Valley 1:Post-Launch Series 2 Release Notes

Beta 1.104

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

• 100 More rooms added thanks to Benmiff!

• The term "piercing" has been replaced throughout the game with the term "cleaving" instead. With some other in-progress changes we felt that this would be clearest. Spells that are cleaving are able to pass through enemies to hit other enemies behind them, same as before.

Tiers Overhaul

This is a pretty large change, so to really understand the full implications (which we think you'll love), you have to digest the entirety of the written information in this tiers overhaul section and all of its subsections. Unless you're very new to the game or have only played it very casually, in which case you can pretty much disregard all of this -- you'll hardly notice the difference, except that thing will be smoother and more fun. And more like you expect.

Relating To Characters, Settlements, And Per-Continent Stuff

• Previously, tiers were always per-continent and this had a number of drawbacks; it meant that you very much felt like you were on a treadmill when you moved to a new continent, since you were starting over and having to craft the same gear again and again.
  • Now there is an overall world tier that never goes down, and which matches the tier of the highest available continent at the current time.
  • However, older continents won't continue increasing in tier along with the rest of the world.
    • In other words, continent 1 goes from tier 1 through 5, using the same mechanisms already established in the game. When you reach continent 2, the world tier jumps to 6 since continent 2 goes from tier 6-10.

• The concept of a "settlement stockpile" has been replaced by a "crafting stockpile" instead. These look pretty much identical except for the name, but in fact are very different.
  • The first difference is that these are cross-continent. So if you've collected a lot of something on continent 1, you don't have to re-collect that on continent 2, which was just plain annoying.
  • The second difference is that these are now per-player. Previously this was global for all players, and each player could spend a "copy" of each ingredient that anyone else picked up. This was confusing in many ways, and many players didn't even realize that was the case.
  • Now if you pick it up, it goes into your personal crafting stockpile just like any of your other inventories, and that's that. You can use each such item once, and any other players will have to pick up their own materials.

• Upon upgrade into the new version of the game, your personal stockpile will get all of your unspent resources from all continents put into one. So essentially it's just combining the counts of what you'd have seen if you went to each continent and opened up the settlement stockpiles and added those items up.

• Previously, some guardian power scrolls required you to spend resources such as cedar logs or granite in order to cast them. That has been done away with. Now if you have the scroll and an NPC of the appropriate skill level and profession to cast the scroll, you can cast the scroll.
  • Among other benefits, this prevents players from having to scrounge around for a lot of granite at the start of each new continent.
  • This means that granite and cedar logs will be just treated like any other common crafting ingredient, rather than as separate building ingredients.

• As a reminder, ingredients were previously grouped into three categories: common, building, and arcane. Now it's just common and arcane, since the building ingredients (consisting solely of cedar logs and granite) have been moved to instead be common crafting ingredients).
  • Common ingredients are found through freeform exploration, just as they always were. They use a whitelist system: any player who is in the chunk at the time the tree is felled or the granite outcrop is broken can pick up a copy of the ingredient.
    • This is the new way of preventing "ninja loot stealing," since the old way -- having a common store of materials from which all players could spend -- has now been displaced.
  • Arcane ingredients, historically, have always been rewarded by completing missions. Now instead these are only found in stash rooms (which of course raises the question of what you get for completing missions, but that will be covered further below).
    • Arcane ingredients, like most other things in stash rooms, use a blacklist system: any player can pick up the item once, and they don't have to have been in the room at the time of its spawning in order to do so. This has always been the system for items in stash rooms, and now arcane ingredients simply follow that established pattern.

• More notes are coming for this section soon; please hold your questions for now, as our explanations are not yet complete.

Procedural Spells And Rewards From Missions

• World Map missions previously used to give you rewards that were a mix of tier orbs, arcane ingredients, and/or guardian power scrolls. These all went into the global settlement stores for that continent.
  • Now world map missions only give you spells, rather than any of that other stuff. The spells are always the current world tier + 1.
  • Only players who are actually in the mission at the time it is completed will get the spell that is being rewarded, but all of them will get it.

• Secret missions were recently working exactly like world map missions. Instead, secret missions now only seed guardian power scrolls -- these still go into the global settlement stores for that continent, since guardian power scrolls (like NPCs) are now the only remaining per-continent continent-wide (as opposed to per-player cross-continent) resources.

• Note that the one-shot rescue survivor missions still exist, just as they always have, and aren't affected by this.

• The "diluter" head-slot enchants, which have always been a source of confusion in the game, have now been removed as they are no longer needed.

• Note: the procedural aspect of the spells in particular haven't been explained yet, and majorly affect both this and the next section.

• More notes are coming for this section soon; please hold your questions for now, as our explanations are not yet complete.

Relating To Crafting

• Spells no longer have crafting prerequisites, but now instead have "spell power classes" which are able to accomplish much the same thing (ie, establishing that launch meteor is demonstrably and intentionally better than launch rock).

• For the first time, spells are now able to be unlocked directly rather than relying only on their crafting materials to keep them locked.

• All craftable spells have had their crafting costs completely redone. In many cases they are similar to what they used to be, in many other cases they bear little to no resemblance to what they once were.
  • There is now only a single crafting cost for spells regardless of tier, now. As the world tier increases, any spells that you craft or otherwise acquire will be given to you at WorldTier + 1.

• Previously, the crafting interface of the game was split into two subsections: Equip Known Spell and Learn New Spell.
  • This was needlessly confusing, but it had the benefit of letting you learn a spell (of a tier) once on a continent and then equip it as many times as you wanted to forever after.
    • That also easily let you equip multiple copies of that same spell into different ability bars, which many players found handy. In our new approach we're going to accomplish the ability bars thing in a different way that will be more flexible anyhow; letting you do the same with wood platforms and so forth, which under the old system you could not do.
  • Anyhow, now the crafting interface just has one section: learn new spell. Any spell you learn here will automatically be at the world tier + 1, and the cost is always the same.
  • There is now more physicality to spells: when you craft a spell it goes into your inventory and that's that. It has a specific tier, which will never change, and if you drop it the spell will remain wherever it was that you put it. Before it was more like you had a press for printing infinite money once you had learned a spell, but now spellgems are clearly a more physical object that you don't want to lose (if you want further use of it, anyhow).

• Tier orbs are no longer needed, and so have been removed from the game. The graphics for these will be reused for "rarity orbs."

• Design Notes to explain the above:
  • Crafting has become relegated to somewhat the secondary way of getting new spells, now that world map missions give you spells directly (as opposed to giving you arcane ingredients).
  • This also means that all ingredients (common and arcane) are found the same way: free exploration. Common ingredients might sometimes be found as part of a mission, but generally arcane ingredients are just in stashes outside of missions.
  • That said, the crafting is still very important to the game because it's a way to take control of your own equipment if the random number generator hates you. It's also a great way to get rarer versions of various spells by crafting a spell with a rarity orb added in.

• More notes are coming for this section soon; please hold your questions for now, as our explanations are not yet complete.

Relating To Character/Monster Stats And Attacks

• More notes are coming for this section soon; please hold your questions for now, as our explanations are not yet complete.

Official 1.103 Hotfix

(Released June 21st, 2012)

• The pursuit range of jellyfish was incredibly larger than it should have been (8x larger), and has now been reduced to its proper range.
  • Thanks to Cinth for reporting.

• The way that light works is now more natural/fluid. The light sources illuminate their surroundings close to immediately now, so the lights no longer seem to lag behind. Simultaneously, the way that darkness creeps back in after a light source has passed is now a little slower than before, making it so that light trails are left a bit more and it all feels better to play in.
  • Thanks to Cinth for reporting.

• The "What's New?" link in the game now points to this page rather than to the older beta series 1 page.
  • Thanks to NyQuil for reporting.

Beta 1.102 Stop Wiggling!

(Released June 20th, 2012)

• Fixed a "screen shudders when paused" bug in the recent fix that helped the screen scrolling keep you on the screen even if being blown around by windstorms, knockback, etc.
  • Thanks to leb0fh for the report.

• Fixed a bug from a recent version where placing an ocean buoy would not provoke the recalculation of whether each region on that continent is connected via land or non-turbulent-water to a settlement or non-stormy-port. This was causing the "marooned" message to show in some cases where it should not have been after placing an ocean buoy.
  • Thanks to lavacamorada for the report.

• Fixed a bug where the underwater mission portals could not be entered and would not display the "press E to enter" text when you walked in front of them.
  • Thanks to lavacamorada for the report and save.

• Fixed a bug where the game could fail to properly insert a settlement NPC into a settlement chunk because it thought its remembered position was valid when it was not.
  • Thanks to Misery for the report and save.

• The "Douse Monster Nest" ability is no longer usable in an NPC-rescue mission.
  • Thanks to jruderman for inspiring this change.

• The base shrapnel damage has been adjusted for the following entities as follows:
  • Mossy Barrel from 22 to 8.
  • Urban Crawler from 22 to 8.
  • Thanks to CodexArcanum, Cinth, jruderman, Ipkins, AlexxKay, Lancefighter, CodexArcanum, Omosh, and Ghost Matter for suggesting.

• The frequency of how often the minimap updates is now based on how big the chunk in question is; in order to avoid lag, we previously had it set to 1 second between minimap updates. However, in smaller chunks (actually most chunks) that really was excessive.
  • The new logic makes it so that in most chunks it will update more like every half second, and in smaller chunks it will update every quarter second if need be. Only the really excessively large chunks still update on a 1-second interval.
  • Thanks to jruderman, TechSY730, and NyQuil for suggesting.

• For all chunks, the minimap now updates as soon as you enter the chunk, regardless of how long it has been since the last time you entered a chunk.
  • Thanks to jruderman, TechSY730, and NyQuil for suggesting.

• Previously, the collision profile of explosive bear traps was completely wrong; such that it seemed to float above the ground, and its collision box was very tiny. Fixed.

• Previously, NPCs and monsters would shoot at dangerous background entities that they could not hit anyway (like mossy barrels). Fixed.
  • Thanks to lavacamorada and Gemzo for reporting.

• Previously, summoned monsters and even sometimes players could step in bear traps and get hurt. Fixed.
  • Thanks to jruderman for reporting.

• In recent versions of the game, bear traps were not being triggered by monsters. Fixed.
  • Thanks to GauHelldragon and Misery for reporting.

• In recent versions, deploying regular bear traps (as opposed to explosive bear traps) did not even work. Fixed.
  • Thanks to jruderman for reporting.

Previous Release Notes

AVWW - Post-Launch Series 1 Release Notes