Game Difficulty

[Holon]

I debate with myself about buying this game. But I have seen quite some reviews that say this game is unreasonably hard to play.

I like challenging strategy games, but I'm a little intimidated by the reviews I have seen. Can you guys elaborate on the difficulty of this game a bit? Are there options to customize difficulty?

[ChaosDancer]

Originally posted by Booba:

In my experience, Defiance is more frustrating than it is challenging. The only difficulty is in getting over whatever obscene thing happened that pissed you off.

There are some great and challenging missions though. Midland comes to mind: a test that I initially failed, and in failing it, said "this test is stupid!" But on my second try, I realized I'd missed the prompts telling me what I needed to do, and subsequently had a wonderful, hair-raising and memorable time, executing a fighting withdrawal in the face of overwhelming strength.

Originally posted by Crystal meth enthusiast:

4. Supply system.

Since you move same army, all small problems and miscalculations becomes a HUGE problems at late game.

Even going blind into this game, I never once had any issues with running out of supplies. It's not at all complicated to maintain a buffer of more supplies than you currently need, on the understanding that your force is always going to be burdened with salvage after any mission, and that you won't always have immediate access to a Cash For Wrecks Store.

Don't drive six days into the desert with seven days worth of supplies. It's not the science of the rockets.

Who here knows you can get a second bradley before the second mission by going to the neutral faction and buying it making your life pretty easier.

[Crystal meth enthusiast]

Originally posted by Booba:

In my experience, Defiance is more frustrating than it is challenging. The only difficulty is in getting over whatever obscene thing happened that pissed you off.

There are some great and challenging missions though. Midland comes to mind: a test that I initially failed, and in failing it, said "this test is stupid!" But on my second try, I realized I'd missed the prompts telling me what I needed to do, and subsequently had a wonderful, hair-raising and memorable time, executing a fighting withdrawal in the face of overwhelming strength.

Originally posted by Crystal meth enthusiast:

4. Supply system.

Since you move same army, all small problems and miscalculations becomes a HUGE problems at late game.

Even going blind into this game, I never once had any issues with running out of supplies. It's not at all complicated to maintain a buffer of more supplies than you currently need, on the understanding that your force is always going to be burdened with salvage after any mission, and that you won't always have immediate access to a Cash For Wrecks Store.

Don't drive six days into the desert with seven days worth of supplies. It's not the science of the rockets.

I don't have any options except driving in to desert for six days with 7 days of supplies. Because settlements have limited amount to sell and i have limited money.

[Reactive]

I feel like difficulty comes from the amount of units you often have to be aware of, sometimes fighting in 2 or 3 front lines at the same time. You gotta take care of their position and their munitions. The tactical pause makes it completely manageable.

When it comes to the actual damage enemies deal, you get 4 difficulty settings with different values, and also different amount of enemies, and I think they are well tuned. It's not the easiest RTS but I think the level of challenge is fine and rarely unfair.

[Holon]

Originally posted by Reactive:

I feel like difficulty comes from the amount of units you often have to be aware of, sometimes fighting in 2 or 3 front lines at the same time. You gotta take care of their position and their munitions. The tactical pause makes it completely manageable.

When it comes to the actual damage enemies deal, you get 4 difficulty settings with different values, and also different amount of enemies, and I think they are well tuned. It's not the easiest RTS but I think the level of challenge is fine and rarely unfair.

agreed

[Haks]

Personally I find it difficult to play for several reasons, one of them is that my orders are poorly or not executed at all, I had many cases when I had to replay just because this or that unit did ♥♥♥♥ or did nothing at all. Another reason is when units go squad they are not grouped in any way, it is not convenient to place them on the battlefield + you can not give commands through shift. If when placing units in the right place and direction would be put his transparent projection or mark or something similar that would allow me to more easily visually determine how it will look would be much easier. An example of this can be seen in command & conquer 3.

[Haks]

I forgot to add that it could really use some reinforcements. Very not cool when the tank appears somewhere at the end and the supply truck on the front line. This is especially annoying in Oklahoma.

[BobOnix]

Originally posted by ChaosDancer:

This is btw the second mission after the tutorial :)

Furthermore that mission becomes very easy IF you give one or two of your units mine laying, making the whole map very easy. Second the prison can be taken after you finish the 10 waves and then give the item to the said faction with no consequences.

And then we get the wonderfully dumb and poorly made Chihuahua mission , its very rare that i find RTS missions Just so bad i remember them, but this game has a fair few. but i think its simply more mechanical then it is actual design. this game doesn't do urban warfare well.

[BluesDriveMonster]

Its not hard to play and you'll get the most out of it on realistic.

But this is not your typical C&C RTS where you roll up on a tank with infantry (and no anti-armor weapons) and expect it to explode.

Every little detail matters in this game so you need learn what those are, and think and plan strategically.

Some tips that are helping me enjoy the experience(May help you):

*Use smoke grenades for advancing armor, infantry, assaulting buildings, etc. as well as pull out of firefights and / or ambushes (they will happen)

*stay in cover; fire from cover only

*you NEED artillery so plan your logistics to include it. It's better to have it and not need it, than to need it and not have it.

*once you are finished with the map, before leaving, scavenge the map for weapons you can sell for more GW as well as vehicles.

*level up your personnel, but be sure to keep them alive!! if you find yourself with 1 - 2 men left out of a full team; pull them out and treat them as wounded and either reinforce the position or pull out.

*With smoke grenades i choose to fight in open areas(if possible) with armor; this helps avoid anti-armor infantry in CQB of urban combat.

There are many other gems about the game as you will see (if not already)

Hope this helps, hope you enjoy!!

[REhorror]

Yeah guys I welcome more difficult/hard games like this, keep it coming!

[Haks]

Originally posted by BobOnix:

Originally posted by ChaosDancer:

This is btw the second mission after the tutorial :)

Furthermore that mission becomes very easy IF you give one or two of your units mine laying, making the whole map very easy. Second the prison can be taken after you finish the 10 waves and then give the item to the said faction with no consequences.

And then we get the wonderfully dumb and poorly made Chihuahua mission , its very rare that i find RTS missions Just so bad i remember them, but this game has a fair few. but i think its simply more mechanical then it is actual design. this game doesn't do urban warfare well.

What's wrong with it, to me this mission has all the tools to get through it very easily.

[FoxFort]

Seems like the best difficulty to be properly challenged and to enjoy it is on Hard.
It offers less "this is BS" situations when compared to Realistic. At the moment Realistic in Campaign is not good, mainly due to Line of Sight design and some Legion units shooting from their spawn place while you can't properly target them since they are in end of map boundaries zone. Realistic works much better on Skirmish maps.

[Haks]

Originally posted by FoxFort:

Seems like the best difficulty to be properly challenged and to enjoy it is on Hard.
It offers less "this is BS" situations when compared to Realistic. At the moment Realistic in Campaign is not good, mainly due to Line of Sight design and some Legion units shooting from their spawn place while you can't properly target them since they are in end of map boundaries zone. Realistic works much better on Skirmish maps.

You're absolutely right.

[Booba]

Originally posted by Xaks Flaks:

Originally posted by BobOnix:

And then we get the wonderfully dumb and poorly made Chihuahua mission , its very rare that i find RTS missions Just so bad i remember them, but this game has a fair few. but i think its simply more mechanical then it is actual design. this game doesn't do urban warfare well.

What's wrong with it, to me this mission has all the tools to get through it very easily.

My first time doing Chihuahua, I made it through with nothing but my first wave of T-Force and the rebel units recruited in the city. I don't know if it's because of a bug, or because I bypassed the bridge assault mission, or maybe I somehow missed the giant reserves panel on the side of the screen, but I never actually got any reinforcements. I heard the ping, I heard Mason say something, but... yeah. Of course, I was playing on baby mode and it took me something like six hours of save-scumming, but I made it.

It was definitely memorable, but not in a good way.

[BluesDriveMonster]

Originally posted by Booba:

Originally posted by Xaks Flaks:

What's wrong with it, to me this mission has all the tools to get through it very easily.

My first time doing Chihuahua, I made it through with nothing but my first wave of T-Force and the rebel units recruited in the city. I don't know if it's because of a bug, or because I bypassed the bridge assault mission, or maybe I somehow missed the giant reserves panel on the side of the screen, but I never actually got any reinforcements. I heard the ping, I heard Mason say something, but... yeah. Of course, I was playing on baby mode and it took me something like six hours of save-scumming, but I made it.

It was definitely memorable, but not in a good way.

Hey man...

Recently geared up for Chihuahua but had to take the bridge to get there.. &*^@ was crazy on realistic and either had some B.S. moments or AI seemed to be adapting to my defenses and kept probing and rushing in from the East and West of the bridge and south and southeast from the villages. Of course this was after taking out the command leader due North of my forces.

Had the Slick with us and had to helo in teams that were cut off from the spawn point to avoid walking into possible ambushes and snipers. Meanwhile the slick is taking heavy weapons fire from the ground and luckily no SAM missiles lulz..

Rounds ran dry on artillery (105 and 155mm) and supplies are spent, slick is out of FFAR so its all out ground warfare at this point.

smoke was everywhere we had firefights to protect everyone and everything.. i mean EVERYWHERE!! hahaha

One of the most memorable and lost a few high level squads that will be hard to replace.

[wei270]

for me the bigger problem is supply trap, you cna find your self in a situation where your are forced to pretty much game over because you don't know how much supply you need to go to the next mission.

and the fact that some mission have infinite enemy reinforcement and you always have limited ammo and fuel.