Topics

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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / storing loadouts and 'collaborate with adventurer' missions...

« on: June 23, 2012, 01:40:02 AM »

For a long time now i have been using a selection of different characters to venture out into environ depending on what i plan to do and where i need to go. This has really been spiced up and added to by the character revamps in 1.1 (which i love).

I am wondering though if many people use this and whether they think the following might be useful....

I am happy with the idea that all of my adventurers share the same inventory (definitely don't want it separated out) but i think it would be really nice for each character to have a 'stored load out'. So when i glyph swap away from one adventurer his enchant selections and inventory organization are saved and when i switch back to him/her that load out is restored (unless some item, enchant or spell is no longer in my shared inventory). Right now i have to spend quite a lot of time swapping everything around every time i swap adventurers... anyone else think this would be useful??

also, as i think someone else suggested elsewhere but with a slight variation...  to get more people to take advantage of the possibilities of this swapping adventurers it might be nice to have missions that 'rescue' adventurers rather than professionals... would help to publicise the possibility and could maybe offer up a different mission style - i.e. not 'rescue survivor' but 'collaborate with adventurer' mission - something similar except you don't get to to clear out the cave/building first before bringing the survivor back through a relatively safe and explored/lit zone - but instead meet the adventurer at the beginning and go forward together through an unexplored region and maybe with a boss at the end? just an idea... you could even get some kind of permanent bonus (similar to those that come with buildings now) from 'uniting the glyphs' through this kind of more difficult 'collaboration' mission ... an extra bonus to make 'recruiting' an adventurer this way more distinctive from simply asking your lumbermancer to put down his 'axe' and start learning to fight... (reminds me of 300 - 'i brought more soldiers than you my friend...')

thoughts? cheers 

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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / the 'adventurer' class

« on: June 12, 2012, 08:38:10 AM »

ok, so i havn't played for a few updates and in my session today i was thoroughly impressed with the new balance and character changes - but one of the other recent changes caught me out completely - the 'adventurer' profession...

   ... it took me quite a long time to get stonebinder, lunbermancer and aquaurist on my second continent of this world... and while playing around with the new upgrade system i thought i would check out how the enchants would effect the other characters in my stable by glyph swapping around a bit.... then with my character of choice i head back out into the world and crank out a couple of missions to get wind shelter scrolls to get me over to the lava flats and skelbot junkyard i want... but with scrolls in hand i was gutted to learn that i had nullified my settlement residents professions and was back to square one with searching for new survivors with relevant professions...

... I was rather disappointed as you can probably imagine... and all being well i wont make the mistake again... i remember reading about the new class in the change log but didn't properly absorb the details of the change before glyph swapping my way back to square one....

admittedly now i have four 'adventurers' so i can get on with one aspect i really enjoy in this game - building a stable of characters - and this will be all the better with the new and greatly improved characters...

... BUT i get the feeling that i will not be the only player to ever fall into this trap and feel that it might be a good idea to glyph swap automatically in the usual way from one 'adventurer' character to another, but to have a pop up 'are you sure?' when swapping to a character with another profession - perhaps with a quick explanation of consequences in terms of loss and potential gain in terms of another slot for your stable....?

any thoughts before i chuck this on mantis...? cheers

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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / what about making the comabt more 'magical' before throwing in many more spells?

« on: May 12, 2012, 07:50:54 AM »

there is a discussion thread going on right now about new spell ideas which is producing some really nice suggestions. but i feel like we have missed something which could really change the dynamics of combat and make this game much more unique. I can remember many time back in the beta valley was compared to FPS, then enemy spell speed was reduced to give the game a more shmup/metroid feel - and it feels really good now. However, there is still the basic requirement that when fighting any given monster the first step is to simply move your mouse pointer to the bad guy - i like this, it builds twitch style aiming skills from FPS into our combat system, but once my mouse is over the bad guy its just a matter of maintaining that, letting off more spells and dodging best you can. The game has a wide range of potential customization in terms of character builds, spell choice and play styles which I love and it works well in terms of offering diversity to the play experience ... but I have been trying to think of a way to make the combat more engaging and unique and i think that the way to go is to really follow through the idea that valley is about magic not weapons...

Right now my spells feel more like different types of bullets than different types of magic. Think about any film or story with a fantasy setting involving magic and then think about how magicians engage in combat - one uses one type of spell and the other counters that spell with another of an opposing type. Right now (apart from the relatively rare "sentient" projectiles) all of my spells travel directly though those of the enemy find there target, and like wise the spells of the enemy continue on to hit me... imagine a valley where all spells could be countered, where the enemy has a way of defending itself from my long range attacks through the use of its own spells. Right now it feels like different bullets passing each other.... not magic users trading spells.

there was a thread in brainstorming about a very interesting combo system idea - where one spell could be released and then another fired to hit it while traveling to its target to adjust or change its properties - i.e. water spells being hit with lightning to increase the power of that spell (this has great potential for multi player as well). What if we took this idea and broadened it into a world where all spell "projectiles" can collide. In order to counter the fire spells being thrown at me i would need fire my own spells into its path, and i would be best to use a water based spell if i want to bring that fireball down quickly. Maybe if i fired my lightning bolt up into the water spell my enemy is using i would not counter his spell but instead enhance its power.

With this change i have not only to think about keeping my mouse over my enemy but also have to move the mouse more and re-aim during combat to shoot down spells that would otherwise hit me. I think combat would become a lot more frenetic and engaging, and I would be very much encouraged to use different types of spells because of this need to counter with something effective - i could keep firing my energy orb at the fireball but its going to take longer to bring it down and eventually one of my opponents shots is going to get through. I will also have to be much more creative in terms of my spell selection and combat tactics in order to score hits on the enemy if they are able to actively counter my spells with theirs. I think this kind of change to the combat mechanics would also inspire many more creative spell ideas and help us to make the spell elements (and their interrelationships) seem like a more coherent part of the game....

Any thoughts from the general populous? Cheers

4

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / "pause and examine"...

« on: April 14, 2012, 04:25:05 AM »

i like the change of the pause description guys, should help people realise the importance of this feature. just one quick thought from my perspective...

In AI war it felt completely natural - pausing an RTS style game is something normal and hover over items for tool tips while paused is completely natural and intuitive in this type of game.

On the other hand, never have i played a side scroller where such a system is used... I like it and think its essential in AVWW but it just feels like it needs to be empahasised a little bit more and integrated into the lore of the game....

... what about renaming "pause" as "Freeze Time" and describing it as a special power of the glyph bearer given by the illari which enables the glyph bearer to divine more information on the surroundings and enemies encountered - information provided by the illari while time is frozen and a communication link to them is established??

for sure you could write something good to explain much better than me.... but i hope you get the idea, for me it would feel like the information has a plausible ingame source and it would surely stress the usefulness of this mechanic to new players.

(oh and in relation to this i map the 'pause' function to TAB, just because it's so useful - all the way over at 'p' seems a bit counter intuitive for something so important and regularly used?!)

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AI War Strategy Discussion / alarm post and alarmist ai type...

« on: April 21, 2010, 05:06:57 PM »

hey folks,

can someone give me a better idea of how the alarm posts work, and how the alarmist AI would use them. I had a CPA of 450 not arrive and then took out the command station on a MK 3 world with 400 ships (which i could have handled). I heard the alarm sound and suddenly my threat jumped from 50 to 850. Then on the opposite side of my tiny empire a fleet of MK 4 ships flew through a hostile warp gate and caused seious damage. had to redirect my defenses using transports, finally finished the MK 4's off on my homeworld by which time the MK 3's had arrived on the other system. flew my defenses (what was left of them) over there and tried to deal with that. barely hung on to my home command station - serious reconstruction to do if this game is to be salvaged.

This is the first alarm i have heard go off - wasn't pretty

does the alarmist save CPA's until the alarm goes off? or does the alarm effect in some other way i dont understand? would appreciate a better idea if someone who has played against this AI type could explain. cheers.