Valley 2 Beta .720-.721 "Treasure Swap" Released!

[x4000]

Original: http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2013/01/valley-2-beta-720-treasure-swap-released.html

This one has a laundry list of smaller stuff, all of which is explained in the release notes.  Solid minor improvements on a number of fronts, but nothing earth-shattering for the game as a whole.  Although not having the confusion of the new boss rooms frequently being backwards will be really nice, I must say.

I really will be getting back to adding monsters soon!

UPDATE: .721 is now out to  fix a bug in the prior version where crates could not be destroyed by player spells.

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!

[Winge]

I saw this update on Steam and was like "there's no way they've already upd..."  And then I stopped because I remembered which company I was talking about, lol.

[LaughingThesaurus]

I saw this update on Steam and was like "there's no way they've already upd..."  And then I stopped because I remembered which company I was talking about, lol.

It takes a while to get used to that, yeah...

[Professor Paul1290]

I just noticed something a bit weird. Marty and Tiyi appear to now be afflicted with gigantism.

I haven't seen any other adverse affects from this yet, but it looks very strange.

[MouldyK]

Yeah, nice new art for the Egyptian gal, but she is like a head bigger than everyone else. xD

[x4000]

Hah, yeah, we'll have to scale that better, thanks.

[Misery]

Good to see the equipment stuff finally being utilized more.   

The only problem is that with some of them it can be hard to know exactly what they're doing.

Also, one suggestion, is to have some constant indicator on the screen showing how much durability your current item has.  You could perhaps put it down by the health and ammo markers, where the coin one used to be.   That'd be very helpful.


On another note, I have another hilarious crawler glitch for you:

http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=10482

This one though seems to only be with the snails, I havent seen other types do it (yet).   Strangest glitch yet though. 

Seems many bugs now have been squashed, I'm not running into many at all currently.  A couple of minor ones with spells, but that's about it.

[MouldyK]

On another note, I have another hilarious crawler glitch for you:

http://www.arcengames.com/mantisbt/view.php?id=10482

This one though seems to only be with the snails, I havent seen other types do it (yet).   Strangest glitch yet though. 

Seems many bugs now have been squashed, I'm not running into many at all currently.  A couple of minor ones with spells, but that's about it.

I swear those Crawlers love to bug out with you haha.


-thinks one should be named Misery in honour of the one who finds all the problems with them-

[Panopticon]

I'm really enjoying the new monsters and the tweaks and additions I've seen to the strategy side of the game. The controls feel very solid now on the gamepad, even using the analog sticks. Great work with that. I can get away from the terrible 360 D-pad now.

I still feel like monster balance is off, which is no big surprise since Josh has been under the weather. A specific that really stands out from what I've seen so far are the Electric Eels. They seem to soak a lot of damage. The flying C4 Bots that have to be moving fast for you to damage them are pretty annoying in tight spaces where they can't get up any speed. They are invulnerable in that case and can block your path or get into a tight space with you and you just can't do anything about it but take the damage as far as I can tell. That definitely felt un-fun.

It also bugs me to no end that the monsters remain active while dialogue is rolling in the sidescrolling sections. I find myself trying to time the end of the dialogue with the enemy in optimal positions, which causes me to not really pay much attention to what is being said and creates a general feeling of aggravation whenever a dialogues section pops up. It occurs to me that I'm probably not the only player that feels this way. Completely pausing the action could do a lot to mitigate this feeling of having to game the timing of the ending of the dialogue.

fake edit: The new theme song is AWESOME. Holy crap. I want to share it with other people in a big way, but haven't been able to find it in any of the usual spots I find Pablo's work. Are there any plans to put it out to the public?

[tigersfan]

I'm really enjoying the new monsters and the tweaks and additions I've seen to the strategy side of the game. The controls feel very solid now on the gamepad, even using the analog sticks. Great work with that. I can get away from the terrible 360 D-pad now.

I still feel like monster balance is off, which is no big surprise since Josh has been under the weather. A specific that really stands out from what I've seen so far are the Electric Eels. They seem to soak a lot of damage. The flying C4 Bots that have to be moving fast for you to damage them are pretty annoying in tight spaces where they can't get up any speed. They are invulnerable in that case and can block your path or get into a tight space with you and you just can't do anything about it but take the damage as far as I can tell. That definitely felt un-fun.

It also bugs me to no end that the monsters remain active while dialogue is rolling in the sidescrolling sections. I find myself trying to time the end of the dialogue with the enemy in optimal positions, which causes me to not really pay much attention to what is being said and creates a general feeling of aggravation whenever a dialogues section pops up. It occurs to me that I'm probably not the only player that feels this way. Completely pausing the action could do a lot to mitigate this feeling of having to game the timing of the ending of the dialogue.

fake edit: The new theme song is AWESOME. Holy crap. I want to share it with other people in a big way, but haven't been able to find it in any of the usual spots I find Pablo's work. Are there any plans to put it out to the public?

Monster balance is going to be being worked on right up till release. But, any feedback about it is much appreciated. I'll make sure I add your comments to my list.

I'm feeling better, but, I'll still be having fatigue and such for a while. That said, this weekend I've been working on getting some of the flavor art into the game, so I'm working, just not on balance stuff.

[Phadin]

I second Panopticon about the new theme song.  Awsome job on that!

[Billick]

Got a chance to play some on Sunday.  First off, I love the new theme song.  I do kind of agree with the sentiment that it would make a better end theme than an opening theme, but it would be a shame to not have it heard by as many people.

Probably a good decision to cut the mercenaries.  They were pretty broken.  I just hope you find a way to keep the Recettear reference in the achievements  . Nice to see equipment playing a more prominent role.  Is there any way to see what equipment you are using currently and what it does?  If there is, it's hard to find, and if there's not, there probably should be one.

The mini feat seems really wonky to me.  Maybe it's just my controller, but it seems to activate a lot when I don't want it to, and it doesn't always work when I do want it to.  Anybody else having issues with it?

I like the new overlord spells, although weirdly I got snowstorm all 3 times. 

I've been thinking maybe survivors should get some sort of activated class abilities to counter the new overlord abilities.  Just throwing some ideas out here:
Scout:
Explore - reveal (but not purify) several tiles on the map
Forage - gain extra scrap/food from scavenging on the current turn
Warrior:
Shield - greatly increase cover for adjacent tiles for the next X turns
Charge - Move to a monster and deal damage
Skirmisher:
Snare - reduce the number of tiles a monster can move on the next turn
Dispel - remove a spell effect from a tile
Medic (possible new class):
Field healing - Remove a wounded state from a survivor on an adjacent tile
Clinic duty - Heal 2 survivors when healing from a clinic

To balance things out, the abilities would have a cool down (maybe like 4 turns), have a power cost, and would consume the survivor's action for the current turn.  This would address the concerns that the classes aren't distinct enough, and that power isn't currently that important.

Not sure if it's too late to introduce this sort of thing, but it might spice up the strategic game a bit more.

[madcow]

I would LOVE special abilities in survivors based on their class. What would be really cool is I'd they were rare but powerful, with a hefty cost.  I was thinking abilities that let you sac a survivor for a special effect.  Two that I thought of are:

Explore: the scout goes out into the windstorm and finds you the closest building of a certain type (you can scout for pyramids, windmills, research stations, purify tiles, etc). He'll find it and report back the coordinates, but being so far out in the corrupted windstorms - this is a one way trip.

Sacrifice: the soldier delays the overlord by sacrificing himself to the greater good. Basically he rushes the overlord wih no chance of success. It keeps the overlord from moving, casting spells, or recharging spells though.

Skirmisher I couldn't think of something for, maybe raiding towers for lots of supplies.

Of course all these abilities not only kill he survivor but come with the associated moral loss.

I do honk one way or another that scout ability should be in. It's nice to have even a vague idea which direction to purify in if you really need a feat or dispersion tower for instance.

[Panopticon]

Is it just me or are the Skelebot Research Facilities ridiculously hard now? The escape sequence is really pretty crazy with the tight quarters, the C4 Drones, UAV looking Drones and those robot things that suck in your shots. It's really pretty annoying with them just spawning in all over the place while you can't shoot anything but the SuckBots.

edit: Are they supposed to spawn this close at the start of the game? Maybe I'm just not powered up enough, but if it scales with the game turns like everything else I'll probably find it as completely annoying.

I'm attaching the world file to see if this is an anomaly.

[Misery]

can't shoot anything but the SuckBots.

And that is now what I'll always call those things, hah.


As monster balance goes though:   I think some HP values could be tweaked, like those bloody urban robots that are EVERYWHERE in some areas, the ones with the shot that explodes into lots of shots and can counter-attack;  their HP could be lowered a bit, just to counteract the fact that they're so incredibly common (so it doesnt take so long to plow through hordes of them).  And some things seem like they should have MORE health (like the balloon things that fire the spiked balls) .  Stuff like that.   As for actual monster PATTERNS.... I cant think of any that are screwed up or unfair in some way, the patch to the difficulty settings and how the engine handles them seems to have completely fixed that.    Granted some monsters are ANNOYING, those freaking plane things for instance, but nothing broken, so that's good.