There's a fine line betweem challenging and frustrating

[ZarahNeander]

and DiF crosses that line by a wide margin.

Call me a whimp. I played DiabloII Hardcore with all it's pk nastiness for years. I'm used to loosing high lvl chars, but not every time to some ridiculous uber-fighters. And EF threatens to make the AI more 'challenging', reads: more uber.

I hope DF2 has difficulty levels like every other game. 'Masochistic' for those real man out there and a bunch of easier levels for us mortals.

Yes I'm frustated & yes I do feel better now. Pity, great game, but in it's current form not for me. Thankfully there was a (rather good) demo.

Pia

[Guest Mike]

Sorry you don't like it.

I'm not sure what you mean by "ridiculous uber-fighters", but not every game is for everyone - I can't stand FPS's!

[ZarahNeander]

Well my addiction seems bigger than my frustration. I can't stop playing that damn thing.

This game really gets me. At one point I was so frustrated that I uninstalled and deleted everything. Only to download the >250 mb demo 5 min. later again

Albeit I still think difficulty levels would be a good idea.

Re uber-fighters. Obviously my inexperience shows, but atm I consider not being damaged a major victory. Not being shoot down a minor victory. And once in a blue moon I manage to kill an enemy fighter. I miss a sense of achievement.

Pia

[Zanadu]

I was pretty frustrated for a while, when I repeatedly found my leaders (with values of 100-150) up against opponants valued at 40-50 points with far more skills. The expansion pack more than cured that. The AI a/c have been revalued much higher -- maybe too high.

[Guest Mike]

TRust me - as a beginner you need to change your perspective - if the other guy is twice your points value and you avoidbeing shot down then you've achieved!! lol

Later on you get revege

[ZarahNeander]

Thanks for the input, most appreciated.

Originally posted by Zanadu:

The expansion pack more than cured that. The AI a/c have been revalued much higher -- maybe too high.

Does it mean, that EF has toned down the difficulty somewhat?

Originally posted by Stalin's Organist:

TRust me - as a beginner you need to change your perspective - if the other guy is twice your points value and you avoidbeing shot down then you've achieved!!

Okay I trust you

But no, I have achieved nothing, I had simple plain luck. A halfways decent hand, not ims1:1 x6.

Well it's over anyway. All my pilots are badly mauled, so I either buy the bundle tomorrow hoping that EF has a better balance or I uninstall the demo, for the last time

Pia

[Sixxkiller]

Pia,

Hi there. I think your problem is that this game looks simple but is actually complex to where you really need to play for longer to really appreciate what DIF can do. Kind of like a real flight simulation but with no reflexes required. The learning curve for lots of us was surprising.

I have a huge background in D2 Hardcore as you do. I can honestly say I love a few of my pilots as much or more than I did with any of my godly characters in D2. I would still play D2 HC but too many tppks (which I know a lot of them anyway) have ruined that. This game is atleast the same difficulty for all of us and you wont find cheaters here.

But I hope you dont give up so soon.

[bartbert]

The game also has a new type of mission called a "Custom Mission" which is not available in the Demo game. The custom mission feature basically allows you to specify the exact aircraft and starting altitudes for both sides. Using this feature, you could setup a "training mission" in which one side has a big advantage (better aircraft, better starting altitude, etc.).

Depending on how lopsided you made it, you might get little, if any, experience points. But if the goal is to fly some easy missions in order to learn the system, then it should fill the bill.

[ZarahNeander]

@Bartbert

thanks for your response.

Somehow I pushed the 'order' button & now it's 00:47 (I'll never get that am/pm thingie), I have 5 hours of sleep before work and THAT'S ENTIRELY YOUR FAULT!

I wasn't so addicted to a game since the days of MOO1.

Oh well

Pia

[Guest Mike]

Have you seen the tips for newbies thread?

It's still a good read as a reminder of some stuff I keep forgetting almos a year after starting to play this game!!

[Mudfrost]

I too am a DIF newbie (purchased just last week) and had/have similar frustrations, but I finally understand enough of the game to keep me coming back. It's too addicting to give up.

The more I play, the more I'm reminded of favorite games such as X-Com and Magic: The Gathering (MicroProse). Those games baffled me at the start, but the more I played and researched, the more I was sucked in. Eventually, I understood the strategies and depth of the game and I couldn't get enough.

DIF feels like that. I'm stumbling through but learning a bit more each day. For now, I'm just worried that I might lose the team I've built, especially my original pilot and wingman who have worked their way up to the Lightning and Corsair with plenty of points to burn (beginner stuff, I know...)

I'd love to see a strategy guide for this game.

[Guest Mike]

there's a sticky post on this board for newbies - it's the best we can do right now! :0

However I recommend playing as many campaigns as possible - they provide you with great experience without risking your pilots.

Early war ones like Greece, Crete, flying tigers, singapore, Midway are all good for getting the hang of the earlier a/c types.

[Zanadu]

Two points I'd like to discuss:

First point. I play 'local' against the AI. As I see it, there's a problem in the difference in 'value' points between the player pilots and the AI pilots.

For a while, with the expansion, this was tipped much too far the other way. Survive one mission flying a P-11 and your second mission was with the RAF in a Spitfire with a couple of skills. That changed with the latest download, which returned things to the previous situation.

An AI pilot of any serious 'value' (say, above 15 or so) has far more skills than a player pilot with the same value rating.

I realize that you can get more points flying escort (assuming you're successful) than interception, but I rarely do escorts. I end up with my leader (valued at 100 or 150 points) against two hostile leaders valued at 40-50 points each, but each with more skills and extra draws than my pilot. I can ussually shoot down one leader, and keep the rest busy so that at least one bomber gets thru, but I also usually have one or both of my pilots shot down. So I stick to interceptions, where they have a reasonable chance of survival.

Simply put, the values on the AI pilots are much too low.

Second point: I've flow a fair number of missions as Poles and Sov's, and also missions as Japanese and Germans since installing the expansion. I have yet to encounter Soviet opponants when flying the Japanese or Germans. I know there are Soviet AI pilots in there, as they show up when flying interecpt missions as Soviets.

[ZarahNeander]

Originally posted by Zanadu:

An AI pilot of any serious 'value' (say, above 15 or so) has far more skills than a player pilot with the same value rating.

--snip--

Simply put, the values on the AI pilots are much too low.

I posted an example of a rather lopsided (offline) matchup in another thread. I was assured that this was a rare exception. I haven't flown enough missions online with pilots in the 200-400 range to have a representative sample, but I start to believe that there's quite a difference between online and offline.

Offline, in 1/3 of all cases - I'm generous here - the combined value of a/c + skills, not taking skill point inflation into account , is 2x the value of my own pilots. OTOH I sometimes get cakewalk missions online like 300pt dogfights against naked Oscars, that ain't gonna happen offline.

I might be wrong and very soon run constantly in a/c's of doom online, if that's the case I stand corrected. But for now I'm under the impression that online missions are much more balanced.

Regarding Soviet pilots not showing up offline: that's wierd. No problem here.

Pia

[bartbert]

I'll take a look at the logic for choosing offline AI pilots to see if I can find anything that might account for the imbalanced missions.

[ZarahNeander]

Thanks Bartbert, your responsive support is much appreciated

Pia

[Zanadu]

I think that the problem is that the AI pilots values were figured using the original purchase system of flat values for various skills, rather than the current system in which each purchase increases the cost of furture purchases. The value system seems to be based purely on the pilots total xp's with a factoring for his a/c type. As a result, an AI pilot valued at 50 has ALL of the original skills and a fat line of xtra draws. A player pilot valued at 150 still has only some of the skills, and can't afford as many XD's.

The result is, any combat he can't end very quickly, turns against him as his opponant gains greater and greater advantage of cards.

Then, when you get one of those, unlucky set ups with two superior opponants, things get much worse.

I recall my first attempt to do an escort mission with German pilots. My leader had a value of 30. The opposing leaders were valued at 39 and 49. The LW pilots were totally overmatched, and were stepped on like bugs. I consider it a tribute to skill that the wingman lasted into turn four, and that the He111's got thru undamaged while both enemy pairs hunted my '109s to death. If the difference in skills had been equivalent to the value scores it might have been somewhat less that completely hopeless.

[ZarahNeander]

Originally posted by Zanadu:

The value system seems to be based purely on the pilots total xp's with a factoring for his a/c type.

That's easy to evidence:

a) make a backup of your pilots. Optional, if you haven't lost interest in offline play already.

cash in all your skill

c) fly a mission. I did nothing except hitting 'next phase' until dead.

d) look at the debriefing. I.e, I got a naked LA-5 (238 xp) against my now naked A6M2 Zero (112 xp) nevertheless the debriefing showed a starting value of 12(allies):20(axis).

Obviously very wrong.

But if I add available xp from leader + wingie, add 2*112 and divide 2*238 I get a 12:20 ratio.

Pia

[ October 13, 2006, 04:22 AM: Message edited by: ZarahNeander ]

[bartbert]

While it is true that the points used to pick which AI pilot and aircraft will be in the mission is different than the points used to award XP, I don't think that is necessarily a problem (although I'm sure it is confusing).

Here is the general process used to choose the AI pilot and aircraft for a mission:

1. We use the value of the creating player's pilots and aircraft as the starting point. The pilot's value is based on the sum of the value of all his skills. The aircraft's value is based on its "Unlock" XP. Let's suppose that the sum of your leader's and wingman's skills add up to 300 points, and they are flying an aircraft with an unlock XP value of 200 points. That would be a combined value of 500 points.

2. We go through all the possible enemy aircraft and we rank them from lowest value to highest value. Then we find the one that is closest to player's aircraft value. In our example, that would be finding the one that is closest to 200 points.

3. Next we take the aircraft that was closest to the player's aircraft plus the previous three lower aircraft and the next three higher aircraft and put them into a pool. Then we randomly pick one aircraft from that pool.

4. Now we do something similar to pick which AI pilot to use. The pilots are ranked from lowest to highest, and we find the pilot that is closest to making up the difference between the aircraft chosen in step #3 and the total game value. For example, if we chose an aircraft that was worth 350 points in step #3, then we would look for pilots that had a value closest to 150 points (because that would bring the total value to 500 points).

5. We take the pilots that were closest to our target value in step #4 plus the previous three lower pilots and the next three higher pilots and put them into a pool. Then we randomly pick on pilot from that pool.

I did find a problem in local games in that the value of the AI wingman was not being taken into account. This would tend to result in AI pilots with more skills. The problem has been corrected and an update is available for download.

[Zanadu]

Okay, and thanx for the attention.

As I've said, it's been my experience that an AI pair with a value of 50 have ALL the basic skills, while a player pair with a value of 150 have only some of them. This usually means that in an excort mission, the player pair is up against two pair, both with far more skills.

I had assumed that the AI values were figured on the basis of the original, flat cost of skills, while the player values were based on the sliding scale costs currently in effect.

Will be eager to see if the new 'fix' balances the situation.

Again, thanx.

[Guest Mike]

I long ago gave up trying to figure out what the points weer abbout - however it does seem to me the "50" or "150" is about total acquired expereince - my pilots continue to increase in this measure despite having not bough permenent skills for a long time.

I suspect long-serving pilots have gone well past the stage Dan envisioned when he thought the system up!

[Zanadu]

I agree. In a recent game, my Polish Spit XIV leader (valued at 53) was up against a J2M leader valued at 39, but with a far more impressive list of skills.