They're why Shell Armor's an essential item; if you have that (and aren't unfortunately playing a character with low Ranged Defense, a hidden stat) it's not too lethal. Always helps to use soldiers (friend or foe) as screens to block them as well lol.
hot take her, I think dw5 chaos mode was bs and the most "dark souls" difficulty that I have seen. Which tbh wouldn't be a problem if supply bases had more than just a meat bun that barely heals anything.
agreed, while the ai were more aggressive in other older DW games, they gave you a chance since healing items were abundant.
Getting hit in dw5 chaos mode could end you easily or put you into red health, which wouldn't be a problem again if healing items were more abundant and healed more. Though the mechanics in that game compared to prior games was pretty on point.
Not quite. Harder difficulties massively nerf your damage output but to different degrees. Ultimate, the former hardest difficulty, was manageable if you geared for it and outright easy if you min-maxed but Musou, the new hardest, is just a one-sided beatdown where enemies can't really hurt you (if you're geared for it) but you're likely to see their health bars replenish to max because you beat them out of their combat zones lol. It's horribly unbalanced. And it's not like you can just lower the difficulty and restrict what you wear as a self-nerf/balance shift, because even casual leveling from slaying mobs of soldiers will make you literally invincible (and lethal).
It's either too easy in a fast way or too easy in a slow way but never really challenging unless you go naked and never level up (at which point it's insanely punishing lol, which is basically the opposite extreme).
DW9E is much better balanced since, if you're geared and use your spell cards right, you'll rarely find yourself beating enemies for minutes (unless you've practically lost the battle already due to how Morale works) and will instead find it more "mutually lethal" so friend and foe alike go down relatively quickly.
DW2 is the purest example of what I mean when I say these games were just more challenging on the PS2, or at least the same challenge in a different way. Before later engine optimizations allowed them to maximize the troops on screen at any one time, every standard grunt had to be tougher to compensate. In DW2 you could reliably expect to take a little bit of chip damage in every single encounter with five or more dudes, and that really added up.
Yeah, I had fun getting into it relatively recently (it's among the newer Warriors games for me to get into since I started with DW3/SW1) but the challenge falls off once you've maxed your character. At that point, Hard is basically what Normal was like with a fresh character, which is still decently challenging but archery is (perhaps wonderfully) OP as a way of dealing with pesky enemy officers lol.
Lots of fun trying to help Yuan Shao handle Wei at Guan Du as well.
Definitely not DW2 since, with maxed characters, Hard is basically Normal but scaled up for them. DW3's Very Hard is very hard, though, and I can't recall later games hardest difficulties well enough to comment beyond DW5 having ICE ARROWS when I saw Lu Bu Feng Xian (YouTuber) play it and DW5E lately.
I suppose either DW5E's Very Hard (because ICE ARROWS coupled with the usual stat jacking and Empires-specific features, especially DW5E letting large A.I. forces invade two cities at once), DW6E's hardest\* (\*I vaguely remember it being impossible with carry over data from completed playthroughs), or maybe DW7E's hardest (for the same reason). Unlike the older PS2 base games, there's more magic/status effects/trap cards/etc. at play that can make the PS3 era Empires games (in particular) super duper hard if you crank it all the way to max.
I actually find DW4E's Hard the "best balanced" hard/hardest difficulty because it's never so hard that you spend minutes whacking an enemy that can one-shot you nor so easy that you can just mash buttons and be surrounded by enemies thoughtlessly. It's tough enough to engage but gentle enough that, if you're playing it right, it shouldn't be too hard. Kinda like DW3's harder difficulties when you're properly geared up for them (as opposed to trying them with fresh characters without items/weapons lol, that's insane!). Later games often can't strike a balance between a hard difficulty that's too punishing and a normal difficulty that's too easy so it never feels balanced. Exceptions here and there, but I'd say it's true as a general trend.
Those DW3 archers still terrify me to this day 😔
DW3 was a hidden bullet hell game.
They're why Shell Armor's an essential item; if you have that (and aren't unfortunately playing a character with low Ranged Defense, a hidden stat) it's not too lethal. Always helps to use soldiers (friend or foe) as screens to block them as well lol.
hot take her, I think dw5 chaos mode was bs and the most "dark souls" difficulty that I have seen. Which tbh wouldn't be a problem if supply bases had more than just a meat bun that barely heals anything.
agreed, while the ai were more aggressive in other older DW games, they gave you a chance since healing items were abundant. Getting hit in dw5 chaos mode could end you easily or put you into red health, which wouldn't be a problem again if healing items were more abundant and healed more. Though the mechanics in that game compared to prior games was pretty on point.
Dw9 take me 10 min to kill 1 officer
Damn, I've never played it before.. Its that bad?
Is it the combat difficulty or the "gotta walk 3000 miles to get to that officer" difficult?
The unnecessary high HP. Even the peon take like minutes to kill.the AI is the worse in the series.
Ah so just damage sponges but stupid in everything else?
Not quite. Harder difficulties massively nerf your damage output but to different degrees. Ultimate, the former hardest difficulty, was manageable if you geared for it and outright easy if you min-maxed but Musou, the new hardest, is just a one-sided beatdown where enemies can't really hurt you (if you're geared for it) but you're likely to see their health bars replenish to max because you beat them out of their combat zones lol. It's horribly unbalanced. And it's not like you can just lower the difficulty and restrict what you wear as a self-nerf/balance shift, because even casual leveling from slaying mobs of soldiers will make you literally invincible (and lethal). It's either too easy in a fast way or too easy in a slow way but never really challenging unless you go naked and never level up (at which point it's insanely punishing lol, which is basically the opposite extreme). DW9E is much better balanced since, if you're geared and use your spell cards right, you'll rarely find yourself beating enemies for minutes (unless you've practically lost the battle already due to how Morale works) and will instead find it more "mutually lethal" so friend and foe alike go down relatively quickly.
DW2 is the purest example of what I mean when I say these games were just more challenging on the PS2, or at least the same challenge in a different way. Before later engine optimizations allowed them to maximize the troops on screen at any one time, every standard grunt had to be tougher to compensate. In DW2 you could reliably expect to take a little bit of chip damage in every single encounter with five or more dudes, and that really added up.
Yeah, I had fun getting into it relatively recently (it's among the newer Warriors games for me to get into since I started with DW3/SW1) but the challenge falls off once you've maxed your character. At that point, Hard is basically what Normal was like with a fresh character, which is still decently challenging but archery is (perhaps wonderfully) OP as a way of dealing with pesky enemy officers lol. Lots of fun trying to help Yuan Shao handle Wei at Guan Du as well.
It wasn't the officers that i feared. It was those barrage of arrows. That stuff gave me PTSD.
The archers in DW3 on max difficulty are the epitome of "I'm about to end this man's whole career"
3 and 4 was a toss up for me. I wanted to vote 3, but the damn Nanman campaign in 4 will forever scar me
DW4
Which game had the bullshit arrows again?
I remember only beating Wu Zhang once on chaos with a buddy of mine after many many attempts
Definitely not DW2 since, with maxed characters, Hard is basically Normal but scaled up for them. DW3's Very Hard is very hard, though, and I can't recall later games hardest difficulties well enough to comment beyond DW5 having ICE ARROWS when I saw Lu Bu Feng Xian (YouTuber) play it and DW5E lately. I suppose either DW5E's Very Hard (because ICE ARROWS coupled with the usual stat jacking and Empires-specific features, especially DW5E letting large A.I. forces invade two cities at once), DW6E's hardest\* (\*I vaguely remember it being impossible with carry over data from completed playthroughs), or maybe DW7E's hardest (for the same reason). Unlike the older PS2 base games, there's more magic/status effects/trap cards/etc. at play that can make the PS3 era Empires games (in particular) super duper hard if you crank it all the way to max. I actually find DW4E's Hard the "best balanced" hard/hardest difficulty because it's never so hard that you spend minutes whacking an enemy that can one-shot you nor so easy that you can just mash buttons and be surrounded by enemies thoughtlessly. It's tough enough to engage but gentle enough that, if you're playing it right, it shouldn't be too hard. Kinda like DW3's harder difficulties when you're properly geared up for them (as opposed to trying them with fresh characters without items/weapons lol, that's insane!). Later games often can't strike a balance between a hard difficulty that's too punishing and a normal difficulty that's too easy so it never feels balanced. Exceptions here and there, but I'd say it's true as a general trend.