Valley 2 Beta .709 "Water And Wind" Released!

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Original: http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2013/01/valley-2-beta-709-water-and-wind.html

This one is mostly smaller improvements to the game, but this sort of thing adds up.  We're not going to be focusing on this sort of smaller polish to the exclusion of new content (like enemies and so forth) for very much longer, but we had a backlog after the holiday break and are trying to clear that out reasonably well.

It's nice to be fully getting back into the swing of things after the holiday break, I have to say.  Still, with three projects going on at the moment in the studio, I'm being pulled a lot of directions for getting everyone ramped back up.  I would have wanted to add some new enemies in this release, but I just didn't have time.  I expect to have time for a lot of that sort of thing next week, which is exciting for me.

More to come soon.  Enjoy!

This is a standard update that you can download through the  in-game updater itself, if you already have any version of the game.  If you have the beta on Steam, it will automatically update for you.  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 the standalone game, you can download that here.  If you already own the first game, just use your existing license key to unlock the sequel for free!

[Misery]

.....I *just* finished typing a response to the previous one, and BAM new version!

I swear, that ONLY happens with your games specifically   

Much testing to do now, it seems.

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[ShaggyMoose]

A minor issue with the new patch; where it says "Impasse", the "I" appears to be truncated or maybe just the font makes it hard to read. Makes it look like "`mpasse".

No more storm dash three second maps runs for me! Hehe.

[ShaggyMoose]

I like the new atmospherics around windmills. Much more apparent that you have found and destroyed the source of the corruption. Its a little jarring that the music cuts out immediately once you cross a threshold though. Any way to fade it out?

[Misery]

I'm about to start a new run through here to try out all the new stuffs, but I can say one thing right away, which is that I definitely approve of Storm Dash's removal from the game.   It fit well in the first game, but here, it really just didn't.   Careful combat with enemies seems to very much be a major focus with the second one, and Storm Dash, muuuuuuch too easy to simply launch over them instead.   Particularly in outdoor areas.   You could clear half the level in one monstrous leap!   Not to mention it kept breaking the "you need doublejump/whatever" spots.

[Misery]

So, a few thoughts after a bit of time with the new version.


I think the overall effect of the removal of angled shots may be good, but for now, it really does seem to be causing huge imbalances.   I started a new game, and of my 5 starting mage classes, Forgician is the *only* one worth using.   The others all rely too much on attacks that absolutely needed the aiming to be of any use against things that were not exactly at your current vertical level; and this game doesnt exactly have many flat areas.   Most of them also have no way of blasting enemy shots.   In particular, Stonebinder and Entropicist are useless;  heck, Entropicist has 2 spells, both straight-shot spells, that do pretty much the same thing, which right now is hardly anything at all.   Straight shot spells dont have much use right now.   Forgician gave me the wave spell as well as Campfire, so I actually have some options in combat.    Whip spells are also useless right now, though I dont think that's much due to lack of aiming.... even with aiming, I dont think I could find a use for it.   Fullisade is also pointless, needs it's overall firing angles widened, right now it's just a slightly odd straight-shot spell.    In short, quite a number of spells could probably do with reworking or outright replacement.

The game's overall difficulty also seems..... lower?   Quite a bit lower, actually.   For the sake of comparison I started another game on Skilled for combat difficulty, and, early on at least, mistakes I make simply dont matter;  enemies dont hit me much, and even if they do, they dont do much damage.   There are situations that I can simply crash right through and basically ignore due to this, without any real problems afterwards.   I'm still in the very early game though, but I'd be very surprised if anything manages to kill me anytime soon.

Lessee..... what else is there.....

I found one item early on, and this one had a REALLY noticable effect, in that it tripled my shots, and it had 9 endurance..... that's MUCH better.   It was still temporary enough to not become overpowered in any way, but the effect was strong and useful, as opposed to not doing a whole lot.     That's the only one I've found so far.   Though a bug cropped up with that when I was using the water spells with it, in that stuff kept doing "infinity" damage to enemies. 

The "fall room" at the end of level-up towers also has the camera too high.


Oh, and the purification changes are very good.   Very good indeed.   I think that fixes the only real problem that the strategic mode had, at least in my experience.  I cant think of any other issues with it.



Aside from alot of broken/useless spells right now, it's a good update so far.    Though I'll spend a bunch more time with it later.

[Cinth]

Seems like the windmills lost the "Level Up Here" text on them.  EV IV is the previous version, V is from the current.
[EDIT: Seems like the level up tag is back (back at turn 4)]

I can agree with some of what Misery said above.

Forgician's main (A) attack is a bit higher than the rest of the classes from what I can see.  Illuminologist, to me, is still a good choice to start with.  It doesn't offer the raw power of the Forgician, but the main shot can bust many enemy projectiles. Good 'nuff for me

I like that the diagonal aiming is gone now, but that has made enemies that are below you (down slopes) pretty much a pain to deal with.  I would probably do better with a controller than with the keyboard.

@Misery: The difficulty was lowered in the last version.

If you don't die at all, the game is now actually easier by about 50%.

[Misery]

I like that the diagonal aiming is gone now, but that has made enemies that are below you (down slopes) pretty much a pain to deal with.  I would probably do better with a controller than with the keyboard.

Believe me, it's just as annoying with a controller.... doesnt help at all.

For as "awkward" as people found the diagonal aim to be, leaping over an enemy's head and firing straight down and then trying to land safely and do it again is many times more awkward and irritating to do;  but unless you specifically have a snake spell or something similar, that seems to be the only way to deal with them, aside from firing off ammo spells, which is often a waste.


As for the difficulty, hmm.   Might have to restart and jump it up higher than Skilled, then.   Hadnt noticed that in the patch notes.

[Cinth]

Believe me, it's just as annoying with a controller.... doesnt help at all.

For as "awkward" as people found the diagonal aim to be, leaping over an enemy's head and firing straight down and then trying to land safely and do it again is many times more awkward and irritating to do;  but unless you specifically have a snake spell or something similar, that seems to be the only way to deal with them, aside from firing off ammo spells, which is often a waste.


As for the difficulty, hmm.   Might have to restart and jump it up higher than Skilled, then.   Hadn't noticed that in the patch notes.

The whole jump out, shoot down, fall back thing is very Contra to me (loved that game and Super C).  My fingers don't work quite as well doing those maneuvers, as does my thumb rolling over a D-pad.  It's a pain but not impossible.  Ammo spells in general (to me at least) are just niceties.  I haven't used them at all outside of the atrium (to see the effects). 

If you haven't already, I suggest checking the previous version (Monster Aggression on Death) for the details.

Last... who is responsible for this insidious mess?  Neat timing jump is neat until your "package" spawns a bouncy fireball that proceeds to ping pong ball you around in a mass of blade traps.  End result? Quick trip to the castle (faster than a poison pill).

[EDIT: From my previous post (also modified). Seems like the level up tag is back (back at turn 4)]

[Teal_Blue]

I am missing the angled shots, the  combo angled shots didn't bother me, as a matter of fact i rather liked them, but there is a lot of jump shooting for me now, but i am getting used to that, so maybe it is just one of those 'get used to' things.

The overpoweredness is noticeable with some mage classes, forgician, the most i think, some of the other classes i am not used to using as much and find myself dying alot, but i did that alot when first learning the game, so that is probably to be expected.

Am trying to get to level two spells in the tower and keep losing to Wordrak, havent found a tactic, or class yet to beat him, i am dying to quick for my slow plodding style to compensate, 

-T


p.s.  thought there was an angled shot in one of the a-w-d-f keys for one of the classes. Would making one low angle and one high angle a-w-d-f keys, maybe the w or d keys sound workable? Or is it too much of a pain? Reworking keys can't be fun, but i could go with angled keys in the turn off/turn on menu. Though to be honest that throws balancing out the window doesn't it. Ah, forget my asking, I'll just get used to the new way, 


 

 

[Pepisolo]

Regarding the addition of the windstorm generator effects -- I really like it, although I might be a little biased. The actual implementation is quite subtle and yet at the same time visually striking. My actual first impression was whoa, nice! Makes it much more rewarding to smash those generators, especially watching the storm recede before your very eyes. There was also another small benefit, I was going through an especially long series of indoor/outdoor areas before eventually exiting one of the doorways to be greeted by a raging storm, this gave me a little morale boost just knowing the generator was not far away which was quite an immersive moment.

Its a little jarring that the music cuts out immediately once you cross a threshold though. Any way to fade it out?

Yes. I haven't tested the game enough to be completely confident, but is seems like the only thing stopping this implementation from being pretty much perfect is this issue. Ideally, the music would fade out as the wind fades in, with possibly a small overlap between the two. The slightly jarring effect is not present immediately after coming out of an indoor area, though.

Many thanks to the developers for pushing themselves to try and create something that little bit better when they certainly didn't need to. I just hope everybody likes the effect as much as I do.

[wyvern83]

I played Valley 2 for the first time yesterday and it definitely feels more focused than Valley 1, did which greatly enhances the playing experience. The art turned out really well and the longer I play it the more fitting it feels to the game.

I do have some complaints though.

I hate that your first farm and sometimes even the clinic is right next to the Overlord Keep, especially when the only good food scavenging tiles and farm spots are also in the same neighborhood. I lost my first game to resistance starvation because of this. The Ocean Shallows and the Grasslands were adjacent to each other with Overlord Keep kitty-corner to both so if I had built farms Demonica would have simply strolled back and forth between the two until I was out of scrap. Unless there can be more repeats of useful tile types elsewhere, I didn't get far, it would be great if these two could be further apart and further away to give you an actual chance.

I'll also echo the feedback on the spells and mage classes that some of them simply aren't as viable looking as I feel they should be. I go with Forgician at tier 1 every time for the simple reason that Explosive Crescent is that indispensable for dealing with enemies at an upward angle. In the later tiers I always went for the class that had a spell like it if there was one available.

Which brings me to a question, are Touch-range spells meant to block-cancel enemy projectiles? They have the highest caliber generally speaking. Campfire being place-able makes it seem that much better in that regard at tier one though.

[tigersfan]

Believe me, it's just as annoying with a controller.... doesnt help at all.

For as "awkward" as people found the diagonal aim to be, leaping over an enemy's head and firing straight down and then trying to land safely and do it again is many times more awkward and irritating to do;  but unless you specifically have a snake spell or something similar, that seems to be the only way to deal with them, aside from firing off ammo spells, which is often a waste.


As for the difficulty, hmm.   Might have to restart and jump it up higher than Skilled, then.   Hadn't noticed that in the patch notes.

The whole jump out, shoot down, fall back thing is very Contra to me (loved that game and Super C).  My fingers don't work quite as well doing those maneuvers, as does my thumb rolling over a D-pad.  It's a pain but not impossible.  Ammo spells in general (to me at least) are just niceties.  I haven't used them at all outside of the atrium (to see the effects). 

If you haven't already, I suggest checking the previous version (Monster Aggression on Death) for the details.

Last... who is responsible for this insidious mess?  Neat timing jump is neat until your "package" spawns a bouncy fireball that proceeds to ping pong ball you around in a mass of blade traps.  End result? Quick trip to the castle (faster than a poison pill).

[EDIT: From my previous post (also modified). Seems like the level up tag is back (back at turn 4)]

I think I know who is responsible for that slice, but, I won't say who.

That said, it probably should be toned down a bit. Would you mind sending me that save so I can find out what slice that is?

[tigersfan]

I played Valley 2 for the first time yesterday and it definitely feels more focused than Valley 1, did which greatly enhances the playing experience. The art turned out really well and the longer I play it the more fitting it feels to the game.

I do have some complaints though.

I hate that your first farm and sometimes even the clinic is right next to the Overlord Keep, especially when the only good food scavenging tiles and farm spots are also in the same neighborhood. I lost my first game to resistance starvation because of this. The Ocean Shallows and the Grasslands were adjacent to each other with Overlord Keep kitty-corner to both so if I had built farms Demonica would have simply strolled back and forth between the two until I was out of scrap. Unless there can be more repeats of useful tile types elsewhere, I didn't get far, it would be great if these two could be further apart and further away to give you an actual chance.

I'll also echo the feedback on the spells and mage classes that some of them simply aren't as viable looking as I feel they should be. I go with Forgician at tier 1 every time for the simple reason that Explosive Crescent is that indispensable for dealing with enemies at an upward angle. In the later tiers I always went for the class that had a spell like it if there was one available.

Which brings me to a question, are Touch-range spells meant to block-cancel enemy projectiles? They have the highest caliber generally speaking. Campfire being place-able makes it seem that much better in that regard at tier one though.

Hmmm, he's not really supposed to be going just back and forth between two places. Do you happen to have a save of him doing that?

Also, yes, melee spells are supposed to be defensive in nature.