Are the hero missions some kind of punishment?

[Sylario]

I do not understand the hero missions, they are boring and tedious. You are punished for not being slow, you just have to progress very slowly and kill everything, And once the level is clear, you are forced to slowly move the cursor above every element of the map.

What did we do to you? I am ready to use a cheat to get the points without losing my time to a stupid slow level.

[Guts]

Yeah the hero missions should be more of a puzzle than they currently are. If I wanted to pixel search for books on a table, I'd go play Myst. They really ought to make exploding barrels and grenades more of a strategic choice rather than something to spam if you see more than 5 zombies.

[gachi is manly]

They're quite bland, not going to lie.

I mean I wasn't expecting Warcraft 3/Starcraft 2 hero mission quality from a small dev team. Mayyybe Command and Conquer Red Alert 3 quality of hero missions.... These kind of feel like the hero missions in the first Command and Conquer game. Yea those were pretty novel missions... Twenty five years ago.

[Guts]

They put 2 ally units in the first mission, then after the next 3 they haven't used that mechanic at all. There should be missions where you have to use exploding barrels and human sacrifices to win, but so far these missions are about as dangerous as clearing on day 1 in easy mode survival. There's no tension at all in the hero missions. I find myself just wanting to pass the mission and leave but it seems like getting all the points is in your best interest for the rest of the campaign.

[Salty Wagyu]

Yep hero missions are more interesting when it includes some units. I've played it at 25% difficulty since then to reduce the numbers as it's tedious single shooting every zombie in my path.

[Professor H. Farnsworth]

My avg. hero mission is 15-20min.
You don't need to clear the entire level, you need to clear runners, executives, harpies, fat infected and spitters those are your main threat - the rest can't keep up with you and will stop chasing after some 10 blocks.

The best way of doing them is by clearing out hallways then proceed to a room so that your gun shots does not attract unwanted runners - clear the room, grab the valuables and move on.

They're not particularly interesting - no, I do agree that they could have come up with a better design ie. puzzles, but eh.. It is what it is. They're basically there to give you a tech boost and that's it. If they were to have an actual story it'd be much cooler aside for the news paper clippings which seems to be bugged. You get the first part of the story leading up to the infection, then skip the actual middle leaving you quite clueless of what started it all just to jump past the middle to the infection already in full glory. It's.. Weird.<
- And I do love them news papers. Lore is always fun.

[Guts]

Nobody is complaining that the hero missions are hard or long. They're just boring and pointless because they change the game from survival RTS into a crappy point and click, find the items game. They're not exactly winning any design awards with that choice.

[marcus.zhur]

Also swarm missions would look like tower defence, not like "let i place 100 soldiers and take a tea with donuts for a while"

[Maverickbcw]

It's a way to get easy peasy if not time consuming research points. Unless you'd like to pay AE for some loot boxes. It's something different. Yes the pixel hunting initially was BS. But the Devs quickly addressed that. That's the thing, we complain and they jump. I've played online games which shall not be mentioned. We complain and they think about it....for years. Then they talk about what they 'might' do. ... ... We're still waiting. Not here. In the first weak they addressed many complaints and yet there were players saying ..."Oh we are the beta testers!" No, many other game companies just release a game and say..."Well that's it, We have your money so we no longer give a ____." I bought into this game early and have seen the steps they've tried to please everyone. That will never happen,. But I know they have tried so I have to side with them. Besides the point the Campaign exceeded my expectations. Not perfect. But more than I expected.

[Chris]

best thing is when you die because of retarded pathing and 1 hour of your life is gone :)

[Agent_Vealckowsky]

There's nothing optional about playing those missions, there's simply not enough empire and research points otherwise.

And yeah, they are extremely boring. Heroes are underpowered and bland units with no abilities. There's no skill element, no nuance and no tactic to the gameplay in those missions. Right now it's just a repetitive cleaning chore with some Where's Waldo in terms of collecting items sprinkled on top.

[Perlin]

The best hero mission of TAB is worst than the worst mission of any Starcraft campaign. That's it.

[Vambran]

Well it was an okay first try. They got room to improve for the DLC or Sequel.

[Guts]

Originally posted by Vambran:

Well it was an okay first try. They got room to improve for the DLC or Sequel.

No, they'd better improve THIS campaign or they won't be seeing more of my money. The hero missions feel rushed and are incredibly lame. No challenge, pixel searching, no meaningful level design. Hero missions are a straight up garbage waste of time, but you have to do them to get the empire and research points.

OP had it right. They don't feel fun. They feel like a punishment.

[Vambran]

Well if i was game Dev i would buff move speed by 200% when not in range of zombies and make the zombie holes die from grenades. Add one more grenade box per zombie hole on map.

That would make it a little better. can't fix the no story or boss fights though without overhaul / dlc.

[Guts]

If I were the dev, I'd put hordes in the game that are impossible to kill with just the hero, and make it so you have to kite the zombies into traps to survive. I'd make it so you get extra units that are meant to sacrifice themselves so the hero can get out with the information. I'd make it an actual puzzle instead of just being 20 minutes of clearing rooms then searching every object for a gear icon. I'd also stop hiding the damn empire and research points and give them their own unique look so nobody has to walk through the same empty room 5 times looking for the book they missed.

The devs really missed the mark with these hero missions, badly. And they need an overhaul. They can forget about DLC if they don't overhaul the hero missions, because Numantian is showing a serious lack of design talent with these levels. They introduce several mechanics in the first hero mission then completely abandon all those ideas in at least the next 3 hero missions.

I do like the idea to buff movement speed when not in zombie range. That would make the 2 minute walk out of the level more bearable.