On October 28 2010 22:44 Zapperkhan wrote: Is grinding hardcore? Most listed are grinds. Seem more like endurance tests. Maybe I've had the hardcore definition wrong, but I always thought it was like a knowledge and skill based metric. Since we have a lot of WoW refugees, the first 100 or so kills on a boss can be considered hardcore. This is kinda a case by case basis, but following a faq and turning in rep doesn't seem too "hardcore". Or another way putting restrictions on yourself is pretty hardcore. Stuff like the achievements that required you to use a tier less of gear and complete the raid. Pre nerf 0 lights required amazing execution and unfortunately a lil luck. That's hardcore to me anyway.
Well the fact that you need a little luck didn't really bother me (I didn't get the achievement just FYI), because after a few hundred tries you must've been at least a little lucky.
Also I think that grinding and skill are two different ways of being hardcore. You must be kinda hardcore to be able to farm rep 8 hours a day in WoW for weeks, likewise in Starcraft 2 or any other game.
On October 28 2010 22:44 Zapperkhan wrote: Is grinding hardcore? Most listed are grinds. Seem more like endurance tests. Maybe I've had the hardcore definition wrong, but I always thought it was like a knowledge and skill based metric. Since we have a lot of WoW refugees, the first 100 or so kills on a boss can be considered hardcore. This is kinda a case by case basis, but following a faq and turning in rep doesn't seem too "hardcore". Or another way putting restrictions on yourself is pretty hardcore. Stuff like the achievements that required you to use a tier less of gear and complete the raid. Pre nerf 0 lights required amazing execution and unfortunately a lil luck. That's hardcore to me anyway.
I consider hardcore pretty much anything that takes a retarded amount of time to complete for the sake of completion
Be it skill, pure grind, or just obscene luck if it's completed I find it hard core.
25968 random encounters over the course of 200+ days for a differently colored flaming horse is hardcore gaming no matter your definition >.>
To each their own and all but if you spend 80+ hours on a game a week for several weeks you are spending an average of 12 hours or more a DAY on said game...
You should differentiate a few categories of hardcore: Skill & strategy- can be done quickly by the pro-est of gamers but not in a million years by others Grinds- Possibly hard to do, but mostly just really long Team- Can be grindy (win 200 times in a row) or difficult in terms of synergy (WoW world firsts) but relies far more on getting people to cooperate than individual skill, though individual skill is required of all members.
As far as skill/strategy goes, I'd say check out some of the bullet-hell shooters, Touhou, Dodonpachi, even Ikaruga. Getting through those without taking damage or using bombs is typically an exercise in memorization and reflexes...
Beating mass effect 2 on insane without changing the difficulty once is pretty hard, but like anything with saves its just a matter of sinking enough time into it
getting to lvl 99 in diablo 2 classic hardcore post 1.1x - without using any hacks or bots. requires about 132k chaos sanctuary runs which each last about 1 minute at least, and that´s only if u find 7 other good guys who know what they are doing. this corresponds to about 200 days of playing perfect cs runs for 16 hours a day. without dying ofc.
beating the ancient cave in lufia 2: rise of the sinistrals on the SNES with only tia. (impossible if we define "beat" as either killing all the monsters on the way down or making it to the last lvl no matter how, but in this case beating the ancient jelly.)
Obtain the Lord of Combo title in the PSP rhythm game DJ Max Portable 2. I have been playing the game for almost 2 years now and I am nowhere near completing this. I think only 3-4 people in the world have been known to have this title.
Lord of Combo means having to finish all 70 missions and obtaining a combo of 999,999 in freestyle mode. The last 3-4 missions are a nightmare on the thumbs, especially one mission where getting one 1% will lose the mission. Breaking a note is easy (just don't press the button natch), but not getting a 1% is ridiculously hard.
On October 28 2010 16:48 RedTerror wrote: Getting grandmaster in Vanilla wow
This actually depended on your server.
Yeah, definitely. When I played wow, I got to rank 12 really easily, and rank 14 was totally achievable with reasonably humane play time. On my server there were like 15/85 distribution of horde/alliance, which meant for us horde players we had zero wait time between matches. On the alliance side of the server they had like 30++min queue. There were also maybe 1-2 good teams there, but vast majority of matches for us were 5 minute long total rape noobstomps. I didn't end up getting the rank though because one night I literally decided I would never play that piece of crap game ever again. And I didn't.
Oh yeah and more Final Fantasy stuff. I wonder how I know this stuff because I have never actually played a single Final Fantasy game. But getting this uber sword on PAL system seems pretty hardcore:
The only way the player can obtain the Excalibur II is to make it to the game's final dungeon, Memoria, without exceeding 12 hours of playtime.
it has been named officially impossible for the PAL release due to a combination of issues, most notably the 50/60 Hz frame rate conflict; because the PAL game runs at 50 Hz and the NTSC at 60 Hz, but the game clock runs at the same speed in both, it is simply possible to get more done in the 12 hours on NTSC.
potentially it is possible to reset the game clock to allow a player to gain the Excalibur II again if missed the first time by allowing the game clock to make 256 revolutions of 100 hours. However this practically, means almost the equivalent of three years' gameplay
Sup.
Just to clear this up, you have your information skewed. It is definitely possible to get the Excalibur II on a PAL system, what you cannot really do is the Perfect Game (which is what I did). The perfect game requires you to get every single item in the game in perfect amounts and so on. You must get every bit of treasure, every shop item, key item, spell mastered etc. Many areas of the game become inaccessible at a certain point as do treasures and so on, so you must find the items the first time through or possibly backtrack later. You also have to get perfect (or very high) scores on various mini games and max all stats. Maxing stats in FFIX requires certain items while you level up, so you must do nearly all of the run with eight level one characters When you get to Excalibur II you will have six level one characters and two higher levels due to forced EXP gain. To do all this and get to Excalibur II in time and due to PAL version having a faster clock than the game runs at, is seemingly impossible on a PAL version.
There are moments in the game where you must race Hippaul for about 25 minutes only button mashing to win and one section where you have to run 4/5 screens through the highest encounter rate section in the game, for one elixir.
While this run is pretty hardcore and requires a lot of patience and deep understanding of the game, there is an incredible FAQ on gamefaqs on how to run a Perfect Game. I would give the hardcore achievement to that guy and the people who did it without a guide. (I at least 95% following so it was just a case of patience and time for me).
I say speed runs are hardcore achievements but they're not set by the game. For the ultimate grind achievement it is claimed that there is a hidden achievement in Just Cause 2 that requires you to drive (a car that is, no planes or anything) equal distance to going to the moon and back.
I think we need to differentiate between HARD and Time consuming Some of those achievements can be done by simply throwing lots of time into it. Some, however, require helluvalot of skill.
On October 30 2010 00:51 Flicky wrote: There are moments in the game where you must race Hippaul for about 25 minutes only button mashing to win and one section where you have to run 4/5 screens through the highest encounter rate section in the game, for one elixir.
Hippaul is an evil bastard. If I used game sharks I would find a way to make him killable and then kill his cheating ass. Friend and I spent spent a few hours sharing button mashing duties way back when, even going as far as one of us on each button (not sure if an uneven button rhythm hurts or not) and I think we only got to around the mid 70s, maybe 80.
On October 28 2010 16:10 CharlieMurphy wrote: A few years ago I didn't have internet at home and I did 99% of everything you can possibly do in GTA3 and the only thing I never completed was the Ambulance missions.
The siren is a trap, don't use it. It just makes cars swerve into your path more often than it clears a path for you. I found it easier to just drive around traffic/between. Never brake while turning. Use the hand brake and normal brake at the same time to stop/slow while going in a straight line, then turn (as yes, it's super easy to flip those things - I once tried it with the ingame perfect handling cheat turned on and it felt really weird turning the ambulance on a dime, heh).
As you noted, you take a shit ton of damage getting through all twelve levels even when you're really careful, so going slow to get around shit is generally the better option. Or rather, not flooring it and going so fast that you can't react quick enough to avoid a crash. I generally paused at the beginning of each new level (bet most people do as well) and tried to plan out the groups of three I was going to pick up. Last thing you wanna do is leave a single guy really far from the hospital. Lastly, be sure to run over the assholes after you drop them off at the hospital. It'll make you feel better.
I kinda enjoyed those type of side missions in GTA, which is part of why I don't like GTAIV - almost all the side stuff is gone. I think I flew around in San Andreas for 2+ hours once doing Vigilante in the helicopter. Had a time buffer of like 10 minutes at one point. I had to land once or twice outside a fast food place because my character got hungry, ate all my fat, all my muscle, and I was starting to lose health. XD Unfortunately, I randomly entered some push button weather cheat while flying my helicopter, as the file was cheatless otherwise. Oh well.
On a general tangent, I do agree about skill based achievements. They generally feel more rewarding. I'm playing through Prototype currently (great game, lot of small details are nicely done) and some of the side missions/events that are in the game have a mild amount of challenge to get the highest medal on them. Getting a Platinum trophy in it (PS3) will feel far more rewarding than in many other games (such as someone on my friend list that has a Plat from a Hannah Montana game - for shame).
There's definitely a difference in achievements that rely on you doing something, and ones that require other people to not screw up at the same time (200 win streak in a multiplayer game is just sadistic).
EPT
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