AVWW Beta 0.570/0.571 "The Guardian City" Released!

[BobTheJanitor]

I know something needs to be done for the bullets in cramped corridor scenario. I'm sure everyone has run into the situation where you're in a 'basement' map type that has decided to spawn something like 3 of each type of esper and some skelebot snipers at the end of a long corridor with no head room, and they're all trying to target you from the other end of the hall. It's no longer an avoidance game at that point, it's just a wall of projectiles without end. Perhaps instead of transforming into a bat, we need to be able to transform into the ship from Gradius? 

[Magos Mechanicus]

Anyway, the changelog sounds good and you guys really fix bugs quickly but I just couldn't stop laughing about "Lumbermancer". I'm sure there's an actual term for that but it likely uses the Greek word for wood, not the English one (since that's where the suffix -mancy comes from).

That would be dendromancy (dendron = tree), or xylomancy/ksulomancy (ksulon = wood). Although it's not actually that accurate since manteia, the root the -mancy suffix derives from, specifically means divination. So dendromancy interpreted strictly means using trees to predict the future somehow.

I've not had time to play for a while, but the changes since I left certainly look very far-reaching and hopefully fun. Going to have to make a new world and give the game a spin today.

[KDR_11k]

Even simple 3 high corridors and one shooter enemy at the end are unavoidable damage sources.

I don't have as much trouble with the fairies, the energy pulse keeps the number of homing missiles down.

[Ixiohm]

Reading the patch notes for the upcoming Beta 0.572

The tier orbs that are granted with mission completion are now granted a tier earlier than the enemy tier -- so tier 1 missions give tier 2 orbs, etc. Tier 5 missions still give tier 5 orbs, though, since that's the highest possible tier you can get.

Got me thinking... could the following happen with the current system:
Say the EP is 3 and thus the lowest tier mission seeded would be 2 giving you tier 3 orbs. If I now unlock a new spell without having any tier 2 orbs left, will I then be prevented from unlocking any higher tiers of that spell because the spell has to be upgraded in progression? 
Tier 1 => 2 => 3 => 4

By the way, the header of the patch note reads Beta 5.72 not 0.572 

[TechSY730]

By the way, the header of the patch note reads Beta 5.72

Woa, just yesterday you were at a pre-release beta, and now you are already on the fifth major version. I know you guys work fast, but this is crazy.
 

[x4000]

Haha, fixed that.

In terms of upgrading in a linear progression: yes, you can't skip tiers, so if you only have too-high of tiers to unlock with, and you want to unlock something lower, you'll have to do some lower-level missions as well.

[BobTheJanitor]

Something that might help with the bullet hell cramped hallway scenarios is to take a page out of those types of games and shrink the player hitbox some. In actual bullet hell games, your hitbox is usually just a small box right in the center of your ship. While I don't think AVWW needs that, per se, it could help to give the player a little more wiggle room in dodging. It's already sort of hard to tell where the hitbox of a projectile is, since they're usually big flashy graphics with nebulous edges. As is, it seems like if they just skim a bit over your head you still take damage.

Alternately, make shrink a little more friendly. Currently it's so mana-expensive that you can't really use it to temporarily duck a projectile and then come out of it, because that's almost a whole mana bar. And playing in mini mode all the time is accepting double damage on every hit. Neither is a very nice option.

[tigersfan]

Something that might help with the bullet hell cramped hallway scenarios is to take a page out of those types of games and shrink the player hitbox some. In actual bullet hell games, your hitbox is usually just a small box right in the center of your ship. While I don't think AVWW needs that, per se, it could help to give the player a little more wiggle room in dodging. It's already sort of hard to tell where the hitbox of a projectile is, since they're usually big flashy graphics with nebulous edges. As is, it seems like if they just skim a bit over your head you still take damage.

Alternately, make shrink a little more friendly. Currently it's so mana-expensive that you can't really use it to temporarily duck a projectile and then come out of it, because that's almost a whole mana bar. And playing in mini mode all the time is accepting double damage on every hit. Neither is a very nice option.

Well, for now, Chris basically made the bullets die quicker when indoors. Hopefully that will help.

[zebramatt]

You could just add a ducking function and use the collecting animation.

Sure, you wouldn't be able to move while ducking but at least it gives you an option to get out of the way.

[tigersfan]

You could just add a ducking function and use the collecting animation.

Sure, you wouldn't be able to move while ducking but at least it gives you an option to get out of the way.

As it stands that still wouldn't totally solve the problem. With some of the shots in some hallways, you wouldn't be able to dodge under them if you could lie down.

[BobTheJanitor]

Hopefully the bullet spam reduction will help. We'll see. Although I think that ducking would help too, and while it wouldn't solve the problem, it would be better than the current options of just plowing face first into bullets. I've figured that the best option for basements of hell is just to spam a shield and hope you make it through to the goodies, and then warp potion out. Fighting your way through is just asking to waste a vitality stone buff.

[x4000]

Ducking is something that I'm considering, but probably not for this week.  It's something I have to talk to Keith about regarding multiplayer; doing it for solo would be easy at this point, but making that sync in multiplayer and work properly for hit detection and stuff is something that will require a little more... I think.

[keith.lamothe]

Ducking is something that I'm considering, but probably not for this week.  It's something I have to talk to Keith about regarding multiplayer; doing it for solo would be easy at this point, but making that sync in multiplayer and work properly for hit detection and stuff is something that will require a little more... I think.

I figure it won't matter since collision detection for a player entity happens on the client that owns that entity.  And the movement updates need to include the stance anyway, so other clients can display you properly.  You would need to be able to have it change the collision box without changing the entity type for it to not be kind of insanely-expensive-for-a-duck-feature, though.

[x4000]

I figure it won't matter since collision detection for a player entity happens on the client that owns that entity.

Okay, I wasn't completely sure on that.  That will make it vastly easier, then.

And the movement updates need to include the stance anyway, so other clients can display you properly.

No, that's not true, it would be inferring it.  We don't need the stance at all, that can be inferred by the movement actually happening -- except for crouching.  For that we would need not just the position, but also the Y-axis attempting-to-move value.  Between those two we can figure out if you're trying to duck, versus if you're just falling (since ducking in midair would be a thing, etc).

You would need to be able to have it change the collision box without changing the entity type for it to not be kind of insanely-expensive-for-a-duck-feature, though.

That part is no problem, because we're already doing that in other cases such as with the miniaturize spell.  Frankly we also need the collision box to shrink when you jump, as currently it does not.  Sounds like this shouldn't be as big a deal as I thought it might be, though, so that's good.

[zebramatt]

Hooray!