Messages

46

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Monster balance! (Round 2, starting version 0.801)

« on: February 11, 2013, 03:14:54 PM »

These two are more for feel than for difficulty balance as I don't think they would affect difficulty much, so it's probably not as important as the above.

The mosquitos/bugs/whatever the tiny little enemies are called, I'm really not sure about these. They aren't really that much of a threat, but it might be somewhat somewhat annoying to some people to have an enemy that dies easily but you can't hit very well at all with the 8-way aim.
Maybe you could just enlarge their hitboxes. They seem tiny and fragile enough that it wouldn't be too unreasonable that a blast of magic passing near them would fry them outright even if it doesn't necessarily touch them.

I think the same "issue" applies for the little metal spider things (tackle drones? not sure if that's the right enemy). They're not too much of a threat once you get used to them, but the fact that they're hard to hit with the 8-way aim because they're so low may annoy some people a lot. Maybe have them hop a bit while moving so they hop up into "shooting height" or enlarge the hitbox a bit.

47

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Moving blades, lunatic difficulty. (funny)

« on: February 09, 2013, 12:00:20 AM »

"I'm almost to the perk tokens! Onward!"

"Wait, WHAT IN THE NAME OF..."


"Um... I think I understand..."


"Dammit JUMP!"


"AWWWW...   ...too slow."



This slice was just so hilariously intimidating at first glance that I had to post about it. 

48

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Random idea for bosses. (maybe short and simple?)

« on: February 08, 2013, 11:41:29 PM »

This is a bit of a random thought.

What if all or some of the "bosses" released a certain enemy type when they teleported away, and each boss used a different one?

It's a bit of a common cliche in some other games that a boss summons a common enemy type associated with them when fighting, so I thought to having the bosses do something similar upon teleport would kill three birds with one stone in a way.
-It would do a little bit lore-wise if an enemy type were associated with a certain boss ("Oh, so he/she has been putting those things everywhere").
-It would give the bosses another "attack".
-It would reinforce the idea that you're not really "killing" the bosses over and over again but that they're teleporting away. It would be sort of like a ninja that disappears in a puff of smoke and leaves bombs or traps behind.

It could be neat, but it may or may not be a bit much to do with release so close. It was an interesting thought so I thought I'd throw it out there.

49

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Valley 2 Beta .801 "Oh, Sorry About The Shrapnel In The Face, Jim" Released!

« on: February 08, 2013, 11:03:58 PM »

The tile/building descriptions seem to have disappeared since this patch.

50

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Valley 2 Beta .728 "What A Horrible Night To Be In The Forest" Released!

« on: February 06, 2013, 06:44:37 AM »

There seems to be an issue with the "debris field" ammo spells where they don't seem to come out properly and hurt you upon use.

51

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Do we need totally useless equipment items in the game?

« on: February 05, 2013, 03:45:47 PM »

I like the items that give you a big boost in attack power and set you on fire, because then you have the chance to go on a rampage until you lose it. It's rather refreshing in short bursts.

52

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Valley 2 Beta .723 "Clinical Study Of Laser Spiders" Released!

« on: February 02, 2013, 07:38:51 PM »

Thanks a bunch! 

53

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Valley 2 Beta .723 "Clinical Study Of Laser Spiders" Released!

« on: February 02, 2013, 05:43:27 PM »

I've also run into the following segment on my way to Level 2 mage classes after starting a new world:
http://i.imgur.com/tmWZfR8.png
There are several jumps like that and they were doable, but that second jump doesn't look like it's doable that early, at least not after five attempts. That might be a problem unless it's intended that the player might have to put off getting Level 2 mage classes until double jump is acquired.

Can you post the world file with you in there?  Those jumps are indeed too hard, and we can tone them down, but we need to figure out what the slices in question actually are.  Thanks!

I attached the world.

It's in the boss area on the way to unlocking the mage classes.

I'm not sure if I'm still in that particular spot in that world though. I've been giving it several attempts and it's pretty tricky to get there sometimes. If it's not actually in the room it's already in the building I think.

54

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Valley 2 Beta .723 "Clinical Study Of Laser Spiders" Released!

« on: February 02, 2013, 05:36:56 AM »

Just noticed a minor issue, it seems that the game looks for the song "RobotHackingEscape" instead of "SkelebotHackingEscape" and it ends up missing because the song hasn't gotten renamed.


I've been having some platforming related concerns/issues lately as well. When I did a recent escape there seemed to be slices where I was supposed to jump on top of an enemy to get past, and there did seem to always be a wall enemy, tower-shaped enemy, or some other similar enemy there I could jump on to get to a higher platform and that would be the only way up. It worked out just fine, but is that intentional?

I've also run into the following segment on my way to Level 2 mage classes after starting a new world:
http://i.imgur.com/tmWZfR8.png
There are several jumps like that and they were doable, but that second jump doesn't look like it's doable that early, at least not after five attempts. That might be a problem unless it's intended that the player might have to put off getting Level 2 mage classes until double jump is acquired.

55

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: An alternative to equipment: Mercenary Purification.

« on: January 29, 2013, 03:26:41 PM »

I guess to toss in another suggestion:

What about equipment becoming Merc Coins?
What if, instead of keeping a piece of equipment, you had the option of trading the equipment to the Mercs for Merc Coins at the Strategic View?

As I understand it now, equipment goes away if you die or take a lot of damage, so taking a piece of equipment out of an area without losing it could be another source of challenge for players who want it as well.

Some possible benefits of this:
-It would make "equipment" make more sense "equipment" as it would strengthen the idea that this is something you can give to somebody else.
-It would give players who want to an extra challenge to take a piece of equipment and make it out of a area without losing it.
-It would allow players who like equipment to have equipment while giving players who don't care much about equipment an alternative benefit.

56

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Does the platforming/combat side need something else?

« on: January 28, 2013, 05:06:10 PM »

I guess to use a "large" example (anything else would likely be smaller than this):

One thing I can sort of see working could be having a number that would affect a penalty to your spell damage (I guess we could call it "composure" for now). It could be justified in the game as the idea that spells need concentration to cast well. Normally you'd have composure at 100% and you'd do your normal spell damage. However, if you take damage in any way then you'll take a hit to composure as well as your health, and having composure at less than 100% would temporarily reduce spell damage (maybe 0% would mean you do 75% of your normal damage). If you kill enemies you recover composure.
Perhaps if you used an ammo spell, it would automatically max composure, which could get more use out of the ammo spell and fit with the idea of it as a "bomb" or "panic button".

I guess that would be at the bigger side of things, it probably wouldn't need to be as involved to accomplish the same thing.

Basically it would be something that wouldn't really kill you for ignoring it, but at the same time plays off the idea that gamers tend to like the idea of refining their play in little ways, especially if there's a small benefit to it.

57

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Does the platforming/combat side need something else?

« on: January 28, 2013, 04:53:47 PM »

You do realize the 1.0 of the game is coming out in about three weeks, right?  We're not really looking to overhaul massive parts of the game right before going to release.

It's pretty close to release yea, but I wasn't thinking of a massive overhaul or anything like that.

More something rather minor which would have only a tiny impact on gameplay would be rather small, but would scratch the "I must do 100% well" OCD itch.

58

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Does the platforming/combat side need something else?

« on: January 28, 2013, 04:43:58 PM »

Something I've noticed is that the platforming and combat sort side of the game is pretty ordinary.
This isn't really a bad thing, but a lot of other platformers these days have some sort of odd mechanic to spice up the moment-to-moment gameplay a bit and it makes AVWW 2 feel a bit too "platformer/shooter played straight" by comparison. I feel like there could be room for such a thing in AVWW 2 that doesn't interfere with everything else too much.

More specifically I thought it would be nice if there was some mechanic that gave the player room to refine and gain an advantage by becoming better at using it, but at the same time wouldn't stop them from proceeding if they didn't pay too much attention to it.

Thoughts?

59

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Valley 2 Beta .720-.721 "Treasure Swap" Released!

« on: January 25, 2013, 10:27:42 PM »

I just noticed something a bit weird. Marty and Tiyi appear to now be afflicted with gigantism.

I haven't seen any other adverse affects from this yet, but it looks very strange.

60

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Is keeping the balance and controls worth it?

« on: January 25, 2013, 09:35:30 PM »

Like all Arcen titles, it's also targeted at: me.  Personally, I vastly prefer Valley 2 to Valley 1, and really feel much more proud of this one and find it a lot more fun to play.
...
We're making the sorts of games that other people are NOT making, because we want to play those sorts of games and think that others will likely want to do so as well.
...
But universal acclaim isn't the goal: finding enough customers who fit into your niche and enjoy what you do -- and then delighting them as much as possible -- is the first, last, and only goal.
...
Valley 2 represents me going back with a clean slate, stopping all that pandering, and building the game that I hadn't realized I had been trying to make all along (sometimes you learn these things as you go).

I gotta say, this is a far better answer than anything I would have expected.

I guess I didn't really know if you were making it this way because you just thought people would like it better, or if you genuinely wanted it to make the game this way. Being a bit pessimist I assumed the former, so thankfully I'm wrong.

I still say you're going to piss people off with this game, but you definitely picked the all the best reasons to do so!

Well done sir, very well done indeed!