-Philosopher- wrote:Bethrezen wrote:Ok so been playing through v1.10 and have a few more observations...
Hey @Bethrezen
This is quite useful. It by-and-large confirms that wzcam, even the later iteration I've been looking at, are still a pretty faithful recreation of 1.10. Most of the observed differences you found are the same as those I found in my comparisons.
In addition to all the changed victory conditions, I'd also noticed NP's turtling on Alpha 05, the different design of Alpha 07, the tech path stuff on Alpha 08 etc. as well as lots of balance differences (lancer damage, speed differences, etc).
I think the balance differences are a slightly different situation, however. Whereas all the stage design differences - intentional or otherwise - seem to have been introduced with jscam, balance stuff has been fiddled with continuously over the versions (that includes body strength and armour too, by the way). I think weapons used to be more specialised so you had to be a bit more careful about using the right ones on the right targets. e.g. as originally set up, anti-armour weapons (lancers, etc.) were supposed to do stuff-all to structures, so specialist weapons were needed instead (much like in real life actually), or you could use general purpose cannons at a pinch. I'd be interested to know how you get on with Beta 05 in 1.10 if you get to it. It's one where I think they stuffed up the balance in 2.3.8 that I've been playing - the ripple rockets that you encounter for the first time on that level can one-shot even the heaviest units if they catch them squarely. Between that and a lot of well-positioned lancer defences, it makes that stage very tricky indeed. Judging from some old walkthroughs I've read, it wasn't like that in 2.2.x, and it isn't in 3.2.x anymore either.
Well that's the intention with me doing this because it gives us a baseline to compare with and helps us to identify areas where things have been changed from the original and we can then look at it and see if we should leave as is or switch it back, it also lets us see if we have missed anything or gotten things wrong.
It also means that if there are any specific questions about anything, like for example what the timer on alpha 03 should be on various difficulty levels then its easy enough to just load up the relevant save and check.
In most cases I'm of the opinion that the changes are justified and don't really detract from the game at all because they are changes made to iron out things that where perhaps not well though out or that didn't work correctly.
Alpha 07 being a prime example on v1.10 its possible to do that level in like 2 minutes which is far far far to easy and renders the level pointless clearly that is a badly though out design decision.
which is why the victory condition was changed on master and you now have to defeat 11 drop ships of troops in addition to building a base there have also been a ton subtle changes to that one to address issues like units being deployed over the cliff which can stop players from ending the level if they don't realise its happened, because Alpha 07 was one of those levels that was notorious for braking in previous iterations.
Alpha 06 was also another level where a lot of work has been done because various things where broken during the conversion or as you have found out with the clean up areas and mission markers not done correctly or not done at all.
Alpha 08 and the change made to the research is an example where a change was made to fix what appears to be a bug in the original, or well at least I'd consider it a bug anyway.
I'm not so sure about the bombard pit though I haven't found where you get that in v1.10 yet if you get it at all but given that you get the bombard on alpha 08 then it seems logical that you should also get the bombard pit on alpha 08 as well, I'm not really sure why pumpkin wouldn't give you the bombard pit on alpha 08 guess its one of those minor things you just have to make a judgement call on since we can't exactly ask them.
-Philosopher- wrote:@Beserk Cyborg
I've started looking at Beta 01 in detail. There are a lot of differences between wz and jscam, and the respective incarnations of the stage play out very differently as a result. If it weren't for the fact you can slow the game down more in 3.x, the net effect would be to make the stage harder in jscam than wzcam (in general, the opposite is true). Possibly not a good thing, given it was always one of the more challenging stages.
I'm going to try to figure out why it's different, but it's going to be tricky because there's a lot going on at once at the start and even on debug you can't slow the game down as much in 2.3.x, nor pause it. So it might be a little while before I report back. However, before I jump in, can you confirm the timing of when various groups make their attacks, transporters come in, etc. has been replicated in jscam faithfully? It might be there's a simple explanation...
I've found Beta 01 to be quite tricky on insane, for various reasons such as bugs or balance changes etc as you will see if you go a few pages back having said that if you can get past the first 10 minuets and get some of the fire power upgrades then its not so bad.
However I'm definitely of the opinion that the player needs some help on insane because it is so incredibly tough trying to fend off attacks from 2 directions at once with only 1 drop ship of troops that its bordering on impossible and i frequently find my self getting creamed even when i have the game slowed down to like 0.5 / 0.25 of the normal speed, although that's to be expected because Beta 01 was always considered to be one of the hardest missions in the entire game.
Fending off attacks from 2 directions at once might be doable on easer levels but not on insane there units are way to strong for that and even your most powerful units struggle to deal with there tanks until you start getting firepower upgrades so yeah the player definitely needs some help to level the playing field a bit.
Although at the moment I'm still stuck at alpha 12 as i haven't been able to beat that in the 1:20 time limit without cheating, certainly using a variation of Alfreds trick to get the hover tech quicker helps just not enough, however with the latest round of changes I'll have to give it another go and see if i get on any better.
. I managed that by attacking them with bombards attached to a sensor truck. As long as you stay out of their sight you can kill one after the other without getting attacked.