Ash & Rust

Since the last update, I took a hard look at all the various systems and experiences of the game, considering all the great feedback I've received, and organized my future plans into three categories:

Good system, just needs more improvements and content:

1. The Inventory Grid system
   
   
   
   • MAJOR FEATURE: When you level up, you now receive a 2x2 “Slot Unlocker”. Thus by level 40, your entire Grid will be unlocked. After level 40 you will start to receive a new item each time you level up, a 1x1 “Slot Empowerer” that lets you choose any slot to Empower which increases the Effectiveness of any Augments/Traits overlapping that slot.
     
   • QOL: Added Separate Gear tabs for each of the 5 Gear types, so now you can hold way more Gear and organize it better.
     
   • QOL: Added a button to remove all Unlocked Slots and give them back to the player so you can experiment with your builds more easily as you level. (As well as for the new Empowerer item).
     
   
   
2. Augments and Traits:
   
   
   
   • NEW AUGMENTS! Added three new powerful Major Universal Augments: Agile, Charge, and Channel. These are augments that have existed in some diminished form or another since the beginning because I really love how they change the gameplay potential, but they were so incredibly difficult to make modular and fix all the special cases, requiring massive changes to the Animation and State Machine systems. I finally nailed down all the major hurdles and have fully implemented them. There is still some jank in certain combinations due to how transformative they are, but overall I'm quite satisfied with the gameplay. Many new Traits and Gear are in design to compliment these powerful Augments.
     
     
   • DESIGN IMPROVEMENT: All Minor Traits are now 1x1 but can only roll 1 stat. This fixes the previous Minor power creep and allows the player to more easily fill the holes of their Major Traits in the grid.
     
   
   
3. Strike 3.0: The last iteration of Strike seems like it finally resonated well and I'm currently very satisfied with it. Here's some further improvements I've implemented:
   
   
   
   • Combo tracking on both the HUD and with a special visual marker on the player to much more easily track what combo number you're on.
     
   • Since many of the animations have movement built-in, I've added a new system which adjusts the distance of the movement based on how far the enemies are, in order to prevent moving through them while also ensuring you can take full advantage of gap-closing animations.
     
     
   
   
4. Previously the Blood Element had no implementation on HEALING abilities. Now, whenever you heal an ally or yourself with a Blood Healing ability, they will have “Ability Refresh” applied to them, which reduces the remaining Cooldown on all abilities by X seconds.
   

Good bones, but needs iteration:

1. Summon Ability: Weapon Element. Previously the Weapon version of Summons created ghostly images attached to the player that copied the player's Strike attack. I liked the unique playstyle potential but it had so many issues. Here's how I've redesigned it:
   
   
   
   • Weapon Summons are now individual minions just like normal Summons however they do not have their own AI. Instead, they move to whatever enemy the player is attacking, and use their attacks only when the player attacks with ANY ability. This subtle change fixes so many issues with other Summon Augments, such as Farcast, Totemize, Ranged, and a new LEAP Augment and just overall feels much better in my opinion. It's hard to explain, you'll just have to try it!
     
   • The visuals are much improved as well, reducing the weird ghosts to just a Sword with a nice crunchy swing animation/vfx, and a magic orb for the Ranged Augment versions.
     
     
   
   
2. Gear:
   
   
   
   • The role of Gear is very specific: provide MUTUALLY EXCLUSIVE power. As opposed to Traits which you can try to shove as many of in your Trait Inventory, your Gear slots are much more limited and generally only fit one or two pieces in them, thus giving me the option to create very powerful transformative items that I know can't be abused since they can't be combined with other ones. Gear is the least developed of the three power systems (Augments/Traits/Gear) and so far I have not utilized its capabilities. But no longer!
     
   • I have designs for 125 different Gear pieces, each with their own powerful stats (and unique appearances of course). I will try to launch with as many complete as I can but some will probably be pushed to subsequent updates.
     
   • The overall design philosophy is as follows:
     
     
     
     1. Blues and Yellows are “stat sticks”. Blues have up to two MASSIVE stat increases. Yellows have up to five less-massive stats.
        
     2. Reds have an Augment that applies to ALL your abilities, and up to two small stats.
        
     3. Purples have a powerful Trait that you either can't get via the normal Trait system, or has a more efficient version of it freeing up valuable Trait slots. And up to two small stats.
        
     4. And lastly Orange gear always grants a new Ability, and up to two small stats.
        
     5. In AnR, the colors are not to distinguish rarity, but rather Type, with my hope being that every Color can serve a role in end-game builds. If you have a build that scales really well with a certain stat, then perhaps utilizing the power of Blue gear to get a massive increase to that stat will be most effective. Or perhaps your build is very strong but lacks a bunch of baseline defenses, then you could use a Yellow or two to gain multiple defensive stats up to their Diminishing Returns. And then of course with the remaining colors it will be up to you to see how you can best utilize their unique aug/trait/ability.
        
   
   
3. Crafting: Overall I like the basic structure of crafting, where you obtain special crafting items through enemy drops that you can use on your Augments/Traits/Gear to improve them. But it needed a ton of refinement and additional features to really make it shine, and here's what I've come up with and implemented!
   
   
   
   • DESIGN IMPROVEMENT: All items now have a chance to drop with up to 4 Reforge Points, based on the Enemy level. Every Crafting Item costs Reforge Points to use, ranging from free for the “Stat Rerollers” to 3 for the more powerful items such as a “Gear Socketer”.
     
   • The goal of the system is to have meaningful choices on how best to adjust your items to increase your build's power. For example a “Reshaper” doesn't directly increase the power of an item, but allows you to change the shape of it which can unlock completely new builds and combinations. Alternatively for the same Reforge Point cost, you can use a “Socketer” which lets you put any Minor Trait into a Major (and is affected by the previously mentioned new “Slot Empowerers”!) And of course if your item drops with enough Reforge Points, you can do both actions!
     
   • You can “undo” a Craft using a special Crafting item to re-gain the Reforge Points on the target item.
     
   • I have so far implemented a handful of these types of Crafting Items, with more designs in the pipeline for future updates.
     
   
   
4. UI: Greatly improved the feel and flow of many of the game's UIs.
   
   
   
   
   • Icons, colors and cleaner panels.
     
   • Better tabs and button feedback and visuals.
     
   • The Hub's Atlas UI has been redesigned and improved.
     

Uninspired, needs a full redesign:

1. The World:
   
   
   
   • MAJOR REDESIGN: I've changed the world from linear paths into “open” zones. The current linear designs will be saved for a new End-game system outlined below: “Dungeon Builder”. I believe the open zones are more suited to the campaign and leveling up process, allowing for the joy of discovery and world-building. However this change comes with many new needs:
     
   • NEW FEATURE: Minimap has been added. The previous linear paths and campaign system allowed me to skip this feature since it was hard to get lost or miss quests, but now that's not the case so the we'll need more guiding.
     
   • NEW FEATURE: Region Map has been added. In addition to the minimap this helps mark quests and guide the player.
     
   • NEW FEATURE: Developed a Destructible Environment system which allows me to implement lots of various Destructible objects to the world to increase the feel and responsiveness of combat.
     
     
   • QOL: Added a Quest Tracker to the HUD
     
   • IN PROGRESS: Flushing out the new zones with more details, Points of Interest, Quests, and polish.
     
   
   
2. MAJOR FEATURE: “Discovery System”. Any time you pick up a new Augment or Trait, you will gain a permanent “Proficiency Bonus” in one of 10 categories depending on what type of Aug/Trait it was. You will also be able to re-craft that Aug/Trait anytime for very cheap.
   
   
   
   • This comes with a new UI to manage the system, accessed from your main inventory window.
     
   • The Goals of this system are several: For one it makes getting ANY augment/trait more exciting even if its not good for your particular build, since it will still at least grant some power. And then through the new UI, you can supply unwanted items and roll for a new random aug/trait from a category of your choice.
     
   • Throughout the new open-world you'll come across many Points of Interest which will grant you a new undiscovered aug/trait from a category of your choice.
     
   
   
3. ENDGAME MODE – FREELANCE:
   
   
   
   • With the new Open-zone design outlined above, I've been able to completely redesign the Freelance mode.
     
   • Now when you embark on a Freelance mission from the Hub, the zone you choose to go to can have one of several different scenarios randomly applied. Upon successfully defeating the scenario, you will be rewarded a specific predetermined Ingredient(s) based on the difficulty you selected.
     
   • Additionally, before you begin the mission, you can choose to input items into the Atlas inventory in order to increase the rewards.
     
   • I hope to launch with up to five different Mission types for each zone, and will continually add more and more with each update.
     
   • This mode is designed to be one of the primary End-Game loops. Thus it needs to be highly replayable and fun. To accomplish that, in summary I have implemented:
     
     
     
     1. Randomness/variation generated from the multiple scenario types for each zone.
        
     2. Randomness on the spawn locations of players/enemies/mission goals.
        
     3. Multiple tiers of difficulty with increasing rewards and achievements.
        
     4. Ability of player to modify their rewards through the Atlas Gamble system.
        
     5. Timing and mechanics of the various scenarios: short and sweet but open to strategic decisions based on player build.
        
     6. Special secrets for each scenario...more info may or may not be coming.
        
     7. Open to further improvement with new scenarios/mission types and iteration.
        
   
   
4. ENDGAME MODE – DUNGEON BUILDER:
   
   
   
   • This mode is intended to be the PINNACLE content of Ash & Rust. It is designed to be tackled by a squad of friends (but will scale down for single player). When I dreamed of creating this game so many years ago, this mode was at the core.
     
   • It will replace the current “Build a Boss” mode where you re-open the Basement door and defeat the final boss for specified loot.
     
   • Instead it will generate a random “Dungeon”, aka a linear-designed zone with strong enemies and bosses.
     
   • The Ingredients you collect from the FREELANCE mode are the "keys" to generating the Dungeon and determine what type of loot/rewards you get.
     

Bug fixes and other Improvements:

1. NEW FEATURE: Random Elite Enemies. I know, I know, I'm very late to the game on this feature. Enemies can now spawn as Elite versions, empowering them with specific stat increases and/or unique extra abilities. They grant increased Experience and/or Loot when defeated.
   
2. NEW FEATURE: Hardcore mode! If your character dies, you cannot play that character anymore. The Off will not save you this time!
   
3. Massive load-time improvement by re-architecting the player, ui and manager load systems.
   
4. I *think* I finally fixed that pesky Gear Ability re-ordering bug where the Abilities granted from your Gear would get re-orderered on your bars when you reloaded.
   

Patch 0.8900 Notes:

1. Strike now uses a "combo" system. Every weapon type has their own unique attack pattern consisting of 3 or 4 animations. Moving or casting other abilities instantly cancels the combo. The final attack of each combo has increased damage and applies an Element (based on your weapon).
   
2. Auto-attacking has been removed. Pressing strike will just immediately start the attack animation in place, instead of trying to run up to the enemy. Projectiles now don't automatically follow their target but rather just fly straight at the desired direction. This removed any sense of janky/unresponsiveness related to targeting/range issues. It will also make implementing controller/steamdeck much easier.
   
3. Reworked the augments that no longer made sense with the new system. Like "Opportunist" now makes it so your next Strike skips straight to the final combo attack. And Heavy Blows is now Invigorating Strike which makes it so after landing your final combo attack, your next ability has significantly increased effectiveness.
   
4. Motion has been re-implemented into animations. This is pretty rare for top-down arpg, Path of Exile 2 is the only one I've seen mention implementing it. In Strike 2.0 I removed all motion from animations to help with multiplayer desyncing, and because it could often result in janky feeling combat in various situations. However when it worked, I think it really elevated the gameplay feel. So this time, I've solved the multiplayer issues and most importantly, I've implemented some algorithms to make sure the motion disables itself in relevant situations, mostly regarding standing very close to an enemy(s). Previously your character could sort of slide by or push them, resulting in floaty combat. But now it will check for those situations and act accordingly.
   

• Lots of abilities/augments have had their animations changed/improved.
  
• Reworked a lot of Vfx. removed some of the more janky/cartoony placeholder vfx. Added Distortion (the air distorting effect you see on a hot day on the road) to many effects which really helped sell their powerlessness.
  

1. Added a built-in dash\dodge ability that every character starts with. This is a feature that I've gone back and forth on many times throughout development. I've tested many iterations over the years and it may continue to evolve, but I think it's time to get a version out to the public. One thing I think will set my version apart from other games is that it's open to augmentation via the normal systems. For example if you have the Major Trait, "Apparition" (stuns all enemies you dash through), that will now apply to this built-in dodge as well, etc.
   
2. You can now freely remove and replace augments in your ability and trait slots - the Augment Remover item is no longer needed. While it does remove a bit of the meaningfulness of choices, it also makes leveling up smoother and allows for easier experimentation of all the millions of possible combinations. You can exchange your Augment Remover items at the Trader in the Hub for other crafting items.
   

• Added lots of Gameplay options in the Settings menu to better tailor your experience. Like disabling screen-shake, the click-to-move mouse indicator, blood fx, etc. Please let me know if there are additional aspects you'd like to have control over.
  

1. Fixed most of the LOD popping issues (when objects like trees suddenly pop into place as you run by) that was created after I implemented some performance improvements a few patches back.
   
2. Fixed that pesky jitter bug, where the player would jitter while running on certain PCs due to a refresh rate / fps issue. (At least on my test rigs, please let me know if you still experience this).
   
3. Cleaned up the Graphics settings, removed some nonsensical options, reorganized it better. I still need to expose more options to better tailor the graphics to your preferences. I've run into a few snags when trying to do so I need a bit more time to work out the best solution.
   
4. I upgraded the game engine to the next major version. This provided some new tools and features that I desired, but also came with its own new set of bugs. For example, if an item drops in a stream/river the text UI hovering above it that says its name now appears as if it's underwater. It looks pretty cool, but for clarity I need to sort that out. Also, choosing your character on the Title screen often has a lag spike. I found the root of the issue but it will take some time to adjust my load systems.
   

0.8823

• Fixed Shields not showing their implicit value. (The stat was still applying to your character but tooltip wasn’t displaying it).
  
• Improved Strike Auto Attack targeting behavior. Player will stop in strike range instead of trying to move right on top of target.
  
• Improved character targeting / mousehover
  
• Fixed value range bug with Elemental Preparation
  
• Fixed 2hand Weapons animation during Dialogue/Cinematic scenes.
  

Improvements

• Implemented a procedural hand system to fix all the misaligned left hands on 2-hand weapons.
  
• Improved the overall placement and positioning of all 2-hand weapons.
  
• Improved the "stop-running" animation.
  
• Swapped a few of the janky/slide-y animations for better ones.
  

• Fixed animation sliding issue between Strike attacks
  
• Fixed a next-autoattack-target issue.
  
• Fixed an animation speed scaling issue when dual wielding.
  

• Improved player targeting when spam clicking.
  
• Slightly reduced the click area for targets.
  
• Increased base attack speed of a couple slower animations.
  

The Rationale

How does it work now?

Work in Progress

• The new system still has some rough areas, like both hands of the player character often not aligning properly with the weapon. I'm trying to implement a procedural system that will take care of that but if it fails, I'll go through and manually correct them.
  
• Added some experimental "Stop" transitions when the player stops moving.
  
• A couple Strike-related Augments will be pretty useless now , like Opportunist, until I rework them.
  
• There's a known bug if you equip a Right-hand Scepter and an Offhand, and then swap the Scepter for a melee weapon, your Strike range will be bugged. Un-equip and re-equip both items and it should be fixed.
  

And Lastly

The Rationale

How does it work now?

Work in Progress

• The new system still has some rough areas, like both hands of the player character often not aligning properly with the weapon. I'm trying to implement a procedural system that will take care of that but if it fails, I'll go through and manually correct them.
  
• Added some experimental "Stop" transitions when the player stops moving.
  
• A couple Strike-related Augments will be pretty useless now , like Opportunist, until I rework them.
  

And Lastly

• Fixed the bug where assigning new hotkeys would not take effect until player entered a new level/reloaded.
  

0.8813 - 07/20/2023

• Experimental: All Strike Cooldowns were cut in half! Results in Strike being buffed a bit and makes it more spammable, akin to most other ARPGs.
  

• "Move Button Can Strike" feature improved. If Strike is on cooldown, it won’t try to move the player, and other targeting/feel improvements. Overall should feel a lot better to use especially for all you button mashers XD.
  
• Strike and Ability animations will now continue their upper half visuals after player becomes “unrooted” from casting. Doesn’t affect combat mechanically but might make it feel a bit smoother.
  
• Various minor Bug Fixes
  

0.8812 - 07/14/2023

• Several Augments had their shape changed
  
• All the new Basement Jumps (and some others) were using the wrong Jump settings. I don’t think it was causing any bugs but now those Jumps look/feel much better.
  

• Fixed Region 2 Heights not accounting for certain mid-progress Quest States.