DraQ
Arcane
An interesting POV, especially given how more skill is apparently less in this context - I didn't have much problems after restating the game and purposefully sucking more at missions.ScottishMartialArts said:People who complain about the difficulty in Homeworld 2 suck at video games.
If a mission auto-finishes (including all the resources being automatically collected) with you having almost no ships, not giving you opportunity to build any, then right at the beginning of the next one your fleet is steamrolled by humongous wall of frigates scaled to your crapload of resources, it's obviously all your fault.
Last missions had you flying around in a nigh-invincible spaceship and "BRINGING SAJUUK TO BEAR!!1", so no.Yeah scaling is a cheap mechanic, but in HW2's case it made for some truly large scale battles by the last few missions that took concentration and skill to win. Beating those last few missions was one of the most satisfying gaming experiences I've ever had, and the missions themselves were the only times I've ever thought epic truly deserves to be attached to a video game. You were outnumbered and outgunned by a large margin, making victory a true accomplishment.
Latter missions were actually fairly easy, after your fleet has stabilized and the danger of rape-by-scaling subsided.
Unless you somehow confused the games and think about HW1 and it's wave upon wave of capships throwing themselves at your mothership and disregarding defenders, then yes, that was epic and keeping the mothership from getting torn apart was quite a feat.
HW1 also had some scaling, the difference being that it was really unnoticeable unless you played the game more than once with wildly different skill - sort of like Morrowind's scaling compared to Oblivion's one.
HW2 did have some highlights - most of the ship design, and large part of it's general mechanics weren't bad, modules were spiffy, galactic core or dreadnaught docked in the remains of the progenitor ship made for some breathtaking sights, but balance (auto-harvesting, auto-ending plus scaling), creativity (LOL let's asspull missile platforms instantly recognizable T-MAT outtakes), and plot cohesion (if I didn't know better, I'd dismiss HW2's plot as particularly atrocious attempt at bad HW fanfic by someone evidently fapping to Silmarillion too much and feebleminded enough to allow even the most gaping plot-holes sneak up on him) were not it's strong points.