3 ms·

I returned to this recently and man it is brutally hard, I'd argue in not a good way. The robots with the hitscan gattling gun just plain aren't a fun design t

by XorNot 3y ago

I returned to this recently and man it is brutally hard, I'd argue in not a good way. The robots with the hitscan gattling gun just plain aren't a fun design they're just a shield-cost you pay for not knowing exactly where they are in the level - and worse there's a bunch of keycard pickups where the moment you grab the card you're stuck dead center of a room where 4-6 of the things then come out of unopenable secret doors (which basically makes them impervious to foreknowledge - you can't complete the level without going through there, you need a minimum amount of shields to survive the alpha strike, and even knowing it's going to happen doesn't help). Still a heckin' fun game, but yeah once they start throwing those things at you en masse (around the Mars missions) my tolerance fell off pretty rapidly since there wasn't really any "puzzle" to solve.

Shorel 3y ago
My strategy against them was hide and seek. The tactical peekaboo. I would look fast, see where the Gatling gun sparks appeared, hide fast, wait a second for the bullets to hit something, then move again, shoot at where the sparks were an instant before, and hide again. This was my tactic for the invisible ones, the others were easy, as they can't aim while being shot. For the visible ones, the missiles were made just for them.
- Delk 3y ago
  By the time the sparks appear, you're already hit. It doesn't take a second or any time for them to hit something. They're actually hitscan. That tactic can still work against them but generally not without a cost to shields, at least not if you take the time to see the sparks. You can use that tactic effectively to deal with other kinds of robots without taking a hit because their projectiles take time to travel. And Descent 2 and 3 had gatling gun robots that IIRC were not quite hitscan, so you could in principle do that with them too. Homing missiles are great against the (visible) vulcan robots but you still need to know where they are, or spend missiles speculatively.
Sohcahtoa82 3y ago
You might be interested in Extra Credits's video on "Challenging vs Punishing Games" https://youtu.be/ea6UuRTjkKs https://youtu.be/ea6UuRTjkKs They mention some games basically require you to memorize levels (Battletoads) or otherwise have things happen that aren't telegraphed. They remove player agency from the equation and make a game punishing rather than challenging, and punishing games just aren't fun.
sdenton4 3y ago
I think it's all about the controls... When I played this in the 90's, I had a sidewinder joystick, and then used the keyboard for strafing. Once you master circle-strafing, the ai enemies don't really stand a chance.
- Shorel 3y ago
  Absolutely true. I bought a second hand MS Sidewinder for this game, and I still have it =) In fact, last week I bought all three games in Steam.
- sjamaan 3y ago
  Yeah I always struggled with that too - I only had a gamepad, or just the keyboard. I always felt I didn't have enough keys/fingers, and I never mastered strafing due to that.
- Delk 3y ago
  That doesn't quite help with the vulcan bots in the first Descent game as much because their weapons actually are hitscan, they aim ridiculously quickly, and they're often waiting behind corners or behind doors already facing you so they can pretty much immediately hit you when you open the door and/or pop out behind it. Circle-strafing is a must in general, though.
Delk 3y ago
In cases where they're around a blind corner waiting in ambush (not behind those secret doors), it's often possible to sort of preempt them by shooting lasers so that the bolt(s) on one side just barely go around the corner. Since the lasers go from the edge of the screen towards the middle, you can shoot into a place behind a corner that you can't see. Since getting hit makes the robots lose their ability to shoot (or move) for a brief, sub-second moment, you can use that to kill them without getting hit yourself despite their ridiculously quick aim and hitscan weapon. Even if you don't know exactly where they are (or whether there even is anything behind the corner), you can start shooting that way around a corner preemptively and slowly and progressively slide around the corner until you'll be actually hitting them or seeing that there wasn't anything there. Of course if you don't know where they are, you'll have to be doing that preemptively at lots of corners just in case, spending energy which can also be in short supply on higher difficulties. It also means you basically have to creep carefully around corners a lot. And it doesn't help in other kinds of cases. I agree that those robots were frustrating when I played through the game again after years some time ago. Interestingly, I don't think there are hitscan robots in Descent 2.

by XorNot 3y ago

Shorel 3y ago

My strategy against them was hide and seek. The tactical peekaboo. I would look fast, see where the Gatling gun sparks appeared, hide fast, wait a second for the bullets to hit something, then move again, shoot at where the sparks were an instant before, and hide again. This was my tactic for the invisible ones, the others were easy, as they can't aim while being shot. For the visible ones, the missiles were made just for them.

Delk 3y ago
By the time the sparks appear, you're already hit. It doesn't take a second or any time for them to hit something. They're actually hitscan. That tactic can still work against them but generally not without a cost to shields, at least not if you take the time to see the sparks. You can use that tactic effectively to deal with other kinds of robots without taking a hit because their projectiles take time to travel. And Descent 2 and 3 had gatling gun robots that IIRC were not quite hitscan, so you could in principle do that with them too. Homing missiles are great against the (visible) vulcan robots but you still need to know where they are, or spend missiles speculatively.

Sohcahtoa82 3y ago

You might be interested in Extra Credits's video on "Challenging vs Punishing Games" https://youtu.be/ea6UuRTjkKs https://youtu.be/ea6UuRTjkKs They mention some games basically require you to memorize levels (Battletoads) or otherwise have things happen that aren't telegraphed. They remove player agency from the equation and make a game punishing rather than challenging, and punishing games just aren't fun.

sdenton4 3y ago

I think it's all about the controls... When I played this in the 90's, I had a sidewinder joystick, and then used the keyboard for strafing. Once you master circle-strafing, the ai enemies don't really stand a chance.

Shorel 3y ago
Absolutely true. I bought a second hand MS Sidewinder for this game, and I still have it =) In fact, last week I bought all three games in Steam.
sjamaan 3y ago
Yeah I always struggled with that too - I only had a gamepad, or just the keyboard. I always felt I didn't have enough keys/fingers, and I never mastered strafing due to that.
Delk 3y ago
That doesn't quite help with the vulcan bots in the first Descent game as much because their weapons actually are hitscan, they aim ridiculously quickly, and they're often waiting behind corners or behind doors already facing you so they can pretty much immediately hit you when you open the door and/or pop out behind it. Circle-strafing is a must in general, though.

Delk 3y ago

In cases where they're around a blind corner waiting in ambush (not behind those secret doors), it's often possible to sort of preempt them by shooting lasers so that the bolt(s) on one side just barely go around the corner. Since the lasers go from the edge of the screen towards the middle, you can shoot into a place behind a corner that you can't see. Since getting hit makes the robots lose their ability to shoot (or move) for a brief, sub-second moment, you can use that to kill them without getting hit yourself despite their ridiculously quick aim and hitscan weapon. Even if you don't know exactly where they are (or whether there even is anything behind the corner), you can start shooting that way around a corner preemptively and slowly and progressively slide around the corner until you'll be actually hitting them or seeing that there wasn't anything there. Of course if you don't know where they are, you'll have to be doing that preemptively at lots of corners just in case, spending energy which can also be in short supply on higher difficulties. It also means you basically have to creep carefully around corners a lot. And it doesn't help in other kinds of cases. I agree that those robots were frustrating when I played through the game again after years some time ago. Interestingly, I don't think there are hitscan robots in Descent 2.