Wave Honing Operation - Part 3: The Magic Flute and The Weakest Link

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 flaming gator, and today we talk about the next two waves: The Magic Flute and The Weakest Link. (Wave Honing Operation. (WHO) ).


Starting with The Magic Flute, it’s just another boring wave. Not absurdly long, but still boring.
Possible solutions for this are:

  • Removing one of the 3 first phases;
  • Removing 2 enemies from each spawned row;
    And well, I can’t think about anytihng else without breaking the flute concept, but these may get the job done as well.

Now The Weakest Link breaks up the trend of boring and long waves; it has come across as mundane and tedious.

Possible solutions for this:

  • Scaling down the healt multiplyer for barries;
  • Replacing one barrier in every row with a chick, simmetrically.
  • Making the screen zoom out, and designing the wave like a maze, where the chicks act as “fake walls” that you have to destroy in order to progress;
    Now that wouldn’t be mundane at all (or at least it would be an improvement.

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: The last 3 waves.

3 Likes

But…isn’t that quite similar,if not the same thing?
And no,the problem isn’t this. Or maybe it is this and one other thing…
And that is that it forces you to waste all satellites+4 amplifiers in every challenge except space race. Want to get a good score and get on the leaderboards? Too bad! You’ll have to waste everything if you want to stand a chance.
Your solutions do solve this more or less. Less in the case of the second solution and possibly third depending on the zoom out. The first one could fully solve the issue if it completely removed the multiplier or made it significantly lower,but that kinda ruins the name of the wave. For this issue,it would be best to remove points gained from barriers for just this wave. And no,it wouldn’t be weird,because you can get a clean sweep without destroying a single barrier(not the case for any other wave),so that kinda hints there’s no need to destroy them.
Magic flute suggestion sounds okay.
Your weakest link suggestions could still be used,though,if people feel like the wave is indeed too boring.

5 Likes

Well, I’m make this suggestions based on the reasons listed in the pool of the original post. Also, I’ve already stated that I will talk about barriers in the final post. But still, you aren’t wrong.

Do any of your ſolutions not involve chopping off 50% of “boring” waves? That doeſn’t make them leſs boring; all it does is make them boring and yet, ſomehow, diſappointingly ſhort.

1 Like

Well, I’ve already stated that I can’t think about much without breaking the flute concept. I’m trying to reduce the boredom by making the waves shorter.

Yeah,sorry,I’m just a bit annoyed by the wave itself,I just keep feeling the need to mention this.

1 Like

At least I’m trying to help.

2 Likes

If you don’t like a wave, why don’t you juſt make a caſe for its removal rather than ſuggeſting a truncation?

Because that’s not what we’re here for. In most cases I try to suggest an overhaul to make Tha wave actually fun to play. I couldn’t think of any without breaking the main concept too much.

…why would he? At least he’s trying to fix it instead of outright removing it.
If you’re going to use this argument here,why not also say “hey,why are you trying to balance weapons if you can just suggest removing most of them?”? It doesn’t really make any sense to me,at all. I don’t see why he’d try to remove it instead of trying to make it better.

2 Likes

Well if we have to be honest, the weapons are 13, the waves are more than 100. Suggesting to eliminate weapons wouldn’t make much sense, while a wave out of 100+ wouldn’t make much of a difference. Still, I didn’t came here to suggest waves to remove, I came here to improve the few mediocre waves that exist.

Yeah,then again,removing some weapons would make it easier to rely on presents. So it technically would make sense over doing nothing at all,at least. Not over rebalancing,of course,but that’s the point. Trying to rebalance them is a good idea.
And when you think about it,if we just kept removing the waves,thinking that “oh,it’s hundreds of them,no big deal”,eventually it would be a small number.

1 Like

I’m all for this, as long as the “fix” iſn’t merely to chop the wave in half and call it a day. If this is the only way to improve a wave, then the wave is likely beyond repair and ſhould be diſcarded.

2 Likes

Magic flute is okay, it’s like a Simon but with killing chickens. The only improvement that I could yell to this (and to that one wave with a portal in the centre) is that it should start spawning sooner, so there isn’t that much wasted time on it.

Weakest link… come on, you can’t be that much of an anxious.

My suggestion on how to adjust the Magic Flute:

  • Make barriers portals have different pitch (do, re, mi…) so it doesn’t sound monotonous.
  • When a group of chickens are killed spawning on one portal, another group will appear immediately.
  • Make groups of chickens vary each other, not only just 4 by 4. There could be as many variations/presets as possible. Example: On one wave, portal two spawns two chickens, then after that, portal two spawns one chicken, etc. On the other wave, portal 3 spawns four chickens and so on…
  • Probably make a much harder variation with 8 portals instead of 6.

My suggestion on how to adjust the Weakest Link:

  • Just make barriers yield much lesser score.
  • Remove it on Space Race list of waves. It doesn’t really matter how rapidly you destroy those barriers, the wave still (almost) consume the same amount of time before proceeding to the next mission.

Other waves should be removed on Space Race as well, based on the above reason.

That’s for my part.

8 Likes

You mean portals? There are no barriers in this wave.

My mistake, edited now.

That is actually a good idea, and it makes sense because it’s a flute. :heart:ed.

How would this help anything?

It would somewhat help with the issue I pointed out.