AVWW Beta 0.903 "There Was A Hole Here" Released!

[x4000]

Original: http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/03/avww-beta-0903-there-was-hole-here.html

A better title for this one would actually have been "There was a ladder here.  It's gone now."  But I couldn't resist using one of my favorite Silent Hill 2 quotes a little more overtly.  This release comes quickly on the heels of the prior one, and does a few things.

First of all, it fixes some critical bugs resulting from all that ongoing-condition rework we did in the prior version (and I'd warned that might happen).  Things seem to be good now on that front.  We also took the opportunity to fix a few other random bugs.

Secondly, it takes a good hard look at monster balance and really stratifies the monsters better.  Bats are small and weak and powerful, and will hurt you if you don't get them first -- but they die in a hurry when you do hit them.  Skelebots are lumbering and each shot of theirs packs less of a punch, but they take a lot of hits to bring down in return.  Etc.

Thirdly, the platforming difficulty now affects a whole lot more.  Though come to think of it, I need to update the tooltips to tell players this.  But anyhow, the frequency of "ladders" in undergrounds, surface tunnels, and interiors is now massively affected by the platforming difficulty level of the game -- as the difficulty increases, the number of platforms goes down, and you're left to make your own platforms or use other means to get up cliffs and around in caverns more.  Special thanks to a number of players for suggesting this.

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.

[BobTheJanitor]

Is the seeding of ladders in caves based on the tier or the depth? Like if I am at tier 5 are depth 1 caverns going to have the same ladder seeding as if I were at tier 1 but depth 5?

[Hyfrydle]

Just had the chance to try both new updates and I started by doing a boss tower on default difficulty and it was as easy as yesterday and posed no real challenge. I then attempted another boss tower on the next difficulty up hero I think it's called and the first boss room was swarming with enemies and I entered with 432 life and left with 80 making a hasty exit to a failed mission. I was also annoyed that destroying monster spawners no longer gives health must have missed this in the patch notes.

Not sure if the increased difficulty also increase the rate of monster spawning but it definately felt that way and I would not like to try a battlefield mission on adept as I was struggling with those before.

The difficulty on the default still seems too low and the jump to adept especially with increased spawning is very punishing. This was on a first continent tier 2 world with a almost fully maxed out character hence the hasty retreat.

Forgot to mention I was using a tier 3 spell as my main weapon on this mission.

[zebramatt]

Is the seeding of ladders in caves based on the tier or the depth? Like if I am at tier 5 are depth 1 caverns going to have the same ladder seeding as if I were at tier 1 but depth 5?

The chances of a given piece of ladder getting removed are as follows, by difficulty level:
1: 5%
2: 10%
3: 20% (default)
4: 60%
5: 80%
6: 95%

Note that this is on top of whatever the seeding already was -- so on any difficulty, of course, you're getting fewer ladders as you go down further into caverns. That doesn't get affected by this difficulty-based change either way.

[x4000]

The rates of monster spawning are not affected by difficulty -- and also, Adept is the default.

There may be more tuning needed here, but right now I want to give it a bit more time in a stable state.

[Hyfrydle]

Still surviving on hero difficulty but only just. Health seems really hard to come by and this helps keep me alive on long excursions. Maybe the trash mobs in boss rooms should be finite so when the fight starts you are overwhelmed but then as you start reducing the number of mobs so you can start to concentrate on the boss. At the moment it's a fight for your life situation with too much going on.

I know I can reduce difficulty but doing this the game loses it's challenge. I will keep playing and look forward to future updates to hopefully help my dilemma.

[x4000]

I'm wondering if simply having fewer monster spawners (lower density) would do it.  The trash mobs in the boss rooms serve two purposes: make things combinatorially more "interesting," but also to give you a source of health during the boss fight (as is common in many such games).

[Hyfrydle]

That may help or maybe limit the number of trash mobs able to spawn from each spawner. Also did I read somewhere that once a character is maxed out the upgrade stones would start to spawn as enchant containers?

Having fun tonight just exploring is certainly much more of a challenge and seems to be about right give or take a few sticky situations.

[x4000]

That may help or maybe limit the number of trash mobs able to spawn from each spawner.

Those are already limited, and I think the math there is about right.

Also did I read somewhere that once a character is maxed out the upgrade stones would start to spawn as enchant containers?

No, you just keep getting upgrade stones.  That way you can upgrade multiple characters, and/or you don't have to play catch-up when your character dies.  It's wise to upgrade a few NPCs to have on-hand in your settlement if you're doing that well, so you have specialists for various situations.

Having fun tonight just exploring is certainly much more of a challenge and seems to be about right give or take a few sticky situations.

Excellent!

[KDR_11k]

My first action was to try exploring ocean shallows. Didn't work too well, to make matters worse you can't outrun vengeful shadows underwater.

[BobTheJanitor]

Is the seeding of ladders in caves based on the tier or the depth? Like if I am at tier 5 are depth 1 caverns going to have the same ladder seeding as if I were at tier 1 but depth 5?

The chances of a given piece of ladder getting removed are as follows, by difficulty level:
1: 5%
2: 10%
3: 20% (default)
4: 60%
5: 80%
6: 95%

Note that this is on top of whatever the seeding already was -- so on any difficulty, of course, you're getting fewer ladders as you go down further into caverns. That doesn't get affected by this difficulty-based change either way.

I didn't mean specifically this patch or this new missing rung mechanic, I just meant in general. I have noticed previously that on continent tier 5 it seemed like I was getting low ladder seeding on depth 1 caves. Ladder rarity based on cavern depth has been around for a while, I know that. I just wondered if the system looked at the depth number before seeding ladders, or just at the tier number.

[keith.lamothe]

vengeful shadows underwater

Ouch

[x4000]

My first action was to try exploring ocean shallows. Didn't work too well, to make matters worse you can't outrun vengeful shadows underwater.

You can if you have the gills with the good swimmer modifier.  If you don't have that, you're probably gonna die, yeah.

Is the seeding of ladders in caves based on the tier or the depth? Like if I am at tier 5 are depth 1 caverns going to have the same ladder seeding as if I were at tier 1 but depth 5?

I didn't mean specifically this patch or this new missing rung mechanic, I just meant in general. I have noticed previously that on continent tier 5 it seemed like I was getting low ladder seeding on depth 1 caves. Ladder rarity based on cavern depth has been around for a while, I know that. I just wondered if the system looked at the depth number before seeding ladders, or just at the tier number.

In that case, ladder rarity is a function of dungeon depth alone.  However, the amount that depth affects this is based on the type of region.  Some regions run out of ladders faster than others.

[BobTheJanitor]

Finally found an NPC rescue mission after playing on this continent for maybe 5 or 6 hours. It was in a cave, still nothing from buildings. Cave rescue is interesting, I like the vertical nature of it instead of just plowing through halls. The NPC only had 31 hp though. Not sure if that's intended. Continent tier is still 1. I made it out with her though. Just barely, she had only 3 HP when we got to the door. I think I got incredibly lucky.

[Hyfrydle]

Is this correct in the next update notes:

The density of tiles per monster spawner in boss rooms has now decreased from 30 to 50 tiles. This makes for fewer trash mobs swarming throughout boss rooms, although they are certainly still there.

    As an added rule, the minimum number of nests is now 2 rather than 1, however.

Density has decreased from 30 to 50 (This is an increase should it be the other way around?)
Minimum number of nests now 2 instead of 1 (Should this be 1 instead of 2?)

I'm confused sorry hope I'm not been thick!!!