John, as always, I'm impressed that you managed to beat the clock at all - 1/6 ain't bad. I've come close, but it's always a matter of luck and I think that close call was 1/12 if not even worse. The only possible strategy seems to be to dodge and run every time you find the way cloged by enemies, switching from one side to the map to the other in succession - running is faster than fighting. Still, I tend to find myself trapped quite often.
Regarding Hairy Legs, of course it's more difficult on TC, but beating the clock is not really more difficult. There are very few places where the monsters clog the players movement completely and the player has ample ammo to blast anything that gets in the way. Just as with Moontanning, the key is dodging monsters. The player probably won't succeed the first time around, but generally can after that. That *should* be the case with Moontanning. You want the player to fail with perhaps 80% probability the first time through and to succeed with nearly 100% probability the second time - with perhaps a few retries. What we're saying here is that Moontanning isn't even close on TC. Balancing all levels of difficult is tough. My thought on this would be to make the monsters more likely to fight each other on this level at higher difficult levels - perhaps through altered physics or placement - so that the monsters are more likely to be occupied with each other and less with the player. As things stand now, all the monsters on the level ultimately catch up with the player no matter where they are.
: As for beating the clock on TC....whoa!! Hmmm.....well, I agree with
: everything Steve said. It's probably doable. However, it's going to be
: alot like vidding Acme Station. It isn't going to take as much skill, as
: it will incredible timing and A LOT OF LUCK. There isn't alot of ammo or
: weapons. Plus these enemies are too unpredictable in their movements
: throughout the level. I tried 6 times or so to beat the clock. Only one
: time did I make it all the way to the term. The other times I had too many
: enemies clogging up certain intersections. Forrest, I think you have to
: decide whether you want there to be a reasonable chance for the player to
: beat the clock or not on TC and perhaps Major Damage. Steve, refresh my
: memory if I am wrong, but isn't it much easier to "beat the
: clock" in Rubicon's "Hairy Legs" on the easier difficulty
: settings than on TC? I wouldn't expect anything less in G3 and I would
: expect it to be very tough to beat the clock on TC. At the same time if I
: recall, there IS a fairly reasonable chance of success in "Hairy
: Legs" when playing on TC. Since Steve has beat the clock in G3 on
: Normal setting, it seems only right that it be reasonably possible on TC.
: After trying this for 6 times or so, it seems that the main thing that
: makes it tough to beat the clock is that the enemies have too much
: "freedom" to roam the level. There isn't enough time to fight
: all the enemies. You have to dodge some of them. Unfortunately since the
: early Troopers and Hunters seem to have a lot of freedom to move around,
: they tend to clog up important junctions, forcing the player to fight or
: die. It might make beating the clock more of a possibility if Forrest
: could control the range of the enemies with clever placement of
: "monster impassable" polys. That would be my first suggestion. I
: realize that might not be enough. But it would have the least impact on
: the spirit of the level.
