AVWW Post-Release 1.032-1.036 "The Rising Deep " Released!

[x4000]

Original: http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/05/avww-post-release-1032-rising-deep.html

This one is all kinds of awesome, if I do say so.  First of all, there's a new music track that is just really wicked cool.  Live electric guitar, and great composition both -- nice.

Then there's a bunch of improvements to various things like enemy seeding and things like T-Rexes getting stuck in tiny stairwells and such.  And multiplayer fixes like falling straight through mines without touching them, or your NPCs getting stuck during rescue missions.  Also the new upgrade enchants now cost 30x less than before, making them not a grind to collect at the start.

It's kind of a greatest-hits of a lot of the things that have been annoying people, I think, when it comes to the miscellaneous small fixes here.  Monday is Memorial Day and so we won't be working that day, but on Tuesday and Wednesday that sort of focus on polish and balance is going to be most of what remains prior to 1.1 official being released.

The Deep's Overhaul
The mechanics of the deep were always temporary and kind of placeholdery.  I made a note of that at the time we put in the +2 tiers thing and the darkness thing, as we'd basically run out of time.  Anyway, now there are basically fiveish new types of enemies that are used in The Deep, and they are all really strong and scary.

So strong, in fact, it's like they had +2 tiers even though that mechanic has now been removed from the deep (along with the darkness effect on spells and enemies).  Why the shift?  Well, migration of course!  Nothing is allowed to migrate into the deep anymore, but if monsters from the deep start migrating out into the surrounding lands that's quite a fearsome thing to see!

I have to say, the miasma bats are a new favorite enemy of mine, mainly just because I love their visual.  Although the entropy hoppers that the dark dragons spawn are also really interesting, too.

Lots Of Changes To Freefall Missions
These missions have gotten a big facelift based on feedback from you folks.  The missions themselves have proved to be really popular with lots of people -- but also brutally hard.  This release updates the difficulty to not be so extreme anymore, although further tiering will still be needed come Tuesday.

I just ran out of time to keep working on this specific mission today, but it's getting close.  What you're looking at now is pretty close to what I would consider the "hardest version" of the freefall missions, and then we just need some step-downs from that so that you get eased up to that level.  If folks still feel like this is too hard for the hardest level of them, though, then let me know.

All Time Periods Now Have Unique Bonuses
Previously it was just limited to some of the time periods having some special bonuses like darkvision for the Draconites or the Fast Runner buff for the bronze age characters.

Well, now all the different time periods have their unique bonuses in place and they seem reasonably well balanced -- I'm sure this will evolve over time, but for a first pass I'm really pleased with how this turned out.

The ice age characters and medieval characters are now my personal favorites since they have some melee reduction and also some serious knockback reduction.  But then again the extra two upgrade enchant points on the contemporary characters is pretty crazy powerful.  As is the mana regen and extra mana of the time of magic characters, which are even more extreme now than they used to be.

Of course, if you find scouting buildings to be slow or tedious, an industrial revolution character will now make that go much faster.  And the pre-industrial characters are now something of a cross between Luigi and Princess from Mario 2 in how they handle -- I think that's pretty fitting for their style of dress, haha.

More to come soon.  Enjoy!

UPDATE: 1.033 is now out with some key bugfixes mainly relating to bosses not spawning properly.

UPDATE: 1.034 is now out with one fix to some inventory management stuff throwing exceptions in MP.  Apparently.  Never could duplicate it, but the error log was clear enough for now.

UPDATE: 1.035 is now out with some more bugfixes, including a lockup, sudden-death on characters at inappropriate times, and a missing lieutenant.  Also 10 new overlord boss rooms, which I'm sure is welcome news. 

UPDATE: 1.036 is now out with a couple of more bugfixes.  

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.

[timtim]

Just wanted to say - can't wait to explore all the changes, and you guys are doing an amazing job.

[Coppermantis]

I must say, this is the only game where being away for a week means you have a ton to catch up on. I'll need to look over a lot of patch notes. 

[TechSY730]

I just encountered a ??? Head in a battleground mission in an ice age region, and I am only at tier 2 on the first continent. Is this intentional?
Wasn't too much of a problem, but still, it seemed a bit weird.

[timtim]

I know I'm late to the party on this, and this may have been suggested, but when selecting equipment and the valid stuff lights up (really good addition), can it be set so when you click on what's currently equipped it DOESNT disarm it? I want to quickly look at, for instance, all torso equipment so I click on my torso equipped item - which then disappears and goes into the inventory unless I hold it down and put it in the slot.

It'd be nice to have a first click on items equipped, to see all the lit up items in the inventory, and then a select click can disarm it to empty?

Also (this is first time playing since Wednesday) I was shocked to see my health halve and am hoping to find some health things to bring it back up again.

[TechSY730]

You know that boss despawn glitch on Mantis? Well it seems to be hitting much harder in this version, NO bosses seem to be spawning...

EDIT: New mantis report for this bigger form of the bug: http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=8154

EDIT2:
Just saw this in the release notes:

Put in some improvements so that the likelihood of having a boss room that simply does not seed a boss at all is vastly lower (hopefully zero). Please let us know if you continue to see this in future versions.

Well, I'm pretty sure the chances didn't go down.

[nanostrike]

Not super keen on my Age of Magic characters having their attack nerfed in exchange for more mana than I'll ever use, but I suppose if some more mana-intensive spells get added, it might be useful.

I do love that Pre-Industrial characters are now amazingly agile in addition to just being a glass cannon.  They're really the age that rewards skillful play now, as a few hits can kill you, but you have a lot of dodging options and can hit back hard.

[TechSY730]

You know that boss despawn glitch on Mantis? Well it seems to be hitting much harder in this version, NO bosses seem to be spawning...

EDIT: New mantis report for this bigger form of the bug: http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=8154

EDIT2:
Just saw this in the release notes:

Put in some improvements so that the likelihood of having a boss room that simply does not seed a boss at all is vastly lower (hopefully zero). Please let us know if you continue to see this in future versions.

Well, I'm pretty sure the chances didn't go down.

Copied from my mantis post:

OK, looks like I jumped the gun a bit. I just did get a spawn. However, I only got one after literally 10 boss rooms. I think the change to try to make this issue better actually made it worse.

[Coppermantis]

I encountered an urban sniper balloon just now...You sly dogs, you.

[x4000]

UPDATE: 1.033 is now out with some key bugfixes mainly relating to bosses not spawning properly.

[TechSY730]

UPDATE: 1.033 is now out with some key bugfixes mainly relating to bosses not spawning properly.

Thanks for pushing that out even though it is so late. We appreciate it (or at least I do, but I'm sure many others do as well)

[x4000]

I know I'm late to the party on this, and this may have been suggested, but when selecting equipment and the valid stuff lights up (really good addition), can it be set so when you click on what's currently equipped it DOESNT disarm it? I want to quickly look at, for instance, all torso equipment so I click on my torso equipped item - which then disappears and goes into the inventory unless I hold it down and put it in the slot.

It'd be nice to have a first click on items equipped, to see all the lit up items in the inventory, and then a select click can disarm it to empty?

You know, that's how it works for me -- it's very odd.  I have two other people saying it works the way you are describing, so it's clearly a thing, but I can't for the life of me duplicate it.  Are you on OSX by any chance?  Maybe I need to fire up my Mac to test that one.

Also (this is first time playing since Wednesday) I was shocked to see my health halve and am hoping to find some health things to bring it back up again.

Generally speaking if you use the upgrade enchants, you can get what you had before.  And beyond that, you should actually have substantially higher base health tbh.

Not super keen on my Age of Magic characters having their attack nerfed in exchange for more mana than I'll ever use, but I suppose if some more mana-intensive spells get added, it might be useful.

Bear in mind that you can completely ignore the mana upgrades with them, then, and focus on health or attack or something.  So even now you can make some interesting combinations with them.  But largely their Raistlin-like awesomeness is yet to come.

I do love that Pre-Industrial characters are now amazingly agile in addition to just being a glass cannon.  They're really the age that rewards skillful play now, as a few hits can kill you, but you have a lot of dodging options and can hit back hard.

They're a tad floaty for my taste, but I figured they would have appeal to a lot of folks this way.  Perhaps with stone legs combined on them I could get less floaty but still the height.  Anywho, I was always one who was playing Luigi in Mario 2, so it's funny for me to call these guys floaty... by comparison they are not at all.  But I guess I've developed different habits in this game.  I thought that having some interesting options like this would be attractive to a number of people, though.

[x4000]

UPDATE: 1.033 is now out with some key bugfixes mainly relating to bosses not spawning properly.

Thanks for pushing that out even though it is so late. We appreciate it (or at least I do, but I'm sure many others do as well)

You bet -- I was checking it on my phone right before going to sleep.  And then -- ah, crud.  So sitting here in my bathrobe fixing stuff up... and now back to bed.   TMI?

All in all not something I wanted to leave hanging around, anyhow.  And thanks for the kind words.

[x4000]

Sigh, last thing and then I'm gone for the night:

UPDATE: 1.034 is now out with one fix to some inventory management stuff throwing exceptions in MP.  Apparently.  Never could duplicate it, but the error log was clear enough for now.

[timtim]

I know I'm late to the party on this, and this may have been suggested, but when selecting equipment and the valid stuff lights up (really good addition), can it be set so when you click on what's currently equipped it DOESNT disarm it? I want to quickly look at, for instance, all torso equipment so I click on my torso equipped item - which then disappears and goes into the inventory unless I hold it down and put it in the slot.

It'd be nice to have a first click on items equipped, to see all the lit up items in the inventory, and then a select click can disarm it to empty?

You know, that's how it works for me -- it's very odd.  I have two other people saying it works the way you are describing, so it's clearly a thing, but I can't for the life of me duplicate it.  Are you on OSX by any chance?  Maybe I need to fire up my Mac to test that one.

Also (this is first time playing since Wednesday) I was shocked to see my health halve and am hoping to find some health things to bring it back up again.

I am indeed on OSX - that must be it. Very odd!