Messages

136

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: "Journey to perfection"...... blasted cliffs.....

« on: April 27, 2012, 11:37:08 AM »

When I want a quick controlled descent down a I usually turn into a bat.

Lacking that option, I use crates. I drop a tower of crates, I jump on top of the tower, then destroy the crates to descend.

137

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: I've never played a game this bad

« on: April 27, 2012, 11:26:39 AM »

I can kill 50 bats and get fire bats, and kill 50 firebats to get even badder fireball shooting bats. But wait a sec, killing bats doesn't get me loot. Killing bats doesn't get me xp. And the more I kill them, the tougher they get, and the tougher they get the longer it will take me to reach my goal (killing the overlord).

See, I genuinely disagree that this is a problem. Perhaps to be more descriptive, I see why you might not like it that way, but I strongly disagree with the implied solution.

I don't believe in enemies dropping loot, granting xp, or generally giving a direct reward for killing them. Many games have had this mechanic, and some of those games are my favorite games, but still I never liked this mechanic and every often I dislike it in games that I like. There are a few cases where I thought it was justified, but I don't see that here.

When you make enemies give you something useful then they become self-contained challenges with reward in themselves. This might sound nice, but the problem with this is that this actively punishes you for not fighting them and runs on the assumption that fighting them should be essential. This is a very narrow assumption that doesn't work when it makes sense for combat to be avoided or averted in any way.

Wind Shelter missions, Stealth Assasination, NPC rescue, and other such missions don't explicitly encourage direct combat, and that I believe would be somewhat harmed by a mechanic that directly rewards the killing of enemies.

Same exact thing with the tier system. Suddenly all the monsters I've been fighting got tougher. Not only tougher, but with each tier they get stronger faster than your best spells can keep up.
Think back to an old game, say, dragon warrior for NES. You're near the starter town fighting slimes. You gain a few levels, use the gold you obtained to get better gear. You feel pretty good about yourself, ready to take on bigger challenges. But wait, as soon as you step out of town, the same slimes you've been killing left and right are suddenly kicking your butt! You can use pretty words to dress up the game mechanic in this game, but fundamentally it makes as much sense as my example, and just as satisfying.

The average computer game goes like this: You overcome challenge, get rewarded with better equipment, levels, xp and whatnot, then you use that to overcome a bigger challenge and the cycle keeps repeating.

Again, here I see why you have a problem with how it works, but I STRONGLY disagree with your implied solution to the problem.

In this case I prefer the way it works now over the more typical system you describe. I like that my enemy becomes more powerful because it forces me to make decisions about how I want to keep up. It motivates me to do things to mitigate it (such as building wind shelters) and makes me more careful about which missions I take on before raising continent tier.

I like that the monsters sometimes get stronger faster than my spells can keep up, because to me that's the game punishing me for my bad decisions. When I make bad decisions and don't think ahead I want the game to punish me for it.


I'm not saying you're wrong, you've pointed out things you probably genuinely don't like. What I am saying is that I disagree with you because some of the implied "fixes" to the "problems" you describe in some ways go against what I want out of the game.

Applying the implied "fixes" would make the game better for you, but it wouldn't make the game better for me.

138

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Distress Call or Rapid Response missions.

« on: April 27, 2012, 01:15:28 AM »

All the current missions, resource gathering, and construction tasks are all things that tend to wait until the player decides to go to them and finish them. This is fine, but as a result it does feel somewhat passive and I think it would be nice if there was some way to convey the idea of an active conflict.

What if there were occasional missions that were very short term and very time sensitive, but had a high payoff?

Say you're out gathering plums or whatever and then you get a message from the Guardian Ilari. "[Insert name here] has been spotted by the Overlord's forces and needs to be rescued!" Then there would be a very short lived mission that would show up in that area. There NPC running around outside there being chased by enemies or something, then go in and you'd "pick them up" just like in a rescue mission and try to get them out without getting them killed.

Maybe suddenly you got a message from the Guardian Ilari saying "The Overlord is moving supply crates through [insert location here]". Then if you got there within a short amount of time there would be a stack of crates there with enemies guarding it, then you could destroy all the guarding enemies for some materials.

Maybe there could be low but decent chance of one of these occurring every hour or so.

Those are similar to already existing missions and missions that have been suggested, but the point is more that it would be something really sudden and time sensitive that the player would have to decide whether or not to break away from what he/she is currently doing to pursue it.



I dunno if it would fit and maybe it would seem a bit too silly, but it would be something to make things seem a bit more active. I think the idea of The Glyphbearer being "on call" would be a rather amusing one.

139

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: The Keyboard Challenge

« on: April 27, 2012, 12:28:14 AM »

I actually prefer keyboard-only for a lot of side-scrollers and shmups.

I don't prefer it for this game though, despite having tried it. I do see why some people might actually like it better if they gave it a chance though.

140

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: AVWW screenshots.

« on: April 27, 2012, 12:21:33 AM »

Reinventing Dancing On Mailboxes with Dancing on Tanks. 

Hahahahahaha oh wow. That's just great.

141

AVWW Brainstorming / Re: Ideas for exploration enhancement

« on: April 27, 2012, 12:17:07 AM »

I think any exploration elements added should be in addition to what's already there, not a replacement for something.

142

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: I've never played a game this bad

« on: April 26, 2012, 07:48:19 PM »

As far as the corner death let me explain the situation.  I open a door which leads to a room, I have low level light and cant see the ends on either side, there is a monster slightly to my right with ~4k health.  I hit for 80 at this point.  I begin to kite the mob to the left and immediately run into a wall that is now visible as I walk into light range of it.  I automatically die.  Its situations like this that lead to virtually every game in the genre allowing you to phase through enemies while injured.

You went into a room and gave up temporary invincibility right away.

You had access to a door and had an enemy you cannot pass and where your escape route was uncertain. You continued to fight and gave up your only known viable escape route (the door).

If you came prepared, you could have lit the room with a moon lamp or ball of light to give yourself a view of the room (the former which you get from many stash rooms and the latter which is easily available). You could have retreated and gone to another room where you wouldn't be at a disadvantage.

I believe this is enough tactical errors to make this is a valid death.

I would say something about burdens of knowledge and truly random item distribution being a terrible way to promote customization, but I think i've already talked about that enough.

Item distribution is not "random". It has random elements in it, but it largely follows a known set of rules and you can generally rely on things appearing in certain types of areas.

If you check the Planning Menu it has detailed information on where certain items occur.

In fact, the only craftable spell I've found that does anything besides damage was fire snake, that world got ruined when somebody decided to suicide ~80 times into the spawn area of the overlord though.

You would have had a number of spells available right from the beginning at the crafting station or would have only taken a few materials to craft, some which would have only taken a few minutes. The details for these are in the Planning Menu.

Secondly, did you run into multiplayer without doing the tutorial or reading the wiki first (the equivalent of "read the manual") first?

The fact that what you've said previously suggests you haven't been exploring effectively seems to point to the idea that you jumped into co-op without knowing anything about the game previously.

Its really obvious this wasn't a finished product and I'm still bitter I got tricked into buying it.

The game has trailers, the game has a wiki, the game has a demo.

You could have done your research, you could have played the demo, you could have figured out whether you would like the game before buying it. You had many chances to back out before making your purchase. I don't think anything more could have been done to make you aware that you wouldn't like the game before you made your purchase.

143

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: I've never played a game this bad

« on: April 26, 2012, 07:02:20 PM »

Enemies can't be passed, that's intentional as well because previously it was sometimes easier to cheese them by just running through enemies and ignoring them rather than stopping to fight. Getting backed into a corridor by an enemy you can't kill is pretty much a valid way to die. I don't think that indicates a problem, it just means you got overwhelmed and died. That's part of the game too.

I think it's a valid way to die as well.

If you want to avoid it, that's what spells like Shields, Splash Back, and Teleport are for. (which means other spells having utility!)

144

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: I've never played a game this bad

« on: April 26, 2012, 06:45:45 PM »

How did all these problems make it through beta?  It's like I'm playing release Magika but without the amazing humor and gameplay.

Maybe because different people have different tastes in games and different people may think other things are more important?

I'm not kidding, maybe other people didn't think the things you complained about were more important than the other stuff they wanted in the game.

It's a possibility you know.

145

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / How do you usually freeroam in this game?

« on: April 26, 2012, 06:29:53 PM »

I wanted to get a picture of how most people go around in this game outside of missions.



Here's how I usually think of it.

I think of as "effective" exploration in A Valley Without Wind is that you get as much done per trip out in the world as possible.

It starts with the items I'm looking for. I think of these items as one of a few categories:
-Stash Supplies: These include upgrade stones, platforms, crates, lights, and other things you typically find in yellow stash rooms.
-Common Cave Items: These are things like granite, copper, quartz, and other items typically found in most caves.
-Blue Room Items: These include things like clay, consciousness shards, enchant containers and other items that are collected from ordinary blue rooms.
-Regional Surface Items: These are surface items that occur in specific regions such as plums, cherries, wood, and others.
-Regional Cave Items: These are various gems and such that are used to make spells. They tend to occur in specific regions and tend to be guarded by bosses.
-Secret Missions: These are missions hidden in the world that allow you to rescue NPCs and acquire buildings and spell materials.
-Unlocks: These are like achievements with purpose. Some unlocks require you to go to certain buildings or places to meet their criteria.

Stash Supplies, Common Cave Items, and Blue Room Items do not typically determine where I go. These are targets of opportunity that I take on the way to more important items, and usually only if I need them. These items are common enough that I only go out specifically to get them if I'm very low and need them immediately, which does happen occasionally but not too often.
I usually regard these as "secondary objectives".

Regional Cave Items, Regional Surface Items, Secret Missions, and Unlocks are generally what I go out specifically for and the serve as "destinations" for most of my trips. These are either region specific or, in the case of Secret Missions, are often very important and situational. Most of my trips end at these items, with more common items picked up along the way.
I usually regard these as "primary objectives".

I think of buildings as a few different categories:
-Small/Shacks: These are, well, shacks.
-Medium/Houses: These are houses and building of similar size.
-Large/Big Houses/Towers: Bigger houses, lava towers, and ice age buildings.
-Ruins: This tends to include Pyramids, and anything with the word "ruins" in the name.
-Windmills: Self-explanatory. These are found in Grasslands

I usually consider shacks to be very low priority. They maybe have one or two rooms, and maybe a stash room. I usually don't enter these unless I need a stash item immediately.

Houses and Large Buildings are usually what I go to for stash supplies and blue room items. They're fairly common and I tend to get enough stash supplies and blue room items from then on the way.
Still I usually only go into these if I'm low on a stash supply or a blue room item. I also don't usually go into non-hallway or stash rooms unless I need consciousness shards.

Ruins have "Maze Rooms" which are huge and take a long time to navigate. Because of this I usually don't enter them. The exception to this is when I need a lot of Enchant Containers or want to find a Puzzle Room, because these are the best places to find those.

I consider Windmills to be unique, as they seem to have the highest concentration of stash supplies of any building. If you run low on some stash supply and need a lot of them fast, these buildings are a godsend.


Anyway, that's usually how I handle running around outside of missions.

146

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: I've never played a game this bad

« on: April 26, 2012, 04:44:08 PM »

I found ~5-10 stones per 15 minutes in a house, this means that a 16 stone upgrade took on average half an hour to earn.

If you are taking half an hour to get 16 stones then I don't think you're exploring "effectively".

If you're looking for upgrade stones, you should only be looking for stash rooms (which you probably already are) and you should be looking at buildings where you are likely to have a good concentration of stash rooms and skip minor buildings and large ruins. You should also be looking at areas that would have good concentrations of said buildings.
There are other reasons you might want to actually go into the minor or large ruins and enter rooms other than stash rooms of course, but you don't need to for stash supplies like upgrade stones.

In fact, unless you are desparate I don't think you should be going on trips exclusively to get upgrade stones and other stash supplies. These should targets of opportunity you should be picking on your way to more important things, like secret missions, rare spell materials, and other important items. You shouldn't be going out exclusively to get these things.

none of the monsters in this game required any sort of thought or reflexes to avoid.

Your difficulty is probably too low in that case. You should either increase difficulty or in your case it might be better to start a new world using an "expert start" so that you start on the second continent with more content unlocked so you have more enemy types to fight.

The fact that you mentioned that the game is too slow to introduce new content also says you may be better off with an "expert start". That actually bypasses that problem, as you start with more content unlocked.

none of the monsters in this game required any sort of thought or reflexes to avoid.  Platforms were way to abusive and cheap in AVWW, in terraria they weren't handed away for free whenever you healed, and monsters would occasionally destroy them.  Terraria was also more enjoyable for me because you were one of the least mobile entities of that game as apposed to one of the most mobile in AVWW.

You're supposed to have lots of platforms. If you're getting them handed to you whenever you heal, then that also tells me you're not exploring effectively, because if you did you'd be getting more platforms than you would ever need in the process of getting your upgrade stones. (see above)

Platforms are in fact the slowest and least effective way to get somewhere. There are a variety of spells that you can get which will reduce the need for platforms.

You are very mobile in the game, but you're supposed to be very mobile in the game. Most enemies in the game shoot projectiles, and later on they shoot lots of projectiles. The esper balls you've probably already run into eventually start shooting multiple projectiles at once and much more rapidly later on.
It seems like excessive mobility now, but you'll need that crazy mobility later on to avoid getting hit.

147

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / AVWW screenshots.

« on: April 26, 2012, 10:10:15 AM »

Well someone had to start one. 

The bigger they are, the harder they...     Need a strategy, yes, retreat sounds like an excellent strategy right now MY ASS IS ON FIRE!

Anti-Tank Rhino! A weapon every hero must have!

Oh crap oh crap oh crap run run run run run!

Thankfully, I'm already wearing brown pants.

148

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Difficulty concerns, especially with wind shelters.

« on: April 26, 2012, 09:53:59 AM »

I think microbosses would fit these missions much better.

They wouldn't be as problematic in the tight spaces and they're far less likely to completely block some tunnels (giant skelebots are especially prone to this).

149

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Does the planning menu need to be better introduced to new players?

« on: April 26, 2012, 12:53:28 AM »

I am somewhat concerned that new players aren't using the planning menu as much as they should.

I think they're getting the idea that they don't need to explore every room in every building, but I'm not so sure they're getting the idea of how that applies in a larger sense as well.
More specifically they might be treating non-mission trips out into the world as a "quest to grind stashes" and boring themselves going from building to building to find the yellow rooms.

This is a somewhat pessimistic perspective I know, but honestly I would be surprised if most new players aren't doing that right now.


Something I've seen again and again elsewhere is that if it looks like a grind then the players will grind it, and they will continue to grind it until they get bored or are explicitly told otherwise. I'm somewhat worried that this could be happening here as well.

Admittedly, between this and the other thread I'm probably sounding rather pessimistic. I could very well be worrying about nothing. 

150

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: AVWW First Impressions

« on: April 26, 2012, 12:18:47 AM »

I think your difficulty is probably too low. If you can make it through a boss tower just fine without really being pressed for health by the end I think your difficulty might be too low.

Also, if you're spending 80% of your time doing random exploration then I think you're spending too much time doing that. I'm getting the impression that you are spending far too much time exploring buildings for stashes of supplies. You really shouldn't be doing that much of that unless you need those supplies.
In fact, I wouldn't recommend making a trip out into the world specifically to get supplies from stashes. Stashes are something I believe you should get on the way to more important things.

Try to make your trips out into the world more efficient and try get more done per outing. Usually when you venture out into the world you should have a good idea of what you want and know where you're most likely to get it. The planning menu is important for that.
When you go out you want to be looking for something important. Spell materials (ones from specific places, not common ones that occur everywhere), secret missions, important items like heat/cold suits, and so on.
Ideally, before you go out you should look through what you have, open up your planning menu, and figure out exactly what you need/want and try to figure out how you can check the most items off your "shopping list" in one trip. I'm guessing there are probably things you could be looking for that you're not aware of quite yet.
By doing this this you can probably cut down on your wandering by a lot and get to visit more interesting places more often.

As far as missions go, early on you won't get that many mission types, but more mission types will be available later on and more missions will occur on the continent at once. Again, after a while you'll want to plan ahead and figure out what missions will get you what you want whether they are spell materials, guardian powers, buildings, or wind shelters.

Content-wise, a lot more stuff unlocks and becomes available as you play. Later on you'll find more missions types, more enemies, more resources, and more bosses.


Actually, if your finding the game that easy and find that there isn't enough variety on the first continent, then you might be better off starting a new world with an "expert" start instead. That'll start you on the second continent with more stuff unlocked right away.