Valley 2 Beta .803 "Just Give It To Me Straight, Okay?" Released!

[x4000]

Original: http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2013/02/valley-2-beta-803-just-give-it-to-me.html

This one is the second release for the day.  I thought about calling it "HUD 2: The HUDDING," but decided against it.  Suffice it to say, the thing I'm most excited about in this release are the massive improvements to the main GUI and various sub-menus in the interface.  Here's a screenshot!

Note that my character is level 16 and has basically all the perks for health turned on in order to get a life bar that big.  So he's a bit of a health tank but not that strong in terms of his output.  Also he's basically out of ammo, so the ammo donut has shrunk down out of sight in the bottom of the HUD; that icon is still there.  Note that it now labels what the donut is, and also labels the ammo cost of the fourth spell slot, too, though.

Really, though, the biggest thing in this release from a non-existing-player's standpoint are a whole plethora of improvements to help them get into the game easier.  Some of these improvements also just make life easier for existing players -- it's nothing changing the core game itself, just more interface and documentation items, mainly.

There's also now a new cheats window that you can open up with the L key when you have cheats mode on, and it lets you do a ton of cheaty stuff.  More to the point, this is actually the bulk of our internal debugging menu, and some players wanted access to this stuff to help them with testing (which is why we have it in the first place for ourselves).

Oh yeah!  And there is now a low-pitched, non-annoying text scroll sound effect for dialogue like old-school games generally had, emphasizing the old-school roots the game has.  I'm really grateful to Pepisolo for suggesting this, and I need to really remember to also put this into Shattered Haven as soon as I have a chance.  It really adds a lot, I think.

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!

[Aklyon]

Zelda-style hearts and an ammo cost display?

Awesome.

[x4000]

The screenshots make me a little happier just seeing them at all now, honestly.  Those hearts just make me happy.

[Pepisolo]

Had to test this quick for 5 minutes before sleeping. The new HUD stuff is great! It's amazing how much of a difference that and the new dialogue sound makes. Feels like a new game in a way. A new old-school game. Good work!

[AmatsuDF]

This is some epic work. I have one thing to comment on, though, and I don't think there's a thread on it. It's in regards to the map editor. My computer resolution is 1366x768 (yeah, I got one of those oddball monitors), and I can't see all the options for placing things in the editor. Not sure if I should open a seperate thread for this issue or what the proceedure is, so I'll let folks here correct me as needed.

[Aklyon]

Its not an oddball monitor, its an average-sized laptop monitor as far as I know.

[AmatsuDF]

This is a desktop, so I guess for a desktop it's different, but for a laptop it's okay.

[Billick]

I played a full game over the course of the last couple days after not playing for several patches.  I really like the new mechanics in the strategy game.  The new monsters and new artwork are great!  I love the hearts for health too!

And the obligatory constructive feedback:

- Caves still feel a bit long to me.  It doesn't really seem worth the effort to get the perk tokens.  The destroyed robotic tower levels are also way too long in my opinion. 
- Coins are sliding on the ground after they fall.  I'm not sure if this is intentional or a bug, but it's causing issues like the coins falling in lava or getting stuck in places. 
- The coin achievements still aren't working
- There should be an early game explanation for deep gates in the tutorial.  They are very difficult to deal with if you aren't prepared for them.  I do like them though.
- Late game seems too easy compared to early game in both the strategy and platforming parts (I'm playing rook/adept).  I ended my last game with >3000 food.  Demonaica went down in 1 hit the last time I faced him.  The tier 5 spells are just too powerful I think.  Early game feels about right for challenge for both.

Overall it's looking good!

[MouldyK]

The new sounds make such a change to the game.

[Misery]

I played a full game over the course of the last couple days after not playing for several patches.  I really like the new mechanics in the strategy game.  The new monsters and new artwork are great!  I love the hearts for health too!

And the obligatory constructive feedback:

- Caves still feel a bit long to me.  It doesn't really seem worth the effort to get the perk tokens.  The destroyed robotic tower levels are also way too long in my opinion. 
- Coins are sliding on the ground after they fall.  I'm not sure if this is intentional or a bug, but it's causing issues like the coins falling in lava or getting stuck in places. 
- The coin achievements still aren't working
- There should be an early game explanation for deep gates in the tutorial.  They are very difficult to deal with if you aren't prepared for them.  I do like them though.
- Late game seems too easy compared to early game in both the strategy and platforming parts (I'm playing rook/adept).  I ended my last game with >3000 food.  Demonaica went down in 1 hit the last time I faced him.  The tier 5 spells are just too powerful I think.  Early game feels about right for challenge for both.

Overall it's looking good!

I can agree that caves are a little on the long side.

As for the perks though.... alot of that is going to depend on the difficulty level.   On Adept, which is to me pretty easy, the things didn't seem very important.   But on higher ones.... yeah.  NEED them.  Not getting those things, and thus not having the options and power that they give, is just asking for a whole lot of deaths on the higher difficulties.


As the coins go.... honestly, they seem a little extraneous to me.  Like, they're in the game again now, but I'm kinda lost on the point of the things, as they ONLY appear from bosses.  The mercenary thing seems mostly forgettable at this point.  Heck, I usually forget the things even exist until a boss pops and spits them out, and then afterwards I forget again.

[Nanashi]

I actually wanted to post this a day ago, in order to proclaim my undying hatred of the current charge shot, but encountered an error with the forums.

That image below shows the potential damage a fresh apothekinecist does with bombs. They're unwieldy, but they're good enough to oneshot most trivial monsters, and they don't have issues with pinging off higher caliber enemy spells. Apothekinecist is actually at a good point right now, because the class is a huge leap forwards from what it was before. Its main issues are that the ammo spell is still overcosted given how un-useful it is (it's terrible in any place with a low ceiling) and it has absolutely no appropriate tools (except perhaps the ammo spell, which is hardly a useful compromise) to handle free-fall sections, making you a falling duck. You fall faster than your primary shot.

I'm very convinced that fully charged spells need to be at least half as powerful, or at the very least, to pierce enemies. Valley 2 doesn't actually seem to have many piercing shots, probably due to the caliber system. Sometimes I even think I'd enjoy the gameplay more if there was a way to turn it off so that monsters aren't completely trivialised if you have a spammable higher caliber shot than them, and you aren't buried by a spawn of large monsters with high caliber curtain fire.

edit: Weird bug where the new guy with the beard and the lightbulb sticking out the back of his head gets female names under the random generator, like "Melody" and "Melinda". Unless women grow beards as a fashion statement in that era. They're kind of obviously morphs of the last guy/bald guy though

One last comment: If you're going to move hearts over to the top left corner, could you assign an option to move ammo there as well? I dislike having to scan two different areas for a quick understanding of my current situation. Spells and equipment can stay on the bottom, because their values don't change quite as often. Think of it as a QoL feature.

[Mick]

- Coins are sliding on the ground after they fall.  I'm not sure if this is intentional or a bug, but it's causing issues like the coins falling in lava or getting stuck in places. 

Nothing makes me hate those text interjections more than watching that coin slip slide away out of my reach during it.

I think it would be nicer if they shower out in a *small* arc, and then bounce in place once or twice when they touch the ground (cause screw physics!)

[madcow]

Love the heart display change. When I first started to play the old display really bothered me, I got used to it, but I love the new Zelda display.

Edit:  when I read the suggestion for a sound effect when people talked I was worried about it being a Charlie Brown like noise. The text scroll one instead is good. And combines well with the heart display. Now just need our main character saying "..."

[Mick]

We need a constant, obnoxious beeping sound whenever our health gets below a certain value.

[MouldyK]

We need a constant, obnoxious beeping sound whenever our health gets below a certain value.

Going old-school does not mean we have to thave the bad parts in too!