Messages

76

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Difficulty and consequences.

« on: January 16, 2013, 06:24:08 PM »

That isn't really the case though. In other platformers, particularly the old school style, you'll restart at a save point or you'll restart the entire game if you die too often. The least punishing games tended to come later on, but platformers were always fairly punishing. The fact that there's a death penalty makes some sense when it comes to the game being sort of a strategy game and sort of a metroidvania. The thing I find a little irksome is the fact that no metroidvania I know gives you a consequence like this on death. It's always "Report back to the last save point" with save points being few and far between. Nobody ever complained about that to my knowledge. So, the more metroidvania I look at it, the less it makes sense. But, strictly as a platformer, other games in the genre are actually really punishing. Valley 2 doesn't make you restart the game on 3 deaths in a single stage.

I meant more metroidvania or more adventure-like platformers than platformers in general, though I guess I should have said so. 

Now about the difficulty, and this is something I think I want.... is the ability to change your difficulty mid-game. You could do that in Valley 1, and you did that to adjust until you found your comfort zone. I can think of a couple things that would be a bit awkward in the strategic difficulty, but if I'm getting thrashed by the action stages and didn't know what your skill levels meant... I'm either punishing myself early by choosing a lower setting, or giving myself an unwinnable situation hours down the line that I don't know about on a higher one.

Now that you mentioned it, an option to change the difficulty mid-game would be rather welcome, especially for the action bits to prevent getting endlessly stuck and bled to death.

A mid-game adjustment for strategic difficulty would be nice, but maybe not as necessary. Losing rather slow coming, so it's not the repetitive instant death situation you get with the action stages.

77

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Difficulty and consequences.

« on: January 16, 2013, 05:57:01 PM »

This is something I'm starting to notice is that the game is starting to get somewhat difficult.

AVWW 2 currently has a permanent consequence for death. It's not a big one mind you, but it is a permanent one.

This is rather unusual because the way a lot of metroidvania or other adventure-like platformers are played tends to involve a lot of save/checkpoint scumming. Traditionally, people tend to pick whatever difficulty they want and if it's too difficult or they get stuck, then they tend to die and re-do until they get themselves un-stuck. This isn't really that practical in AVWW 2.

I'm not saying that is a bad thing, not at all. I actually think it's rather cool part of the game and it sets the game apart from some others in the genre.


What's interesting about this is that being able to slam your head into a wall until it passes through has been a part of the genre for a long time, so subverting it like this may have some interesting side-effects, both positive or negative.

Thoughts?

78

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Does the player character still need to work this way?

« on: January 09, 2013, 03:05:07 PM »

Are you seriously complaining about having options?

I'm not really complaining about the options themselves. I'm just wondering whether there are possible gains if they didn't need to be there.

As it is, we have a choice of characters, but none of them look that good and they get a lot of screen time. Animation is still a common complaint with this game.
Also, having random characters means the dialogue needs to be rather generic so it don't seem awkward with any one character.

Even if the number of animations each character can have is limited, the current pool of characters have some frames that look odd or awkward for the sake of being different from the others, which would be ok if they weren't the main character and didn't get so much time on screen.

I guess to ask a better worded question:
Could there be a better looking main character if the need to have multiple possible main characters was removed?

79

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Movement polish

« on: January 09, 2013, 02:52:05 PM »

I'm pretty sure this is going to be a rather subjective topic and there are going to be a lot of conflicting opinions about it, but who know maybe something nice might come out.

I think there are a few little things that might improve how the movement feels in the game, but whether they would be improvements is debatable of course.

-I think there should be a short acceleration/deceleration from standing when the player moves left or right. It shouldn't be too much, just a tiny bit. Maybe the character moves the character's width before reaching full normal walking speed. A lot of platformers have a tiny bit of this (it's often rather subtle) and I find it helps with making small adjustments to your position as only briefly tapping left or right doesn't move quite as fast as holding, and it might make the movement feel a bit more fluid.
Ok scratch that one, apparently it's already somewhat like that but my previous character had such a speed boost that the acceleration wasn't noticeable. I started over with a new one and it seems to work this way now.
On the other hand, maybe it might need to be made a bit more apparent in that case? Eh, not really sure on this one.

-Related to the above crossed out item. I tried several characters and it seems that modifiers for movement speed and jump may have unintended side effects on how the movement feels in the game. When the player starts a game for the first time, they won't know what the effects of these values will be, and since each game will use only one main character they won't know until they start another game. I'm slightly concerned that some people's impressions on the game's movement may be adversely affected by this.
I don't remember what stats my previous character had, but I'm now using one without any movement related bonuses and penalties and it feels MUCH more natural than my previous one while my previous one felt rather clunky.

-I'm not that sure about this, but I'm starting to think the player character falls bit too fast. It feels a bit difficult to line up shots when jumping because of how quickly the character rises and falls and the way they accelerate. I also notice that the way jump height is controlled feels a bit all or nothing (is it?). I think it might be beneficial from being a bit slower and slightly more "floaty" (is that word appropriate?), and how long we hold the jump key should perhaps influence jump height more.

Thoughts?

80

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Valley 2 Beta .712 "Chipping Away Everything That Doesn't Look Like An Elephant"

« on: January 09, 2013, 12:16:15 PM »

I played around with it for a bit, and I'm liking it so far! 

My only significant gripe with it now is, as already mentioned, the fact that I can't force the character to shoot down diagonally for those "shooting over the ledge" situations.
Other than that the rest seems to work pretty well.

Also, I find a slight annoyance that when I am running with a joystick, if it is not perfectly aligned left or right, ym guy will stop as he thinks I want to go diagonal, although that might just be my controller.

Hm... I'm guessing maybe introducing a bit of a deadzone to the joystick to that axis would help somewhat.

81

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Do we need to be able to run while shooting? (alternative 8-way)

« on: January 08, 2013, 11:51:49 PM »

I kind of like the recent change in that it's better than what we had, but I still feel like it's less than ideal.

There isn't anything overtly wrong with it and its definitely an improvement, but the fact that it's context sensitive is a bit jarring as the behavior is a bit less consistent.

I just wish I could think of a suitable game that uses the turret-like approach as an example. Maybe I'll do a little research on it some time.

I'm sure I've played a couple games that are like this, but my memory is being awful right now and it's driving me crazy. 

82

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Does the player character still need to work this way?

« on: January 08, 2013, 11:22:43 PM »

This is a bit on the trivial and nitpicky side, but it's been bugging me a bit for a while so I guess I might as well bring it up.

Does AVWW 2 still need the choice of several main characters?

Considering how long we're going to end up sticking with the same character and how set the stats are now, it seems a bit unnecessary in this game, at least to me. It seems like most of the customization is going to come from mage class or perks, so the character choice and rolls at the beginning of the world seem even less necessary than in AVWW 1

Also, because the portraits are the same as those used by the NPCs, there's also the possibility of having the talking NPC be the same portrait as yourself. That's not really a significant issue really, but it looks jarring and corny as heck.

It seems like the game wouldn't lose much if there was just a male and a female named character to choose from. If there were only a couple choices of main character they could be separate from the pool of characters used as NPCs (avoiding the above mentioned "I'm talking to a guy that looks like me!" weirdness), and maybe you could do a little bit more with the dialogue and story. It also seems like it would be easier to get two possible player characters to look better portrait, sprite, and animation-wise.


I dunno, this is a bit on the picky side so consider this low priority I guess.

83

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Do we need to be able to run while shooting? (alternative 8-way)

« on: January 08, 2013, 09:01:07 PM »

I'd say go the Gunstar Heroes route. You can either have free mode or fixed mode. Free mode, you aim and move in the direction you point. In fixed mode, you only aim in the direction you point while firing. You can't move while shooting. It worked out just fine back then in a fantastic Genesis game. I can't see why it wouldn't work now.

I like this as well, though I just stuck with one mode only in this example for the sake of simplicity.

I know I would stop using most of the ammo spells in this case (since alot of them require getting quite close, I always did them while charging at the target). 

To clarify, spells that aren't straight projectiles would not be affected by this and would behave as is, and as far as I know most of the ammo (and to an extent a lot of special and secondary) spells are not straight projectiles and would thus act the same as they do now.

84

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Do we need to be able to run while shooting? (alternative 8-way)

« on: January 08, 2013, 02:23:11 PM »

Ok, this one might be a bit odd but I think it might be worth considering.

I remember some platformers having 8-way aim, but they had it so that you can't run while shooting (at least not with weapons that would need to be aimed). Instead you stand still for as long as you have the "shoot" button held down and you use the arrow keys to aim diagonally up/down or straight up.

The nice thing about this is that it doesn't use any extra keys, and it tends to make sense right away since you are using the arrow keys to "aim", and it doesn't interfere with the usual method of jumping and shooting. (you'd still be able to jump while shooting)

Of course, the negative to this is that you can't run while shooting. However, being unable to move while attacking isn't that alien of an idea and a lot of games have situations where they briefly "stop" the player in order to use the movement keys for something else.
Also, the idea that you have to stop attacking in order to defend yourself (in this case dodge) is a very common idea in a lot of games in general.

There are other reasons why I think it might fit AVWW 2's case more specifically:
-Most of the slower current enemies take multiple shots to kill, so in a lot of cases you're trying to position yourself in a good spot to get in a lot of shots in a short amount of time anyway.
-When we had 8-way aim, I noticed that in most situations that called for diagonal aim you didn't move while shooting very much.
-It creates this easily understandable need to quickly trade back and forth between offense and defense that I think would work well with a lot of the current enemies (with the possible exception of bats).
-With bosses it creates the need to alternate between dodging and positioning to shoot, so you're either dodging or attacking but usually not both. This opens up opportunities for some interesting patterns.
-It might be a bit cop-out, but it avoids the current animation issues related to running while shooting.

This could also give an opportunity to create more differences between attacks. Area of effect attacks that do not need to be aim could allow for use while on the run, while straight shooting attacks would need to be stop-and-aim. Perhaps some secondary shooting attacks could even retain the current 4-way run-and-shoot behavior as an alternative to have them differ from the primary.

Any thoughts?

85

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: AVWW2 - Controls

« on: January 05, 2013, 03:57:39 PM »

I kind of prefer the game and controls as is, but I still don't think the controls will ever go over well elsewhere.
There's a difference between games I like and games I think will sell. While I'm pretty sure at this point AVWW 2 will fit the former, I don't have much confidence it will get to be the latter.

As much as I disagree with a lot of the complaints about the controls, I also know that the majority decides what games sell well regardless of how justified or unjustified their opinions are.

The way things are going now I'm going to be getting the game I want, but I don't have much confidence that it will sell well as pessimistic as that is.

86

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Like the new controls, however...

« on: January 04, 2013, 08:47:12 PM »

I wonder how jarring it would be if the slanted areas were turned into steps. That might look a bit too blocky though.

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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Some other adjustments for 4-way aim.

« on: January 04, 2013, 08:10:07 PM »

I'm not sure about doing it in general, but a lot of games have it where if you shoot downwards, it will slow your descent - perhaps that could be used here? One example of this would be the machine gun in cave story. I could see this being more important to shoot enemies now that there's no diagonal firing.

I actually kind of like this.

Alternatively, while this might sound a bit silly, what if using an attack in general slowed your descent?
I think it would let you get a few more shots in you you jumped to shoot something and it would encourage you to line up before shooting rather than hold down the attack button and jump like crazy.
I could have sworn I've seen this before but I don't remember where.

In any case, unless I'm missing something, I guess it would be agreed that holding down shouldn't keep you from jumping high as this makes shooting down hill very awkward.

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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Some other adjustments for 4-way aim.

« on: January 03, 2013, 10:22:25 PM »

Not a fan of making all attacks the size or half the size of the character. For one thing, that would make it more difficult to shoot over/around obstacles.

In my experience, for every shot that i missed due to the environment and my large size of shot, I would have missed at least 30 shots from trying to hit a small enemy directly since it was too small.

Hm... yea I guess I kind of forgot about that. Also, I remembered that some shots block other shots so I guess enlarging the projectiles might not help much.

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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Some other adjustments for 4-way aim.

« on: January 03, 2013, 10:00:28 PM »

I'm more or less satisfied with the current control setup, though I wanted to put out for discussion a few adjustments I think might help it along.

Now that the game uses 4-way aim, I think it might be beneficial to make the straight projectiles for a lot of the mage classes larger to facilitate jumping and shooting. I remember a lot of games with 4-way aim tended to have pretty large projectiles relative to the size of the character, maybe even half as tall to just as tall.

I also noticed that holding "down" still inhibits jumping high. I think this should be removed since we'll be jumping over enemies and firing down more, and that's a bit tricky the way it is now.

This last one is a bit more drastic and might require some more significant re-balancing, but would it be OK to make the jumping physics a bit more "floaty"?
I'm not saying that the characters should jump higher, but I feel like it would be nice if we got a bit more air time to make jumping and shooting a bit more natural. Maybe have a bit more inertia in general.

Thoughts?

90

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Some Feedback

« on: December 29, 2012, 09:17:01 PM »

The thing is, in the end the Steam forums do tend to represent a large portion of the majority as unfair as it is, and in that regard it's not looking very good.

I like the game the way it is, I like the way it's going, and I'm pretty sure by now (barring a major change in direction) that I'm going to like how it will turn out at release.

However, I'm not holding out much hope for a positive reception at this point. I'm pretty much expecting the controls are going to be a major complaint for this game regardless of the intent. I'm not so sure it's going to be received much better than AVWW 1.

As cynical as it is, for me I'm pretty much expecting this to be one of those games I play on my own time and not say much about elsewhere.



Hopefully I will be wrong though...