Astral Ascent News

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Thanks a lot everyone for your patience regarding this Update, we created so much more elements than we originally anticipated in order to create the best and most complete experience possible for this first Major Update (several more to come!).

This version sadly does not contain the new exporter that will solve many crashes and increase performances by a lot (if you have performances issue, don't hesitate to check this guide). We have made huge progress on it but this new exporter still contains issues so we thought it would be better to release it once it is totally ready but you can expect it to be released Q4 2022, take a look at our Roadmap iff you want more precisions about it. This version also does not have a complete localization to supported languages yet, when translations are missing it should be replaced by English for now, we will update when we have receive the texts.

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1280930/view/3328745165985235930

For the next weeks we will be working on solving the main bugs/balancing issues that you will encounter so do not hesitate to report these on our Discord Server where we have dedicated channels for that. We will also start preparing the mid W3-W4 Update.

If you want a complete list of what is new, here is our complete Patch Notes link and the main features listed below -
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1280930/view/5009714462577553599

[h2]Major Features[/h2]

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• New Playable Character - Octave: New range hero with 11 unique spells to unlock
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• New World to Explore - The Coral Archipelago: New assets, new traps and new enemies
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• New Zodiacs Battles: Scorpio & Pisces. Face these 2 members of the Orphnée family
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• Scorpio & Pisces challenges: Get their summons through their challenges
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• Sun Room: Exchange your quartz to access powerful spells
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• Moon Room: Exchange your maximum life to access Zodiac unique powers
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• Zodiac Spells: Find and use 7 news powerful zodiac spells: Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn, Sagittarius, Leo, Pisces and Scorpio
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• Echo Isles Room & Summon your Friends: Pick among 15 different summons of your friends so they can help you during your run
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• New Miniboss - Draco: Fight a dangerous new Miniboss
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• community inspired ⭐ Andromeda's bar interior: Visit the Zodiacs there and the more victory you have against them, the more likely they are to join you
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• Affinity Zodiac: Your Constellation sign can now randomly help you (once you met at least once) and will more easily join you in Andromeda's bar
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• community inspired ⭐ Pixel Art Animated Portraits: Legacy Portraits will still be accessible through game options but default portraits will now be Pixel Art and hand-animated
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• Fight Rooms Rework: Complete rework in order to have waves / difficulty depending of level of the room
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• New Affinity System: Spells now have elemental affinities (fire/ice/thunder/poison and neutral) and they gain power with related elemental gambits attached (up to 100% bonus damage)
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• New Synergy System: Rework - Many Auras has been reworked and a DOZEN additional new auras have been added
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• New Synergy System: Rework - Many Gambits has been reworked and a THIRTY additional new Gambits have been added
  

We would also like to thank our community and Play Testers for the great support provided to our small team, we are doing our absolute best to create this game we love.

- The Hibernian Workshop Team

• Discord Server
• Twitter Account
• Official Store

⭐Changes inspired by our community!

[h2]Major Features[/h2]

[hr][/hr]
• New Playable Character - Octave: New range hero with 11 unique spells to unlock
  [hr][/hr]
• New World to Explore - The Coral Archipelago: New assets, new traps and new enemies
  [hr][/hr]
• New Zodiacs Battles: Scorpio & Pisces. Face these 2 members of the Orphnée family
  [hr][/hr]
• Scorpio & Pisces challenges: Get their summons through their challenges
  [hr][/hr]
• Sun Room: Exchange your quartz to access powerful spells
  [hr][/hr]
• Moon Room: Exchange your maximum life to access Zodiac unique powers
  [hr][/hr]
• Zodiac Spells: Find and use 7 news powerful zodiac spells: Taurus, Virgo, Capricorn, Sagittarius, Leo, Pisces and Scorpio
  [hr][/hr]
• Echo Isles Room & Summon your Friends: Pick among 15 different summons of your friends so they can help you during your run
  [hr][/hr]
• New Miniboss - Draco: Fight a dangerous new Miniboss
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ Andromeda's bar interior: Visit the Zodiacs there and the more victory you have against them, the more likely they are to join you
  [hr][/hr]
• Affinity Zodiac: Your Constellation sign can now randomly help you (once you met at least once) and will more easily join you in Andromeda's bar
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ Pixel Art Animated Portraits: Legacy Portraits will still be accessible through game options but default portraits will now be Pixel Art and hand-animated
  [hr][/hr]
• Fight Rooms Rework: Complete rework in order to have waves / difficulty depending of level of the room
  [hr][/hr]
• New Affinity System: Spells now have elemental affinities (fire/ice/thunder/poison and neutral) and they gain power with related elemental gambits attached (up to 100% bonus damage)
  [hr][/hr]
• New Synergy System: Rework - Many Auras have been reworked and a dozen additional new auras have been added
  [hr][/hr]
• New Synergy System: Rework - Many Gambits have been reworked and a thirty additional new Gambits have been added
  

[h2]Small Features[/h2]

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• New effect: Ignition: Burns enemies over time and inflicts burn stacks
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• New effect: Fire Wisp: Summons a fire whisp that follows the hero, shoots enemies and inflicts burn stacks
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• New effect: Sapling: Summons a small sprout that runs, explodes against enemies and inflicts poison stacks
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• New effect: Slime: Summon slime that bounces and inflicts poison stacks
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• New Effect: Plasma: Create a lightning laser that pierces enemies and inflicts lightning stacks
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• New Effect: Cumulonimbus: Summons a cloud of lightning that blasts enemies and inflicts lightning stacks
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• New Effect: Thunder Orb: Create a lightning orb that persists on the field and inflicts lightning stacks
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• New effect: Snowflake: Create a snowflake around the hero and inflicts freezes stacks
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• New effect: Ice Idol: Create an ice idol that hits enemies and inflicts freezes stacks
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• New effect: Stalactite: Sends ice spikes bouncing off walls and inflicts freezes stacks
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• New effect: Critical: % chance to inflict a critical hit
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• Summon Zodiac: (Rework) Taurus: Now deals immense damage to all enemies on screen
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• Summon Zodiac: (Rework) Virgo: Now deals damage to enemies and has a % chance to spawn when hitting enemies during the hero's basic attacks
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• Summon Zodiac: (Rework) Sagittarius: Now follow the players by shooting arrows continuously and end up with a strong attack
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• Pantheon Room: Backers statues Room in now accessible in the Garden
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• Spells Reworks: We removed some of the beacon utility spells
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• Spells Reworks: Some common & specific spells have been visually and gameplay reworked
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• Spells Reworks: Dodge effect has been added to several spells, when a spell has it you are invincible during certain frames of the spell
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• Voices feedback: When being hurt and when casting spells
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• Camera: In several places we improved camera
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• Camera: Camera movement when Zodiacs do their ultimates
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• Camera: Camera is less zoomed by default
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• Camera: Challenge Sagittarius: Camera is more dezoomed
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• Cetus Room improvement: Better descriptions of the gambits, new categories of gambit and third random loot is more frequent and can only be a slot unlocker
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• Elites visual rework: Elites have been visually reworked a lot
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• Lupus Miniboss: During ultimate, a magnet effect affects player
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• Spells altar: New category of altar you can find during your runs where you can choose between 2 spells
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• Memory Fragments: You can now only get Memory Fragments from characters you already crossed
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• NG +: Thorn feedback improvement
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• Enemies: Improved behavior placement for many enemies
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• Enemies: Stacks effects above enemies visual rework
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• Enemies: Enemies placements have been globally improved
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• Enemies: Improvements of movement behavior for some enemies
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• NPC: Oloon - UI opens on last unlocked element
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• NPC: Poetic Peddler UI does not show locked characters spells anymore
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• Special rooms cannot appear twice in a row anymore
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• Faster end of levels & appearing in levels
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• Accelerated Aura pick-up
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• Accelerated Spells/gambits pick-up
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• Enemies projectiles improvements (visuals & behavior)
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• Yalees summon improved (visual and gameplay)
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• Game now playable with dpad of controller (game and interface)
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• Jump crystals lisibility has been improved
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• Spell order is reseted when coming back to the hub
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• UI is not removed when staying IDLE
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• You can now rush in Healing rooms and still get the heal/mana orbs
  

[h2]Balancing[/h2]

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• Ayla Spells: Mana costs have been reduced
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• Ayla Spells: n°428 Metal Star: Visual improvement. Damage increased
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• Ayla Spells: n° 17 Toxic Bomb: Visual improvement. Improved area of effect. Damage increased
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• Ayla Spells: n° 249 Unrelenting Tornado: Visual improvement. Improved area of effect. Damage increased. Go through enemies without making them move.
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• Ayla Spells: n° 888 Fatal Dash: Much faster to use. Deal multiple hits. Damage increased. Added ""dodge"" effect
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• Ayla Spells: n° 086 Lighning Speed: Damage increased. Added ""dodge"" effect
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• Ayla Spells: n°12 Electric Scalpels: Damage increased
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• Ayla Spells: n°840 Doppelgenger: Improved area of effect. Damage increased. Deal multiple hits. Added ""dodge"" effect
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• Ayla Spells: n+675 Moon Arch: Damage increased. Deal multiple hits. Added ""dodge"" effect
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• Ayla Spells: n°005 Astral Powder: Damage increased. Added ""dodge"" effect
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• Kiran Spells: Mana costs have been balanced
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• Kiran Spells: Lightspeed Fist: Damage increased. Do not hit multiple targets anymore
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• Kiran Spells: Ground Pound: Damage increased. Deal multiple hits. Added ""dodge"" effect
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• Kiran Spells: Ultra Loaded Knucles: Damage increased. Deal multiple hits. Added ""dodge"" effect
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• Kiran Spells: Energy Projectiles: Damage increased
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• Kiran Spells: Windturner Up-smash:Damage increased
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• Kiran Spells: Cutting Kick: Damage increased
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• Kiran Spells: Rententless Fury: Damage increased
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• Kiran Spells: Helping Hands (Got It?): Damage increased. Deal multiple hits
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• Kiran Spells: Flamins Slide: Damage increased. Added ""dodge"" effect
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• Spells & Gambits: Spells level change is bigger between worlds and balancing of empty slots on looted spells
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• Spells & Gambits: Number of Gambits on spells by default has been greatly reduced
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• Spells & Gambits: Slot unlocker price has been increased
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• Spells & Gambits: Spells have minimum 2 unlocked slots and the slots probabilities have been reduced
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• Common Spells: Fireballs: Damage increased
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• Common Spells: Thunder Orb: Visual improvement. Improved area of effect. Higher damage rate. Damage increased
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• Common Spells: Spirit Sword: Damage increased
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• Common Spells: Magic Cyclone: Spell is slower. Damage increased
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• Common Spells: Surrounding Spheres: Summons 5 orbs instead of 3. Damage increased
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• Common Spells: Shooting Star: Damage increased
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• Common Spells: Ravaging Spheres: Damage increased
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• Common Spells: Glacial Spikes: Damage increased
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• Common Spells: Ice thrower: Damage increased
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• Common Spells: Frost Splinters: Damage increased
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• Common Spells: Dark Outbreak: Damage reduced
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• Common Spells: Electrospheres: Damage increased
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• Common Spells: Shattering Stars: Damage increased
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• Common Spells: Magma comets: Visual improvement. Damage increased
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• Common Spells: Ki Blast: Damage increased. Deal multiple hits
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• Common Spells: Dark Burst: Damage increased. Deal multiple hits
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• Common Spells: Aqua Ball: Damage increased.
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• Common Spells: Thorns Chains: Damage increased
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• Common Spells: Meteor Blades: Damage increased
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• Common Spells: Slashing Squall: Damage increased
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• Utility Spells: Fire Spreader: Visual improvement. Improved area of effect. Stack numbers reduced. Cooldown reduced
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• Utility Spells: Ice Column: Stack numbers reduced. Cooldown reduced
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• Utility Spells: Thunder Strike: Stack numbers reduced. Cooldown reduced
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• Utility Spells: Utility spells are now anymore a possible rewars at the end of rooms / bosses
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• Effect: Target: 100% chance to inflict a critical hit
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• Effect: Vulnerability is 5% per stack instead of 3% per stack now
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• Effect: Freeze slows now the enemies based on stack count and the stacks are reset once the enemy comes out of the freeze
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• Effect: Bosses can no longer be slowed by freeze but can trigger freeze related effects
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• Pavo Feathers: Feathers of +2 and +5 are less frequent
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• Minibosses: Health / damages balancing
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• Minibosses: Lupus Miniboss fall attack is faster
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• community inspired ⭐ Minibosses: Lupus dash attack has a more forgiveable collider
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• Bosses: Zodiacs remove their stacks more often when teleporting
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• Bosses: Zodiacs are now invulnerables in more attacks
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• Bosses: Taurus Bull charges fire no longer hits behind him and Taurus no longer hits after he hit the wall
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• Bosses: Leo's ultimate starts at 50% and now remains in his ultimate
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• Bosses: Top attack laser of Capricorn is a bit higher now
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• Enemies: Sylvanian Protector enemy in world 1 is much faster now
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• Enemies: HP balancing
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• Enemies: Lava Spider W2 enemy attacks from distance only and has an improved behavior
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• Enemies: Elites HP balancing
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• NPC: Zim-Zim Weakness Exploit reduction
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• NPC: Itinerant merchant reset price changes with world
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• NPC: Itinerant merchant altar slots are not re-filled after reseted
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• NPC: Itinerant merchant altars are now always 2 spells, 1 utility spell, 2 gambits
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• Global HP of Heroes have been reduced
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• Fight rooms keys are now 3 by default then 4 with difficulty 4, 5 with difficulty 5 and 6 when difficulty 6
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• Mushroom trap in world one only throws one pack of mushroom
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• Traps do more damages to enemies
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• Quartz level ingredient now breaks in less hits
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• Special rooms probabilities have been changed
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• Mana Tree ""unlimited mana"" buff duration nerfed
  

[h2]Level Design[/h2]

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• New exploration rooms
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• New fight rooms
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• Enemies spawn areas have been improved (placements, size) in exploration rooms
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• Climbing walls are less present near fighting rooms to avoid auto-climbs
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• Improvement of placement of traps
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• Filled up empty spaces
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• Clouds are at a more similar height when escaping rooms
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• Fight rooms have been reworked to improve fight experience
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• Spaces for end level portals are bigger
  

[h2]Music & SFX[/h2]

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• Add SFX feedback in many places
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• Adjusted volumes of several elements
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• Add many contextuals dialogs for heroes/npc/zodiacs
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• Added a sound when the hero takes a hit when he has the Shield effect
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• Removed Bird ambiance from Cetus' room
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• Added a voice when the hero takes a hit
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• Added a voice when the hero launches a spell
  

[h2]Interface[/h2]

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• End of levels selection visual rework
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• New hurt feedback on UI
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• Changed wording for many interface interactions for more coherence
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• Improved ergonomy for merchant's interfaces
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• Ergonomy improvements for Path of Destinies
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• Sidescreen re-order in many cases for more coherence
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• Coherence improvements for texts colors
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• Many Auras now have a system of Cooldown
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• Interface appears much faster when fight starts against Zodiacs
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• Spells now have different interface backgrounds depending on the affinity of the gambits equipped on them
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• Removed hint hiding option in menu
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• Empty Auras slots do not show cooldown anymore
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• New option to change portraits style from Pixel Art to Legacy
  

[h2]Visuals[/h2]

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• New transition screen
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• Reworked icons for Auras (including elemental distinctions)
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• Reworked icons for Gambits (including elemental distinctions)
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• Reworked Credits Menu
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• Enemies fire sprites are on a different color now
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• Improved outline selection when option is activated
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• Improved lisibility for many trails of projectiles
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• Pegasus Miniboss visual rework of water attack
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• A lot of Fx are faster and are now behind enemies for better lisibility
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• Improved ""ghost effect"" in many places
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• The sun effect has been improved
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• The screen becomes darker when the Zodiacs do their ultimates
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• Removed a lot of flashes on screen
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• Ingame clouds have changed
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• Sun has been added in Andromeda's room
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• W2 Djinn feedback improvement
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• Changed Poison color from green to purple
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• White outline removed on spells icons
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• Visually improved Poetic Peddler interface
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• Poetic Peddler UI opens on your current characters
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• Rewards icons in Death Recap are now similar
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• Generic dialogs icon above NPCs is a lot less visible
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• Outline on NPCs in Death Recap has been removed
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• Spells icons do not change their angles anymore, it was breaking the pixel art
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• Visual improvement of Oloon's assistant UI
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• Octave is always present on Main Menu for this update
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• Visuals improvement in inventory when equiping a gambit
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• New character unlock visual improvement
  

[h2]Narrative Design[/h2]

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• New stories for Papa Yalee and rework of some existing ones
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• Memory fragments are now unlocked only once concerned NPC/Zodiac has been met at least once
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• Many typos fixed
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• More generic variations on some NPCs
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• More generic variations on Heroes
  

[h2]Miscellaneous[/h2]

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• Updated spell previews for outdated spells
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• Untranslated elements are now english instead of empty
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• Keyboard summon default input has been changed
  

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

[hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ Coop - Enemies could keep focusing dead players
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• community inspired ⭐ Coop - Reviving a partner at same frame than dying would cause both players to remain stuck
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• Coop - Player 2 could go through end level portal sometimes
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• Some sound designs were not played for the first time, some have been fixed
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• Summoned Zodiacs could focus invincible NG+ ghosts
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• Dev message ambiance song would keep playing if skipped too fast
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• It was possible to meet a Zodiac in a challenge room AND in a boss room in same world
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• Oloon UI could bug if opened during Assistant's tutorial
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• community inspired ⭐ Clouds spawn faster in first intro room
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• community inspired ⭐ Some Fire portals in W2 would only go in one direction
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• Jump crystals would sometimes get in front of enemies/players
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• Sometimes big enemies would spawn in low difficulty rooms
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• Context dialogs could occur during a dialog
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• When starting the game, a pointer could appear for Barbecue while not unlocked yet
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• Save icons could never disappear while NG+
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• Ordan could overlap Kiran and create issues
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• community inspired ⭐ Left side of the main hub shows cut-off clouds
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• community inspired ⭐ Right side of Pavo's ruins shows cut-off clouds
  [hr][/hr]
• NPC Dialog pop-up was missing sometimes
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• Input of Zodiac summon could remain when swapping Zodiac while summon bar full
  [hr][/hr]
• Freeze effect was wrongly placed on most bosses
  [hr][/hr]
• Dummies could be killed
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• Open NPC's UI would make player behind other playable characters
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ Bosses would become invisible if killed by another Zodiac summon
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• community inspired ⭐ Wooden Guardian could remain on battlefield if killed at same frame than creating the laser
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• Leo particles could remain on ground when defeated
  [hr][/hr]
• Gambits equip texts could overlap if quickly pressed
  [hr][/hr]
• Sagittarius could launch several times her fire attack
  [hr][/hr]
• When climbing sides, flying enemies launching attacks could go very high
  [hr][/hr]
• Barbecue Auras description would resize wrongly
  [hr][/hr]
• Removed a yellow square when opening Death Recap
  [hr][/hr]
• Ordan was sometimes at a wrong place when swapping character
  

- The Hibernian Workshop Team

• Discord Server
• Twitter Account
• Official Store

✨Our first major Update on Astral Ascent will be available Monday 19 September, 7pm CEST! ✨

New playable character, new world, new Zodiacs and so much more!



[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

[h2]💫 Let us introduce: The Astral Ascent Roadmap! 💫[/h2]



We thought you might be interested in the timeline planned until the release of the Yamat DLC! We'll update it as the adventure goes on!

New character, new Zodiacs, new challenges and contents coming soon! 🔥

We have a release date for the World 3 update named "The Coral Archipelago Update", this release date is in September 2022, which means we are only a few weeks away from releasing a game changer update for Astral Ascent.
We know this update has been very long to release but we added much more than we anticipated to the game.

A world update is supposed to contain -

• A new playable character (Octave for this one that comes with 11 unique spells)
  
• A new world to explore (+ 8 new enemies and 4 level design elements)
  
• 2 new Zodiacs + their challenges and summons
  
• World 4 Zodiac blocking your path
  

In addition to that we added -

• Zodiacs Spells system (it means 7 of them already)
  
• Reworked some existing Zodiac summons
  
• Sun & Moon new room type
  
• New mini-boss - Draco (whose fighting style might remind you of someone!)
  
• Kinship System & Echoes Room, you can have up to 4 friends to summon by your side from a total of 15 possible summons (Zim-Zim, Oloon, Ikki, Ordan, the Heroes and much more)
  
• Pantheon room accessible for those who paid an ingame statue of themselves (with or without their pets)
  
• Andromeda's bar interior with new friendship system with the Zodiacs that will make chosing your constellation meaningful (this is not final yet but close to what we had in mind)
  
• Major synergy rework that will make your runs much more interesting with many new or reworked auras, gambits, effects
  
• One more complicated and very requested element is still unannounced ✨
  

But that's not all as we have also improved so many small details all around, from small UI improvement, to enemies AI and balancing, about everything has been closely looked and observed to be improved (even the Credits screen has been reworked!), at least we did our very best given the small team that we are.

That being said, there is one major element for this update that we took the decision to postpone. It is the New Exporter named "Chowdren" version. The game is already playable on this version but there is many small elements that are not as polished as they are on the regular version. It is really sad for us to delay this version as it changes about everything -

• Game is running incredibly faster
  
• Many crashes are solved
  
• Remote Play Together sound problem should be solved too
  
• Loading times are feeling inexistant (as you can see on below video)
  

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

But Astral Ascent is a massive project and it takes time for our partner to solve all the small issues and we currently do not know when exactly this new version will be ready and instead of keep delaying the world 3 update we decided to delay the Chowdren version and make it live as soon as it will be as good as the main version of the game so you can expect a small update between world 3 and world 4 updates with this optimized version and hopefully some more exciting elements (we already have some ideas). Our goal is to avoid impacting too much the world 4 release period that should take less time for the world 3 one.

Rest assured that our porting partner is doing an incredible job and the project could not be in better hands, new version will be worth the wait!


Continuing with the new effects and synergies that we created for this update, we added a final touch - The Affinity System. This system will give you a way to make you spells even stronger by having certains type of gambits on it corresponding to the element of the spell.
When you equip a gambit on a spell with an elemental affinity that is the same as the gambit, the spell will gain an increased percentage of bonus damage dealt on hit.

Spell with fire affinity + fire gambits

However even if that is very clear that Magma Comets have a fire affinity, some spells do not seem to match a specific affinity like the Spirit Sword below, but don't worry! These spells are considered to have a neutral affinity, instead of having no affinity they actually have an affinity with every gambits but with a lesser increased bonus damage percentage.
To make things more open we have decided to make specific spells like Fireballs to be randomly neutral and for some spells like Ayla's shuriken to randomly have any affinity type. We think that is yet another very exciting change to the synergy system as it creates even more strategy when equiping spells & gambits.

Spell with neutral affinity + any gambit


Expect new challenges to come with this update! 2 new challenges made for Scorpio & Pisces, the new Zodiacs. Even if Scorpio is really mean, he would be a very powerful ally to have by your side to escape the Garden!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


The new kinship system is finally done! Your friends from The Garden will now be able to help you in your journey. You can find exclusive "Echoes" in the Echoes Room that will grant you an unique ability related to one of your friends. Enjoy some of those new summons effects!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Ikki can save you once per world!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Ordan will give a piece of her mind to the Zodiacs you will face.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
Other heroes like Kiran will also come to your help!


With all the polish going on, we took time to redo some of the older visual effects of the game to make them look even cooler and cleaner than before. Have a glimpse!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

We have very excited to release the update, see you in September!

Don't forget our Backerkit shop and our Discord Server to speak with the community and give us feedbacks on the game!



Hardworking team

Have a nice week!
-The Hibernian Workshop Team