Estimated Trophy Difficulty

[Valkirye22]

1 hour ago, BlakeTheDrake said:

9/10 sounds about right to me. This is one of those ‘keystone’ plats where a SINGLE thing is going to stop a lot of people from ever getting it, me included. Not some random bronze-trophy that’s just super hard in this case, but a single MISSION: 8492.

 

Seriously, FUCK that mission with a SAAM! Clearing it isn’t hard since you just have to run away, but fighting through it for the S-rank is nigh-impossible. I’m still not sure how I managed to do it on Normal, I’m about ready to give up on doing it on Hard even though I’ve already (easily) S-ranked everything ELSE there, and I HAVE completely given up on even TRYING it on Expert or Ace. So far, I’ve tried it on Hard something like 20 times with no luck. My previous successes on Normal - to score the S-rank there as well as lure out the named Ace for that mission - also inevitably took a dozen tries or so, and inevitably involved the Falken, a whole lotta luck, and me limping home with 90% damage or more.

 

And why the heck are people claiming that the Falken makes everything easy even on Ace, anyway? Sure, on MOST of the missions it’s a real game-breaker, and some that are otherwise really tough are made laughable by its power - like White Bird Pt.2. But it’s useless in 8492, since the designers apparently decided that there was no reason to fit their high-tech superfighter with a friggin’ GUIDANCE-SYSTEM for its main weapon! The moment you spend focusing on manually aiming your laser at the enemies is the moment their buddies ram half a dozen missiles up your tailpipe... though, of course, on Expert and Ace, ONE will do.

 

Not that trying to just dogfight it out with missiles, be it with the Falken or some other high-mobility Fighter, is any easier. Stabilize your craft for a microsecond to get a lock at an enemy’s rear, and the guy behind you blasts you away, boom. And there’s NEVER not a guy right behind you, ever. Doesn’t matter if you set your wingmen to Disperse or Cover or whatever, there’s still only two of them, and that’s not enough to keep the endless stream of bogeys off your tail. Slow way down to outturn them so that YOU can get behind THEM? Oh, their buddies further out just sent a SAAM your way, and you’re going way too slow to avoid it now, boom. The way the mission’s set up, each successive wave arrives just as you’re starting to whittle down the last one, instead of waiting for you to actually finish them OFF. You never get a moment to breathe, not a SECOND in which you can focus on attacking your enemies - you just dodge and dodge and dodge and dodge until eventually, inevitably, a missile manages to catch you despite all your aerobatics. Boom.

 

Somebody, earlier on, posted a strategy about outrunning the opposition to make them form a conga-line behind you, then spinning around to laser the lot of them. But how’s THAT supposed to work, exactly, when the Falken - for all its other stellar qualities - ISN’T a hypermach-fighter like the MiG-31M to similar? It’s barely any faster than the enemies you’re up against in 8492, so even going flat-out across the full length of the map isn’t enough to build up any significant lead - not enough to turn around and get a bead on them before they overfly you, anyway, and when they do so it’ll be along with the requisite dozen or so SAAM and regular missiles, forcing you to jink or die. Nor do they form a neat, easily-lasered line - they tend to wind up fairly spread-out, unless it’s that last formation of perfectly-coordinated Berkuts, perhaps. Might work on them - I wouldn’t know. Never managed to survive long enough to try it.

 

So yeah. Rest of the game? 5/10, maybe, if you abuse the Falken. Mission 18+? 11/10, estimated duration infinity. Guess that adds up to about a 9/10 overall difficulty.

I'm not a fan of "git gud" comments to situation like these, but this is mostly a matter of working on it for an hour and trying different strategies.

 

You can check my above reply about it in more detail but don't think of the FALKEN as a magic solution to all your problems (if you can't pull off two laser swipes to get rid of the first wave and the jammer). I have hundreds of hours on AC's and actually S ranked this on ACE with an F-22 after some 30-45 mins.

 

The enemies will circle you, in the beginning try to snipe a few but then you have to cut the distance between you, start a dogfight circle and focus on one at a time. Since you're on ACE always make sure you're making sufficient evasive maneuvers (you will be locked on 90% of the time) if you have a bad feeling about one - break off, find another target and refocus. Make sure you're third person and check your six. If your target is slowing down too much or flying to steady fire a few missiles and break away because they will shoot you down if you relax.

 

It's a tough mission but completely doable, take a break and jump back in - you'll feel great when you make it

 

Note: really, really don't think of the FALKEN as a magic goose. I didn't even unlock/find out about it until long way into the game back on PS2 without guides and internet F-22, SU-47, F-15MTD are all solid choices for this. Pick the one you feel most comfortable flying.

 

 

[SlyAceZeta]

8492 is certainly one of those missions. I don't blame you for having trouble with it, I balked when I first found out that you had to shoot them all down for the S rank. And yeah, the FALKEN really doesn't make that one that much easier because lining up the laser will open you up to attack. Multi-lock air-to-air missiles are far better choices. I wish you the utmost luck on this one.

[BlakeTheDrake]

Well, I finally DID manage to get through it on Hard - still using the Falken. If nothing else, the laser makes it easier to take out the ECM-planes, and sometimes you can luck out and catch a fighter or two with a sweep. Mostly, though, it has the single-highest mobility in the game... I’ve tried it with multi-lock-on missiles too, of course, but half the time the bogies still manage to dodge, and you run out of them FAST. In the end, it always comes down to pure dogfighting, so having lots of regular missiles and a ton of mobility just seems like the highest priority.

 

I’m a bit curious about the 3rd person suggestion, though - I always play in 1st person, despite liking the view from 3rd, since anything else will cause you to lose large sections of the HUD. Is there really an advantage to be had in switching to third? It’s not like the camera is far enough back to let you see bogies on your tail, unless they’re literally ramming their nosecones up your tailpipe...

 

I suppose part of my problem is that I’m too aggressive - eager to jump at any chance to get a clear shot, even if it’s risky. I just don’t have the patience to do loop-de-loops for ten minutes while waiting for that one golden moment to attack. Really, though, this IS a situation where ‘git gud’ is a perfectly valid comment - which is exactly the problem. There’s no trick to it, no special strategy you can use, no way to grind your way to an advantage since neither the Wyvern nor the Falken provide any particular edge here. It’s a pure test of raw twitch reflexes - a skill-wall. If you don’t HAVE that skill, everything beyond it is unattainable. It is also, undeniably, a massive difficulty-spike compared to the rest of the game. Which means that someone who enjoys flight-games but isn’t necessarily great at them will find that mission, and that mission alone, to be an insurmountable obstacle on the path to the Platinum...

 

Hence, my conclusion - the difficulty of this Platinum is defined by the difficulty of the mission ‘8492’. If you can S-rank that on Ace, nothing else in the game will trouble you in the slightest. If you can only just barely manage to push through it on Hard without tearing your own head off in sheer frustration... you aren’t getting the Plat, end of story. Which is where I’m at, obviously - I managed to obtain Silver Wing, at least, but I certainly haven’t changed my mind about giving up on the next two difficulty-levels. It’s a shame, really. I dipped my toe in Expert while finishing up the last of the plane-specific kill-grinding, and it seems like an interesting challenge - one I might have taken up if I hadn’t known that 8492 would be waiting further down that path...

[Valkirye22]

6 hours ago, BlakeTheDrake said:

Well, I finally DID manage to get through it on Hard - still using the Falken. If nothing else, the laser makes it easier to take out the ECM-planes, and sometimes you can luck out and catch a fighter or two with a sweep. Mostly, though, it has the single-highest mobility in the game... I’ve tried it with multi-lock-on missiles too, of course, but half the time the bogies still manage to dodge, and you run out of them FAST. In the end, it always comes down to pure dogfighting, so having lots of regular missiles and a ton of mobility just seems like the highest priority.

 

I’m a bit curious about the 3rd person suggestion, though - I always play in 1st person, despite liking the view from 3rd, since anything else will cause you to lose large sections of the HUD. Is there really an advantage to be had in switching to third? It’s not like the camera is far enough back to let you see bogies on your tail, unless they’re literally ramming their nosecones up your tailpipe...

 

I suppose part of my problem is that I’m too aggressive - eager to jump at any chance to get a clear shot, even if it’s risky. I just don’t have the patience to do loop-de-loops for ten minutes while waiting for that one golden moment to attack. Really, though, this IS a situation where ‘git gud’ is a perfectly valid comment - which is exactly the problem. There’s no trick to it, no special strategy you can use, no way to grind your way to an advantage since neither the Wyvern nor the Falken provide any particular edge here. It’s a pure test of raw twitch reflexes - a skill-wall. If you don’t HAVE that skill, everything beyond it is unattainable. It is also, undeniably, a massive difficulty-spike compared to the rest of the game. Which means that someone who enjoys flight-games but isn’t necessarily great at them will find that mission, and that mission alone, to be an insurmountable obstacle on the path to the Platinum...

 

Hence, my conclusion - the difficulty of this Platinum is defined by the difficulty of the mission ‘8492’. If you can S-rank that on Ace, nothing else in the game will trouble you in the slightest. If you can only just barely manage to push through it on Hard without tearing your own head off in sheer frustration... you aren’t getting the Plat, end of story. Which is where I’m at, obviously - I managed to obtain Silver Wing, at least, but I certainly haven’t changed my mind about giving up on the next two difficulty-levels. It’s a shame, really. I dipped my toe in Expert while finishing up the last of the plane-specific kill-grinding, and it seems like an interesting challenge - one I might have taken up if I hadn’t known that 8492 would be waiting further down that path...

As far as camera angles go I always fly cockpit view (not 1st person only having the altimeter on an empty screen).
However if you find that limiting on some ACE