is it even possible to beat the game on hardest difficulty without cheesing?

[goobacks]

so I've played a TON of turn based tactics games. Played FO1, 2 and tactics to death, easy, finished the new XCOM games on hardest difficulty no problem, and JRPGs like Final Fantasy Tactics are a joke in terms of difficulty. But this game... it's basically suicide without trying to cheese every single fight after a certain point.

Just got to the prison camp fighting the RSM. A fair head on fight will see your 6 man squad get destroyed, and I had almost the best gear available up to this point with almost all my points invested into fighting skills. The only way I could fight was to have all of my guys hunker down somewhere far, far away from the enemy, all hiding in cover, and let my sniper shoot a guy from afar, then run. The AI will just leave their cover and pursue you like idiots, and they will move at different speeds, so they will reach your 6 man squad all hiding in cover 1 or 2 at a time.

And even then it'll be a tough fight. A half naked guy running around in the open, with 4 guys firing on him, and it'll still take almost 2 rounds to kill him. oh and he has an seemingly infinite supply of pipe bombs that he lobs farther than your assault rifle can reach. That goes through cover. Oh and after you kill him? sorry his bombs all mysteriously disappeared. no loot for you. and after you kill him his buddies with snipers show up. hiding behind cover? still gonna 2 shot you. while his bare and naked ass standing in the middle of the road is gonna take your sniper 4 shots at least. and then after you finally kill them, the dudes with the machine guns show up and while they can't hit the wide side of the barn, they can unjam their weapon AND fire AND move around all in the same round. WHAT. THE. F***. How was I supposed to fight all those guys at the same time, when they hid behind cover, they way the game was 'intended' to play? And after the fight? Nope their weapons all evaporated into thin air. No guns, no ammo, no armor. he has some junk that you can sell for 12 scrap though. what, you were expecting to find his sniper rifle that he was using to shoot at you only 10 seconds ago? nope it's evaporated.

seriously it's just stupid that on higher difficulties the developers simply went and buffed the hell out of the stats of the enemy and screwed you by making the game illogical as f***, instead of say, make them smarter. I honestly don't see how one can beat this game on the highest difficulty in a 'fair fight'. If someone here can, please give me few pointers.

[DaZeD420]

So I am guessing you have not made it past the Titan Canyon and therefore are fighting RSM outside the prison. I am curious as to why you are having problems, what type of gear are you running, squad, do you have vex with you?

What is your level?

I am on supreme jerk lvl 18 just finished cleaning up titan canyon and not really seeing the issues you are mentioning.

[goobacks]

you're not seeing any of the issues I mentioned?
you mean for you, the enemy's weapons doesn't magically disappear after you kill them? it doesn't take you at least 4 shots to kill a guy wearing spikey bdsm armor? the enemy sniper doesn't 2 shot your guys even when they're behind cover?

[JBrown247]

"The hardest mode is too hard" -- OP

[goobacks]

^you completely missed the point.

First of all, I am still managing to progress at a steady pace, it's just that I'm using tactics that are cheesy. Despite having high stats, the AI is very stupid and that's how I win fights.

Second, there's games that are hard but fair, and you still enjoy getting your ass kicked by the computer. Desktop Dungeons for example, I'm just not smart enough to finish some puzzles. Chessmaster, do I need to say more? The AI outsmarts me without even trying. Even Spelunky, I can only finish the game 1 try out of 20. Still love the game though.

This game though, instead of making the AI smart and besting me in tactical decisions, just buffs the stats of the AI and magically make loot disappear. Now that's BS.

[goobacks]

also I don't even know why I'm playing this on hardest difficulty. maybe some weird OCD like thing but I always want to play on the most challenging mode or else I feel like I'm 'cheating'. I think I should just force myself to play on normal and will probably have way more fun.

[brassi77]

Combat is pretty simple on normal where you really don't need cover and can ignore a lot of what is necessary on higher difficulties, but at the hardest difficulty is too annoying in my opinion. I usually only play the hardest difficulty if there is some sort of benefit like more xp or higher or better drop rate or something, so have no issue turning it down if I am more annoyed than challenged. I don't know why I started at the highest in this game, other than I like the game a lot. I have no one to brag to that would give a ♥♥♥♥ if I beat the game on high, low, or with no hands.

I much prefer a set difficulty level like back in the olden days or with games like AoD. You get what you get and no turning it up or down. And I like when the set difficulty level is pretty difficult so I can feel smart when everyone else is whinning it is too hard. It kind of offsets me feeling like an idiot after struggling a ton with helping my kids with their math homework.

[goobacks]

yeah I turned down the difficulty and I'm enjoying it more, focusing on the story and dialogue. AoD? Age of Decadence? Been playing it and gotta say, while that game is extremely rough around the edges, it's been a hella fun.

[Kalsu]

The game is manageable on the hardest difficulty and no you dont need to cheese through to win it. You just need to stop using the rambo approach , use cover and take out the ranged mobs before moving in.

[dairy farmer]

That's the problem with "strategy" RPGs -- once you introduce RPG mechanics, the strategy often is invalidated. For example, you mention FFT, and in that game it's simply way too easy to build your characters to the point that you can steamroll the opposition.

When developers give so much freedom to develop characters how you want, enemy encounters can vary wildly in difficulty depending on what skills and stats you've chosen. Barring some kind of auto-scaling AI, the only way to create challenge is to tune combat towards the top percentiles of combat skills, or give the enemy an advantage. For example, enemies tend to have extremely high speed and combat initiative in this game, or as you've noticed, also have unlimited bombs and ammo.

While WL2 isn't nearly as bad as some games, it still has this problem. But then again, playing on the hardest mode on most games becomes less a matter of playing the game itself, but rather playing the meta-game, where you play the game's internal mechanics to your advantage.

Some people like that, and some don't, but it's almost a given that you're going to suffer on the hardest difficulties if it's your first time through. On Super Jerk mode, the challenge is inevitably going to be tuned towards a party that has the utmost advantage, and if you haven't played the game first to know what advantages you need, you simply won't be able to build for it in advance.

Unless you really enjoy metagaming, I think the other difficulties provide a decent enough challenge. You have nothing to prove to yourself or anyone by beating games on the hardest difficulty, collecting platinum trophies, or whatever. A game's first and foremost about having fun (whether that means Super Jerk mode or enjoying it for the story), and if you're not having fun, you're doing it wrong.