Silly Descent Moments

[Avder]

Trainee = Very Easy
Rookie = Easy
Hotshot = Normal
Ace = Hard
Insane = Self Explanatory

When I run through the game casually, I always play Ace. Altho with my speedrunning, I may do my next runthrough as insane.

[Naphtha]

Trainee to Rookie is only a big step-up on Descent 2 if I recall, since I don't think things were dumbed down quite as much on Descent 1. But at any rate, if you can handle Rookie, Hotshot might not actually be too big of a step up aside from certain robots (mostly the missile-throwing ones, since their firing rate increase can be nasty for the inexperienced).


It took me a while to work up to Ace. When I was little, I struggled with each difficulty level one after another and eventually got up to Descent 1 Level 19 on Ace after tons of trouble (around this time the computer was upgraded to XP and my original copy of Descent stopped working), but I don't think I played Descent 2 above Rookie at the time. When I rediscovered the game on GOG.com, I basically ran right through each difficulty up to Ace in succession in order to readjust, and now that I was more coordinated things ran a bit more smoothly.

So Ace is now my typical challenge level. I do occasionally run Hotshot when I'm going blind on a new mission I've never heard of before, but that's more for Descent 2 because of the extra customizability. On a few Descent 1 mission,s I'm challenging myself to go up to Insane, and "First Strike" on Insane is an especially great nostalgia trip for me. I have as much trouble with it on Insane now at age 21 as I had on Trainee or Rookie when at age 5.

EDIT: Another tip I have might be to customize your controls so it's easier to hit the keys or buttons that usually go together. The game became a bit easier for me after I moved the sliding controls to D, R, G and V so it's possible to trichord using only the left hand.

[TheBenjaminStilton]

Well, when i play VGs, i normally do the easy mode to like, kinda sniff it's butt and get used to it.

[Alter-Fox]

That doesn't change the fact that the step from Very Easy to Easy isn't very big. It is a little bigger in D2 but still not very big -- because the robots still have horrible aim and their weapons still do very little damage. Even though the amount of shields and energy you get from boosts goes from 27 to 15.
It's a step forward though. But only a step. If you want to be competitive online, or if you want to build something that other players will find challenging, you should keep moving forward until you have a skill level closer to that competitive group or that target audience. It's immesurably easier to create something for a target audience when you're a part of that audience.

[TheBenjaminStilton]

Don't worry Alter, once i get used to Rookie; i'll be using Hotshot!

[AceCombat]

my silliest moment:

Fired a Mega and then a BShark one after another at close range...........

[roncli]

Was running D1 recently. Level 11, I'm down by the lava, see a room with a driller & a red hulk. I fire a missile, almost point blank, thinking it was a smart. Apparently I picked up a mega that I hadn't used yet. Boy was I mad.

[Krom]

I was playing in the 1v1 tourney at the Chicago LAN, it was the final match against Monkey, there were probably a dozen people standing behind the two of us observing, and at one point I lost about 80 of my shields by accidentally bouncing a mortar too many times in a narrow hallway... Oops.

[roncli]

Not my moment, but Sandmann was at a Houston LAN, playing someone 1v1 in Indika to 15 in the tournament. I don't remember if it was Nirvana or some ROX guy or who it was. They were high caliber though. It was close, each had somewhere around 11 or 12 points. Sandmann had just gotten a kill with a napalm down the hallway. He went to collect the spew, and... well, the napalm didn't go off on the server where it went off on his screen. He caught fire and died. I think he scored 1 point the rest of the game. He was HOT, and NOT because of the napalm...

[whodey]

End of secret level 1 on D1. Killed one of the supervisor bots by the exit after destroying the reactor. The sumbitch left behind 3 concussion platform robots. Needless to say, I didn't make it to the exit.

[Alter-Fox]

Yet one of them drops five extra lives or something crazy like that. And another drops a crapload of shields.
I just always have a mega handy in case I kill the wrong one.

[Naphtha]

I know the other secret levels do the same thing in D1, and the ones in Secret Level 2 instead drop Class 1 Drillers. Can't remember if the Secret Level 3 Supervisor trap spawns Heavy Drillers or Super Hulks, though...


How about the two Red Spiders in Level 13 which spawn more of themselves, or any time an IT Droid spawns more of itself in Vertigo?

[Alter-Fox]

Or that diamond claw in D2 level 15, which attacks you after you get the red key...
Or, the Fox Attack Bots in the level 7 reactor room; each of them drops two bots that are bigger than themselves.

[Krom]

Actually I remember a pretty funny descent moment I had happen once. I was playing the final level of D1, I had been using cloaks and invuls to make 15-20 second runs against the boss robot. My cloak was about to run out so I left the boss room while still cloaked and headed off to get another cloak and some additional ammo. About a minute later as I was grabbing some ammo, the self destruct sequence started, somehow the boss had managed to kill itself. I ended up laughing all the way to the exit.

[Xfing]

And you don't have to, if you play level 22 my way...

I'll see what I come up with when I get to that level with my speedruns. Unfortunately, level 9 of D1 is a real pain in the ass from a cold start on insane. Been stuck there for months now.

And it's only gonna get harder. Descent 1 was extremely imba when it comes to difficulty. I don't think any level of D2 until Puuma Sphere was as difficult as D1 level 6 for example (not counting the boss fights). The super hulk and driller spam of D1 was simply unreal... actually D2 got robot balance (or at least their placement in the levels) slightly better, I'd say. They are nowhere as intimidating as the D1 robots, but one of their strengths is that you'll often underestimate them and pay the price. D1 robots you didn't have to underestimate - they'd kill you anyway, but D2 robots would kill you slowly but methodically, leaving you room to put up a fight (which can't be said of 6 Super Hulks in a reactor room).

[LightWolf]

I suspect that I am reviving the topic again. I suspect that I am picking that up from NapthaTurisas (Or was it Alter-Fox?).

Anyways, one of my funny moments was in a custom level. The other was in a modified LOTW. The first one: I was fighting a horribly-placed ice boss, and died. I respawned, only to find my Gauss missing . In the other, I tried to pick up an energy star, and I didn't pick it up. Instead, I got the true message that my shields were full !

[Spidey]

I spent a few seconds fighting against myself the first time I encountered a mirror…

[mystery2018]

I remember once a long time ago when I was playing D1 level 4. Regularly this one was always one of the more forgetful levels. Anyway, in that room after the first open purpleish hallway, where you can see the room containing the red key from the grates there is that sort of box in the center with the two narrow windows. Well, I actually managed to get stuck in there somehow one time. No cheats or anything weird. And I couldn't get back out so I had to quit. Lol. Idk if this is ever supposed to happen.