Messages

1

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Penalty for death? Nah. Extra-curricular reward for staying alive!

« on: May 25, 2012, 03:20:32 PM »

How about an 'inspiration' system. Basically the character gets 'inspired' from overcoming challenges in the game with which he gains deeper understanding of the world.

 - Each action of significance has a chance of producing an inspiration. "You are inspired by recent events and gain a deeper understanding of the world."
 - Completing missions and killing overlords will have a large chance of an inspiration. Killing common enemies could give a small chance.
 - Inspirations act as small permanent bonus to all your stats. Health, attack, etc.
 - The bonus is 0% at 0 inspiration and asymptotically approaches 10% as inspiration goes to infinity. So you multiply all affected stats by (1.1 - 1/(10+I)), where I is accumulated inspiration points. This means inspiration isn't capped, but its effect is.
 - Not deterministic like XP system. Sometimes you'll get two inspirations in a row, and at other times you'll go for a while without getting one at all.
 - The 10% limit means the character won't be crippled upon death, yet it's significant enough to be felt when lost on death. It's not significant enough to make a player compelled to grind it.
 - Could have a 'high score' for your characters with highest inspiration. Similar to my character graveyard suggestion.
 - In essence the longer you play your character the stronger he gets, but with diminishing returns. Rewarded for staying alive.

2

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: So! Some of you don't like puzzle rooms. Have some alternate ideas?

« on: May 25, 2012, 02:33:09 PM »

Lights out puzzle would be easy to implement. You can even reuse the same orbs. It could be as small as 3x3 or as large as you want. Could be randomly generated or could start with a certain pattern. Harder ones could have multiple colors, not just "on/off".

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lights_Out_%28game%29

When I first saw a puzzle room I thought that's what the game was, until I hit one orb and none of the adjacent ones got flipped.

3

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: AVWW Post-Release 1.013 "Nightmare Octopi" Released!

« on: May 09, 2012, 11:46:44 PM »

Though for the record, you are highly incorrect. Diablo 2's damage reduction is linear with a cap. There's just multiple kinds. You're thinking of defense, which influences if you get hit at all and uses a much more complex equation than what you have advertised.

You're right, I was thinking of defense, which uses the n/(n+x) formula at its core.

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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: AVWW Post-Release 1.013 "Nightmare Octopi" Released!

« on: May 09, 2012, 11:10:14 PM »

I wasn't happy about the changes at first. But they're needed if these effects are to scale in the future. Games like Diablo 2 and WoW use the 100/(100-x) scaling (or n/(n-x)) and it makes sense -- for larger x when you double your stat, say armor rating, you halve the damage.

The confusion comes from using the % sign in two places to mean two different things. Instead it should look like this:

Cooldown reduction: Call it haste rating. The tooltip would say

33 Haste Rating (25% cooldown reduction)

Similarly for damage reduction. Call it armor:

45 Armor Rating (31% damage reduction)

5

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Functionality

« on: May 09, 2012, 04:13:58 PM »

Chris already discussed putting in a Terraria-like hotkey system. The thread should still be on the 1st or 2nd page of the forum.

6

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: If the game drags at any point, where would those points be?

« on: May 09, 2012, 04:08:38 PM »

It takes a while to get really good enchants, especially if you have a particular type of enchant you're interested in.  Any thoughts there?  How bad do you find that?

I like the enchant system the way it is right now. I really like how they always get better, on average. It's like you've taken a loot game like Diablo and abstracted it away into enchant containers. I know some people aren't too happy that some green and blue enchants they get are useless, but I really think they should be kept the way they are right now. Making rarer enchants better will have those same people complaining that all the common enchants are now useless.

Then there's materials for the new spells and guardian powers and NPCs and all that.

There's a few potential bottlenecks early on that sometimes get in the way of getting your NPCs to level II and III. There's one NPC that you need to get all the other ones to level III. (I believe you need both stonebinder and lumbermancer to build the rest of the buildings). If you're unlucky and don't get those NPCs at the start, you have to look for them with rescue missions. But at this point you can't cast seek survivor! On continent 2 I found two rescue missions but unfortunately I failed them, and to progress further I had to search buildings specifically for a rescue mission. I really think Seek Survivor and Seek Resources spells should be more easily accessible early on.

I haven't tried 1.011 or 1.012 yet, so if anything I said contradicts what's in the latest versions, please disregard those parts.

7

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: what abilities and keybindings do you use?

« on: May 08, 2012, 06:24:25 PM »

Are you using the autohotkey script above to make it work like that?  I don't think you can assign scroll wheel or modifiers in the game.

I have an AutoHotkey profile for every game I play and every program I use. The script autostarts with windows and idles in the background.

You can assign modifiers to some mouse buttons by editing the keybinds file. Check out Penumbra's thread. I think it works for only the first five mouse buttons. For the rest you have to use Autohotkey.

8

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: what abilities and keybindings do you use?

« on: May 08, 2012, 02:45:38 PM »

If you use Ctrl and Shift modifiers with mouse buttons you can increase the number of spells you can access from the mouse by a factor of three without affecting your movement keys. I don't use the number keys at all, and instead I use the ones around my movement keys. Most of my spells are on my mouse: I got 7 buttons + a tilt wheel, so 12 actions total.
For example, I have Ctrl+Thumb1 bound to scroll of elusion as my "panic button" and Ctrl + Thumb3 as the pause key.

LMB - Energy Orb
RMB - Lightning Ball
Thumb1 - Miasma Whip/Leafy Whip (mostly for harvesting)
Thumb2 - Situational
Thumb3 - Summon spell
Scroll Down - Platform
Ctrl + LMB - Fire/Death/Cold touch
A - light spell

I find that I don't use that many abilities. On continents 2+ some spells are too much trouble to get or take too much effort to level up, so I just stick to the basic energy orb, ball lightning, and miasma whip (mostly for harvesting).

9

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Rescuing Survivor Missions

« on: May 08, 2012, 01:03:43 PM »

Larger buildings have a better chance of generating rescue missions. Caves work too, but due to bosses they take longer to search.

10

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Bug? Stuck on small island

« on: May 07, 2012, 09:36:48 PM »

They recently made it so you can't depart from a stormy port. You can still land on it though, otherwise you wouldn't be able to travel to the next continent.

If you bring up the main game menu there's a button to return you to town.

Sounds like they need a popup informing you of that fact when you land in a stormy port.

11

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Stuck on 2nd continent?

« on: May 07, 2012, 02:18:21 PM »

There are two or three potential bottlenecks on later continents.

 - Getting unlucky with mission rewards for residential tower/profession buildings
   - Forces you to either wait for missions to expire or seek out secret missions
 - Not having the right profession NPC for lumbermancer and stonebinder buildings (one of them is required to build the other ones)
   - Forces you to search for a rescue mission

Currently when I get to a new continent I look for missions which give me residential tower and profession buildings. See if I'm missing any NPCs in town and try to get those.
Meanwhile I can still increase continent tier. I don't really need wind shelters until I get to tier 5 and want to deal with lieutenants and the overlord.

12

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Pirates and the deep : any way to get rid of them ?

« on: May 06, 2012, 06:09:51 PM »

The way they sit in the overworld map makes me want to go after them and put an end to their piraty ways.

13

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: The problem with Journey To Perfection missions and how to fix it

« on: May 06, 2012, 09:26:00 AM »

With cloak of shadows and either a rapid firing or enemy piercing spell, JtP is pretty incredibly easy.

To reiterate, that's exactly the problem with these missions. They get easier as you progress through the game, not harder.

14

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: More widespread incentives for killing x monsters

« on: May 06, 2012, 04:59:43 AM »

Monster unlocks should absolutely not be tied to kills. Have only basic monsters on continent 1, introduce new ones on continent 2, and add in elites on continent 3.

As for what to unlock with monster kills -- it could be anything. New enchant types, for example. There's already a precedent in the game: You unlock triple jump enchant by killing 5 utahraptors.

15

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / The problem with Journey To Perfection missions and how to fix it

« on: May 05, 2012, 10:22:14 PM »

Something felt a bit 'off' about these missions from game design point of view. Once I realized what it was, it seemed obvious:

The difficulty curve for these missions is a complete opposite of what it should be. They're hardest for new players and easiest for veteran players.
They get easier because:
 - Improved player skill
 - Enchants
 - Spells

And the only way they get harder is once elites are unlocked, some of which make JtP missions frustratingly difficult. Some monster types just aren't appropriate for these missions.

I think Chris was on the right track with disabling some spells in JtP missions, we just need to take that to its logical conclusion. Here's what should be done to fix it:

 - One hit kill is unchanged.
 - Either disallow all enchants or give player the enchants they can use for the duration of the mission and equip them automatically. (Also prevent the player from opening the enchants window)
 - Same for spells. Either allow only one spell, such as energy orb, or a set of spells. Crates and platforms should still be allowed. (Clear out the inventory and spell list for duration of the mission)
 - Some elites should not appear in JtP missions. Have a custom list of monsters which can appear in JtP for each type of terrain.
 - Increase enemy detection range based on difficulty and/or tier.
 - Remove the anti-air missile towers.