Messages

16

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Some Reflections After Two Weeks Of A Valley Without Wind's Beta

« on: October 07, 2011, 10:10:16 AM »

I am consistently impressed with Arcen Games, and the progression of AVWW in two weeks exemplifies the best aspects of the company. The amount of change is going to result in an INCREDIBLY strong 1.0 release- the communication between the players and the developers pretty much ensures it.

Glad to hear sales were pretty good! I introduced several friends to it. Some of them are waiting on it and some of them just can't afford it yet, so I imagine you'll see many more at key points in beta development.

Anyway, in summary: congrats

Edit note; I think my favorite of all of the changes is the removal of profession books. I didn't like having to unlock the right to have the right to unlock something. The way it is now is definitely the way to go!

17

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Difficulty over Time

« on: October 05, 2011, 09:42:50 AM »

One minor note that's almost on topic. The only thing I don't like is liberating resource spots that are waaay under my level. There's no challenge but it still needs to be done, and most of it is just walking across the surface. (Maybe there's a command to make NPCs do it for you at a certain level? I'm not sure.)

That sort of thing is coming, in general, with the strategy game.  Right now you pretty much have to do everything on foot -- take out resource spots regardless of level, deal with rampaging monsters, etc.  That won't always be the case.

Aw yeah. I'm super excited to hear that. The game has a feel of leading the people until they can lead themselves (to some degree) and I find it awesome.

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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Difficulty over Time

« on: October 05, 2011, 09:22:03 AM »

You know, I feel there's a much simpler solution:

Adjust the maximum area level you can access to be civlevel * 2, instead of civlevel + 10.  Then, the equivalent at level 300 of raiding level 40 regions at level 30 would be raiding level 400 regions.

That is the worst sentence, but I like how bad it is so it's staying.  A better format would be "at level 30 you raid level 40 regions, and so at level 300 you raid level 400 regions".

Anyway, that keeps difficulty relatively static.  The solution for the display of numbers getting out of hand would be to just use the k, M, etc. suffixes for numbers, so you do 3M damage instead of 3,000,000.  People might be confused a bit when they're doing 185Z damage, but they'll figure out through context that it's 1000 times more than 185E.  Any rounding errors are also likely to be not particularly important.

Oh, and it occurs to me that the resources you find might have to have a nonlinear scale as well, so that you are getting approximately the same relative reward for +100 levels at level 300 as you got for +10 levels at level 30.

The problem with this is exactly what was fixed with the patch, I believe. At first it makes sense-- why not have a level 800 area twice as hard as a level 400 area, if a level 8 area is twice as hard as a level 4 one?

The problem is that as your levels get progressively higher, they mean less and less. Going from civ level 3 to 4 is exciting because it's a big step. Going from 400 to 401 would mean nothing at all, and suddenly the XP bar becomes arbitrary compared to the level number itself! So eventually you start gaining "microlevels" and your perception of real levels becomes groups of 10, or 20, or 100... suddenly you don't say "I'm 50 percent to level 20!" and you start saying "I'm 25 levels away from level 400!"

I'm a huge fan of this new relative system. It makes it feel more like you're unlocking areas through your effort, like a more traditional Metroidvania game, rather than just boosting your numbers high enough to beat the other numbers!

One minor note that's almost on topic. The only thing I don't like is liberating resource spots that are waaay under my level. There's no challenge but it still needs to be done, and most of it is just walking across the surface. (Maybe there's a command to make NPCs do it for you at a certain level? I'm not sure.)

19

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: AVWW Betas 0.515-0516, "It's All Relative," Released!

« on: October 05, 2011, 12:12:35 AM »

Released right before I go to bed the night before two exams!

I only got to play with it for a moment, as a level 6-7 Civ. I had fun; maybe it was my imagination but the bosses I fought were more interesting. They could kill me quickly but I didn't have to spend all night scraping away at their health, too.

20

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Difficulty over Time

« on: October 04, 2011, 05:39:46 PM »

That's a wonderful idea. More uniqueness between spells could be achieved. Forest Rage has x% chance to launch y more Forest Rages in other random directions for instance. Or even just things like certain spells doing more damage the longer they travel / shorter they travel. That'd be fun!

21

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Lack of loot in large rooms

« on: October 03, 2011, 10:37:08 AM »

Having loot proportional to the size of the room would be excellent. As it is, I tend to ignore large rooms altogether due to the effort required to get a rather small amount of reward.

Ed: On that note, it might be interesting to supply throw-away loot the same way trash enemies tend to, to avoid oversaturation of valuables. Maybe small mana / health regeneration instant-use items based on the level of an area. You walk over it and get 10-20 mana back, for instance, sort of encouraging exploration further without dumping a truck of treasure on the player?

22

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: The particle effects do this game a disservice

« on: October 01, 2011, 03:58:38 PM »

I actually like most of the particle effects. I don't have any trouble knowing where the hit box is, either. Except maybe on dragon's fire, that's pretty hit or miss. Literally.

I'd like fire touch and death touch to have a more concrete looking effect. It's so minor at the moment! Maybe if it made the enemy change colors or have some sort of visual effect on them, that'd be awesome too.

23

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: Time period effects on NPCs and settlements?

« on: September 29, 2011, 11:44:25 PM »

  What if Ice Age people did not need a snow suit? Because they are aclimated to the area? Like Eskimo's are to the far north?

This sort of happens already; ice age characters have a 100% Ice Immunity as part of their base clothing, so you don't need to equip a snowsuit, whereas other characters do if they want to avoid taking cold damage.

I think it's hand-waved as all ice-age people having their own suits already, though I like to think that their natural acclimation to cold is why none of them seem to be wearing helmets!

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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: 0.509 coming in the morning (along with the next AI War release).

« on: September 29, 2011, 11:40:38 PM »

AVWW *AND* AIW? That's amazing, was going to play AIW tomorrow night! And here I was slightly worried AI War updates would cease while AIWW was worked on.

Thanks a ton for all of the patches!

25

A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: I love the smell of beta in the morning

« on: September 26, 2011, 10:17:33 AM »

Going to buy it after classes, too (Unsecured internet connection, here!) I think you guys are going to see a huge surge of sales tonight and tomorrow :D

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A Valley Without Wind 1 & 2 / Re: I love the smell of beta in the morning

« on: September 26, 2011, 09:07:53 AM »

Oh man, I'm excited to get out of university today! I decided to check on Arcen Games just on a whim, I had no idea there was something special today. I've followed AI War from the topic on Bay 12 games, and own every iteration of it and even bought the set for two friends.

I will entirely blame you guys if I don't pay attention during class, now. :P

Just to check, we can pre-order when the beta is released, right? Or did we have to do this already?