This new Update is a game changer for late game experience and we are super excited to finally make it available for everyone to play!
Full Patch-Notes of 0.45 https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1280930/view/3681178469567255745
This Update adds more than 150h to the game for those wanting more challenges and it keeps the progression you made in previous Early Access version! There is a lot to share and won't be able to cover everything in this News post but here are the main things you may want to know -
Path of Destinies
We released Astral Ascent in Early Access back in April 2022 (feels like forever ago...) with a system named the Path of Destinies allowing you to keep playing the game with an increasing difficulty. Everytime you would defeat a Zodiac in a difficulty you didn't defeat them in yet, you would receive a Destiny Fragment, an unique currency that would not allow you to buy anything and the maximum Destiny Level was 12, at each level you would need to select from 1 to 3 maluses and keep going as much as you could.
Basically only a few very talented players succeed to beat Destiny Level 12 with only motivation to overcome a very hard difficulty (and to get a bit more Sun Pieces to spend in Zim-Zim shop). Path of Destinies rework main objectives were :
Interesting - each element has to have an interesting effect
Easy to understand
Accessible start
Hard end
You now have 54 Destiny Levels instead of 12, you need to success (beat Libra or Aquarius for now) the 6 first Destiny Level to progress to next one. The 6 first ones being :
Destiny Level 1 -
Destiny Level 2 -
Destiny Level 3 -
Destiny Level 4 -
Destiny Level 5 -
Destiny Level 6 -
Once you suceed to beat Destiny Level 6, you can freely increase the Destiny Level as much as you want up to Level 54 (Do not worry, you can lower your Destiny Level anytime!) with many elements to choose from -
This is how Destiny Fragments loot works, each Zodiac owns 1 Destiny Fragment per Destiny Level, Master of the prison owns 3 per Destiny Level (available on final release).
With the 54 Destiny Levels it means you can find 810 Destiny Fragments(12*54 + 3*54) and we offer an additional 10 when you success a run for the first time so, on final version you could get a total of 820 Destiny Fragments, maximum 486 on current version. The way it works is that if you beat a Zodiac at a Destiny Level, you will unlock their Destiny Fragment of the the lowest Destiny Level available.
For example, you are Destiny Level 10 and you already have collected 4 Taurus Destiny Fragments - you could beat Taurus 6 times at Destiny Level 10 and still get new Destiny Fragments but then it would stop. Also, if you have Zodiacs that have no Destiny Fragments available for you, game in Destiny Levels will always prioritize making you face Zodiacs you can get Destiny Fragments from.
We would still recommend to increase slowly Destiny Level so you can collect Destiny Fragments and improve your Void Catalyst (explained lower). Additionally, in the top part of the Path of Destinies, you can see this -
Each Destiny Level increase the Damage, Max HP of Enemies and Zodiacs. At NG+6 they reach +30%, including the +20% of NG+4. From then it will keep increasing faster, at NG+54 you will have:
Enemies +150% Damage
Enemies +200% Max Life
Zodiacs +300% Damage
Zodiacs +300% Max Life
It looks really hard (even more with all additional maluses) and you may not really be sure of the point of putting yourself in such a bad situation but do not worry, both of these questions get answers in a brand new major system you can see below!
Void Catalyst
This system is completely new and it will allow you to use the Destiny Fragments you collect during your Destiny Levels runs. This system is mainly linked to Final Boss - the Master of the Prison but for now we made it spoiler-free and you only need to defeat Libra or Aquarius once to trigger a quest to activate it.
The way we see it is really : Path of Destinies starts the Chapter 2 of the game, everything will be more intense, you will unlock many things and narrative true endings will also happen during higher Destiny Levels through the Master of the Prison final confrontations.
Once activated you can open the Void Catalyst interface, you start with 10 Destiny Fragments and you will need the 820 fragments to have everything maxed out and these upgrades are going to make you so much more powerful and make you change your playstyle too - you can even have different playstyle registered as presets!
In final version the Master of the Prison will give you 3 Destiny Fragment per level so a succesful run will give you 7 fragments while you will only get 4 for now, it may feel like the Void Catalyst progression to be a bit slower in this version for now.
When you start only one row is available and the more you progress in Destiny Levels the more rows you unlock and you can freely reset your points and attribute them again.
You have a lot of elements you can improve and you can check all of your improvements from Void Catalyst anytime in a new menu from from pause menu, it also displays the Destiny Levels and elements you selected from Path of Destinies -
You can choose from 24 different bonuses to upgrade in the Void Catalyst, we cannot show all of them here so let us show you a few interesting ones -
One goal we had in mind for the Void Catalyst was giving you some elements to fluidity/smooth your runs, that is the case for extra damage on full life enemies but also the possibility to reset Itinerant Merchant choises, increase the number of use of the Aura Upgrader or even get keys by defeating Zodiacs for example.
Zim-Zim rework
Last but not least, Zim-Zim has been reworked too. She now has more upgrades and a few old ones were removed.
Let's focus on a few of the new elements -
Other Elements
We have also improved a lot of things all around like UI elements in the Prowess Tree.
We have also re-activated the Spell Altar by popular request.
Created new Altar for Gambits.
That's it for this update, whole team has so much fun playing this update and we hope you will also have fun doing so and we are genuinely curious of how high you will be able to go in the Destiny Levels! We are sure there is balancing left to do so we would be very happy to have your feedback about it too.
Next Update should be mid August and it should add more content to the game and polish many systems that are still requiring our attention.
As always, thanks so much for following us and do not hesitate to share the game if you like it!
Have a great day and upcoming week-end,
- The Hibernian Workshop Team
Patch Notes - June 2023 - 0.45
βChanges inspired by our community!
Major Features
New Botanist abilities: Reworked and added new abilities for The botanist: - Magical gift: Increase spell choices by the intro room and telluric ruins by +1 per tier. - Expert breaker: Increase Quartz gained by salvaging a spell or gambit by +10% per tier. - Star breaker: Increase Stars gained by salvaging an aura by +1 per tier. - Feather leftovers: When Salvaging a spell, you have 5% chances per tier to make a pavo's feather appear. you also gain an additional +5% to proc this effect for each gambit applied to the salvaged spell. - Gambit Rarity up: Increase chances to transform common gambit into rare gambits by +5% per tier. - Aura Rarity up: increase chances to transform common aura into rare aura by +5% per tier.
The Void Catalyst: We added a new system linked to Path of Destinies that will enable players to unlock new abilities at exchange of destiny fragments.
Path of Destinies: Reworked the Path of Destinies system, starting by revamping the UI for better user experience. We added new game modifiers and removed some old ones. The game has now 54 extra levels of difficulty and defeating Zodiacs on high Destiny Level will reward the players with Destiny Fragments, which can be used in the Void Catalyst to unlock new abilities.
here are the first 6 new challenges you'll have to face in Destiny Level: - Enemies all gain new or improved attack patterns (Except for Zodiacs). - Increase the minimum difficulty of rooms by +2 stars. - New Shadow Clones enemies will start appearing during your journey. - All enemies and Zodiacs gain +20% Health and damages. - Increase Elite enemies spawning chances by 100%. - Zodiacs release their full potential, gaining improved and new attacks patterns, the challenge begins here.
Added a new option in the pause menu that can be accessed after unlocking Path of Destinies which has info about active Path of Destinies modifiers (current destiny level and difficulty modifiers) and active abilities from Void Catalyst.
Armor Points: They are now absorbing 3% damage per stone up to 70% maximum (instead of reducing damage received by 1 per stone)
Small Features
Polished the spawn of destiny fragments after defeating Zodiacs, they do not prevent Zodiac Chests to spawn and they will follow you faster
community inspired β Spell and Gambit altars: We re-enabled spell altars and added a new gambit altar. These should make finding spell and spell modifiers more common during runs.
community inspired β Adjusted zoom level on sun/moon room to make loot description better to read.
Changed some rooms progress/unlock condition
Kiran basic attack range and visual improvement
Increased spawn speed of Zodiac chests
Changed color order of Spells loot, highest rarity is now pink as it is for Gambits and Auras (Astral)
""Absorbed"" was sometimes wrongly display, for example when being killed after Libra/Aquarius
Octave drone shoots faster its first missiles
World 4 shielded enemy is not invincible anymore during its attack
World 4 flying enemy projectile does not follow player anymore while not in Destiny Level
Many small changes of Zodiacs patterns
Balancing
Spells speed cast improvement: Increased Spell cast of following spells
Kiran - Ultra Loaded Knuckles - Energy Projectiles - Windturner Up Slash - Void Punch
Calie - Stone of the Ancients - Prismatic Beam - Azurite Falchion
Octave - Sol - Sagitta - Fax
Balanced Elite Aspects number per world
Buffed Aquarius summon damage
Level Design
Playing the game on Path of Destinies adds subtle visual changes in the game levels.
Removed some jump crystals conflicting with fight areas
Music & SFX
Added Sound for Destiny Fragment
Added Sound for Taurus summon slash
Interface
Darker Pause menu background
Talent tree UI visuals improvement
Improved Achievement message UI
Improved Sier Bapy and Papa Yalee UI clarity
Improved display of damage from level and affinity on spells
Added bilinear on some UI icons
Sier Bapy completed achievement have a different background now
Prevented pausing the game during Menus,Talent tree and similar situations
Pavo's Feathers mentioned Gambits when equipping them
Spell affinity to Neutral for Elemental Gambits description improvement
Updated Dev Message
Visuals
Improved rarity icon and added on common rarity
Improvement of many text fonts for clarity, mainly for numbers
Improved most loots UI display, changing colors for different loots, increase spaces etc
Added Echoes icon when interface picking them up
Uniformized many titles and text displays
Reduced many flash intensity, for example when picking a Memory Fragment
Improved font readability and size of damage to enemies and received
Narrative Design
Oloon shield description was using wrong term
community inspired β Octave text would mention {oloon}
Yalee Madness description was not mentioning amount of Yalees spawned
Bug Fixes
community inspired β Aquarius could catch player while being revived by Ikki
Critic icon next to critic hit text now always stays, it used to disappear very fast
community inspired β Poison chain from Astral Aura could focus invincible ghosts
Elite lifebar would remain visible after failing a Zodiac challenge fight
Caedes spell of Octave was hitting only 1 time instead of 3
Clones spawned by Elite Aspect would have aggro and could, for Wild Grass for example, teleport on you from the start of a room
community inspired β Capricorn's books could spawn Thorns from Path of Destinies while being destroyed
Next Update Preview - Smell what we are cooking π§βπ³
Hello everyone!
We released Colors & Elite Update on May 1st and next Major Update will be released at the end of June and today we want to share with you what this Update is going to be about.
Path of Destinies Rework
As you probably already know, we like to re-work things and this time it is turn for the Path of Destinies(New Game + System).
CURRENT SYSTEM
Current System required you to collect Destiny Fragments by defeating Zodiacs and you needed a certain amount of Destiny Fragment to get to next Destiny Level.
You could only take one Malus per row then you would automatically to next row so it was always picking among few Maluses, there was a total of 12 Destiny levels and no purpose to collect Destiny Fragments except making the game more difficult if you want challenges.
New System is a simplified version of existing system, base is the same - defeat Zodiacs to collect Destiny Fragments (you will still have Destiny Fragments you collected before the Update) but now the Destiny Levels are fix from 1 to 6, you do not have to choose your Maluses until Destiny Level 7 because the 6 first Destiny Levels will be enabling a renewed game experience, a phase 2 of the game.
Enemies will have new or improved attacks
Bosses will have new or improved attacks
And other things...
These elements will mainly increase and change experience of the 2 first worlds that you know just too well at this point but all worlds/zodiacs will be affected. We want Path of Destinies experience to make first worlds as interesting as last ones.
Before Destiny Level 7 you will need to unlock Destiny Levels one by one by finishing the game but from Destiny Level 7 or more you can pick as many Maluses as you want in any order and some Maluses will have several levels for a total of more than 50 Destiny Levels. It will be up to you to decide in which order and how many maluses you want, we would recommend optimizing the Destiny Fragments gain and here is why -
Void Catalyst
A new piece of the story named the Void Catalyst will now be in the Garden, it will only be accessible once you defeat Libra (for now).
When using it you will access the system below -
mockup, still in progress
From there you will really be entering phase 2 of the game as your new goal will to collect as many Destiny Fragments as possible by defeating Zodiacs in higher and higher Destiny Levels to get really big power boosts, there is 24 power-ups to discover with from 1 to 5 levels each and you unlock them with more Destiny Fragments collected!
Some elements from Void Catalyst -
Start runs with Ikki Summon
First Andromeda's drink is free
Increase your Healing Shards power
Start with base Armor
etc.
So, even if you feel stuck at one Destiny Level you will keep collecting Destiny Fragments on Zodiacs and keep getting stronger. This is made to encourage you going into harder difficulties, in particular Destiny Level 6 because that's when you will reach True End once we reach 1.0 release.
The Void Catalyst also comes with Presets so you can create several builds that are saved and you can reset it at any time for free.
All of these systems are already implemented but it will take a lot of time to playtest and balance. We do not want things to be too complicated too quickly or to feel discouraging.
At the same time we are making progress on Final Boss encounter and it is going to be by far our biggest work in the game, we want to the Master of the Prison to be a memorable game boss.
We hope you are as excited as we are for this upcoming Update that will be completely renewing end-game experience.
Have a great day and upcoming week-end,
- The Hibernian Workshop Team
Colors & Elites Update is live!
New Update available!
So... last time we announced this Update to be ready by May 15 but we are actually ahead of our plannings so the Update is live... now for you to play! Including -
We have reworked all existing elite modifiers and added many new ones for a total of 13 Elite modifiers now including passive elements like Armor and Regeneration too.
Among the reworked elements we improved the rotating lasers as we knew many of you had issues with them and we completely removed the modifiers making nearby enemies invincible.
There are even 2 modifiers happening on Death of enemies so be careful about icons! (Do not worry we made sure these elements could not happen in Eclipse Room so you can enjoy you Eclipse Room victories peacefully!) The spawn rates and amount of modifiers has changed a little and we hope you will enjoy these new encounters!
New room type - Eclipse Room
Talking about Elites, we created a new room dedicated to them : the Eclipse Room, this room gives you more Keys & more Stars than any Fight Room but it is also a much harder battle.
These rooms have 3 waves and at least 3 Elites in them, they also have traps. It can be very dangerous but you can also take advantage of it by exposing enemies to the traps!
As Eclipse Room is for experienced players, you will need to defeat a world 4 boss (Libra or Aquarius) before being able to get them in your runs.
Oloon extended
As you saw, Oloon is the face of this new update and we made quite a lot of changes there! It used to be very complicated to have style with old colors, they were too flashy, complicated to match and there was not enough of them. That's why we added many new colors AND a new category of colors.
Ayla pants
Kiran shoes & belt
Octave boots & belt
Calie pants
New colors are way more natural and allow for much more variations. Oloon is pleased of your style and we hope you will be too! It will now require 144 Yalee tickets to get all colors!
Sun Room Rework
Another major rework from this update is about Sun Room. When you arrive you will be asked to choose among all elemental affinities we have in the game.
Then one gambit for each sub category of the elemental affinity will be spawned. These gambits are special, we have created a new type of gambit named Elemental Gambit that allows you to change a spell affinity to the affinity of this gambit.
To sum up how things work : when you go to the Sun room you are guaranteed to have any sub-category Gambit you could want as Myhic quality. If you want to build Sapling you can get a Mythic Sapling gambit there and this gambit will also change your spell affinity to Poison. What it means is that you can find nice Fire gambits and start equiping them on a spell that is not of Fire affinity and then later change the affinity of this spell to Fire in the Sun room.
Regarding the elemental affinities we have also made a change, Neutrals affinity used to work with any types of gambits but they are now only working with gambits that are not from the 4 main elements. The bonus damage for having 4 of the same gambits in the right affinity spell has also changed from +100% to +50%.
Many new Perks for heroes
With all the new effects we introduced in last update we did not have time to add perks related to all of them (Ice Swords, Meteors etc).
By adding these new perks we have also reworked and added some other perks for this update. For example, Octave can now summon several Bellators at once but they will be on self-destruction mode.
Heroes Signature Spells should now be a more reliable way to trigger synergies by equipping perks.
Debug and QoL changes
We have also addressed many bugs reports and added some quality of life changes that you requested such as being able to preview Auras upgrade anytime from loots and from inventory.
What is coming with next update?
This update is smaller than Auras update but it is also smaller than next update that will be about Zim-Zim and NG+! We are going to fully rework the NG+ system, adding way more elements and a different progression system making Destiny Levels a part of global runs experience and giving real incentives to collect Destiny Fragments from Zodiacs.
Everything is designed but there is a lot to do, you can expect this Update to release in second part of June!
As always, thanks a lot for supporting us through this journey and let us know if you enjoy this update or if you want to share the best Oloon color changes outfit you made!
Have a great week,
- The Hibernian Workshop Team
Patch Notes - May 2023 - 0.44
βChanges inspired by our community!
Major Features
New room type - Eclipse Room: We added a brand new room type that should make runs more challenging. Eclipse Rooms are a harder version of fight rooms with extra obstacles, but it'll offer big rewards for the risk taken
Reworked room - The Sun: The Sun room content has been reworked. It now offers a pick for a new loot added in game, Elemental Gambits. This is a rare room that should show as a option alongside other bonus rooms
New loot - Elemental Gambits: New type of Gambit that can be equipped into spells to change their elemental affinity. You should be able to find this new loot in the reworked Sun room
Rework spell Neutral element: Spells with neutral element type should get a damage boost from equipping only neutral gambits. It should make neutral spells work in the same way as other elemental spells, instead of receiving a smaller damage boost for any gambit
community inspired β Added/Reworked elite enemy modifiers: We reworked the enemy elite modifiers system polishing old modifiers, removing some of them and adding new ones. You should be able to look into the reworked effects accessing the in-game glossary
Added/Rework perks for heroes: We reworked and added some perks for each playable character to follow up the recent updates that added new auras and effects in the game. The heroes Signature Move should now be a more reliable way to trigger synergies by equipping perks into it
community inspired β Kiran's Signature Move balance and fixes: β’ Reduced cooldown β’ Increased range of the hit area to trigger the counter β’ Fixed a bug that could cause the counter not to trigger after defending a attack
Oloon new category & new colors: One new color type at Oloon's and many new colors, update Bapy's achievement accordingly
Small Features
Players are briefly invulnerable right after finishing a fight room
Camera changes for better lisibility in Yalee Kingdom, Sun & Moon rooms
Common spells are now linked to their affinity (example, fireball will always have fire affinity), on the opposite all hero spells can now have any affinity so they can all work with your target builds
Balancing
Balanced the spell damage boost gained from elemental affinity of equipped gambits
Re-balanced several Auras
Complete re-balance of all spells depending of their mana cost and number of hits
Calie base attack speed has been slightly increased
Interface
Added a option to preview upgraded versions of auras. This should be possible to do either in player's inventory and on Aura's altar
Reworked all Perks, Gambits and most Auras descriptions to be clearer
Visuals
Sylvanian thorn attack feedbacks are now behind players
Improved feedback of NG+ missile
Bug Fixes
community inspired β Triggering an action that could heal player while it was dead could cause gameover not to trigger, resulting in a softlock
community inspired β It was possible to kill the dummy in Leo's challenge if you dealt enough damage
community inspired β It was possible to exploit unfinish refresh of itinerant merchant altars on andromeda's bar by entering and leaving the bar's inside
community inspired β It was possible to spawn multiple of the same aura in Yalee's kingdom room
Fixed a small glitch that could happen with camera when finishing a fight room while too close to camera limit borders
The text from equipped stats stones could display with the wrong color
Enemies could prevent you from climbing small walls by pushing out while you climb
Ice spell 38 was sometimes dealing twice its damage
Octave base spell could hit NG+ phantom enemies
Some enemies attack were not reduced by Pacification
Time flies! That's right, we released Astral Ascent exactly 365 days ago! So, as Kiran says, it's our One Year Anniversary! π
Yes, Kiran & Ayla will have an introduction cinematic as we did for Octave & Calie!
First thing first, I would really like to fully appreciate how much the game changed since April 12 2022, the amount of changes is really big including -
2 new worlds
2 new playable heroes
Many new rooms
Major reworks like Auras' one
Countless iterations and polish all around
All these changes contributed making the game much better than it used to be and, honestly, much better than what we imagined! We hope it's better thanks to all the great feedback we receive daily but also because everyone in the team is having so much fun playing Astral Ascent.
All the updates we made improved the game and even if we initially announced a final release to be Q3-Q4 2023, we think we should aim a Q1 2024 final release in order to have enough time to properly polish every elements.
We hope you will understand this change of plans but be sure that this is for the best of the game. Whole team is working their absolutely best to deliver the best possible game but we are a small team and we do not want to compromise game's quality or push ourselves too hard to release later this year.
This is actually great news because it will allow us to improve everything you are waiting for and even more. So, what is next?
Next month - May 15 - we will be releasing an update including -
Rework of Sun Room - you will be able to change your spells affinity there now
Re-balancing of spells and new Perks
Bug Fixing
Elite modifiers polish
Red Fight Rooms - a new type of challenges during runs
Oloon will have one more category and many new colors for better customisation
Then the next month - end of June - we will be releasing a major Update, this one will be focused on NG+ and Zim-Zim experience.
We do not want to spoil too much but Zim-Zim should have a second version where you will be able to pay new upgrades with Destiny Fragments so farming NG+ will now have a purpose and you will also become stronger by farming NG+.
Each level of NG+ will now be unlocked by completing the previous one instead of having to collect enough Destiny fragments and we will change NG+ structure, levels and elements.
We have many more things planned but we prefer not giving a too precise roadmap and being able to adjust things if needed but you will have an update every 1.5 months approximatively. And we also have really exciting plans for post 1.0 Updates!
Thanks again for supporting us in this amazing journey and have a great day!
- The Hibernian Workshop Team
Patch Notes - March 2023 - 0.43
βChanges inspired by our community!
Balancing
community inspired β Ice fragments: Balanced ice fragments so it can bounce less times on screen before vanishing. Also nerfed some auras and perks that spawn it
community inspired β Dash attack exploit: We noticed it was possible to spam dash and attack on enemies quickly to reset dash cooldown. Chain repeating this action would cause players to be invulnerable for unintended long period of time and delivering basic attack to enemies very fast would cause mana recovery to be too high. We made changes to try to mitigate the powerful results from these actions, while still keeping the behavior around. Starting from this patch, If players interrupts a dash with a basic attack the game now removes the brief post-dash iframes. The iframes are still kept if the dash finishes normally or is canceled by other actions. We also added a spam counter to the dash action and a small delay to the basic attack is progressively added as long as dash attacking enemies keeps being spammed.
community inspired β Aura Adjustment: We nerfed some of the auras using the following effects: Wisp, Fireshield, Ice fragments, Ice sword, Spark, nimbus, thunder strike, slime, meteor, max mana, missiles, spirit sword
community inspired β Gambit Adjustment: We nerfed some of the gambits using the following effects: Slime, Ember, Wisp, Nimbus, Ice Fragment, Missiles, Spirit sword, Yalee
community inspired β Ayla perks: Nerfing some ayla perks that could trigger undesired big amount of elements based on hitting enemies with the assassin's mark
Slot unlocker price: Slot unlocker price on itinerant merchant now increases as game progress
Bug Fixes
community inspired β Scorpio could launch multiple different attacks when starting a fight, causing weird behaviors
Scorpio's Zodiac spell, found on moon room, would not carry effects from equipped gambits
First of all, thanks for the great reception of the World 4 Update! It has been by far the most appreciated of our updates since we launched Early Access back in April 2022. Everyone has enjoyed playing Calie, fighting the new Zodiacs and the new direction for game progression that felt more coherent and less chaotic.
It feels like everything is nicely coming together but we are not done yet! Today we release a new update, one of many planned before the Final Release of the game anticipated to be Q4 2023.
These upcoming updates, as well as today's one, are focusing on what is feeling to be the most urgent elements to work on at a specific state of the game. In this case we received a lot of feedback about how complicated it felt to make meaningful & varied builds in the game, so let's discover together what are the changes we made to improve this.
Complete Patch Notes to read - https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1280930/view/3691300790688811125
Aura System major changes
We have added a rarity system for Auras, similar to what is already in place for Gambits. We made it so you will find rarer Auras in each new world, this way you always improve your build through the runs instead of having always the same possible elements in each worlds.
There are 4 rarities for the Auras -
Common - white
Rare - blue
Mythic - orange
Astral - purple
Common, Rare and Mythics exist with better and additional effects depending of their rarities.
On the other side Astral Auras are extremeley rare but have very unique effects that can litteraly change your runs. You can even find them in World 1 if you are lucky but your chances increase when you go to next worlds.
The Common and Rare auras can be upgraded through a new system called the Aura Upgrader.
This new element allows you to upgrade -
a Common aura into a Rare aura
a Rare aura into a Mythic aura
It does not pick a random higher rarity Aura, it is the same Aura that evolves into a better version. It is free to use in Andromeda's bar but you can only use it 2 times in a run (or 4 times in co-oop). We did that so when you find a Common aura that you like in World 1, you are guaranteed to be able to have its Mythic version at the end of your run and be able to build around it if you wish to. But you are also free to keep it to upgrade new ones later or even salvage it to get a drink from Andromeda. In addition to that, we have created more effects for each elemental families -
Poison Meteors
Poison Explosions
Ice Swords
Lightning Strike
Fire Shield
There is also some new non-elemental effects unique to certain Astral Auras.
We have also improved existing ones visually and on their gameplay. Most of them now have possible new synergies like an Aura spawning Ice Sword when breaking Targets or the possibility to create Fire slimes or Giant slimes (or both!)
We had about 40 Auras that had little to no synergy with other elements, we removed most of them to create 250 new Auras. They are meant to create fun builds that will use your gambits & prowesses as much as possible. To us, this is the progression element that was missing to link every systems together in a coherent way!
Oh and yes we have made new Gambits for all the new effects that we implemented! Speaking of gambits we have made their icons and spells icons visible even when they are closed so you can know about them even before opening them, it made building much faster and game needed to be faster now that you need time to think to make your builds.
37 new hero Spells
We have increased the number of spells to 20 unique spells per hero, Kiran & Ayla in particular really deserved more attention as their spells were created a long time ago.
We kept as much as possible what makes each hero unique -
Ayla low mana costs spells & high mobility,
Kiran's raw power,
Octave's mobility, long range & speed
Calie's versatility
That being said, we have tried to give a bit of everything to each hero!
These new spells make us reach more than 130 spells in the game right now as you can see with the icons -
Progressions changes
A lot of things have changed in the progression as you can see right there!
That's right, merchants will now be in Andromeda's bar! Why? Because it allows you to build all at once and it prevents breaking the flow of the run when starting a new world. It also allows you to better prepare for boss fights! (They are no longer there at the start of each new world)
Removing one room per world allows us to have 2 special rooms per world instead of one(Cetus, Pavo, Yalee Kingdom, Forge etc.) so you will now meet more special rooms.
Speaking of special rooms, the Echo Isles(where you get NPC summons) are no longer linked to Minibosses rooms because it was complicated to understand and many players would not do these fights and miss the Echo Isles room that is crucial for progression.
The new synergies and more special rooms make you stronger than before and we had to increase enemies health points to balance the game - Building is now an important part of the game progression so we expect players to feel weak if they did not build correctly or on the opposite strong if they found good synergies!
Additionally, Gambits and Auras now become rarer with each new world and the rarest can be found in Minibosses instead of Zodiacs as Zodiacs will now give a choice of rarer Auras.
What is next?
We hope you will enjoy all this new content coming for Astral Ascent, there is still a lot more that we would like to take time to improve before final release including Zim-Zim, Minibosses, Echoes, Elites, Andromeda challenges and much more!
The very next update might be lighter than this one because we also need to make progress on the final release content including missing Zodiacs, final boss and reworked narration (a lot of changes are moving for narration!)
We hope you will have fun in the game with this update and as always do not hesitate to share the game if you like it, it is extremely appreciated!
Have a great day,
- The Hibernian Workshop Team
Patch Notes - March 2023 - 0.42
βChanges inspired by our community!
Major Features
New Hero Spells: 37 new hero spells for a total of 20 per hero
Auras upgrade: Some auras can now be upgraded to a rarer tier version of itself through a new special loot added to the game
Zodiacs reward: Changed loots given on big chest from Zodiac reward. Now it spawns a pool of different auras to choose from
New Effects added: We added several new effects to the game: Meteor(Poison), Toxic explosion(Poison), Ice sword(Ice), Thunder strike(Electric), Fireshield(Fire)
Gambit Addition: We created several new gambits using the new effects
Gambit Rework: We reworked the older gambits to have different triggers and % chances, overall all gambit have been buffed from their previous version
Co-op Loots: Balanced the amount of loot given during single player and co-op mode in multiple places - 2 npc summons, 2 auras in yalee kingdom, 2 loots for exploration rooms/boss/minibosses, merchant cost less quartz in co-op too
New auras: More than 240 new auras added to the game. This is accompanied by other major rework from auras system and it should enable players to experiment with a big amount of build varieties
New unlock order: Reorganizing of unlocking new elements with XP points on death recap
Small Features
Applying ignition to a enemy now refresh the effect duration instead of triggering the effect again
Combustion, and Spark doesn't add burn and electrify effects when hitting enemies
Fight and Exploration room have cooldown after picked a certain amount of times to prevent often picking the same room types
Cetus gambits categories have changed and the rarities of spawned gambits now depends of current world
Changed the order of unlock for some NPCs on hub
Declining a Zodiac challenge on Challenge room doesn't make Zodiac leave the room anymore
Changed Ayla's signature spell trigger for NPC summon effects (Summoning Kiran, Octave or Calie) so the summon happens after the teleports
During co-op, players shouldn't be able to interact with Aura altars and other loots such as Gambit or Spell at the same time
You can now see the spells & gambits icon before opening the loots
If you have found all memory fragments in your run, a small chest appears with currencies instead of nothing
Improved Barbecue UI to better fit the new quantity of Auras
Ice Fragments now go through enemies by default
Spirit Swords now work with number of hits instead of time and we have removed the Spirit Sword spell to keep it as a neutral effect
The ability from Zim-Zim that can make spells spawn with higher levels doesn't work on itinerant merchant spells anymore. This is so it doesn't affect intended prices for spells sold there
Spells & Gambits icons are now visible even when they are closed
More death recap levels: Added new unlock levels to a max of 114 (previously 38)
Balancing
Loot scaling: Auras and gambits quality scale with world progression
Mini-boss loot change: With the Echos isles change, the loot of mini-boss has been adjusted as follow: 1 slot unlocker and 1 gambit between 3 gambits The quality of those gambits is improved compared to regular gambits loot
Effects that deal damage over time (poison, ignition and frostbite) can't trigger critical hits or prevent enemies to finish their movements
Increased the amount of destiny fragments needed to unlock a destiny level in NG+
Zim-Zim healing summon now heals more
Co-op revive now grants more HP to revived player
Co-op revive time is smaller, its increase between death is smaller and the increase per death is reset at the start of each room
Lot of changes on spells damage
Various changes of HP on Zodiacs, Minibosses & enemies
Level Design
Andromeda fusion with merchant: Andromeda room now welcomes a merchant at the end and merchant room has been removed from the regular room pool (Andromeda room will still appear 1 room before bosses)
Echos isles join the regular pool: Echos isles will no longer only be accessible after defeating a mini-boss but instead will appear randomly like other special rooms
Music & SFX
Saplings now do sound design only if enemies around
Interface
Improved all Perks texts
Improved all glossaries texts
Visuals
Shockwave at the end of levels (portals spawning) are now looking better
Visuals polish on most game effects - Combustion, Saplings, Freeze, etc
Changed order of display of most effects in the game, now most visual FX are behind enemies/players for better lisibility
Removed a visual particles on slimes that was never destroyed
Improved visuals loots on gambits
Bug Fixes
Fixed some glitches that could make a move from Scorpio not work correctly during the boss fight
Added a behavior that should make it harder to have player stuck in solids
Leo jump attack could not show red feedback on ground if he was back to a side wall
Spell preview for itinerant merchant altar would not be auto-disabled after releasing the previous input
community inspired β Max waits crash reported
Minibosses HP were not impacted by NG+ and Co-op HP increases
community inspired β Wrong sign when using Aquarius spell & challenge room
Quests could activate before the end of a dialog (during game tutorial)
community inspired β Aquarius challenge used to crash the game
Aquarius summon would leave rocks particles on field
Pufferfish would never look left
community inspired β Dev message layout was glitching on large width screens
Trails following projectiles were sometimes too big
Challenge room Zodiacs icons were too big compared to normal
community inspired β Octave and Calie were sliding on ground when picked in main Hub
NPCs could have icons saying they have an important dialog while they did not
community inspired β Some weird events could appear very randomly like Andromeda challenge being completed
It was possible for some skill unlocks to get skipped during death recap - βοΈ hotfix 0.42.1
Calie basic spell could wrongly spawn as a new spell during runs - βοΈ hotfix 0.42.1
Purchase value of spells could have wrong numbers on itinerant merchant
Andromeda could wrongly repeat the ""refresh drinks"" animation if player go far away and then near her again
community inspired β Coop lifesteal going to player dying would make dead player stuck
β For saves issues - if you experiment saves issues because you did not play for a long time, please check our guide about how to get back your saves. We had some saves lost when changing the way we store the saves + when integrating Cloud saves, thanks for your understanding!
That's it, the fourth and final world of Astral Ascent is available right now, here is a list of what to expect -
New Hero - Calie the Geomancer π
This new playable Hero is coming with an unique narration and gameplay!
She fights with Gems that she can shape into anything she wants. That's right, she can create a massive 2 hands sword then a long range bow!
Her Basic attacks are mid-range AOE hitting Gems so she is very good at cleaning pack of enemies very quickly!
When her Signature Spell is ready, her Basic Attacks leave crystals on the battlefield. Then, she can recall them by using her Signature Spell, dealing damage to enemies in between and gaining mana points like a regular attack. Be strategic and aware of your crystals placement to maximize your damage and mana for better spell rotations!
Her Perks are focused on the Crystals she leaves on the battlefield, her crystals can have effects when recalled or change shape to trigger an effect like fire crystals creating combustion as below.
The Crimson Highlands β‘
The Crimson Highlands is the last world of your Astral Ascent runs and it is also the most dangerous one.
The enemies there won't be forgiving any mistakes and you better be ready for what is coming!
2 New Zodiacs : Libra β & Aquarius β
The Crimson Highlands is also the land of the 3 most dangerous Zodiacs - Aquarius, Libra & Gemini and you can now face 2 of them, Libra & Aquarius.
Libra is one of the most dangerous being in the Universe and she will be testing your agility and reflexes.
On the other end, Aquarius is a bit special, they are a golem and a child bound together, they will be testing your stamina & concentration.
New Zodiacs also mean new challenges, new summons & new zodiac spells! Getting them by your side can be a precious help as you can see with Libra summoning below.
Fifth world β
If you success to defeat Libra or Aquarius, you will have a teasing of the final boss, the Master of the Prison and you will be able to fight him in the Final Release. Based on this world and statue you might be able to guess who he is!
Also, in the final release, before the final boss you will be able to spend your last quartz, stars & everything to be as prepared as possible for the fight!
Run progressions change + Telluric Ruins
We have changed a lot of things regarding the progression of your runs, from your feedback and our own experience we thought we had too much of everything and it made runs and building confusing.
What we did is first is creating rules for the special rooms so they cannot appear randomly anywhere in order to have a better control on the runs. We have also greatly reduced the amount of Spells, Gambits and Slot unlockers that you drop but made the merchant much more central in the game experience.
The Minibosses are not always there.
The Echo Islands are now a reward for defeating minibosses and do not require keys to get there anymore.
Exploration rooms rewards are now Quartz, Auras & Gambit and you cannot have multiple auras or gambit at once.
Merchants are always there in first room of worlds.
Astral Key chests are now limited to one per exploration but they have been reworked (see below).
Andromeda's drinks are not increasing anymore so you are not too penalized if you are taking a healing room before a boss.
Healing rooms can now spawn more frequently depending of your current HP.
Healing Altars now use stars instead of Quartz so you can still create your build at the merchant.
Salvaging Auras now grant 4 stars so you get Andromeda drinks if you are unhappy with your dropped Aura.
The new forge Room is not in world 1 but there is a special room to get an extra spell from the beginning there now - The Telluric Ruins
There are more change to come obviously, we want to make the Auras much more central, be able to get rarities on them and to make them synergize better with our builds.
The Forge - a new room Type π¨
A new addition to this update is the Forge, a room that let you choose one of these bonuses -
+1 to all your spells level Pick one new spell among 3 choices Unlock a locked gambit slot on all of your spells Given the progression changes we made, this room gives you more control on your builds and became very important!
New Gambit rewards β¨
Zodiacs rewards has been changed and they now only drop gambits, mythic ones! But this update introduces a new rarity for gambits - The Astral Gambits.
They are very rare drops that can only be dropped by Zodiacs and they can completely change your builds as they are really powerful. For example one of them create several saplings on each hit as you can see below.
Chamaeleon's Lottery πͺ
Lottery has also been changed, our point of view is that too many systems were facing each others instead of working together. The lottery that used to work with Stars was preventing you from using the stars at Andromeda's bar and some players would only use it or always ignore it.
So we decided for the Lottery to be a free bonus appearing randomly once in a run in an intro room giving you some currency. We might change his position later!
Stone Altars & Key Chests rework ποΈ
First thing first, we decided to change the Key Chests reward. They used to ask you for 1 key (few quartz + a bit of heal/mana) or 3 keys (to randomly get a Stone Altar or an Aura).
We thought it felt bad to sometimes have unwanted Auras and sometimes have unwanted Stone Altars so Auras are now Exploration rooms rewards and Key Chests are now randomly Pavo Feathers or Stone Altars chest, then you select if you want to use 3 or 5 keys in it.
Using 3 keys will give you access to 1 Stone or a Pavo Feather +1 (level one of your spell, each level adds 20% damage to your spell).
Using 5 keys will give you access to 2 Stones or a Pavo Feather +2.
Also, to give you more choices when selecting stones, the Stones Altar will now have 6 choices instead of 3, the 3 new choices are -
Armor points, each of them reduce the damage taken by 2
Critical hits, each of them increase all your crit chances by 2
Mana Max, each of them increase your max mana by 1
Same applies to Andromeda's bar and both drinks are reset when one is selected.
These change allow you to have a better control of the reward you select and a more steady progression on your spells level. It also removes the randomness of the reward as you know what is the reward before using your keys.
Co-op Balancing Changes π€
Co-op players have been requesting for a long time for a better co-op experience loots and progression. Here is a list of what we changed -
Explorations rooms now give twice the rewards in co-op
Forge & Telluric Ruins give twice their bonus in co-op
Echo Island allows you to take 2 Echoes in co-op
Merchant quartz price is reduced by 40% in co-op so you can buy more elements
Minibosses & Zodiacs rewards are doubled in co-op
We hope these changes will make your runs more enjoyable!
Now that we have our 4 main worlds it becomes much easier to balance the global experience and we know a lot of things still require our attention on the coming months. We are still planning a Q3 2023 release for the final version (to be confirmed) so we will use this time to do frequent smaller updates, some of the things we would like to improve/expand before final release -
Minibosses fights and number
Elites modificators
Zim-Zim improvements
New Game Plus System (giving the Moon Currency a purpose)
Rework and improve Auras system
Improve Heroes perks building
And many more things!
Thanks again to everyone following us during this journey and thanks for your support which means everything to our small self-publishing team!
Hoping you enjoy this update and have a great day,
