A Valley Without Wind 2 - a full sequel free for existing customers - is coming.

[madcow]

Yeah, being able to aim independently of moving works in Binding of Isaac because you have only one weapon. It wouldn't work so well if you have 4, so I can understand completely why you wouldn't want to go with it this way.

Sure you could allow independent aiming if you had only switched between active weapons, but I've found that really discourages you from using variety, as you just keep one active and never switch. In cave story for instance, I would stick to one weapon and never switch mid-fight because its too annoying to do, if they were bound to different keys I would.

I'm curious what sort of different mage classes we'll see. It would be cool if there were some completely different mechanics behind the classes. As in one that has a cave story mechanic of charging up to better weapons the more enemies you kill without getting hit. Or some classes that do self-damage in exchange for big hits. I'm hoping to see not just different types of spells, but different ways of playing the game completely!

Especially as this will be multiplayer, we can have some real specialized classes (along with general ones of course) lets get for instance a crowd control class (maybe it does less damage but has a paralysis shot, or can make barriers). A damage over time class. A high risk/high reward class. One with more AoE stuff. In short, don't be afraid to go crazy on the classes as that'll add a huge amount to the replay value.

[x4000]

Initially it will just be mixes of spells, but we may get more adventurous with that at some point in the future.

[Penumbra]

Well, perhaps I misunderstand what 8-directional aiming is in your parlance.  If you're running forward, you can fire forward, or up at an angle.  If you stop, you can fire up.  If you duck, you can fire low shots forward.  If you jump and press down, you can fire shots down, or you can hold forward and down to fire down-forward.  To fire at anything behind you, you have to turn around.

What about a "lock-aim" button like Super Metroid or Contra? Will that feature be allowed?

[x4000]

I can't remember how that worked.  Was that holding the L and R buttons to aim up at an angle?

At any rate: generally speaking what we're trying to do is make the controls reasonably simple and something that everyone is expected to use all of the features of them.

[Penumbra]

Aim Locking worked like this (And I think I confused Super Metroid with Contra/Metal Slug)

You start to aim in a direction, like up and to the right. This has the effect of making your character move right. If you then hold the lock button, your character will continue to aim up and to the right, regardless of movement. Means you can quickly "aim" by moving up-right and then stand still or retreat left while keeping aim.

Connecting aiming and moving was a requirement in the "16bit and earlier" console era due to the single d-pad. Making the character move to aim is "emergent" game behavior and actually quite convoluted. We're all just used to it   Aim locking gives you some added tactical choices while keeping with the limited control scheme.

[madcow]

The way aim-locking sounds like it works seems like it would be really annoying to be honest.

[Penumbra]

The way aim-locking sounds like it works seems like it would be really annoying to be honest.

It's less annoying than it not existing!

[x4000]

Hmm, not too sure about that.  I like the Super Metroid method of having a button for "aim up at an angle in front of you" instead.  It's not a toggle, just something you hold generally on a shoulder button.  It also had a button for aiming down and angled, which I guess also is really useful for if you want to stand and then shoot down at something.

I'm still working on redoing spells and enemies and all that to actually see fully how the new controls feel in a goodly number of contexts.  Just running around with them and shooting enemies in the old fashion they feel great, but it would be good to be able to hit the angles without moving.

Heh -- Cave Story solved that by simply not supporting the angles at all.   But I don't think that's the best way for here.

[LayZboy]

So it will play like Contra then? That's pretty cool I guess as long as the area's are designed around it rather than being some Random-gen mess. I hope there are no homing weapons too, otherwise it will be Gun Star Hero's all over again with Homing + Lightning combo's and nothing else.

[madcow]

You could have angle specific spells, but that somewhat reduces the number of active options.

[Penumbra]

It all comes down to monster placement. Contra and Metal Slug made custom levels and bosses tailored to their characters abilities. The more "open" the monster placement and varied attack patterns required a more nimble character.

Resident Evil 1 had one of the worst control schemes ever, but with the whole game designed around it, it works. 

[Panopticon]

If you guys implement the system from the 2D Metroids for aiming I'll feel right at home with it. It's very intuitive to use and flexible as well. You can use methodical approaches that take advantage of using timing and knowledge of enemy movement patterns or you can go run and gun with it too. It's pretty great and allows for multiple tactical dispositions. Also it had the effect of making Samus feel like she was growing more powerful. As you got more tanks and could take more damage you could adopt riskier approaches to the earlier enemies since taking a hit or two wasn't the liability it is at first. As you took damage the same system then adapted itself just fine to a slower more considered approach.

[madcow]

I actually had another thought regarding the aiming topic. Perhaps allow one of the weapons (it should be the weakest one to be honest) allow "free aiming" in the 8 directions. While the other three are tied to your movement key like contra.  This way you can free aim, but if you want to use a more powerful weapon you need to worry about positioning.

An example of the binding would be if "wasd" is linked to movement. The arrow keys (obviously completely rebindable) would be the "primary" weapon, and then [ ] \ would go to the other three weapons and aiming is done for those contra-style by movement.

To put the example on an xbox controller, the left analog is movement. The right analog is aiming the primary weapon (again, it'll only do the 8 directions) while three of the face buttons are bound to the other weapons (which are aimed via the left analog stick), and the fourth face button is tied to jumping.

I think this gives the best of both worlds (free aim but on a weaker weapon. Stronger weapon requires maneuvering), though it might be a little complicated? It makes sense to me, and I would prefer it over a "locking" mechanic.

[Panopticon]

Also I'd like to see the D-Pad allow for movement as well as the left stick. Some times I really prefer the D-Pad when precision is called for. For a lot of stuff left stick is fine but feels like it has massive dead zones when it's used for 8-Directional movement.

edit: This probably isn't an issue with AVWW2 though, since you guys tend to allow any function to be remappable in your other games. Just figured I would mention it though. I have run across platformers that don't allow movement on the D-Pad and it can be infuriating when precision is called for.

[madcow]

And another question about the multiplayer aspect, though this may have been answered earlier. It was mentioned that the city building/world view aspect is turn based (you do something, and the baddies do something). How will this work in multiplayer? Will one player be deciding those aspects and the others follow along, or will players get to act independently there? It seems like it might be harder to balance the latter.