Author Topic: Valley 2 Beta .807 "Melee Deux" Released!  (Read 5388 times)

Offline Nanashi

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Re: Valley 2 Beta .807 "Melee Deux" Released!
« Reply #15 on: February 14, 2013, 11:11:40 am »
Hmm, that actually sounds pretty good to me, but you might want to wait to see what Misery or other people's opinions on that are.  In my 2nd most recent game, the adventure game was pretty much over once I unlocked 6 windmills really early and got a 20% caliber bonus from perks making a 60 caliber normal shot cancel almost everything I ran across.

Oralordos does have a point that one of the reasons the current concentration system seems like a pretty good buff is because of the high caliber "power" you get.

I think one of the problems in it is that caliber is absolute between shots. Like, 1 80 caliber shot is going to win no matter how many 79 caliber shots you throw at it. Wouldn't it make sense that the 79 caliber shots should actually weaken it a little? Of course, changing that would probably require too much rebalance work, so it's probably not a good idea.
« Last Edit: February 14, 2013, 11:15:45 am by Nanashi »

Offline x4000

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Re: Valley 2 Beta .807 "Melee Deux" Released!
« Reply #16 on: February 14, 2013, 11:13:01 am »
I think that would pretty much go away, because there's not enough granularity in the system.

BUT, potentially what we could do is make it so that for each level of concentration, there is a (10% * concentrationLevel) chance that a shot's caliber would be considered High instead of whatever it normally is (if it is lower than High).

That might keep some of the flavor of what you like there.  Thoughts?
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Offline x4000

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Re: Valley 2 Beta .807 "Melee Deux" Released!
« Reply #17 on: February 14, 2013, 11:14:22 am »
Yeah, for the caliber perks those would also need to be redefined again.  I think that in their case they would be a 10% chance for a shot to be considered 1 higher than whatever it is.  So that wouldn't let you obliterate enemy spells with your Low caliber shots, but it would let you cancel out up to 30% of their Normal caliber shots with your own shots.  Given a faster firing rate, I think that could be pretty well balanced.
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Offline Nanashi

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Re: Valley 2 Beta .807 "Melee Deux" Released!
« Reply #18 on: February 14, 2013, 11:20:27 am »
Well, my most immediate impression (I can't say it'll be unilaterally good) is that it's a pretty elegant solution.

The current caliber system has one fatal flaw in that we have no idea what enemy shot calibers are outside of trial and error, which is not necessarily a bad thing, but does make the game more complicated. If you do away with all of that arbitrary power level stuff and just change it to 4 levels it *will* definitely be more elegant, but of course, it might create a bunch of balance issues.

I really don't know if random caliber increases is the right solution though. You'd have to ask more people about that.
« Last Edit: February 14, 2013, 11:22:12 am by Nanashi »

Offline Pepisolo

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Re: Valley 2 Beta .807 "Melee Deux" Released!
« Reply #19 on: February 14, 2013, 11:33:54 am »
I actually like this simplification a lot. Things would be a lot clearer to the player in what caliber beats which other caliber. It also makes balancing a lot easier. Just a shame that the concentration caliber bonus is going to be affected. It's nice to get a full concentration bonus and know that you are going be able to wipe the floor with your enemies projectiles for a time at least -- after all you've earned it.

Quote
BUT, potentially what we could do is make it so that for each level of concentration, there is a (10% * concentrationLevel) chance that a shot's caliber would be considered High instead of whatever it normally is (if it is lower than High).

Definitely something along these lines would be nice. There might be a better way to do this, though. Personally I like knowing 100% that the caliber bonus is going to be working for me rather than having a random chance of it working for me. I'll think on this a bit more, it's the only flaw in what seems like a great simplification of the caliber system.

Offline Gemzo

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Re: Valley 2 Beta .807 "Melee Deux" Released!
« Reply #20 on: February 14, 2013, 11:58:50 am »
I also personally am against making it random, and am going to throw out my suggestion on how to go about it.

Instead of each shot just winning or losing, each shot has HP equal to its caliber. When two shots collide, the shot with larger caliber loses HP equal to an amount based on the losing shot's caliber. The smaller the losing shot is compared to the winning shot, the less damage the winning shot receives (even 100 pistol shots won't beat a tank). If a shot wins enough clashes that its HP reaches 0, it will be destroyed along with the final shot unless it was of high enough caliber to win anyway. If two colliding shots are equal in caliber or close enough, they both should be destroyed.

This might sound a little complicated but it's really as simple as "you can damage enemy shots to shoot them down, but instead of using the spell's damage stat it goes by the caliber."

Offline x4000

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Re: Valley 2 Beta .807 "Melee Deux" Released!
« Reply #21 on: February 14, 2013, 12:21:56 pm »
I like that a lot, Gemzo -- that solves much of the problem!
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Offline nas1m

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Re: Valley 2 Beta .807 "Melee Deux" Released!
« Reply #22 on: February 14, 2013, 12:35:18 pm »
I would be pacified by both solutions as long as there are some spells that allow for a "block-enemy-attacks"-playstyle - go for it!

PS: BTW, Chris, are you still planning on implementing the "sword-arc" visual effect mentioned in some other thread? Or did this idea die along with the touch-range spells?
« Last Edit: February 14, 2013, 12:37:24 pm by nas1m »
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Offline Mick

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Re: Valley 2 Beta .807 "Melee Deux" Released!
« Reply #23 on: February 14, 2013, 12:38:46 pm »
I like the idea of the enumerated caliber levels a lot. I don't like the numbers because they seem so meaningless to me when I don't know the caliber number behind the enemies spells.

Offline x4000

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Re: Valley 2 Beta .807 "Melee Deux" Released!
« Reply #24 on: February 14, 2013, 12:48:06 pm »
PS: BTW, Chris, are you still planning on implementing the "sword-arc" visual effect mentioned in some other thread? Or did this idea die along with the touch-range spells?

Yep, that died on the table.  I had been thinking of doing something along those lines, but changed my mind.
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Offline AmatsuDF

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Re: Valley 2 Beta .807 "Melee Deux" Released!
« Reply #25 on: February 14, 2013, 05:54:41 pm »
Been playing with this update quite a bit, most concerns and opinions match prior posts. Instead I'll offer a problem instead.
http://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=127201029
Found this in a Level Up Windmill. It is inescapable without Double Jump (or possibly some sort of jump height boosting perk or equipment). Not sure if this is intended, if I need to provide a save file to check into this, lemme know what file(s) I need to upload somewhere.

Offline x4000

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Re: Valley 2 Beta .807 "Melee Deux" Released!
« Reply #26 on: February 14, 2013, 06:07:07 pm »
If you have a world file of your game with you standing in it, we'll be able to fix it.  Thanks!
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Offline Mick

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Re: Valley 2 Beta .807 "Melee Deux" Released!
« Reply #27 on: February 14, 2013, 08:55:43 pm »
Wiki says it is out, you are killing me here.  :P

Offline Misery

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Re: Valley 2 Beta .807 "Melee Deux" Released!
« Reply #28 on: February 14, 2013, 08:59:56 pm »
I also personally am against making it random, and am going to throw out my suggestion on how to go about it.

Instead of each shot just winning or losing, each shot has HP equal to its caliber. When two shots collide, the shot with larger caliber loses HP equal to an amount based on the losing shot's caliber. The smaller the losing shot is compared to the winning shot, the less damage the winning shot receives (even 100 pistol shots won't beat a tank). If a shot wins enough clashes that its HP reaches 0, it will be destroyed along with the final shot unless it was of high enough caliber to win anyway. If two colliding shots are equal in caliber or close enough, they both should be destroyed.

This might sound a little complicated but it's really as simple as "you can damage enemy shots to shoot them down, but instead of using the spell's damage stat it goes by the caliber."


It's not a bad idea, but I can think of multiple problems with this one.

First, there's the obvious balance issues..... something that's probably beyond solving this close to release.  A major change like that seems very.... heavy.... for such a late point in the beta.  I can guess at alot of not foreseen problems popping up with all sorts of spells because of this.

But the other problem is more of how it would work compared to how the current system works.   In the current system, let's say, it's me VS a monster that fires out a steady stream of shots at me, whichever monster that might be.    In the current system, if I have a higher caliber, I can pop the thing's shots, and bam, it's done.   But with an HP system.... it ends up being more like "stand there and keep firing until they EVENTUALLY get through", because you'd have to lower the HP of each shot before they'd break.   The challenge here doesnt really increase because of this, it simply takes longer.  A system like this is also likely to be completely useless against any enemy that moves too much;  you can count on it for enemies that DONT move much, because you know where their bullet stream is going to be, but lots of enemies DO move alot, and often rather erratically... against these foes, there's no point in worrying about caliber if it cant break through in one go, as with a slower system, by the time you break the shots, they're already gone  (as in, the enemy has moved to a new position, requiring you to change your aim now).  It's simpler just to dodge and hit the enemy directly.   Even simple wall crawlers would cause this to sorta break down.   I'm not going to try to use shots defensively against enemy bullets either if it takes more than a single strike to pop the shots, either, because that means more time spent firing at the enemy bullets JUST to break them, while other things are still going on and potentially attacking me....

Part of this is as always my own general absolute lack of patience, so keep that in mind, but those are the problems I see with that idea.   I would honestly probably just ignore the whole system after a change like that.    Doing anything that involves any randomness also is one that seems like it'd be a mistake.   
« Last Edit: February 14, 2013, 09:01:50 pm by Misery »

Offline x4000

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Re: Valley 2 Beta .807 "Melee Deux" Released!
« Reply #29 on: February 14, 2013, 09:12:14 pm »
Wiki says it is out, you are killing me here.  :P

Sorry about that!  The new one is out now: http://www.arcengames.com/forums/index.php/topic,12467.0.html

:)
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