Valley 1:Beta Series 3 Release Notes

Beta 0.901

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

• Fixed a bug that was causing tombstones to seed in stash rooms instead of enchant containers!
  • Thanks to Moo for reporting.

• Fixed a bug from a couple versions ago where a monster would always only drop one "item drop" entity on death, and packed everything into that one drop. So bosses dropped a single "shard" (that was actually all of them) instead of a cloud of them, etc.
  • Thanks to BobTheJanitor for the report.

• Battlegrounds:
  • Now work in MP. Previously ally minions would just ignore enemy minions and run right by them. Enemy minions generally did the same. Now they actually target each other and fight, etc. This should also help NPCs in MP NPC-rescue missions actually shoot and be shot at.
    • Thanks to Underfot for the report.
  • Minions now close up the range a bit tighter before standing still.
  • Along with that, they now try to spread out a bit better so that your allies aren't all standing on one spot (and generally taking aoe damage from even simple projectiles).
  • Fixed a bug that was effectively creating a 0.5 second "global" cooldown on ally shots in the sense that at most 1 ally could shoot per 0.5 seconds. This was causing a lot of strangeness, and some other bugs elsewhere in the game.

• Since the tombstones-in-stashes was so interesting, now tombstones will tend to be seeded in stashes in general in addition to their other stuff.

• Lava escape missions can no longer be seeded on the world map as missions. You'll now only find them as secret missions.
  • These are meant to be very punishing for players who like that sort of thing, and as such having them relegated to secret-only status makes good sense.
  • Thanks to many players for complaining about this, including rchaneberg, Terraziel, and BobTheJanitor.

• Fixed a bug where the open-region-map and open-dungeon-map keybinds couldn't fire while a popup (tutorial message or otherwise) was showing. Particularly amusing when the tutorial popup is telling you to open the dungeon/region map.
  • Thanks to BobTheJanitor for the report.

• Fixed a bug where health drops could heal again after being flagged for removal after the first heal performed by them, causing them to be much stronger in multiplayer due to latency.
  • Thanks to TyberZann for the report.

• Fixed a bug where when a continent was generated that had no valid location for a port region it would just dump the new port region on world coordinate 0,0, complain about it in the chat log, and call it a day.
  • Now if there's no valid location, and there's already a port region it just doesn't seed any more for that continent and done. If there are literally no port regions on the continent (and no places to put one) it just ditches the newly generated continent and makes a new one.

• Tooltip for Miniature no longer claims that double-tapping down will activate it.
  • Thanks to MaxAstro for reporting.

• Fixed an error with a particular boss room map that could lead to that room being flooded with lava.
  • Thanks to Terraziel for reporting.

• A sound effect now plays when "do not worry" messages appear.

• An explosion sound effect now plays when urban predator missiles explode.

• The urban predator plasma shot now uses a different sound effect.

• Casting a light snake now uses a different sound effect, as do teleport, greater teleport, plasma bolt, and energy pulse.

• New spell that can be crafted: Storm Fist:
  • Mid-power touch-range spell that knocks you and your target back when used. A little bit useful for harvesting, but actually works better as a minor way of knocking yourself up to ledges that are just out of reach, along the ground while ducking, or similar. Just don't knock yourself into any passages from which you can't escape!
  • Thanks to KDR_11k for suggesting -- amazingly, since we've been so busy with other parts of the game, this is the first new spell since December 22nd!

• Whenever NPCs move between chunks, their dialogue is reset. This should prevent them from complaining about wanting to be rescued after they are already at the settlement, but let us know if that doesn't work.

• Mana costs should now reflect their true values on spell descriptions if those costs have been reduced by enchants.
  • Thanks to Terraziel for reporting that they previously did not.

• The cooldown entries are now shown in a greatly condensed format in spell descriptions; rather than taking up one line per type of cooldown, they now show on a single line in a much less wordy fashion, sorted by length of cooldown time.

• Damage Per Second, Damage Per Mana, and Damage Per Second Per Mana are now all shown in the description of offensive spells.
  • And yes, these numbers take into account your current tier, any enchants you're wearing, your own innate stats, and so on. Just like all the other spell stats.
  • Thanks to BobTheJanitor and Terraziel for suggesting.

• Fixed a small typo in the description of wooden crates.
  • Thanks to Hyfrydle for pointing this out.

• Fixed a typo referencing "Guaridan Ilari".
  • Thanks to terraziel for pointing it out.

• More dialogue work has gone into a lot of the NPCs from Marisa.

Difficulty Split: Combat And Platforming

• The game has had its "action difficulty" split into two separate difficulties due to a growing divide in players over the platforming aspects of the game. Instead of one "action difficulty" that covers everything, there is now a "combat difficulty" which covers everything combat-related, and a "platforming difficulty" which covers everything platforming-related.
  • Thus players who are not as good at combat, but love hardcore platforming, can get the experience they want.
  • And likewise, those players who hate platforming but want as stiff a fight as the game can give them, can also get the experience they want.
  • And of course everything in between.
  • Thanks to a number of players, but BobTheJanitor and zebramatt most of all, for making it clear to us that this change was needed.

• The new platforming difficulty levels are:
  • 1 I Have No Desire To Be The Guy
  • 2 I Am Afraid Of Heights
  • 3 I Can Jump, Thank You (Default)
  • 4 I Get Mistaken For A Certain Plumber
  • 5 I Am Not The Guy, But I Am Close (This is what Chris likes)
  • 6 I Am Already The Guy

• The general rate of lava rise in the lava escape missions has been toned down some. What was difficulty 4 on the older "action difficulty" scale is now difficulty 5 on the new platforming scale. And consequently, difficulty 6 has been toned down a bit because it was probably impossible for anyone. Difficulty 4 has thus also become much tamer, and difficulty 3 slightly tamer. Difficulties 1 and 2 are unchanged, as they were already incredibly tame.

Previous Release Notes

AVWW - Beta Series 2 Release Notes