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

[c4sc4]

Aye, enemies in Metroid almost never fired at you, particularly in the very first game.

Not to mention that, to be fair, for the most part the Metroid series (not the Prime games, never played those)  is just absurdly easy as a whole.   Often in a Metroid game, within one hour you generally have so much health that NOTHING except the actual Metroids and MAYBE the bosses could kill you.   Heck, in the first game you're basically invincible once you have one energy tank and the Varia.

Glad to see that's NOT the case with this game, since that particular problem is something that nearly all Metroid-vania games seem to have.

Yeah but I feel like this game may have taken it too far in the other direction. Being killed in 3 hits is not exactly fun, if you make a mistake or two, it often leads to your death. Also, now that some of the spells got nerfed, it means that it takes multiple hits to kill an enemy than can one shot me.

[Martyn van Buren]

I wrote to Josh about this, but I am also Mac-only.  Will there be another round of PMs when that version comes out, or how will we know?

[LaughingThesaurus]

Aye, enemies in Metroid almost never fired at you, particularly in the very first game.

Not to mention that, to be fair, for the most part the Metroid series (not the Prime games, never played those)  is just absurdly easy as a whole.   Often in a Metroid game, within one hour you generally have so much health that NOTHING except the actual Metroids and MAYBE the bosses could kill you.   Heck, in the first game you're basically invincible once you have one energy tank and the Varia.

Glad to see that's NOT the case with this game, since that particular problem is something that nearly all Metroid-vania games seem to have.

Yeah but I feel like this game may have taken it too far in the other direction. Being killed in 3 hits is not exactly fun, if you make a mistake or two, it often leads to your death. Also, now that some of the spells got nerfed, it means that it takes multiple hits to kill an enemy than can one shot me.

Yeah... I'm more kind of a fan of, say, the challenge of Order of Ecclesia. Even if you're not on Hard Mode (Artificial +60 damage to all damage you take), the game is very dangerous. Why? Because you're a very powerful spellcaster. Sure, you're strong, but you die very quickly. So, what you do is you have to attack each enemy tactically, by using their respective weakness. I went for that in this game, but what I mainly ended up with was being very good against a couple of enemies, and completely terrible against every other one... because you can't switch spells on the fly or anything. I loved the challenge of Ecclesia. I loved the fact that you needed to be quick and careful and tactical, but I would not put the very-quick-death kind of gameplay on normal mode. The way the game feels, in some cases...

Featherweight: Normal mode
Adept: Hard mode
The Chosen One: Hard Max Lv 1 (as in, all enemies move faster, deal +60 damage, and you are locked in to 120 HP. Most of the time, harder enemies are placed earlier. You die in one hit later in the game. If you do a fresh run of this, you will almost always die in one hit.).

Ultimately... I think diving into the default difficulty should be a fairly winnable experience. That's even the case in AI War. When you know what's going on, difficulty 7 is a joke to at least a lot of the vets here. And, playing on the easiest difficulty should make the game a complete joke to anybody who ever plays it... which is also how things work in AI War. My opinion is that the difficulty settings are each about 2 notches too high. The fundamental way that the game works definitely doesn't need changing, but I hate the idea of making a couple of mistakes and dying immediately for it. The fact that it makes me restart entire caves and stuff just compounds frustration, without any meaningful penalty. Maybe it's okay to other people, but I like actually feeling a sense of progress. I went and got a couple perks. That +1 HP seemed to make enemies do more damage to me and I felt like I just died more quickly for all it helped. I really don't feel like the level of difficulty I'm getting is what I bargained for.
I'm taking a break from the game now (I have been for a lot of the day, but I kept going back to keep hunting down more things to provide input on. I might start another game on featherweight so I can at least get a bit further. If I keep dying there, then that will only further cement the idea that "Yeah, the difficulty needs serious tweaking". I get the sense that this isn't the focus though, so I'm not holding my breath quite yet.

[kaboro]

I've played more in one night of alpha in AVWW 2 then I did in all my time of AVWW.

If you didn't like AVWW why are you still here?

[Misery]

Aye, enemies in Metroid almost never fired at you, particularly in the very first game.

Not to mention that, to be fair, for the most part the Metroid series (not the Prime games, never played those)  is just absurdly easy as a whole.   Often in a Metroid game, within one hour you generally have so much health that NOTHING except the actual Metroids and MAYBE the bosses could kill you.   Heck, in the first game you're basically invincible once you have one energy tank and the Varia.

Glad to see that's NOT the case with this game, since that particular problem is something that nearly all Metroid-vania games seem to have.

Yeah but I feel like this game may have taken it too far in the other direction. Being killed in 3 hits is not exactly fun, if you make a mistake or two, it often leads to your death. Also, now that some of the spells got nerfed, it means that it takes multiple hits to kill an enemy than can one shot me.

Yeah... I'm more kind of a fan of, say, the challenge of Order of Ecclesia. Even if you're not on Hard Mode (Artificial +60 damage to all damage you take), the game is very dangerous. Why? Because you're a very powerful spellcaster. Sure, you're strong, but you die very quickly. So, what you do is you have to attack each enemy tactically, by using their respective weakness. I went for that in this game, but what I mainly ended up with was being very good against a couple of enemies, and completely terrible against every other one... because you can't switch spells on the fly or anything. I loved the challenge of Ecclesia. I loved the fact that you needed to be quick and careful and tactical, but I would not put the very-quick-death kind of gameplay on normal mode. The way the game feels, in some cases...

Featherweight: Normal mode
Adept: Hard mode
The Chosen One: Hard Max Lv 1 (as in, all enemies move faster, deal +60 damage, and you are locked in to 120 HP. Most of the time, harder enemies are placed earlier. You die in one hit later in the game. If you do a fresh run of this, you will almost always die in one hit.).

Ultimately... I think diving into the default difficulty should be a fairly winnable experience. That's even the case in AI War. When you know what's going on, difficulty 7 is a joke to at least a lot of the vets here. And, playing on the easiest difficulty should make the game a complete joke to anybody who ever plays it... which is also how things work in AI War. My opinion is that the difficulty settings are each about 2 notches too high. The fundamental way that the game works definitely doesn't need changing, but I hate the idea of making a couple of mistakes and dying immediately for it. The fact that it makes me restart entire caves and stuff just compounds frustration, without any meaningful penalty. Maybe it's okay to other people, but I like actually feeling a sense of progress. I went and got a couple perks. That +1 HP seemed to make enemies do more damage to me and I felt like I just died more quickly for all it helped. I really don't feel like the level of difficulty I'm getting is what I bargained for.
I'm taking a break from the game now (I have been for a lot of the day, but I kept going back to keep hunting down more things to provide input on. I might start another game on featherweight so I can at least get a bit further. If I keep dying there, then that will only further cement the idea that "Yeah, the difficulty needs serious tweaking". I get the sense that this isn't the focus though, so I'm not holding my breath quite yet.

Honestly, I think the game just takes a bit of practice.

I'm playing on "skilled" myself, and really, basically *every* death I have is just the result of an invisible enemy;  either a bat or a glitched out crawler monkey.  I'll probably up the difficulty for my next run, as it's a little easy otherwise.

The best hints I can give are 1. Take it SLOWLY.  This game seems to be the direct opposite of the first:  You cannot just rush by heaps of enemies and ignore them like you could in that one, and every single enemy or enemy group becomes an encounter that requires caution, and proper use of spells.  And 2, really learn the spells...  MOST of them are useful in some way.   I'm only aware of a couple that arent.... the Blinding Flash ammo spell is the main one I can think of, that one's pretty worthless.   Other than that.... I've found good uses for most spells so far.  It's also important to consider choosing a different class depending on what you're running into in a specific area.  Exiting, changing class, and reentering is often a better idea than trying to just keep going anyway.


As the perks go.... I've wondered about those myself.   They mostly seem to just not matter.... a 5% damage buff to one type of spell basically means squat to me, and this seems to be the case with almost all of the perks.... I'm almost wondering if I cant just ignore them.   Do the level-up towers even DO anything else?   Those things seem like ALOT of work to go through to get a mostly useless reward.  I've not noticed any other effects from those except just the perks.   The only perk I've seen that really has an effect is the +1 heart one, and that's pretty much it.   MAYBE the movement speed one.   But nothing that's worth the long trek through the caves, or the bosses of the towers.  Overall these just seem much, much too weak.   And so far, those doll items that give new ones seem to be pretty much the ONLY thing to get in many areas.


As for enemies one-shotting the player..... I honestly have not seen this.  Unless I step on an invisible crawler monkey, and those dont count.

[LaughingThesaurus]

The thing is, I understand that I'm supposed to just be careful. It's not like I'm saying that the game is impossible, here. I'm saying that it really, really needs toned down for the default difficulty because of how tiny the margin for error actually is. I mean it, if they could just add two difficulties on top of the highest, and make Adept about what Featherweight is, or reduce the damage on Adept and use normal damage on Skilled or something, then you'd be able to make it through on Adept, and be challenged on higher settings because you want to be. I don't think a ridiculously hard gaming experience should by any means be the default. Complex, sure. I love the utility of spells, and I've made use of each spell to a rather unique potential that I did not expect. What I don't like is how I can make 3 blunders and be completely dead... which makes me restart the area with no change at all... which makes me want to rush... which makes me die more quickly. The crawler monkeys are more ridiculous because of how they can get stuck in the ground and knock me down by 2.1 health from my 5.0 that I have by default. That's absolutely ridiculous. Blind falls in caves into bat-filled rooms happen, I've been blockaded by enemy projectiles, and my only saving grace was me being lucky that I had a spell that would destroy them. It's not like it's impossible to solve these problems, but getting only a chance to mess up means there's no room for me TO solve these problems.

I do, on the other hand, agree with you on the perks. Stuff like +5% damage or +1 HP are things that I question actually make a difference in the amount of hits it takes to kill, or hits you can survive.

Ultimately, I guess it depends on whether they want you to always be a glass cannon. I mean, the balance is ongoing and all that, and if it does get changed, I'll be happy and I'll play the heck out of this. I love the strategy, and I feel like the strategy actually is a lot more clear-cut than surviving the action segments of the game. I don't understand why I can have such an incredible amount of trouble with the action part, but not even come close to worrying about food or scrap on the other hand... especially when strategy is what I'm actually bad at. It's weird that, as someone very good at action games, I struggle the most with the action parts of this game, having more or less mastered every other Metroidvania that I've played.

[chemical_art]

I've played more in one night of alpha in AVWW 2 then I did in all my time of AVWW.

If you didn't like AVWW why are you still here?

It's a bit more nuanced then that.

I'm a bit fan of arcen due to AI War. Most of my time here is devoted to that. I want arcen to succeed because  they are such an awesome group for so many reasons. The fact I call them "group" and not "company" is a testament to how I enjoy them.

I've tried AVWW and wanted to enjoy it, but could not. The game felt too directionless for me. I still kept some degree of interest. One time I had a very great conversation with someone whom I frequently have great, spirited conversations in which we had tons of agreement with what AVWW did wrong. Then, less then a month later, AVWW 2 was announced, and it addressed at least 75% of what was wrong in our opinions on some level.

So of course now I'm stoked, and AVWW 2 for me delivers what I had hoped AVWW 1 would be. It has clear, immediate goals with clear, short, meaningful steps. The platforming is in short, intense bursts combined with clear, meaningful strategic goals. Becoming more powerful is very clear both in stats, gameplay, and in appearance. The big boss is a meaningful force that the character has a very real reason to hate. The player is not drifting from person to person, but feels some sort of connection to their character (and with a great explanation for how they respawn). 

[chemical_art]

@LaughingThesaurus

Part of being in an alpha is that we cannot expect the game to work as intended. The fact the game can be played from start to finish makes it a glorious  alpha already.

Chris already has said the game is too tough, and it was part of the result of him being too used to the game. As someone who has designed scenarios I understand, when you make something you inherently know the counters in whatever form it can be.

So we, as alpha players, are literally in some ways "guina pigs" so I feel any complaints must be taken not with a grain of salt, but a whole shaker of it. It's just the nature of the situation. If you want polish you play the beta, if you want the privilage of first access you take the bitter with the sweet.

The second alpha build compared to the first is already easier in significant ways, and I won't give specifics except through PM's because I want maintain the desire of waves of alpha players to each have a unique experience, and I ask everyone who wants to comment to give general, and not specific, complaints until alpha is done.

[Misery]

The thing is, I understand that I'm supposed to just be careful. It's not like I'm saying that the game is impossible, here. I'm saying that it really, really needs toned down for the default difficulty because of how tiny the margin for error actually is. I mean it, if they could just add two difficulties on top of the highest, and make Adept about what Featherweight is, or reduce the damage on Adept and use normal damage on Skilled or something, then you'd be able to make it through on Adept, and be challenged on higher settings because you want to be. I don't think a ridiculously hard gaming experience should by any means be the default. Complex, sure. I love the utility of spells, and I've made use of each spell to a rather unique potential that I did not expect. What I don't like is how I can make 3 blunders and be completely dead... which makes me restart the area with no change at all... which makes me want to rush... which makes me die more quickly. The crawler monkeys are more ridiculous because of how they can get stuck in the ground and knock me down by 2.1 health from my 5.0 that I have by default. That's absolutely ridiculous. Blind falls in caves into bat-filled rooms happen, I've been blockaded by enemy projectiles, and my only saving grace was me being lucky that I had a spell that would destroy them. It's not like it's impossible to solve these problems, but getting only a chance to mess up means there's no room for me TO solve these problems.

I do, on the other hand, agree with you on the perks. Stuff like +5% damage or +1 HP are things that I question actually make a difference in the amount of hits it takes to kill, or hits you can survive.

Ultimately, I guess it depends on whether they want you to always be a glass cannon. I mean, the balance is ongoing and all that, and if it does get changed, I'll be happy and I'll play the heck out of this. I love the strategy, and I feel like the strategy actually is a lot more clear-cut than surviving the action segments of the game. I don't understand why I can have such an incredible amount of trouble with the action part, but not even come close to worrying about food or scrap on the other hand... especially when strategy is what I'm actually bad at. It's weird that, as someone very good at action games, I struggle the most with the action parts of this game, having more or less mastered every other Metroidvania that I've played.

At least the crawler monkeys are mostly just trouble due to glitches.... they'll get fixed when the devs have time to do it.    And bats, I'm guessing that SOMETHING (possibly the very high spawn rate) will change about them, since most complaints seem to be along the lines of "ARGH BATS" in the current version of the game;   that alone might make a HUGE difference.    All of the other enemies in the game so far, I actually think work out very, very well...... but the bats seem to make EVERYTHING more frustrating than it currently is.    My biggest problem with it right now as I mentioned in the other thread, is the dark areas.... same as with the first game, I dont like the lighting mechanics much.   BUT.   Just changing the bats around would make those ALOT more tolerable.   Wouldnt be perfect, but it wouldnt drive me totally up the wall either.


Other than that bats though.... I really dont see the game as all that hard yet.   As you said, there's alot of strategy and tactics to each non-bat encounter, lots and lots of different ways to use all of the spells (well, most of them anyway).  And the game has alot of satisfying moments too.... those areas where enemies spawn a zillion projectiles can be nasty, but clearing a spot like that anyway is very satisfying.   So long as it's not also full of bats, then it's just really irritating.   But still, even if I'm taking hits, I seem to recover pretty fast.   

Again though, the bats warp the difficulty to a point where it otherwise might not be.   There's also the fact that only so many enemies are in the game right now; the enemy variety in each area is likely to be MUCH more balanced once they're all implemented.

So, yeah...... bats.   Argh.

@LaughingThesaurus

Part of being in an alpha is that we cannot expect the game to work as intended. The fact the game can be played from start to finish makes it a glorious  alpha already.

Chris already has said the game is too tough, and it was part of the result of him being too used to the game. As someone who has designed scenarios I understand, when you make something you inherently know the counters in whatever form it can be.

So we, as alpha players, are literally in some ways "guina pigs" so I feel any complaints must be taken not with a grain of salt, but a whole shaker of it. It's just the nature of the situation. If you want polish you play the beta, if you want the privilage of first access you take the bitter with the sweet.

The second alpha build compared to the first is already easier in significant ways, and I won't give specifics except through PM's because I want maintain the desire of waves of alpha players to each have a unique experience, and I ask everyone who wants to comment to give general, and not specific, complaints until alpha is done.

Yeah, I agree with this as well. 

I came into this expecting to end up shouting at the screen though, at least, hah.   Such is the nature of alphas/betas, and I've been in plenty that were muuuuuuuuuuuuch buggier and more unbalanced.

[LaughingThesaurus]

Yeah, I haven't really been a part of any alpha testing before, so I do make extra extra sure that I don't actually lower my opinion of the game unless it's actually hitting 1.0 with complaints that I still have. Debating about it being too tough isn't really all that worth it, but my biggest worry really was that I was just missing something, just because I remembered hearing that the health was almost like "energy tanks in Metroid" or something. So, I'll drop that. Everybody gets the point by now. in fact, they got the point before I said anything.
I'll be revisiting it tomorrow probably on Featherweight, so I can properly check out the later stages of the game. It's been plenty of fun so far, and all of the stuff that I've said have been more or less all of my complaints about it. The rest of it is resoundingly positive!

What I will say is on the subject of metroidvanias giving you way too much health, I point to Metroid Fusion and Castlevania: Order of Ecclesia. In Metroid Fusion, many enemies later on will do more than an energy tank of damage to you in a hit. If you were able to skip suit upgrades, you'd take over 600 damage from certain things... not to mention the SA-X, which has a stressful 20 second or so long chase sequence where getting hit 5 or 6 times by her penetrating and freezing weapon will kill you... IF you have all of the energy tanks up to that point. And Ecclesia has the whole "You're a spellcaster on a solo adventure" thing that I described. So I mean, you can have loads of health and it still be hard.

[c4sc4]

As for enemies one-shotting the player..... I honestly have not seen this.  Unless I step on an invisible crawler monkey, and those dont count.

In my first world, when I chose my character, all the choices had very low health, like 1 or 2 hearts. Being my first time playing, I had no idea how low that really was so I chose a character with 2 hearts. I gave up on that world fairly quickly since I would die in 1 or 2 hits. I don't think characters should be able to start with that low of health, it really is just going to cause players to have a frustrating experience.

[Misery]

As for enemies one-shotting the player..... I honestly have not seen this.  Unless I step on an invisible crawler monkey, and those dont count.

In my first world, when I chose my character, all the choices had very low health, like 1 or 2 hearts. Being my first time playing, I had no idea how low that really was so I chose a character with 2 hearts. I gave up on that world fairly quickly since I would die in 1 or 2 hits. I don't think characters should be able to start with that low of health, it really is just going to cause players to have a frustrating experience.

Yeah, the initial character rolls dont seem as balanced as they could be.  A character starting with 2 hearts instead of 3, and getting, say, a 15% attack boost in return, or speed boost..... NOT worth that trade-off.  Each single heart is pretty major..... a tradeoff of 1 heart for, say, a 50% boost, would seem alot better balanced to me.   Just like with the perks;  if one of the perks for a level is the +1 heart one, that's ALWAYS the one to take.... none of the others (that I've seen so far) even come remotely close to being worth that.

[Gemzo]

The thing is, you get a LOT more HP by end game, so starting with 1 or 2 HP is essentially "I want earlygame to be a ragefest and so I can have a lot of +damage or ammo and make up for my low HP by endgame" Since that does not sound so fun, I would really make the minimum starting HP 3 (even this is pretty low). Maybe give the player the option to tweak it lower to 1 or 2 as a challenge or something but it shouldn't be available in normal random selection. Also perhaps guarantee the player will start with lv1 +HP perk, as that's quite significant.

Also, since there was some confusion about level up towers and perks, I'll explain a little bit more thoroughly. You have access to perks equal to your level. At level 2 you have a level 1 and 2 perk. Each perk starts with 2 of 4 to choose from. you can unlock more choices by finding perk tokens in caves and a few other strucutres. Lower level perks are unlocked by these tokens first. The max level is 21 I believe, and later perks give more stats than earlier ones (like 2 HP). Leveling up is also related to something besides perks that will be essential to victory...But I'll leave that for you to discover.

[Misery]

The thing is, you get a LOT more HP by end game, so starting with 1 or 2 HP is essentially "I want earlygame to be a ragefest and so I can have a lot of +damage or ammo and make up for my low HP by endgame" Since that does not sound so fun, I would really make the minimum starting HP 3 (even this is pretty low). Maybe give the player the option to tweak it lower to 1 or 2 as a challenge or something but it shouldn't be available in normal random selection. Also perhaps guarantee the player will start with lv1 +HP perk, as that's quite significant.

Also, since there was some confusion about level up towers and perks, I'll explain a little bit more thoroughly. You have access to perks equal to your level. At level 2 you have a level 1 and 2 perk. Each perk starts with 2 of 4 to choose from. you can unlock more choices by finding perk tokens in caves and a few other strucutres. Lower level perks are unlocked by these tokens first. The max level is 21 I believe, and later perks give more stats than earlier ones (like 2 HP). Leveling up is also related to something besides perks that will be essential to victory...But I'll leave that for you to discover.

Yeah, I havent seen the end game yet;  I ran into quite a number of goofy glitches and such in my first couple of attempts at the game, so I've restarted numerous times.   For the most part, I've only seen the early game stuff;  as levels go, havent really done more than 3-4 towers in one game.   So, all of my current thoughts on perks and such is based on that.

I have been gathering tokens, but with the perks seeming to be so weak, they usually dont seem to help much.   Though, for all I know, the early perks may combine well with somewhat later ones, and be useful that way, or something.  Dont know just yet.  I'll probably gather MORE tokens though after the patch changes the bats in whatever way.

[madcow]

Could somebody repost the link to the changelog? I just want to double check I have the latest version.