Play hard

October 27, 2022

It has been a couple of days that I have set the difficulty of the game almost to maximum (see attached image). I am amazed at the effect.
Previously I had kept the "Normal" setting for a long time, but I was not satisfied: too much difficulty for the player and too many advantages for the enemy AI. Especially the latter proved too often with superior skills (teamwork, shooting accuracy, aircraft performance) to those of squadron mates.
I then tried to bring the difficulties to a minimum (check marks on almost all the boxes of Realism) getting only an even worse gap between friendly and enemy AI.
And here I have arrived at (almost) maximum Realism. Result: enemy AI as it should be and squadron mates finally efficient (I can't describe what I felt when I saw an enemy fighter on fire at the first fight, shot down by one of mine! For almost two years of strictly singleplayer game, I always have them seen pirouetting in meaningless maneuvers in sight of the enemy, forcing myself to try, alone, to take down all the enemies!). At the end of the mission I return to base with little or no loss, instead of being all or almost all killed like flies!
Forgive me if I am reinventing the wheel; for older players this will probably be second nature, but I thought I'd share it for someone who could benefit from it (as a gaming pleasure). Among other things, I like to tinker with levers and buttons and, although more challenging (I always finish the game sweaty), it also allows me a better historical knowledge of the single piloted aircraft.