Author Topic: AVWW Beta 0.540, "Whips, Bursts, And Insects," Released!  (Read 6201 times)

Offline x4000

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AVWW Beta 0.540, "Whips, Bursts, And Insects," Released!
« on: November 07, 2011, 12:26:54 pm »
Original: http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2011/11/avww-beta-0540-whips-bursts-and-insects.html

This one has two new spell scrolls and one new spellgem.  It also has a couple of tweaks and bugfixes.

The most interesting thing about these new spell scrolls is that these are the first two that are offensively-oriented in a direct fashion.  Previously scrolls were all logistical, healing, or movement type effects, except for the summon rhino -- which, while offensive, is fairly indirect.

Insect Orb and Ice Burst are both as directly offensive as they come, but they are unique from any of the spellgems.  That's something that we plan to do more of, as it's interesting to me to have limited-use offensive spell scrolls that are nonetheless having the advantage of costing no mana.

Right now there's still only about 9 spell scrolls in general in the game (compared to 34 spellgems at the moment), so there's really a lot more to do on scrolls to even get them caught up to the spellgems.  I'm still expecting to have 100+ of each spell scrolls and spellgems by the time we hit 1.0.

The new Miasma Whip is a particularly fun one for me, as it's a refreshingly fast entropy-based attack that isn't quite so short-range as Death Touch.  Given the elemental strengths and weaknesses that bosses now randomly have, it's kind of important to have a lot of offensive options in every element.  We're still not quite there yet, but there's lots more to come soon!

More to come tomorrow!  The rest of today is going to be spent on updated installers, some new distributor setups, and so on.  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.
« Last Edit: November 07, 2011, 02:12:01 pm by x4000 »
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Offline zebramatt

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Re: AVWW Beta 0.540, "Whips, Bursts, And Insects," Released!
« Reply #1 on: November 07, 2011, 01:57:15 pm »
Huzzah!

Offline pierre dupon

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Re: AVWW Beta 0.540, "Whips, Bursts, And Insects," Released!
« Reply #2 on: November 07, 2011, 03:00:52 pm »
100+ spells and scrolls? Are you planning new gem types or just the 8 or so we have now?
Also good luck balancing all that  :)

Offline x4000

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Re: AVWW Beta 0.540, "Whips, Bursts, And Insects," Released!
« Reply #3 on: November 07, 2011, 03:31:45 pm »
100+ spells and scrolls? Are you planning new gem types or just the 8 or so we have now?


There will only ever be 6 gem types, no matter how long this game exists for -- the expansions come in the various commodities and the rare commodities in particular.  100+ of each is really just what I plan for 1.0, anyhow -- ultimately I hope we wind up multiple hundreds of each.  AI War is up to something like 700-800 unique types of ships in that game now, and I'd like to see AVWW take a similar (very) long-term track.

Also good luck balancing all that  :)

Heh, there's few people with more experience doing that sort of thing than Keith and I, given our experience with AI War.  The awesome thing is that with this sort of game it doesn't even have to be balanced in a strategy-game sense.  As with most RPGs or adventure games, there can instead be a progression, which really makes things vastly easier.  Out of all the challenges for this game, spell balance is not one of the chief ones: enemy and boss balance definitely are, and in general just enemy design and spell design are, but balance in and of itself is less the worry.  Next to AI War it's child's play, heh, just because of its genre.
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Offline TechSY730

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Re: AVWW Beta 0.540, "Whips, Bursts, And Insects," Released!
« Reply #4 on: November 08, 2011, 11:29:10 am »
Quick question. Is there something in place to keep a boss from getting too many elemental resistances? Last thing you want is a boss near immune to everything.

IMO, I think that three, maybe four, should be the cap.

Offline x4000

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Re: AVWW Beta 0.540, "Whips, Bursts, And Insects," Released!
« Reply #5 on: November 08, 2011, 11:38:16 am »
Not in a grand sense, no.  But there's only so many allocation points per boss type, and only a 1/11 chance of a given point being given to immunities anyhow.  The overlords have the most random points, at 20, then lieutenants at 15, minibosses at 10, microbosses at 5.  Each resistance that is added is 25% immunity per point, capped at 99%.  So that effectively sets the limits on what can be an immunity for a boss, by type. 

The 1/11 chance per point is actually overstating things, too, because it then has a 1/6 chance of applying the immunity to any given immunity category.  If the immunity category it chooses is already > 90% immune, then it doesn't immediately look for another category of immunity -- it instead re-rolls the overall bonus point roll, giving it a much better chance of choosing something other than elemental immunity as the place to allocate the point.  So, actually, the more immunities that a boss already has that are over 90%, the less likely it is that it will get any added immunity points at all.

So there is an outside chance that something could become "too immune," but I actually like that pretty well.  There are some -- not many yet, but there will be more -- ways of doing non-elemental damage.  Bear traps, summoned rhinos, and a few other things like that at the moment.  Or... I guess that's actually it at the moment.  But more stuff along those lines is planned.
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Offline TechSY730

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Re: AVWW Beta 0.540, "Whips, Bursts, And Insects," Released!
« Reply #6 on: November 08, 2011, 11:44:12 am »
You bring up a good point. Right now, elemental resistances on enemies have a decent chance of being overpowered thanks to the lack of good damaging spells spread across the elements. (Like, is there any damaging light spell yet?) But as you have pointed out repeatedly, this is going to change quickly.

Also, the rare case of high resistance to 6 or even 5 elemental types would be pretty much broken in the current balance, due to the severe lack of ways to inflict non-elemental damage. But again, as you said, more ways are to come.

Offline Dizzard

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Re: AVWW Beta 0.540, "Whips, Bursts, And Insects," Released!
« Reply #7 on: November 08, 2011, 02:56:02 pm »
Have to mention this somewhere....

I had a nightmare about AVWW last night. Not the scary but comical type of nightmare either. The absolute despair and horror kind of nightmare.

I was in my house and I was feeling really terrified. All I knew was these creatures were coming to kill me and my family. I had a tracker in my hand (that looked like the ingame mini map) and it had red dots circling around my house. So I went to the back kitchen door.....opened it and looked out at a giant red amoeba moving towards the door. So I grabbed whatever was closest to me (a big stick or something) and just kept hitting it. It was like a zombie apocalypse except with giant red amoebas. Oh and there was giant bats flying into the windows of my house (although they didn't smash them)

There was a really scary sense of despair in the nightmare like I couldn't do anything to save myself or my family.

So yeah, thanks Arcen games. :P

(had to get it out before I forgot)

Offline FallingStar

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Re: AVWW Beta 0.540, "Whips, Bursts, And Insects," Released!
« Reply #8 on: November 08, 2011, 05:14:20 pm »
You know, oddly I'm going to miss beta when it ends, always seems like there's more and more to discover, and if I'm gone a few days things can suddenly change and my character and world feels (and looks) quite different.  Good stuff.

Insect orb might get a fulltime slot on my mainbar, its just that good.  Especially against big things.  Its good that it has a long cooldown, to give it an interesting first strike sort of item to run in, nuke then run off.  Just a different mechanic than anything else I've seen.

I sort of wish miasma whip didn't knockback, or the ice burst was a bit stronger, but its all about versatility now, so I appreciate them.

Oh, and as a sidenote, I finally hit my level 100 overlord today, and what a beast.  Amoeba type, over 1 M hp, 50% resistance to everything except for a 99% immunity to light and entropy.  I tried a rhino army for the first time in my game, hoping to whittle it down a bit when it trailed the floor, but no luck, then my poor glyph bearer got two shot while running to try to kill the bat spawner.  Think its my first overlord since my first I'll need to go off and level for a bit, grab some upper tiered gems of the right color before I can realistically win.

But that's a good thing IMO.  And after I'm done taking that overlord down, I imagine I'll have to go running around with the shrink spell and steal all their light fixtures for a commemorative level 100 shrine somewhere in my home village.

Offline x4000

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Re: AVWW Beta 0.540, "Whips, Bursts, And Insects," Released!
« Reply #9 on: November 08, 2011, 08:32:39 pm »
Holy cow, Dizzard -- that's terrifying indeed.  I'm actually one of those people that doesn't get regular dreams -- no, I only get nightmares.  Mine are only ever the "absolute despair and horror" kind, too, so I can really sympathize.  My biggest recurring one throughout my whole life has been tornados, so the whole windstorms things is definitely pulled straight out of my backbrain.  I guess the amoebas must tickle something unpleasant in the back of your brain.  Anyway -- yikes.  But thanks for sharing. :)

FallingStar, I wouldn't worry about beta ending.  AVWW will inevitably see some quiet periods like AI War is seeing now, but if this game continues on its current track then my plan for the next couple of years is just "More AVWW and more AI War."  There's so much we could do with this game over a really long stretch of time, like we've been able to do with AI War, and I'm much more excited about being able to fully explore that potential than I am in starting some other game project.

I think that the insect orb is in for a nerf, just to warn you, but glad to hear that the level 100 overlord worked out well. :)
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Offline freeformschooler

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Re: AVWW Beta 0.540, "Whips, Bursts, And Insects," Released!
« Reply #10 on: November 09, 2011, 08:14:28 am »
Wow, Dizzard, that is pretty scary! I haven't played AVWW in like six versions, so it's time to hop to it.

Only thing: Would the new offensive scrolls being scrolls - and thus in a limited quantity - not limit their use to Too Awesome To Use levels? Hm... Maybe not. I might save those for bosses.

Either way, 100+ planned spells total is preposterous.

Offline x4000

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Re: AVWW Beta 0.540, "Whips, Bursts, And Insects," Released!
« Reply #11 on: November 09, 2011, 08:37:15 am »
Only thing: Would the new offensive scrolls being scrolls - and thus in a limited quantity - not limit their use to Too Awesome To Use levels? Hm... Maybe not. I might save those for bosses.

There will be some of this, for sure, but the mitigating factors -- I believe -- are the following:

1. There's a constant inflow of gem dust that you get "for free" as you get raw gems, making some of the cheaper spell scrolls (ie those not requiring a rare commodity) really something you can keep yourself in a constant low-level supply of even with using them occasionally.

2. You always get the scrolls in multiples, rather than just one of them.  So if you have 5 of them, I think the psychological barrier of using one of the five is a lot lower than if you have just one and know you can't get more.

3. Everything in the game depreciates in a predictable fashion.  Useful now = starts getting less useful in 20 levels = useless in 30 levels.  So while there might be incentives to hoard things until close to the level cap, there is a definite turning point where an experienced player at the game is going to know their stuff is about to start getting worse, so they may as well use it because they're going to lose it anyhow one way or the other. 

This third one in particular is different from many RPGs, because there the biggest stuff remains viable forever, and the smaller stuff you find singly and are never sure exactly how good it is (I'm looking at you, "red fang" from FF6, plus all that stuff Shadow can throw in general).  So you wind up saving it until you "really" need it, then forgetting about it or never really feeling dire enough to use it, and then realizing it's not useless because its output of damage is now so low (which you have no in-game way to tell without actually using it).

Anyway, I'm as susceptible as anyone to that particular effect, so it's something I'll definitely be watching out for!

Either way, 100+ planned spells total is preposterous.

It's a nice start, anyway.  Really that's less than it sounds like, all told.  A game like, again, FF6 has at least 100 spells in it, plus hundreds of items/equipment, etc.  100 spells is a lot for an adventure game, but I want a lot more customization and personalization and choice for the game.  If you look at, say, a fighting game like Street Fighter III, I'd bet you there's several hundred attacks in that game all told, between all the characters.  That sort of variety is important for tactical depth, both in terms of being able to have a loadout that is kind of unique to you (your character in a fighting game, but what you choose to craft here), and in terms of being able to choose what to activate out of that loadout at any given time during your fight.

For the record I really stink at fighting games, although I did get pretty good at One Must Fall on the PC back in the day.  But I like their ethos of having lots of tactical options for players that are able to actually master them.  The game system here doesn't rely on button combos, but that sort of thinking of "okay, here's a smart way to dismantle this opponent" is something I want to move the game toward increasingly.  Kind of like how you have to tailor your strategy for specific planets in AI War, I guess.
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Offline Gallant Dragon

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Re: AVWW Beta 0.540, "Whips, Bursts, And Insects," Released!
« Reply #12 on: November 09, 2011, 09:38:41 am »
You bring up a good point. Right now, elemental resistances on enemies have a decent chance of being overpowered thanks to the lack of good damaging spells spread across the elements. (Like, is there any damaging light spell yet?) But as you have pointed out repeatedly, this is going to change quickly.

Isn't energy pulse a light spell?

Either way, 100+ planned spells total is preposterous.

Preposterous in a good way or a bad way?  Like, is it "Preposterous!  He'll never balance all that!" or "So preposterous, it just might work!"?
It's just carriers all the way down!

Offline x4000

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Offline freeformschooler

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Re: AVWW Beta 0.540, "Whips, Bursts, And Insects," Released!
« Reply #14 on: November 10, 2011, 12:33:58 am »
Either way, 100+ planned spells total is preposterous.

Preposterous in a good way or a bad way?  Like, is it "Preposterous!  He'll never balance all that!" or "So preposterous, it just might work!"?

When talking about variety, preposterous is never bad!

 

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