AVWW Beta 0.518, "Eagle Tiers," Released!

[x4000]

http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2011/10/avww-beta-0518-eagle-tiers-released.html

This one is another really big release in terms of balance.  And also: first new enemies since beta!  The new Eagle, and the upgraded Eagle Diver, are two variants off the same enemy which you can now encounter in the forests.  There's even a new bird's nest monster spawner for them.

The next big balance news is mostly to do with spells and other player equipment.  Previously the crafting tiers were defined as 1 tier = 5 crafting levels.  That was really turning out to be problematic, because it meant having to gather gems and craft an entire new arsenal every 5 civ levels.  Which really was much too fast to be fun, instead feeling more like a treadmill.

In prior versions of the game that wasn't an issue because the bad difficulty scaling meant that players could continue using lower-tier equipment and thus not run into the issue.  But fixing the difficulty scaling brought this issue into sharper relief; previously they had sort of cancelled each other out, as can definitely happen in game design.

Anyway, there were a host of other changes around this, too: lower-tier spells don't get so much cheaper in terms of MP quite so fast; and higher-tier spells get more expensive in terms of MP, faster.  All the spells have had their MP costs doubled in general, because the new higher player MP stores meant that these were now out of balance.  The range of time it takes for your equipment to get completely obsolete has changed from 10 levels to 20.

All in all this should lead to a smoother, more fun progression; but as always, we want to hear from you about it!  There's some other cool stuff in this one, too, such as another 7 boss room templates, and various tweaks and bugfixes.

The next release is likely to be tomorrow.  Enjoy!

This is a standard update that you can download through the in-game updater itself, if you already have 0.500 or later. When you launch the game, you'll see the notice of the update having been found if you're connected to the Internet at the time.  If you don't have 0.500 or later, you can download that here.

[BobTheJanitor]

What's the meaning of the numbers in parentheses in spell power now? Is that what they're going to change to the next time you pass a level threshold?

[x4000]

What's the meaning of the numbers in parentheses in spell power now? Is that what they're going to change to the next time you pass a level threshold?

That's actually the power of the spell alone. The first number is the power of the spell plus your character's magic power, so the total damage done by using the spell.

[zebramatt]

Shaping up nicely.

[Armanant]

Just started a new Civ with this patch and I have to say, WOW. The increased HP to bosses has made the early levels BRUTAL. I'd consider myself quite a good player, but I've died 3 times so far before civ level 3, just attempting the minibosses guarding resources around the initial settlement (so initially equal civ level, then 1 civ level below). I somewhat like the brutality, however I think new players might get a bit frustrated starting out.

A bit of a problem is that when you're civ level one, you're stuck fighting things equal level, and don't have any 'weaker' enemies to fight, as opposed to say level 10, when you can just fight level 5 enemies.. Maybe it might be nice to have the first 5 odd levels easier on the scaling side before reaching the 'constant relative power' plateau? Stop people from feeling like they've been thrown off the deep end...

Edit : Just went into a commodity tower and the minibosses there seem same as usual, so trivial compared to the microboss groups (hope I got the micro/mini terminology right there..). I'd guess this is because you can't get swarmed when fighting just one boss XD. If the intended difficulty is meant to be equal level = challenge, sticking a couple flying microbosses with minibosses might stop them from being so much easier?

[FallingStar]

So far I'm really liking the balance on this release, and if the scaling holds out its good stuff all around (been around civ 30 when I tested the numbers at least).  I tossed in a note in Mantis on the micro bosses, but overall really good.

Damage seems good going both directions, hurts a bit to get hit even by trash enemies, enough that I'll choose to kill some off rather than just running past them all, but not so bad that I feel I have to clear them.  The level tier changes did seem to make it a nicer progression in terms of usefulness of older items vs obsolescence.  I'd still use something a tier lower when fighting random enemies, but I want my highest level stuff on any type of boss.  Its also a bit easier to remember what tier I should be looking for.  The only small note I'd make from something mentioned in the last release thread is I do level a bit faster than perhaps expected (perhaps 3 levels per hour than 1).  Even so, ~6 game hours of usefulness for an given spell or potion is pretty good.

Been using a good amount of HP pots/ scrolls.  I could see tweaking the healing power up slightly, but I think once damage mitigation via shields and such hits it'll fill the gap, and its not something that's really a bother or makes any fights feel impossible.  MP scrolls and pots feels like its a good usage pace for my gamestyle, I'm not hammering them unless I'm really spamming meteor or the like, and even then it'll last out a boss fight.

So compared to last weeks builds it does seem like I'm varying my game style a lot more depending on the situation.  More strategic picking what to kill or run past, more decisions on the best spell to use, more dodging and planing where to attack from rather than gulping potions and tanking it out.

I'm also enjoying the bits of new content as it comes in, eagles and new room templates.  Sometimes I worry we testers/players have the devs so busy poking numbers that the bigger things are getting kicked down the road, but guess they're just multi-tasking heros.

[zebramatt]

Micro boss health is definitely a tad too high (at level 1) for same level now.

[Echo35]

Gah, I need to get farther before the bosses get even harder!

[x4000]

The latest: http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,9297.0.html