Disappointed in AVWW

[PatDay]

I got the demo this weekend and really liked the game right off the bat. Without any hesitation, I plunked down my credit card info and bought it. Now, 10+ hours into the game, I'm disappointed.

I'm not trying to be a hater - I really want to like the game. That's why I created a forum account just to post about it. Here are my issues (related to AVWW only):
Confusing - The instruction gravestones are a clever way to get a player started, but it's just the basics. Once you get past that, you're expected to read the big honkin encyclopedia. I'm a system engineer in "real life" and I'd rather my games be fun instead of reading them like a requirement spec

Part of the confusing issue is that I'm not really getting intuitive sense of relationships. Meaning, I don't understand what the inherent qualities of the materials or the NPCs are. It all just seems arbitrary and there's so many mats that it's impossible to just "get it" in my opinion.

Something I'd like to see is player created "Quests." Basically, the player should be able to look thru the encyclopedia and find something he wants to earn (new spells or anything). Right-click and set the item to "Quest" and from then all, he should get some kinda pointer telling him where to go in order to get all the pre-reqs mats. Think of it like a grocery list and the game automatically highlights regions that have a high chance of contain an item you need and de-highlights areas that have a no/low chance of get an item you need.

Grindy - The game is incredibly grindy. Maybe I'm just doing it wrong, but it's not like there's much in game details on the right way to play. You need visit a ton of places in order to get the lucky stuff you need. I don't mind grinding per se (heck, I've played my share of MMOs) but I need to feel like I'm getting better. For example, you need a ton of enchant potions (is that what they're called?) in order to get a random enchant. Which will likely be crap. Personally, I'd like to see the enchant system completely thrown out and replaced with a non-random system. Think of it's as the XP system across all characters and it doesn't go away when you die (since that's what it is already). Because at least if I have to  grind enchants, I will feel like I'm making progress.

Controls/UI - It's hard for me to put my finger on the problem exactly (haha, pun!) but the controls and the UI feel uncomfortable to me. I'd like to be able to swap between spells on the fly, but the way it works is really tough. There's a lot of jumping and movement in combat and trying to use more than just a few spells in the chaos of battle is really hard (for me at least). I kinda think that instead of using a number key to cast a spell once, it should be used to swap out your left-click spell until you select another spell then you can go back to movement really quick without having to pause.

As for the UI, it feels really small. I run the graphics on the highest resolution and buttons/text seem too tiny.

City building - I'm only in T2, but I still have no idea what I'm doing. I want to use the ability to search for survivors, but I can't do that until I get a survivor with apoth-something first. I have the required building, but no person. It's a catch 22 since I've yet to find a survivor on my own yet. What am I suppose to do? Am I just unlucky? Am I doing it wrong? Do I really have to read a 100 pages of wiki to know?

Anyway, that's all. I know AVWW is still being worked on and I haven't giving up on it yet. I'm hoping for the best.

Edit: Added color! Helps break up the wall of text

[Professor Paul1290]

To answer some questions:

You do not need to grind enchant containers to get decent enchants. In fact I really recommend against it. These are things I recommend getting on your way to more important things. That being said you can grind enchant containers, but it's more of an option in case you really need enchants right away.

If you are grinding too much in general there's a good chance you're not exploring efficiently. Certain materials occur in certain places and if you know where a material is you should be able to get it pretty quickly without having to make too many trips. Trying to plan a bit to get the most out of every trip into the world can be very beneficial this game.

The same applies to NPCs. There are certain places where you are more likely to find NPCs aside from missions. If you are looking for NPCs then you are looking for secret missions, and these usually occur in caves or large buildings.



As for the switching the spell that is used with the mouse button. If I recall correctly there's already the option to do that in the options menu. I've never used it myself though.

[bvchaosinc]

I feel much the same way as the OP so I am going to add one point.

Risk-reward:  Their currently seems to be no correlation between items in a stash, and the difficultly to get to a stash.  I have fought through 3 maze rooms jam packed with baddies to get less stuff out of a stash, then I had just gotten by going down a set of stairs and blowing up 6 crates.


Edit:
 

You do not need to grind enchant containers to get decent enchants. In fact I really recommend against it. These are things I recommend getting on your way to more important things. That being said you can grind enchant containers, but it's more of an option in case you really need enchants right away.

Building your character via enchants is basically the only way to build your character and make it feel like something you care about, which is why people keep grinding them first and complaining about it.  I also find that efficiently gathering components will net you very very little in the way of enchants.

If you are grinding too much in general there's a good chance you're not exploring efficiently. Certain materials occur in certain places and if you know where a material is you should be able to get it pretty quickly without having to make too many trips. Trying to plan a bit to get the most out of every trip into the world can be very beneficial this game.

I have played EQ, WoW, Witcher 1/2, City of Heroes, and Terraria to name a few.  I have never encountered a game that feels as grindy as this game, and since hour 2 or so I have been using the book to find exactly were I need to be going to look for the stuff I need.

[Professor Paul1290]

I have played EQ, WoW, Witcher 1/2, City of Heroes, and Terraria to name a few.  I have never encountered a game with as much grind as this game, and I use the book to find exactly were I need to be going to look for the stuff I need.

That is just bizarre to me because I've played all of the above with the exception of The Witcher 2 (I've played 1) and City of Heroes, and I don't think AVWW has nearly as much grind as any of those games.
I'm not saying your wrong, but if that's the case then there's some kind of disconnect here.

I don't just read the Planning Menu and go directly on that information raw, I always use it to weigh the cost vs. benefit of going to certain places.

For example, I probably wouldn't resort to going through 3 maze rooms to get to a stash. A stash is not a high enough priority to be worth going through 3 maze rooms and I certainly wouldn't go to ruin type buildings (where maze rooms occur) for that objective alone.
However, there are other priorities that would justify me going into a ruin, mainly puzzle rooms, fulfilling unlocks, or rare occasions where I need lots of enchant containers immediately. Those are important enough to justify going through maze rooms, then if there's a stash along the way I might pick it up.

Now maybe there's a case for making it easier I agree. I like the idea of being able to create an objectives list that is much easier to read.

[bvchaosinc]

I have played EQ, WoW, Witcher 1/2, City of Heroes, and Terraria to name a few.  I have never encountered a game with as much grind as this game, and I use the book to find exactly were I need to be going to look for the stuff I need.

That is just bizarre to me because I've played all of the above with the exception of The Witcher 2 (I've played 1) and City of Heroes, and I don't think AVWW has nearly as much grind as any of those games.

Then again, I don't just read the Planning Menu and go directly on that information raw, I always use it to weigh the cost vs. benefit of going to certain places.

For example, I probably wouldn't resort to going through 3 maze rooms to get to a stash. A stash is not a high enough priority to be worth going through 3 maze rooms and I certainly wouldn't go to ruin type buildings (where maze rooms occur) for that objective alone.
However, there are other priorities that would justify me going into a ruin, mainly puzzle rooms, fulfilling unlocks, or rare occasions where I need lots of enchant containers immediately.

Now maybe there's a case for making it easier I agree. I like the idea of being able to create an objectives list that is much easier to read.

After my first few encounters with ruins I have learned that there is no good reason to ever go into one as I have found nothing in one that I can't get some where simpler.  I do not think this is a good thing.  I do not pat my self on the back for having the smarts to avoid these blights on the land scrape.  I just wonder why these clearly more challenging location don't provide a reward that would make them worth navigating.

As for the gird thing I will say I spend less time grinding in a AVWW than in say WoW, but the time I do spend grinding feels worse.  I can not put my finger on why, but 30 minuets of grinding upgrade stones to max a char in AVWW leaves me feeling as sick with it as farming yetis for 4 hours to get a level on my rogue in WoW did.

[Reactorcore]

I agree on most point and I'd like to add some:

Shallow Action Mechanics

This goes together with Grinding as mentioned. After playing AVWW for an extended period, I found the combat mechanics very shallow. Mostly you end up spamming the same most effective spell you find while placing platforms every one a while, while boringly toying with enemies as both of you exchange fire. Ultimately the different elements don't really mean much other than changing what color or shape your ranged attack becomes. It all feels like grindy rinse and repeat. I'm more focused on looking at health bars and resistance values than caring about the monster itself, making the whole experience feel like I'm fighting number values, bars and percentage values than actual entities. The game simply allows the player to see through it, thats why it feels this way.

I've read Chris Park's blog and I found out that AVWW was first played from a fake top-down perspective. Now, I'm not a fan of old roguelikes or games with top-down perspectives, but the combat system AVWW has was obviously originally tailored for it as it feels like your traditional RPG combat model where you attack in turns and watch numbers go down, not participate in the actual action physically, so to speak. In RPG's, you are not the player, you're controlling him as a puppetmaster, giving him orders to perform this skill or use this item. In a pure action game where you have direct control over the character, you ARE the character physically ingame. What happens in AVWW is an identity crisis when the combat model of RPG is shoehorned into a direct action orientated combat model.

Stuff AVWW lacks is better reactiveness of entities (more detail of interaction between enemies, players and projectiles), more detail of character control (more momentum based movement, crouch walking, sliding, dodge moves, dynamic spell attacks (charge up spell power, movement affects spell power etc.)) and less predictable world behaviour (Interiors in houses are completely not what the house advertises, monster are predictably always present in an area as in EVERY AREA, every biome and every house layout is always the same in terms of content despite the procedural generations, so its never a suprise what you will encounter next and it feels like it renders the fancy procedural generation mechanics obsolete or even annoying).


Like OP said, I really want to like AVWW, but it ultimately kills itself and its potential with the things that have been mentioned by the OP and me. Perhaps its not a game for me, while it certainly has aspects that really interest me, especially the overworld systems and the idea behind it, but it just shoots itself in the foot by having such shallow combat mechanics and systems that are focused on grinding and exploring predictably generated locations and missions. It lacks emergent gameplay to make your own story rather than get shoehorned by the game to do something it tells you to.

[tigersfan]

I'll make a few points here.

Confusing - We're actually already working on this type of thing. We're calling it a shopping list, and I think you'll be really happy with it when you see it.

Controls - I'm really not sure what to say here. All the controls are re-configurable, so you should be able to come up with something that is comfortable for you. If you have any specific ideas on how to change that, please let us know.

Citybuilding - Yeah, this one needs some work. I was just talking to Chris (the lead designer here) and we agree we need to make this more clear in-game. We're not sure of the best way to do this yet, but, we'll figure something out.

Shallow Action Mechanics - I think there are two things at issue here. On is that I think we just don't have enough enemies yet, but as we add more, things will get more and more complex as you progress, making the combat feel more like the obstacle it's supposed to be.

[Professor Paul1290]

After my first few encounters with ruins I have learned that there is no good reason to ever go into one as I have found nothing in one that I can't get some where simpler.  I do not think this is a good thing.  I do not pat my self on the back for having the smarts to avoid these blights on the land scrape.  I just wonder why these clearly more challenging location don't provide a reward that would make them worth navigating.

Aside from Unlocks, large buildings do have another incentive to go through them in the form of mystery clues and puzzle rooms, which are admittedly a rather tucked away mechanic that could really benefit from being explained better then it is now.

On the other hand, I do see what you mean.

However, If the usefulness of large buildings needs to be improved, personally I'd like it to be in ways other than stashes. I like the idea of having to decide where you go based on what you want/need and if there's going to be a further incentive for large buildings then it would be nice to have it separate.

Confusing - We're actually already working on this type of thing. We're calling it a shopping list, and I think you'll be really happy with it when you see it.

I like this. 

[Misery]

I have played EQ, WoW, Witcher 1/2, City of Heroes, and Terraria to name a few.  I have never encountered a game with as much grind as this game, and I use the book to find exactly were I need to be going to look for the stuff I need.

That is just bizarre to me because I've played all of the above with the exception of The Witcher 2 (I've played 1) and City of Heroes, and I don't think AVWW has nearly as much grind as any of those games.
I'm not saying your wrong, but if that's the case then there's some kind of disconnect here.

This.

I, personally, dont like grinding.   I haaaaaaaaaaaate it.   I have no patience to START with, and grinding feels like a big freaking error by any dev of any game that contains it.

This game though?   It doesnt have any.  At all.

I've never reached a moment where the game feels grindy.   It's never "Oh geez I need like 8000 of these better flatten espers for an hour".   Instead, it's more like alot of procedurally-generated sandboxy games, where it's "Ok, time to decide on what my next objective is", which is MUCH more interesting than grinding.  I might be going into some caves to get a couple of pieces of Sapphire, and then, completing that, I might decide.... hmm, gonna wanna place a shelter soon, time to go do a mission that gives me one of those.    Different goals can lead to MORE possible goals, and that's something I like about this sort of game.   Minecraft and Dwarf Fortress do this as well.


But grinding?   No, I really dont think so.



Also, as far as "shallow combat" goes....... put the difficulty up.   Oh, it's not perfect..... right now there's WAY too many freaking espers around, the game needs more non-esper enemies...... well, ok, it actually has alot of non-espers, but the espers show up so damn often that you'll think otherwise..... but really, difficulty up.    I find the game gets really interesting really fast at higher difficulty levels.  Dodging projectiles is very important and it's easy to get into a situation where you've got like 5 ranged jerks launching horrible laser death at you.     I *do* think though that the combat in the game has a slow start, since alot of enemies at the beginning arent even unlocked!

[Coppermantis]

I've never felt any need to grind in AVWW at all. I just have fun exploring, completing missions and the like and if I happen to make progress then it's just "Oh! Cool!". If you want to grind away to get to the Overlord ASAP then I guess you can do that, but if you choose not to grind then that's perfectly fine in my experience.

Regarding combat, it depends on the enemies and terrain that the RNG throws at you. on a level plane fighting a swarm of espers--yes, that's boring. But boss fights in dynamic rooms with the perfect amount of cover and vulnerability can be really exciting.

I notice that a lot of the complaints thus far have been about the game being boring at the start. Having not actually started a new game since beta, I'm not sure but I bet arcen could solve a lot of problems by opening up more stuff in the beginning.

[PatDay]

Thanks for the good replies. I'm glad to see people on these forums have the ability for rational discussions

1) The idea of a shopping list sounds great because it gives me the impression by the name alone that it was basically what I was suggesting. Even if it's not the same thing, I don't care as long as it's a convenient way for me to organize my needed materials without having to constantly refer to the encyclopedia.

2) As for the controls, I don't think there's a way to fix what my concern is. I have a razor keyboard - I can map keys anyway I want if that was the problem. I just mean the fundamental controls of the game feel cumbersome if you want to use more than 3, maybe 4 spells often. So what happens is that I'm basically resigned to running with just two spells and every time I see an enemy immune to my main attack spells, I curse to myself because it means I have to pause the game, swap spells around, and then kill one guy before switching back to the "Real" setup. It's not not just annoying, but it also it a huge deterrence to using multiple spells.

Now, I did make one suggestion, though I'm not sure how much sense I made. Essentially it would be an option for toggleable spells. Right now, you hit a spell key and it cast the spell once. Yes, you can have the R button cycle stuff, but it limits you to just your left and right mouse button, plus you have to cycle thru all your spells to get back to the start. What if you can toggle spells when you hit the spell keys? Meaning instead of firing off the spell once, it selects the spell as your main spell until you select a different one? I think that would allow me to more fluidly switch spells on the fly without having to pause the game and manually drag spells.

That's just a thought. I'd can't say it would be great without testing it

3) It sounds like you have some thoughts on city building, too. To me, that seems like one of the best aspects of the game so I would certainly like for it to be fun. When I first started playing, I was under the impression that the city really mattered. I thought I would be able to layout designs, defend against invaders, develop NPC relationships, etc. So far though, I haven't seen anything like that. I'm really not sure what the city adds at the moment.

4) Shallow gameplay might be related to the grindy-ness of the game in my opinion. As of right now, it feels like unlocking enemies and upgrading the civilization is more of a punishment that a reward. The game seems to want to force players into _not_ progressing the game without getting all pimped first. Maybe that my own fault. Maybe I rushed to the higher tiers too soon, but the only thing I enjoy is running the missions. I don't enjoy randomly searching through a 100 levels of the same looking caves hoping for a random material I need.

5) To the person saying there's no grinding in AVWW, well, I'm happy you feel that way. I on the other hand do feel the game is currently very repetitive. Maybe I am just doing it wrong, but isn't that sort of the responsibility of the game to show me the right way? I've played a bunch of MineCraft and Terraria so I'm not new to this style of game (though clearly AVWW goes way beyond even Terraria).

6) Bonus I have no idea what  it means to have a "locked" material. Can someone please explain it to me? Example - I want to unlock Energy Orb Level 3 and I checked the encyclopedia for required materials. The only thing I'm missing is Coral and it says that "Locked Reach Cave System 3 in Ocean Shallows." Does that mean I have 0% chance of getting Coral until I do that?

Thanks again for the input!

 

[Tallgeese]

I have not really experienced the game as "grind" so far, but I would not be so quick to claim that it does not exist. Grinding is in the eye of the beholder.

Basically, if it feels fun, it does not resemble grinding. What I think would be a better way to put things is that to some people, the game is simply not fun at certain points. I can hardly blame them for that, especially on the combat end.

[Penumbra]

Now, I did make one suggestion, though I'm not sure how much sense I made. Essentially it would be an option for toggleable spells. Right now, you hit a spell key and it cast the spell once. Yes, you can have the R button cycle stuff, but it limits you to just your left and right mouse button, plus you have to cycle thru all your spells to get back to the start. What if you can toggle spells when you hit the spell keys? Meaning instead of firing off the spell once, it selects the spell as your main spell until you select a different one? I think that would allow me to more fluidly switch spells on the fly without having to pause the game and manually drag spells.

You can find solutions to this [rl=http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,10331.msg101971.html#msg101971]here[/url]. I run with 30 abilities at my fingertips, 15 on the mouse and 15 on the keyboard. There are two methods in that thread, one using Auto Hotkey and one modifying the keybinding file. I actually have more buttons than I need now! And it's awesome to be able to use platforms, crates and all 3 light spells without them "getting in the way" so to speak.

[PatDay]

I'm familiar with AutoHotKey and have used it in other games before. Besides, I have a programmable keyboard (with macros) so I could do that anyway, but I don't think a 3rd party solution is a real good solution. I'm checking out the thread you posted now and will consider it though. I'm open to any ideas, but I'll be honest - I'm not very dexterous with the ol keyboard. Using a lot of key modifiers is not something I like to do which is why I bought a programmable keyboard in the first place

The reason I make macros when playing a MMO is because I like to create strings of specific abilities. I don't see myself needing that in AVWW. I just need to be able to use maybe 10 abilities frequently, but there's no set conditions I could create in AutoHotKey to auto-use them (and even if there was, that seems lame). The reason 10 abilities in AVWW is a huge problem for me when it's no big deal in a MMO is because AVWW requires a lot more active combat. It's just harder for me.

Side question - What control scheme do you use? I use mouse and keyboard. Perhaps just keyboard is more intuitive with a "MMO style" GUI.

[nanostrike]

It DEFINITELY has a grind.  I've had to grind consciousness shards for Wind Shelters, Upgrade Orbs for new characters, Glyph Transferrance Scrolls, ect.

It takes me right out of the flow of the game to have to go and grind through a bunch of same-looking buildings until I stock back up.