Valley 1:Beta Series 2 Release Notes

Beta 0.542

(Note: this prerelease is not available yet, we're still working on it)

• Fixed a bug causing errors to pop up in the intro mission and other Ice Age areas.
  • Thanks to Aeronic and Smiling_Spectre for this one.

• Added an Atrium courtesy of Dizzard.

• Added a bossroom from Coppermantis.

• Loads and loads of multiplayer progress. Our two-players-one-server tests are getting increasingly lower bug counts, so that's a great sign that we should be hitting the public opt-in multiplayer alpha sometime soon.

• Previously, the game was accidentally showing -X% Resistance for monsters that were resistant to an element. Now it shows X% Resistance, which is actually correct.
  • Thanks to SNAFU for reporting.

• Plum trees can now be found in the "grasslands with tree clumps" areas along with walnut trees.

• Plum trees no longer have an incredibly-too-short hitbox.
  • Thanks to BobTheJanitor for reporting.

• Several room maps of various types added by Josh.

• Added some randomization to the angles that are fired from both the giant (red and blue) amoeba bosses.
  • Thanks to tbogue for suggesting.

• The new AI behavior system has now been integrated, and advanced players will start seeing some of the effects of this pretty much immediately. More still needs to be done to make some of the new higher-level enemies feel even more unique, but bosses now shift between different behavior modes as they move around, making them a lot more threatening and interesting.
  • Details of the new AI behavior system here and even moreso here

• Skelebot Giants now randomize whether they chase you or not starting at level 5, and will chase you more and more of the time as the civ level goes up.

• Espers and amobeas now have a melee attack if you jump right into them.

• Some of the PNGs used by the game have now been packed with PNGOutWin, reducing their size by between 10% and 40%. This lets us use less bandwidth when giving you the files, and makes them load the equivalent amount faster off disk during gameplay, too.

• A new underground boss battle theme by Pablo is now used about half the time in underground boss fights, instead of the general boss music.

Beta 0.541

(Released November 9th, 2011)

• Several interior room maps added by Josh.
  • One overlord boss room added by @B0FH.

• More furniture added in contemporary areas mostly.

• Fixed an issue with enemy speeds getting a bit wonky in some cases when they were not actively pursuing you.

• Added a new monster into the game -- we won't spoil what this one is, but there's a number of new AI features/behaviors associated with it. Look for it in lava flats if you want to find it quickly.

• Drastically reworked the internals of how enemies decide to start and stop chasing you.
  • Previously it was an overly-simple range check, where they'd pursue you when you were in range and stop pursuing you when you went out of that range. If they were damaged, that range was extended quite a bit in most cases, and if they were a microboss or miniboss they'd chase you pretty much anywhere in the level.
  • Now it's a lot more realistic-feeling. Enemies that are already chasing you will keep chasing you for longer, even if they aren't damaged, before giving up. This actually varies by enemy, so some are more persistent in hunting you down than others are.
  • The range at which enemies would even pay attention to you was too short in a few cases, such as with the espers: they would start firing at you only when they got right in their face, making them easier than they really should have been. They and a couple of other enemies are no longer so myopic.

• Completely rewrote the logic of when enemies decide to fire on you, how they line up their shots (in the case of specific-range stuff like circle of fire), and how they handle the choices to pursue or flee, while firing or not firing.
  • Right now there are 16 different general flavors of AI behavior in the game, and this is the start of some work that will let us make each one more subtle and interesting, and even later start doing things like having enemies switch between AI behaviors based on the context of what is going on.
  • We'd originally thought we would keep the AI in this game pretty simple, along what you tend to see in a Metroidvania game's basic enemies. But that's only so interesting for bosses in particular, and frankly for a lot of the smaller enemies as well. Turns out we just can't keep away from adding progressively cooler AI in our games!

• Fixed a longstanding bug with flying enemy movement in short-height interiors, where they were just flying along the floor for the most part.

• Insect orb has been nerfed severely.
  • Note that these are per-projectile damages, and there are a dozens of projectiles all at once (though now it's down to 36 projectiles instead of 96 of them).

• Some enemies now get new AI behaviors swapped in as they level up.
  • Level 5+ icicle leapers will now chase you.
  • Level 20+ skelebot giants now will chase you also.
  • Level 30+ amoebas of all sorts (giant and otherwise) now will kite you. Not sure how well this will work, but it seems worth a shot.
  • Level 50+ bats of all sorts start pathfinding after you rather than just doing simple homing.
  • Level 60+ fairies start pathfinding after you, too, rather than just floating around. The big fairies, we mean -- the little ones always pathfind for you.
  • Level 15+ desert burrowers start chasing you from quite a distance away.
  • Level 50+ eagles start acting like eagle divers.

• Previously, if you moused over the empty inventory right at the start of the game before picking up even your first item, the game would throw exceptions. Fixed.
  • Thanks to Aeronic for reporting.

• Added a new Plasma Bolt spell.
  • It's basically like fireball except smaller, slower at first and then faster, light elemental instead of fire elemental, and slightly weaker, cheaper, and quicker to fire.
  • Crafted with Opal + Walnut + Quartz.
  • Thanks to KDR_11k for suggesting.

• As always, lots more multiplayer progress. First recent test with a two clients on different machines, both playing on the same server. General success was had, but there's still more to do. Getting closer, though!

Previous Release Notes

AVWW - Beta Series 1 Release Notes