Trying to play allowing losses is horrible

[Bhruic]

Originally Posted by tiberiu

Seems you are getting quite angry, why? Try to calm down a bit.

I'm not the least bit angry, but thanks for your concern.

You are at best poor at logic and at worst a hypocrite. Proof?

Actually, I'm quite good at logic. Unfortunately, your argument boils down to "if you can do it, they must have intended for you to do it", which is a stupid argument. Again, one only point to such examples as the infinite runes/crystals/XP exploits available to realize that there are quite a few things you can do in the game that almost certainly weren't intended to be done in the game.

Regardless, this will be my last post to you, and you shall be added to my ignore list, as you are incapable of having a discussion without attempting personal attacks. Regardless of your physical age, you are extremely juvenille, and I'm wasting my time responding - which I shall now cease to do.

[abadjpyo]

i agree with bhruic, gunny highway, i imagine you were or are a marine? if you were infantry hoorah! buut, don't pull the war card in a pointless game forum! c'mon man! if you were a marine grunt you have nothing to prove. Alright back on topic, Bhruic or whatever, has made some cool bugfixes and been constructive in the community, while Tiberiu has been a great troll, you sound like such a smug, low self esteem loser who thinks he's smart because he plays a computer strategy game. I don't think i'm smart if I play this game, there are usually set tactics that everyone uses, not original to you or me, and even if there was an original tactic, it still doesn't mean you're smart so i think you're a loser for trying to sound like one, which shows you aren't. (inferiority complex). Now, people complain about the game being easy on impossible, well, don't use the exploits! YOU can make the game hard if you want by not using wanderer scrolls, artificer, mods, etc. Although the game's developers might (maybe) have had more success if the game was more balanced without cheat options. Anyways, no pedantic talks from my side, just a lil common sense ass chewing.

[gunnyhighway]

Originally Posted by abadjpyo

i agree with bhruic, gunny highway, i imagine you were or are a marine? if you were infantry hoorah! buut, don't pull the war card in a pointless game forum! c'mon man! if you were a marine grunt you have nothing to prove. Alright back on topic, Bhruic or whatever, has made some cool bugfixes and been constructive in the community, while Tiberiu has been a great troll, you sound like such a smug, low self esteem loser who thinks he's smart because he plays a computer strategy game. I don't think i'm smart if I play this game, there are usually set tactics that everyone uses, not original to you or me, and even if there was an original tactic, it still doesn't mean you're smart so i think you're a loser for trying to sound like one, which shows you aren't. (inferiority complex). Now, people complain about the game being easy on impossible, well, don't use the exploits! YOU can make the game hard if you want by not using wanderer scrolls, artificer, mods, etc. Although the game's developers might (maybe) have had more success if the game was more balanced without cheat options. Anyways, no pedantic talks from my side, just a lil common sense ass chewing.

Not pulling any marine card. What you learn in real life translates into the person you are, am I right? Sure its a video game I get that I enjoy it as such. My point was just to make it clear that strategy is using all your resources to solve a problem.

Strategy - Definition - A strategy is a plan of action designed to achieve a specific goal. Strategy is all about gaining (or being prepared to gain) a position of advantage over adversaries or best EXPLOITING emerging possibilities. As there is always an element of uncertainty about the future, strategy is more about a set of options ("strategic choices") than a fixed plan. It derives from the Greek "στρατηγία" (strategia), "office of general, command, generalship".[1]

And telling me what the game designers wanted when they created that spell is pure speculation. For all you know the developer had a hard time with the boss and came up with that strategy himself and said "wow this is a great idea" how do I know this? I can speculate too :]

Again I am over this conversation. Having this argument is like trying to speak to a liberal without punching him in the face.

[abadjpyo]

yo, so i know who i'm talking to, are you or were you a marine? and infantry? just curious, not arguing. Yeah man play how you want! i think most people would agree that balance is key in a good game, just the right difficulty level options! however, i think this game has fluctuating balances, like in the beginning it's kinda hard, for soothsayer it might be harder, if you use certain troops and stuff, the game can be very little challenge, etc. Personally, to me it's bad game design, i think most people enjoy a constant and fluid difficulty level with maybe a few spikes in between. I don't use rune mages for example, nor artificer cuz it takes the fun out for me and i bet most people without even knowing it have less fun too that way. I know what you mean by strategy and what not but since you're not a loser in arguments like tiberiu, i'll give you my opinion: if you want good strategy, play the game harder, that's why you're on impossible and you wanted a challenge, so that means try soothsayer, no rune mages, artificer, scrolls, etc. and there you will need to use better strategy if you want a challenge. Is this good in a game? no! it's because it was not well designed, you shouldn't have to gimp your character for challenge, in a good balanced game, you can min-max and still be challenged without it being impossible.

[gunnyhighway]

HMM 261 got out 2002

[abadjpyo]

alright bro, well it's good to talk to a brother, alpha 1/4 raiders. out 2004, who knows maybe i went in your helo at one point! hope you get the desired difficulty man.

[Razorflame]

Originally Posted by Bhruic

I'm not the least bit angry, but thanks for your concern.



Actually, I'm quite good at logic. Unfortunately, your argument boils down to "if you can do it, they must have intended for you to do it", which is a stupid argument. Again, one only point to such examples as the infinite runes/crystals/XP exploits available to realize that there are quite a few things you can do in the game that almost certainly weren't intended to be done in the game.

Regardless, this will be my last post to you, and you shall be added to my ignore list, as you are incapable of having a discussion without attempting personal attacks. Regardless of your physical age, you are extremely juvenille, and I'm wasting my time responding - which I shall now cease to do.

well you have to admit that even without cheats/exploits the game is still to easy

just a simple comparison

in TL: AP I really had fun on impossible cause it felt challenging even if u already won the game and stuff or want to try a different character

but in wotn it's just about killing massive undead stacks and then some small continents of other stuff

but by that time you will have such a impressive army/skill/spell choice
that later islands just don't matter
IN TL and AP i think the islands were better constructed in terms of difficulty

in wotn you mainly have to kill undead stacks which tend to be very tedious after a while and boring it really doesn't give u a feeling that your progressing

[Bhruic]

Originally Posted by Razorflame

well you have to admit that even without cheats/exploits the game is still to easy

My take on it is that they gave us too many tools, and too many ways to exploit those tools when it comes to resurrecting units. There are very few fights that I've done where I haven't lost a single unit. Mainly that's only happened on the Freedom Islands, and that's because I didn't figure out how to get there until after Demonis.

So most fights involve losses. It's much too easy to regain all those losses with units such as Paladins and Inquisitors, especially when mixed with Rune Mages. If there were no way for units to resurrect units, and there were no way to gain effectively infinite mana, most fights would involve some losses.

That doesn't really address the question of how difficult the game is, but a lot of the perception of difficulty comes from unit loss.

The other side of the equation is how to determine how difficult something should be. Take the Spider Boss, for example. Lots of people had trouble even beating it, let alone doing so with no-loss. And because of that, the perception came into play (before ways of exploiting the fight, and before the discovery of Trolls) that the fight was "too hard". Trying to find a middle ground is difficult when people have different expectations of what they consider "hard".

tl;dr version - a lot fewer ways to resurrect units would go a long way to making the game seem harder, but could make it more tedious.

[Zechnophobe]

I don't really think resurrection is the issue. A big part of the 'easiness' of the game is that the areas don't escalate well. Consider that at each breakpoint (Island 1, island 4, post Demonis) you have a 'gate' that prevents you from going further. Up until that gate you have a certain strength of enemies, roughly scaled by zone. Demonis has larger stacks than Greenwort.

The problem is that these stack sizes are not making a very good curve. All the armies pre-demonis are TINY in comparison to Demonis. You can clear out that entire area with basically no problem once you get some levels, because the fights aren't scaling with you.

Or think of it like this: Let's say it takes 5 level 10 fights to get to level 11. Or, 5 fights of a specific level to get to the next level. There are like 200 level 30 fights to 35 fights! Then none of levels 36 to 43, and then some at level 44 onward. You basically have to fight these 'easy' lower level fights for a long time before you are given any challenge again.

Afterall, I don't think anyone will really call the first four islands too easy. It's just that there are gigantic stretches of the game that aren't particularly hard because the enemies aren't getting larger.

[Bhruic]

I'd have to disagree. When I first got to Greenwort, the fights were generally fairly difficult. The same was true when I moved to Arlania and Verlon Wasteland. I didn't have any losses, thanks to resurrection exploits, but I often had a few rounds of resurrecting at the end of each fight indicating I'd lost quite a few units. Certainly, I wouldn't say I was in danger of actually losing any of those fights, but I wasn't simply steamrolling the enemy.

The fights in Demonis were substantially harder, but I hadn't figured out how to get to the Freedom Isles, so hadn't got all the XP from the fights there. When I finally got there, yes, all the fights were quite easy, but I'd over-leveled them by doing the Demonis/Hades stuff. Had I done those in the reverse direction, I suspect the former would have been easier, and the latter harder. I suppose I should include Merlassar in there, as it was mixed in with the Greenwort/Arlania/Verlon stuff.

I suppose part of the issue is the very mobility that implies. You have a lot more areas to work with at that point in the game, so you aren't forced into fights you might not win. This, of course, is especially compounded by the ability to fly - giving you the ability to skip any fight you don't want to fight. So you end up in a situation where you've got superior resurrecting troops, with large amounts of fights to choose from, in a situation where you aren't roadblocked for quite some time. That definitely is going to give the impression of being significantly easier.