Interested in being a part of a private alpha for Valley 2? Read here.

[Teal_Blue]

I must be no help at all, everything is great!  I am dying and having fun!    Oh, and i'm doing some not-dying too!    That is also fun!
I absolutely LOVE THE LOOK!  TELL HeavyCat they did WONDERFUL!!    Keep up the good work and see you when i get through this desert thingee. 

-T

[Misery]

A second vote on Skelebot Research facilities needing rebalanced.   I had kind of a nasty experience with mine last night.

It's so dark that you can't even see the enemies as they spawn.  So I had to stumble blindly down a black corridor while offscreen menaces fired at me from beyond my field of view.  Then it spawned some kind of green poison-shooting thing that "blocked" all my attacks while I was in a dead end corner.  It slowly wore me down while I ran back and fourth in a four foot area like an idiot.    

Personally I think you might do better if you just let the players see everywhere in most buildings, with the dark ones being the exception to the rule.  You spent a lot of money to make such pretty art (I'm a big fan of the clockwork pattern) and when we're inside a building we can barely see it.   Also, given how much damage those white mini-lions do, it's very, very frustrating to take a leap and land on one, and maybe have to restart the whole level by walking back from the Overlord's castle.

Actually, I have to change my comments on this one up a bit.

The Skelebot Facilities seem to be (for now) the only real tile that you dont necessarily want to interact with right after you find them.

In my case, I gave up on the facility for a bit.... I figured, this is still testing and I still havent seen the entire game and everything yet, so, figured I'd gain a few levels..... particularly with the perk system fixed up.... and THEN go back in.

And that's exactly what I did.  Got up to level 6, and then went and got the Tier 2 spells (I hadnt entirely realized that there WERE tiers with entirely different setups).  Used the "Lucencer" class, with it's rather bizarre but powerful set of spells (particularly the Lucent V spell), and also numerous perks, which included more hearts, bringing me up to about 7.   didn't have NEARLY as much trouble this time.  This setup enabled me to take out most enemies quickly, and so long as I kept moving, the constantly spawning ones (mostly) couldnt get at me.  There were a couple of close calls, but.... the additional health and powerful ammo spell kept me from getting wrecked.   I think the lowest I got was about 2 hearts at one point when I stepped on a blasted.... er.... wererat.  I coulda sworn those things were like monkeys or something, but then I'm also nearsighted..... whatever, heh.    I also had found an Ivory Tower by this point, so while it was still dark in there, I had a bit more light to see things with, and didn't have to go all super-slow the whole way.   The one change I think it needs is that enemies need to not spawn ON the player, which happened a few times.

The point is, that I'd been trying to go in there too early, and for some reason never quite got the hint that I wasnt really supposed to do that yet.   Considering the sort of rewards those places give though, they really SHOULD be more difficult than many other types of areas.

I must be no help at all, everything is great!  I am dying and having fun!    Oh, and i'm doing some not-dying too!    That is also fun!
I absolutely LOVE THE LOOK!  TELL HeavyCat they did WONDERFUL!!    Keep up the good work and see you when i get through this desert thingee. 

-T

Lol, I wont disagree with any of that.   Been enjoying the heck outta it myself as well.   I wouldnt keep this up otherwise, hah.

[madcow]

I just noticed boxes don't regenerate on death. That made one of my mini-boss fights over a pool exceedingly difficult. Heh. -adds to the list-

[Coppermantis]

I don't think that the were-rats are OP in that theoretically they're easy to avoid. Making it easier to see would basically fix their issues.

[Cyprene]

Am I the only one who's having real trouble angling shots downwards on a control pad?  Start/Back + fire button doesn't really seem to cut it.  It's even worse when you need to shoot straight down, IE to destroy a box that's directly below you.   I had to jump and fire straight downwards, and it was pretty silly.

I can hit diagonal down on the button, but most enemies take multiple shots to kill, which means I have to run backwards and hit diagonal forward-down again, which is not idela.

What if when you fired a shot diagonally and then stopped moving, any other shots you fired would also go diagonally until you moved your character?  That way I could stay stationary and plug the enemies below me.

[Mick]

Am I the only one who's having real trouble angling shots downwards on a control pad?  Start/Back + fire button doesn't really seem to cut it.  It's even worse when you need to shoot straight down, IE to destroy a box that's directly below you.   I had to jump and fire straight downwards, and it was pretty silly.

I can hit diagonal down on the button, but most enemies take multiple shots to kill, which means I have to run backwards and hit diagonal forward-down again, which is not idela.

What if when you fired a shot diagonally and then stopped moving, any other shots you fired would also go diagonally until you moved your character?  That way I could stay stationary and plug the enemies below me.

I think the trigger buttons would make much more sensible defaults than start/back. Start/back should never be used for gameplay, they should be for opening menus and things.

Please change the defaults, don't just say "Well you can modify it in the options." Sensible defaults matter.

[madcow]

I find I'm having similar issues with the keyboard to be honest. I find I either need to stop and readjust my hands for a stubborn enemy. I would probably do better on a gamepad using the left/right bumper buttons (though mac gamepads aren't working yet).

Knowing this, I just kind of try to go with a spell that would help with that. I really am digging the different spell patterns available for that reason.

Edit: Ahh, if the default is start/back I would suggest changing it to the left/right bumper (not the trigger buttons, the one above it). I suggested swapping out the default "w" and "s" binding myself. It felt so weird how all the abilities except for one were in a row

[tigersfan]

Unfortunately, the problem is that not all gamepads are made the same. On my gamepad, for example, those are bound to the shoulder buttons.

But, that's why we allow you to re-bind all the commands, and my recommendation would be to bind those two commands to the shoulder buttons.

[Brise Bonbons]

Yeah, my gamepad sends its left/right "triggers" as some sort of weird +/- movement axis, so I can't bind them at all in many games. Eventually I set up my keyboard (for Valley2) with the skills lined up across a row of keys (in this case m , . / for my right hand) and other functions clustered around the wasd keys which I use to move. This has worked pretty well for me so far.

*

On another topic, I have to ask: Does anyone else feel that the movement in Valley2 is a little... Off? Or is this just me? I want to say it's a little too much floaty sensation while jumping, a little bit of sluggish sensation when moving from a stop, and a little bit of this feeling that when I jump I keep accelerating in the air long after I've left the ground.

OK, here, I'll back up. To be frank, I do not feel like the movement is "right", but I don't know why. You all surely know it, that hard to quantify feeling that "this platformer's movement is just tight and polished and *right*". I'm just not getting that sense here, but I can't tell if it's the actual movement code, or some weird sensation I'm getting because of how the camera sort of moves around of its own volition when you move, or.... I don't know, something else entirely, like me responding poorly to the scale of things on my tiny old 1024X768 monitor. I should really just buy a new one...

As a contrast, on a whim I downloaded the freeware version of Spelunky for the first time this weekend (late to the party as usual), and immediately playing that I was like "YES this movement is RIGHT". Valley 2 feels like it needs some polish to get to this point, but I'm having trouble identifying exactly what I think is off, or if I'm just making it all up.

Any feedback would be great, as this is probably the single biggest thing that stands between me and full enjoyment of the game.

EDIT: Seeing as this is a pretty serious criticism to make of the game, I am sensitive about posting it here in public while the game is still in private alpha - let me know if I should remove this post and just send it as feedback in an email. I post it here despite my concerns because I am interested what the opinion of the other testers is, and I'm hoping it's just something to do with the scale of my display.

For the record I don't recall having a similar impression of AVVW1. My memory is that I immediately felt quite comfortable and happy with the movement in that game.

[Cyprene]

I didn't think of that! 

Yeah, at least for an XBOX360 controller, which I think has its own presets in your system anyway, you may want to change it to shoulder buttons.  If it didn't occur to me, it's unlikely to occur to a pretty big chunk of the gaming population. 

[madcow]

All in all, I'm definitely liking this. I've sent in probably waay more feedback than they would like though

Even though I'm kicking butt and chewing bubble gum, I think my survivors are about to revolt against me, thinking I'm a double agent the way they're getting wrecked

I hope we get more variety in the survivor missions later, I've not really been including that in alpha feedback, but I've some ideas in that regard for later.

Now if only I can find double jump so I can get mage tier 3 spells

[Nanashi]

I actually just sent a bunch of feedback over the controls because I feel like I'm fighting them more than the enemies on a laptop keyboard, even after rebinding them.  Hitting the A button to fire while holding down Q is extremely counter-intuitive and I don't think it should be the default.

I actually think that I'd have a lot less trouble if holding down+left/right didn't move the character (like crouching in Metroid), or if both aim keys were scrapped for a "hold position" button. As it is, I'm just pretending I'm playing a more claustrophobic version of NES Contra instead.

I'll probably get used to the controls over time, though.

P.S.: I always get the interesting chunks.

[tigersfan]

Heh, If you happen to have the world file of that, I'd appreciate it. I think I know what's going on there.

[Gemzo]

I think I already sent in a world like that. It's most likely just a slice that put in water enemies by accident. Those enemies also come with water where they spawned, since they're placed directly into the water after all. Anyway I think it's a level up tower slice, but I can't be sure.

[tigersfan]

I think I already sent in a world like that. It's most likely just a slice that put in water enemies by accident. Those enemies also come with water where they spawned, since they're placed directly into the water after all. Anyway I think it's a level up tower slice, but I can't be sure.

Yeah, that almost certainly what it is, but, there is no good way of knowing what slice it is without the world file.