Hi, Akemisora here. I’m going to continue Galbatorix’s dream after WBP, which is enemies rework since he won’t do it. Let’s begin.
Coward Chickens, our natural enemies and I’m sure everyone most players hate them. Thanks to me several months ago who proposed to make them approximately target you. But, it was an improvement since prior to that, they always shot at the direction where their butt facing (e.g. if they facing upside down, then they shoot upwards).
So let’s address problems that still exist:
They punish (counter-attack) every shot you give. This causes using quantity based and chaining/splitting weapons have difficult time against them as you hit them more than once every time. Edit: Thanks to @Sammarald or pointing this out, they can shoot up to 4 wastes, at 100%, 75%, 50%, 25% if not killed fast enough
They break the formation. In some waves this might not be a problem, but in waves that allows them to run away, good luck on catching them, especially when you’re using bomber. In waves that using bubbles (especially Bubble Bath), they might hide behind them and you can’t shoot them. In other waves, they make wave’s name irrelevant (say, Caged Animals).
They almost always gurantee deaths when appearing on enclosure waves. This is closely related to problem #1.
So, let’s fix the problem by making coward chickens:
Stay in their position unless provoked
Shooting them provokes them, they will shoot one waste approximately at you and start avoiding you for 3 seconds.
During this period, they won’t attack back if being attacked.
After 3 seconds, they return to their original position, and can be provoked again
Reduce projectile speed by 33%.
This change should solve problem #1 and #2 as they now won’t go anywhere unless provoked, giving you chance to attack them, and they will only shoot one waste per trigger, which doesn’t matter with your weapon choice. You can kill them safely during its “fleeing” period.
Meanwhile, problem #3 won’t be able to be ever fully fixed unless they don’t appear at all. But, since they shoot less and at slower speed, this is better than nothing.
Again with “program” things? Can’t you just use your own names? We already had wave balance program, weapon balance program, boss balance program. What’s next? Options menu balance program? Food balance program? Balance balance program?
Ok, I’d like to point out ſomething: cowards are ſuppoſed to greatly increaſe the difficulty of waves they’re in. They are not intended to be roughly as eaſy as all the other chicken varieties. There is a reaſon they only ſhow up on harder difficulties.
Before ſpeaking for “everyone”, check with everyone.
Yes, that’s the point of cowards.
Yes, that’s one of the diſadvantages of thoſe types of weapons. If you “fix” this problem, you’ll have to rework half the weapons next week to balance them again.
I’d alſo like to point out that that’s the entire point of the cowards. They punch back.
I fail to ſee the problem, other than the fact that they don’t kindly ſtand waiting to be ſhot.
Don’t they no longer spawn in encloſure waves on difficulties < 100%? I may be wrong on this. EDIT: They no longer ſpawn on wormhole or pulſating grid for difficulties below 75%. As far as Chicken roulette goes, you yourſelf ſaid here that it was more manageable. Alſo apparently due to your complaints, cowards no longer ſpawn on the Yolk Star™, regardleſs of difficulty.
This pretty much deſtroys the point of cowards. They would only ſhoot once at you, and ſit there waiting to be ſhot themſelves.
I don’t play much on lower difficulties, but on higher ones the projectile ſpeed is fine (if anything, it’s a little ſlow).
So your complaint really boils down to “they’re too hard!”. I have a workaround: play on lower difficulties. As far as fixes go, at moſt raiſe the difficulty at which they ſtart appearing.
I think they should shoot one bullet after they drop below 50% hp. If that’s also when they drop to 0%, they shoot and then explode immediately, so there’s no getting around it unless you destroy the projectile somehow (so that missiles don’t trigger unavoidable rings of death).
Same gameplay mechanism, same punishment type, but equal for all weapons.
The whole moving around thing doesn’t bother me too much.
I am of the opinion that they need a serious visual redesign (and possibly renaming) though. They are the only chicken in any of the games that I saw and genuinely had no idea what it was supposed to be until I looked it up.
I’m pretty ſure I read ſomewhere that currently they drop every 25%, but I’m not ſure. If ſo, than it’s already equal for all the weapons, except that ſome of them puſh the cowards through multiple ſtages at once.
