I've recently tried out Master mode, which was added in the latest patch, and I must say: I'm impressed.
No, like: I'm REALLY impressed.
This is EXACTLY what shooters need to be doing with their AI. I've played a LOT of shooters. I love a great open-world game. I beat Far Cry 3 and was impressed with the gameplay and mechanics. Everything runs very smoothly, and the island is beautiful and full of life.
But with Master mode on, it becomes an ever-loving warzone. Constantly, I can hear gunshots in the distance, signaling some kind of disturbance or other as I sneak, drive, and swim my way around the island for the first time in months, this time taking out all of the 1st island's Radio Towers first, just to get a feel for the supposedly new AI, enhanced wildlife, and harder difficulty. At first, I feared the worst. The usual problems with increasing difficulty came to mind: Insane health-levels, grenade spamming, needing to double, sometimes even triple-headshot people just to kill them, or a sudden decrease in player health to the point where it had become unreasonable.
I found none of these problems as I traversed the island. Tigers were appropriately harder to kill, and often sneaked up on my unaware *** from behind. Komodo dragons tore through pirates and civilians alike. Dogs and dingoes attacked me from multiple directions at once. And that was just the wildlife! The enemy AND (Oh, thank you Ubi. This is the best part) the FRIENDLY AI were improved, fighting more effectively from behind cover, dodging when they could, and actually TRYING to outflank each other and myself and ruin my day. They weren't omniscient, I could still lose them in the jungle, but they were smarter. A lot smarter. I didn't see them grenade-ing themselves by accident constantly. They made REASONABLE pursuit in vehicles (Thankfully there was no "Turbo" boost that made it impossible to lose pirate AI like there was in Far Cry 2. Seriously. Fix that, and I'll go back and play it again, maybe even buy the DLC.). I felt like a freaking special ops commando as I crashed through the jungle, taking pot-shots when I could, and then retreating back around to try it again. When I died, I felt it was warranted, because I had probably done something stupid tactically. The new mode forces me to think about my approach on even TWO guys, because there's no telling when another patrol might be rolling by (Again, thankfully it's nearly random. A patrol doesn't ALWAYS come to help, and it's never in the exact same quantity or quality, so it's a real grab-bag of combat)! Sheer awesome!
My character, best of all, is as effective as ever, so long as I use my HEAD. I now have a reason to try all those different take-downs, tactics, and abilities in as creative as possible ways. Heck, body-armor now has a use. I feel like the game is LEGITIMATELY trying to kill me, but that it isn't CHEATING me when it does. I thought it would never happen, but I am now 100% satisfied with the single-player mechanics of this game!
There's only only one thing I can wish for now. Maybe two, though they go hand in hand:
1) Make another campaign for this game. I would pay half-price for another extensive, complete, character-driven campaign. I don't mean the hack-job narrative of the original. I mean: Bring in some writers, and get a good story and some interesting sub-quests going on. Maybe add in some extra vehicles, features, and set-pieces. This game, this engine has SO much potential. The Take-Down system and mechanics behind the game are SO well polished. It would be a SHAME not to capitalize on this with a growing amount of single-player DLC.
(Note on Multiplayer: No one really cares for the multiplayer in this game. It's just not gonna happen, guys. You can't market it against games like CoD, Battlefield, etc. You just can't! Stick to what the players want, and you'll likely find that we'll BUY more if we get more of what we want, and what we WANT is Single Player DLC! Not Co-Op, not Multiplayer crud. Single. Player. DLC. I will PAY for a proper, thought-out campaign. No lies.)
2) Use this game formula for a whole NEW game! One that's just as open-world, but maybe in a full city environment, or a more ruin-filled fantastic island. You could make a MASTERFUL, open-world, Indiana Jones style game with a unique character and story, easy! I would love to go temple-raiding, avoiding traps and supernatural creatures (as long as they're not too ridiculous), all in first person while fighting off some kind of pirate raiding band or super-conglomerate mega-corporation that's bent on taking over the world or something. Get shmaltzy with it, but charmingly so!
All that said: This is absolutely amazing! The game was GREAT before, and now it's PERFECT (Except for some scripted sequence stuff, but hey.)! The only reason I don't hand out more praise on this one is because I want to play more Master Mode Far Cry 3, and this is cutting into my time!
Keep it steady!
-mec34
PS: For the sake of this qualifying as thread-material, here's a question: ARE Y'ALL AS PSYCHED AS I AM ABOUT THIS?
I didn't try a new start, I just reset the pirate camps and increased the level to Master. Frankly I did not see much difference. Maybe I need to start over.Originally Posted by mec-34 Go to original post
Been looking on the web too see the changes master diff. would make.... i like you said feared just a simple increase in health and the other stuff but what your saying really makes me feel pre ordering and buying far cry 3 was a fine purchase indeed.... specially after them adding hud options and outpost reset !
Ubi keep supporting your games like this !
Thanks !
As somebody who hasn't bought the game there are things about this master difficulty that I need to know (it'll affect whether or not I buy the game.)
First of all, can you select it for your first playthrough?
Does the difficulty remove things like the minimap, flashing everything and (worst offender by far) the wallhack/x-ray mode?
Is time of day relevant again like in FC2?
Do you still get free weapons forever by climbing those radio towers or does it make money useful?
If you don't use the camera then you won't get the x-ray wall hack if you turn off the options in game to highlight the enemies while looking through scope. basically all you need to do is mod the game for the flashing BS and to remove the hud. Yeah I think you can set it to master first run through.
That's the spirit Flammable man ! Go hardcore from the startOriginally Posted by Flammablezeus Go to original post![]()