Show Posts
1
A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Suggestions for game-play smoothness.
« on: May 21, 2012, 10:23:36 AM »
Note moved from the end of the post: I did not intend this to become a book, but it did. 
None of these things are criticisms from my side, I am enjoying almost everything in this game, but especially because it allows me to play the way I want to. Removing the cap on missions through CP and adding the store really helped this. Most of these are small things that may or may not help the game much for most people based on playing style.
I just finished Continent 2 with most things unlocked and I have a few suggestions that would make the game seem smoother.
1. Healing: To regain health without killing a lot of monsters, I find a warp gate, warp to the first chunk in the area, then go to the edge of the chunk to exit to the continent map, then run over to the settlement, then storm dash over to the green stone and back. At this point I need to do all of these actions in reverse just to get back to the point I was exploring. Is there an easier way?
My suggestion is to cut this off at some earlier point to allow healing without wasting time. What I would personally like is to regain to full health just by running over to the settlement in the continent map instead of having to enter it and run to the stone. However, since most of the string of actions feels unnecessary once you reach a warp gate, it might be changed so that you heal as soon as you reach the continent map, or even as soon as you enter a warp gate?
2. NPCs: Right now I am struggling to find a few of the different types of NPCs (I know at least one is still locked to me on continent 2). It would be nice if on the unlocks menu it listed which regions and/or types of building you are most likely to find each race. Also, once there are a ton of NPCs in town, it gets difficult to glyph transfer to the correct one since they are all running around and they tend to form a group around you. Maybe when you use a glyph transfer it brings up the settlement residents screen and you can then compare all of them and select the one you want in one simple step? I would like it if the residents screen showed health/mana/attack for each character instead of having to click each one.
3. Other unlocks: On a similar note to unlocking new NPC types, it would be nice if the rest of the unlocks gave more hints as to where to find them. For example: Find a stash in a deep wood house. What region type do those appear in? Same with listing which regions some monsters are most likely to appear in. Also, the ones that are not actually possible to unlock yet should maybe be marked that way.
4. Store: Can we have some option for selling things back to the store for a small amount of shards? I am not using most of the traps and have so many platforms and crates. At this point stashes are not really worth going to because the only thing I gain value from is enchant containers.
Also, can we have the option to buy enchant charge containers or full (random) enchant containers at the store at an appropriate price?
5. Mission rewards, advancing time: I am seeing a lot of rewards of white witch hair, and others of sunstone or moonstone. Both of these are often combined with gems that I do not need any more of. It seems like maybe the seeding of these is too high considering the very low amount of spells that use them. I have a high mana character that can cause time to advance by the day and night spells, but it is a pain to switch to her because of #2 above, and it is also kind of a pain to go into an area, cast the spell a few times, check the continent map... repeat. It would be nicer if once you have an NPC with enough mana, you could cast those spells directly from the continent map regardless of if she is your current character.
6. New continents and multiplayer: For a little while on continent 2, I was stuck without being able to build wind shelters. The building I needed was in a difficult area, so I wanted to advance time and get it to seed in an easier place. However I think I was stuck on the continent since all of my deep sea ports were in the wind! Likewise, when I go to look at continent 3, all of the ports are in the wind, so will I be stuck there as soon as I land and until I can get wind shelters? Can you make it so that each continent has at least one open deep sea port?
This was also a problem because my wife joined in on multiplayer and she spawned on continent 1. She wanted to play there for a little while to get a feel for the game without messing with the current continent, but I could not leave continent 2 to go play with her until I built some wind shelters.
7. Continent overlay: The continent map could use some additional information. I find myself hitting escape and bringing up my loot goals almost constantly, can loot goals be added to the continent map permanently or as a toggle? It would also be nice if it showed the number of tier X orbs/spells you have versus your maximum so that you know if you have all the orbs you want before advancing the tier. (Maybe a server admin command could be to lock all of the lieutenants and overlord at the current tier until the max number of orbs has been reached?)
8. Minor bug? I saw this across two different computers on the latest beta, but it was not consistent enough for me to be sure it was happening or to catch a trend of when it would happen. Mech units were occasionally not dropping either health or consciousness shards. I am also sometimes seeing the orange marker appearing in the top left of the mini-map like they were when shard drop was first added.
9. Minor bug? Lava flats Fix Anachronisms in cave mission had very few native monsters, and none of the ones I was expecting. This was on low continent tier and the only monsters in the area were non-natives except for some skelebot kneecappers. I thought they did not belong so I killed two of them, and there was only one of them left at the end of the mission (1 native monster in the whole cave compared to 8-9 anachronisms!). I think this means there was probably only one non-anachronistic monster in the entire mission. Did I get really lucky, or did something go wrong?
Edit: Just remembered one more. The blade and spike trap infestations are really too much in some areas. In particular, when I come across an abandoned town building with a spike or blade trap room, I am likely to just skip it and go back rather than search the building. It might as well be a destroyed room. A narrow hallway with a row of jumping spike traps is going to hurt you way more than anything you can find in the building will help you. Teleport is not accurate enough to get around these and my normal jumping/dodging tactics do not work when the spikes fill 1/3 or the corridor. I also had a rescue survivor from deep cave mission that was infested with tons of blades. I turned back after about 30m because there was no way I was going to get a live NPC out of there. I am fine with how damaging they are, but the risk does not match the reward at this point, especially in narrow spaces.
None of these things are criticisms from my side, I am enjoying almost everything in this game, but especially because it allows me to play the way I want to. Removing the cap on missions through CP and adding the store really helped this. Most of these are small things that may or may not help the game much for most people based on playing style.I just finished Continent 2 with most things unlocked and I have a few suggestions that would make the game seem smoother.
1. Healing: To regain health without killing a lot of monsters, I find a warp gate, warp to the first chunk in the area, then go to the edge of the chunk to exit to the continent map, then run over to the settlement, then storm dash over to the green stone and back. At this point I need to do all of these actions in reverse just to get back to the point I was exploring. Is there an easier way?
My suggestion is to cut this off at some earlier point to allow healing without wasting time. What I would personally like is to regain to full health just by running over to the settlement in the continent map instead of having to enter it and run to the stone. However, since most of the string of actions feels unnecessary once you reach a warp gate, it might be changed so that you heal as soon as you reach the continent map, or even as soon as you enter a warp gate?
2. NPCs: Right now I am struggling to find a few of the different types of NPCs (I know at least one is still locked to me on continent 2). It would be nice if on the unlocks menu it listed which regions and/or types of building you are most likely to find each race. Also, once there are a ton of NPCs in town, it gets difficult to glyph transfer to the correct one since they are all running around and they tend to form a group around you. Maybe when you use a glyph transfer it brings up the settlement residents screen and you can then compare all of them and select the one you want in one simple step? I would like it if the residents screen showed health/mana/attack for each character instead of having to click each one.
3. Other unlocks: On a similar note to unlocking new NPC types, it would be nice if the rest of the unlocks gave more hints as to where to find them. For example: Find a stash in a deep wood house. What region type do those appear in? Same with listing which regions some monsters are most likely to appear in. Also, the ones that are not actually possible to unlock yet should maybe be marked that way.
4. Store: Can we have some option for selling things back to the store for a small amount of shards? I am not using most of the traps and have so many platforms and crates. At this point stashes are not really worth going to because the only thing I gain value from is enchant containers.
Also, can we have the option to buy enchant charge containers or full (random) enchant containers at the store at an appropriate price?
5. Mission rewards, advancing time: I am seeing a lot of rewards of white witch hair, and others of sunstone or moonstone. Both of these are often combined with gems that I do not need any more of. It seems like maybe the seeding of these is too high considering the very low amount of spells that use them. I have a high mana character that can cause time to advance by the day and night spells, but it is a pain to switch to her because of #2 above, and it is also kind of a pain to go into an area, cast the spell a few times, check the continent map... repeat. It would be nicer if once you have an NPC with enough mana, you could cast those spells directly from the continent map regardless of if she is your current character.
6. New continents and multiplayer: For a little while on continent 2, I was stuck without being able to build wind shelters. The building I needed was in a difficult area, so I wanted to advance time and get it to seed in an easier place. However I think I was stuck on the continent since all of my deep sea ports were in the wind! Likewise, when I go to look at continent 3, all of the ports are in the wind, so will I be stuck there as soon as I land and until I can get wind shelters? Can you make it so that each continent has at least one open deep sea port?
This was also a problem because my wife joined in on multiplayer and she spawned on continent 1. She wanted to play there for a little while to get a feel for the game without messing with the current continent, but I could not leave continent 2 to go play with her until I built some wind shelters.
7. Continent overlay: The continent map could use some additional information. I find myself hitting escape and bringing up my loot goals almost constantly, can loot goals be added to the continent map permanently or as a toggle? It would also be nice if it showed the number of tier X orbs/spells you have versus your maximum so that you know if you have all the orbs you want before advancing the tier. (Maybe a server admin command could be to lock all of the lieutenants and overlord at the current tier until the max number of orbs has been reached?)
8. Minor bug? I saw this across two different computers on the latest beta, but it was not consistent enough for me to be sure it was happening or to catch a trend of when it would happen. Mech units were occasionally not dropping either health or consciousness shards. I am also sometimes seeing the orange marker appearing in the top left of the mini-map like they were when shard drop was first added.
9. Minor bug? Lava flats Fix Anachronisms in cave mission had very few native monsters, and none of the ones I was expecting. This was on low continent tier and the only monsters in the area were non-natives except for some skelebot kneecappers. I thought they did not belong so I killed two of them, and there was only one of them left at the end of the mission (1 native monster in the whole cave compared to 8-9 anachronisms!). I think this means there was probably only one non-anachronistic monster in the entire mission. Did I get really lucky, or did something go wrong?
Edit: Just remembered one more. The blade and spike trap infestations are really too much in some areas. In particular, when I come across an abandoned town building with a spike or blade trap room, I am likely to just skip it and go back rather than search the building. It might as well be a destroyed room. A narrow hallway with a row of jumping spike traps is going to hurt you way more than anything you can find in the building will help you. Teleport is not accurate enough to get around these and my normal jumping/dodging tactics do not work when the spikes fill 1/3 or the corridor. I also had a rescue survivor from deep cave mission that was infested with tons of blades. I turned back after about 30m because there was no way I was going to get a live NPC out of there. I am fine with how damaging they are, but the risk does not match the reward at this point, especially in narrow spaces.
.
)
. The 1.007 patch looks sweet! Hope to try it today since the shopping list should help me stay on track and not just get distracted by every shack or ruin