I've never played a game this bad

[Mánagarmr]

It is clear that the OP didn't try the demo and just bought the game outright and is now angry about it. Congratulations, I guess? I'm sorry if I'm coming across as a douchebag, but really...There are games I hate. There are games I thought I would like that I tried the demo of (or some cases "procured") to see if I liked them. I never outright buy a game. If I did and ended up not liking it, it'd be on my own head.

Also, I do not agree with you. AVWW is fun.

[Martyn van Buren]

I wasn't really paying attention to the terrain because I was busy blowing up all the evil castles, in hindsight though, yes its all been snow.  Is this not normally the case?

Yeah, snow is one of (I want to say eight or ten?) terrain types and each has a different mix of monsters, although there's overlap.  So there is definitely more content than you've seen.  If you want to keep trying the game and you really think it's too easy you could do an expert mode start and try out the lava flats or The Deep regions, which are the most challenging and weirdest.

[bvchaosinc]

Having played the game all of last night I now have a wish.

I wish for combat to mean something.

Right now the only reward you get is to unlock enchantment N after killing X number of mob Y and health.  This means the reward for fighting something only comes if you kill a bunch of those things(this is the definition of grinding btw) and its not even a direct reward, its just a chance to get a different reward for exploring.  Health is only useful if you take damage which if you avoid fighting you don't get much of.  This makes combat useless out side of boss fights.  Boss fights are only better in that you normal have to kill a lot less of them to get a reward, and that reward in normal stuff or access to a room with stuff.

 

     

[Terraziel]

Having played the game all of last night I now have a wish.

I wish for combat to mean something.

Right now the only reward you get is to unlock enchantment N after killing X number of mob Y and health.  This means the reward for fighting something only comes if you kill a bunch of those things(this is the definition of grinding btw) and its not even a direct reward, its just a chance to get a different reward for exploring.  Health is only useful if you take damage which if you avoid fighting you don't get much of.  This makes combat useless out side of boss fights.  Boss fights are only better in that you normal have to kill a lot less of them to get a reward, and that reward in normal stuff or access to a room with stuff.     

See this thread for the beta discussion on rewards for combat

[Quaix]

DiscOH, overall your concerns are well founded. The programmer in me wants to like the game for its cool features such as procedurally generated terrain and dungeons, but the gamer in me sees the flaws, and the flaws are substantial.

The biggest one is character development. I don't understand how this game managed to get it backwards in some areas.
I can kill 50 bats and get fire bats, and kill 50 firebats to get even badder fireball shooting bats. But wait a sec, killing bats doesn't get me loot. Killing bats doesn't get me xp. And the more I kill them, the tougher they get, and the tougher they get the longer it will take me to reach my goal (killing the overlord). I have absolutely no reason to kill bats and every reason to avoid them. Calling the tougher bats an 'unlock' doesn't suddenly make a bad feature into a good one.

Same exact thing with the tier system. Suddenly all the monsters I've been fighting got tougher. Not only tougher, but with each tier they get stronger faster than your best spells can keep up.
Think back to an old game, say, dragon warrior for NES. You're near the starter town fighting slimes. You gain a few levels, use the gold you obtained to get better gear. You feel pretty good about yourself, ready to take on bigger challenges. But wait, as soon as you step out of town, the same slimes you've been killing left and right are suddenly kicking your butt! You can use pretty words to dress up the game mechanic in this game, but fundamentally it makes as much sense as my example, and just as satisfying.

The average computer game goes like this: You overcome challenge, get rewarded with better equipment, levels, xp and whatnot, then you use that to overcome a bigger challenge and the cycle keeps repeating. The very motivation for upgrading your character is some future challenge that you're yet to overcome, usually in the form of a boss. If there's no challenge ahead, or a challenge you've already overcome, you start to ask yourself, why am I gathering these minerals or why am I trying to farm enchants. There's no *reward* for doing it. It's grinding for grinding's sake.

So if you're not challenged, turn up the difficulty, you might say. But wait a sec, now I'm running out of mana constantly and I've been kiting this sea serpent for minutes trying to whittle down its 15k hp. That makes the game more tedious, not more challenging or fun. Oblivion did this with its difficulty slider, and it didn't work.

What about randomness? Isn't the procedurally generated content supposed to be this game's selling feature? Infinite replayability, right?
Not so fast. While it's true that pretty much everything in the game is procedurally generated, there isn't enough *variability* to its content. While each dungeon is different, each cave system looks essentially the same. Same for pyramids or any other building interior. There's some randomness, but once you've seen a few, you've seen them all. The human brain is very good at detecting patterns, and once something isn't novel, isn't unique, isn't new, it's part of an old pattern we're familiar with. It stops being about problem solving and starts being about mechanicity and rote: a grind.
It's easy to fall into the randomness trap. Bigger is better, right? By that logic infinite is best. Well, it's not that simple. Quality is important too. Remember Oblivion? Huge world, but.. every forest looked the same. Hundreds of dungeons? But once you've seen a few of them you've seen them all: Both were procedurally generated. Even the Big Boys can fall into this trap. Bethesda learned from their mistakes and made most of Skyrim hand-crafted.

Don't get me wrong, I enjoyed the 20 or so hours I spent on it, but after beating the first continent I see no reason to keep going.

[tigersfan]

...
The biggest one is character development. I don't understand how this game managed to get it backwards in some areas.
I can kill 50 bats and get fire bats, and kill 50 firebats to get even badder fireball shooting bats. But wait a sec, killing bats doesn't get me loot. Killing bats doesn't get me xp. And the more I kill them, the tougher they get, and the tougher they get the longer it will take me to reach my goal (killing the overlord). I have absolutely no reason to kill bats and every reason to avoid them. Calling the tougher bats an 'unlock' doesn't suddenly make a bad feature into a good one.

We're actually discussing this right now, as I type this. We're going to be fixing this, as for how we're not sure yet.

[Bluddy]

Same exact thing with the tier system. Suddenly all the monsters I've been fighting got tougher. Not only tougher, but with each tier they get stronger faster than your best spells can keep up.
Think back to an old game, say, dragon warrior for NES. You're near the starter town fighting slimes. You gain a few levels, use the gold you obtained to get better gear. You feel pretty good about yourself, ready to take on bigger challenges. But wait, as soon as you step out of town, the same slimes you've been killing left and right are suddenly kicking your butt! You can use pretty words to dress up the game mechanic in this game, but fundamentally it makes as much sense as my example, and just as satisfying.

This is where my suggestion to take Professor Paul's call to actions and put in the strategy layer from beta comes in. The tiers would help you fight the overlord by stopping his plans.

What about randomness? Isn't the procedurally generated content supposed to be this game's selling feature? Infinite replayability, right?
Not so fast. While it's true that pretty much everything in the game is procedurally generated, there isn't enough *variability* to its content. While each dungeon is different, each cave system looks essentially the same. Same for pyramids or any other building interior. There's some randomness, but once you've seen a few, you've seen them all. The human brain is very good at detecting patterns, and once something isn't novel, isn't unique, isn't new, it's part of an old pattern we're familiar with. It stops being about problem solving and starts being about mechanicity and rote: a grind.
It's easy to fall into the randomness trap. Bigger is better, right? By that logic infinite is best. Well, it's not that simple. Quality is important too. Remember Oblivion? Huge world, but.. every forest looked the same. Hundreds of dungeons? But once you've seen a few of them you've seen them all: Both were procedurally generated. Even the Big Boys can fall into this trap. Bethesda learned from their mistakes and made most of Skyrim hand-crafted.

I think improving objects and making different acting walls and floors would solve this issue. As in: a clock that falls and hits anything beneath it; slippery floors, gravity floors and sticky floors, making each area have different ways to approach attacking enemies and to interact with the player.

[Terraziel]

I've been avoiding this thread, but here we go.

Same exact thing with the tier system. Suddenly all the monsters I've been fighting got tougher. Not only tougher, but with each tier they get stronger faster than your best spells can keep up.
Think back to an old game, say, dragon warrior for NES. You're near the starter town fighting slimes. You gain a few levels, use the gold you obtained to get better gear. You feel pretty good about yourself, ready to take on bigger challenges. But wait, as soon as you step out of town, the same slimes you've been killing left and right are suddenly kicking your butt! You can use pretty words to dress up the game mechanic in this game, but fundamentally it makes as much sense as my example, and just as satisfying.

Except that is just factually inaccurate, tiers modify spells and enemies by exactly the same amount. A tier 2 spell will kill tier 1 enemies twice as fast as a tier 1 spell and kill tier 2 enemies at exactly the same rate that a tier 1 spell killed tier 1 enemies.

The average computer game goes like this: You overcome challenge, get rewarded with better equipment, levels, xp and whatnot, then you use that to overcome a bigger challenge and the cycle keeps repeating. The very motivation for upgrading your character is some future challenge that you're yet to overcome, usually in the form of a boss. If there's no challenge ahead, or a challenge you've already overcome, you start to ask yourself, why am I gathering these minerals or why am I trying to farm enchants. There's no *reward* for doing it. It's grinding for grinding's sake.

That is exactly how AVWW works, you are working to increase your Spell tiers (weapons), enchants (equipment) and character upgrades so that you can take on the overlord. What more do you want?

So if you're not challenged, turn up the difficulty, you might say. But wait a sec, now I'm running out of mana constantly and I've been kiting this sea serpent for minutes trying to whittle down its 15k hp. That makes the game more tedious, not more challenging or fun. Oblivion did this with its difficulty slider, and it didn't work.

This one is a perception problem that needs dealing with, the game is balanced around Hero difficulty, anything under that the monsters have been nerfed so that people who might not be very good at games can still play. If you are running out of mana on a higher difficulty learn to play better, clearly your tactics aren't working, mana regen is sufficiently high that most of the spells in the game can be fired infinitely.

as an additional point, you have managed to pick as your example an enemy that you are specifically supposed to not waste your time killing, shoot it to slow it down, then avoid it.

[bvchaosinc]

Except that is just factually inaccurate, tiers modify spells and enemies by exactly the same amount. A tier 2 spell will kill tier 1 enemies twice as fast as a tier 1 spell and kill tier 2 enemies at exactly the same rate that a tier 1 spell killed tier 1 enemies.

This is part of the problem as long as you mange to get the spells you use to tier X by the time the world moves to tier X than it feels like nothing has changed.   

That is exactly how AVWW works, you are working to increase your Spell tiers (weapons), enchants (equipment) and character upgrades so that you can take on the overlord. What more do you want?

A feeling of advancement, when your move up a tier nothing changes, you look the same, your spells look and act the same, the baddies look and act the same, and my goals seem to be the same except N+1.

This one is a perception problem that needs dealing with, the game is balanced around Hero difficulty, anything under that the monsters have been nerfed so that people who might not be very good at games can still play. If you are running out of mana on a higher difficulty learn to play better, clearly your tactics aren't working, mana regen is sufficiently high that most of the spells in the game can be fired infinitely.

as an additional point, you have managed to pick as your example an enemy that you are specifically supposed to not waste your time killing, shoot it to slow it down, then avoid it.

I don't see the point in changing the combat difficulty, your still fighting the same baddies with the same move set in the same places with the same spells for the same rewards.  The only difference is what their HP point and damage values have been multiplied by.  This is all fine, but its not going to make uninteresting unnecessary combat any more interesting or necessary.   

[Terraziel]

The only difference is what their HP point and damage values have been multiplied by. 

as well as their accuracy, firing rates, firing delay and projectile speed.....

[bvchaosinc]

I have gone form default to default+3 and did not notice these things.  So I guess they matter much less HP and damage scaling.   

[Terraziel]

I think a large part of the problem here is that there is currently a fairly major bug where long range enemies stop firing at you once you are out of there detection range. EDIT: Though thats assuming you don't shoot at them.

Edit 2: To make this post more than the "hey deal with that bug" post that it was.

This is part of the problem as long as you mange to get the spells you use to tier X by the time the world moves to tier X than it feels like nothing has changed.   

A feeling of advancement, when your move up a tier nothing changes, you look the same, your spells look and act the same, the baddies look and act the same, and my goals seem to be the same except N+1.

What would you prefer? Noting that any art changing each tier is out of the question as the devs have limited resources (both in the computer sense and the personnel sense), rather to put it in perspective I think the highest tier you can reach in the game is 14

Additionally at higher tiers monster fire multiple projectiles, so there is some enemy change.

I don't see the point in changing the combat difficulty, your still fighting the same baddies with the same move set in the same places with the same spells for the same rewards.  The only difference is what their HP point and damage values have been multiplied by.  This is all fine, but its not going to make uninteresting unnecessary combat any more interesting or necessary.   

I'm not going to disagree with this, in theory once you have unlocked all the enemies there is nothing to see, for the combat itself it's coming down to personal opinion, long range combat consists of two entities firing at each other from long range aside from varying the projectiles, which they do, there isn't a great deal that can be done to make it interesting to people who don't find it interesting.

As to unnecessary, I'd say that being forced into combat via some arbitrary requirement or mechanism is a lot more annoying than having a choice whether to do it or not. Now the valid point is that the current system doesn't reward combat enough for those who do want combat but until we come up with a way of encouraging combat without encouraging mindless grinding what we have is what we have.

[chemical_art]

As to unnecessary, I'd say that being forced into combat via some arbitrary requirement or mechanism is a lot more annoying than having a choice whether to do it or not. Now the valid point is that the current system doesn't reward combat enough for those who do want combat but until we come up with a way of encouraging combat without encouraging mindless grinding what we have is what we have.

But you see, you are punished for fighting, because you get nothing for beating them that makes you stronger, yet by killing them they get stronger.

And you are already forced to fight due to the frequent close quarters you are in and the fact you can get cornered and die quickly if you don't kill them first.

[Terraziel]

But you see, you are punished for fighting, because you get nothing for beating them that makes you stronger, yet by killing them they get stronger.

And you are already forced to fight due to the frequent close quarters you are in and the fact you can get cornered and die quickly if you don't kill them first.

I'd say this is function of the unlocks system rather than the combat, and I didn't see any point in commenting on the unlock system because

...
The biggest one is character development. I don't understand how this game managed to get it backwards in some areas.
I can kill 50 bats and get fire bats, and kill 50 firebats to get even badder fireball shooting bats. But wait a sec, killing bats doesn't get me loot. Killing bats doesn't get me xp. And the more I kill them, the tougher they get, and the tougher they get the longer it will take me to reach my goal (killing the overlord). I have absolutely no reason to kill bats and every reason to avoid them. Calling the tougher bats an 'unlock' doesn't suddenly make a bad feature into a good one.

We're actually discussing this right now, as I type this. We're going to be fixing this, as for how we're not sure yet.

[chemical_art]

What would you prefer? Noting that any art changing each tier is out of the question as the devs have limited resources (both in the computer sense and the personnel sense), rather to put it in perspective I think the highest tier you can reach in the game is 14

Do higher tier spells get more unique effects or art differences? That would go a long way. So for example a higher tier spell slows, or chains lightning, or a melee attack *gasp* gives some health vampirism.

It would give a feeling of "hey, unlocked power!" and also prevent spells from feeling so samey.