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Challenge 4 seems to be ridiculously luck-based. Whether I'm manually controlling both sword and shield, or just locking onto the dragon with the shield, and manually controlling the sword, the dragon ignores the shield about a good 1/2 of the time, and immediately nails the sword as soon as it's within firing range. I get the point of the exercise, but it's executed in such a manner that the real lesson here is that the AI is so abysmal that what could be a good game is merely playable, and not even that at times.
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This game is so freaking frustrating. I can't do the stupid challenges because I can't get the terrible AI to do what I want it to.
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Ugh, terrible game. The AI is not smart enough to do anything strategic so you have to constantly tell every bot exactly what to do, the bots react way too slowly, no hold command, and you cant tell the bots who to shoot, making it INCREDIBlY frustrating and not very strategic. Also, when stuff gets more expensive, the weight should go down, not up.
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1/5 from me.
Fix the game. Every challenge was based on luck and very little skill what-so-ever. If your definition for the word "Challenge," is
that every little thing about your bots is AI controlled, EXCEPT moving to a certain spot, then you really need to rethink things. Career badges can stay, but unless you fix the challenges, then that one should be removed, thrown in a pit of burning lava, then have the ashes buried somewhere where they'll never be found.
Nice idea, but poorly executed.
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as the majority seem to be saying. nice game... just a shame the challenges are built around the most unreliable aspect of it.
With no 'hold position' command or direct control, certain missions are extremely infuriating.
I quite enjoyed the mission aspect of the game - indeed, little skill was needed in it, purely a grind and buy style but the focus on the robot controls has tainted this to a large extent
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Love the campaign mode, hate the challenges. I'm just going to ignore the challenges badge because it sucks. The badge has nothing to do with the quality of the game. 5/5.
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I try not to complain about the difficulty of badges and games but when the very mechanics of the game make it more random and luck than having anything to do with the skill of the player it just gets riduculous.
Out of curiosity, for those who have beaten challenge 4 - can you do it again on a consistent basis? If not, then too much luck is involved.
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If these bots have Artificial Intelligence, they should know a few basic things:
1) If an ally is between your weapon and an enemy, don't fire!
2) Your weapon functions independantly of your wheels!
3) If I tell you to "Follow enemy X", then chances are I also want you to concentrate your firepower on enemy X!
I should also be able to tell my bots to stay in one position, or to fire at a specific enemy whenever possible. I'm sorry, but this is unacceptable.
2/5
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It would help if the AI actually attacked bots that you use for "distraction". My shield bot was ignored even when it was the only bot there.
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Challenge 4 is hard, no doubt about it. The easiest strategy i found was:
before the battle starts, have shield follow opponent, and have sword move to bottom area.
stay out of range of the opponent until it begins shooting at the shield, then move in range, but not closer than the shield. It will take practice and you will need to move in and out as the opponent moves around.
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Naybe if your shield wasn't hugging the DRAGON bot, you wouldn't be having that problem. As soon as the SHIELD hugs the DRAGON, it leaves the DRAGON's range, let it waylay your SWORD. Solution? Always keep the SHIELD locked onto DRAGON and when DRAGON hits the walls, steer SWORD AWAY from the battle.
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Challenge 4 is nearly impossible. As soon as your sword is in range of the dragon, it turns it attention away from the shield. I see what they are trying to accomplish, but it's just luck because the controls are so unpredictable.
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I rated this game 5/5 before because of career.
I don't cockiness, in people or games. If some game rubs in my face the fact that I have no control of the stupid bot, then that game is STUPID. I just played the challenges. The challenges alone make this game complete crap!
1/5
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Challenges are unnecessarily hard, AI is terrible, controlling the bots is unnatural and for the most part useless. Career mode is fun, but is very frustrating when your bots don't cooperate.
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Distraction is really really irritating - mainly from control issues. The bots seem to default to wander mode if you click to move them somewhere meaning when you move the other one, the first one will either wander off or close with the dragon. It isn't so much the AI of the opponent I have a problem with. Rather it is the AI on your side that continually runs counter to your commands.
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I really enjoyed the career. Pretty easy since there was really no way to lose (you could always go back and replay the easiest levels to rebuild your cash reserve) but it took some stratetgy (mostly just picking one enemy to destroy). I cannot say anything good about challenge mode--needlessly hard and chancy and the objectives are sometimes unclear.
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finally finished challenge 4.. took like 100 tries.. and i totally agree with all the comments.. needs a quit button.. and AI is quite terrible otherwise would've been a great game
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Have to agree with many people here - career mode was fun and challenging in a good way, challenge mode took all the fun out of the game and was needlessly difficult.
Love the idea of the game and most of the implementation :)
if you make a sequel PLEASE add a quit button to the challenges - nothing more annoying than sitting there attempting to make 'shield' suicide for the hundredth time in a row.
And the controls really need sorting - they're fine for very basic tasks, but the complex strategy required for some of the challenges turns it into a game of luck.
4/5 career mode, 1/5 challenge mode... 2/5 overall! Sorry if that seems harsh but it was just too frustrating not to penalise!
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The game itself isn't really bad at all. The challenges should not have been created at all imho. It's too dependent on luck due to the not-so-friendly mouse-only controls. So rather than "challenge", it's more like "test your luck"... I'm still stuck with challenge 4. Sigh, here we go again.
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Todd, click on the weapon so that it is highlighted. Then click on the bot so that it is highlighted. Then click the Mount button. The tricky part is that after clicking Mount, the bot isn't highlighted anymore and you have to click on it again to re-highlight it.
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This was a fun game for the first 15 minutes, and it would been more fun if it would have a better AI, better controls, an "I quit" -button in matches and a possibility to choose the target who to attack, not just so that the bots attack the nearest target.
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JoHnNo and SirDodger: can you repeat level 4? Or, if you're really feeling generous, make a video of how you did it? The rest of us would love to see that. (The problem is not what the dragon will do, it's what your bots will do. Namely, half the time they move in the opposite direction you want them to move. And, you have to micromanage sword constantly, because by default it heads towards the dragon.)
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The dragon is hard, but the AI is perfectly predictable. He shoots at the closest target which is outside of his minimum range. If you've been telling your shield to get in close, then the dragon won't be able to hit it, and will switch the the closest legal target: the sword. ** If you don't understand the AI of the game, then I can understand not liking it. There really isn't much more than customizing your robots and learning to game the computer AI. Personally, I loved it. My favorite was sending a heavily armored decoy in and sneaking up behind with a jackhammer bot.
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Oh, and another idea for manual control, with a bot selected, arrow keys for movement... pressing an arrow the first time would take full manual control (so if you're not holding an arrow, it is at full-stop, rather than hyper "gotta always move" mode), mouse-click a command releases it.
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Pretty game, nice concept, but I've got to give it a 2 for being so frustrating. What's needed: 1) A Give-up button, so that once you have effectively lost the fight, you don't have to waste time waiting for the opponent to kill what's left. 2) Better AI... mostly let them STOP... it's frustrating to watch a bot move away, then outside range, then make a big circle, when they can stop at optimum, and get shots in for a while. 3) Better manual control. Perhaps number the bots based on starting position, then use those numbers to select a bot, and with a bot selected, you just have to click in the arena to issue the move command. IE challenge 4 would be something like this, "1, click, 2, click, 1, click, 2, click, etc". Even better if a double-click makes them stop at their destination. 4) Would be nice if they'd run backwards, like nearly every present-day battle bot around. The way they can spin in place shows their tracks/wheels are capable of it.
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Just my two cents: add a give up button, or, if your last bot is without a weapon (whether a distractor with no weapon or a healer) make it give up automatically, and please make the ai not make me want to rip my hair out
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Control is THE most important part of any game, otherwise you have an interactive story. The unresponsive AI in this game means when you give directions to your robots, it is optional that they follow it. Would that work in Mario - maybe he jumps, maybe he doesn't? Sorry, but without accuracy of control, all the pretty graphics, cool sounds, and neat effects just don't matter. 1/5
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Not sure quite how this game is ranked so highly... I thought the career was very easy, as I was able to pass through with very few repetitions and minimal tactics beyond ganging up. The challenges were just downright annoying... the concept is workable, I was just surprised to be so disappointed.
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Challenge 4 passed! Finally! Incredibly lame. I am never playing this game again! The right way to solve it is the way phore_eyes describes in the forum thread: have the shield follow the sword, and circle the sword around like in evasion and range.