AVWW Post-Release 1.009-1.010 "The Opal Guardian's Store" Released!

[nanostrike]

Love the changes. Almost feels like a whole different game. It feels like a lot more will change in 1.010, so I'll only speak in general terms.

Some general thoughts:

 - It seems we've had upgrade stone inflation. Cost of maxing out a character decreased by a factor of three or more and at the same time upgrade stones are much more common. Trash mobs drop the equivalent of 3-4 upgrade stones worth of consciousness shards and boss mobs drop 25.
 - I'm kind of hesitant to suggest this, but it makes sense logically: Since it's possible to trade for upgrade stones, they become superflous.. redundant.. obsolete. Why not introduce a 4th Iari which sells upgrades  directly for consciousness shards? They imbue you with consciousness shards to make you stronger.. kind of makes sense.
 - Stash rooms have been marginalized since you can buy almost everything you can find in them. I think the items which are also found in stash rooms need to be a lot more expensive, or removed from stash rooms altogether. There should be enough incentive to visit stash rooms to make it worthwhile to the player, without making him feel like he's looking for a needle in a haystack.
 - I think enchants which are too specific, like "purple right arm enchant" should not be in the store. Make the player gamble for them. I think having "random enchant" is good enough. It should be expensive enough to encourage players to get enchants the regular way -- the option to buy them should be there as a "consciousness shard dump".
 - Consciousness shard numbers are needlessly inflated. We can reduce all costs and drops by a factor of 10.

I agree about the upgrade stones.  Ever since the changes with those, well..... The game hasnt exactly gotten any less difficult, and I still get killed by things, buuuuuuuuut, I still have about 700 upgrade stones.  That's WITH 2 of my current characters fully upgraded.   It is, right now, EXTREMELY easy to fully do 10 upgrades per character.

You could cut the frequency of the stones appearing in half and I'd STILL have a crazy excess of them.


Also, yes, some costs of stuff need changing.

I would say..... dont change the options for enchants in the store..... the ability to buy by slot is a very useful thing..... but DEFINITELY increase the cost.  Alot.  So that it doesnt make the charge system pointless (particularly since that's such a good mechanic).

I think most of the costs are about right, actually.  Because they cut down the grind/busywork.  I'd much rather be able to inexpensively buy Wood Platforms (One of the most basic tools in the game!) at my home base than have to grind through buildings.

Ditto with having to grind through maze rooms for enchants, and Miniboss Caves for Upgrade Stones.  All this stuff in the store does it cut down on that grind, really.  And with the Upgrade Stones...I dunno if you guys are talking single player or multiplayer, but in Multiplayer, having inexpensive Upgrade Stones is ESSENTIAL.

When the continents are at the higher tiers (And it's set on an appropriately high difficutly), you pretty much have to get your character fully-upgraded to stand a chance.  Not only do even good players die a lot, but newbies start with not even enough Upgrade Stones for an HP Increase.  Being able to quickly buy these lets players "Get back into the game" quicker.  You can go out, kill a few enemies, maybe find a stash...and get back with enough Consciousness Shards to get your character decently upgraded.

Before the shop, this was an absolute chore.  You would have to try not to die as you struggle to find your way to stashes and hope that they have enough Upgrade Stones to make a difference.


Now, I'm not saying to ignore the fact that Stashes are less useful now.  But bumping up prices isn't the answer, IMO.  A better answer would be to make BETTER stuff in Stashes.  Have a Stash have 50 Upgrade Stones, 500 Consciousness Shards, 20 Glyph Transfer Scrolls (Some do!), a Full Enchant Canister or something similar.  Something that you COULD get in the store, but would be significantly faster to get from a stash.

Because that's really the problem.  The Stashes usually suck, period.  In most of them, I'll get about 5-10 upgrade stones, some boxes/platforms, about 30 consciousness shards, and MAYBE 10%-20% enchant.  That's garbage and makes you have to grind through a half dozen of them to get anything worthwhile.

And IMO, the less grinding the game has, the better.

[Misery]

I think most of the costs are about right, actually.  Because they cut down the grind/busywork.  I'd much rather be able to inexpensively buy Wood Platforms (One of the most basic tools in the game!) at my home base than have to grind through buildings.

Ditto with having to grind through maze rooms for enchants, and Miniboss Caves for Upgrade Stones.  All this stuff in the store does it cut down on that grind, really.  And with the Upgrade Stones...I dunno if you guys are talking single player or multiplayer, but in Multiplayer, having inexpensive Upgrade Stones is ESSENTIAL.

When the continents are at the higher tiers (And it's set on an appropriately high difficutly), you pretty much have to get your character fully-upgraded to stand a chance.  Not only do even good players die a lot, but newbies start with not even enough Upgrade Stones for an HP Increase.  Being able to quickly buy these lets players "Get back into the game" quicker.  You can go out, kill a few enemies, maybe find a stash...and get back with enough Consciousness Shards to get your character decently upgraded.

Before the shop, this was an absolute chore.  You would have to try not to die as you struggle to find your way to stashes and hope that they have enough Upgrade Stones to make a difference.


Now, I'm not saying to ignore the fact that Stashes are less useful now.  But bumping up prices isn't the answer, IMO.  A better answer would be to make BETTER stuff in Stashes.  Have a Stash have 50 Upgrade Stones, 500 Consciousness Shards, 20 Glyph Transfer Scrolls (Some do!), a Full Enchant Canister or something similar.  Something that you COULD get in the store, but would be significantly faster to get from a stash.

Because that's really the problem.  The Stashes usually suck, period.  In most of them, I'll get about 5-10 upgrade stones, some boxes/platforms, about 30 consciousness shards, and MAYBE 10%-20% enchant.  That's garbage and makes you have to grind through a half dozen of them to get anything worthwhile.

And IMO, the less grinding the game has, the better.

I *really* dont get where the grinding in this game for some players comes from.

The ONLY thing in the entire game that ever comes remotely somewhat almost maybe close to grinding for me is gathering Moon Lamps.   That's it.   And I can tolerate that one because it takes all of 5-10 minutes to get a good 100 of them.

Other than that...... never once grinded for any of that other stuff, and I still have major excess of all of them.  PARTICULARLY platforms and crates.   Some ridiculous 4000 of each.

Also, dont forget:  Another form of grinding is killing enemies until you have enough shards to buy the thing you need.   That doesnt REMOVE grinding at all;  it merely shifts it.



Anyway, it seems like one way or another some of these items need rebalancing.    The shards themselves, the shop's prices on things, and the items appearing in stashes.    Particularly the stashes;  those are supposed to be important, useful rooms, right?  The above-ground equivilent of gem rooms found in caves.

[chemical_art]

I think most of the costs are about right, actually.  Because they cut down the grind/busywork.  I'd much rather be able to inexpensively buy Wood Platforms (One of the most basic tools in the game!) at my home base than have to grind through buildings.

Ditto with having to grind through maze rooms for enchants, and Miniboss Caves for Upgrade Stones.  All this stuff in the store does it cut down on that grind, really.  And with the Upgrade Stones...I dunno if you guys are talking single player or multiplayer, but in Multiplayer, having inexpensive Upgrade Stones is ESSENTIAL.

When the continents are at the higher tiers (And it's set on an appropriately high difficutly), you pretty much have to get your character fully-upgraded to stand a chance.  Not only do even good players die a lot, but newbies start with not even enough Upgrade Stones for an HP Increase.  Being able to quickly buy these lets players "Get back into the game" quicker.  You can go out, kill a few enemies, maybe find a stash...and get back with enough Consciousness Shards to get your character decently upgraded.

Before the shop, this was an absolute chore.  You would have to try not to die as you struggle to find your way to stashes and hope that they have enough Upgrade Stones to make a difference.


Now, I'm not saying to ignore the fact that Stashes are less useful now.  But bumping up prices isn't the answer, IMO.  A better answer would be to make BETTER stuff in Stashes.  Have a Stash have 50 Upgrade Stones, 500 Consciousness Shards, 20 Glyph Transfer Scrolls (Some do!), a Full Enchant Canister or something similar.  Something that you COULD get in the store, but would be significantly faster to get from a stash.

Because that's really the problem.  The Stashes usually suck, period.  In most of them, I'll get about 5-10 upgrade stones, some boxes/platforms, about 30 consciousness shards, and MAYBE 10%-20% enchant.  That's garbage and makes you have to grind through a half dozen of them to get anything worthwhile.

And IMO, the less grinding the game has, the better.

I *really* dont get where the grinding in this game for some players comes from.

The ONLY thing in the entire game that ever comes remotely somewhat almost maybe close to grinding for me is gathering Moon Lamps.   That's it.   And I can tolerate that one because it takes all of 5-10 minutes to get a good 100 of them.

Other than that...... never once grinded for any of that other stuff, and I still have major excess of all of them.  PARTICULARLY platforms and crates.   Some ridiculous 4000 of each.

Also, dont forget:  Another form of grinding is killing enemies until you have enough shards to buy the thing you need.   That doesnt REMOVE grinding at all;  it merely shifts it.



Anyway, it seems like one way or another some of these items need rebalancing.    The shards themselves, the shop's prices on things, and the items appearing in stashes.    Particularly the stashes;  those are supposed to be important, useful rooms, right?  The above-ground equivilent of gem rooms found in caves.

You didn't consider getting the hundreds of upgrade stones to fully upgrade a characte before they were cheaper a grind?

Wow...<You're strong>

[Misery]

I think most of the costs are about right, actually.  Because they cut down the grind/busywork.  I'd much rather be able to inexpensively buy Wood Platforms (One of the most basic tools in the game!) at my home base than have to grind through buildings.

Ditto with having to grind through maze rooms for enchants, and Miniboss Caves for Upgrade Stones.  All this stuff in the store does it cut down on that grind, really.  And with the Upgrade Stones...I dunno if you guys are talking single player or multiplayer, but in Multiplayer, having inexpensive Upgrade Stones is ESSENTIAL.

When the continents are at the higher tiers (And it's set on an appropriately high difficutly), you pretty much have to get your character fully-upgraded to stand a chance.  Not only do even good players die a lot, but newbies start with not even enough Upgrade Stones for an HP Increase.  Being able to quickly buy these lets players "Get back into the game" quicker.  You can go out, kill a few enemies, maybe find a stash...and get back with enough Consciousness Shards to get your character decently upgraded.

Before the shop, this was an absolute chore.  You would have to try not to die as you struggle to find your way to stashes and hope that they have enough Upgrade Stones to make a difference.


Now, I'm not saying to ignore the fact that Stashes are less useful now.  But bumping up prices isn't the answer, IMO.  A better answer would be to make BETTER stuff in Stashes.  Have a Stash have 50 Upgrade Stones, 500 Consciousness Shards, 20 Glyph Transfer Scrolls (Some do!), a Full Enchant Canister or something similar.  Something that you COULD get in the store, but would be significantly faster to get from a stash.

Because that's really the problem.  The Stashes usually suck, period.  In most of them, I'll get about 5-10 upgrade stones, some boxes/platforms, about 30 consciousness shards, and MAYBE 10%-20% enchant.  That's garbage and makes you have to grind through a half dozen of them to get anything worthwhile.

And IMO, the less grinding the game has, the better.

I *really* dont get where the grinding in this game for some players comes from.

The ONLY thing in the entire game that ever comes remotely somewhat almost maybe close to grinding for me is gathering Moon Lamps.   That's it.   And I can tolerate that one because it takes all of 5-10 minutes to get a good 100 of them.

Other than that...... never once grinded for any of that other stuff, and I still have major excess of all of them.  PARTICULARLY platforms and crates.   Some ridiculous 4000 of each.

Also, dont forget:  Another form of grinding is killing enemies until you have enough shards to buy the thing you need.   That doesnt REMOVE grinding at all;  it merely shifts it.



Anyway, it seems like one way or another some of these items need rebalancing.    The shards themselves, the shop's prices on things, and the items appearing in stashes.    Particularly the stashes;  those are supposed to be important, useful rooms, right?  The above-ground equivilent of gem rooms found in caves.

You didn't consider getting the hundreds of upgrade stones to fully upgrade a characte before they were cheaper a grind?

Wow...<You're strong>

I never had to specifically go after them. 

Popping into random buildings every now and then for no apparant reason other than "ooh what's in here" caused me to generally have enough of the things, even when the costs were higher.

Now though the costs are so low that the one penalty for dying that WAS there has been removed.

Doesnt matter if my high-mana utility spell guy with 10 upgrades gets killed right now..... it'll take mere seconds to make another.   And another..... and another.....

[junker154]

Perhaps the grinding shifts to getting loads of conscious shards, but the main advantage is that you can get certain items using the store instead of scavenging. Which ultimatly decreases the grinding aspect.

Usually when you explore, do some missions and such, you will get some shards, find some supplies and everything comes naturally to you. Only if you really want to buy things you can grind for monsters or stashes. But that grinding is caused by bad management.

[Drjones013]

Searching out stashes might be better though if there were more expensive things in the store that you wanted to acquire. Say I really wanted a Red Rider Air Rifle but it cost some stupid amount and in order to get it I had to buy a bike so I could get a paper route. If I 'found' the bike then I wouldn't have to pay for it, giving me more funds towards my Red Rider Air Rifle.

Now we can focus on making players more attached to their characters and not the character levels.

[keith.lamothe]

I think when people say "grinding" they mean "in order to effectively do fun-thing A, I need to first do non-fun-thing B".  But that which is fun, and that which is non-fun, is very dependent on the player in question (and sometimes how good a day they've had, how tasty and recent their last meal was, etc).  In this case, for those people who do not find exploring buildings to be fun, "in order to effectively fight challenging enemies, I have to explore a lot of buildings to get upgrade stones and enchants (and whatever)" equals, for them, "grinding".

For others, fighting lots of littler monsters is non-fun, so if they had to do that instead of exploring to get those combat-boosting resources, that would be grinding for them.

And of course, if for a particular person they find both exploring and trash-killing to be non-fun, there's probably no way to avoid it being "grindy" for them.  But if someone doesn't find either of those activities to be at least a bubble-wrap-popping level of fun, there may be no reasonable way to make the game such that they will really enjoy it.

[Drjones013]

The amount of bonuses in 'stash' rooms needs to be seriously upped to provide any kind of incentive to find them. I'm forced to agree with previous posters regarding the economic benefits of killing mobs versus exploring-- the returns for exploring just aren't high enough. At the same time, the consciousness shard prices really help get a character up to speed when the continent progress is against you.

Bigger stashes, please?

[x4000]

Bigger stashes are on my list for Monday.  Also, there are some things that you'll only ever be able to find from stashes.

Some other things that you only ever need one copy of from the game, period (light enchants and diluters and seekers and such spring to mind, and even the basic version of acid gills) I'm considering just taking out of stash rooms and making store-only.  That would make more sense.

Having suits destroyed when you die would make those more interesting in that you'd need more than one of them, but I'm not sure how grand that is either.  It's been discussed before and I can kind of see that one both ways.

But beyond that, more spell scrolls is something I want to see -- along with more traps, potentially -- where you can get exciting things from stash rooms that you can't get any other way.  Things like decoy fireworks, etc.  Not essential to play with, but they are just plain cool and it's fun to find something like that; that adds the excitement to stashes.

[Drjones013]

Sounds like a good compromise.

[nanostrike]

Bigger stashes are on my list for Monday.  Also, there are some things that you'll only ever be able to find from stashes.

Some other things that you only ever need one copy of from the game, period (light enchants and diluters and seekers and such spring to mind, and even the basic version of acid gills) I'm considering just taking out of stash rooms and making store-only.  That would make more sense.

Having suits destroyed when you die would make those more interesting in that you'd need more than one of them, but I'm not sure how grand that is either.  It's been discussed before and I can kind of see that one both ways.

But beyond that, more spell scrolls is something I want to see -- along with more traps, potentially -- where you can get exciting things from stash rooms that you can't get any other way.  Things like decoy fireworks, etc.  Not essential to play with, but they are just plain cool and it's fun to find something like that; that adds the excitement to stashes.

That'll pretty much fix it up, then.

Honestly, I really love the store.


As for "Grind", I consider it a grind when I have to do something over and over again to get a desired end.  Needing to go deep into the Ocean Caves to get some coral?  Not a grind.  Searching for secret missions to get a rare ingredient?  Annoying, but not grindy.  I consider this stuff gameplay.

Losing several characters on unlucky missions and having to go through buildings until you get a few hundred upgrade stones?  Definitely grindy.  Having to search buildings until you amass Platforms and Boxes?  Grindy.  Having to search a building until I find a Glyph Transfer Scroll so I can use my favorite character again?  Grindy.  Endlessly going through Maze Rooms in Pyramids so I can get enchants?  Grindy.

It's not that I don't like exploring buildings from time to time.  I really do.  But I like to do it for fun and because I might find something cool.  Not to get basic supplies!


Given the choice between having to run circles around Pyramid Mazes or going into a deep windstorm area and blasting enemies for my enchants, I'll take option 2 every time.

And IMO, that's fine.  That's the way it SHOULD be.  The shards, like the way they are now, should be a viable alternative to grinding out stashes.

[Misery]

The idea of more things in stashes that you can only find there is a great one.

......so long as they have good practical value, whatever they are.   Otherwise the shop will still outdo them.   Curious to see just what's added to these.


My main problem though is still the upgrade stones.   I've died numerous times since I last posted about them.  I should have less stones now, right?   No.   I have MORE.  Up to 1200 now.  They're becoming as forgettable as the platforms and crates (which I never, ever have to look at the numbers of, or bother going after for any reason).   And of course, as I'd mentioned before, this leads to a total lack of any penalty for dying.   No attachment to characters currently.  If high-HP robot guy goes down, well, I've practically got a factory that just belches out more, so no worries there.

Other than that, yes, this patch has been pretty great.   Vocal as I am about stuff I find to be negative, my overall opinion of this patch, other than the current stones issue, is that it's quite good, and hoping to see the store expanded a bit somehow at some point.   Exactly HOW, well, danged if I know.   I'm sure the devs will come up with something cool though if they decide to do that.

[omegajasam]

Honestly, the upgrade stones thing is /really/ well done. Right now I have a rediculious amount of them. But earlyer on my friend got killed a few times in succession, and the only thing stopping us having to stop and grind (in teir 3) was the new stone mechanics.

Default characters are just impractically weak later on.

Would love to see more enchants in stash rooms so theres the otpion of going for them over maze rooms.

[Misery]

Honestly, the upgrade stones thing is /really/ well done. Right now I have a rediculious amount of them. But earlyer on my friend got killed a few times in succession, and the only thing stopping us having to stop and grind (in teir 3) was the new stone mechanics.

Default characters are just impractically weak later on.

Would love to see more enchants in stash rooms so theres the otpion of going for them over maze rooms.

Still, I'd like to see SOME sort of alternate use.   I've been just ignoring the damn things mostly..... not doing many building stashes until those have more interesting stuff in them.... but even JUST getting stones from bosses, I have so very many..... over 2000 now.... and all of them completely freaking useless.

They dont have to change the way they work right now in terms of the upgrade mechanic, but at least give me SOMETHING else to do with them.

[zebramatt]

I'm totally in favour of introducing a hard limit on the number of upgrade stones you can carry at once: http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=7544.