The Power-Coding Sprint Is Over -- So What's The Agenda Now?

[Echo35]

In every other instance, you can get out of a sticky situation by warping. The only way out in missions would be to abandon the character though. Good/bad?

Bad. Firstly, the hole I'm in is very narrow and I don't think it's possible to place a platform in such a position, and secondly, outright abandoning a character or dying is pretty harsh. I think if you use a warp potion, you should have the option of backing out of the entire mission and failing it.

[tigersfan]

Well, my playing of the game came to a quick close. I fell down a hole in a mission area, made a wooden platform, jumped on it, and now I can't jump at all, nor can I warp while in a mission area So I guess I'll wait a bit, don't feel like restarting.

I could look into this, but, I'd need you to send me your world file. Can you do that? Either post it here or in Mantis?

[Echo35]

Well, my playing of the game came to a quick close. I fell down a hole in a mission area, made a wooden platform, jumped on it, and now I can't jump at all, nor can I warp while in a mission area So I guess I'll wait a bit, don't feel like restarting.

I could look into this, but, I'd need you to send me your world file. Can you do that? Either post it here or in Mantis?

Yeah, let me test if I can't move the platform at all first...

Huh, upon saving and reloading, the platform actually moved slightly and is usable now. Weird. Still, now I'm paranoid about narrow gaps

[Toll]

In every other instance, you can get out of a sticky situation by warping. The only way out in missions would be to abandon the character though. Good/bad?

Bad. Firstly, the hole I'm in is very narrow and I don't think it's possible to place a platform in such a position, and secondly, outright abandoning a character or dying is pretty harsh. I think if you use a warp potion, you should have the option of backing out of the entire mission and failing it.

Not that I don't sympathise with that situation (I do!), but you can't base it on a bug. Right now, you being stuck down there is because of the bug with platforms being impossible to jump from in some situations. Really, you should never get completely stuck anywhere, unless you run away somewhere to get away from enemies and lose too much health so you can't get back.

[Echo35]

In every other instance, you can get out of a sticky situation by warping. The only way out in missions would be to abandon the character though. Good/bad?

Bad. Firstly, the hole I'm in is very narrow and I don't think it's possible to place a platform in such a position, and secondly, outright abandoning a character or dying is pretty harsh. I think if you use a warp potion, you should have the option of backing out of the entire mission and failing it.

Not that I don't sympathise with that situation (I do!), but you can't base it on a bug. Right now, you being stuck down there is because of the bug with platforms being impossible to jump from in some situations. Really, you should never get completely stuck anywhere, unless you run away somewhere to get away from enemies and lose too much health so you can't get back.

Yes, but there's still the issue of things like what if you planned badly or are taking on something too strong or something along those lines? Outright saying "Too bad, you're dead and we won't even give you any other option" is harsh. This isn't a roguelike 

[Coppermantis]

I have to agree with the multiple clicking for mining it's very annoying even though it only happens once in a while. Maybe as has been suggested before a key for harvest should be used.

Also with the latest update I don't feel any need to enter the caves I can level up through missions where before I used to take on the bosses in the caves. I guess something is planned for the caves at least I hope so as I enjoyed that part of the game before all the big changes.

Finally played MP last night on Tolls server first time snce the big changes and it was a real blast the only thing that spoilt it was bats especially ice bats that seemed much too tough and spawned in massive numbers. I'm sure the other players would back me up on this. The boss rooms were filled with ghosts and ectoplasm. Taking out monster spawners helped but they took a ton of hits and the bats were relentless.

Yeah, Ice bats are the most annoying enemy now that Eagles are fixed. They're hard to hit, slow you down with every touch (since they're so hard to hit, they can attack you a lot) and in large rooms spawn pretty often.

[Toll]

A simple solution (at least partial) is to implement a minimum speed, say 25%. That way it's definitely noticable, but you're never completely incapacitated.

[zebramatt]

In every other instance, you can get out of a sticky situation by warping. The only way out in missions would be to abandon the character though. Good/bad?

Bad. Firstly, the hole I'm in is very narrow and I don't think it's possible to place a platform in such a position, and secondly, outright abandoning a character or dying is pretty harsh. I think if you use a warp potion, you should have the option of backing out of the entire mission and failing it.

Not that I don't sympathise with that situation (I do!), but you can't base it on a bug. Right now, you being stuck down there is because of the bug with platforms being impossible to jump from in some situations. Really, you should never get completely stuck anywhere, unless you run away somewhere to get away from enemies and lose too much health so you can't get back.

What about if you don't have any wooden platforms...?

[Toll]

I figured the odds of that is slim to non-existant I've got about 2000 medium platforms in my SP game, and I've never even looked to see how many small or large platforms I've got.

[tigersfan]

And, honestly, you really shouldn't go anywhere in this game w/o platforms.

[Echo35]

Doesn't mean you won't have some brain dead player going "Oh hey, I have this double jump spell now, I don't need any silly platforms!". God knows I've done similar things in Terraria all the time

[x4000]

And then you learn: ooh, I got stuck in a deep hole and had to abandon my character.  Oops!

That's pretty much why we have abandon character as an option, same as with Minecraft having it: it is possible to get yourself stuck permanently in most procedural games, and there needs to be an overflow valve of sorts to accommodate those cases.

[Echo35]

And then you learn: ooh, I got stuck in a deep hole and had to abandon my character.  Oops!

That's pretty much why we have abandon character as an option, same as with Minecraft having it: it is possible to get yourself stuck permanently in most procedural games, and there needs to be an overflow valve of sorts to accommodate those cases.

Yes, but in AVWW you have warp potions to mitigate this, but you can't use them in mission, hence me saying that having no option to fail a mission without outright killing yourself is a bit harsh.

[x4000]

You won't have warp potions for much longer, so it will be the same everywhere.

[ColdPrototype]

Original: http://christophermpark.blogspot.com/2011/12/power-coding-spring-is-over-so-whats.html


Enchants


The whole idea of enchants is something that we've revised a lot from our original plans.  Emit Light is the first example of an enchant that is already in the game, actually, but at the moment it's all very freeform and nonstructured.  You put on emit light and it lasts a certain amount of time, then you put it on again.  Yawn.





What we'll actually be doing once we add some more enchants, is making it so that each enchant can only go into a certain Enchant Slot on your character.  You'll have a finite number of enchant slots, and each one would have a certain type.  So you might have a movement enchant type, which would let you run faster or jump higher, etc.





And you might have a couple of body enchant slots, which could hold a light source or some sort of defensive modifiers.  Suddenly ball of light and the other light sources actually have some attractiveness, versus emit light beating them all out, right?  Emit light would mean only one defensive enchant rather than two, potentially.

Please don't do this. Having to choose between a logistical nicety and a gameplay boost always sucks, because it means you need to choose to be annoyed by having to diddle with logistical trifles, or be annoyed by knowing you're playing a suboptimal game. Indeed, I'd call that a good universal game design rule: playing better should never be a matter of willingness to engage in annoyance.

If you really want to force that kind of choice, consider something along the lines of WoW's glyph system, where you get multiple categories: One set of slots for cosmetic/logistical effects, other sets for combat effects.

But why do you make the player deal with light? I'd hardly say that AVWW sticks to a gritty sort of realism where you do it because it's accurate, nor is there a set of atmospheric limitations and constraints like there are in Minecraft (monsters spawning in the dark, torches/lamps determining the ultimate extent of your expansion and are thus an essential part of your personal economy). Light just seems like a hurdle you jump over. If light is really important, consider making it into a real choice. Maybe light becomes a tradeoff with stealth; if you deactivate your lights, enemies can't track you as effectively.