[impy]

WOW, is this the latest challenge - to upset maximum number of people on the forums Tiberiu?
We had a few trolls here in the past, mostly advertising types, but you are by far the most controversial.
I am sorry for the wall of text, but hopefully I 'll manage to talk some sense into him.

1) In "stupid no-loss concept" thread which you started yourself you tell us in your very first post - I'm a smart gamer. A few posts later we find out - you're heroes 3,4,5 PRO, chessmaster, and later on openly ...wait for it... I'm smart and pro at games. Over the years I do not recall anyone acting this way, certainly not good old "dinosaurs" of the forums, why it has to be you - some unknown newcomer? Well, they say wise men are humble, and it appears Tiberiu you have still a long way to go. To top it up, quite amusingly, In thread "Modding higher difficulty" you ask - how to open KFS file? Well, mr. smart telling everyone to get the strategy, there is search function on 1C forums and Google has it to..
2) What is this obsession with calling everyone son? More than once you were asked directly how old you are - no response. Not only it's difficult to prove your age on internet forum, you also do not know the age of other posters, only assuming they're considerably younger than you. Also, this is an international forum with many posters having their first language other than english. They are most probably aware of most common use of expression - son. If you want to enjoy a fruitful discussion with them, then fine language nuances are better left out, don't you think? It's all common sense, but you go on stubbornigly defending your position, your rights etc. and create tension.
3) You openly say in "stupid no-loss concept" thread that the whole concept is wrong, stupid and retarded, there is no denying it, sorry. What is the point of such controversial statement from self proclaimed very mature and very smart gentleman?? You say you cannot offend a concept, but you've annoyed people who attempted to incorporate this concept into their gameplay for their pleasure. Maybe we help ourselves with two examples here in order to get through to you. One - You approach a group of guys enthusiastically working on their cars over the weekend attempting to make them go faster. Now you tell them the whole concept of making cars faster is stupid, because there are speed limits on the road anyway...Still nothing? Number two - Tiberiu walks into the club on friday midnight and starts preaching to everyone - The whole concept of drinking and smoking is stupid, wrong and retarded!!!, there are no benefits for your body and you will die younger!!! Now if you're lucky, no one will talk to you for the rest of the evening, but maybe someone will slap you. Understand that people generally feel attached to their countries, families, hobbies etc.and even no-loss runs which may have provided them with lots of fun and it was their decision. Now no one is going to call the police here, but it is annoying and unnecessary approach from you.
4) generally speaking, why do you start all these controversies anyway? If you want to gain respect and recognision of the community, you do it by being helpful, share the ideas, jokes, strategies... There are quite a few players who posses considerable knowledge of the KB series, but no one laughs at newbies questions, or tell them as you - get more strategy...Well, as you say, we have to respect your Freedom of speech? More like endure it..
5) there seem to be a confusion about invincible fights & impossible difficulty. First, games these days cannot yet properly evaluate strength of your army. They would have to consider your units, spells + levels, rage , your items, known strategies, enemy army composition, your game style, your expertise etc etc. And it would have to be constantly updated by developers since they cannot possibly discover all strategies, combos, exploits during beta testing. I think in KB most probably just comparison of leadership of the opponents decides how the enemy & outcome of encouter is evaluated. Simply put seeing enemy marked invincible just means his leadership is XXX bigger than yours. That does not automatically mean it cannot be beaten, or even beaten no-loss, it just means it will be very,very difficult. Since XXX thresholds are not dynamically evaluated per individual player, it has to reflect strength of the enemy stack for average gamer (it is only logical - you cannot pick newbies or veteran perception of difficulty to be shown to all game players). Now armed with knowledge - quoting you:
Basically, if one is able to finish a game about huge fights and combats, many labeled as "invincible" and he is able to win without losing anything, this means that the game is unbalanced and poorly designed - we know you are incorrect. Due to limitation of today's software strength of enemy stack represent its strength percepted by average gamer. If you can win in better way, good for you, you are either better than average player or using exploits etc.
Also, the reason why seemingly bombastic expressions are used to describe difficulty - impossible etc.. is merely a marketing move. Developers could have called difficult fights - hopeless, unlikely etc, but that somehow does not cut it, does it? Now when you win fight marked as impossible , that releases some endorphines doesn't it?
6) I guess as I am typing all this I may write my own perception of no-loss concept. Without using any exploits, cheats etc. I think it represents cherry on cake for very advanced players. You could also call it - one of the voluntary expert end-game modes. I emphasize that not using exploits etc. otherwise anyone without serious knowledge of the game can do it. I would like to know whether it was originally idea of developers or players. Now let's agree that every game in order to be successful has to provide for all players - newcomers, casuals, regulars, veterans. Providing fun and challenge for first three groups is relatively easy - if not much else, there is always higher difficulty for them to look forward to. But what about veterans? Things are more complicated since KB is single player only, so no Diablo 2 style ladders, HMM3 battles.. How do you achieve longevity of your product? Also, KB series look pretty much the same for years now, so group of the veterans is very large to start with, and surely some attempted no-loss on their very first WOTN playthrough. From this point of view, discovery of no-loss concept is probably players-invented-free-gift-for-developers which they should only embrace. Why embrace?One would have thought that developers realize few things:
a) no-loss concept is something to look forward to once you complete impossible diffulty, as if it was another difficulty level. Non-compulsory as with all other diff. levels. It is straitforward concept in comparison to various other self-imposed challenges.
b) it requires minimum effort from developers (just to make sure it is possible, but very difficult) and increases overall playtime- dream come through
c) developers have to provide for veterans, because veterans are looked upon by players looking for motivation and game possibilites and tactics
d) later on,taking away no-loss option is a sensitive issue. Give a guy who was driving corvette for years some small city car...
e) increased playtime per player increases overall player satisfaction with product and increases probability of buying related products in future
Sadly, I have to express my dissatisfaction with WOTN regarding No-loss. I admit I have not had much time to play so far and understand the first island has been done with all the characters already, and then the difficulty goes downhill. But the amount of RNG required to do first island no-loss is discouraging. And whose bright idea it was to place almost identical seven necro heroes on the first island? Send him to Turkish prison and give him some slippery soap No disrespect to Turkish prison system here, I just remembered my favourite Airplane film.
7) regrettably, some Tiberiu's comments directly involved me and some of them I find very insensitive at best, so I decided to react.
quote: reloading 50 times before you are finally able to beat some invincible creep by abusing it's AI is not strategy, is lameness. Comment from Tiberiu on 28/10, two days after game launch. The only comment regarding 50 reloads in such a short of period of time after launch was my post in the No loss thoughts thread and is as follows : Well, I restarted the game 50+ times to see what the conditions are on the first island." Who talks about fighting here? Upon starting the very first playthrough I noticed problems right there on the first island. I would have thought with my previous experience things should go smootly straight away. Due to problems I restarted a game considerable amount of times in order to establish what I can expect from first island from advanced player point of view - basically which aspects are static / dynamic. So please do not tell me I am lame..And even if I was and also decided to restart 2000 times, it has nothing to do with you, but using expression - lame is immediately controversial, but you would of course defend your freedom of speech.
You repeatly bring subject of exploits/cheats/mods etc. Modes do not interest me much, none of my challenges was done in moded environment, but I can enjoy their entertaning value. KB scanner was helpful, I am unfortunately an adult with busy schedule, not student with plenty of free time, and I am not going to play for whole saturday looking for something specific, just to be denied due to RNG (providing there is a chance to get it under normal circumstances) . It just saves time and frustration. Cheats are however artificial help and a big no-no. But your grasp of exploits is somehow twisted - you mention reloading great many times in order to kite a map, defeating 1000 of bears with 1 royal snake, battle with hagni which took 200 turns. These examples of yours are absolute extreme. It means you have either no real knowledge of what you talking about here and never really played seriously hardcore (because it is extremely uncommon to play like that) or you've done it and picked these far-streched examples just to support your theory. Many of my challenges provide screenshots where one can clearly see number of turns and I tend to provide tips and tricks, if not full strategies as well. Due to nature of challenges battles take longer, but examples you have provided are extremely uncommon and rather than enlightening the community somehow with tips& tricks of yours you scare them off instead.
One quote deserves special attention - This is preposterous. Crappy exploits do not interest me. Impy's challanges were not fun at all to do and made absolutely no sense. I only go for challanges that are not based on silly exploits/cheats/mods and that do not involve reloading 1698 times until you finally kite that Map for Verona....Hmm..I never asked for any recognition for my challenges. If it helped others fine, it gave me personally a lot of fun. But you sir did not even bother to check my challenges properly. Condition were always clearly set on the first page and many clearly say - no kiting = paladin ultimate, playing without runes, playing without pet dragon..But according to you "crappy exploits" , "silly exploits" , exploits/cheats/mods. Again, I never asked for any regonision, I let the community to decide, but you're disrespectful,misleading, and actually hurtful, and I thought hard about this and I will not contact the moderators to step in yet. Take a breath Tiberiu, do whatever makes you happy, and if you do not want to change your ways then please leave me alone..