Lost and sad. A frustrated AVWW experience.

[Nodor]

I was forced to abandon AVWW for the moment.    Which makes me sad, because knowing how awesome AI War is, and having looked at things, I think this could be a fantastic game. 

However, after screaming in rage for a long while at the 0.5% damage rate on the slime because I had found nothing else to damage it, I managed to kill the first boss and then was unable to find my way back out of the first dungeon.    This is what caused me to decide I needed a break.. for a while.

As someone without the spacial memory necessary to memorize the mazes as the levels are currently generated blocks in the lower corner do not help me figure out how to get between them to the "exit".   I can find doors on the current map, but that doesn't mean I will recall where I have been and which rooms I need to reach to reach the exit.

I also chopped down a substantial number of trees, mushrooms, and sapphires. .. and ended up with 50+ invisible  cedar and other stuff .. which may have been useful?  Invisible things, not in my inventory yet in my inventory, are hard to work with.

Also, multi-button spell toggle.   I need a range spell, a melee/environment spell, and platforms at hand...   something to enable me to toggle what is used as my offensive attack, aside from drag and drop on the bar would be..  helpful.

One of the saving graces of AI War is the 7 hour tutorial - I demand that people play it before I play AI War with them because AI War is not a game you can "learn as you go".   Currently, in AVWW I feel like I am trying to play AI War without knowing that I need to kill the AI Home Command stations and that I don't know what AI progress is, or that ARS exist.   As someone enjoying playing an AI War game on 9.0 difficulty, I don't want the options toned down, nor do I want stuff pulled because it's complex.

If A Valley Without Wind has tutorial, I would be happy to be pointed in that direction.   I think I missed a LOT of the current content because I could not figure out how to access it.    Once I understand the mechanics and have a method for "not getting lost for hours in the first dungeon",  I suspect this is a brilliant game which will consume hours of my time and be something I give/recommend to friends.

For the moment, I am sad to report being curbstomped by the learning curve.


Nodor

[Lancefighter]

Randomly mentioning some stuff; You should find another spell to break through the slime.. I want to say lightning something, but I am not actually sure.

The map in the top left has green/red doors - green are visited, with red unvisited. When you are standing on a door, the map in the bottom right will flash where you are going.

Most cedar dont seem particularly useful - They go into your settlement's inventory, not yours.

There is a (default unbound) keybinding that allows you to set where your spells are cast from - I have my left mouse button on 6 (with right mouse 7, middle 8, mouse 5/6 9/10, respectively). That leaves 1 for platforms, 2 for boxes, 3 for teleport? 4 for some lights, and q for shield, in addition to the 5 mouse buttons.
(for the record, 6-7 are ranged spells, 9-10 are melee, and my middle mouse button doesnt actually work as a button)

The tutorial is everything up until the settlement. You start far left, and proceed right through areas that have signposts? of some sort.

[Wanderer]

However, after screaming in rage for a long while at the 0.5% damage rate on the slime because I had found nothing else to damage it, I managed to kill the first boss and then was unable to find my way back out of the first dungeon.    This is what caused me to decide I needed a break.. for a while.

There's a tombstone or four that mention a spell crafting bench and that a different spell would be useful.  It's meant to have you go explore the cave and find it so you come back with different spells and can lay out the smackdown.

The dungeon map in the bottom right DOES take some getting used to.  It's not instinctive until you get used to it, and then suddenly it makes PERFECT sense.  In general: Every large mini-map is a single 'room' in the dungeon map.  You traverse it from bottom up or top down (depending on building vs. cavern).  When you stand in front of a door on the main screen, it'll flash a smaller blue bulb towards the room it leads to.  If you're in a cavern and trying to leave, you always want to go UP.  If you're in a building and trying to leave, you always want to go DOWN.

Darkened nodes are ones you haven't visited.  Lighter nodes are ones you have.

[Angus]

Everyone runs into that exact problem multiple times at the beginning. First you come to a red slime that wont take any fire damage so you look around and find the lightning (air damage) spell.

Then you come to another one or 2 that wont take fire or air damage so you have to find the spell workbench deep in the dungeon and obtain spells with other damage types.  Water, entropy, whatever as long as it isnt air or fire.

You have to learn to use the dungeon maps so you can get to the yellow rooms where the loot is hidden.  Carefully read then encyclopedia pages about the dungeon map and keep an eye on what happens when you stand over a door and go through one, etc.

It also helps to figure out how the warps work to easily get out of dungeons without getting lost.

[DesiQ]

Everyone runs into that exact problem multiple times at the beginning. First you come to a red slime that wont take any fire damage so you look around and find the lightning (air damage) spell.

Then you come to another one or 2 that wont take fire or air damage so you have to find the spell workbench deep in the dungeon and obtain spells with other damage types.  Water, entropy, whatever as long as it isnt air or fire.

I skipped this, actually. I made an autofire toggle macro and went to make a cup of coffee while my guy spammed the slimes with whatever weaksauce spell I started with.

I am grateful that the devs made it do at least a little damage, rather than forcing me to go through the whole song and dance about spelunking through the caves.

[CodexArcanum]

This reminds of the story about one guy who didn't realize how fights worked in Shadow of the Colossus.  He never figured out you had to climb the monster and stab the glyphs, so he just used the bow.  It took like 3 hours but he managed to kill the first boss just by shooting it and doing that little one pixel of damage until it died.

[tigersfan]

I'm sorry you are having problems with the game.

The tutorial is the very start of the game. If you were fighting the slime, you were in the tutorial.

You shouldn't ever have to remember what doors lead where, or how to get back, that would lead to a very boring game. Have you seen this wiki page: http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AVWW_-_What_are_all_these_maps_for%3 ? That page explains how the map at the bottom right can get you back to the beginning. This information is also in the game if you press the question mark near that map.

Let me know if you have any further questions.

[zebramatt]

http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AVWW_-_What_are_all_these_maps_for?

Link fixed.

[tigersfan]

http://arcengames.com/mediawiki/index.php?title=AVWW_-_What_are_all_these_maps_for?

Link fixed.

Derp.... Thanks!

[keith.lamothe]

Yep, Red Slime.  It's a menace.

Edit:  More on that: if you hit the slime with fire, it shows a bit of floating text that says "99% Elemental Resistance!".  Did that not show?

Also, even more importantly, when you hit it with fire the game shows a fairly enormous popup that makes you invincible and says:

Warning!  This monster has elemental resistance against your current spell.  You probably want to use a spell of a different element.  If you don't have one, you'll need to find one to proceed any further.

TIP: You can pause the game with P and hover over monsters to learn more about their elemental strengths and weaknesses.

For now: bravely run away!

I don't know if it could reasonably be any more explicit about what's going on

But it occurs to me that perhaps someone else had already played through that part and clicked the "do not show this again" checkbox so that this popup wouldn't trigger again.  If so, I suggest starting a new world, going into settings, and clicking the button to reset the tutorial messages, and playing through the intro part again

[Bluddy]

I think the fact that you find the lightning bolt rather than crafting it perhaps makes this part confusing. You know you've found a lightning bolt, and yet you can't find another spell. If the lightning spell had been crafted, it would have been more obvious that you need to find ingredients for another spell.

[nanostrike]

Yep, Red Slime.  It's a menace.

Edit:  More on that: if you hit the slime with fire, it shows a bit of floating text that says "99% Elemental Resistance!".  Did that not show?

Also, even more importantly, when you hit it with fire the game shows a fairly enormous popup that makes you invincible and says:

Warning!  This monster has elemental resistance against your current spell.  You probably want to use a spell of a different element.  If you don't have one, you'll need to find one to proceed any further.

TIP: You can pause the game with P and hover over monsters to learn more about their elemental strengths and weaknesses.

For now: bravely run away!

I don't know if it could reasonably be any more explicit about what's going on

But it occurs to me that perhaps someone else had already played through that part and clicked the "do not show this again" checkbox so that this popup wouldn't trigger again.  If so, I suggest starting a new world, going into settings, and clicking the button to reset the tutorial messages, and playing through the intro part again

You'd be surprised how many players will sit there doing 1 damage at a time to the thing until it dies.  Seriously.  Two of my friends did it because they didn't realize you have to craft a spell to kill the second slime.  Never underestimate the stupidity of your average player.

[Misery]

However, after screaming in rage for a long while at the 0.5% damage rate on the slime because I had found nothing else to damage it, I managed to kill the first boss and then was unable to find my way back out of the first dungeon.    This is what caused me to decide I needed a break.. for a while.

There's a tombstone or four that mention a spell crafting bench and that a different spell would be useful.  It's meant to have you go explore the cave and find it so you come back with different spells and can lay out the smackdown.

The dungeon map in the bottom right DOES take some getting used to.  It's not instinctive until you get used to it, and then suddenly it makes PERFECT sense.  In general: Every large mini-map is a single 'room' in the dungeon map.  You traverse it from bottom up or top down (depending on building vs. cavern).  When you stand in front of a door on the main screen, it'll flash a smaller blue bulb towards the room it leads to.  If you're in a cavern and trying to leave, you always want to go UP.  If you're in a building and trying to leave, you always want to go DOWN.

Darkened nodes are ones you haven't visited.  Lighter nodes are ones you have.

I agree with this.   The dungeon map is one of my favorite aspects of the game, since it's so darn helpful.   In a game that has infinite exploration and about a kersquillion areas, it'd be very, very easy to get really, really lost without a map.   And this isnt any ordinary map, it's a VERY WELL THOUGHT-OUT one.   As was said above it takes getting used to, but once you fully grasp it..... it really is completely perfect for what it's function is.    The dungeon map is your bestest friend in this game.  Learn the way the shape of the map works, and learn what all of the different colors for each node/room/whatever mean.  Alot of the time, you're gonna want to head for gold nodes, as they are stashes or gem chambers.   It can also show special features of any room;  a white line in a node, for instance, means there's a "secret passage" there that can lead to another such node, which could be anywhere.  A small flashing thing in the corner signifies the presence of a warp zone, or whatever those things are called, the blue portals that let you transfer to different areas.   I promise once you learn this stuff it becomes second nature.

The ONE little issue I have with the dungeon map is that stash/gem color is very nearly the same as the "secret mission room" color, so it's a little easy to miss those or think it's the other one.   

Dont be afraid to mouse over any given square and see what it has to say about it.    And watch the red ones, those are boss rooms.