DescentBB

Per a past thread a mine I get the impression a lot of people think it is, but I just feel like gathering a quick, more-or-less yes/no vote from the overall community here.

Yes.

I also agree.

In terms of subjective personal opinion, I like counterstrike because its what I learned on, and thus it has (for me) all the nostalgia. However, and especially after starting to level edit, I will agree that vertigo is absolutely fabulous in terms of segment geometry and architecture. I'm not too familiar with vertigo, but its superiority is immediately noticeable in any level.

Counterstrike's biggest downfall are the themes, which were supposed to remedy Descent 1's supposed lack of variety. Unfortunately Parallax didn't quite pull it off and four levels with the same textures in a row turned out to be even more boring than Descent 1's "indeterminate theme" levels.

The best levels of Counterstrike, aesthetics-wise and arguably gameplay-wise, are Zeta Aquilae levels. They look like a better Descent 1, no more, no less. I love the ZA theme too, with all the textures it uses. It's vivid, colorful (in a good way) and varied. What comes afterwards is a bit boring. Perhaps only the water levels show some variety, and they're also rich in textures appearing in large quantities in D1. The ice levels are cool, but because of the nature of the theme itself - ice is quite awesome for Descent and works well. Still, 4 levels in a row fail to distinguish themselves.

Of course, Counterstrike's cube geometry is wildly superior to D1's, even though the designers showed progress throughout First Strike itself (Secret Level 3 has very advanced and dare I say, D2-like layout). D2 takes it up a notch, and Vertigo takes it up another notch. Combined with the fact that the level progression and texturing borrows very heavily from D1, that is what makes Vertigo superior.

Vertigo was more interesting in all aspects, better and easier to memorize level geometry, no long, boring and frustrating levels like L12 in counterstrike, more interesting robots (my favorites are MAX, and sniper ng, definitely encourage you to think how to approach them), adequate difficulty (I played it on insane without saves on each level and was not grinding for a week on any level, however it was difficult enough), also I like more open space in Vertigo. Probably only drawbacks are easy bosses and less interesting secret levels. Also I played Vertigo 2 times (first one was with saves) and would not say it became less interesting on replay. But I think TEW is another big step forward from Vertigo, as it combines yet more interesting robots and geometry with super cool bosses and secret levels.

No.

In first 2 plays levels were quite frustating: unsolvable puzles, too long, confusing levels, matgens with reactors, bosses, M.A.X!!!!. When I played it 2 years ago, they weren't such much anymore (still, some too long, too few Vertigo bots (the last 3 should include only those, the smart missile launcher early, gimme a break!)).

I can remember the layout of Counterstrike easier than Vertigo. But I love them both

I like Vertigo a little better, but I really liked some of the longer levels in Descent 1 and Descent 2 Counterstrike and Vertigo's were often too short.
Also it never really used the keys-held-by-bots concept that every other version of Descent liked to do at least once (the start of level 2 didn't really count).

Vertigo had that nice balance of long and short levels. Nothing that felt excruciatingly boring.

I think Vertigo is better, though I think D2's new primaries are overpowered and I don't like the Thief. Vertigo doesn't fix either of those, unfortunately.

kakhome1 wrote:I think Vertigo is better, though I think D2's new primaries are overpowered and I don't like the Thief. Vertigo doesn't fix either of those, unfortunately.

The primaries are OP, and yet the Fusion was made utter crap. Go figure

I only think the primaries unique to D2 (including the Level 5/6 laser) are OP. Not D1 primaries. The D2 weapons should generally be rewards for finding secrets, IMO not out in the open.

Still, Fusion should be strong anyway.

IIRC D2 robots have considerably more hitpoints on average than D1 robots, so even if D2 Fusion damage wasn't cut in half compared to D1 it would still feel weaker. As a result D2 Fusion is somewhere around one third as effective as it was in D1 where it would kill all but 2 normal robot types in one shot. It made Fusion pretty much completely worthless in D2, because it had all the drawbacks (slow rate of fire, low velocity, difficult to aim while charging and high energy use) with none of the power that made it worth mastering.

Xfing wrote:Still, Fusion should be strong anyway.

Agreed! Though quite honestly, from my own experience, D2's robots aren't that much tougher than D1 ones, not on average at least. There are particular robots who are really hard to kill, such as the Red Fatty Jr, but I can't think of any particular robot that surprises with its toughness. For Descent 1 on the other hand, I can think of quite several: Robots below 120 in strength don't matter, since they all die to a single, uncharged fusion shot anyway, but Descent has plenty of unseemly robots with a strength of 150, requiring a charged Fusion show. Anything higher than that I wouldn't even suggest using Fusion against. And yeah, the Boarshead and the E-bandit have a strength of 200, which drastically lowers the usefulness of Fusion against them, not to mention D2's resident lifter, the Diamond Arm, which has 150 (and another deterrent in the form of the plasma pulses). I'm not even counting stuff like the Sidearm or the Seeker, since they're way too tough, but D1 also has plenty of surprisingly tough robots such as the Heavy Driller, the Gopher and the missile platform bot.

Also some robots fulfilling equivalent functions in D2 are weaker than their D1 counterparts, for example the ubiquitous Super Hulk is tougher than D2's Lou Guard, the Small Hulk is tougher than the PIG and probably more. The impression that D2's robots are tougher has to come from the ubiquity of E-bandits and Seekers I guess.

Glad you agree with yourself

Meant to quote Krom It was late night and I was exhausted from a lot of thinking work. Haha, funny how it turned out

I have a hard time agreeing with the suggestion that level 5/6 lasers are overpowered, though, when they're actually weaker than D1 level 4 lasers. I've seen the numbers: D2 level 6 lasers deal 12.5 damage per bolt, while D1 level 4 lasers deal 13. (They were nerfed in D2 to make room for 5 and 6, naturally.)

Sirius wrote:I have a hard time agreeing with the suggestion that level 5/6 lasers are overpowered, though, when they're actually weaker than D1 level 4 lasers. I've seen the numbers: D2 level 6 lasers deal 12.5 damage per bolt, while D1 level 4 lasers deal 13. (They were nerfed in D2 to make room for 5 and 6, naturally.)

Not to mention there is practically no difference on Insane between levels 5 and 6, they're both 12,0, while up to Ace, level 6 is 12,5. There is not a single advantage or disadvantage to upgrading from level 5 to level 6 on Insane. No idea in the world why Parallax would go with something like this, but oh well. In fact, it could be argued that it's even better to keep L4 lasers for energy efficiency, as every shot takes 0,49 energy points instead of 0,75 for level 5 and 6, which gives it much better damage per energy point.

In D1,5 I've modded the lasers back to their D1 values of 10, 11, 12 and 13 per bolt, and gave L5 and L6 the same increments, so every shot does 14 and 15 respectively. I've also increased projectile speed by the same increment of 5 per level, so the speed of these levels is now 135 and 140. I know this might feel OP, but it will be balanced by much less availability of Super Lasers than in Counterstrike/Vertigo. You'll likely be spending most of your time in-game with regular lasers.

There is actually a disadvantage on insane: IIRC Level 6's have a slower firing rate.

LightWolf wrote:There is actually a disadvantage on insane: IIRC Level 6's have a slower firing rate.

No. The "fire wait" parameter is constant for all difficulties. In the case of all laser levels it's 0.250.