AVWW Post-Release 1.206 "Watery Warp" Released!

[x4000]

Original: http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2012/08/avww-post-release-1206-watery-warp.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.

Since I've been working on porting Shattered Haven to the new engine, plus working on getting the AVWW art revamp project off the ground, that's really been quite a time drain for me so far this month.  Thus I missed doing an update last week, and we have an extra-awesome one this week instead.

Included here are a new spell scroll, a new guardian power scroll, and some refinements to how you get guardian power scrolls.  These are pretty cool, because it makes most of the guardian power scrolls easier to find via secret missions.  And both the new guardian power scroll as well as the spell scroll are centered around making it easier for you to cycle out missions that you don't like, to instead get missions that you do like.

There are also changes to make mood gifts for survivors easier to find, and the game is now more explicit about warning you that you'll need to enlist the aid of your survivors to take down the overlord when this is the case.  In the past sometimes that could go unnoticed until it was time for the showdown, and then it was tedious to try to get all your survivors updated at once (of course you can just down the citybuilding difficulty if you find yourself in that situation, but better is to have the importance of that activity clearer earlier).

We added another 100 player-made maps, and we also made it so that the "only works during the day/night" modifier for spells is no longer an all-or-nothing affair.  Instead it just reduces your spells' effectiveness during the offending period, which should be a lot more palatable.

Lastly, the new spell that was added this week is called Water Dash, and it lets you run at a higher speed in water while also floating upwards in the water.  That's a pretty cool addition especially for the ocean areas, since this effectively lets you swim upwards at certain angles rather than having to always use crates or wooden platforms.

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]

Nice update so far.  Definitely good to see that Campfire and the Bubbles one WORK now.   And I think the mood item change was very, very needed..... I'd basically stopped playing about a week and a half ago, because I was at the point of having to grind for mood items (which actually meant grinding for shards), and...... yeah, I get tired of that fast.   I figured an update that changed the drop rates of those was probably going to be the next one, so, waited, glad I did.

The one major imbalance I still see with the game is...... absolutely every concievable thing about the Evergreen forests.   Seriously, they could not BE more tedious (eagles).  The entire strategy seems to be, enter zone, place 6 explosive bear traps in a row, stand there like a moron and wait for birds to crash into them, then shoot them with something or other.   Rinse and repeat over and over again in each chunk .   I only enter this type of forest if I absolutely have to (aka, overlord castle or a tower), and I've now started just turning the difficulty OFF, so I can just plow through to the boss areas without taking 40 minutes to pop the stupid eagles that are everywhere.  I wont enter that region type for any other reason.    I've yet to find anything else that works on those stupid birds.   I tried campfire on them, but since it doesnt actually STOP them from moving, it cant handle more than one bird at a time, and they tend to appear in annoying groups.

Though, part of it is that area's level-generation style.  There's no room to avoid the birds at all.   When the birds appear in any other region type (like the Highlands), normal tactics and dodging actually work on them.   But not in that forest.

Also the mossy barrels (the ones that the player can get) still do next to nothing.


Mini-rant aside,

Other than that.... the game seems very well balanced right now, and these new changes sound like they're gonna make that even better.  Definitely a far cry from what the original release version of the game was!   Espers everywhere, and spell balance totally all over the place, haha.

I'll post more feedback after I've experimented with the new stuff a bit.

EDIT:  Whoa, secret missions are really profitable now.   Liking the "Lazy Bum" scroll.

[LaughingThesaurus]

I haven't been able to play with it, but does the Water Dash spell allow you to run on top of water and avoid damage from it? That might be nifty... although it also might be a bit too nifty.

[x4000]

I haven't been able to play with it, but does the Water Dash spell allow you to run on top of water and avoid damage from it? That might be nifty... although it also might be a bit too nifty.

Nope, you'll still be in the water, but just up to your waist.  So you can sort of run along the top of it, but not completely and you aren't avoiding the damage.  Just the speed debuff and the downward falling.

[LaughingThesaurus]

That's pretty reasonable regardless. Don't want platforms to be useless for watery places with low ceilings right? Or, y'know, acid gills.

[x4000]

Yep!

[Misery]

Hm, dont suppose something could be done about general item rates in stashes at some point here?

It's hard to tell if the mood thing actually fixed that problem, because the game is still obsessed with giving me the sorts of items that are never, ever needed, things like crates or those pointless little 40-shard pickups, or various other things.   The most non-common item I've found in 10 or so stash rooms so far is a Mossy Barrel, and those dont really do anything right now.  The only potentially USEFUL thing I found so far was some bear traps.   .....but I already have 300 of those, so dont really need many right now.

That all could definitely do with some tweaking.   The shard pickups are the worst, they're no more than what common enemies drop.

[Misery]

Well, over time, I'm getting more mood things than I was before, though wether or not that'll fix the "get stuck at overlord" issue is a whole other matter, wont get to test that for a bit yet.

......also I found a spell that SETS ME ON FIRE every time I cast it.   ......was this modifier always in there?  This is the first time I've seen it.  An interesting way to apply a negative effect, yes.....


EDIT:  Also, is anyone else having alot of trouble finding buoys?   After some 15 secret missions here, well, nearly ALL of them have had "look for trouble" as a side reward..... what few didn't have that instead had the lazy bum or the survivor search, 2 and 1 of those respectively.  But not one buoy, and I never use the Trouble ones (and they're WAY too common by default), so that's kinda annoying..... hard to tell if it's the RNG being a total jerk or if it's bugging out, but for now I have to buy every single one of these.

[keith.lamothe]

......also I found a spell that SETS ME ON FIRE every time I cast it.   ......was this modifier always in there?

Yea, I added it maybe a month and a half ago, I think

It's partly an "interesting" way to let the item have more positive modifiers, and partly a reference to http://www.teamfortress.com/macupdate/comic/

[x4000]

Thanks!

* The percentages of what seeds in stash rooms is now vastly improved.  The little pointless bits of shards, and the extra experience point 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.

[LaughingThesaurus]

Whoa whoa, exp containers? Or, do you mean enchant charges? I didn't think I missed quite that many updates.

[x4000]

Haha, sorry, enchant containers.   They're still labeled as EXP containers in the code.

And here's the new version!  http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,11491.0.html