Valley 2 Beta .725 "Seaside Fistfight" Released!

[x4000]

Original: http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2013/02/valley-2-beta-725-seaside-fistfight.html

This one is a bunch of more polish and another fifteen monsters. 

Monsters
The total is up to a whopping 113 monsters in the game at this point, but I still have 14 more to go.  I had hoped to be done with all the monsters today, or at least down into the single digits, but I got sucked into some time-consuming polish and bugfixes that needed to go in.  So the last of the monsters slides another day or slightly more.

This is another cool release of them, but these were definitely harder-won on my part.  I only got 9 done yesterday, and 6 today, versus 18 the day before yesterday.  Still, that's just kind of how it goes when you get down to the last things and you're not willing to sacrifice quality to rush through it.

I'm particularly proud of the newly-completed ocean shallows monster set in this release.  A number of the monsters there are immune to all spells that aren't melee or ammo-based.  This creates situations where you really get more of a Zelda II or classic-Castlevania vibe if you go for melee combat, or you get a very conserve-your-ammo Resident Evil vibe or a very avoid-detection-and-flee semi-stealth-game vibe, depending on how you tackle these.

I'm also really pleased with how the feel of the grasslands and desert are evolving, and on how the lava flats dinosaurs have now been finished up.  All of the regions of the game are really getting to have a very unique feel to them now, which is really what I wanted; you really can't mistake what region you are in in this game.

Then the random combinations of monsters that you encounter in the level up towers and the overlord keep adds even MORE variety of unexpected tactical situations, which I also like.  This was something I'd planned since first designing out the monsters for this game, but the effect of this decision is only really becoming heavily apparent now that the monster set is nearing completion.  I'm quite pleased with it.

Everything Else
The rest of this release is hugely eclectic.  Lots of bugfixes, including some multiplayer ones.  Tons and tons of slice fixes from Josh.  Some balance improvements.  Three new caliber-related perks instead of the featherweight perks.  A bunch of awesome updated art from heavy cat once again.

More monsters coming tomorrow -- as many as I can stuff in.  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!

[madcow]

I like seeing encouragement to go melee, that's a style of play I tend to enjoy and has so far seemed weak compared to the other options, so at least seeing some enemies where its ideal is nice! Good timing though, I lost my current world as this patch came out

Edit: Something that'll be nice when all the monsters are out, is some sort of ranking in terms of expected difficulty of areas. That would be helpful to new players so they can get an idea of what biomes they ought to try cleaning out first.

[Misery]

Ok, I havent had enough time with the new patch to give overmuch feedback on it,  but I ran into one major issue with the ocean areas which is that it's possible to not HAVE any melee attacks, period.  I'm on Tier 2 spells, and there simply arent any.   And ammo attacks can usually only be used, at most, 4 or 5 times in an area, if that.   That's a pretty bad thing considering how important the ocean-shallows areas are, with the farming and whatnot.

[madcow]

I think I was actually able to hit the desert sphinx in melee range using a non-melee spell (though not from a distance). I'll need to retest though.

[x4000]

Ok, I havent had enough time with the new patch to give overmuch feedback on it,  but I ran into one major issue with the ocean areas which is that it's possible to not HAVE any melee attacks, period.  I'm on Tier 2 spells, and there simply arent any.   And ammo attacks can usually only be used, at most, 4 or 5 times in an area, if that.   That's a pretty bad thing considering how important the ocean-shallows areas are, with the farming and whatnot.

This was the general idea; you can still practice avoidance in those segments if you just don't have any melee attacks.  Or you can go back to a tier 1 spell if you want.  There are about half the monsters that you can still strike with ranged attacks anyhow, and they are the ones that move faster and come for you more strongly.  All of the melee ones are slower and not ranged themselves, so that you actually can engage them in the melee.  It should always be possible to just dodge them except when things get too narrow, killing the other monsters for ammo as you go, and then cook off some strong ammo attacks on the melee-only enemies when they are literally blocking your way.  If you're running into a situation where that's not possible, I'd definitely like a save, though.

I think I was actually able to hit the desert sphinx in melee range using a non-melee spell (though not from a distance). I'll need to retest though.

There's definitely no way that would work.  It checks the ability in question, not the actual range.

[madcow]

Hmm, I'll double check this evening. I distinctly remember killing one without using a melee attack, and thought it was just due to being in melee range.

[x4000]

If it was ammo based...

[madcow]

I just double tested, I hit one with mudslide arc and launch rock. Got the blocked message, but the sphinx erm - vanished on one hit from either attack.

[x4000]

That's... quite odd.  I'll have a look at it, thanks.

[Misery]

That's... quite odd.  I'll have a look at it, thanks.

I think the enemies are teleporting, just like the player sometimes does when hit... that's what it seems to be anyway.   Like earlier, had a firewalker, right, shot at it a couple of times and then it.... vanished.   didn't die, just vanished.   But I went further into the area and found one of those wedged in an odd spot with less health than usual.   Pretty sure there's a mantis thing for this.


As for other things here....

I love the idea of the shallows areas and the focus on melee.   The only problem is.... it's possible to not have access to any melee attacks.  Which means big problems in those areas, as there's no way you'd have enough ammo to JUST use ammo spells.  Ran into this specific issue earlier with the tier 2 spells, didn't have even one melee attack among them.

Also, on mantis I suggested lowering the numbers of crawlers specifically in caves (other area types dont really need this).   They tend to be EVERYWHERE, and with enemies like the scorpions this can be.... a problem.   I mentioned the toads in the mantis thing as well, since it's hard to deal with 4 of their blasted whips at once.

And finally aaaaaaagh those damn eyeballs, takes too long to kill them (hadnt run into them till just earlier).  They're very hard to hit, and are kinda like mosquitos in that they love to show up when you're already dealing with other monsters.... having lower health wouldnt really lower the challenge level of these guys (particularly since they're pretty common and they drop lots and lots of those bombs), but would make for less of the running around chasing them like an idiot to get rid of them simply because most spells have major trouble ever hitting them.   They're actually a very good monster type other than the too-much-health bit.



And I ran into those Dark Imps for the first time earlier, good grief are THOSE guys ever mean!   It also taught me.... LOOK at all of the patch notes FIRST.   I mighta known NOT to shoot the big evil orb that splits into 4 of those horrors.   


Definitely liking most of these new monsters so far, though there's a good number of them that I still havent run into just yet.

[x4000]

Is the teleporting enemies and players thing new this release?  It seems to be new in terms of what I am seeing, although I've mainly noticed it with myself.

[madcow]

I don't think I've ever noticed that sort of thing before.

[x4000]

Coming next release:

* Players no longer collide with monsters; rather, they just take melee damage when the monsters and them are touching.
** This is something we'd planned for a long time, and somehow forgot.  The reasoning:
*** In Valley 1 we added the collisions to make it so that players couldn't just run through a big corridor of monsters while absorbing a bunch of hits.
*** However, that game is very different because you have far more health.  This game already encourages you not to take lots of hits by the fact that you have very limited amounts of health.
*** To make matters worse, in this game we made it so that when you are flashing invincible after just having taken a hit (which happens in this game but not Valley 1), you are able to move through monsters anyway.  So the whole thing with colliding with monsters was pretty pointless because it wasn't stopping you from running through them in the first place.
*** And to add insult to injury, if you came out of your temporary invincibility while still overlapping a monster, it would teleport either you or the monster due to it detecting an invalid position.  Bleh!
** All in all, this doesn't really affect the feel of the game since you're avoiding damage so much anyway.  But it does solve the teleporting issue.  Incidentally, Cave Story also has you not being solid to monsters, and possibly Super Metroid does as well, so we're not alone in this, heh.

[Misery]

Is the teleporting enemies and players thing new this release?  It seems to be new in terms of what I am seeing, although I've mainly noticed it with myself.

Yeah, this is new with this update.   Wasnt happening at all with the previous one.

When I see monsters do it, they just blink out of existence, no fading effects or sound effects or anything.    It seems that most any spell can trigger this with most any enemy.   They dont show damage numbers or anything when this happens either.

[madcow]

That sounds like what I was seeing when hitting a sphinx with non-Melee attacks.  So that is likely what happened.