Or a procedurally generated one? Procgen missions have a MUCH wider range of "available" opfor units than Flashpoint opfors.
   
2. Were you aware that Assassinate missions have the target approximately 1 skull higher than the mission suggest? i.e. a 2.5 skull assassination target will almost always be a heavy.
3. Do you play through on the normal settings already? Just curious.

I'm not entirely sure how the "harder opfor strength" setting works, but it's entirely possible that it increases the high end of opfor strength while leaving the low-end the same, resulting in a wider variability of opfor strength (I'm sure someone will step in correct me if I'm wrong on this).

Intel is, as folks have said, what it is. You're pretending to be a mercenary unit commander, employers aren't going to give you all the details that you "need" to know. Some stuff will just show up completely unexpectedly. No different, really, than any other kind of contract work.

 

[ThatGuyMontag]

I agree on that in general, but for FP's it's kind of a big let down to lose all the progress due to the FP being well above par for its skull rating. I'm ok with "This is all wrong, I need to withdraw" on stand alone missions, but as part of a FP it feels like I was cheated as the previous missions in the FP, at the same skull level, were much easier. I've just taken to adding 1 skull to any FP rating as a safety measure.

Yeah, felt that going into the first Flashpoint: I decided to gamble going in with 1.5 skull of drop weight because it was going to time out, but I quickly realised there was no way I was going to be able to get through the base defence: I just didn't have the firepower, *even with* one mech being replaced with a medium.