Astral Ascent News

Time flies! That's right, we released Astral Ascent exactly 365 days ago! So, as Kiran says, it's our One Year Anniversary! 🎉

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

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

⭐Changes inspired by our community!

[h2]Balancing[/h2]

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• Ice fragments: Balanced ice fragments so it can bounce less times on screen before vanishing.
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• community inspired ⭐ Dash attack exploit: It was possible to be fully invincible with a bug exploit related to dash.
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• Aura Adjustment: We balanced 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
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• Gambit Adjustment: We balanced some of the gambits using the following effects: Slime, Ember, Wisp, Nimbus, Ice Fragment, Missiles, Spirit sword, Yalee
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• Ayla perks: Re-balanced some Ayla perks
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• Slot unlocker price: Slot unlocker price on itinerant merchant is now balanced with current worlds
  

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

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• community inspired ⭐ Scorpio could launch multiple different attacks when starting a fight, causing weird behaviors
  [hr][/hr]
• Scorpio's Zodiac spell, found on moon room, would not carry effects from equipped gambits
  

- The Hibernian Workshop Team

• Discord Server
• Twitter Account
• Official Store

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


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.




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 -






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.


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

⭐Changes inspired by our community!

[h2]Major Features[/h2]

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• New Hero Spells: 37 new hero spells for a total of 20 per hero
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• Auras upgrade: Some auras can now be upgraded to a rarer tier version of itself through a new special loot added to the game
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• Zodiacs reward: Changed loots given on big chest from Zodiac reward. Now it spawns a pool of different auras to choose from
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• New Effects added: We added several new effects to the game: Meteor(Poison), Toxic explosion(Poison), Ice sword(Ice), Thunder strike(Electric), Fireshield(Fire)
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• Gambit Addition: We created several new gambits using the new effects
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• Gambit Rework: We reworked the older gambits to have different triggers and % chances, overall all gambit have been buffed from their previous version
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• 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
  [hr][/hr]
• 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
  [hr][/hr]
• New unlock order: Reorganizing of unlocking new elements with XP points on death recap
  

[h2]Small Features[/h2]

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• Applying ignition to a enemy now refresh the effect duration instead of triggering the effect again
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• Combustion, and Spark doesn't add burn and electrify effects when hitting enemies
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• Fight and Exploration room have cooldown after picked a certain amount of times to prevent often picking the same room types
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• Cetus gambits categories have changed and the rarities of spawned gambits now depends of current world
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• Changed the order of unlock for some NPCs on hub
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• Declining a Zodiac challenge on Challenge room doesn't make Zodiac leave the room anymore
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• Changed Ayla's signature spell trigger for NPC summon effects (Summoning Kiran, Octave or Calie) so the summon happens after the teleports
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• 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
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• You can now see the spells & gambits icon before opening the loots
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• If you have found all memory fragments in your run, a small chest appears with currencies instead of nothing
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• Improved Barbecue UI to better fit the new quantity of Auras
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• Ice Fragments now go through enemies by default
  [hr][/hr]
• 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
  [hr][/hr]
• 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
  [hr][/hr]
• Spells & Gambits icons are now visible even when they are closed
  [hr][/hr]
• More death recap levels: Added new unlock levels to a max of 114 (previously 38)
  [hr][/hr]
• Some currencies are auto collected if players leave the room without picking them or before it spawn animation finishes - ☄️ hotfix 0.42.2

[h2]Balancing[/h2]

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• Loot scaling: Auras and gambits quality scale with world progression
  [hr][/hr]
• 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
  [hr][/hr]
• Effects that deal damage over time (poison, ignition and frostbite) can't trigger critical hits or prevent enemies to finish their movements
  [hr][/hr]
• Increased the amount of destiny fragments needed to unlock a destiny level in NG+
  [hr][/hr]
• Zim-Zim healing summon now heals more
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• Co-op revive now grants more HP to revived player
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• 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
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• Lot of changes on spells damage
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• Various changes of HP on Zodiacs, Minibosses & enemies
  

[h2]Level Design[/h2]

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• 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)
  [hr][/hr]
• 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
  

[h2]Music & SFX[/h2]

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• Saplings now do sound design only if enemies around
  

[h2]Interface[/h2]

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• Improved all Perks texts
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• Improved all glossaries texts
  

[h2]Visuals[/h2]

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• Shockwave at the end of levels (portals spawning) are now looking better
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• Visuals polish on most game effects - Combustion, Saplings, Freeze, etc
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• Changed order of display of most effects in the game, now most visual FX are behind enemies/players for better lisibility
  [hr][/hr]
• Removed a visual particles on slimes that was never destroyed
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• Improved visuals loots on gambits
  [hr][/hr]
• Sagittarius summon ultimate is now behind everything - ☄️ hotfix 0.42.2
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• Kiran base spells and some other elements like Pavo's particles would be in front instead of behind - ☄️ hotfix 0.42.2
  [hr][/hr]
• Some replaced colors were not working like Leo's yellow hair when ultimate - ☄️ hotfix 0.42.2

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

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• Fixed some glitches that could make a move from Scorpio not work correctly during the boss fight
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• Added a behavior that should make it harder to have player stuck in solids
  [hr][/hr]
• Leo jump attack could not show red feedback on ground if he was back to a side wall
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• Spell preview for itinerant merchant altar would not be auto-disabled after releasing the previous input
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• community inspired ⭐ Max waits crash reported
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• Minibosses HP were not impacted by NG+ and Co-op HP increases
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• community inspired ⭐ Wrong sign when using Aquarius spell & challenge room
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• Quests could activate before the end of a dialog (during game tutorial)
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• community inspired ⭐ Aquarius challenge used to crash the game
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• Aquarius summon would leave rocks particles on field
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• Pufferfish would never look left
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• community inspired ⭐ Dev message layout was glitching on large width screens
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• Trails following projectiles were sometimes too big
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• Challenge room Zodiacs icons were too big compared to normal
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• community inspired ⭐ Octave and Calie were sliding on ground when picked in main Hub
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• NPCs could have icons saying they have an important dialog while they did not
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• community inspired ⭐ Some weird events could appear very randomly like Andromeda challenge being completed
  [hr][/hr]
• It was possible for some skill unlocks to get skipped during death recap - ☄️ hotfix 0.42.1
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• Calie basic spell could wrongly spawn as a new spell during runs - ☄️ hotfix 0.42.1
  [hr][/hr]
• Purchase value of spells could have wrong numbers on itinerant merchant
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• Andromeda could wrongly repeat the ""refresh drinks"" animation if player go far away and then near her again
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• community inspired ⭐ Coop lifesteal going to player dying would make dead player stuck
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• community inspired ⭐ Barbecue would always say something is new if you unlocked a specific Aura that was missing from Barbecue interface - ☄️ hotfix 0.42.2
  [hr][/hr]
• Aquarius challenge would not work properlly if triggered by player 2 during co-op mode - ☄️ hotfix 0.42.2
  [hr][/hr]
• Game camera would sometimes not unzoom to default value after spawning the big chest reward from Zodiacs fights - ☄️ hotfix 0.42.2

- The Hibernian Workshop Team

• Discord Server
• Twitter Account
• Official Store

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

❗ 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 -


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 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!




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.







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!


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.






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!



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.




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!



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 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!


So that is it for this Update, at least for the main elements, you can check the Patch-Notes of version 0.41 for more details - https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1280930/view/3672157322349859720

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,

- The Hibernian Workshop Team