Astral Ascent News

⭐Changes inspired by our community!

[h2]Major Features[/h2]

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• 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
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• 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
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• 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
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• 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
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• community inspired ⭐ 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
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• 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
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• community inspired ⭐ Kiran's Signature Move balance and fixes: • Reduced cooldown
  • Increased range of the hit area to trigger the counter
  • Fixed a bug that could cause the counter not to trigger after defending a attack
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• Oloon new category & new colors: One new color type at Oloon's and many new colors, update Bapy's achievement accordingly
  

[h2]Small Features[/h2]

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• Players are briefly invulnerable right after finishing a fight room
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• Camera changes for better readability in Yalee Kingdom, Sun & Moon rooms
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• 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
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• community inspired ⭐ Portals found on end of rooms are now displaying on increasing order of difficulty - ☄️ hotfix 0.44.1
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• Small changes on camera zone around end of level portals to make it feel more smooth and responsive - ☄️ hotfix 0.44.1
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• Hitting a Crystal jumper with a basic attack prevents basic attack spam by holding the attack button. This should give players more control about when to trigger Crystal jump behavior - ☄️ hotfix 0.44.1

[h2]Balancing[/h2]

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• Balanced the spell damage boost gained from elemental affinity of equipped gambits
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• Re-balanced several Auras
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• Complete re-balance of all spells depending of their mana cost and number of hits
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• Calie base attack speed has been slightly increased
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• Balance Perks of Kiran:
  - Life Fist of Cool: increased life restored from 2 to 4
  - Cheerful Fist: increased Yalee from 1 to 3
  - Mana Fist: increased Mana restored from 1 to 3
  - Fairy Fist: increased Whisp summons from 1 to 3
  - Nimbus Fist: increased Nimbus summons from 1 to 3
  - Flaky Punch: increased Snowflakes number from 2 to 6
  - Sharp Ice Punch: increased Ice Sword number from 3 to 4
  - Light Orb Knuckle: increased Thunder Orb number from 2 to 3
  - Sparkling Punch: increased Spark number from 3 to 8
  - Meteor Punch: increased Meteor number from 2 to 5
  - Mind Sword Palm: increased Spirit sword summons from 1 to 2
  - Terra Fist: increased Sapling summons from 3 to 7
  - Col, Col Fist: increased Ice Fragment number from 3 to 5
  - Blob Fist: increased Slime number from 3 to 5
  - Sharp Ice Punch: increased Ice Sword from 4 to 6
  - Ember Fist: increased Ember number from 4 to 6
  - Icecraft punch: increased Ice Idole number from 2 to 3
  - Thunder Jab: increased Thunder Strike number from 1 to 3
  - Light Orb Knuckle: increased Lightning Orb number from 3 to 5
  - Mush Punch: increased Toxic Gas number from 1 to 2
  - Pew Pew Punch: increased Missiles number from 4 to 8
  - Brut Fist of Doom: increase % Damage from 25 to 50
  - Crazy Pumping Fist: increase % Damage from 50 to 75
  - Double Whammy: increased CD from 3 to 5 seconds - ☄️ hotfix 0.44.1
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• Balance Perks of Ayla:
  - Shadow mastery: Reduce Signature Spell CD from 99 to 4 seconds and the cd increase has been removed
  - Eagle instinct: reduction of cd increase from 6 to 3 seconds - ☄️ hotfix 0.44.1
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• Elite modifier increasing strength of enemies has been greatly reduced - ☄️ hotfix 0.44.1

[h2]Interface[/h2]

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• 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
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• Reworked all Perks, Gambits and most Auras descriptions to be clearer
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• The cooldown time displayed in Signature Spell interface, on inventory, display real cooldown value affected by other equipped abilities - ☄️ hotfix 0.44.1

[h2]Visuals[/h2]

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• Sylvanian thorn attack feedbacks are now behind players
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• Improved feedback of NG+ missile
  

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

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• community inspired ⭐ Triggering an action that could heal player while it was dead could cause gameover not to trigger, resulting in a softlock
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• community inspired ⭐ It was possible to kill the dummy in Leo's challenge if you dealt enough damage
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• community inspired ⭐ It was possible to exploit unfinished refresh of itinerant merchant altars on andromeda's bar by entering and leaving the bar's inside
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• community inspired ⭐ It was possible to spawn multiple of the same aura in Yalee's kingdom room
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• Fixed a small glitch that could happen with camera when finishing a fight room while too close to camera limit borders
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• The text from equipped stats stones could display with the wrong color
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• Enemies could prevent you from climbing small walls by pushing out while you climb
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• Ice spell 38 was sometimes dealing twice its damage
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• Octave base spell could hit NG+ phantom enemies
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• Some enemies attack were not reduced by Pacification
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• Aura effect that would trigger embers om Wisps hit would not work after stacking other auras modifiers on Wisp attacks. - ☄️ hotfix 0.44.1
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• community inspired ⭐ Possible crash when leaving Andromeda's bar after spamming the action input there - ☄️ hotfix 0.44.1
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• Formatting issues could cause Gambits descriptions to have adicional spaces between words - ☄️ hotfix 0.44.1
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• The elite modifiers that buffs enemy damage didn't scale with the modifier level correctly - ☄️ hotfix 0.44.1
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• community inspired ⭐ Fixed issues on system to prevent spawn of repeated Auras in the same layout - ☄️ hotfix 0.44.1
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• Zodiacs would sometimes not trigger real time dialogs during fights - ☄️ hotfix 0.44.1
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• community inspired ⭐ It was possible to softlock intro tutorial about healing life by spam killing dummies and fully restoring life without using heal from Crystal shards - ☄️ hotfix 0.44.1

- The Hibernian Workshop Team

• Discord Server
• Twitter Account
• Official Store

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
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• 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
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• 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
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• 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
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• 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
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• 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
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• Spells & Gambits icons are now visible even when they are closed
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• More death recap levels: Added new unlock levels to a max of 114 (previously 38)
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• 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
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• 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
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• Effects that deal damage over time (poison, ignition and frostbite) can't trigger critical hits or prevent enemies to finish their movements
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• Increased the amount of destiny fragments needed to unlock a destiny level in NG+
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• 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)
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• 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
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• Removed a visual particles on slimes that was never destroyed
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• Improved visuals loots on gambits
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• 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
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• 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
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• 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
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• 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
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• 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
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• Aquarius challenge would not work properlly if triggered by player 2 during co-op mode - ☄️ hotfix 0.42.2
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• 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