AVWW Betas 0.505-0.507, "Skelebot Goal Kick," Released!

[x4000]

These three releases have all come out in the last day or so.  Aside from a lot of general bugfixes and balance tweaks, there's a number of cool changes here:

• The Skelebot Giants now have a massive knockback to their melee attacks, letting them basically punt your character a few screens away.
• Put in a number of improvements to the visual display and functionality of the direct keyboard targeting.
• The ranged bosses can now hit you from further away, making it harder to kite them.
• Gem veins and other mine-able stuff underground is now easier to find and see, and the dungeon map now updates its colors to indicate ones you've already mined.
• Support for single-button mice has been improved; actually, so has support for mice with more than three buttons, too.

More coming later tonight.  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.

[TechSY730]

The Skelebot Giants now have a massive knockback to their melee attacks, letting them basically punt your character a few screens away.

I can see it now. Hardcore speed-runners abusing this for some sort of speed boost.

[x4000]

Hahahah.

[keith.lamothe]

I can see it now. Hardcore speed-runners abusing this for some sort of speed boost.

Mental images of a bugged-out-eyes mario flailing through the air at high speed and slamming into the sliding crossbar on the end-of-level "goal posts"

[BobTheJanitor]

I noticed that punt last night while playing around. That... might be a bit much. Given the size of room that you're fighting these in, even if it has a high ceiling, the knockback is so strong that it seemed like I touched the boss and was instantaneously teleported to the top corner of the room. I was about to report it as a bug until I saw that change. Perhaps decrease the velocity, even if the overall distance remains similar to what it is right now?

Also, I'd love to see someone try to speed run a game with infinite content. There's probably some deep philosophical point to be drawn out of that.

[keith.lamothe]

Also, I'd love to see someone try to speed run a game with infinite content. There's probably some deep philosophical point to be drawn out of that.

Yea, it does sound like the approach some folks take towards life, actually.

[eRe4s3r]

Life doesn't have infinite content though 

In fact the Life seed seems to be totally broken, it always seems to involve money and work

[keith.lamothe]

Life doesn't have infinite content though 

Neither does AVWW.  I don't think any person could possibly get to world coordinate 2 billion or whatever (nor would RAM allow them to do so), but it's not literally infinite

In fact the Life seed seems to be totally broken, it always seems to involve money and work

There are certain common elements to every game of AVWW too, like monsters and things to hit them with

[zebramatt]

Ah good, bats got back their bite!

[orzelek]

What is the idea behind the knock backs?

Getting hit and suddenly ending up to screens away in random non-hit related direction is not funny. It's annoying. And when you add dwarves to that you have not so nice feeling of not having control over your character. Playing as spectator.. is not playing.

Other thing:
At what skill level you are aiming at with game difficulty?

I started at 3, after recent nerfs downgraded to 2 and it still looks that I'll need to scavenge dozen of houses looking for potions to actually go and explore a resource tower. Or revert to one fight - hop to town - go back methodology which is not fun. (I'm not thinking about overlords since killing one 10 lvl's lower seems to require insane amounts of mana - equal level one would be.. I don't want to see that amount of hp).

[brianc]

^^^ This, I really don't understand increasing knockback because the dwarfs combined with a giant skele leave you completely out of control.  A couple of other suggestions, we need a way to cancel auto targeting, in a room like _/\_ auto targeting can become annoying, as well as when there are multiple enemies. I really dislike that the difficulty is interchangeable, perhaps we could make it changeable up until level ten and then a person has to choose a difficulty level to play at.  It encourages people to nerf difficulty to complete very difficult tasks and then switch back, those people do not deserve the sense of accomplishment they are receiving. Possibly halve experience for each lowered difficulty from the top of the list?  I really dislike that option, considering how hardcore AI Wars was I didn't expect that (Imagine in game, lowering the difficulty so you could take down a home planet?).  Also, underground passage entrances need to be brought to the front in the way that gem veins are for the exact same reasons.   

[x4000]

A few notes:

1. The velocity of the skelebot knockback isn't that instantaneous at 60fps, but at lower I could imagine it being an issue.  I'll look at turning that down some.

2. Knockback on other enemies hasn't really been changed or increased.

3. Note that right now the skelebot giant seems like this thing that is such a central part of the game because there are few miniboss types yet, but that won't always be the case.

4. The proper way to fight the skelebot giant is to stay out of his range.  You have wood platforms, not to mention the terrain of the room to hide from him in.  If you're getting into the range where he can hit you much, then something is wrong anyhow.  The fireballs he shoots should be the main concern.

5. Same deal with the skelebot dwarves, they are not going to be so common forever.  However, I quite agree that them having knockback at all is annoying and I'll remove it.  Those are impossible to avoid getting hit by sometimes.

6. In terms of healing potions, I'm going to buff up their efficacy. As I mentioned yesterday, my intent was never to nerf those, but rather to standardize them so that the characters' magic attack value wasn't important to how much you could heal.  I kind of expected some feedback on the healing level, but mostly there has been nothing so I assumed it was preliminarily okay.

7. In terms of general difficulty, this is meant to not be particularly hardcore on the standard difficulty, it's meant to be really easy on the lowest difficulty, and it's meant to be very hardcore on the hardest difficulty.

8. Regarding the ability to change difficulties at any time, that's a feature I think needs to stay.  You can only do it in settlements, and this is a common feature for a lot of FPS, adventure, and RPG games that have difficulty levels.  Not all, obviously -- there are lots of examples on both sides of things -- but having someone get stuck in a world and having to start a new one because it got too hard is unacceptable.  If someone wants to turn the difficulty down to get past a fight they otherwise find impossible, why do I care?  If that's what is fun and what lets them keep playing, then great.  This isn't a strategy game, despite having some strategy game elements.  We want you to use the same world for as long as you play the game, which is means that as you get better you may also want to turn the difficulty UP.   AI War is a game meant to be played serially, where you start one many-hour challenge, win or lose, and then play another one.  AVWW is meant to be a world you go to, and you take on many different challenges as you visit in that world.  To me, not having the difficulty being changeable on a world in AVWW would be more like not letting you ever change the difficulty on AI War once you choose a difficulty unless you reinstall the game.  It's not literally that, but that's the best example that comes to mind.

[orzelek]

1. The velocity of the skelebot knockback isn't that instantaneous at 60fps, but at lower I could imagine it being an issue.  I'll look at turning that down some.

I was testing that a bit by getting hit by skelebot and it seems instant. My fps is fixed at 60 and doesn't really drop (with few exceptions when scrolling in huge underground caves).

[brianc]

Hmmm, that does make a lot of sense and I'm coming around, but what would be the benefit of playing at higher difficulties?  I got a huge sense of accomplishment out of playing AI Wars on higher difficulties because more was added, enemies would use different ship types, strategies, etc.  Will this game be able to recreate that drive to step up the difficulty? 

[x4000]

1. The velocity of the skelebot knockback isn't that instantaneous at 60fps, but at lower I could imagine it being an issue.  I'll look at turning that down some.

I was testing that a bit by getting hit by skelebot and it seems instant. My fps is fixed at 60 and doesn't really drop (with few exceptions when scrolling in huge underground caves).

Hmm, in the unity editor I'm usually at 350fps actually, so I don't test much at 60fps.  Anyway, I'm turning it down.

Hmmm, that does make a lot of sense and I'm coming around, but what would be the benefit of playing at higher difficulties?  I got a huge sense of accomplishment out of playing AI Wars on higher difficulties because more was added, enemies would use different ship types, strategies, etc.  Will this game be able to recreate that drive to step up the difficulty?

The new behaviors and such that you mention aren't really about the difficulty level -- those are about getting to higher region levels.  The way we recreate that drive here is for you to explore more of the world and find bigger and badder stuff as you get higher level.  The benefit of playing at a higher difficulty is that the game is a more balanced and satisfying experience if you're a good player.  It's possible that might involve some behavior shifts later in time, also, but thus far that's not in the immediate plans.