I believe I've had an epiphany.

Guys... don't be alarmed. Okay?

I have some new ideas for MonBre. I step back from MonBre, and I see a damn good game already. The more I think of this "dynamic health" stuff, the more I want to change it into an awesome game.

I hate to change things on you all. I've got a 'decent' 40 active players. However... I am a bit troubled, and I think I know why.

Monster #5. It doesn't fit in. It's a money monster. It's free money. It's a shitty worker you use, and then sell back. (or splice) And it's a big part of what I feel could be "wrong" with MonBre.

Our combat? It's fine. I have no regrets from it. It can fit any situation I want to throw at it. Exploring? It's pretty decent. Belichko suggested I AJAX it, which is just coder mumbo jumbo, but you'll like it. That will come later.

Right now my plague is monster 5. I'll tell you how I want monbre to go.

I want people to raise different types of monsters out of NECESSITY. With the new battle system, good type monsters will be able to heal your monster. Combat's going to get a little tougher but I'm going to up the monsters' HP and strength formulae to compensate. Some monsters, particularly the cute type, will be able to buff OTHER monsters: so they now turn into a "utility" monster. Now here's something cool: some of you know we're going to have classes, like university classes that your trainer takes. I thought of some interesting classes, and quest rewards too. Right now I give out a biiiiit too much breeder exp, but I don't have much to give out. So my idea was to give a special move each monster can do. Some would be limited to the type of monster: say, cute might get a REALLY good buff. Evil may get one that sacrifices its own health for Massive Damage (tm).

But it's just hard to imagine monster 5 in there. It's the odd man out. The last upgrade to the barn should give you FOUR monsters, not five. Five is just free money, and I hate it, and the more I think about it, the stupider an idea it is. It complicates the game, yet gives no depth, and hell if you want some icing, it's even a pain on the server. To me it represents my design experience when I first started monbre: none. I had read a few articles but it's not like I'm running Torn City Super Clone here, I'm running a genuinely differently experience.

Tell me how accepting you guys are of this. I don't think MonBre requires much skill to play. Maybe on some bosses. Speaking of which, I want to change gameover so that it's more fair and doesn't fuck your shit ALL up if you get it.

Anyway. Please tell me how you feel about these ideas here. The moves I'm telling you about are going to just be so awesome.

Oh and in advance - the support for 5 monsters will forever be there - who knows, maybe a day will come in which I will allow a fifth - but you will not be able to get more than 4 in any scenario.

EDIT: oh and don't forget, you still have your freezers. Also this balances barns a bit more so yay.

Could maybe no.5 be a VIP monster or something then?

No, that would be ridiculously overpowered. Maybe if like 100 people said they would buy VIP solely for it, I'd do it. I think VIP has plenty of features anyway, plus some cool shades.

Maybe monsters could have support features in a special kind of storage, let's say you have a worker with xx c-power in the support storage you get a certain stat boost but you can't train or work the monster unless you move it to a different storage

Hmm, a support monster sounds kind of cool. I just don't know how that would fit into the game, or what they could do.

But sending away your monster, permanently, to train it as some kind of support for your exploring monsters would be kind of awesome. Same as the other abilities, it would depend on its type, like cute monsters would buff your stats a bit. Good monsters would decrease the effect fatigue has on your monster. Evil monsters could give you an attack skill, nothing huge, but something that could sacrifice defense for bonus damage when you need that extra hit.

That leaves... Worker and normal. If the effects of your support monster could be unrelated to exploring, that would open things up a bit, but the bigger problem is how the hell you would explain it...

Workers could decrease your damage in exchange for another buff. Energy regen would be kind of cool, or some kind of hibernation ability. Normal monsters could give you some kind of defense against enemy abilities, if that's possible, or a chance to heal from status effects early!

But back to explaining it... Everything I have only makes sense in a mech anime. That's no good to us. But that's alright, this idea probably won't go in.

Back to the topic at hand: The additions sound AWESOME. I love them, I love MonBre, I love you in a way because you are the source of these things. Hoorah!

Losing monster #5: Fine by me. It's not like I NEED to have five monsters. The only question is what to do about the barn levels. Take one, or even two, out? Getting extra monsters is pretty awesome. Getting that fourth monster, who can be your cash cow (in a way), should be your end goal barn-wise. 100k or whatever it was for a monster who will, probably, do nothing but work? I'm fine with that. Having three for a while just makes sense, because that's all you need for exploring.

YUS!

Excellent, Demi, that's what I'm talking about. (5th monster stuff) And I think #4 is not necessarily going to be a cash cow - but if it is, it's a lot better to have just 1 cash cow - I think it's also good for splicing, and for a second option for exploring...

I'm pretty sure I want to code this today.