Map Kiting in KB:AP or KB 2

[travelingoz]

Thinking more on Ironman; I think a Warrior would be too easy while a Paladin may be difficult on either hard or impossible at the start, once you get Res 3 however, it would become quite easy. Maybe a Mage on hard would be a sufficient challenge. I'd like to see if it could be done on impossible though!

Perhaps a mod could be done so that you can't exit a battle once it's started and the game itself will only save on exit from the adventure map?

[blueshrike]

Originally Posted by DGDobrev

Well... I would share my thoughts as a person who knows the game mechanics well, tried it on all difficulties, and even got a no-loss win on impossible with a mage.

You are very respected here and your contributions have been great for everyone including me!

Reloads penalty will hurt everyone seriously. There are people who struggle even on lower difficulties and replay some battles 10 times. Imagine what kind of score they will get in the end.

With due respect, I don't think anyone but the hardcore players (mostly us) who care about comparing scores would be affected - and then only in a positive, skill-based manner - by the proposed score calculation changes. These tweaks might simply provide a more accurate basis for a score regardless of player level, casual or hardcore. Scores could still be compared.

As for kiting guards, that has been discussed. Approach from 90 degrees, if the enemy moves, pause and quicksave. It is both a tool and last resort option. Let us not forget that this is an option to make a diverse game - otherwise every replay will be the same, with the same units, the same way. If you feel like this is improper, simply don't do it

Completely agree, however I think you maybe missed my point here. I wasn't suggesting they take out this functionality at all. As I wrote, there is a design flaw or bug, whether intentional or not and I am certainly not for eliminating the ability to be able to explore new areas before one is ready. In fact, the challenge is already quite sufficient for me and we agree that the game variety is much improved when you have the ability to recruit more creatures and find more spells.

That post also makes me fall back to a statement I made some time ago: people really enjoy finding bugs and game discrepancies rather than analyzing the game, seeing what and when can be done, adapt their game strategy. Why taking away obvious paths of advancement? Why make the game completely based on human units, when you can start with demons, elves, dwarves, lizards, orcs or undead? That would seriously hurt the replayability, don't you think?

Again, I'm not suggesting they change the ability to get to new islands before you're ready - so I think you missed my point. Yes, I agree it would hurt replayability. However I didn't make the guards the way they are, and believe that something (a minor tweak) should be done to address this - and that continuously reloading is *not* the best option. It works but if something that many find necessary requires hours of reloading just to kite map guards... there is a better way.

If there is an ironman mode, I will enjoy it, personally. However, the game is fun and fine as it is - it is much more challenging than KBTL, and requires much more strategic thinking.

An ironman mode and the tweaks that were suggested do not have to be mutually exclusive and this would be very welcome. The proposed tweaks *will* make your score lower, but all scores would be more relative to player skill than they are now, but with still a little bit of luck, as always. That's all that's being proposed at this point.

Final note: as a designer myself, the guards are there for a reason, obviously. It's to prevent access by the majority of players to areas where quests and creatures are not yet for their level. My opinion is that these areas, despite difficulty, are actually required in this game for fun and exploration, and therefore I would decrease their core difficulty to allow access to more maps without the need for kiting, in addition to making it actually easier to kite these guards Problem solved IMO. It's not as if there isn't any danger in kiting already.

[DGDobrev]

I respect your opinion and I must admit that you drive some very strong points here and you have most certainly put a lot of thought into that.

I agree about the score balancing. However, being a hardcore player, I cannot dismiss the people who like to play the game casually or make any disparaging remarks concerning them because of that. However, look at the score sheet in the game. If there were no heroes in it, that would be fine. But what if a player who tries really hard to beat the game in normal simply doesn't get in the chart because of the reload penalty? How will that person feel in the end of a game that challenged him a lot - just to find he did it for nothing and can't even show what he/she did?

I would personally feel fine if there is the option to select my army alignment in the first few areas. That will let me try out various army setups and tactics without me having to complete like 33%, 66% or 99% of the game for the same result. That would be a serious loss of real time. Even now, with the present state of affairs, it takes a couple of hours to do the kiting properly.

Well, I am positive that there will always be such arguments because people feel different. I also felt different for a while while I was playing the russian version, but I simply adapted Since nothing has changed in 6 months, keeping in mind we got a few patches for that time, I would not presume that a major change will happen at all.

Let us not forget that the game is pretty much open source and there will be mods to make it harder or easier, then everyone can play it the way he/she feels that it fulfills his/her needs as much as possible.

[blueshrike]

Originally Posted by DGDobrev

I agree about the score balancing.... But what if a player who tries really hard to beat the game in normal simply doesn't get in the chart because of the reload penalty? How will that person feel in the end of a game that challenged him a lot - just to find he did it for nothing and can't even show what he/she did?

In the score formula rebalancing, the heroes' scores would simply be made lower to account for most everyone's overall lower score. Don't think this would be difficult to do at all. HOMM did it easily with having heroes down at the bottom as well as the top so you always earned a place.

I would personally feel fine if there is the option to select my army alignment in the first few areas.

Yes, perhaps being able to pick your starting area with unique creatures would be pretty cool - maybe in KB 2! Would still like the ability to branch out fairly early, just as we are doing with the kiting now because that is the spice of this game, we all agree.

Mods are great, but I'm not sure if it is even possible without changing the code to keep track of re-loads or re-battles and adjust heroes' scores as well as change the overall formula... perhaps I will ask in the Mod forum!

[DGDobrev]

Well, there should be a switch somewhere in the game files that says if the map guards are moveable. In the early russian versions, the map guards acted pretty much like any other map creature and you could easily move them around at will. So you can be certain that that was fixed once before