Ash & Rust

Gates Mode:

• Fixed a bug where the Gates door in the Hub had a mouse-hover cursor error and audio issue.
  
• Adjusted position of Gates Score HUD to not overlap other UI.
  
• Fixed Gates mode end buttons (Retry and Return to Hub) which both had various issues.
  
• Added more shrine celebration vfx.
  
• Fixed Gates Camera parameters and minimap not orienting correctly.
  

• Fixed certain recipes that weren't generating in the player's Craft Panel.
  
• Fixed player's Craft Panel not having all Minor Traits available.
  
• Fixed bug where if you created a new ability, your Red Gear augments would not apply to that new ability until reload.
  
• Fixed lighting in Faewood Freelance, Zenith Keep Campaign.
  
• Fixed terrain and lighting in The Off.
  
• Changed the shape of the Universal Augment Blackhole, and the Nova Augment Conflagrate.
  

Notice:

• Removed a couple broken Gear items that were not supposed to be droppable. If you have one of these and try to use it will likely cause your character to stop responding. Just uneqeuip it to the ground and reload the character.
  
• The Appearance Vendor in the Hub that lets you change your character's looks has been temporarily disabled. It caused a ton of visual bugs and needs a bit of work and tuning.
  
• Freelance Mode Region 12's lights accidentally got turned off in a previous update and it was nearly impossible to see anything, should be good now.
  

Other:

• Fixed minor Corporation Guide issue with one of the options.
  
• Added a 1 second internal cooldown to Recursive Projectiles Major Trait to tone it down a bit (and reduce visual lag)
  
• Removed Nova's camera vfx while Channeling
  
• Fixed a Teleport quest state bug on first region.
  

• Various weapon vfx fixes. several were rendering too small.
  
• Freelance Mode Zenith Keep region tons of fixes.
  

• Fixed the Title screen main menu rendering off screen on certain ultrawide resolutions, as well as some other UI such as dialogue.
  
• Added more robustness to The Height's region quest state, so that if you leave mid-quest and come back you can continue on easier.
  

Improvements:

• Optional quests that are not required to progress through the campaign are now noted as such in the quest HUD and Log.
  
• The Exploration/Shrine quest in all regions now saves your completion progress, so if you leave the region in the middle of the quest you don't have to redo all shrines.
  
• Improved the shape colors and outlines of Crafting Items.
  

Bugs:

• Fixed a bug where if you declined a certain optional quest that is available in all regions throughout the campaign, your character could get stuck and be unable to receive inputs.
  
• Fixed a bug in Freelance Mode on a certain mission where killing one enemy would instantly fill your requirement.
  
• Fixed a bug where if you reset an ability that you used Slot Unlockers on, and then restarted the game, you'd lose your unlocked slots.
  
• Fixed multiple visual bugs in Faewood region.
  
• Fixed multiple icon bugs in Waste region.
  

• NEW! Added Practice Dummies to the Hub and changed the Hub layout a bit to accommodate. (They are on the far right).
  
• Fixed bug where Gear would not show the Reforge Point icon even if it had available Reforge Points.
  
• Fixed bug where equipping a new a Augment in certain circumstances would incorrectly change the vfx of the ability to the wrong one.
  
• Fixed bugs in Freelance mode in certain regions where when you died, the Death Realm would not correctly setup.
  
• Fixed multiple Freelance Reward Reforge Point Gainer bugs.
  
• Fixed Enemy Bolt attacks that would sometimes either fly off in strange directions or not correctly aim at the player.
  

New Content:

• Check out this post for a more detailed breakdown of all the major new changes (gifs included!)
  
• Gear! So much new Gear of every type, and a complete redesign of their stats and values.
  
• New Augments and Traits, especially related to the three new Universal Augments: Agile, Charge, and Channel, so that there are tons of new builds and playstyles around them.
  
• New Monsters and Elite versions, Points of Interest around the world, unique encounters, and just overall more varied and dynamic moment-to-moment gameplay.
  
• Shielding: There are now lots of ways to create, manipulate, and destroy health shields.
  
• More Dots! Now aside from the Corruption Element providing the "Defile" DoT, we have Ignite, Bleed, and Poison! And they all have their own unique mechanics and ways to scale!
  
• Polish: As I and others played through the game, I tried to compile a massive list of everything that could use some love. Wonky noises, bad particle effects, janky animations, etc. In this release I've tackled a ton of them. From small things like swapping in new monster audio sounds, to more involved processes like arrows properly sticking into environment objects and everything in between.
  

Overhauled Content (basically new!):

• The world has been completely redesigned, going from linear levels to a much more open style. And to encourage and reward exploration, there are powerful treasures and monsters scattered throughout each region.
  
• Many new monsters and improvements to old ones and their abilities.
  
• End-game mode Freelance has been fully reworked. Overall I'm having a ton of fun spamming them, and I'll continue to adjust and iterate on them, as well as continuously add new missions!
  
• Tons of balance changes, mechanical changes such as more Augments working together and updates to how they scale, and combat improvements such as more visual and auditory hit sounds, queues, etc.
  

Notable missing features!

• Dungeon Mode as I envision it is currently not ready! The version I implemented for this release is very similar to the old "build-a-boss" system but with all the new bells and whistles and integrated from the new Freelance mode. I may end up saving the release of the proper Dungeon mode for when Multiplayer releases, since ideally those are where both modes will really shine anyway, but we shall see!
  
• I could not get all the visual models of the new Body and Feet Gear implemented in time. So even though there are dozens of new powerful Gear pieces, their visuals will be a remix of current ones until I get the delivery of the new ones. All the new Head, Trinket, and Hands Gear has their new visuals though.
  
• Exploration Mode has been (temporarily) removed: With the massive changes to Campaign mode, Exploration mode will need a rework as well.
  
• In the last dev-blog post I showed off "destructible" environment objects. Due to performance issues that I have not yet solved, I did not implement these in all the regions, and I reduced their amount in the region that they're still in. Once I solve the performance problem, I'll implement them throughout.
  
• In the last dev-blog post I said "I *think* I fixed the dreaded ability-icon-rearrangement bug", but alas, I didn't, it has happened to me during testing. Back to the drawing board!
  
• Due to the new open-world structure, there are a bunch of new minor bugs I found that I'll patch up asap, such as minimap icons not going away, or the quest log showing old completed quests, etc.