What I don't like in AVWW and probably never will. Specific explanations of why.

[TechSY730]

Yea, many of the things here seem to stem from:

• Lack of unique, worthwhile rewards (quantitatively and in "feeling") for exploration and missions (fixable with new content, unlockables, abilities, and resources)
• Fiddlyness of the UI hampering the enjoyment of combat and platforming (fixable with UI adjustments, many of which are actively being discussed)
• Battles not "looking" fluid and/or significant (fixable with some graphics polish. Specifically,  some new animations for sprites, though that is no simple fix, not even close to it. New art assets can be messy to make)
• Battles not "feeling" fluid and/or impacting (fixable with MP cost rebalance and ability rebalance in general, in addition to new abilities and spells for both the players and the enemies, possibly with new mechanics)

So many issues the devs can just wave the "its a pre-release beta card" and state that its coming. Also, as they said, they hope to address lots of new content and mechanics to improve a variety of these issues post 1.0.

And the whole "settlement map" stuff and other such RPG and strategy game elements, they said those aren't dead yet. They said don't have time to get it done well before 1.0, but it is a possibility for a major new feature down the road.

Now for the whole "exploration doesn't feel like it has the right role" style complaints, that seems like it is more of a genre preference then anything else. Nothing wrong with that, no one game can cater to everyone's preferences. Not saying that rewards for explorations shouldn't get a lookover and overhaul (they should), but seriously messing with how the mapgen works and how missions work just to make exploration seem more "worthwhile" to some players seems less of a tweak and more of a shift in "sub-genre", which is most certainly out of scope in the forseeable future.

100% exploration simply doesn't work in a potentially infinite game world.

I have to say though, I like some of eRe4s3r's proposed new spells/abilities/consumables/whatevers.
A "toggleable" shield suite of spells would make a nice complement to the current "timeout" shield suite of spells.
Also, some of his new logistics/movement spells/abilities sound really cool too, and would allow for quicker, much more fun platforming in many cases. The platforms would still be there for more complicated land arrangements that can't be scaled with those "fast climbing" tools. These would probably have to wait until post 1.0 though.

Some of those should definitely go up on mantis.

[darkchair]

Well my opinions on things,


Regarding "Combat is Flat" [Maybe I'm interpreting wrong]:

I play games for good game-play and a good challenge. The last game I seriously played was Dark Souls for those exact reasons. [Sadly the ending was horribly disappointing but it was worth the 90 hours of great combat among other things]

I find this game satisfying my desire for good game-play and a good challenge (especially for a Metroidvania kind of game).
Even only at tier 2 of continent 1 (on Hero/Plumber), there are some very satisfying moments of having to constantly dodge, bait, and move to different positions all at once (while I utilize the four spells assigned to the mouse with platforms on middle button). For example having to dodge the giant shadow bats while placing platforms in mid-air to get out of a hole I fell into is extremely fun to try and do and generally improve on.
Maybe the vanilla enemies could be more difficult but I still have two more difficulties to scale so we'll see on that theory.

The suggestion for the spatial[?] effects (enemies being moved by spells) of hitting enemies with things is important. I feel like I had enough options in that department but I need to double check.


Regarding "The World is Stale":

I kind of agree. The game could use a lot more objects in the world (the environment is probably fine relatively). That isn't happening before release obviously but I do get tired sometimes of seeing the same setting for different sections of a time period. Little things like makings things a bit off color or weather effects make a big difference.
Work on that and the exploration aspect will become a lot more real and enjoyable.

A suggestion to improve the world/game is to add Vanity Items:

Don't know about your opinion of putting little things in like new colors for characters or settlement buildings or flavorful non-impacting accents for spells (like changing it's color or adding sparkles/lightning/sounds or whatever), but unlockables like these are a really fun aspect of the game to have as an option to go run off and achieve when you feel like it. They could even be things like the "Find all the eggs" mod in Morrowind (where they hid a bunch of pretty eggs in the game that don't serve any function but being cool/something to do/something to put in your house and boast/compete about).
Making unlockable vanity items is a pretty easy way relatively to add a ton of value/time to the game. I personally would want these vanity items to be quite difficult to unlock but that's just me (things like beat an abnormally hard boss, find it with a sequence of maps, and other time-consuming/challenging ways).

Sorry if that's too much detail I'll put it/look for it in the Mantis.

[Professor Paul1290]

I actually like the idea of having a "shield button" that makes shields easier to use, as it is right now I don't use shields very much.

On the other hand I strongly disagree that climbing and grappling would fit the game better, because personally I have a hard time picturing climbing and grappling fitting in this game. I loved grappling in Bionic Commando and Metroid, but I have a really hard time seeing it in AVWW. I can see it as maybe being another spell, but I can't see it as a direct alternative to platforms and boxes.


I suppose to add to the notion of different tastes, I actually like that dodging takes as much precision as it does. In fact, if I could have my way, I'd want the enemies to shoot MORE projectiles, especially bosses.

You know how many of those little green balls Green Amoebas spew out when you're shooting them continuously with fireball or forest rage? I would like to see more of that kind of thing, though maybe with somewhat shorter lived projectiles.
Boss rooms have plenty of open space anyway, so might as well fill it with something!

Of course, I don't think everyone would agree with that.

[Wanderer]

On a side note, a little trick that's been taught to me... if you're getting bored out of your skull playing hide and seek for upgrade stones or basic ups (not enchants, you want the never ending maze rooms + Greater Teleport for those) go to the junkyard shacks.  They're tiny, they're quick, and they're plentiful if you hit the right areas.  If there's none in that area just super-run your way over to the next one.  Some surfaces are barren, some look like a town of hovels.

You can hit 10-12 stashes (at one per building) in the time it'd take 2-4 in an abandoned town (at 1-2 per building).  I barely bother with any other buildings anymore except for those unless I'm playing hide-and-seek for a secret mission for an NPC, or I need to for unlocks.  Caverns for mining are a different discussion.

[KingIsaacLinksr]

I don't have a lot of time to write out giant mega posts, but I think its about time my opinion weighed in, as short as it is. 

I like:

The exploration.  The exploration in this game is incredibly rewarding to any other game I've played.  Never once have I questioned "why am I exploring", it goes along the lines of "oooooo a building with all sorts of goodies" or something to that effect.  Considering how many "exploration" games I've played, I'd say Terraria is the closest to come to this feeling, but terraria has way too much grind in it, in the form of digging.  Could it be improved?  Yeah, but I'd say we have a solid exploration system right now.

The combat.  Combat is challenging and interesting, though sometimes I feel like some creatures get used a bit too often, but I think with time that will be improved.  Still, when I got my face smashed in by a giant skelebot, that was quite fun.  Mostly because I was trying to attack him too close and he reminded me why you don't do that lol. 

Don't like:

World does feel a little stale at times as far as moving forward, but that said, I really don't see that as an issue because there have been so many games with this same problem I've given up on the idea of the world being "alive".  S.T.A.L.K.E.R. is probably the closest I'll ever get to see an alive world and that still wasn't enough.  If we eventually get a living world or something close to it in AVWW, great.  But I'm not holding my breath because so many other companies have tried and failed.  This is not a slam on Arcen, this is me being realistic with my expectations .  Creating a living world is hard as heck to do from what I gather. 

Random stuff:
No idea where the movement-isn't-fluid is coming from, seems fine to me.  Especially when my face gets smashed into a wall . 
Shield-button I would also like to see.  Seems like a good idea anyway.


Anyway, throwing my 2 cents in there. 

King

[zebramatt]

What's wrong with the shields? I like 'em! Whatever shield I currently want equipped I pop into an out-of-the-way slot and bind that to space bar - and it does the job pretty nicely.

Definitely a candidate for the concept of direct-binding spells, I'd say.

[Terraziel]

Having read through this thread, some of the stuff is just opinion and there is no accounting for that so I won't worry about it, but some very strange things seem to stand out to me. The one piece of opinion I will comment on is spells being same-y, if major variations in damage, cost, element, knockback, behaviour, projectile speed and refire rate don't distinguish spells enough for you, well then there is no hope for you.

Firstly, If you don't enjoy aiming then there is an auto aim function, I'm not quite sure what else the devs could do to counter that as a concern

Secondly, people don't seem to like changing the controls to something helpful to them, I mean people are asking for a shield button, I already have a shield button, I mapped slot 10 to Left Shift and filled every slot 10 with a shield, free, easy, entirely customisable. My abilities are currently mapped at 1 2 3 4 T G B 8 9 LeftShift

Similarly with platforms, if you having to look for platforms in your inventory, then you are doing it wrong, I have platforms mapped to T (slot 5) on my main combat bar, and I don't even need to use platforms very often (with having triple jump and ride the lightning), if you find yourself using platforms a lot then there is no excuse for not having them easily accessible.

Another recommendation is that people set a key for Switch Ability Bar (Reverse) and get used to switching inventory lines, It will instantly triple the number of abilities easily available to you. You should NEVER be looking through your inventory during combat, there is literally no reason for it.

The other thing I get is the feeling that people don't seem to change the difficulty, or at least don't seem to realise that changing the difficulty makes a huge difference to the feel of the game, as it changes a lot more than just health and damage. If I was forced to play on the default difficulties (heck even the "experienced gamer" difficulties) I would be bored out of my skull, they are just so tame that I wouldn't be able to bring myself to play (which, incidentally, is why I don't do multiplayer). In fact one of my concerns is that people who like challenge will try the defaults and be so put off they won't even try the harder difficulties, as people won't expect the difficulty to change the game the way it does.

[x4000]

Everything that Terraziel said.

And also, in terms of the world getting "stale" to explore after a while.  My response to that is... so?  You're paying $10 or $15 for a game, and expecting to be able to play it for infinite amounts of time with no repetition?  There's already hundreds and hundreds of objects in the game, and it takes 30-40 hours to even get to see all of those.  That's a good value no matter how you cut it, and probably beats the pants off some games you've paid $60 for and played for 5-6 hours.  Also: insert anecdote about my childhood growing up with the Atari and then the NES.  "Stale" would have been a really foreign concept.

The simple fact is that we can't stay in beta forever.  The game is here, it's massive for what it is already, and it seems to be a lot of fun for people who like that sort of thing.  That's release-ready in my book, final bugs and tweaks aside.  Fun fact: I have to do a massive layoff in two weeks if we don't release this.  Arcen's not at risk of going out of business or anything, but we've stretched ourselves to the limit financially in terms of staff burden, etc.  Why?  Because we freaking love making this game and think it's really worthwhile both to make it and to invest in it.

Longer-term, getting into the realms of more variety and more this and that is great.  But if you're paying $10 or $15 and then complaining that after 30 hours you've seen all the unique art, I don't really know what to say to that.  Certainly I would love to quadruple the amount of content or even more than that (and I plan to, post-1.0, players willing), but it's not something that can be done without a whole heck of a lot more financial support from players.  And fact is, a huge number of people just ignore anything that's still in beta and/or that's not on Steam; players and press included, and Minecraft is an outlier and doesn't count.

What I'm really not sure about is what some of the posts in this thread are aimed at.  Distracting us the week before release?  Bumming us out?  Trying to get us to push back release until sometime in 2013?  What's the end goal of some of these comments?  Or are people "just talking?" 

I think it's pretty clear that I don't need a diet of sunshine and rainbows to be fed to me -- god knows that 90% of the communication that comes to me on any given day is a complaint, but I take the vast majority of those in the spirit they were given (which is to be genuinely helpful).  But suddenly trying to point out major perceived flaws at the 11th hour is not helpful in remotely any way, shape, or form.  We're humans, too, on this side of the computer.  And this thread is pushing my endurance more than a little thin, despite the support from folks like Bluddy, Terraziel, Martyn van Buren, and a bunch of others here.

Glancing over the thread, it looks like the positive comments really outweigh the negative, come to that.  But there's a great quote in the movie Pretty Woman where Julia Roberts' character says "yeah, but the bad stuff is easier to believe."  Bear that in mind when you talk to devs, eh?  There's a reason most of them don't talk to players.  I'm not remotely considering doing that, but it's still hurtful, and I could do with less of that in my life.  I think we all could.

[TechSY730]

What I'm really not sure about is what some of the posts in this thread are aimed at.  Distracting us the week before release?  Bumming us out?  Trying to get us to push back release until sometime in 2013?  What's the end goal of some of these comments?  Or are people "just talking?" 

I think it's mostly that last one, we are just talking. Going over our concerns, having other players either address those concerns with information the original poster did not know about or letting them know the the devs do know about it, sometimes just having a difference in opinion, sometimes giving some great new ideas. Yea, mostly just talking.


Again, as I said, and as you pointed out, this is a pre-release beta of a 10-15$ game. Expect some awkwardness at first, and know that lack of "polish" and balance is to be expected at this state, and while they should be commented on, IMO, it's not fair to be disappointed by shortcomings of them at this stage.


Now, for a mature product like AI War, expecting these sorts of things and being a little disappointed when you don't get it is reasonable. Thankfully, AI War has these down pretty good.

All in all, as it is now, this is one of the nicest pre-release beta's I've tried. It's very nice by pre-release standards.

[x4000]

It's very nice by pre-release standards.

That's not terribly reassuring to hear, given that it's about to not be prerelease in about two days.   Just saying.

[zebramatt]

May I put forward a suggestion, Chris?

Maybe threads entitled, "I hate this game you're fanatically working towards completing in the next week," you should not read? Or if you absolutely have to, then at least not until you're a little less under pressure?

If you're worried about the spectre of such a thread hanging over you when it might contain something actionable before release, perhaps someone could vet it for you before you read it?

I know you like to engage with your player base and want to continue to do so, but it's not like there's another Valley forum people can go on to vent, bash the game and just muddle it out amongst themselves... you know?

[zoutzakje]

oh this is simple. As chris pointed out, he can't keep everyone happy when it comes to making games. If I had the knowledge (and funds) to make my own game, I would make it the way I like. I would listen to player feedback, but in the end it would still all be my decision.
Personally, I don't really like platformers or action games (or was it adventure? I always seem to mix those up). They occasionally entertain me for a while, and I will come back to them now and then, but I can't keep playing them for hours and hours non-stop. That goes for games like Super Meat Boy for instance and it's the same story with AVWW. The only exception to this are the Jazz Jack Rabbit games, which I used to play and enjoy a lot in the past (though nowadays I would only play it for nostalgia). My main interest for games goes to Shooters, RPG's and, above all, strategy. I enjoy both RTS and TB (playing Advance Wars DoR as we speak), and I absolutely love the big, complex games like AI War and DF. And that's just the way it is.
If I were to recreate AVWW into something I would get addicted to, it would become an RPG. And that's just not going to happen, end of story.
If you don't like it, don't buy it. Only reason I bought Tidalis is to support the devs, which I think have been doing a great job of keeping us up to date, answering any silly little question we would bug them with. Plus it was fun to see how chris would talk passionately about his game, whenever he had a new update.
Even though this game is not meant for me, I think Chris and Keith did a great job and I'm happy for them that they finally get to release it in less than a week. Kudos.

[x4000]

zebramatt: This is true, but I also worry a lot about "broken window syndrome."  My buddies over at Project Zomboid have a forum that is frankly frightening; they have a really cool game, but all the forum wants to do is complain about it in great depth, constantly.  Not in a helpful way.  It's apparently gotten so bad that new posters who say something like "I really like this game!" get shouted down by the mob of long-timers who respond "that's not helping them improve it, you're a noob," etc.

This forum has always been such a positive place in the main, compared to the rest of the Internet in particular, and I really don't want to lose that as the membership grows.  But, yeah.  Point taken.  I've probably lost 3 hours of productivity to this stupid thread at this point.

[zebramatt]

Oh, I agree, for sure. And I actually think (in your first few replies) you handled it perfectly. But still!

[eRe4s3r]

It's a topic created and people (and I) respond to a topic created and the posts therein, the content of the topic after the first post has no spatial or intentional relating to anything but the first post or following posts of the topic....

This topic inevitable leads to making the game better* in the long run though, even if not right now

*speaking of shields
As shields drain your mana they are not a viable in-combat gameplay function even If i know how to map them to the shift key so that i could potentially use them when needed. Maybe i am too much used to beat-em-ups but a block needs to be separate from magic. Even Skyrim demonstrates perfectly how bad WARDEN spells are (magical shield spells) when they drain your mana. That mana could be used to 1) cast a proper protection spell or 2) Do damage so that whatever damages you stops damaging you or 3) run away/dash/lightning jump.

Essentially, by doing Mantis for Suggestions a topic like this had to come up eventually and more will come up after release, because broad-scope comments on a game can not ever fit into Mantis and the forum section for this kind of feedback was removed. Back in AI War we called it Suggestions and Feedback ;p May I remind I was sort of against using Mantis for suggestions exactly because it let no outlet for actual game feedback that involves suggestions we can debate about? ;p We can't debate (properly) on Mantis.

Maybe you should see this topic as feedback and not a complaint. Because I am not complaining, I am discussing what bugs me about the game and how to either fix that by features I don't know about or by influencing changes for future patches. I already detailed how this worked for AI War and why the Suggestion Forum for AI War was monumental and Instrumental in ever coming to any conclusion on any suggestion or implementation. Done in Mantis, AI War would never have changed as it has. While sorted and orderly suggestions are great to implement they are terrible to talk about there...