AVWW Post-Release 1.011-1.012 "The Dread Mechanical Bull" Released!

[nanostrike]

Mana-Cost-Reduction effects from enchants (and guardian power buffs) now affect mana regen instead (so if you had a -20% mana cost enchant, it's now +20% mana regen)

My poor, poor 40-mana character

Not sure how I feel about this one.  Shields already make Mana a really, really good stat to upgrade.  And now it's even more important, since Mana Regen is % based.  It's kinda turning into a "High Mana Characters only if you wanna survive AND deal damage at the same time" thing.

Characters with high HP and very low mana are almost worthless after this change.  So Medieval and Skelebot characters are going to be VERY seldomly chosen.



To compensate, a new type of Head Enchant that boosts max mana might be nice.  You could have it boost by a set amount instead of a %, so you could more-or-less control what spells it would allow low-mana characters to cast.  This would make a nice feel of "Leveling Up", where once you get better enchants, you're able to cast bigger spells that take more mana.


"Tiering" the mana costs of spells at some point in the future might help too.  Different spells would scale up in costs at set intervals instead of having seemingly random costs.  Weak, rapid fire spells could be 25 mana, for example, while bigger projectiles would be 50, whips would be 75, AoE's and more powerful projectiles would be 100, ect.  Some sort of set cost instead of "Light Orb costs 27.9 mana per cast" would really kinda tighten things up, IMO.  But that's an optional idea for the future.

[x4000]

Head enchants are for finding loot only, and never anything that affects your stats -- otherwise the incentive is to constantly switch those out.

In terms of having more mana for shields, that's a prime purpose of reducing these.  The full burn rate of shields is supposed to be something that you keep up for a second or so at most, generally speaking.

In terms of the mana costs being random, they aren't -- it's based on DPS and DPM so you have a variety of options depending on what you're up to.  But expect some very high-mana spells in the future that only characters with high base mana (with some upgrades on top) will be able to use.  The mana-cost-reduction stuff would have been granting access to spells that should have been harder to get than that.

[LayZboy]

I find the gasebo's to be pretty disappointing to be honest. I'll admit the the initial projectile they fire is pretty strong, but once it explodes the smaller parts do brush away damage, and then it doesn't fire another projectile for quite some time easily giving you enough time to do a lot of damage to it and get quite a lot of shards (was getting 100 a pop in the overlords land).

[x4000]

I find the gasebo's to be pretty disappointing to be honest. I'll admit the the initial projectile they fire is pretty strong, but once it explodes the smaller parts do brush away damage, and then it doesn't fire another projectile for quite some time easily giving you enough time to do a lot of damage to it and get quite a lot of shards (was getting 100 a pop in the overlords land).

Bear in mind these are basic enemies that are seeded from the start of the game.  Almost all the monsters we're working on these days are, since people want more variety right from the start. At some point we'll work in elite versions (and in a few cases we already have) that will provide what you're looking for there.

[Misery]

Not to mention that if one of those projectiles DOES manage to burst right next to you, it REALLY HURTS.

I found that out the hard way almost immediately.

[omegajasam]

Will we be seeing stonger mana regen enchants?

As it is, if you flip it 1 to 1 mana regen to mana reduction, your going to see a lot of enchants become a /lot/ worse at sustained fire.

(half costs (-50%) = double regen(+100%), which is a pritty reasonable level to be reachable by continent 2)

It will also have the knock-on effect of the number of projectiles fireable before you have to wait for mana regen that you get for anyone who doesn't have enough regen to quite sustain fire. It will make low mana characters weaker again (comparitivly), being able to fire off 2 leafy whips before waiting for the regen is often a kill, where as one, regen, one is enough time for counter fire.

Will be a intresting change to say the least, will change the practicalitys of a lot of spells. Might be a little harsh on the newer people who are still going for heavyer hp to survive though.

[LayZboy]

Bear in mind these are basic enemies that are seeded from the start of the game.  Almost all the monsters we're working on these days are, since people want more variety right from the start. At some point we'll work in elite versions (and in a few cases we already have) that will provide what you're looking for there.

I thought the "is it / isn't it" nature of them to be the more interesting part, when I first saw a gazebo after reading they was in the game, I was shooting at a normal background gazebo for about 5 seconds before I realized that, it was just a back ground gazebo. I dunno if these fake gazebo's are more common in the game but when I was in the overlords zone every gazebo was a bad one.

[MouldyK]

Meanwhile, I have yet to see an Evil Gazebo and after reading about them in the Patch, I expected there to be one on every every screen like how the Crashed Landspeeders are on every screen of an Ice Age place (seriously, I used to ignore them, but now I actually go after them like some sadistic Miasma-Hating Rambo since they are so annoying to me).

More Evil Gazebos please! 

[Penumbra]

I know you need lots of new enemies, and as many as possible right at the beginning, but I think the Dread Gazebos should be very rare. I think one should pop up every time I get complacent about them.

[x4000]

Regarding stronger regen enchants: we'll see what it looks like after balance testing, but this is our best first stab at it.  I can't really comment beyond that, because if we thought it needed to be different we'd have done it differently now rather than waiting until later.   But if it looks out of kilter later we'll of course change it.

Regarding gazebos: it's really going to vary pretty randomly.  Sometimes next to none, sometimes a lot, etc.  We're not intending for them to be a major enemy type that you see a lot or anything; they're intended to be one of the more rare ones.  My goal is to double or triple the number of enemies in the game in fairly short order, and so those are small potatoes compared to what we ultimately want to do.  But they are fun and interesting, hence their inclusion.

Anyway, also: new release time!  http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,10652.0.html