[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.