Messages

1

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Shield Question and Suggestion

« on: May 13, 2012, 10:46:58 AM »

All shields can ignore all damage types.  The fire one for example just does fire damage about 25% better.

Just get one shield leveled up and bind it to an easily reachable binding.  I use mouse btn 4, but you could use something like F or shift.  There is even a direct keybinding for shields in the options that will use the first shield in your inventory so it doesn't have to use a spot on your main bar.

Don't bother attacking while using your shield, if you don't you can have shield up for a good 5-8 seconds with over 250 mana.  It basically makes you invicible during this time no matter what type of shield you are using and any damage type you are taking.  Like I said, you don't need a fire shield to block fire damage, an earth of water shield will work just fine.

Good to use shield to absorb the little homing faeries who die when they touch you and you will take no damage.  Also, for walking through the little flames the dragons spawn.

2

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Mystery rooms

« on: May 11, 2012, 02:56:11 PM »

Thanks, I'll go search lava regions and towns then.

What color are the rooms on the dungeon map?

as far as i can tell they were the same color as the secret missions.

3

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

« on: May 11, 2012, 12:20:20 PM »

OMG I just tried an outside JtP mission while miniaturized, using the most rapid-fire spell I have (I think it's plasma bolt) and I still wasn't able to do that stupid mission after about 30 tries!!! I hate them so much! Keep on landing on frickin' robots!

I swear if there's anything that hurts my enjoyment of the game more than anything else it's those missions. The only ones I like are the stealth assassination and anachronism. But even those I don't want to do over and over. Just make them optional! The strength of the game really isn't in those missions. I have the most fun when I'm thinking about what I want to get next, when I go to get it, when I get distracted on the way, and when I upgrade my stuff. It'd be really cool if upgrading my settlement really mattered as well, or if I could upgrade tiles or something. That's it. That's the core of the game. Everything else should be optional or should enhance that core experience (ie. quests to take care of while I'm hunting for stuff would be great).

If I could enhance the game to make the core stand out, I'd put an Ilari stone that talks to you every time you go to the settlement. "What did you get? Great! That's just what we need for X." It'd have a list of "We need X for the settlement to do Y. We need you to go to Z to take care of A and B." (ie. a list of quests) and "Looks like you could use some better spells. You can go to C to get D to get ingredients to upgrade your spell."

Later on JtP missions are some of the easiest, especially on higher difficulties.  Get a triple jump, stealth enchant, and spam something like energy slice with tab targetting.  Don't forget to be using flash of light if it's dark.  Not really much to it...

4

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

« on: May 10, 2012, 12:56:02 PM »

I'm sick of grinding to get the spells I like every time I start a new continent. Let me keep some (or all!) of them, please. Especially double jump.

Actually, here's a crazy idea: let me pick which spells to keep when I move to a new continent. More choice is alway nice.

I don't think this is a good idea because people will keep using the same spells.  One of the great things about the game is there are like 50+ spells.  I think there should be some kind of mechanics that forces people to use different spells, possibly only make some of them available on specific continents.  It doesn't help either that once you get a good right arm enchant for 60%+ dmg you tend to keep using that element.

5

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Soundtrack is Awesome!

« on: May 10, 2012, 12:53:21 PM »

Not sure what the game uses.  These are VBR from 189-209kbps mp3 files.

6

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Soundtrack is Awesome!

« on: May 10, 2012, 10:35:07 AM »

Just purchased the soundtrack for AVWW and AI War from Amazon and it's great!  You would think I would have heard enough after 60+ hours, but no!

Wanted to tell Pablo he did a great job.  I think the soundtrack really helps make the game that much better.

The only problem sometimes I tend to go to areas where I really like the tracks like outdoor buildings/ice age buildings.  I won't hold it against you.

7

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Do continents get harder the higher the number?

« on: May 10, 2012, 10:06:22 AM »

Thanks!  One more thing I forgot to ask.  Does buying an enchant count towards getting better enchants of that type?

8

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Do continents get harder the higher the number?

« on: May 10, 2012, 09:40:22 AM »

Are the better enchants and more elites tied to higher continent levels or just killing more monsters and getting more enchants.  Is it possible to just grind out the first continent and have legendary enchants and elites?

9

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Doors to caves spawning in missions now and bugging

« on: May 09, 2012, 11:26:56 PM »

Yea, they are definitely bugging.  They are spawning in the middle my underground cave mission and take me out of the mission even though the minimap is not green for this area.  Here is a screenshot.

I just killed the boss in the underground assassination attempt and since going through the cave entrance in the screenshot I did not get credit. 

10

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Doors to caves spawning in missions now and bugging

« on: May 09, 2012, 11:12:53 PM »

I see doors to caves have started spawning in missions now.  Not sure if this is intended or a bug.  The first one I saw was in the room just after entering a mission before I went into the main door.  This one worked and took me to a cave like any other underground passage.

I saw a few doors to caves during a windmill mission.  I tried to enter one of them but killing the boss and i got stuck there with a message waiting on chunk...The door did say it was blocked by boss but it still tried to let me enter it anyway.

It wouldn't let me move and my character was soon killed off.  I tried to get a screenshot but I couldn't pause.

11

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

« on: May 09, 2012, 10:26:25 PM »

Currently the biggest gripe I have about the game is the enchants, obtaining the buggers just isn't very fun. The only way save for a (very) small handful of bosses is to explore buildings for the charges. The whole "efficient" exploration thing will net you maybe 3 or 4 containers a building if you're lucky, and more often than not, I need to gather the full 100% to actually get an enchant. Even running through building stashes isn't the best way to gather the things, it all comes down to finding a maze room.

It didn't take long to catch on to the fact that nearly every dead end in a maze room would contain an enchant charge. At that point I just started avoiding regular buildings when I wanted enchants. I go to the desert, find a pyramid, and farm the Hell out of those extremely tedious maze rooms. It's unfortunately the quickest way to gather enchants.

Though the new shop has alleviated the problem quite a bit, I simply ignore charges now unless my friends want to go searching for them. At the shop, the enchants are cheap, and I can buy a particular slot that I want. It's far more convenient simply because I can get the shards anywhere I go. But that's completely cut out hunting for enchants as a game play aspect so it's really just putting a bandage over the problem and pretending it doesn't exist.

One thing that still perplexes me whenever I think about it......Why are enchants not available as secret mission rewards? It would be a great alternative to grinding charges. I already complete nearly every secret mission I come across, and the reward for secret missions is already very minor, why not offer a enchant to sweeten the pot? It would guarantee that every mission includes at least SOMETHING that everyone would be interested in, and it would provide an alternative to running maze rooms.

The final thing that bothers me about the enchants is that many of them are simply not useful. I'm not trying to imply that the stats just aren't up to par with what I'm using currently, I mean that many of the buffs provided are rendered obsolete by other game elements. For example, Jump Height increase won't ever be useful compared to double jump because not only does double jump well, double your jump height, something which jump height enchants don't and probably can't ever do, it gives you direct control over your ascent and descent (making fall velocity mostly pointless), and let's you avoid fall damage provided you planned for it (making fall immunity useful only in the situation you hadn't). Even the ability to make platforms directly hurts the value of most of the leg enchants, and storm dash almost completely diminishes the value of running speed.

Good point about secret mission rewards.  Enchants would be nice.

So where does this leave me? As far as leg enchants go, if it has windstorm immunity, I'll take a look. Otherwise it either has double jump or I toss it immediately.

Few points about the enchants.  The jump % boost is useful because you can use it in a lava suit which double/triple jump don't work.  You are probably going to need this for the lava escape missions which it sounds like you might have not done yet.

Also, I noticed that you don't have triple jump yet.  Once you get this you will probably think your double jumps are a waste.  This points out that the some of the enchants are just used for progressing to the next better one...in your case jump % until you find a double jump.

Also, windstorm immunity is situational.  Obivously, you wouldn't want to use outside of a windstorm, and in some cases I actually prefer using a triple jump enchant instead of windstorm immunity in a storm.

Falling immunity was useful for me when I was just starting journey to perfection missions.  I used them a lot before I finally got a double and later triple jump.

12

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

« on: May 09, 2012, 09:26:10 PM »

Puzzle Rooms/Lore Hunting

Rare to find rooms, that only seem to show up in the mazy buiildings, which end in a rather boring and finicy switch room. Thats bad enough to put most people off hunting for the lore.
Lore helps people care about the world, and would help aliviate the 'why am I beating up these big dudes who are stuck in these little rooms at the top of these towers' feeling you get between obsessing over the next upgrade material.

Oh god.  How could I forget this.


Devs, if you read anything in this topic, read that.  The Lore Hunting, something that I thought I'd absolutely love, is currently so grindy that I actively avoid it.

You have to grind maze buildings until you find a rare room.  Then you have to complete the a tedious puzzle.  Then you have to do it over and over again until you get ever piece of lore.

The room-hunting wouldn't even be THAT terrible if it wasn't for that Puzzle.  It absolutely breaks the flow of the game.

Agreed.  The puzzle puts me off from learning any of the lore.  Wouldn't be so bad if it was maybe 1/4 the size.  The way it is now it's just 20-30 minutes of frustration.

13

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

« on: May 09, 2012, 06:48:05 PM »

There ARE "full" enchants that you can find on the ground, but they usually seem to be things like Acid Gills and whatnot.

Since 100% enchants seem to mostly be special boss drops, why not have, say, rare-ish "large" containers, that immediately give you 50-60%?  They'd be rare, but not THAT rare;  Maybe, as rare as the Bat scrolls?  I think with the current system, it'd be satisfying to find one of these.   But the special drops from the big bosses would still be special.


I agree with the bit about the guardian powers too.   They ARE useful..... but 5 minutes is very short.   Also having them just be more VARIED would be nice;  I like the whole profession system and the buildings and all, but would like to just see MORE types of guardian powers that could be found, both low level and high level ones.   That would be quite nice.

Yea, I think I've only ever found acid gills on the ground before and that was maybe 1 or 2 times compared to 400 glyph transfers and 50 bat scrolls.  Because of this I don't usually bother with stash rooms.

14

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

« on: May 09, 2012, 06:34:10 PM »

#1 - The part I dislike like mentioned about is going through mazes.  I have grown to just exit a building if I have to go through a maze room.  It's hard navigating the mini map because everything is small and the doors are hard to see because of the green enchant icons.  Maybe make the doors we have been through more pronounced or something more contrasting with the enchant icons.  I know you can zoom the minimap but then it just gets too big so I can't really have it like that when running around.  I have decent enchants and now that I can purchase them there is no need to farm these rooms.  Like above, I hate having to go to the corner of every part of the maze to get the enchants.

I really like the idea of having 100% enchant drops randomly in stashes or maze rooms.  This would make it feel more rewarding.  Only getting like 10% towards an enchant doesn't really fulfill my diablo tendencies.  Maybe it's time to get rid of the enchant containers and maybe 1/10 times where an enchant would spawn there would be a full enchant.

#2 - Now that I am on the 4th Continent and about 60 hours in with pretty much everything unlocked there isn't really a lot of incentive to keep continuing knowing it's basically going to be the same here on out with harder monsters and slightly better enchants.  Get npc's/buildings for windmill, get an upgrade 5 spell and head to overload.  Since then I have started playing on a higher difficulty but with the same statistics there isn't much incentive to do so.  I would propose making higher drop rates or better enchants/stashes with a raised difficulty.  Also, more achievements are good!

#3 - Buildings and profession abilities need to be improved.  My first 3 continents on normal difficulty, I only used special abilities a few times and I didn't notice much difference for the short 5 min time frame.  This has made me only attempt missions that have resources or buildings/npcs and just ignore the special abilities.  Maybe now that I am playing on hero I can see some missions like battlegrounds and other boss battles might be near impossible without them so my view may change.  Part of the problem is we need to go back to town to use them, so if I am about ready for a big boss battle I dont' really want to run back to town.  I would suggest being able to activate these abilities at any time.  This would also alleviate the fact I only have 5 mins to get to mission or overlord room and makes everything feel rushed and that I already wasted half of the time because the warp was far away.

Using these abilities just doesn't feel special.  I would propose at least an on screen buff so we don't need to hit escape to see what is still active.

#4 - Getting stuck using same spells.  After a few continents I just can't give up fireball.  I think part of the problem is the right hand enchants.  Maybe if they did something else than boost spell power I would try out more of the other skills.  My 64% fire damage enchant I found on continent 1 has been too good to me and other spells feel very weak comparatively.

15

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Functionality

« on: May 09, 2012, 01:43:13 PM »

there are already hotkeys in the options for setting spells like ball of light, snake, flash of light, the other light spell and shield.  i'm pretty sure you can set a hotkey directly to the speed boost, too.