Hello all, I became interested in this game after downloading the demo. I like it, and may eventually buy it. But so far, it seems to be exceedingly difficult. I am at the third scenario in the demo, the one labeled "medium" where you have to defend your capital against a swarm of enemy mortars and LAVs. The game suggests to capture the capital to the east, but as soon as I move a few units there he spawns fifty million 'guerillas' all around me so now I have two armies to defeat instead of one! To top it off, my enemy seems to get reinforcements every turn, while I got them once and then, nothing. Maybe I'm missing something, but if I am having so much trouble this early, I can only imagine what other missions will be like... To sum up I like this game but it's very hard, and does anyone know how to pass this mission?

You know what, I changed my mind. Here's another potentially great game ruined by downright sadistic difficulty. It might be enjoyable to someone who can sit at the computer 8 hours a day with this game, figuring out strategies, or a masochist who enjoys pain and frustration, but it's not a right fit for a casual gamer like myself, and I guess I won't be buying it. Don't bother replying as I will not be returning to this forum. Thanks.

I'm posting 2 replays of this scenario for the others who might look at this topic.

And remember! You get resources only if you fully control the territory.

Well, the thing is that we didn't want Massive Assault to be a pure "tactical shooter". There is a good deal of strategy in this game - in other words the players are supposed to perform some meneuvering, sometimes obvious, sometimes more sophisticated.

We may agree that some scenarios in the game happen to be too tough.
That's why we have recently composed that 12-scenario pack, containing mostly EASY scenarios.

Plus, the original game has enough of easy scenarios.

But anyway, the most exciting part of the game is that World War - wher the players are not bind by any artificial set-ups, but have the entire planet in front of them with equal sets of potential resources.

Basically, if you are able to complete EASY scenarions, you can start playing the World War right away.

Those hard scenarios are for those, who would like to be able to get out of any difficult situation while playing the World War...

And, Slash, listen:
I suggest you play one or a couple of World Wars in this Demo.
They are not that "masochistic" as you would say... and it's much mor fun that those single-mission scenario. Anyway, the Demo is free, isn't it?

And i found that i dont understand why this scenario was marked as medium.It should be considered easy - no problem finishing it in one try.First you have at start a whole THREE rocket launchers - a very effective force.Next enemy army is slow - just LAVs and mortars.So where you seen two armies to fight there? lol i barely see ONE army and guerillas which are just a small nuisance.Where you seen a "million" of guerillas there lol - just six of them (medium country) and its quite easy to destroy them by relocating artillelry fire on them and moving in your tanks.
to prove this attached my own replay.
And...just if you mentioned i'll tell you - there sertainly are some masochists playing MA Those people go online and challenge Tiger That's the most painful and horrendous way to get yourself beaten to a pulp
But those scenarios..can be easily completed by a rather casual gamer..well at least the one who manage to use his brain just a bit.

Believe it or not, Iґm currently ahead in a game against Tiger.
(Thatґs why I am so slow in responding to your latest challenge. But I am going to. I just must first force Tiger off Noble Rust! )

Forgot to enter my Username in the post above.

It's really bad battle for me.

Far from won for me, though. Whenever I think itґs over, you are pulling a new trick out of your coffer.

Forgot to enter Username, as usual. I think I should register.

Yes, Gentlemen, please, do register when using this forum.
I can see that many are posting under their original names but not yet registered...

I won this one by ignoring the instructions to attack the nearby country Everytime I tried that I got swarmed by the enemy from the north - I couldn't take out the enemy guerillas fast enough when I invaded. I failed time and time again trying to follow the suggestion to invade the adjacent neutral. The original enemy invasion force got to my RL too fast. Instead, with the RL I was easily able to defeat the enemy invasion force in a straight up fight.

Maybe I'll go back and try the original solution since I've got a few more scenarios under my belt and are a little more experienced

Grifman

PS, why do I need to register here and why aren't I recognized - I'm already registered for the Matrix forums?

Hi, Griffman

Well, technically speaking, Massive Assault's and Matrix's forums are different pieces of software hosted on different servers, and MA's forum is being moderated by Wargaming.net's people, because Matrix is publishing the game only in N. America, and there are other publishers for Europe, Russia, Poland, Australia, China, etc.

So, it is suggested (but not 100% required) that you quickly go through that ridiculously short registration process, and you'll be automatically "recongized" by the system each time you visit this forum.

The difficulty I'm encountering with Massive Assault isn't so much due to the AI as it is the steep learning curve in the first campaign missions.

For MA I did what I usually do for this sort of game: run through the "training" missions, try a stand-alone scenario, then dig into the campaign. The trouble is that the campaign is making me learn things the hard way.

I posted some thoughts about Ice 2 in another thread. For Ice 3 (which I'm currently slogging my way through) I'm having to learn all sorts of lessons. For example, if a neutral country has a guerilla factor of 6, you don't want to blunder in there with a couple of tanks and a spare RL. Either you hit it with everything on hand, or you let it be.

I'm also discovering that, when your objective is "invade country X", the smart thing to do is wait until all the forces in country X charge headlong into your guns, then walk in. Actually trying to *invade* is something of a mistake.

There's also no point in holding territory that doesn't have revenue. Unless, of course, losing the territory ends the scenario (something that isn't immediately obvious).

These are all lessons that are easy enough to learn as you play, but the scenarios don't really have any "build up" time. One minute you're pasting the units in the training missions, the next you're getting overwhelmed in a campaign scenario. Unlike Cyberstorm or Total Annihilation, which had the good grace to disembowel you half a dozen missions down the line, MA gets off to a roaring start and guts you in mission #2.

I guess what I'm trying to say is a little more attention to the pacing might have been appropriate. That, or have a nightmarish "training" mission with lots of helpful hints.

A normal sequence is : trainings, scenarios, campaigns, World Wars.
And you passed only one stand-alone scenario and then went to campaigns.

Nothing amazing.

Since the stand-alone scenarios sorted by difficulty (ascending) you chose the easiest one while you had to try all of them till the end or the last (hardest one) at least.

For what it's worth, I think I actually tried "river crossing", which is in the "easy" category but wasn't the first on the list.

I've played a variety of strategy games -- Heroes of Might & Magic I through IV, Warlords III, Age of Wonders I and II, M.A.X., Total Annihilation, Warcraft I through III, Disciples, Panzer General, WH40K Chaos Gate, Incubation, etc, etc. What you describe as a "normal sequence" is not normal for me nor for anyone I have interacted with.

People aren't going to play through the full set of stand-alone scenarios before getting into the campaign. If you don't believe me, read the other posts on the message board and look at the frustration level being expressed. Shrugging this off as "user error" is all well and good, but the game is not going to do well if the word-of-mouth reviews are poor.

I would suggest making an additional "starter" campaign out of the stand-alone scenarios you feel are most representative of the skills required to tackle the campaign. Or at least making it plain that you don't want to start the campaign before running through several stand-alone scenarios. Just moving two or three hard scenarios to the "training" section might be enough.

hmm...the "easy scenario" pack and easy campaign had been released and people still require something more easy.odd..I dont understand why you are so upset by requirment to play through standalone scenarios first (i myself finished all easy and medium scenarios in one day when i got the game).You see those scenarios model some specific situations which can happen in world war against strong human opponent and may give you an idea what to do.All campaigns are comprised from rather difficult scenarios.You see the AI in MA is rather weak so only way to make game challenging is make scenarios difficult.If campaigns were easy they would become boring nearly instantly.
BTW i played all strategy games fadden mentioned(excempt maybe MAX which was just crazy piece of micromanagement) and i don't see why MA looks so difficult for you.
May be because you not yet learned nessessary tactical tricks?
SO in what fadden wrote i just see a n00bscream "hey why i am not able to beat AI instantly when i just launched game and not even started to understand how to play it"

Absolutely true!
Thank you, Fadden.

Yes, we (the developers) should have thought that the people could have had other picture of what should be played first and in which sequence, etc. Now we see that our "tough nut" approach can be frustrating for some people. That's why in the upcoming patch (and in all the new printruns) there will be 3 difficulty levels, all scenarios and campaigns being split into 3 versions, each for each level. And we've tested the "Easy" level very thoroughly to make sure that even a kid can pass it with absolutely "relaxed" gameplay style.
"Medium" would be for experienced strategy gamers, and "Hard" will be a real mindbreaker for those hardcore strategists.



Hm... it's a good idea...

However, there is a campaign, which was created exactly for "easy learning" purpose. It's called Ice Storm. It can be downloaded here:

http://www.massiveassault.com/maps_and_scenarios.php

It's really really easy. Maybe we should have called it differently. I guess "Ice Storm" is too scary...

Perhaps you misunderstand me.

I bought the game, installed it from the box. Found a patch online while it was installing, and added that immediately. (I then tried using the True Update program, which failed with a "not properly installed on your system" message. Does it have a hardcoded path? I have the game installed off in G:\Games2K\MassiveAssault\)

I then started playing. There is no visible "requirement" for standalone scenarios. There is no "easy scenario pack" available from the menu. I picked up the game because of the favorable review in PC Gamer, not after finding it through an online community three months ago. If you come at it from that angle, MA has the Learning Curve from Hell.

The point I've been trying to make is that it's not about easy/medium/hard. It's about preparing the player adequately for what comes next. You need a completely different set of play testers for alpha, beta, and final release...if you use the same set, you're getting feedback from veterans, and not an accurate picture of the out-of-box experience that many users will have.

Defeating the Ice scenarios with sloppy tactics on an "easy" level isn't what I want. Gaining the requisite skills to beat it or at least understand why I'm getting thrashed is what I'm after. If playing through the full set of scenarios is the appropriate way to do so, great. But TELL ME THAT.

BTW, M.A.X. actually has a lot in common with MA. The main difference was that most units could either move OR shoot, rather than move THEN shoot. The result was a more chess-like feel, because moving unit X would allow the enemy to take out unit Y, which was covering unit Z, and the whole line crumbles. The disadvantage of this approach was that it led to static configurations that were hard to break. (The game also had too many crashing bugs, something that MA has so far been completely free of.)

One final request: hire a professional tech writer for the English translation. Many errors in spelling, grammar, and punctuation remain, and it really takes the shine off what is otherwise a well-polished game.

Fadden, I've added another bunch of comments to my "To-Do list"...

Thanks for the comments.
You are absolutely right.

After all it shouldn't take too much efforts adding the things you've mentioned.