Valley 2 is becoming too simple and homogeneous.

[Nanashi]

Recently, I've been going back to playing Valley 1, and finding that I actually enjoy it a lot more than Valley 2 - not because of the aiming nor the combat - I actually like Valley 2's combat slightly more than Valley 1's sniping, but Valley 1 kills me with variety and choices. I have many more options and things I can do and each game plays out a little differently as a result, as I don't always end up crafting and using the same spells. I had pointless spells that animated objects in the background but were fun to have around just-because.

After testing for this long, Valley 2 currently gives me a bad feeling of homogeneity. Every world I start up only really essentially differs in classes available to me (interchangeable and they usually have me playing the same way) and overworld map - which is somewhat strategic, but I find more luck-based than anything else. Decisions I make w.r.t perks are always the same (I really don't need 15% faster swim speed, thanks). That leaves me somewhat tepid with regard to replay value because the only decisions that have long-term impacts are on the strategic overview, which I have exactly the same approach to winning with - Find desert expansion towers, gank windmills and skelebot facilities, ignore all the farm/whatever crap.

I think Valley 2 has been grossly dumbed-down. Simplification isn't necessarily a bad thing - I'd argue I actually like XCOM a lot more than X-Com and its horrible interface, but I kind of prefer games that only use simplification to mask a vast amount of underlying complexity. Valley 2's actual combat experience doesn't seem to have much complexity to it at all, maybe because it has absolutely no fluff (read: filler). Playing your character is largely idiot proof. I really really intensely dislike the removal of the inventory system, but I know that's largely a personal preference and not everyone likes fiddling around with packrat systems.

Maybe this is Arcen's way of getting me to try AI war instead.

Edit: If I had to summarise this, I'd just say that Valley 1 and sandbox games let me enjoy the journey and fool around. Valley 2 is just wham-bam, gank goal, out. Too directly objective based. I feel like I'm playing a linear checklist of things to do.

[x4000]

Valley 2 isn't dumbed down -- it's not finished!  You're comparing a game that is completed with one that is not, and complaining that the one that is incomplete isn't varied enough.  It's not apples to oranges.

But, the experiences also aren't meant to be the same sort of thing.  Yes, Valley 1 is a plethora of choices and sanboxiness.  Absolutely, you're going to get a different feel from that compared to something that is more focused on the strategic bits interspersed with Castlevania-like linear challenges -- literally 90% of the variety of which is not yet in place (talking about monsters and boss behaviors).

[Nanashi]

Well, I'm glad you're going to address it then. I really hope there's systems in the future that will open up more possibilities with regard to player choice. I'll wait for it.

[x4000]

Just to be crystal clear.  We're not going to be adding more systems of gameplay -- what is there is final.  However, the strategic game is still being finalized in its balance and so forth, and the fact that there is not enough enemy variety yet is something that makes things feel homogeneous (because it IS). 

The game will still never be remotely like Valley 1 in terms of its overall feel because honestly they are only sort of even in the same genre; but that's rather the idea.  If Valley 2's main market was Valley 1 customers, I don't think we'd be giving it away to them for free.  Valley 2 is meant to appeal to a much broader base of people, and to stand apart from Valley 1 without replacing it.  Some people will inevitably prefer one versus the other, but personally I honestly prefer the second one to play and I think that will be the prevailing theme amongst most people.  Not that that should take anything away from anyone who prefers the first, of course.

[Mick]

I really really hate the phrase "dumbed down" when it comes to video games. It's overuse has pretty much caused it to mean "there is a change I don't like".

However, I find myself agreeing with a few points in the OP.

Valley is not my game, so I acknowledge it's not going to be designed around my personal preference, but I find myself wishing for something somewhat in between 1 and 2. I found myself liking parts of the side scrolling experience in 1 better, and wishing 1 was much more interesting than it was on the overworld map. 2 modified the strategic part in the better direction, but the side scrolling part has become something I feel I have to "get through" (which is a severe determent to a game that appears to want to be focused around it). In Valley 1, I loved mechanic of exploring buildings and trying to be efficient, but I felt it was missing a strategic element (basically a clock) to enforce more choice in what and how often you dive into exploring. It was fun, but flawed, and instead of fixing it, Valley 2 seems to have just removed that aspect of the game completely. Diving into caves for perk tokens just doesn't feel the same.

The strategic changes are in the right direction I think. It kinda feels like a restricted version of the game Rebuild (http://www.kongregate.com/games/sarahnorthway/rebuild). I wouldn't be surprised if that game was used as inspiration. The one-mission-dispatch-per-turn aspect seems to be meant to enforce strategic choice, but I think a problem with it is that you end up feeling like you don't get to be doing very much. You have basically three main goals you have to do your best to cover in one dispatch, positioning people for safety, positioning for passive bonuses, and doing the actual missions. I don't feel like you get a lot of value out of managing many recruits (just a bigger buffer away from loss). Perhaps instead of a hard limit to one dispatch, you can build up some type of "command limit" that can increase the number of dispatches you gain per turn, with the caveat that a single person can only be involved in a single dispatch for that turn.

I think I'd also like to see the "explorable" tiles be more of a decision than a no-brainer. For example, by having completing one actually count as a turn, just like destroying a wind-generator does. Of course, the "value" of doing so may have to be adjusted accordingly.

I think the game could use some adjustment on the time spent in an area. I'd prefer on the quicker side (I like moving things forward), which some areas line up with, but others seem to take forever to crawl through (especially ones with buildings for some reason). Dying near the end of these means that much more you have to repeat yourself through, and is very likely to trigger that "eh, I'll go play something else" feeling. That's not a feeling I should ever be having, I should be having the "one more turn" feeling. That's what remains to be captured I think.

[LaughingThesaurus]

The way I've looked at Valley 2 is, it's simplified in the ways that it needs to be simplified, but the action segments are much more complex. I don't really have much more to say than just that. If you still compiled spell classes and had that mana system and all the enchants and everything, then suddenly the action segments aren't as quick as they should be. As much as I say that, while I love Valley 2's gameplay, I do still wish I could use all the really cool stuff there with the overall gameplay of Valley 1. That way we have the best depth of both worlds. Who knows, it might end up being awful, playing Valley 2 with caliber and all of those complex enemies and stuff, but it sounds appealing for me. Maybe that's how you feel as well, Nanashi?

[Nanashi]

The way I've looked at Valley 2 is, it's simplified in the ways that it needs to be simplified, but the action segments are much more complex. I don't really have much more to say than just that. If you still compiled spell classes and had that mana system and all the enchants and everything, then suddenly the action segments aren't as quick as they should be. As much as I say that, while I love Valley 2's gameplay, I do still wish I could use all the really cool stuff there with the overall gameplay of Valley 1. That way we have the best depth of both worlds. Who knows, it might end up being awful, playing Valley 2 with caliber and all of those complex enemies and stuff, but it sounds appealing for me. Maybe that's how you feel as well, Nanashi?

That'd actually keep me interested. I like my futile hamster treadmills. Valley 2's problem to me is that spells and classes are a "take it or leave it" approach, while I've always been more interested in personal modifications - which is why I mod in multiple games to pass the time. I like anything that gives me control over what I play, rather than "this is how it is out of the box, if you don't like it, too bad - learn to cope". Valley 1 let me go "oh, that spell looks like something I'd like to use, I'll do that slice next" and I ended up with far more control over my own character. That's actually kind of why I bought the game in the first place - I love numbers. It's why I played say, City of Heroes as opposed to World of Warcraft (which is a well-designed game, just the number crunching and personal character freedom was kind of limited)

Of course, I'm acutely aware the majority of people are not particularly interested in number-crunching nor playing excel spreadsheets and would rather be told "here's how you get to your goal" rather than be thrown a map and a pencil. When I follow a preset path, I ask my self "what have I accomplished?" and if the answer is "I've learnt how to run along a prescribed treadmill like a good dog", I kind of feel like I've wasted my time unless the journey itself was beautiful (this is usually a moot point in procedural games). 

Edit: I mean beautiful as in a crafted experience. Like Bastion. But I wouldn't replay Bastion even though I do re-read books obsessively. I'm probably just weird.

[LaughingThesaurus]

Ahh, so it really seems to me that your view of the game and Arcen's view are completely opposed. This game, correct me if I'm wrong, came from the fact that Valley 1 didn't quite turn out the way that it was supposed to, and it got all kinds of sidetracked and derailed from being a game somewhat like this. I think there is a place for number crunching games, and a place for these kinds of games. It's not necessarily a bad thing to simplify the building of your character if the game is more complex in other ways. You take away from one part, and add to another part, and it ends up adding up to be a different kind of complex.

Although I do want to say something about Bastion as well: That game was never really about finding your way, obviously. It was about playing the game beyond competently. You challenged yourself in combat technique, not in finding your way. That's why there's the very involved Pantheon system for difficulty management. You turn that stuff up, pop into score attack mode, and go nuts trying to beat each level with all ten Gods invoked, while keeping a combo as long as possible. Although, you'd be hard-pressed to ever win with all ten Gods. Not unless you... say... very carefully constructed your build.
Oh. And the story's really good. I've replayed a few times just for that, but let's not get too derailed.

[zespri]

I really really intensely dislike the removal of the inventory system, but I know that's largely a personal preference and not everyone likes fiddling around with packrat systems.

Uhm, I've been playing a few RPG recently and I get more and more annoyed with the presense of inventory system. More often then not I just use "the best" set of items, as swapping them back in forth depending on circumstances seems just to tedious. In this vein, I just sell anything that I'm not wearing right now (with the exception of the items that I can't yet wear but would like to), and that's about it.

So for me, the absence of inventory in AVWW was a welcome change.

[LaughingThesaurus]

I really really intensely dislike the removal of the inventory system, but I know that's largely a personal preference and not everyone likes fiddling around with packrat systems.

Uhm, I've been playing a few RPG recently and I get more and more annoyed with the presense of inventory system. More often then not I just use "the best" set of items, as swapping them back in forth depending on circumstances seems just to tedious. In this vein, I just sell anything that I'm not wearing right now (with the exception of the items that I can't yet wear but would like to), and that's about it.

So for me, the absence of inventory in AVWW was a welcome change.

I understand your opinion but I can't agree with that myself. You take away an inventory, you take away depth in customization. The games that have poorly thought out item systems are the real problem. Darksiders 2, that I've been playing recently, has a couple of uses for miscellaneous junk. You can feed them to other special items, or sell them. Torchlight 2's items are built such that a different set of items will suit your build or certain situations. Without ember in that game, the items would be fairly boring. To top it off as well, you just shift-click every item you don't want, and you can send your pet to town or click 'sell all' to drop it all. I get rid of everything useless in seconds, and keep the uniques for a stash.  Without these bits of management breaking up the gameplay, you know what those games would be? Games about killing stuff, and nothing else. The difference in pacing alone would kill at very least Torchlight 2. Seems like it's just not your cup of tea.
An ideal system for you would probably be Dungeon Defenders. You can just leave items on the ground and the game automatically turns them into money and gives all of the money to you. Then, if you find something decent, you just auto-swap it with whatever's in the slot.
But above all, any game with a "best set" is doing inventories wrong. Just sayin'.