Wave Honing Operation - Part 1: Pulsating grid

CIU is a game that has more than 100 waves, most of them are pretty good, but of course, there are some that would benefit from some adjustments.
Hi, I’m a random piece of machinery, and today we talk about the most voted option in the pool , Pulsating grid. (Wave Honing Operation. (WHO) - #24 by Neutral).

The problem with this wave resides in the high difficulties, where the safe zone is not safe at all, and can be pretty frustrating.
I’m using this source as an example:https: //youtu.be/c66q72CLgrw
So in the video you can see that @Davoid, which I assume is a pretty skillful player, gets hit repeatly and it takes him a full 9 minutes to complete the wave. This is because the only safe part of the wave is not enough to dodge everything that comes at you.
The possible solution for this are:

  • Make the chickens stationary at a certain distance from the center of the safe area. You can see that in this wave the chicken reach toward the middle and then retract. Removing this movement, and subsequently increasing the safe zone, could be a viable solution.

  • Removing the inner chicken circle. This could increase the safe zone in a more straight-forward way.

  • Having to kill an entire set before the other comes. This issue was brought up by @anon27929001, he stated that when you kill a strong chicken, it will respawn two more times, but by that point the spaceship has already turned away. So I propose a most controversial solution: by having to kill the entire square before the next one comes, this issue will be neutralized, however, it will greatly increase the wave time.

Those are my solutions for now. I would like to hear your take on this wave and other possible problems with it, possible solutions and flaws in my propositions. Next time: Four Lane Merge.

8 Likes

Third sound the best.
Chickens could also respawn after killing 1 ring.

Also I’m pretty sure that Davoid killed himself on purpose. He created moron gun challenge - More moronic gameplay.

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Not always on purpose, sometimes it seemed like it, but most of the times it was not intentional.

In my opinion an easy fix should reverse easy/hard template on easy/hard missions.
I explain better: An hard missions have the easy template while easy missions has the hard.
This simple change would make the grid doable on hard missions but still hard since strong enemies respawn (let’s add egg machine guns too) but not so much.
The harder template was designed in ci5 for easy foes. Not for a full chickenaut wave!

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That ſeems ſilly. Juſt make it ſo miniboſſes don’t ſhow up on that wave unleſs the difficulty is above 100%.

Alſo, juſt a general point about the WHO: wouldn’t it be better to ſpend our time creäting new waves, rather than complaining about old ones? Sure, it’s harder, but it’d be more productive.

Then why don’t you do it?

Every bit we can do to improve the game.

Ouch.

I gueſs lack of 1) time and 2) creätivity. I have thought about a few off and on, but haven’t poſted any.

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I mean, I could do it, but my ideas are generally bad, sooo

I would rather want a game that has less content, but better done.

Also, we had some wave ideas on the forum. Whole 4 of them were liked by IA: Collection of ideas liked by InterAction Studios

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Well, give it a ſhot. Someone might have ſuggeſtions to improve any given “bad” idea you come up with.

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Yeah, I agree. It’s not like someone could kill you for posting bad ideas. They will just scream for some time and move on.

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Well, when I finish WHO I may as well try my luck in that sector.

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I wasnt trying to die on purpose. Sometimes I just overreacted and my mouse slipped, so really I am not that great. I mean in another video I did this wave BETTER with the bomber. So… yeah…

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oh agree. Pulsating Grid is flaming annoying. I hate it. its the only level that I struggle on apart from Yolk Star. I have found 2 Barbequers really effective at stoping them before being destroyed.

I would like to point out that the linked video is of a max-difficulty miſſion on SSH, and therefore was ſuppoſed to be hard.
Don’t uſe footage of >100% difficulty miſſions to complain that the game is too difficult; it’s juſt as ſilly as complaining that the game is too easy and proving your point with footage of playïng the eaſiëſt miſſions on Touriſt. Uſe footage of games on Rookie inſtead.

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The problem in this wave is in the high difficulties, I wouldn’t prove anything with rookie footage.

People play on high difficulties becauſe- ready?- they want the difficulty to be high.
As IA ſaid, after 100%, all bets are off.

There’s a difference between difficult and unfair.
And listen, I don’t know the exact difficulty of this.
I even asked in the original post and nobody answered. That’s the only base I had.

6 Likes

Look, I juſt found a ſimilar complaint to yours here. This is AI’s reſtponſe:
“[at]cook1ee Depends. If you encountered it with SSH, then anything goes. Keep some missiles handy for such occasions. But if you encounter an ‘impossible’ wave with Rookie skill, let us know and we’ll take the difficulty of that particular wave down a notch.”
(I removed the @ to avoid pinging cook1ee.)

If you can give ſome evidence that it’s too hard on Rookie, then I’ll have a much more open mind. As it is, I think that SSH is too eaſy and ſhould be buffed, including increaſing the chances of all-miniboſs waves. If it’s too hard for you, ſwitch to vitüoſo, which I’m pretty ſure is a difficulty at which very few players play, there beïng little difference between adjacent difficulties.

Well then I think iA shouldn’t encourage “having missiles handy”. Look, I’m ok with having difficult waves, but not to the point when the creator himself tells you to buy a buff. All waves should be possible (not dying once) without use of superweapons.

No, because the problem surges when the space for avoiding bullets from all direction is too small.

I don’t think you consider the increased key rate. Why should I give up a 12.5% increase in keys for a single unfair wave?

1 Like