AVWW Beta 0.547, "Power Coding Round 1," Released!

[x4000]

Original: http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2011/12/avww-beta-0547-power-coding-round-1.html

There is nothing subtle or incremental about this one.  All the stats for characters and monsters have been reworked internally, and as part of that we've redone the general balance and flow of combat.  Enemy spells tend to be a lot slower now, but more plentiful and more frequent.  Trash mobs have a lot of health and now do substantial damage, but there are fewer of them.  And did we mention the eagles?  Yeah, the most-hated enemy should be a lot more fun and palatable for folks now.

Similarly, the terrain itself has been tightened, so there is less wandering through uninteresting space, and so there are fewer same-y buildings, and so there is less empty sky for espers and amoebas and bats to wander off into.  The result is really a different feel in the exterior areas, accentuating the existing differences in each region type through making them all more focused in general.

We also changed the multiplayer synchronization model around a ton, so now enemy positions and enemy shots will be synchronous between clients.  Let us know if you run into any issues with this, but based on the reaction to our other model this should be way more popular with players.  The one downside is that this does mean that sometimes enemy positions will need to correct themselves, and right now that means the enemy just jumps to the side and that might make you miss a shot against them.  But we'll have smoothing for that later, and the really good news is that still your shots and enemy shots never will have jumps of that nature.  Multiplayer details have been updated here.

There are also a variety of general bugfixes in this version aside from the above, and there's a new way that enemies flash when you hit them with a spell.  There are also some new room maps by Josh, and he's created a new wiki article explaining the maps for new players.

Keith and I have both entered a power coding phase to follow the recent brainstorming/design phase, so there are a few metric tons of changes coming in the next week or so.  This is the first batch of them, but there will be more batches as we can break it up.  Given the scope of the changes, this means that the game is going to be in a moderate state of disarray for a week or so, in terms of general balance and such.  We're doing our best to keep things as clean as possible, but the difficulty in particular might swing up and down some substantially during this time.  The end result is going to be pretty darn cool by the end of next week, though.

More to come soon.  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.

[Dizzard]

The update isn't working for me, when I click the ingame button it goes to load it up....but then when it is fully loaded it doesn't bring the installer up like it usually does. It just goes back to the main menu and the update button is still there.

Edit: Got it working by installing the auto updater.

[Hyfrydle]

Installed fine for me waiting for servers to update before playing though.

[Dizzard]

Are npcs faster now? They're running around my settlement like they're training to compete in the olympics. 

I'll get back to the game now, excited to get a new feel for what the game is like.

[Hyfrydle]

Wow trash mobs are really hard now maybe they shouldn't respawn in each chunk but once a chunks cleared it stays cleared. At the moment I'm finding them annoying whereas before they were just an obstacle.

[Dizzard]

I don't think the thrash mobs are too difficult (like in a bad way). They just require a few more hits now....and it's not like you'll want to stop and take down every thrash mob you see anyway. I get the sense it might be discouraged to go too far above your level now though since those thrash mobs were pretty fierce....but I guess that's the point. Play with the big boys you're gonna get burned.

I did find the mini bosses took longer to fight now, I wasn't tearing my hair out or anything.....but it did take noticeably longer to kill them. I didn't have any health potions with me so it was a case of running circles around the bats trying to wittle their health down.

[x4000]

A few notes:

1. Some of the balance stuff is going to be a bit harder/grindier at the moment because it's awaiting a few other changes that we haven't put in place yet.  Hopefully it's not too bad, but it's also not the ultimate balance we're hoping for by the time the week is up.

2. Especially, monster spawners outside of boss rooms and a few other areas will be going away.  So that's one of those things that will be balanced inherently differently coming up, regarding overall trash mob balance.

3. Oops, good catch on the NPCs.

[Bluddy]

IMO everything mentioned in the release notes feels much improved (except for multiplayer, which I don't play -- sorry).  I love the new, mountainous ice age terrain -- nice touch.

Monsters may currently have a little too much HP relative to the other gameplay components, but the time for balancing that properly is probably after the power coding session. 

Keep it up guys!

[keith.lamothe]

except for multiplayer, which I don't play -- sorry

No need to apologize: that way no matter what I do to multiplayer, you won't complain about it!

[Coppermantis]

Wow, the trash mobs are a lot tougher now. Just two lightning espers (albeit part of a rampaging horde, so with higher stats) took quite a while of dodging the deluge of attacks to take down. Also, I unfortunately realized too late that a couple lvl. 12 dust storms could insta-kill my little level 6 character. Everything's a lot tougher, which I like.

[tigersfan]

Wow, the trash mobs are a lot tougher now. Just two lightning espers (albeit part of a rampaging horde, so with higher stats) took quite a while of dodging the deluge of attacks to take down. Also, I unfortunately realized too late that a couple lvl. 12 dust storms could insta-kill my little level 6 character. Everything's a lot tougher, which I like.

Oh yeah, dust storms are ok if you are equal level, but, it doesn't take too many levels up before they are maddeningly difficult.

[x4000]

Thanks, guys!  Glad it's a hit -- obviously lots more balancing to do, but as was said that's basically futile to even try to get perfect now, with so much stuff changing at once.  Late next week or early the week after will be the time to really start nailing that down, when all the new mechanics are more in place.

By the by, when it comes to the health of monsters and in some cases their damage-dealing potential, you should really thank Josh (tigersfan) for saving you some grief on that.   The initial build that I sent him to test had some pretty crazy stuff that would have had you ripping your hair out in terms of monster strength and resilience, heh.

[Hearteater]

I am also pretty happy with the increased toughness and projectile speeds.  Bugs aside (which I posted to mantis) here are a few thoughts:

* Bats might be moving a touch too fast.  Obviously as a melee monster if they are too slow they aren't a threat, but with more health they require enough extra damage that traveling the entire width of the screen in an two eye blinks might be a bit much.

* I don't like the feel of the dragging amoeba shots on walls.  It just looks and feels like a bug.  I think the reason is the amount of drag is inconsistent.  If all its shots traveled at 50% speed along walls that would feel planned.  But the way it is now just feels off.  Maybe it is just that it reminds me too much of the times I've done projectiles colliding with obstacles in games of my own.

* Holy cow monster spawners are tough now.  Two person MP they have around 60k health.

* Extremely happy with the espers!  Much more exciting to fight.

[Toll]

Spells have been dragging along the walls for quite some time now in this fashion. Personally I very much prefer it this way; it allows you to do some real funky stuff (like shooting behind hills etc) that wouldn't be possible if the spell simply changed direction to head along the wall instead of creep against it.

[x4000]

Bats are really going to get revamped a ton, I think.  And monster spawners mostly are heading out of existence aside from boss rooms.

Spells have been dragging along the walls for quite some time now in this fashion. Personally I very much prefer it this way; it allows you to do some real funky stuff (like shooting behind hills etc) that wouldn't be possible if the spell simply changed direction to head along the wall instead of creep against it.

Same.  Right now there is nuance to what you can do with the spells creeping on walls, and there is nuance to what you have to pay attention to with the angle of enemy spells coming in to hit the wall, too.  Making it all smoothed out would remove a lot of interesting things that happen with enemies, and that you can do yourself, too.