Valley 2 Official 1.001-1002 "Mouse Aiming For Those Who Stood And Fought" Relea

[ScrObot]

Regarding sales, what helps you the most? A purchase through Steam, another distributor, or a direct sale (which, as I understand it, can unlock on Steam as well)? I'm going to suggest this game to a few people and want to help the bottom line as much as possible. (=

[Vangamar]

I don't mind if you're frustrated and need to vent, but honestly how is Valley2 anything like mainstream?  The last game to do anything like this (other than, maybe, AVWW1) was the first Actraiser, and we did something very different than that in so many ways that it's... well, the game is very unique.

OK, fair enough...  I have played a good amount of AVWW1, but have not gotten very far yet in AVWW2.  So, there may be things AVWW2 has excelled at I have yet to appreciate. For me personally, I'm venting because it seems like you've abandoned the open world procedural generated level content to some extent?

That's the crux of it with me.  You indeed had a strong vision of championing open world procedural generated content in AVWW1 that from the reviews I've read and what I've seen in my initial time with AVWW2, you have now backed away from to some extent...  That's what saddens me.

I'm of the opinion that procedural generated game content has been done by many games going way back to almost the beginning of PC gaming, but has yet to be tapped for its true potential.  So I'm always looking for indie titles that are exploring procedural generated content to see what they've done.

Going way back, I remember being very excited about this title: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeon_Hack

But it got boring quickly, not focused with a strong story and strong encounters hand designed to be interesting.  It's a real problem with procedural generated content that continues to this day.  But I refuse to believe it's a fundamental problem that will never be solved.

Anyway, my thoughts get a bit philosophical and dry from there.  Grand visions of vastly improved AI being required to really solve the problem.  Silly stuff like that while I sit back with my thumb up my arse and wait for people with higher IQs than me to figure it out... Cheers, and best of luck with the sales of AVWW2.  I am looking forward to wading into it and seeing the direction you did go with it first hand.

[Misery]

I don't mind if you're frustrated and need to vent, but honestly how is Valley2 anything like mainstream?  The last game to do anything like this (other than, maybe, AVWW1) was the first Actraiser, and we did something very different than that in so many ways that it's... well, the game is very unique.

OK, fair enough...  I have played a good amount of AVWW1, but have not gotten very far yet in AVWW2.  So, there may be things AVWW2 has excelled at I have yet to appreciate. For me personally, I'm venting because it seems like you've abandoned the open world procedural generated level content to some extent?

That's the crux of it with me.  You indeed had a strong vision of championing open world procedural generated content in AVWW1 that from the reviews I've read and what I've seen in my initial time with AVWW2, you have now backed away from to some extent...  That's what saddens me.

I'm of the opinion that procedural generated game content has been done by many games going way back to almost the beginning of PC gaming, but has yet to be tapped for its true potential.  So I'm always looking for indie titles that are exploring procedural generated content to see what they've done.

Going way back, I remember being very excited about this title: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dungeon_Hack

But it got boring quickly, not focused with a strong story and strong encounters hand designed to be interesting.  It's a real problem with procedural generated content that continues to this day.  But I refuse to believe it's a fundamental problem that will never be solved.

Anyway, my thoughts get a bit philosophical and dry from there.  Grand visions of vastly improved AI being required to really solve the problem.  Silly stuff like that while I sit back with my thumb up my arse and wait for people with higher IQs than me to figure it out... Cheers, and best of luck with the sales of AVWW2.  I am looking forward to wading into it and seeing the direction you did go with it first hand.

The thing about the whole "open world" idea, is that it really wouldnt work all that well with the gameplay mechanics of the platforming side of the game.   Think of Metroid-vania games.... ever noticed something about them as a whole?  Almost always, they are EASY games.  Encounters with enemies are generally pretty simple, and usually a couple of quick blasts from any weapon/spell/thing can take care of most foes.  The reason for this is simple:  more difficult and complex enemy encounters are time-consuming.  In a game of that type, you tend to have ALOT of backtracking, as you move back towards previous areas to open a door or something that you couldnt open before, or check a spot that you think you might have missed, or whatever reason.   If you had to go through constant encounters of the type that THIS game uses, every single time you backtracked or explored, it'd make things take absolutely freaking forever.   The platforming side of the game would be really dramatically inflated, the frustration level would be very high, and the importance and presence of the strategy side of the game would be dramatically reduced.  Imbalances and problems everywhere.   The current system is what works, and the game really was never designed with "exploration" as a major goal.   Strategy and tactical thinking, I believe, were the goals of the design with the second game.

[Maledictus]

Was gonna post but saw that Vangamar had already put my thoughts into words. There is something else though, I think.
AVWW1 was commercially available before the game was anywhere near finished. I bought the game based on the ideas behind it and based on what it was going to become. Then, when things were starting to gel (in my opinion anyway) the plug was pulled and the game was more or less abandoned. I don't like 2 at all, for reasons that no-one cares about, so AVWW is sort of over for me. It's not a big deal, these things happen, and Arcen is more than welcome to have my money, but this was not a good experience for me. I don't want to vent and I'm not angry or anything, just a bit disappointed.
On a side-note, I really liked the artwork in 1. It reminded me of the work of Ruud van Empel, which I really like, and the copy/paste feel worked really well with the idea of a shattered reality. The art-work in 2 is okay, but the animations are not to my taste at all, that was much nicer in 1. Anyway, enough.

[Billick]

Hey guys, I finished up my first full game since the release last night.  First off I want to say congrats on releasing the game, and sorry the sales aren't what you hoped.  Hopefully it will get some good word of mouth and reviews and be a slow burner.  On to the game.  The balance is way improved, especially the late game.  I wasn't running around one-shotting everything, and the last part seemed properly challenging.  I think you nailed the balance on the deep gates.  They still feel scary and fun, but not unfair.  I liked the ending cut scene, and I won't say anything else about it so as not to spoil the ending for others.  I won on skilled/queen by the way, and the game took about 7 hours. 

All the big bugs I ran into have already been mentioned elsewhere so I'll give you a few trivial ones:
- When a henchmen dies on an incline, the coins sometimes all land in a pile so it looks like only 1 dropped
- One of the coin achievements still references the 99 coin limit, even though that's not in place any more
- One of the achievements still references skelebots
Not sure if Steam lets you change achievement text after the fact, but I figured I'd mention them

Possible feature requests:
Strategy mode - Ability to play the game without the platforming parts.  It's not that I don't like the platforming, but I think the strategy game has a longer shelf life.  I'd probably play another 10ish hours if I could just mess with the strategy game.  I realize the cheats are there, but they're... well ... cheating.
Possibly adding a difficulty above Overlord.  I'm not sure if this is needed, since I haven't played overlord, but I won on Queen fairly easily after making a couple of pretty bad strategic blunders.  You can call the new difficulty "Keith" mode. 
Not sure if you'll have time to implement any new features, but I figure it can't hurt to ask

Mouse aiming - My first reaction was "OMG I can't believe Chris caved on that".  Then after seeing the almost universal approval both here and on the Steam forums, I realized it was the right move.  Some people want to experience the game the way it was designed, and some people just want to run around blasting things, and there's nothing wrong with that.  The "right way" is what's more fun for the individual.  I may even enable mouse aiming for a bit just to mess around with it.

As for this weird discussion about what's "Indie" - To me indie means developers making the kinds of games that they want to make.  In that respect, I think that the second game is more indie than the first one.  But I guess it means different things to different people.

[eRe4s3r]

I think if you wanted to have more sales than AVWW1 giving us (AVWW1 owners) the second game for free was a bad idea I bought AVWW1 based on its premise, I didn't want a second game with a different premise at the time (or at least, we didn't buy that). So the problem you face is that I have no motivation to talk about something I didn't buy. I don't feel like I invested any money into the game, so I have no feeling of connection to actually play it in earnest to see whether it is fun or not. It's there to play.. but so are thousands of other games I already own, and who's price I have to justify to my hexagonal personality

I am finding this "patching in mouse support" thingy super hilarious as you can imagine I seem to recall I wrote a lengthy beta feedback post about what would happen if this isn't part of the release, I seem to recall calling it on a scale of 1 to 10 an 11 in shitstorm potential. Turns out I was right, huh..  That said, the mouse support works flawlessly. So this is something actually making me want to play the game now.. ;P

My only real gripe with the game is the animation quality of the peeps we control. They look unique, but the animations look terrible. Yes, subjective.. but maybe so it isn't so negative, I just think it misses half it's frame count. The rest of the game looks very nice. And with nice I mean "Unique" not nice as in "Crysis 3 nice"

Anyhow.. it's out I hope we get more AI War content. Especially pushing it into a 4x direction with an expansion or a full game. AI War 4X or something..

I wish Arcengames all the best in their future endeavors !

Edit: And speaking of best wishes. The soundtrack is great Especially the Menu Theme. I wished it was all like that, to be honest.

[x4000]

I could use a little support in the comments thread here: http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2013/02/valley-2-official-1001-mouse-aiming-for.html?showComment=1361644129842&m=1

Whether you agree with me on mouse aim or not, I think we can all agree that the comments there are unjustified and really out of hand. Please be nice, but I think it would help if the comments there were not boiling over with nothing but bile while this thread has been so reasonable (but so much less visible).

[Cinth]

Wow... I hope I'm not alone in feeling like I want to reach through the monitor and .... well, you know...

What is it with people now-a-days? I would post but I'm afraid I was overwhelmed with the urges to blast most of those posters.  Not something I want to contribute to in that manner.  I

[Mick]

Eh, the guy in the comments is either a troll or an entitled brat. I don't think it was really worth engaging him much beyond "I'm sorry the sequel you got for free did not meet your expectations."

I don't envy the position you are in. I think if Valley 1 never existed at all, then no one would give a peep about the lack of mouse control in this game. There are many side scrolling games without mouse aim, even on PC. Of course, some of those games have no problem stating up front that the experience is better with a gamepad and keyboard players will just have to deal.

Valley 2 is simply a completely different game than Valley 1, and I don't think people's love/hate of the first will really correlate that much with their attitude toward the second.

My own position:
Is Valley 2 what I wish Valley 1 was? Not really.
Do I like Valley 2 better than Valley 1? Very much so.

I think Valley 2 does a better job at being Valley 2 than Valley 1 did at being Valley 1. Although, Valley 2 does an awful job at being Valley 1.

I'm rambling.

That guy in the comments is a dick. I don't think a long argument thread against with him will help out Arcen Games. I think if anyone comes by to read it, all they should see is an angry customer being treated more politely than he deserves by a game developer.

[eRe4s3r]

I could use a little support in the comments thread here: http://arcengames.blogspot.com/2013/02/valley-2-official-1001-mouse-aiming-for.html?showComment=1361644129842&m=1

Whether you agree with me on mouse aim or not, I think we can all agree that the comments there are unjustified and really out of hand. Please be nice, but I think it would help if the comments there were not boiling over with nothing but bile while this thread has been so reasonable (but so much less visible).

Well nothing anyone can say, including whatever I might say, would change that. I don't know if you were reading outside the steam forums, like on dedicated game news platforms like bluesnews ^^ but there were a lot of people who said that they got hyped into buying AVWW1 and ended up not liking it for various reasons.... I think that are those who then also didn't like AVWW2 and felt kinda let down.. don't think talking writing stuff on the intertubes will make them feel better or have them act better.

And for the record, I am personally not a huge fan of sidescrollers of any kind unless they are point and click games and even then only with very few games it clicks for me.... So I would be the vastly wrong person to defend this game I own it because I got AVWW1 so I will give it a lengthy chance later but not just yet... and with that I was never the target audience of this game anyway.

You make games you want to play (I hope), and not always everyone is gonna like everything you do. That's the way it goes.

Anyhow.... time for food ^^

[keith.lamothe]

Normal Person
minus Accountability
plus Audience

=

Well, you've heard it all before

[Panopticon]

Ah yes. The Greater Internet #@*$wad Theory.

Could probably make a case for it as an actual law by this point.

[KingIsaacLinksr]

Pretty much everyone has said it. No reason to pile on a troll, it just justifies their existence in life as a troll.

[x4000]

Yeah, I agree with not feeding the trolls, generally speaking. But the fact that that blog post is widely linked and the comments are so full of bile really scares me a bit. Then again this IS the Internet, so nobody should be that surprised I guess. This forum is incredibly much an outlier in terms of the mutual respect that everyone gives everyone else here. I love it, and sometimes I forget what an anomaly this place is.

[LaughingThesaurus]

I went ahead and ticked on mouse support, and the game doesn't really feel any easier. It's easier in some ways, harder in others, and it still demands that you think ahead because enemy spells will tear right through yours no matter what. Sometimes I encounter some easy cheese scenarios, but it tends to be a case of "That would have been an annoying jump shot to aim if I didn't turn this on". Just for what it's worth, it didn't really break things as much as I thought it would.