Ace Combat 7 Mission Difficulty In Comparison to Previous Titles

[Pragmatic_Hero]

Just beat the game after 24 hours of playtime (which included some in-between mission re-runs and Multiplayer grinding for extra MRP) and I have to say this iteration was by far the most punishing. Mission planning and simply learning through trial and error seemed to be the keys to victory. Oh, and a whole lot of patience. Whew.

[Fiona]

I'd like to add that some missions like Defending Stonehedge is somewhat of a troll the first time. I used an A-10 thinking that there is some token fighter but mainly ground units. Till there is a few waves of bomber, hostile A-10s, and attacking the Arsenal Bird. From that point on I never used Attackers.

[Order]

Yeah it has quite the Difficulty but then again its soooooo satisfying to acomplish something. Yesterday i hunted down all Aces in the Game (some of them require hard requirements) and after that probably the most challenging one: Beating the last Mission only with MGs.

But i like it quite that way, you need to work harder to get specific medals and skins and so on. In the old Games it was fairly easy to get S Rank on Hard and Ace.

[Pragmatic_Hero]

Originally posted by Fiona:

I'd like to add that some missions like Defending Stonehedge is somewhat of a troll the first time. I used an A-10 thinking that there is some token fighter but mainly ground units. Till there is a few waves of bomber, hostile A-10s, and attacking the Arsenal Bird. From that point on I never used Attackers.

Lol that the same misatke I made, I mean I eventually beat it with the A-10 but the anti-bomber interceptor portions were a pain. You know, the later missions kind of force you into this dilemma of "Do I choose an Air to ground SP weapon or Anti air to deal with waves of interceptors and drones later on."

[Pragmatic_Hero]

Also I think Attackers are primarily for those timed scoring missions like Farbanti and that anti-Naval Fleet mission.

[RvB Churchaboose]

Originally posted by Order:

Yeah it has quite the Difficulty but then again its soooooo satisfying to acomplish something. Yesterday i hunted down all Aces in the Game (some of them require hard requirements) and after that probably the most challenging one: Beating the last Mission only with MGs.

But i like it quite that way, you need to work harder to get specific medals and skins and so on. In the old Games it was fairly easy to get S Rank on Hard and Ace.

Wait... you are joking... Machine gun only?

[Order]

Originally posted by RvB Davoz28caboose:

Wait... you are joking... Machine gun only?

Nope i am not. You have 2 Medals which require only Machine Guns. One is a whole Campaign only with Machine Guns and the other only Mission 20 with MGs. Little Tip: Take out your Mig21 with the MG Pods, it helps quite a lot!

[RvB Churchaboose]

Wow haha thanks for the tip. Definitely will be going for all achievements.

[Pragmatic_Hero]

yo, caboose. I met you In MP yesterday. feel free to add me, lol

[RiseAgain]

Besides Ace Combat 7, I also finished Ace Combat 4, 5, Zero and Assault Horizon.

I can say that this game is, in some aspects, MUCH harder than the PS2 Ace Combat games. There is a lot more missile spam, and the enemy missiles themselves are a bit more accurate than in previous games (except for Assault Horizon) since you now can use flares to defend yourself.

In terms of difficulty, Ace Combat: Zero (the most difficult of the PS2 Ace Combat games) is the one that comes closest to AC7. in fact, AC Zero and AC7 are similar in several other ways.

On the hand, hard doesn't mean bad. I'm having a blast playing AC7.

[[NcK]MasterShake|CM]

I'm just going to say what I'll assume you're all thinking but are avoiding saying:
This game comes closer to frustrating tedium that it does to actual difficulty. 4 and 5 wouldn't even been in the discussion for difficulty comparison, they are simply casual, fun, shoot ♥♥♥♥ down, blow ♥♥♥♥ up games. They were never intended to be for bragging rights. Zero was more of 4 and 5 but for people who wanted to be shot down a bit more.

7's difficulty almost exclusively stems from timers, environment and terrain, with a few incredibly tedious air-jousts thrown in for good measure. Ask yourself how many times you've been shot down by those 234923847923847293847 missiles versus how many times you went into a wall, building, mountain, water, other aircraft &c &c &c &c

[Order]

Originally posted by NcKMasterShake|CM:

I'm just going to say what I'll assume you're all thinking but are avoiding saying:
This game comes closer to frustrating tedium that it does to actual difficulty. 4 and 5 wouldn't even been in the discussion for difficulty comparison, they are simply casual, fun, shoot ♥♥♥♥ down, blow ♥♥♥♥ up games. They were never intended to be for bragging rights. Zero was more of 4 and 5 but for people who wanted to be shot down a bit more.

7's difficulty almost exclusively stems from timers, environment and terrain, with a few incredibly tedious air-jousts thrown in for good measure. Ask yourself how many times you've been shot down by those 234923847923847293847 missiles versus how many times you went into a wall, building, mountain, water, other aircraft &c &c &c &c

To be fair i crashed into the Canyon in one Mission more times then all Missions combined with the Missiles. And you know my Secret? 1 Upgrade that reduces Accuracy of the Missiles AND acutal playing the Game through evading those Missiles. And in other Situations simply "tank" them because of Risk / Reward Targets. I am not a Hardcoreplayer myself, it IS intimidating at first but not all that is fired at you actual hits.

[Pragmatic_Hero]

Originally posted by NcKMasterShake|CM:

I'm just going to say what I'll assume you're all thinking but are avoiding saying:
This game comes closer to frustrating tedium that it does to actual difficulty. 4 and 5 wouldn't even been in the discussion for difficulty comparison, they are simply casual, fun, shoot ♥♥♥♥ down, blow ♥♥♥♥ up games. They were never intended to be for bragging rights. Zero was more of 4 and 5 but for people who wanted to be shot down a bit more.

7's difficulty almost exclusively stems from timers, environment and terrain, with a few incredibly tedious air-jousts thrown in for good measure. Ask yourself how many times you've been shot down by those 234923847923847293847 missiles versus how many times you went into a wall, building, mountain, water, other aircraft &c &c &c &c

This

[DaMarkiM]

Agree with everything MasterShake said with one addendum: personally 90% of the difficulty in this game (and this goes for both Singleplayer and Multiplayer) is that i cant frickin see anything.
Seriosly. Turned down brightness on both the monitor and ingame to the minimum and still a lot of times you are basically flying into a solid white wall. Seeing your HUD and what you are aiming at is about impossible.
Multiplayer on the daytime maps i just go for QAAM, because god knows aiming a Laser is just playing the lottery.

[Funpire]

Originally posted by Social_Justice_Paladin:

Just beat the game after 24 hours of playtime (which included some in-between mission re-runs and Multiplayer grinding for extra MRP) and I have to say this iteration was by far the most punishing. Mission planning and simply learning through trial and error seemed to be the keys to victory. Oh, and a whole lot of patience. Whew.

I was actually disappointed with how easy it was. I am going through on Hard now, I really hope there is an Ace mode. The only thing it really has going for it is how amazing the environment is to fly in, being able to fight in thunder storms, canyons, and other shallow sections of the map with lots of cloud cover is awesome. It just feels that most encounters are lacking enough to kill since I spend most of my time ignoring air targets to clear ground, help those screaming on radio, and rushing from point A to point B while ignoring most air units attacking me.

Missiles are easily evaded it feels, even though there are so many of them.