I just finished the game on maximum difficulty settings and without any mods installed.
The game is too easy, full of overpowers for the benefit of the human player and was not made with competitive players in mind who want to be challenged and feel that they have achieved something worthy when they complete it. In the Commando and Mission Impossible game levels this must be considered and it is necessary to increase the difficulty drastically.
There are three overpowers that make the game too easy
1 – The hiden condition allows even mercs without sneaky characteristics and with normal equipment to get too close to enemies without being detected. Furthermore, the player receives a warning that the mers are being seen and with the auto-pause mode it is easy to remove the mercs that are at risk.
2 – In Late Game, Adonis and Army attacks are too weak. On the game's maximum difficulty – Mission Impossible – they only bring between 4 and 6 soldiers, which makes it very easy for the militia to defend and does not put pressure on the player. Attacks had to be made up of 10-12 soldiers, forcing the human player to leave a team to defend the conquered territory and support the militia.
3 – Livewire's special power that allows you to know the enemy's position during the ENTIRE battle... should be limited to the first turn.
In addition to these huge OPs, attention should also be paid to:
- The Biff Rescue Mission cannot be postponed indefinitely. Just defeat a single platoon of the Legion heading there to avoid this mission for as long as you want. I suggest that several Heavy Legion Assault platoons are always leaving as soon as the first one is defeated. This way the player is pressured to advance in the game's story and rescue Biff and better reflects what actually happens in the mission itself.
- Enemies make little use of the overwatch function. They should use more and force the human player to take risks and advance.
- The enemy uses snipers very little, which is why they cannot see our soldiers due to the problem already mentioned in the Hiden condition. The same goes for grenades and explosives (bazookas), which are the weapons that are most capable of surprising humans and causing casualties.
- Snipers in late game are too powerful and accurate, which makes all other firearms less necessary.
- There is plenty of money in the game due to the mines not running out. I received a warning that Fosse Noir and Wassergrab were running out of deposits but that never happened (bug??)
Regarding the game's general settings:
Lethal Weapons shouldn't even exist. If the mercs have zero HP, they die, as happens with their opponents... Even worst is being the default option.
In Ironman, recordings must always take place in battles in the last turn. Allowing you not to record battles makes the game easier because you can repeat the battle from the beginning if it goes wrong. That setting (not allow to record games in battle) should only be used to non ironman games.
Lastly, achievements on Steam... achievements are just that, achievements, it is supposed to be difficult to get. The ideal would be to adopt the Crusader Kings 3 solution in which achievements can only be achieved in the levels pre-defined for that (ironman is one of them), here, in addition to combining all difficulty levels and allowing save scum, it also allow achievements to be achieved with mods. Mods are basically cheats that help the player and make the game easier (it is easy in itself) it doesn't make any sense to achieve achievements with mods turned on when compared to those who don't use mods.
Furthermore, congratulations to whoever made this magnificent game, it's a huge revival for those like me who played Jagged Alliance 2 massively 20 years ago, the story is excellent, the side quests too, the experience gain system and percs are very good. . It's a brilliant game and to be among the best ever... now, it has to be challenging and difficult to complete, otherwise we always play in history mode.
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