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Valdis Story: Abyssal City on Steam

I played the game only for a couple of hours and it's good, only problem for me is that there's no mission log or anything to tell you where to go next. For example I didn't play the game for a long time and decided to play it again, only to find myself lost because I didn't remember where to go. The characters tell you in the dialogue, but there's no log to see that again afaik
 

Nordicus

Member
Say, how does Teachings of the Lifeblade work now? I remember annihilating everything with my full AGI near-infinite Focus mode Reina build.
I'm curious as well, I've not yet made it to the part of the game where I can open the chest that has it.

Making it into a key item is smart on paper at least. I dislike the idea of there being an accessory specifically for fighting end game bosses. Unless you have a build that extremely relies on certain accessory, that's just one slot worth of freedom taken away for these bosses.

I played the game only for a couple of hours and it's good, only problem for me is that there's no mission log or anything to tell you where to go next. For example I didn't play the game for a long time and decided to play it again, only to find myself lost because I didn't remember where to go. The characters tell you in the dialogue, but there's no log to see that again afaik
Honestly, the game even stops giving decent directions the moment it opens up, weirdly enough.

The penultimate quest of crafting the Divine Key might as well say "Go explore, and smash things open with your fire spells", because I do not think you can know where Ziggurat and Engineer's Palace are beforehand, not to mention the keys to open these locations
 

Gotchaye

Member
Say, how does Teachings of the Lifeblade work now? I remember annihilating everything with my full AGI near-infinite Focus mode Reina build.

I don't remember how it used to work, but now it just passively increases damage against certain bosses while in Focus mode. If you have it (and I think only if you haven't lost any towns) you can talk to someone and get a Focus Finisher that does lots of damage at the cost of 75% of your current HP.

Also for people playing through for the first time post-patch: consider not spending any Tamahagane on weapon upgrades.
 

QisTopTier

XisBannedTier
I hope this game gets more notice with the update and iga's ks

It's too good to not be bigger, think I gave out about 13 copies durring xmas 2013
 

Nordicus

Member
Oh my goddddddd, the the bossfight in the mines was already tough, but now it's just brutal. They might as well remove the adds from the first phase, now it's kinda overkill.

I don't remember how it used to work, but now it just passively increases damage against certain bosses while in Focus mode.
It used to multiply damage against some bosses, however, every time you attacked while not in Focus Mode, you'd take a bit of damage yourself.

Also for people playing through for the first time post-patch: consider not spending any Tamahagane on weapon upgrades.
Oh snap!

I hope this game gets more notice with the update and iga's ks

It's too good to not be bigger, think I gave out about 13 copies durring xmas 2013
Although I started playing it January 2014, thus with minor improvements over original version as it was patched, I'd call Valdis Story my GOTY 2013.

:p Dunno if I'll manage giving out another 12 copies to catch up with you, but I think I might gift 4-6 this Steam summer sale if discount is decent. More people need to play this!
 

Agent_4Seven

Tears of Nintendo
I started playing this game almost a year ago, played for 9 hours and then... then I couldn't beat the boss (I don't remember which one exactly) on hard difficulty. I need to come back to this game at some point this year and play it on normal first (^__^)
 

Morrigan Stark

Arrogant Smirk
I played the game only for a couple of hours and it's good, only problem for me is that there's no mission log or anything to tell you where to go next. For example I didn't play the game for a long time and decided to play it again, only to find myself lost because I didn't remember where to go. The characters tell you in the dialogue, but there's no log to see that again afaik
Welcome to every Metroidvania ever. ;)
 

Nordicus

Member
Welcome to every Metroidvania ever. ;)
Not quite. Both Guacamelee and Strider had a marker indicating where to go next. Now, they're more straight Metroid-clones than metroidvanias, but it doesn't make much of a practical difference when talking about this feature.

That said, I enjoyed Valdis Story way more than either of those games, soooo...

Edit: Perhaps the much more important factor in terms of frustration over being lost is that in Valdis Story, old enemies kinda level-scale and get new moves as you progress, and the game is balanced around always challenging you even when you're backtracking.

In many of these games you sorta steamroll past everyone if you needlessly backtracked to an old zone. In Valdis Story, you might use a potion or two, or even die.
 
I loved this game last time I played it. Looking forward to picking it up again. I think it's a real tragedy that it isn't more popular given just how amazingly good it is.

As I recall, in the build I played the eye bosses were extremely hard, even at endgame. I played on "very hard"(?) difficulty and it did not mess around.
 

Nordicus

Member
Whew, almost through with my Gilda Hard playthrough, mainly Luck build.

Earlier Gotchaye said that you shouldn't use any of your Tamahagane on weapon upgrades. Now I know what he meant, and I have to emphasize the word any. You can trade in all 10 Tamahagane that exist in the game for something particularly neat later in the game. In fact, it's something that can give something new to all 4 different characters. Guess I gotta run this game a few more times before I've experienced everything.

The new bosses are quite good, way above Manawar, which even back then made me raise an eyebrow over how budget it looked and felt. Lozzo was too squishy for me to really analyze, Abbigail didn't have anything drastically new but was decent, Ragano was actually really fun to figure out (kill poison generator, do not attack too aggressively) and he fights kinda stylishly with those twin axes, Abomination was tough even though he was stationary and doesn't have all the gimmicks that True Anemone has, and Leilodin...

...god damn Leilodin sure is a new superboss. Just getting to her is an ordeal on its own because the new Goibniu type enemies on the way there are probably tougher than any other miniboss enemy in the game. She's interesting, but not exactly a fun fight when at midpoint of the fights she summons her aggressive pet and then starts spamming ice and fire projectiles from the distance. The double-teaming would often be the point where I chug a potion.

The 2 secret feral bossfights where you fight a superpowered version of an ordinary feral were fun distractions. Their puzzles were nicely singposted.

Now about some of the changes, I don't know if other characters get a different spell, but Gilda's new lightning traversal power is really lame compared to the old lightning jump. The lightning buff that already existed, now block 2-3 hits of lightning damage from the electric walls.
Really, that's it? Unless there's some special use for it in the sanctuary, that's a borderline useless obstacle/puzzle.

Then the Eye bosses. Umm, is it just me, or did Alagath get buffed and Myrgato get nerfed? It might've been my weapon selection that cause this, but Alagath was way tougher, while I got S-rank for Myrgato on first try. Alagath used to be somewhat easy because she wasn't super aggressive and didn't fill the screen with BS too often. That's changed, and on top of that, she break stagger rather easily, either through the magic spells going off in the arena, or just by smacking you in the face. Myrgato on the other hand used her poison more rarely, and while her aerial attack now shoots blades, Myrgato was really simple to stunlock with my melee. The new version of Teaching of Life Blade is a good compromise. You only get the passive damage increase in Focus mode. With the old accessory you got it all the time but you'd harm yourself when attacking without Focus mode.

So, about my weapon selection? HOLY SHIT GILDA'S LUCK WEAPONS! They start out really, really weak, but these weapons can hit (and stagger) an enemy 3 times per attack, and the chances of this get better with higher Luck because your thrown rings get way bigger.

"Combo -> spell -> jump -> air combo -> air spell -> doublejump -> air combo -> air spell -> stomp" repeated, is almost an infinite rivalling Wyatt's old infinite with the lightning chain. I can get 100+ combos brainlessly fighting normal enemies because the size of my rings with high Luck keeps interrupting any non-boss enemy trying to attack or do a spell! Unless they fire at me from long distance or have a stunbreak, I'm untouchable and hit them multiple times a second. If any other weapon in the game has a higher attack rate than this, I'll be quite impressed.

Edit: this is the kind of shenanigans I'm talking about. Every one of those individual rings is a 3-hit attack. I count at least 6 rings on that picture
4E4C187D4FEBA9E71A7A6938F4EF5E41E024C73A
 

Morfeo

The Chuck Norris of Peace
Been playing this, and while the controls are a bit confusing, the game itself it great. Just beat the Ice Dragon-boss and entered the second town!
 

Morfeo

The Chuck Norris of Peace
Been playing this some more, and now at the library where I am getting my ass handed to me by a knight in the start. Guess its time to learn to dash, magic etc. Btw, the boss in the Gardens was some bullshit.
 

Nordicus

Member
Btw, the boss in the Gardens was some bullshit.
Ooh yes, he is one of the more annoying fights.

It helps when you realize that he
teleports in a pattern
but even so, still a boss I'd rather go against with an anti-poison elixir equipped
 

Nordicus

Member
Sudden patch announcement! Arena mode plus some rather significant balance changes. RIP "unarmed" Gilda

Yet another update folks. We took in a lot of feed back from you guys and made a lot of tweaks/changes. There are some balance changes to both Gilda and Vladyn.

The changes to Vladyn are mostly tweaks to his guns. The Chakram weapon has been a tricky situation. First it was way too strong then it was nerfed into oblivion so we decided to get back to the drawing board. The chakram was entirely replaced with a new gun weapon "Doombringer".

Gildas changes were aimed at bringing up her early game and toning down her late game slightly.


This update also brings new content with the addition of Arena Mode!

valdis-story.jpg

^and some sweet fan art by http://pyroxene.deviantart.com/ ^

We will be keeping this update on a separate Beta branch for any hot fixes that may/will be incoming before we move it to the main branch. To try out this update right-click the game in your library / properties / BETAS / select update_beta from the drop down menu.

More detailed change log below.

Fixed

[Cleric] armor not properly giving stats.
Queen/King would sometimes drop ancient coins instead of arch souls.
Brizahl's cooldown time now properly reduces with his level.
Text descriptions on various skills.
Highlander hood bonus didn't apply to guns.
Highlander hood mana penalty didn't apply to Reina or Gilda.
Various affliction based skills wouldn't activate if your base affliction chance was zero.
Various issues with banana fishing sometimes missing its target.
Unarmed attacks as Wyatt properly gain [Shred] skill with certain accessories.
Skip Godslayer ending.
Bug when parrying with Seraphic Blades.
Adjusted various scenes where NPC's kill each other.(ongoing)
[Plan B] will no longer backfire during certain battles... I think.


Added

[Heaven or Hell] Arena mode.


Changed

[Fighters Bandages] bonus reduced to 10% to account for [Health Charms] added in .23.
Base bleed from [Blade Shred] skill reduced, now scales up with Str.
Quit game from options redone.
[Masters focus] now increases attack speed of [Heavy] attacks.
All heavy attacks damage now passively scales with Str.
[Force/Perfect Guard] is now passively granted when obtaining [Superior/Mana Key Stone].
All previous ways to attain [Force/Perfect Guard] have been replaced with new skills.
[Crusader Amulet] now reduces crit damage by 30% instead of setting crit chance to 0%.
Relic weapons no longer gain unarmed bonuses.
Relic weapons mana cost scales with character level instead of upgrades.
Accessories that alter Punch/Kick have new properties when playing as Gilda.
Gilda's base Attack/Magic power increased. Magic Power scaling decreased slightly.
Slightly increased poison damage against non boss enemies.
Atalan assist Armor Ruin/Crit % slightly increased. Now has limited aiming abilities.
Stagger penalty removed from casting with insufficient mana.
[Tunnel Vision] attack bonus changed to armor ruin.
[Banana Fishing] damage reduced slightly.
Seraphic Blades aerial attack now functions similar to Gildas aerial attack.
Wyatt/Reina rising attacks now only triggered after using [Atk1] button.
[Ruinous Edge] weapon replaced with [Doombringer]
Rune of knowledge mana regen bumped up to 20%.
Blight Dragon stat bonus reduced slightly.
As Gilda, [Ninja Scroll] now grants [Tactician] skill instead of dodge during burst.
Trigger to [Death Charm] is no longer tied to Int.
Skeletal servant element determined by the magic in use when created.
Skeletal servant attack and magic/power now scale with Gilda's attack/magic power.
[Plan B] focus cost reduced to 175.
[Phantom Soul] focus cost reduced to 125.
Various changes to shot power calculation/scaling.
[Aim] skill changed to every 6th shot has increased critical chance and critical damage.
Esperanda's Long gun reduces [Aim] shot trigger to 3.
 

Nordicus

Member
The beta patch is getting some quick fixes, will be out of beta possibly in a week
A few quick fixes for the last update. Most of the fixes/changes are for arena mode but there are some general changes. Unfortunately the Arena Mode leader boards will have to be reset because of some of the more integral changes. We will keep this update in beta for another week and monitor it for anything major.

Fixed

Boss multiplier glitch after abomination in Goibniu mode. (requires more testing)
Anemone pulling you through the ground in Arena mode.
Gernot freezing up and becoming untargetable in Arena mode.
Bug where some assists could achieve a zero second cooldown in arena mode. (requires more testing)


Changed

3 boss spawn after 60th floor in the arena.
Various tweaks to enemy scaling during arena.
[Laurel Crown] Removed from arena mode.
Hat cost reduced to 2 coins in arena mode.
Statues can each only be used once during Goibniu Mode.
Removed point penalty from statues in Goibniu mode.
Upon completing Goibniu mode, each unused statue grants 0.5 bonus multiplier.
Reduced point value of Puffers in Goibniu Mode.
Increased Armor/Resist scaling on [Holy Diver].
Base power of warp blade increased.
[Armor Ruin] now gains minor increases with [Str].
Increased power of [Life Blade] finisher.
Wait, so Arena Mode is basically Bloody Palace from DMC games? Did I get that right?
 

exfatal

Member
I have and played this game really enjoyable. stopped playing cause i didnt have a gamepad though. should go back to it now that i do.
 

Nordicus

Member
I have and played this game really enjoyable. stopped playing cause i didnt have a gamepad though. should go back to it now that i do.
Eeh, this is hardly a game that requires a gamepad, never felt like it myself at least.

How far have you played?
 

NastyBook

Member
Grabbed this during the summer sale? Can't remember. Either way it was fun, but I never really got far in it. Think I took out a Ice boss, then I started running into flying angels and angel monks, and that was my stopping point. Guess I can pick it up again after the patch.
 

Nordicus

Member
Ugh, I just can't kill Leilodin on Godslayer with my current Reina build, let alone S-rank. Way too defensive, the moment the lion comes up it's Game Over because I lack the damage to kill it before they manage to do some real obnoxious combos on me.

I could maybe upgrade a more offensive type of armor, but if that doesn't cut it, it's respec time and Reina's gonna transform into Flowchart Ken.
 
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