Topics

1

Skyward Collapse LPs/AARs / First full game

« on: May 05, 2013, 11:32:49 AM »

I first started the Alpha at work. I know I shouldn't do that, but I have a very low powered netbook on my desk at work for personal email and such. I wanted to see how it would perform. (really, I swear, that was the only reason)

This is a terrific netbook game. I know those are a thing of the past, but a really small resolution and almost no “hardware umph” still let this game shine. The fully turn based gameplay mixed with the stellar performance will probably turn this into my goto “break-time game.” I ran into a crash early, and stopped paying attention while leaving a Mantis report. I went back to work and didn't even notice that I had left the game running the whole time. I listened to the wonderful background music for over 2 hours before realizing.

I have been ignoring the Skyward Collapse forum as much as possible to avoid learning anything before I experienced the game. I did know about the general concept of world building and creating a  stalemate between forces.

The first tutorial message tells me everything is free for 5 turns. Interesting. It says to pick from expensive things so that everything is ideal. I don't know what constitutes “ideal” but here we go.

Ok, next tutorial message. Place a barracks. I can do that. Now it says next in my queue for the barracks is a Berserk. I need a Pig Farm, Butcher, Iron Mine, Woodcutter, Carpenter, Smithy, Brewery. That's as close to a list of what to build as I can tell. 

Building a Pig Farm. Says “Too close to a town center: you can only place Town Buildings in the two rings next to town centers.”   Typo? Maybe I don't understand what a “ring” is. I place it three spaces away.

The Butcher says, if I place it near the Pig Farm, “Too far from a red faction town center: you must place Town Buildings of the red faction within two files of a red town center!” So this is OK, but I don't know what a “files” is   That guy goes right next to my town center. 

I go to build the Iron Mine, but it says I am out of actions. So I am! Ok, end turn. Blue's barracks makes a Ekdromos, and it wants a similar list of missing buildings. Pig Farm, Butcher, Wheat Farm, Bakery, Iron Mine, Woodcutter, Carpenter, Smithy. They also get a pig farm and a butcher.

Next turn's message says I should build Chapman, but at 7 fish, they feel “cheap” so I think I'll wait on them like the first message said to do

Red's Iron Mine goes next to the Pig Farm, with the same message about “town rings”. Now for the Woodcutter. I see Wood. It also requires a Woodcutter. Is the Woodcutter not like the Carpenter? Nope, Carpenter also requires a Woodcutter. Maybe that Chapman was a woodcutter. Let's try. Nope, Woodcutter still missing. Ok, I'll skip that one. Carpenter it is.

I end the turn, and scroll back to the other side. (I know you said don't put in suggestions here, but maybe it should “move” my view to the other town?)  The Greeks get Wheat, Bakery and an Iron Mine.

Next message: Crime is bad. And Bandits grow increasingly much. Interesting. I guess building all these barracks support buildings is the right thing to do. Smithy goes in, and then the Brewery. Wait, I can't build a Brewery. My personal profile has to reach 8, and even if it were, I couldn't build it for free anyways. I don't know what it would cost me instead, it just says free. Guess I'm not getting any Berserks. Ah, now I understand the barrack's tooltip. That list was just for the “highest” unit. I have no missing requirements for the Marauder and need a Smelter for the Huscarl. And a Woodcutter, but hopefully that Chapman can figure out how to use an ax at some point. I can't build a Well either, so that looks like it for the Barracks. Now what? I think more barracks, that Crime thing sounded bad.

 A Smithy, Ranch and a Chapman for the Norse. Now they could build their lower two tier buildings. I could build a carpenter to finish their Ekdromos, but I wasn't able to build a Brewery for the Norse. Would that unbalance them? It still needs  woodcutter, so maybe it's OK?

Being reminded to “not stress” on the forth turn message makes me think that maybe I should be? But I won't!  Oh, I should also build an archery range or siege workshop. More leads! Don't let everyone die. Ok, I'll try.

Looks like Norse Siege engines can't replace bread with beer, I need a wheat farm after all. The Greeks get a siege and archery range as well, along with a carpenter. We'll see how big a mistake that is.

Ooh, another tutorial message, the last one lied!   The “I can't control anyone directly” is on of the few things I knew about this game, so cool.

The Norse get a bakery (I can't make beer, I think they will be very sad) and a sheep farm. Wait, a sheep farm for the ballista? I don't want to know. Added a fletcher as well.

I figure I might build a school. Don't know why, let's see what happens.

Round 1 begins. The “hope you made good use of your free turns!” comment feels ever so slightly sarcastic... Like the game knows what a bad job I did

Time for some more fish/rice and chapman. I think I'll watch and bank my turns for now, till I have the slightest idea of what to do.

It's turn 3, and people are pissed at each other already. My ranch did gain 0.5 horses. I have no idea how that works.

There are now 6 Norse level 1 units VS. 3 Greek level 2 units. I imagine this will go well? I don't know.

Level 2 units seem to be 3 times more powerful. Guess I'll build a Norse school, keep them in check. Nope, scratch that. Can't afford it at all. In fact, I can't build anything. My economy looks to be running as well as I planned it to, which is not at all.

Turn 10. The lack of a woodcutter seems to be hurting the Norse much more than the Greek. The Greek are running rampant in the Norse town. Maybe I can cut them off?

I smite a line of unused land blocking off the green army from the Norse. 2 Norse chapmen (chamans?) are trapped on the other side. God speed.

Apparently, Greek slingers can throw rocks over entire mountain ranges. Hmm... The single Greek level 2 Xiphos just killed every single Norse unit made last round. Norse still can't build anything.

Land fills up a smitehole, and another @#$@ blue unit comes in, on a horse. This will not end well. I fill up the lead with more mountains (the only export of the Norse, I guess)


Ah, diagonals don't count as a block, so that's where the Blue's where coming from. A little more smiting and mountain building later, I think it might be filled up.

Turn 40, I get a god! Cool. The Norse can have a mountain crossing god? That sounds like exactly what they need. I pick a god without wings for the Greek.

Well, that Skadi seems to have fixed that minor problem of 5 rampaging units in her town. She successfully reclaimed it.

The Norse just can't catch a break. Bandits attack from their rear. They should have put mountains on all sides!

I try to Command Skadi to attack the bandits. She doesn't seem to care. Maybe the 4 Norse people left aren't praying? I don't see why not.

Turn 80. Thor or Odin. I saw the movie, and I think I'll go with Odin. He has a longer range, and if he decides to not move, maybe it will help?

The Greeks, well, they have problems too. To be mean, I could give them Poseidon (who looks to be about as useful as Aquaman in this landlocked floating island), but I don't think so. They can have Zeus to balance off Odin.

Skadi and Odin won't move, but they are protecting their small piece of land. The rest of the Norse empire decays around them.

Victory? I get 476,000 points (most from not using turns) and I “win.” Final populations are Norse:3 to Greek: 13.  Bandits: 10. Overall, I think the bandits won.

I have no idea what happened, but I had a pretty great time watching.

2

AVWW Brainstorming / New ideas for Vengeful Ghosts

« on: April 24, 2012, 12:59:59 PM »

I would say that Vengeful Ghosts are one of my favorite things (among many) about AVWW. Back when there was the wondering monsters mechanic, the ghosts played a pivotal role in rampaging all over the place. 

The ghosts are still there, but I feel slightly marginalized. They are a terrific, dynamic and unique penalty for failure, and I think they should be buffed. Not just "make them stronger" but maybe new mechanics to better fit the game as it is now.

They could create missions now instead instead of rampaging monsters. Maybe the overlord could take them and use them somehow? Enough of them brought together to create new lieutenants? I don't know. Maybe you know the perfect thing?

3

AVWW Mods & Maps / Using Modifier Keys for Skills

« on: April 24, 2012, 12:42:36 PM »

Update: Look for final "solution" without using AutoHotkey on page 2, here.

I really like having as many different skills available for me to use at a moments notice, with minimal fussing or rearranging the skill bar. I use ESDF instead of WASD so that I can map all the surrounding keys to spells and commonly used functions. WRTGV, along with a 5 button mouse, gives me all 10 slots within easy reach, but there are many, many more useful abilities than that!

The addition of the new skill bindings gives me the opportunity to have another 20+ skills, but does not give me either more keys or larger hands 

Using Shift and Alt, along with the mouse keys allows me to bind 15 abilities to my mouse, which is really useful. I have Wooden Platforms on middle click, and crates on Shift-middle click. Energy Slice on button-4, Energy Orb on Alt-button-4, you get the idea.

This allows me to have very similar spells on the same physical button while  using the modifiers to change what they do on the fly based on the situation.

You cannot bind these modifier keys in the configuration options as anything but direct inputs, so to set this up I used Auto Hotkey along with binding the extra skill bars to the number-pad. I have attached the script to this post along with showing it.

This script binds the WRTGV keys with shift, and the 5 mouse buttons with both shift and alt modifiers. If you want to change how this works, it is fairly simple to modify. The !^+ symbols represent Alt, Control and Shift

Code: [Select]

! Alt
^ Control
+ Shift
The Left, Right and Middle mouse buttons are used just as regular keys, and the XButton1 and 2 refer to mouse buttons 4 and 5.

The standard remapping syntax for keys in Auto Hotkey is to just use the :: operator, but there are problems involving Unity, losing focus, and the modifier keys getting stuck. So I used a dual mapping of the up and down states for the keys. That seems to keep them from getting stuck. It still happens rarely, but you just need to hit the corresponding numpad key to stop it.

 As you are editing, make sure you edit both lines for each remapping. For a full list of available keys, see here

Code: [Select]

#IfWinActive, ahk_class UnityWndClass

;Ability 11
+LButton::Send {Numpad1 Down}
+LButton Up::Send {Numpad1 Up}

;Ability 12
+RButton::Send {Numpad2 Down}
+RButton Up::Send {Numpad2 Up}

;Ability 13
+MButton::Send {Numpad3 Down}
+MButton Up::Send {Numpad3 Up}

;Ability 14
+XButton1::Send {Numpad4 Down}
+XButton1 Up::Send {Numpad4 Up}

;Ability 15
+XButton2::Send {Numpad5 Down}
+XButton2 Up::Send {Numpad5 Up}


;Ability 21
!LButton::Send {Numpad6 Down}
!LButton Up::Send {Numpad6 Up}

;Ability 22
!RButton::Send {Numpad7 Down}
!RButton Up::Send {Numpad7 Up}

;Ability 23
!MButton::Send {Numpad8 Down}
!MButton Up::Send {Numpad8 Up}

;Ability 24
!XButton1::Send {Numpad9 Down}
!XButton1 Up::Send {Numpad9 Up}

;Ability 25
!XButton2::Send {Numpad0 Down}
!XButton2 Up::Send {Numpad0 Up}


;Ablitiy 16
+w::Send {NumpadDiv Down}
+w Up::Send {NumpadDiv Up}

;Ablitiy 17
+r::Send {NumpadMult Down}
+r Up::Send {NumpadMult Up}

;Ablitiy 18
+t::Send {NumpadSub Down}
+t Up::Send {NumpadSub Up}

;Ablitiy 19
+g::Send {NumpadAdd Down}
+g Up::Send {NumpadAdd Up}

;Ablitiy 20
+v::Send {NumpadDot Down}
+v Up::Send {NumpadDot Up}

;Ablitiy 26
+w::Send {6 Down}
+w Up::Send {6 Up}

;Ablitiy 27
+r::Send {7 Down}
+r Up::Send {7 Up}

;Ablitiy 28
+t::Send {8 Down}
+t Up::Send {8 Up}

;Ablitiy 29
+g::Send {9 Down}
+g Up::Send {9 Up}

;Ablitiy 30
+v::Send {0 Down}
+v Up::Send {0 Up}



4

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Mantis "Vote Tallies" view shows resolved/closed issues

« on: April 23, 2012, 02:25:17 PM »

When an issue is marked resolved or closed, the Resolution field remains in the open state. It appears the Vote Tallies view filters out on Resolution instead of status. Is there a way to change that in my own view? I can't find votes in the View Issues filter list.

Should this go in Mantis?

5

AVWW Multiplayer Discussion / Penumbra's Pen

« on: April 23, 2012, 10:08:12 AM »

In the interest of having Multiplayer servers up for launch, I figured I would start one before I head off to work. Could someone just try logging in to make sure I set it up correctly before I leave, that would be great!

6

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Second Wishes

« on: April 23, 2012, 01:21:51 AM »

What with the release coming up tomorrow and everything that entails.... when would you like us to continue venting our silly little pet peeves? 

7

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Alternative ways of using multiple rows.

« on: April 16, 2012, 09:32:02 AM »

I'll use my "one wish" on a usability improvement. This is the one thing that has been getting in my way for how I like to approach the game. Extra key bindings for inventory bars 2-10

To me, it doesn't sound like a large change, but would be one that gives a large amount of flexibility to the players. These extra binds, which would be completely unbound by default, would allow for other features some people have requested. Personally, this would allow me to have dedicated buttons on my keyboard for wooden platforms AND crates. I could have light orb on G, flash of light on Shift-G, and light snake on Ctrl-G. I always want quick access to fire touch and then a host of combat spells. A whole grouping for three different shield types. I could go on, but I hope I made my pint 

As for future development on this, showing more inventory bars when "closed" and labeling the extra slots could totally be put off till past 1.0. This Mantis report is just for the binds, and the extra options menu window to set them.

8

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / General pacing question

« on: April 04, 2012, 02:55:59 PM »

Missions give 40 CP, 3 Tier stones and 2-6 resources. This is true for missions at all continent tier levels (with the exception of some raw gems being given instead of resources).

At Tier I, one mission is sufficient to create one or two Tier 2 spells. The players get five missions before raising the CP, which is 15 Tier orbs and roughly ten Tier 2 spells.

On later CP levels, it takes more and more resources to gain new spells, while missions give the same amount. This forces the player to venture out and find secret missions or guardian powers to gather the needed resources. This is an interesting change, and makes the later Tier spells a challenge. But there is a large incentive to just do a single mission at a new Tier for the first 3 orbs, and then do secret missions until you can create new spells. May not be totally optimal, but it is what I have found myself doing.

This gives the players a nice pyramid of skills, with a large number of low Tier spells, but just a few high Tier ones, but still having 15 of each Tier orb.  Most of these high level orbs go completely unused due to lack of resources, with the players just scared to do more missions because of CP.  At CP level 5, however, CP gains stop mattering entirely.  I routinely end up doing 20 or 30 missions at CP 5, just for fun and resources. This leaves me with more at-level spells than I know what to do with. The players get every spell.

What if the amount of Tier orbs and CP given by missions decreased as the CP level of the continent rises. At Tier 1, you still get the 3 orbs (or even more) and the 40 CP. Tier 2 may only give 30 progress. Tier 4 mission might only give 1 orb and 13.4 CP, letting the players complete 15 missions while not getting more than the total 15 Tier 4 orbs. Players could do more missions, which are fun! Maybe this could all be configurable like AIP over time is.

Tier 5 missions could also increase the CP. Maybe just by a small amount (maybe a huge amount - players should have already worried about creating their Tier 5 spells at CP level 4). Dungeons can already go way above Tier 5 monsters, maybe so could the continent. This would balance between players at a "fresh" Tier 4 and those who have completed two dozen missions and all the spells. The overlord isn't just going to sit there and watch. Could the players dig themselves in a hole? Maybe. Maybe they should be allowed to. It wouldn’t be inescapable like continent sinking was, because the amount of Tier 5 spells just keep increasing with resources.

This is probably a much larger change than there is time for by 1.0, but I believe (perhaps foolishly) that it would not be a large mechanical change.

AI War has a great difficulty curve across a single play-through, and it is something that did not just come about overnight  I remember the large push for an exciting end game. 

9

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Player Progress Lost

« on: April 04, 2012, 12:08:45 AM »

I upgraded to the new 0.923. I performed a backup of my world file. I also copied over the "Region 1" folder from an older backup as mentioned in the patch notes to fix old regions.

When starting up for the first time, I was presented with the "select new character" menu. The character selected started back in my first settlement on continent 1, and had none of my enchants or inventory.

I tried reverting to a different backup, but still, it restarts me as a brand new player. Not quite sure what I did wrong.

Edit: Ah, I see I was beat to the punch on Mantis. Sure y'all will get this fixed forthwith!

10

Tidalis / Unity 3D free for iOS/Android?

« on: March 30, 2012, 11:51:57 AM »

I just saw this at tigsource.com. It claims that Unity 3D is free for developers between now and April 8th.

Beyond looking at the Products page at their site and seeing the words "Free until April 8th" I know absolutely nothing about this at all. Maybe you already know and I am missing something.

 I know I'd love the eventual iPad version of Tidalis. You're crazy busy with AVWW now, but if this is really a "free forever if you click the button now" thing, might as well do it.

11

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / A question about the wind

« on: March 27, 2012, 07:57:28 PM »

I see now, with the addition of the visible storms, that the Wind is localized to the continents and not spread out across the oceans between them.

I must ask, is this on purpose? Is the Wind attracted to land masses?

12

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Journey to Perfection

« on: March 18, 2012, 12:02:19 PM »

Let me start off with saying I absolutely love these missions. They rely on a completely different strategy than anything else in the game. Very compelling and interesting.

That being said, I think there are two problems with them. One, of the three upgrades you can have, only one of them gives any benefit to completing the mission, mana. Second, the penalty for losing is very harsh.

These two things combined almost require the player to glyph-swap to either an expendable character that has a lot of mana or a specially upgraded one.

The harshness of failure is part of what makes this mission so much fun, it makes you play carefully and cautiously. However, the "lose the character that is important" is easily mitigated by the glyph-swap. So the real penalty is mission failure.

Having to figure out which person in town is expendable isn't that much fun.

In a regular mission, like a battle ground or boss tower, the only way to judge failure is the same "culmination of mistakes" behavior that eventually leads to character loss throughout the whole game. This seems fair to me since the player is given many opportunities to reassess strategy.

The "rescue survivor" missions have already added the concept of being given only one shot at success. There, failure can be defined as losing the NPC. Here, the players wants the survivor and play carefully because they don't want to lose the opportunity. Because these missions never come back, there isn't even the simple mitigation of the glyph-swap.

If the "Journey to Perfection" missions where modified to act in a similar manner, they would be much more fun. First, being required to glyph-swap would be removed. Second, a real penalty of losing the mission would be imposed.

I believe a similar concept to be moved to "Lava Escape" missions as well, as that is another favorite mission of mine that I am forced to glyph-swap before attempting. The penalty of loosing the character outweighs the fun I have in playing them.

13

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Stealth Assassinations

« on: February 26, 2012, 09:32:57 PM »

I really like stealth games. More the original Splinter Cell types, where you are hiding in shadows and have an abstract concept of enemy perceptions.  But the basic Metal Gear kind is great too, where you don't have shadows or lighting, but explicit view cones for your enemies.  Some games have the "higher stealth skill makes you invisible" which isn't much fun.

What I think makes a great stealth game is fair consequences. Being seen should be bad, but not the end of the world. And, mostly mistakes on your part should be what cause you to be seen instead of just bad luck.

Two things here are important. One, the player needs to want to stay hidden and, two, needs to be able to get out of a tight spot. Killing the player instantly when being seen isn't any fun, that's just forcing them to be hidden. But neither is just being able to kill everything making stealth irrelevant, that just makes it slower.

I have done quite a few of the Stealth Assassination missions now, and I have found a few issues with them. I really want these to be my favorite mission type, and I understand stealth is a really difficult thing to simulate in a fun manner. Notice I didn't say "accurate" because actual stealth would be boring.

Some simple* things that I think would help the Stealth Assassination missions are:

• A visible view range on the mini map. 
  • The player needs to see where the enemies are and what constitutes "hidden" in a quick and easy way
• Make enemies that do see the player more aggressive. 
  • At the moment, I think they just start firing, but a lot of them I have found just kind of wander away.
• Aware enemies get 50% damage resistance.
  • I know they already deal extra damage, but just killing them quickly is too easy, and not a real reason to stay in stealth
• A stealth kill mechanic
  • Double damage against unaware targets.
  • Allows the player to pick off annoyingly placed monsters
• Monster alarm and  death scream
  • Prevents the player from just stealth killing everything.
  • This way the player needs to wait and watch how the monsters are moving and pick the right time to act. Also penalizes alerting a large group of monsters

* "simple" means in concept. I fully understand view cones and active updating mini maps etc. are non-trivial to implement. I was going to write this all up as a Mantis issue, and I will once I get a feel on how other people are viewing Stealth Assassination missions.

14

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Can't find Ride the Lightning

« on: February 24, 2012, 10:55:57 PM »

I finally finished my original very large continent and advanced to my first "modern" style continent.  I had quite a lot of spells grandfathered in before, and was looking forward to starting fresh.

The first thing I did was try and double jump, which didn't work. I got the "Ride the Lightning is not available on this continent" message. I figured, great, let me figure out how to unlock that guy first.

So I go to planning and click on "Crafting Grimoire." I select "Catagory" and then "Movement." I don't see RtL though, only Lesser Teleport, Miniature and Storm Dash 2.

I have no idea how to craft this spell. No where in the interface could I figure out what it was I needed to be looking for. I then clicked on "All Unlocked Spells" and it wasn't even there.

Finally, I went back to my first continent and was able to look it up, and I needed Comet Shards to make it.

This was rather long winded, but I think all spells should be in the Grimoire, no matter what.

15

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Double-tapping shortcuts

« on: February 22, 2012, 02:06:06 PM »

I know you aren't done with the next version yet, but I saw the following in the working patch notes:

"The miniature spell can no longer be triggered by double-tapping the down key. That's what ducking is now for, and having that trigger miniature accidentally is annoying. Miniature is still a hugely useful spell, but it's one that you're more likely to switch between outside of combat, so it doesn't need to be hot-bound."

This made me wonder if that could be made an option, instead of being removed entirely.

What about having double-tap in any direction being linked to a spell by the user instead of automatic defaults. Especially in the future when I could have many different types of dash or miniaturize. I know it defaults to the "leftmost" ability in your bar which is a type of customization, but not the most intuitive one. Maybe just 3 more equip slots of double-tap-up/down/forward for the players to decide on their own.