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Bash 'em All - new level

#1

Very nice level. There are some interesting pathing challenges and optimizing your code to finish it as fast as possible can take a little bit of thinking. (Speaking of which, do different shields have significantly different cooldown timers for bash?)

I’m not a huge fan of just having the 4 ogres sit there, ready to be bashed, however. If all 4 can see you, why wouldn’t they be attacking from the start? Would it make more sense for the item you’re bashing/pushing to be more like a ball or something inanimate? (Ooo … idea for someone … bowling level using vectors and bash to send the “ball” down the lane.)

Alternatively, requiring the player to line up the current ogre and shield-tank them until bash is available would dramatically increase the level of difficulty for this level.

Alternative suggestion - can the mines exploding open the way to the next ogre/mine field combination? I.e. can mines be programmed to “destroy” a barricade of some sort, allowing access to the next ogre?

Suggestion to avoid human minion mine clearing (after first chest picked up): Add victory condition: all humans must survive.

#5

Because you are not inside their view range. Bash has a cooldown, so if all four came to the center attacking you, you wouldn’t be able to simply push them back as you can only bash once in a while.

As for my feedback, I’ve noticed a few issues:

  • A regular sword attack has enough knockback to push the munchkins to the mines, given that you lure the munchkin close enough to the mines and hit them in the right angle. This bypasses the need of having a shield with the bash ability. Some possible solutions:

    • Forbid all primary weapons
    • Remove knockback effect from primary weapons in this level
    • Make munchkins maintain their position — i.e. don’t chase the hero and walk back to their initial position if pushed away from it.

  • Incidentally, the fear spell can also be used to make munchkins walk into the mine fields.

  • As @Msakr mentioned, you can use the chests’ money to summon troops and order them to self-sacrifice triggering the fire-traps (mines). This allows for more easily bypassing the need of having a shield with the bash ability, and you don’t have to wait for bash to cooldown as well. Suggestion: forbid summoning in this level (i.e. restrict all boss stars).

I’ve (ab)used the points above in this game session. I’m linking it here for testing purposes and this solution will hopefully be invalided soon, so I hope it is not breaking the forum rules.

#6

Hi!

Thanks for the feedback. I’m the author of this level. But I can’t change some things, for example - “Forbid all primary weapons”, because it’s required admin permissions.

you can use the chests’ money to summon troops

I fix it with lower “bounty value” in chests.

Make munchkins maintain their position

I will look how to make it

Remove knockback effect from primary weapons in this leveldisappointed:
the fear spell can also be used to make munchkins walk into the mine fields.

Not sure how to do it :disappointed:

#7

Hey, @Bryukh!

With the summoning bug fixed, I believe the level strikes a good balance already. Spells and the sword of the forgotten seem like good alternative solutions, which encourage the player to think. Carefully attacking the munchkins at given positions in given angles requires a lot of work, way more than just using a shield, so I don’t know if that would be worth fixing.

I enjoyed playing the level, thanks for the awesome work. :smile:

@nick I don’t know what is the common practice here, but would it make sense to remove the level completion achievement (together with the earned XP, gems and high scores entry) from the players that abused such bugs during the playtest period? Again, I’m not sure what is the common procedure here.

#8

I don’t think it’s possible. Consider it as a “bonus” for your effort of testing :wink:

#9

We could remove the high scores once I build the high score remover tool, but am pretty behind on stuff like that now!

#10

You know, I never thought of using shield to push them back until reading this post. :smile:

#11

why remove high scores?

#12

To remove scores from older (beta) level versions achieved through buggy behavior, mostly.

#13

I think in a matter of words, you’re talking about removing scores that were caused by exploits. Please correct me if I’m miss understanding what you’re saying.

#14

That’s exactly what I meant. :blush: