AVWW Post-Release 1.207 "Double Lightning" Released!

[x4000]

Original: http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/08/avww-post-release-1207-double-lightning.html

This one is the next in our series of adding a new spell and other new tweaks each week while the game is undergoing its art revamp for the next few months.

There are really a lot of good things in this one.  For one, the new spell is just made of awesomesauce: it's easily my favorite spell ever, just for the visual effect alone.  But it's also really fun to catch multiple enemies in your cloud of lightning when you can.  zebramatt suggested the idea as a fire spell, but since other players were pointing out the lack of air-element spells I thought this one would do well to fit both needs at once.

Next up we have yet another 100 rooms thanks to Benmiff.  He.  Is.  A. Machine.  It's no question now that well over half of the room maps in the game are now created by him; it might be closer to 2/3 of them now, I'm not sure.  And we had hundreds to start with!

The name "double lightning" for the post comes about because of Lightning Storm (the new spell mentioned above) plus lot of heavy changes to Lightning Rocket.  Mainly it now moves way faster and drains the mana faster also.  That makes it sort of like a super mega jump, rather than a slow ride upwards.  Boy oh boy, is that fun.  Ulrox really had a great idea with those changes, it's almost like a new spell.

Next up are a variety of bugfixes and balance tweaks, the majority of which seem to either involve Pyrrhic or Misery or both.  Huge thanks to both of them, and all the other players involved as well.  The gift-giving interface is now way less hard to find as part of these changes, and perhaps what might be the most significant change of this release despite all the great stuff above:

The percentages of what seeds in stash rooms is now vastly improved.  The little pointless bits of shards, and the extra enchant-charge containers (both of which can be found elsewhere plenty easily) no longer seed.  The overall density of the good items has more than doubled as part of these changes

More to come next week.  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.

[Misery]

Yay, feedback time!

This is probably the best of these smaller updates yet, and one of the better updates overall.  The changes to the item seeding in the stash rooms makes a very large difference, and makes exploring as a whole feel worthwhile and non-frustrating once again.... the appearance rates of the different items seems to be back to what it SHOULD be.  Mood items arent such an absurd problem anymore, which is good, and most stash rooms are valuable now, as opposed to before with so many just giving useless things.

New spell is nice, FINALLY another air-element spell that is a direct attack spell.  Havent tried the rocket one yet.

Now onto.... er.... bugs?  I'm not actually sure if this is supposed to happen or not.

Anyway, this occurred: 

More than once, actually. I seem to recall that those only appear when other stuff cant seed, or something like that?  If that's the case, some of the new boss rooms might have some sort of issue.  I dont recall what area type I was in, with the one in the screenshot.   But I got two of those things in a row in a boss tower, which is.... unusual.  Figured I'd mention it.

[Coppermantis]

I got nothing but ghostly hearts in one wind shelter mission. Not sure why that particular room wouldn't be able to seed a standard boss though.

[LayZboy]

<blockquote class=\"tr_bq\">
The percentages of what seeds in stash rooms is now vastly improved. 
The little pointless bits of shards, and the extra enchant-charge
containers (both of which can be found elsewhere plenty easily) no
longer seed.  The overall density of the good items has more than
doubled as part of these changes

So... you can only get enchants in basements or maze rooms now outside of grinding-for-shards?
Can see that being a real problem when there aren't any grasslands about.

[Misery]

<blockquote class=\"tr_bq\">
The percentages of what seeds in stash rooms is now vastly improved. 
The little pointless bits of shards, and the extra enchant-charge
containers (both of which can be found elsewhere plenty easily) no
longer seed.  The overall density of the good items has more than
doubled as part of these changes

So... you can only get enchants in basements or maze rooms now outside of grinding-for-shards?
Can see that being a real problem when there aren't any grasslands about.

Hmmm?

No no no.  Enchants can still be gotten in the normal way.  If you just look around when exploring buildings as usual, the things are still everywhere.   Stash rooms have never been the major place to get these:  it's just that when they DID appear in those rooms, they took up spots that could have been used for other things to seed, and since even the most basic rooms can have enchant charges, this was kinda pointless.

But yeah, the basic enchant charges are still absolutely everywhere.   The best way to get them is still to just find them in basic rooms as you explore any given building.  Heck, they even show up in boss towers.  They'll also still show up in stash rooms, but not technically as items seeded there; they'll just appear under the normal room generation for whatever room it happens to be.

[Giegue]

a spell that damages you = no use for me. also: I'm not sure if its the area I'm in, but fairies seem to be WAY too common.

[zespri]

The menu background change -  is this because the new art style will be incompatible with random chunks for the menu background? I was rather fond of randomly generated chunks, but I'm guessing this won't work with the new art style?

[Giegue]

I'm not sure if its the new update, but I just ran into a broken room. iirc it was just a study/library or whatever, so it was probably a small room.

[Misery]

a spell that damages you = no use for me. also: I'm not sure if its the area I'm in, but fairies seem to be WAY too common.

That spell seems not meant for small, enclosed spaces, or for when you're right next to an enemy.  Though I'm finding that it doesnt damage me too much if I get hit by the sparks (and they move kinda slowly), so long as I dont do something dumb and fire it at a wall I'm standing right next to.

The spell seems good specifically for boss fights.


And no, it's not just the area you're in, fairies ARE way too common.  Try using Leaping Death on them, plus a shield to absorb the small ones, to get rid of them quicker.

[KDR_11k]

Oh, NOW I get it: Double Lightning = SS!

[Oneiromancer]

From the patch notes on the wiki: "Spells of power class higher than 1 no longer will be found as loot from missions; the only way to get these now is to craft them. That makes it so that these spells don't seem broken when their common variants come with no modifiers. "

Does this mean that only level 1 versions of spells will be available from missions, or that the spells available from missions will only be basic versions without any modifiers? It mostly reads like the former, which seems like a pretty major change to the gameplay; the latter is a much smaller nerf but makes more sense (and matches up with the comment about modifiers), otherwise what's the point in doing missions that give spells after level 2? (I still haven't cleared my first continent, so I apologize if there's something I am misunderstanding.)