Valley 1:Post-Launch Series 1 Release Notes

Beta 1.002

(Not yet released; we're still working on it!)

• Fixed bug where it was possible to warp out of a boss chunk (with the boss still alive) by standing in front of the warp gate (it was already preventing actual entrance into the warp gate).
  • Thanks to Penumbra for the report.

• Added New Elite upgrade to Eagle: Eagle Diver.
  • Unlocks when 30 Eagles have been killed.
  • These have a higher maximum speed, always use the diving attack pattern (normal eagles only do it when tier 5), hit a bit harder, and have a bit more health.
    • Normally we aren't making the elites "tougher" stat-wise (relying on continent scaling for that), but we actually defined the Eagle Diver months ago and it just hasn't been in the game for a long time. So here it is, mind the beak! :)

• The dungeon and region maps can now be resized based on a new "Dungeon And Region Map Scale" slider in the game tab of the settings menu. It allows you to adjust them from 50% to 400% of normal size.
  • Thanks to Revannefarious, Nypyren, mathemagician, dis astranagant, Zaggeh, and DesiQ for suggesting.

Overhaul to Enchant-acquisition and Enchant-inventory-management

• The "quality progress" of enchants (the number of each enchant type that have been generated for you, which controls how many extra effects the next enchant of that same type can have) is now tracked globally for the world, not individually for each player.
  • Older worlds being loaded will start with the highest progress for each enchant type found among the existing players in that world.
    • So if one player has gotten 20 Cooldown-reducing enchants and 10 Jump-increasing enchants, and the other player has gotten 10 Cooldown-reducing enchants and 20 Jump-increasing enchants, after loading in this version everyone will move forward as if they had previously generated 20 of both of those types.

• "Enchant charge" is now tracked individually for each player.
  • Picking up an enchant container grants points to you and each other player in the same chunk.
  • Older worlds being loaded will start with all players having 0% progress to the next enchant, but this is a pretty minor inconvenience compared to the temporary advantage gained (in MP at least) from the quality-progress-tracking change.
    • Happily, this lets us clear out the 1000s of percent accumulated enchant charge that was piling up on some players in multiplayer, and that looked really weird (it's still possible to pile up extra charge by collecting containers.

• Most enchants, when dropped, are instead (after player confirmation) "reabsorbed":
  • Reabsorbing an undroppable enchant gives you 10% progress towards the next enchant, but this process completely and irrevocably destroys the reabsorbed enchant. There is no way to undo this, and so should only be done with enchants you'll never need again.
  • The basic light-emitting enchants, seeker, and diluter enchants can still be dropped (and cannot be reabsorbed).
  • Thanks to BobTheJanitor, zebramatt, Rx09, AlexxKay, Bluddy and others for suggesting this.

Beta 1.001 Arrival Of The Elites

(Released April 25th, 2012)

• Updated the Left-Handed controls preset to correct some duplicate bindings.
  • Thanks to Drjones013 for submitting these.

• Fixed bug where bear traps were not colliding with monsters (and thus weren't good for much).
  • Thanks to freykin for reporting.

• Changed all previous uses of Unity's built-in debug logging to our custom logging to avoid the consequence of Unity's build-in debug logging where the logged strings stay in the program's unmanaged memory until the program closes, and thus can eventually cause out-of-memory errors. This was really rare but it could happen, and now it will be less likely (there are still things that Unity logs itself using its own logging method, we can't change that).
  • Thanks to LintMan for reporting one of the rare cases where this actually became a problem.

• MP: fixed a null exception that could occur on the server if a mission's time-to-expire had elapsed and one of the connected players was in the deep-sea between continents at the time.
  • Thanks to Wanderer and Toll for reporting.

• World map mission seeding (no effect on or consideration for secret missions or missions spawned by powers) now won't seed the exact same mission type if it already accounts for 1/3rd or more of the currently available world map missions on that continent.
  • The idea is to keep your from being stuck too much with a type of mission you don't like as much and then having to wait.

• The Use Mouse Ability 1-7 keybinds are now again visible on the Abilities tab of the View/Edit Controls window so that you can change them (this is necessary if you want to unbind mouse button 4 or 5 or something like that).
  • They can only take mouse buttons, and cannot take keyboard or gamepad input.
  • The keybinds for mouse ability 8-10 are still gone because Unity can only recognize the first 7 mouse buttons in any event.
  • Thanks to Precog for pointing out a case we had missed where rebinding these is actually necessary.

Rejiggered Anachronism Missions

• Now in anachronism missions you don't lose if you kill a native monster, but if they take damage that damage is redirected to you instead (they take none).
  • If you attack a monster and it reflects damage to you, it also starts pulsing red so that you have a constant reminder not to attack it again.
  • This makes the anachronisms a lot less "black and white" in terms of losing the puzzle of them. If you attack the natives too much then you'll wind up killing yourself with your own damage; but aside from that you can't accidentally lose the mission by attacking the wrong enemy anymore.

• To ease new players into the Fix The Anachronism missions more, the following opt-out popup now appears when you go into the staging area of any such mission:
  • You've just entered a "Fix The Anachronism" mission. Kill all monsters from other time periods while the natives whale away at you; if you attack the natives, they'll start flashing red and reflect your damage back at you.
  • This mission isn't about memorization! You can see how many anachronistic monsters remain, and you can test monsters to see if they reflect your damage back at you.
  • Combine those two facts with your powers of deduction to solve the puzzle instead. Deduction is always more fun than memorization, anyway!

• "Fix The Anachronism" missions: Fixed a bug where a monster from the same time period but not "native" to that particular region type would not be counted in the "remaining monsters to kill" total but would also not cause mission failure if killed. They now count as native in both cases (though killing a native no longer causes failure, as noted above).
  • An example of that abandoned-town regions are from the same time period as ocean shallows (not ocean, though), so a sea worm is actually "native" in an abandoned-town anachronism mission.
  • Thanks to Kemeno for the report.

• Fixed a bug that was preventing proper death-processing for non-native monsters in anachronism missions.

Two New Enemies

• New Enemy: Explosive Esper.
  • Like other espers, but fire-elemental.
  • Shoots a smaller, faster fire-shot compared to what most other espers do. This one still pierces, but explodes on impact with grounds and walls instead of sliding along them, which is helpful.
  • Massive explosion on death, which is not so helpful.

• New Enemy: Ice Esper.
  • Like water esper, but hurls chunks of ice instead (faster, but arc with gravity).

Twelve New Elite Enemies

• New Elite Enemy: "Frost Leaper":
  • Unlocked by killing 80 Icicle Leapers.
  • Once unlocked, newly generated Icicle Leapers become Frost Leapers instead.
  • Are like Icicle Leapers except that they apply a slowing frost effect (like Ice Bats) when they hit you.

• New Elite Enemy: "Frost Hurler":
  • Unlocked by killing 160 Icicle Leapers (note that killing a Frost Leaper or any other elite monster "counts" as if you'd killed one of the "base" monster).
  • Once unlocked, newly generated Icicle Leapers become Frost Hurlers instead.
  • Are like Frost Leapers except that they can periodically hover in midair briefly and then throw a lump of ice at you.

• New Elite Enemy: "Skelebot Brawler":
  • Unlocked by killing 80 Skelebot Grunts.
  • Once unlocked, newly generated Skelebot Grunts become Skelebot Brawlers instead.
  • Are like Skelebot Grunts except that they can periodically fire a longer-ranged version of the player's Ice Cross.

• Added New Elite upgrade to Skelebot Sniper: Skelebot Tri-Elementalist.
  • Unlocks when 80 Skelebot Snipers have been killed.
  • In addition to the normal sniper's Flame Pulse spell, these can cast Water Drill and Lightning Cloud.

• Added New Elite upgrade to Skelebot Sniper: Skelebot Hex-Elementalist.
  • Unlocks when 160 Skelebot Snipers have been killed.
  • In addition to the Skelebot Tri-Elementalist's spells, these can cast Luminance Sine, a green-elemental burst, and Miasma Missile.

• Added New Elite upgrade to Rhino: Magma Rhino.
  • Unlocked when 80 Rhinos have been killed.
  • Has 75% Fire resistance instead of 75% Earth resistance.
  • Leaves a huge trail of explosions behind it (like Urban Predator flame).
  • Explodes when killed.

• Added New Elite upgrade to Skelebot Dwarf: Skelebot Kneecapper.
  • Unlocked when 80 Skelebot Dwarves have been killed.
  • Instead of always firing a single ring of explosions at a roughly 300-unit radius, it fires either 2 rings at 300-radius and 200-radius, or 2 rings at 200-radius and 100-radius.

• Added New Elite upgrade to Bat: Sonic Bat.
  • Unlocked when 80 Bats have been killed.
  • Has a ranged sonic (air-elemental) attack.

• Added New Elite upgrade to Bat: Sonic Screamer.
  • Unlocked when 160 Bats have been killed.
  • Has the Sonic Bat's sonic attack.
  • On melee-hit, increases the target's cooldowns by 10% for 10 seconds (stacks as separate effects).

• Added New Elite upgrade to Fire Bat: Flame Bat.
  • Unlocked when 80 Fire Bats have been killed.
  • Has a ranged fire attack (that has the same fire-damage-over-time effect as the bat's melee attack).

• Added New Elite upgrade to Ice Bat: Frost Bat.
  • Unlocked when 80 Ice Bats have been killed.
  • Has a ranged ice attack (that has the same movement-slowing effect as the bat's melee attack).

• Added New Elite upgrade to Dust Storm: Repulsive Dust Storm.
  • Unlocked when 80 Dust Storms have been killed.
  • Repels nearby projectiles (basically it's the inverse of the will-o-wisp's gravity well, but only applies to spell projectiles).

Previous Release Notes

AVWW - Beta Series 3 Release Notes