Valley 2 Enters Private Alpha -- First Alpha Screens And Video!

[Neko_Baron]

As a note, I play entirely on the keyboard myself, while Josh uses the Gamepad.  I think Keith also uses the keyboard.

Adapting to the new controls when you're super familiar with the first game is hard, but if you take that out I think they're pretty straightforward.  Aiming at up and down angles without moving can be tricky, but generally you have time to line that up in advance.

Using keyboard only myself but due to the nature of too many keys needed to shoot in all directions while standing still I'm finding myself using classes with homing shots and casually spamming them then using the primary for anything directly in front, I can see the point of using an extra button for diagonal aiming since its really functional for the GBA metriod games however AVWW2 has a lot more vertical movement plus they actually did both diagonal directions with a single button hold that could be toggled up or down diagonally using the up/down key.

I think at the moment combat tends to feel overly tough in places due to the basic AI for most enemies, I can easily see it being a lot more interesting and flexible if boss fight get their own arena level designs and more pattern attacks since that's what the original AVWW was lacking for me.

[Hyfrydle]

I'm so used to using W,A,S and D as movement keys that I just get confused and this is worse in a battle situation. I will play around with key binds and see if I can come up with something to make it easier.

I suspect others may also find this difficult as W,A,S and D is the most popular layout for movement keys in games. I can't think of any games that use the cursor keys.

Apart from these control issues I'm enjoying the game but it's much harder that the first one or maybe I just need more practice :-)

[Hyfrydle]

I would really like the option to use the mouse to aim as in the original game.

[x4000]

The enemy balance is definitely a little bit off at the moment, because I'm quite good at it and tended to overshoot things.

In terms of boss design, by and large the boss rooms will always just be a kind of open room ala megaman.  But the various behaviors and attack patterns that the bosses have will be continually added to; right now there are half a dozen or so, with more opening up at various world levels.  But there will be a lot more coming.

[tigersfan]

I'm so used to using W,A,S and D as movement keys that I just get confused and this is worse in a battle situation. I will play around with key binds and see if I can come up with something to make it easier.

I suspect others may also find this difficult as W,A,S and D is the most popular layout for movement keys in games. I can't think of any games that use the cursor keys.

Apart from these control issues I'm enjoying the game but it's much harder that the first one or maybe I just need more practice :-)

Maybe it's because I've been playing PC games for too long, but, for me, the cursor keys are very natural, as they used to be the norm. I know it's less used now, but, when I was a kind, using WASD to move would have been very very odd.

[Nanashi]

I'm so used to using W,A,S and D as movement keys that I just get confused and this is worse in a battle situation. I will play around with key binds and see if I can come up with something to make it easier.

I suspect others may also find this difficult as W,A,S and D is the most popular layout for movement keys in games. I can't think of any games that use the cursor keys.

Apart from these control issues I'm enjoying the game but it's much harder that the first one or maybe I just need more practice :-)

Keyboard controlwise, WASD is mainly used for 3D games; for 2D platformers, arrow keys for movement and zxc et al. for actions is actually the standard.

edit: 2D fighters follow similar rules with keyboard controls. WASD in a fighter would just feel wrong.

[x4000]

I would really like the option to use the mouse to aim as in the original game.

That is one thing that has an absolutely zero percent chance of happening, and I'll definitely never be persuaded on that.  I know that will be a turnoff to some folks, but I have very good reasons that I've explained in the past.  From last time:

-The controls are also streamlined.  That whole mouse+keyboard thing was really a bad idea, as some players pointed out to us.  That sort of freedom of aiming really kills the classic Metroidvania style of a game like this, and makes it so that keyboard-only players and gamepad-only players are at a huge disadvantage.  So we're moving down to two streamline control schemes that are equivalent with one another: keyboard-based and gamepad-based.  And yes, the tab-targeting is gone since that basically acts like a cheat at this point without free-aiming of the mouse.

Please note!  We're not just taking away control options for kicks, or because we think people were "doing it wrong."  But the fact remains that generally a game is built around its controls, especially as an action game.  We're trying to maintain as much flexibility in the controls as we can while not making it so that people are playing fundamentally different games that we can't make universally fun.  Placing wooden platforms was trivial with the mouse, and so is killing a bat.  But it's incredibly frustrating with any other sort of input.  When you get right down to it, what we're trying to make is a Metroidvania game, and I don't personally know of any of them that use a mouse-style of control.  Hence we're going a bit more standardized with that, and I have to say the controls feel really good.

 Loss of the mouse controls and shield spells
Both of these things have an enormous impact on balance.  You could argue that these things are a matter of taste and customization, and I'd have to agree -- that's why they are in the first game, and why they remain there.  But these were one of the biggest ongoing challenges to balance in the first game for me, and they are things that really put large segments of the player populace at a disadvantage if they don't use them.

Here again, it comes to getting back to the roots of what we were trying to do.  Yes, Terraria uses the mouse controls -- so do numerous other PC action-adventure games with a 2D sidescroller view.  So do a lot of MMOs and RPGs.

In the first game we were really enticed by the allure of all those things, and so we let our design drift and become unfocused.  In other words, the design tried to become all things to all people, and Environ became a world that you could come and do whatever you wanted in.  That's pretty fun!  But it's very difficult to make a truly compelling game that way.  What we needed to do with the sequel was really focus, and make the original game we set out to do.

In terms of Mario Bros. games, what if Mario had a rocket launcher he could aim in any direction?  What if he had a force field he could toggle on and off periodically at will?  That might be entertaining for a bit, but that would fundamentally make a different game, I think.  And I don't think a better game -- for Mario, all the enemies are designed around him not having abilities like that.  So to give him those abilities means the levels would be crazy easy and hollow.

On the flip side, the game Intrusion 2 uses mechanics like aim-anywhere firing, and it's a brilliant game.  All the enemies are designed around the powers that your avatar has, and so everything fits together just right.  But of course the character there doesn't have the movement abilities that Mario does -- if the character there had that kind of speed and jumping ability, then I suspect its mechanics would really start to break down -- in the same way Mario would if you gave the wrong weapons to him.

 What I'm saying is, games are additive in nature -- you can't just throw any old thing in there and expect it to be the same game.  If you add a single new piece to Chess, you've dramatically changed that game.  It doesn't matter what the piece even does.

In the case of AVWW1, we had the movement speed of Mario 3 or so, and the aim-anywhere nature of Intrusion 2.  We also had control schemes that did not support aim-anywhere, and that made it so that players were playing two different games.  And that meant that enemies really couldn't be balanced around either, since in some cases could aim super-precisely and in others they could not aim remotely that well.  What a mess.

Again, I still think that really worked out pretty well in the main, but it's definitely a more niche experience and a bit rougher around the edges because of that.  By focusing on specifically the kind of game we're actually trying to make, and not dragging in stuff from other unrelated genres if it doesn't really complement it well, we have something that's a lot tighter and more fun.  It's not about taking options away from players it's about creating one game at a time rather than a whole soup of games.

And of course then we're adding tons of options in the style of the core gameplay that we're going for, too.  (As noted throughout the document above).  So there is that.

[chemical_art]

As Chris very pointedly stated, its not a good idea to have mouse. AVWW proved the natural evolution of trying to balance something involving that with keyboard support as well.

Now, I do have an idea for enabling diagonal shots. So far the Q and E shots are not used in 2Da (at least in my testing.)

Perhaps the <tab or q> and <e or r> key be used for diagonal shooting while standing still. It's intuitive, but would require hand movement, but generally the times you need to stand still and not move around dodging stuff means the few moments to move your hand is not so important.

Just an idea.

[x4000]

I'm not sure if I follow what you mean -- you can rebind to those keys if you prefer them, for sure...

[Hyfrydle]

I thought the mouse attack controls worked very well in the original game and the tab targeting also helped I just can't seem to get my head around the current control scheme so as it stands I guess it's not the game for me.

[chemical_art]

I'm not sure if I follow what you mean -- you can rebind to those keys if you prefer them, for sure...

Hot damn it's already done.

Once again Arcen preempting all my suggestions 

[x4000]

I thought the mouse attack controls worked very well in the original game and the tab targeting also helped I just can't seem to get my head around the current control scheme so as it stands I guess it's not the game for me.

I'm sorry to hear that -- I really, really am -- but we definitely knew that would be the case with some folks.  The first game tried to be all things to all players, though, and really suffered for it.

[x4000]

I'm not sure if I follow what you mean -- you can rebind to those keys if you prefer them, for sure...

Hot damn it's already done.

Once again Arcen preempting all my suggestions 

[chemical_art]

I thought the mouse attack controls worked very well in the original game and the tab targeting also helped I just can't seem to get my head around the current control scheme so as it stands I guess it's not the game for me.

I'm sorry to hear that -- I really, really am -- but we definitely knew that would be the case with some folks.  The first game tried to be all things to all players, though, and really suffered for it.

Chris on some level I can understand the desire. The decesion took a lot of courage and I'm sure wasn't easy.

However, at least from me, it has allowed to grow in a new direction. As I said before, in the first alpha alone I played more then all of AVWW. Things feel tight, intricate, and progressive. You have done a wonderful job.

[x4000]

Thanks a ton, chemical_art -- I know how skeptical you've been, so it means a lot that you've been enjoying yourself this time around.