AVWW Post-Release 1.013-1.015 "Nightmare Octopi" Released!

[x4000]

Original: http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/05/avww-post-release-1013-nightmare-octopi.html

This one is a bit all over the place.  It includes one new enemy and one new miniboss, but there were five other enemies and one other miniboss that we worked on today that didn't quite make it into this release.

Instead of being focused solely on new monsters, this version packs in a number of other miscellaneous improvements -- see the release notes for the full rundown.  The largest groups of improvements have to do with balance on a few of the enchant progressions (to prevent some exploits that players found), as well as a variety of general improvements to the terrain generation of ocean regions.  We know that's something folks have been wanting for a while, so we took a chance to slip that in.

More to come soon.  Enjoy!

UPDATE: 1.014 has some various fixes related to the prior version.  Sigh -- sorry about this, it isn't our norm to be in this pattern.  But that's part of why we do betas of even post-release content!

UPDATE: 1.015 has a fix for a fairly uncommon unhandled exception in the prior version that we nonetheless didn't want out there in the wild (there are enough players now that even an uncommon exception gets hit pretty fast).  This one also fixes a longer-standing issue with having too many robots to choose from compared to other time periods.

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.

[Coppermantis]

Liking all the new updates. Although, I do have a problem. The one port on my continent is stormy and as such I can't actually leave. Is this intentional? It's pretty annoying.

[nanostrike]

Liking all the new updates. Although, I do have a problem. The one port on my continent is stormy and as such I can't actually leave. Is this intentional? It's pretty annoying.

Unfortunately, working as intended...

Personally, I think that after you kill the Overlord, the storms on your continent should lift.

Fixed an oversight where you would not gain access to the draconite playable characters in the character select screen after having rescued one of them (in other words, like all the other time period NPCs already worked).

Thank you.  Now I'll finally get to use one of these guys without having to do a Rescue Mission every time I die to replace him!  Does it display an Unlock Message for them like the other NPCs?  If not, it should.

Also, I'll actually explore the ocean now.  They actually have stuff spawning in them and don't require a box-ride to leave each chunk!

[Terraziel]

I think my main initial complaint is the the enchant changes have made a lot of the information displayed by my enchants meaningless, rather what is the point of it displaying the information to me that it is a -59% cooldown enchant when it cant ever actually be that?

As a second point, when mousing over enchants you don't have equipped it probably shouldn't display the active percent info, it sort of implies that that is what it would be if you equipped that enchant, whereas in reality it is simply showing you your current figures.

[MouldyK]

Don't wanna file a Mantis right now as it's late, but every cave room I went in has a "Passage to Lower Dungeon"...even when the minimap said there was none and it was the 2nd room in the dungeon. O_o

[Tallgeese]

I think my main initial complaint is the the enchant changes have made a lot of the information displayed by my enchants meaningless, rather what is the point of it displaying the information to me that it is a -59% cooldown enchant when it cant ever actually be that?

I completely agree with this. Wouldn't it have been better to just ratchet down how high cooldown reduction enchants could go?

[LayZboy]

I find the new mana system just... weird, in a hard to describe kinda way.

I suppose the best way to describe it is that I find myself running away from monsters whilst my mana regenerates because of my now high mana cost spells. I don't think this would have been so bad when we could get like 700 mana from dumping points into it, but now It's sometimes hard to cast spells, and even then they take ALL your mana unless they are weak spells.

I can't even imagine using some of the higher mana cost spells on a new world, with weak enchantments.

[keith.lamothe]

I completely agree with this. Wouldn't it have been better to just ratchet down how high cooldown reduction enchants could go?

I thought of this, but the cap would need to be like 30-40% and you'd probably hit that on the first continent and never get better CDR than that the rest of the game.

Now we need a stats screen to tell us what our % damage reduction and % mana cost reduction and all the other revamped stats actually are.

When you have CDR or Damage Reduction on and mouseover one of your enchants that gives that stat, it shows both that item's strength for that stat and your total effective value for that stat.  And there is no % mana cost reduction.

[Singularity125]

Don't wanna file a Mantis right now as it's late, but every cave room I went in has a "Passage to Lower Dungeon"...even when the minimap said there was none and it was the 2nd room in the dungeon. O_o

Seconded. Definitely not intended, I presume? I can ignore them for now, but I wonder what would happen if I entered each one... would the cave system branch out like crazy? o.o

[Coppermantis]

Liking all the new updates. Although, I do have a problem. The one port on my continent is stormy and as such I can't actually leave. Is this intentional? It's pretty annoying.

Unfortunately, working as intended...

Personally, I think that after you kill the Overlord, the storms on your continent should lift.

Fixed an oversight where you would not gain access to the draconite playable characters in the character select screen after having rescued one of them (in other words, like all the other time period NPCs already worked).

Thank you.  Now I'll finally get to use one of these guys without having to do a Rescue Mission every time I die to replace him!  Does it display an Unlock Message for them like the other NPCs?  If not, it should.

Also, I'll actually explore the ocean now.  They actually have stuff spawning in them and don't require a box-ride to leave each chunk!

Well, this is annoying then. I'll just place wind shelters until I can leave or take on the Overlord.

[Tallgeese]

I completely agree with this. Wouldn't it have been better to just ratchet down how high cooldown reduction enchants could go?

I thought of this, but the cap would need to be like 30-40% and you'd probably hit that on the first continent and never get better CDR than that the rest of the game.

Well, couldn't you then just make the progression for CDR far slower, like make CDR enchants start at something silly like 2%? That is essentially what's being done right now, minus the misleading/confusing numbers.

[keith.lamothe]

Well, couldn't you then just make the progression for CDR far slower, like make CDR enchants start at something silly like 2%? That is essentially what's being done right now, minus the misleading/confusing numbers.

That's very much not what's being done now.  The impact of (100/(100+X)) is very similar to (100-X) at low values of X.  So 20% is actually 17% reduction, nothing like 2%.

[nanostrike]

BUG REPORT:

I'm getting random "Passage to Deeper Dungeon" doors EVERYWHERE.  And I mean everywhere.  I've even had some inside of buildings, in Secret Mission Staging Areas...everywhere.  I have a screenshot of one in a Secret Mission Area:

http://steamcommunity.com/id/Nanostrike/screenshot/558689667333221973?tab=public

When I go through them, they lead to some random cave system in the area at a similar depth, as you can see.  I've had one in an Underground Outbuilding, and several on the surface in areas where there aren't supposed to be caves.

Is this possibly related to those fixes you did to the Ocean caves?  And yes, those are the Lava Flats I'm caving in.  Real men go to caves filled with fire, lava, and raptors!

[Quaix]

I wasn't happy about the changes at first. But they're needed if these effects are to scale in the future. Games like Diablo 2 and WoW use the 100/(100-x) scaling (or n/(n-x)) and it makes sense -- for larger x when you double your stat, say armor rating, you halve the damage.

The confusion comes from using the % sign in two places to mean two different things. Instead it should look like this:

Cooldown reduction: Call it haste rating. The tooltip would say

33 Haste Rating (25% cooldown reduction)

Similarly for damage reduction. Call it armor:

45 Armor Rating (31% damage reduction)

[MouldyK]

Yeah, it's been noted in the Mantis, so hopefully it will get fixed if there is a release tomorrow night, maybe sooner if it is that major and needs a fix ASAP.

Nut I admired your manliness. XD

And I think Quaix is on the right track as it will be less confusing.