Valley 1:Pre-Beta Release Notes

Alpha 4.02

Lots more work on the citybuilding interface, though it's still not ready for prime-time.

Enemies now have a "capacity cost" attached to themselves, and the monster nests that spawn them now have to keep within a capacity budget. Previously there was just always a flat two monsters per nest that could be spawned, which was problematic with a number of enemy types. Bats, amoebas, and skelebot snipers in particular all spawn far fewer now, and espers spawn several fewer.

The description text of the warp scrolls has been altered to include: "Visit any guardian stone to be refreshed back up to a minimum of two warp scrolls for free."

The default controls (and the controls for all existing players so far) have been redefined to have the E key be the confirm/action key instead of the T key, for easier access with WASD players. The R key now cycles inventory bars instead of the E key.

The minimap scale is now able to be increased all the way to 60, instead of just to 20.

The default minimap scale is now 15, rather than 1. All existing chosen minimap sizes have been reset to this new default.

The hopes interface, which is not really ready for prime-time yet, has been disabled. That's something for later into beta.

The Crestsmith, Spellshaping, and Enchant/Disenchant workbenches will no longer appear until the civilization level reaches 15, 20, and 10, respectively. This keeps the very early game simpler, and honestly most of the advanced functions in these really aren't relevant until later, anyway.

Fixed bug where mouse-fired abilities could happen from clicking within a gui window (like the messages window in the upper right).

A new music theme is now available in a lot of the ice age buildings, small town buildings, and so on.

The magic defense and physical defense stats have been removed from all characters and monsters. This simplifies the character selection process for players, and simplifies the balancing process for enemies. In general this was just complexity that was not positive, as there are more ways to accomplish something similar using abilities and enchants later.

The stats of all prior characters and monsters from existing savegames have been substantially altered. The balance is hopefully a bit better, but it hasn't been tested a huge amount so feedback is very welcome.
- This seems to have improved the scaling of stats between levels as well, but we'd definitely like more feedback on that.

The dynamic skies will no longer go nuts when you first switch regions. They also will transition way more slowly when you move between regions on the world map, too.

The "Utility" button in the in-game escape menu has been renamed to "Settings" to be more clear as to what it really is.

Fixed a bug where, on static skies only, sometimes the background wouldn't draw and you'd get a "medusa effect."

The left and right edges of surface chunks now show a black bar so that you can definitely tell you're getting close to the transition edge. More importantly, it makes it easier to know which way you should run when you enter a chunk from the world map, which was definitely confusing before.

Any graphics cards that do not support shader model 3.0 will now automatically use static skies, since dynamic skies just draw a pink background on graphics cards tht don't support SM3.

When the dungeon map has been offset using the shift plus arrow key combination, this offsetting is now remembered until the player goes into a different dungeon. Previously it reset whenever the map was closed, the room was changed, etc, etc.

The dungeon/region map now does a better job of always disappearing when you go to the world map or the main menu.

The messages in the upper right of the screen now show for 60 seconds instead of 10, since with just 10 seconds they would often disappear before there was really a chance to read them. Now there is lots of time, but they still don't hang around indefinitely.

Monster movement speeds are now scaled by the difference between their level and the world civilization level. If they are 1 level higher they move at 80% of their full speed. At two levels higher its 100%. At 3+ levels higher it's 120%. At the same level as you it's 60%. One level less than you is 50%. Two levels less is 40%. Three levels less is 30%.
- This also applies to monster spells that are cast.
- All in all this helps with the difficulty tuning, where players who want a slower or faster game can play up or down region levels as appropriate.

Monsters now grow into existence at a speed based on their movement speeds as per the above change. Monsters are not allowed to fire spells at you while they are in the midst of appearing, which gives you a little more warning time as well.

Boss monsters now always show their health bar, with the background of it flashing between black and its normal color. This, plus the name of the monster instead of their type being shown above it, should really clear up any confusion about which monsters in a sea of monsters is actually the microboss. With minibosses and up it already wasn't a problem, but microbosses could be really tricky.

Added in a new monster type: skelebot dwarf.
- This monster is automatically swapped in for regular skelebots or skelebot snipers in building interiors, since skelebots are too tall to be used indoors (which has always been the intended case, but I never got around to actually doing a smaller enemy for those interiors until now).
- These use a new skelebot variant of the circle of fire, and some different AI than any of the other existing enemies in order to line up their shots on players.
- The accuracy of their firing scales with the diffence in levels between them and you.
  - If they are two or more levels higher than the civilization level, they'll pretty much nail you every time you get in their circle's area. If they're the same as your civilization level, they miss more like half the time, but still hit you a fair bit.

In new settlements, the hearth guardian stone is now placed very near to the world map exit so that players can quickly and easily access it.

In new settlements, the various workbenches and the covered bridge, aside from the primary three of spellshaping, spellscribing, and outfitter, are all placed near the center of the settlement chunk, rather than at the outside edge. This keeps things cleaner and less overwhelming with them, and clearly differentiates between the primary and secondary groups (and all but two of the secondary group are invisible until you start reaching higher civ levels, anyway).

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