[quote="DragonDePlatino"]Thank you for not giving the super spell explanation again if you retry the miniboss. And giving acknowledgement for a Perfect Victory. Even if there's no reward, it's that you recognized what the player did! [/quote] You might want to check the [ispoiler]Army screen. There is a reward for defeating a miniboss perfectly. I plan to create a proper notification for it in the future, but it's a bit secretive at the moment.[/ispoiler] [quote]Your choice of music is very good. Everything fit with the stage and it was nice hearing some remixes I've never heard before. Make sure you credit those musicians in the readme! :D[/quote] They're all directly from official games! I do suppose I should get a list together and put it in the readme. For now, though, the list is (with music that plays after World 1 in ispoilers): [spoiler]Title - Fortress Theme - SMW2: Yoshi's Island All Map Themes - Map Themes - Paper Mario: Sticker Star Castle 1 - Super Koopa Bros. World 3 - Paper Mario: TTYD Overworld - Chance Card (Yoshi's Island) - Fortune Street Underground - Underground - SMW2: Yoshi's Island Airship - Airship Fortress - Mario Kart DS [ispoiler]Desert - Gritzy Desert - Super Smash Bros. Brawl[/ispoiler] [ispoiler]Spooky - Boo's Haunted Bash - Mario Party 4[/ispoiler] [ispoiler]Water - DS Cheep Cheep Beach - Mario Kart 8[/ispoiler] [ispoiler]Jungle - Shy Guy Falls - Mario Kart 8[/ispoiler] [ispoiler]Castle 2 - Bowser's Castle - Mario Kart Wii[/ispoiler] Miniboss - Buzzy Beetle Boss - Paper Mario: Sticker Star Boss 1 - Megasparkle Goomba - Paper Mario: Sticker Star [ispoiler]Boss 2 - Chomp Attack - Paper Mario[/ispoiler] [ispoiler]Boss 3 - Gooper Blooper Battle Boogie - Paper Mario: Sticker Star[/ispoiler][/spoiler] [quote]Overall, this is a really fun and well-executed concept. I'm a sucker for existing genres (RTS) being turned into platformers and this game does a really good job of that. :D[/quote] [size=50]hooray someone called it an RTS and not a TD which is good because TDs have a negative stigma and I kinda had warcraft 3 in mind when designing this[/size] [quote]Magikoopa's acceleration when he's moving around doesn't feel very natural. He accelerates from a standstill but comes to a jerky stop once he hits his destination. I think it would look better if he quickly slowed to a stop once he nears his destination. Also, maybe he could bob up and down a bit?[/quote] While I agree that it looks unnatural, it's a bit of a sacrifice for the sake of gameplay. The later bosses tend to have attacks that require more precise movement than 'move to any other position after an attack launches' and deviations in how quickly the character slows down would affect dodging. Bobbing up and down holds a similar problem; the bobbing could affect the trajectory of one's shots. [quote]There's audio cutout when too many enemies are onscreen. As a solution, don't just let enemies emit sounds from their own code with something like playSound(SHY_GUY_VOICE). Instead, have them send a request to a central SoundSystem. If SoundSystem has too many sound effects playing at once, it should ignore the newly-requested ones.[/quote] I've been wrestling with FMOD for a few months now, and from what I've seen, the amount of sounds currently playing doesn't seem to be the culprit: it seems to fail after a random amount of sounds have been played total, as I've seen stages cut out after playing only 50 or so sound effects, occurring at exactly the same point when restarting the level, but restarting the game itself would randomize which stages had problems. I've seen points in Survival where 300+ Shy Guys are onscreen at once (enough to cause gameplay lag) without any sound issues. Currently I've determined that [list] [*] - Stopping everything in the sound effect group does nothing. [*] - Stopping the music does nothing. [*] - Calling the universal FMOD sound stop function temporarily fixes the problem.[/list] To that end, I've been working with a somewhat hacky solution of periodically stopping all sounds and generating a perfect copy of the background music (you can't even hear a skip) to replace the background music. The main problem here would be that FMOD is [i]supposed[/i] to do memory management on its own, but it seems to be failing to do so. I have been slowly going through the code and replacing all the direct calls to GMFMOD functions with my own functions (which then call the GMFMOD functions) with the intent of trying to manually free up sounds, but it's something that's not guaranteed to work and I'm putting it off for after the NCFC update. [quote]Wait, what? A miniboss? Suddenly I have a health bar? It felt very jarring when you suddenly changed the rules of the game like that. I'd give the player a heads-up that they suddenly have a health bar they need to manage. Maybe a Mega Man-esque sequence where your life fills up while the boss is introducing itself.[/quote] An animation for your health bar filling up is a good idea. I'll get on that after the NCFC update. [quote]You can't selecting an enemy unless you're hit. A big problem in boss battles if you change your mind and want to cast instead of summoning an enemy.[/quote] The key for cancelling a minion is Esc. I haven't found a good spot to tutorialize that in-game (the tutorial in Level 0 already seems like a lot of material) but it is in the readme. It is one of the few functionalities that isn't available on the mouse, unfortunately; I've ran out of mouse buttons. [quote]Enemies need to patrol their summoned area more closely. Getting an S-rank on Carnivorous Caverns was very trial-and-error because goombas kept wandering in front of my front pirahna plant. If they patrolled the 5-tile radius where they were summoned, things would be less luck-based. I know I could return from later stages to get that S-rank, but it's frustrating to be unable to do it with what you have at that point.[/quote] I'm afraid that minion patrol patterns are an integral part of the game's design. The ability to patrol around platforms, for example, is a tremendously important property for Koopas that is somewhat unique to them (Goombas are more cost-effective for damage). Piranha Plants are designed as the 'crowd control' minion: terrible at dealing with individuals, unparalleled when dealing with groups, and they have to either be placed in the front lines, or guarded against stragglers. Minions that don't deal with the trouble of patrolling a large area tend to be significantly less cost-effective, too. For example, Monty Moles cost 25% more than Koopas, but attack 30% slower. My S-rank strategy for Carnivore's Cavern is: [ispoiler]Open with one Piranha Plant in the [b]left[/b] pipe and one Goomba on the low ground. Add an additional Goomba to the low ground, then add up to two Goombas to the block area depending on how confident you are with your aim. Save up for the second Piranha Plant and try to get it up by the 30 second mark. Max out your Goombas in the remaining 30 seconds, and try not to miss attacks in the brief intervals where Piranha Plants are down.[/ispoiler] My S-rank strategy for Subterranean Swarms is: [ispoiler]Open with one Goomba on the left and two Goombas on the right. Get a Piranha Plant in the [b]left[/b] pipe by the 80 second mark. Save up for another Piranha Plant and deploy it in the [b]middle[/b] pipe at the 60 second mark (This is the most difficult part of the level, as it must be done during the Blue Guy wave). Do whatever you want with your points from there; the two Piranha Plants can handle nearly the entirety of the remaining waves by themselves, with a little assistance from the Goombas[/ispoiler]

Yeah...that's honestly the biggest issue I have with the game. I [i]know[/i] there's an intended solution to each level, but I can never find it even if I retry a level for an hour with different strategies and items from other levels. Eventually it leads to me finding brute-force solutions like this: [spoiler][img]http://i.imgur.com/1dP4Z5l.png[/img][/spoiler] Yes, I probably should have used Pirahna Plants, but I have severe issues with getting them to cooperate. Like I said, they frequently attack when I don't want them to and they're rarely ready when large groups of enemies come in. I eventually gave up on using them entirely because I'd much rather have units that are always prepared to attack. But of course, I'm probably a small minority in making this complaint. I'm just a hardcore completionist so it puts a damper on things when I have to retry a stage 20+ times to get an S-rank. :/ Ah yes, and I'm glad to see you have your reasoning for many of your design choices. I guess I can't complain too much seeing as how it's a beta and all. Wrestling with FMOD sounds tough. I can agree that from my side, it seems to be an issue with dynamic memory allocation. If I play the game for a while then close it, I get a Windows AppCrash. From experience, I find that happens if I forget to free up dynamic memory at the end of my programs. All I can recommend is that you not use FMOD for future projects if its that difficult to get working.

The custom text you've put in some places is really jarring and bad. Think "WAVE X" during the bonus stage or the "ARMY" button on the map. I would draw those like any other text box.

[quote="DragonDePlatino"]Yes, I probably should have used Pirahna Plants, but I have severe issues with getting them to cooperate. Like I said, they frequently attack when I don't want them to and they're rarely ready when large groups of enemies come in. I eventually gave up on using them entirely because I'd much rather have units that are always prepared to attack.[/quote] I think you may be misunderstanding the purpose behind Piranha Plants. They aren't designed to dispatch waves; they're designed to push them back. Carnivore's Cavern and Subterranean Swarms are explicitly designed around Piranha Plant timers to make them more attractive, but Make Goombas, Lose Goombas (the level with the single giant pipe in the center) is a more accurate representation of how they work in normal levels. They cause the wave to get pushed back and forth: you cycle between the wave advancing closer to the coin block while the Piranha Plant is inactive, then the Piranha Plant emerges from the pipe and you deal with the remainder of the wave on the right side. Repeat. Not every pipe is intended to actually house a Piranha Plant, either. [ispoiler]Burning Barren[/ispoiler]'s and [ispoiler]Dividing Dune[/ispoiler]'s pipes is intended to be a trap for players that didn't see the Pyro Guy notification in the worldscreen, and they're only particularly good if you save it for the last wave. [ispoiler]Chain Chomp Challenge[/ispoiler]'s pipe is designed to show players the disadvantages Piranha Plants have in comparison with Chain Chomps. Placing one Piranha Plant in [ispoiler]Gritzy Grotto[/ispoiler] isn't entirely a bad idea, but filling both pipes is overkill (and takes away from points that can be spent elsewhere). There's also a bit of a secret to Piranha Plants that can only be discovered through experimentation (though I plan to have an Intel shop in the main screen that reveals tips of this nature). Piranha Plants will [ispoiler]hide if the Magikoopa gets on top of the pipe and won't come back out while the Magikoopa is still there, allowing you to reset them when they misfire[/ispoiler]. This tactic isn't mandatory to S-rank any of the levels, but it does make Piranha Plants a bit easier to use effectively. [quote]The custom text you've put in some places is really jarring and bad. Think "WAVE X" during the bonus stage or the "ARMY" button on the map. I would draw those like any other text box.[/quote] Heavily-aliased YI Chalkboard would look worse.

I was very late into a stage when I accidentally triggered this error and the game crashed: [spoiler][img]http://i.imgur.com/WJ8y5wn.jpg[/img][/spoiler] I clicked at x position 0 and it interpreted it as me clicking a negative button. A bounds-check before indexing the array would fix that: [code]selectedButton = clamp(selectedButton, 0, 5);[/code] With the Piranha Plants, the issue isn't that I don't understand them. It's that they cannot do their job properly when enemies wander in front of them. As an example, imagine a thick wave of enemies is about to rush onscreen. I have a Piranha Plant in the middle and a bunch of Koopas and Goombas wandering around. Best case scenario: The Goombas and Koopas randomly wander behind the Piranha Plant. The Piranha Plant pops up when the first Shy Guy reaches it and the Goombas/Koopas handle the rest. Since the Pirahna Plant popped up as soon as possible, it is ready for the next wave. Worst case scenario: The Goombas and Koopas randomly wander in front of the Pirahna Plant. They take out almost the entire wave by themselves, but the last Shy Guy slips through. The Piranha Plant pops up and takes out the single Shy Guy. Once the next wave comes the Piranha Plant is not ready and an entire crowd of Shy Guys breaks through. I'm a bit later in the game and I've been introduced to [ispoiler]Bob-Ombs[/ispoiler]. I think they work perfectly. I can strategize with them and play optimally without randomly-wandering enemies ruining everything. They wander back and forth in a 5-tile radius and never get in the way of Piranha Plants doing their job. Why can't any other minions do that?

[quote="Magnemania"]Heavily-aliased YI Chalkboard would look worse.[/quote] Then find anything other than that or what you have right now?

The problem I'm seeing would be that you're putting your Minions on the same platform as the Piranha Plant. You want the single-target minions to on an entirely different pit/platform than the Piranha Plant/AoE Minion; if the Piranha Plant/Thwomp/Chain-Chomp is the first minion to encounter the enemy wave, they're guaranteed to hit a large part of it. In the screenshot you posted, for example, you placed all the Koopas in the front, when they would be a bit more effective if placed on the three platforms in the back to ensure that the Thwomps get to hit a larger part of the wave. Oh, and that bug is a bit embarrassing. As it turns out, I did clamp the button...from the top limit. For some reason I've neglected to clamp it from the bottom (apparently Game Maker can register clicks from outside the window itself in fullscreen mode? Position 0 would still be button 0, it just divides the position by 6 and floors it.). I would write a function for clamping to prevent programmer mistakes like this in the future, but GM8 doesn't do pass-by-reference. ...And I've already gotten the NCFC release through (it's currently on the mainsite as Version 0.81) so everything from now is going to be sticking to WIP releases until 0.85. Oh. And I completely forgot to mention that I had to revert the change to Bullet Bills in order to have the boss battles continue to work. They still take a full second to fire, are invulnerable to jumps while first firing, and move faster, but they still fire from a very high range.

So...I just [ispoiler]Got an S-rank in every stage and was greeted with several endless challenges[/ispoiler] so I guess that means I finished the demo. Overall...I think the game was pretty fantastic! Minor frustrations nonwithstanding, you have a very well-done and unique game here. You successfully got me to sit down and finish an entire Mario fangame which is easier said than done. The game is rich with content and I love the rate at which you introduce new enemies and minions. All of the bosses were really creative and you did a good job of diversifying the unit types. I tended to stick to the same 5 or so minions through the whole game, but I always found myself encouraged to use the new units at least once. Biggest letdown: [ispoiler]Spending 500 coins to afford Lakitu and having him be absolutely useless by that point.[/ispoiler] Like...seriously?!? By the end of the game I didn't have enough money to afford [ispoiler]Blue Koopas, Chargin' Chucks, Kamek spell, Arrow Spell, Rainbow Spell or the Shield Spell.[/ispoiler] I knew I needed to spend my money wisely so I felt really cheated when I saved up my coins for such a weak payoff. Favorite moment: [ispoiler]Galleon Guy's boss battle.[/ispoiler] Oh my gosh...that battle was really the high point of the game. Each attack felt really cinematic and there were so many ways to approach fighting him. It really felt like you were [ispoiler]having an epic one-on-one pirate ship battle.[/ispoiler] And the attack where [ispoiler]his cannon fire syncs up with the background music?[/ispoiler] I had such a big goofy grin on my face when I figured out what he was doing. So with that being said, I can't wait to see if you'll be able to top that for the final boss. :D Speaking of which, what are your plans for moving ahead with the game? If it were up to me, I'd add one more world between the final and semifinal one. You introduce new minions incredibly fast in the final world, so I think you could get away with spreading them out between two worlds. That'd also give the player more of an opportunity to afford everything and see all of the game's content. That is, unless you [ispoiler]intend them to play the final challenge stages for fun to afford everything[/ispoiler] which is cool too.

[quote="DragonDePlatino"]Biggest letdown: [ispoiler]Spending 500 coins to afford Lakitu and having him be absolutely useless by that point.[/ispoiler] Like...seriously?!? By the end of the game I didn't have enough money to afford [ispoiler]Blue Koopas, Chargin' Chucks, Kamek spell, Arrow Spell, Rainbow Spell or the Shield Spell.[/ispoiler] I knew I needed to spend my money wisely so I felt really cheated when I saved up my coins for such a weak payoff.[/quote] Yes...I have to admit that the pricing of the purchasable spells and minions is fairly questionable. As you inferred, you are supposed to be grinding the Survival stages in order to afford everything, which is why [ispoiler]the postgame area is a mass of Survival stages.[/ispoiler]. Of course, most of the minions available aren't actually that good in Survival, so they don't really connect all that well...yes. The current plan is to add a bunch of cosmetic purchases in the shop (once a proper shop is introduced in the next update) and reduce the price of all the minions/spells to compensate. I want to have [i]something[/i] to encourage players to coin grind, and I don't really want to lock off [i]gameplay[/i] content to those who don't grind. ...And [ispoiler]Lakitu[/ispoiler] is probably introduced at a very poor time. [ispoiler]Lakitu isn't a [i]bad[/i] minion (though I think he may be a little bit undertuned) but World 4 is very unkind to him. His gimmick is supposed to be doing very high single-target damage by creating multiple sources of single target damage, but none of the levels in World 4 happen to be especially good for that. I've been doing a lot of messing around with Spiny attack rates, how many times a Spiny can attack before it's destroyed, and how many Spinies can be active at once, and the current release settled on 3 Spinies, 3 hits each to make things a bit more congruent. I may try increasing the max Spiny count per Lakitu to 5 and implementing a mechanic that allows Lakitus to replace damaged Spinies.[/ispoiler]

I think I take back what I said about [ispoiler]Lakitus[/ispoiler]. They're strong enough as-is. [spoiler][img]http://i.imgur.com/sz63BWX.jpg[/img][/spoiler] INFINITE, IN-INFINITE POWER! INFINITE, IN-INFINITE POWER! INFINITE, IN-INFINITE POWER!

Oh, Monty Moles. Why must you forever be a thorn in my balancing. In the World 1 update, Monty Moles were the only ranged minion to exist. They were priced at 60 points, attacked every 3.2 seconds, had infinite range, prioritized air units, and hid whenever a Shy Guy so much as sneezed in their direction. In the World 2 update, Spikes were introduced as the anti-ground counterpart to Monty Moles. They were priced at 50 points and attacked at roughly the same rate as Monty Moles, at the cost of using a grounded projectile that had the same reach as a Goomba. Then came the overall price reduction update, where Piranha Plants were knocked down from 100 to 80, Pokeys went from 80 to 70, and Monty Moles were reduced to 50...the same cost as Spikes. Then came along a few more worlds, and a few more Minions with ranged abilities until...the Spike began to fall out of fashion. Things were made worse when I switched Spikes over to the Super Princess Peach art and decided to have them occupy twice as much ground as Monty Moles. So today, I shall exact my revenge upon those muddy hole-dwellers! Oogly-boogly-BOO! [img]http://i.imgur.com/eIuEqGv.png?2[/img] Monty Moles now throw two kinds of projectiles: anti-air pebbles, and anti-ground rocks. When given the chance, Monty Moles will always grab a pebble and aim for an airborne target over a grounded one, and they've got infinite range to do it with. Against grounded targets, they pull out the heavier rocks; unfortunately, these heavy rocks are a bit harder to throw, so they can only cover about [b]a third of the screen[/b]. This range can be increased, fortunately, by putting them on higher ground: the higher up they're located, the farther they can throw. A pebble can only strike flying enemies, and won't damage any ground enemies should they miss. On the other hand, Spikes have been reworked a bit. They now cost 60 points, but attack at a 25% faster rate than Monty Moles. I've also changed their throw arc to look slightly more natural, so they toss their projectiles slightly upwards before they begin rolling on the ground. If anyone wants a full comparison of all ranged Minion attack rates: [spoiler]Monty Mole: 1 attack / 3 seconds Spikes: 1 attack / 2.5 seconds [ispoiler]Fire Piranha Plant[/ispoiler]: 30 attack / 10 seconds [ispoiler]Hammer Bro[/ispoiler]: 1 attack for 2 damage / 1.5 seconds [ispoiler]Dry Bones[/ispoiler]: 1 attack / 3 seconds [ispoiler]Lakitu[/ispoiler]: 1 attack ([ispoiler]+3 attacks from summoned Spiny[/ispoiler]) / 2.7 seconds[/spoiler] On a different note, I'm giving bosses a bit of spell resistance. The best way to beat most of them involves smashing your wand in their face and blowing them up with Burning Barrage (or one of the similar spells) which doesn't feel very...magey. I'm currently adding very brief (1/10th of a second) invincibility frames to the bosses (which only protect them against spells), which protect them from slightly over half of your fireballs. Casting Burning Barrage up close will be roughly as effective as casting it from a short distance. Some of the boss health numbers are being lowered a bit to compensate.

This isn't your fault, but gameplay is rather clunky if you try to play this game using a laptop touchpad. It would be fabulous if the game worked well with a touchscreen, although that's tough to optimize with GM-based games. I find that using WASD-based movement helps considerably if you lack a regular mouse (or if said regular mouse is connected to another computer and you don't want to disconnect it right now). If you could control the cursor using the arrow keys, the experience would be better - although I also understand if you want to focus on mouse controls, which I'm sure the majority of players are using.

Hmm...Forgive me for my ignorance, but how does a touchscreen laptop work, exactly? Is it possible to simulate left clicks but not right clicks? Can it simulate clicks at all? I've been considering an option to swap left/right click in the regular levels-would that help? [s]Controlling the cursor with the arrow keys would be a bit difficult with the code in its current state-most of the code directly references mouse_x and mouse_y, and GM8 can't take control of the mouse.[/s]. [s]GM does have a function for that! I might be able to make arrow-key mouse movement possible.[/s] I've tried using window_mouse_set to move the cursor around, but it seems to cause the mouse to become somewhat unresponsive, and it feels a bit hacky.

One of [url=http://i1-news.softpedia-static.com/images/news2/how-to-toggle-or-disable-laptop-touchpad-in-windows-487428-3.jpg]these[/url]. Ugh, I hate those things. The problem here is that in order to use those quickly, you have to contort your right hand to move and left hand to click. [i]Very[/i] clunky. The best solution (without rewriting your entire game) is to bind left and right click to Z and X. That way, you can "click" with your left hand and keep your right hand far away. Games like Osu! do this, allowing you to use both mouse/ZX by default.

Oh, I see. I thought that VinnyVideo may have been referring to one of those newfangled touchscreen laptops. Yes, I can certainly see the problem with touchpads; I've been doing all the programming on my laptop and I haven't dared to work on it without portable mouse. Binding the clicks to the traditional ZXC should be easier (to play and to code) than moving the mouse with the arrows, so I'll get on that. (though I don't believe I can properly release these changes at the moment as I'm already doing some noticeable changes in the source and forgot to upload a release backup)

Alright, I've finished changing up the controls. Left/Right/Middle clicks can be replicated with Z, X, and C respectively. I can't seem to test whether it's actually feasible to play the game this way (with the touchpad) as my touchpad becomes somewhat unresponsive when keyboard buttons are held down. Not entirely sure if that's a behavior exclusive to my machine or not. I've also done a bit of polishing on [ispoiler]Lakitus[/ispoiler]. [ispoiler]Spinies now automatically expire after 9 seconds, allowing Lakitus to replace Spinies constantly. Furthermore, Lakitu attack rates are increased by 33% when they don't have their maximum Spiny count (3) on the field, allowing them to replace lost Spinies fairly quickly.[/ispoiler] I've also done some further minor nerfs to Monty Moles. They take slightly longer to hide now, and are vulnerable to very fast-moving hazards: Shy Guys falling on them at high speed can stomp them (a Green Guy hopping on the same plane as the Monty Mole isn't fast enough), and [ispoiler]Kamilda[/ispoiler]'s shells can hit them. [ispoiler]Kamilda[/ispoiler] is now classified as an air enemy during Phase 1 and becomes a ground enemy in Phase 2, so Monty Moles gain a range penalty at that point. [ispoiler]Para-[/ispoiler]Guys are now classified as air enemies until they hit the ground. [ispoiler]Balloon[/ispoiler] and [ispoiler]Stilt[/ispoiler] Guys are still classified as ground enemies (the [ispoiler]Balloon Guy's balloon[/ispoiler] has always been classified as air, just not the Guy itself). ...And after testing [i]this[/i] a bit, they [i]still[/i] feel a bit too powerful. [b]I'm going to go with the nuclear option here and return their cost to their original 60[/b]. This is accompanied by a minor buff: Monty Moles now [b]immediately[/b] attack after popping out of the ground (including when they're initially spawned), so their ability to hide should now be a bit less purely-negative. I'll have to do a lot of testing to ensure this doesn't break any of the levels. It is [i]technically[/i] possible to have them attack faster than they normally can by strategically letting a few enemies through to send them underground for a short time, but that does sound like the sort of "high skillcap, minor reward" thing that games tend to be better for having. I can S-Rank Oasis Ordeal using exclusively Monty Moles and Burning Barrage at the moment, so I believe they're still in a good place right now. ..And I'm returning Spikes to their original cost of 50 and the normal base attack rate for ranged minions (3 seconds). Balancing.

Ahahaha Monty Moles still giving you grief, eh? If this has been a regular thing, maybe you're coming at the problem in the wrong way. Instead of nerfing Monty Moles, buff other units so they become a more viable option. Or buff enemies in a way that makes them stronger against Monty Moles. That's actually how Sakurai frequently balanced Sm4sh. Instead of nerfing powerful characters, he buffed the rest of the cast to bring everyone closer together.

Monty Mole strength has been something of a waveform. They were at their weakest during their initial release, and were outright useless if one didn't place them all the way in the back (and even then they were only good if you were S-ranking). I initially solved the problem by directly buffing them (dropping the price from 60 to 50) which balanced them fairly effectively for the first half of World 2. However, each Shy Guy tends to have its own method of getting to the goal, and Monty Moles didn't really care how Shy Guys moved (since they could hit them from any position!) so almost every new Shy Guy introduced effectively made Monty Moles stronger. This price increase is intended to ensure that Monty Moles can still be used as a universal answer to every Shy Guy in the game-they just won't be cost-effective at doing so. The immediate counterattacks after hiding should reduce the skill floor in using them (since the most common problem players experience with Monty Mole is spiraling into failure due to a few Shy Guys shutting down the battery) and they are effectively mandatory as anti-air for World 2, so players should still be able to form a habit of using them. Let's talk about Goombas, for example. They were originally almost impossible to balance because they didn't avoid cliff edges, so they could be stomped by Shy Guys in any map-[b]except for those with low ground on the left side[/b]. If they were strong enough to compensate for their stomping weakness, they'd be severely overpowered in those maps (which is why I initially introduced the 5-cap for minions). If they were balanced for the maps where they couldn't be stomped, no one would even use them enough to consider bringing them to the maps where they worked. Even now that they avoid cliffs and thus won't be stomped by most Shy Guys, people still don't like them very much-and they're the most cost-effective minion in the entire game for single-target damage (Especially when compared to Buzzy Beetles, which cost 50% more and attack 17% slower)! They've got the additional problem of being the first Minion introduced, so I can't make their mechanics [i]too[/i] complex if I don't want to confuse new players.

I was thinking about this the other day, about how to balance the whole game and I don't know that I actually got anywhere convincing. However, I did come up with an idea that might be interesting to look at. Having a "Cost" points system, where levels will restrict you to only being able to using X amount of "cost" points to bring in minions. Like in any RTS, the more cost/food/supply you have, the more units you can bring, or the stronger units you can use. You can have a variety of weak units, or a handful of very powerful units. Similarly with this idea each level would offer a certain restricted cap on units you can bring, with each unit having a different cost. For example: 5 Goombas = 1 Cost 5 Montys = 2 Cost 5 Pokeys = 3 Cost 5 Chomps = 4 Cost etc. With each cost point spent, you could bring in [i]higher numbers of one unit[/i]. Like if a level has restricted cost of 2, I can bring in 10 Goombas, or 5 Montys. For higher levels, I could bring 5 Chomps, or 5 Pokeys+5 Goombas, or just 20 Goombas! [u]Reasoning:[/u] [list][*] This might help make units more balanced if they're placed within a group of their specific cost. Maybe like Goombas, Koopas and Cheep-Cheeps are 1 cost point, and Piranha Plants, Montys and Spikes are 2 cost points, [ispoiler]Pokeys, Bloopers, Boos and Dry Bones are 3 points[/ispoiler], and [ispoiler]Hammer Bros, Thwomps, Lakitu and Chargin' Chuck are 4 cost points[/ispoiler], etc. [*] This would also counter levels with very high Shy Guy traffic, which usually means there are more Minion Points to spend, which usually means higher cost units are more used than lower cost units. [*] The players might see the use of cost-effective units like Goombas are actually more cost-effective, to a point where it might seem better if there were larger squads of them.[/list] I do realize this would mean rebalancing the entire game and overhauling the design to fit this, so that's why I thought it might be interesting at the very least.

I do see where you're coming from, but there already is a mechanic for this-your starting points! You see, as you progress through the game, two things happen to your economy: 1. The amount of points the average Shy Guy gives (relative to its health count) increase. For example, Spear Guys have the same amount of health as Yellow Guys, but give twice as many points. 2. Your average starting points slowly increase across worlds. The amount of points varies significantly between levels, but on average you get about 20 more starting points per level in each world. Here's the thing: the later levels (especially World 4) are [b]intentionally designed[/b] around using expensive units. Magikoopa Security Force is paced with the intention of punishing those who save their resources (especially evident when trying to use Power Points) and holding onto a large sum of points will almost always result in a wave breaking through. World 4's levels have high starting point counts that let you summon in tech units right off the bat, and the higher point rates let you keep summoning them. Try using minions from World 4 in World 1's regular levels and you'll find that it simply costs too much to deploy them, even when the level has an ideal spot for that minion. Compare Starcraft 2's campaign mode. I would describe the progression in Starcraft as [b]vertical[/b]. Units can be grouped by tech tier, and you're generally going to abandon almost all of the units (outside of a few core units like Marines/Stalkers/Hydralisks) in the old tier when moving up to the next one. Magikoopa Security Force's progression is intended to be [b]horizontal[/b]; units are never supposed to [i]outclass[/i] existing units, only fill new niches [i]between[/i] existing units. There shouldn't need to be a separate mechanic encouraging using old units; they should be used because [i]their niche fits the situation[/i]. One shouldn't feel pushed to use Goombas in a level with a lot of jumpers. Monty Moles shouldn't need to be a mandatory air defense. As it is, I've been thinking of going the opposite route and reducing the global army count to 5! I think that players will feel more justified in bringing tech units when they occupy slots that more cost-effective units bring in; it would feel more like strategy (even though the choices tend to be obvious!).