Astral Ascent News

[h2]Patch Note[/h2]
Find the full Patch-Notes of 1.2 here -
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1280930/view/4061752935706427823

[h2]20 new spells[/h2]
We have added 5 new spells per Hero, 2 of them are directly unlocked and you need to buy 3 of them at the Merchant. If you already have a rarer spells you won't need to unlock them with experience at the end of runs


We received a lot of feedback saying you would like to see more spells about making the enemies move. More spells making something else than pure damage. We have tried to include that as much as possible in our new spells design and we are really happy about these new spells!

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


[h2]PvP Arena[/h2]
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

The PvP Arena is placed in Andromeda's Bar. It is accessible only in local co-op during runs and you can make as many duels as you want. We had so much fun testing this new feature, we know it won't be used by everyone as it requires playing in co-op but during co-op runs it adds a lot of fun!


When you start the duel it will make you full life and full mana and it will restore the amount you had before the duel when getting out.

During the duel both players get mana point with time so you can focus on launching spells more than attacking with Basic Attacks to restore mana. We also added some buff trees spawning sometimes to spice things up. We also removed the Echoes and Zodiac Summon during the duels, it was way too chaotic when it was possible.

The player winning the Duel will get a little crown symbol above their avatar as a reward for the run but it can change back to the other player if they win another duel.


We received a lot of questions relative to online PvP but we are not going for it as it requires so much work. We also thought about accessing the PvP from main menu or from the game hub but it would require a build creating system and we also know that the PvP is not balanced depending of the spells you currently have, it's mainly targeted to get some fun when you do co-op runs!

[h2]Extras[/h2]
Some noteworthy change mainly inspired by community suggestions!

• Offline Telescope - We have made the Telescope working offline now, it will solve the problem that it was not working in some regions of the world and it will also be available on Console now.
  
• 4 Categories at Cetus Cavern - Cetus Cavern now has 4 categories instead of 3, the fourth one will always be the random one (Nebulous Choice)
  
• Pavo Feathers - Feathers on Pavo's ruins will always be of a higher level after sacrificing health 3 times (globally)

[h2]Arsenal Update Preview[/h2]
We have also started working on the next update : The Arsenal. In this update each Hero will have new weapons and associated passives. We will explain this better next time but for now you can see one of the new weapons of Kiran below -



[h2]Merch Suggestions event[/h2]
We are also gathering your ideas about potential merch on our Discord Server, you can give your own ideas and vote for other suggestions you like, do not hesitate to join!


Have a great time in the game and a fantastic week,

- The Hibernian Workshop Team

⭐Changes inspired by our community!

[h2]Major Features[/h2]

[hr][/hr]
• PvP Mode: Added a option for players to fight each other in a duel during co-op runs. You can start a duel at Andromeda's bar by interacting with the new Duel's altar.
  [hr][/hr]
• 20 new spells: 5 new spells per Hero
  [hr][/hr]
• Telescope now works offline. We made this change to make the feature accessible for players in some areas that had issues connecting with the Telescope server. Telescope should also work now on console as well
  

[h2]Small Features[/h2]

[hr][/hr]
• Cetus Cavern now has 4 categories instead of 3, the fourth one will always be the random one (Nebulous Choice)
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ Slimes will now change direction toward nearest available enemy when bouncing (if they have a line of sight to them)
  [hr][/hr]
• Sparks now bounce multiple times even if no enemies around (make it stronger on bosses) + visual improvement
  [hr][/hr]
• Effect descriptions can stack into different columns if too many elements are displayed while checking spells
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ Feathers on Pavo's ruins will always be of a higher level after sacrificing health 3 times (globally)
  [hr][/hr]
• During Basic attacks you can change direction more freely - ☄️ hotfix 1.2.0.4

[h2]Balancing[/h2]

[hr][/hr]
• Increased damage for some spells:
  
  AYLA
  - Toxic bomb
  - Fatal dash
  - Misleading clone
  - Fisherman's demise
  
  KIRAN
  - Fiery dragon punch
  - Hadoken
  
  OCTAVE
  - Miseria
  - Adustio
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ Added back 3 Stars per Shadow Clones
  [hr][/hr]
• Sparks bounce one more time
  [hr][/hr]
• Increased damage for Fire Shield
  [hr][/hr]
• Slightly increased time delay between attacks for Aries / Cancer & Gemini
  [hr][/hr]
• Removed or reduced invincibility on some attacks of Scorpio / Cancer / Libra / Aquarius when it was not necessary
  

[h2]Music & SFX[/h2]

[hr][/hr]
• One important line from The Master was missing in Japanese Voice Over - ☄️ hotfix 1.2.0.4

[h2]Interface[/h2]

[hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ Reduced Main Menu brightness as it was too bright for many players - ☄️ hotfix 1.2.0.4

[h2]Visuals[/h2]

[hr][/hr]
• Small visual improvement of particles when bosses teleport and they are now behind Bosses - ☄️ hotfix 1.2.0.4

[h2]Narrative Design[/h2]

[hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ Kiran typo fixed in a dialog with The Master - ☄️ hotfix 1.2.0.4

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

[hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ You could get stuck in a ground of one of the exploration rooms
  [hr][/hr]
• Calie's Prismatic Beam could sometimes not hit enemies correctly if game FPS dropped
  [hr][/hr]
• When being casted by player 2 some hits from the spell ""Slashing Squall"" would always use player 1 spell modificators
  [hr][/hr]
• When being casted by player 2 the spell ""Quicksilver"" would spawn at player 1 position
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ When being casted by player 2 the spell ""Poisonous vortex"" would move facing player 1 direction
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ ""Start 30 escape attempts"" would unlock earlier than it should
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ Achievement for unlocking Bapy and Barbecue would sometimes not work on ps5
  [hr][/hr]
• It was possible to press input to equip an aura while the game was paused
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ The combo of the aura ""Prowess of the sky"" and ""Zimzim laugh"" echo would trigger pseudo infinite spawns of thunder strikes
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ The game could sometimes freeze while skipping Zodiacs cutscenes
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ Healing shards would not be collected if the spawn animation didn't finish before a layout transition
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ Capricorn warn signs for their missile attacks would sometimes not disappear
  [hr][/hr]
• Topaz Companion spell would not always hit every time if attacking fast
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ Return to Characters in Papa Yalee was only making you go one rank higher
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ Lightning Dance spell could keep visual elements after being launched
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ Favored by the Earth bapy achievement would not work correctly
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ Bapy Summon Star Chest would not give stars in falling in the pit of Pavo's ruins and Echo Island
  [hr][/hr]
• We reworked the way we handle backup files to handler cases on where player could lost save data if their game crashed or in case of a power outrage. If you find any issues with save files after this update please contact the developer team through the steam forum or the official Hibernian Workshop discord server.
  [hr][/hr]
• Replacing hub teleporters which were removed by mistake - ☄️ hotfix 1.2.0.3
  [hr][/hr]
• Adjusting backup system to avoid creating backup from invalid files - ☄️ hotfix 1.2.0.3
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ Poetic Peddler's Chance description was not displaying the right amount of Quartz to collect - ☄️ hotfix 1.2.0.4
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ Cancer killed during his ultimate could stay in air and have reversed height or weird angle - ☄️ hotfix 1.2.0.4
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ In Coop, a player could be stuck in the wall before The Master fight - ☄️ hotfix 1.2.0.4
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ In Coop, a player could be stuck in dead animation if killed in P1 of the Master and revived after P2 starts - ☄️ hotfix 1.2.0.4
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ Large world 1 monster spawning thorns would not spawn thorns if platforms were too small or close to a wall - ☄️ hotfix 1.2.0.4
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ Laserified Achievement from Sier Bapy was not using the right Laser from world 4, it was using the small lasers trap instead of the giant laser trap - ☄️ hotfix 1.2.0.4
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ When playing at more than 60fps it would sometimes require several down inputs to go through platforms - ☄️ hotfix 1.2.0.4
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ Steam and consoles achievement ""Arsenal"" (unlock all spell on Peddle) would not work correctly after the 1.2.0 update - ☄️ hotfix 1.2.0.4
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ Bapy's achievement for unlocking the Path of Destinies should work retroactively now, this specially affects players from EA that unlocked the feature before the 1.0 release - ☄️ hotfix 1.2.0.4
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ Triggers from some specific player effects (Ice fragments and Thunder Strike) would not work correctly for auras and damage would not register on damage meter - ☄️ hotfix 1.2.0.4

- The Hibernian Workshop Team

• Discord Server
• Twitter Account
• Official Store

Hello everyone! ːzimzimSmileː

We are making nice progress for the incoming update, it will be simultaneously released on Steam and Consoles on February 12th!

[h3]But we have made a Public Beta version available for you to try right now! ːbarbecuePogː[/h3]

We would like to setup a new process for our updates, making them available first as Public Betas to collect your thoughts and feedback.
In order to be notified about the Public Beta releases, you can join our Discord Server, there you can get a role by reacting to the message in Public-Beta channel -



Doing this, everytime a new Public Beta version is updated you will be notified with a detailed Patch-Notes describing what you will find in the version.

This server is also the perfect place to feedback us about your thoughts on the Public-Beta content!

[h3]We hope to see you there to get your opinion about the update, here is what you can find in the currently uploaded Public-Beta -[/h3]


[h2]Major Features[/h2]

[hr][/hr]
• PvP Mode: Added a option for players to fight each other in a duel during co-op runs. You can start a duel at Andromeda's bar by interacting with the new Duel's altar.
  [hr][/hr]
• 20 new spells: 5 new spells per Hero
  [hr][/hr]
• Telescope now works offline. We made this change to make the feature accessible for players in some areas that had issues connecting with the Telescope server. Telescope should also work now on console as well
  

[h2]Small Features[/h2]

[hr][/hr]
• Cetus Cavern now has 4 categories instead of 3, the fourth one will always be the random one (Nebulous Choice)
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ Slimes will now change direction toward nearest available enemy when bouncing (if they have a line of sight to them)
  [hr][/hr]
• Sparks now bounce multiple times even if no enemies around (make it stronger on bosses) + visual improvement
  

[h2]Balancing[/h2]

[hr][/hr]
• Increased damage for some spells:
  
  AYLA
  - Toxic bomb
  - Fatal dash
  - Misleading clone
  - Fisherman's demise
  
  KIRAN
  - Fiery dragon punch
  - Hadoken
  
  OCTAVE
  - Miseria
  - Adustio
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ Added back 3 Stars per Shadow Clones
  [hr][/hr]
• Sparks bounce one more time
  [hr][/hr]
• Increased damage for Fire Shield
  

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

[hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ You could get stuck in a ground of one of the exploration rooms
  [hr][/hr]
• Calie's Prismatic Beam could sometimes not hit enemies correctly if game FPS dropped
  [hr][/hr]
• When being casted by player 2 some hits from the spell ""Slashing Squall"" would always use player 1 spell modificators
  [hr][/hr]
• When being casted by player 2 the spell ""Quicksilver"" would spawn at player 1 position
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ When being casted by player 2 the spell ""Poisonous vortex"" would move facing player 1 direction
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ ""Start 30 escape attempts"" would unlock earlier than it should
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ Achievement for unlocking Bapy and Barbecue would sometimes not work on ps5
  [hr][/hr]
• It was possible to press input to equip an aura while the game was paused
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ The combo of the aura ""Prowess of the sky"" and ""Zimzim laugh"" echo would trigger pseudo infinite spawns of thunder strikes
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ The game could sometimes freeze while skipping Zodiacs cutscenes
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ Healing shards would not be collected if the spawn animation didn't finish before a layout transition
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ Capricorn warn signs for their missile attacks would sometimes not disappear
  [hr][/hr]
• Topaz Companion spell would not always hit everytime if attacking fast
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ Return to Characters in Papa Yalee was only making you go one rank higher
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ Lightning Dance spell could keep visual elements after being launched
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ Favored by the Earth bapy achievement would not work correctly
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ Bapy Summon Star Chest would not give stars in falling in the pit of Pavo's ruins and Echo Island
  

- The Hibernian Workshop Team

• Discord Server
• Twitter Account
• Official Store

Hello everyone!

We are back from holidays and we are working on our next update coming on February 12! ːtaurusSmirkː

[h2]PvP Arena and public beta[/h2]
We have made great progress on the PvP Arena and it turned out even better than we anticipated, it is so fun to play! We will explain better everything related to it in the update news but for now here is a work-in-progress video.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

The PvP Arena is now available for you to try and we are really interested to get your feedback related to it!

As a safety measure, we would recommend you to make a manual copy of your saves before selecting the public beta. For that copy the content in :

 Windows (C:)
 Users
 - Your Windows User Name -
 My Games
 Astral Ascent
 Number of your Steam Account
 - Copy the content there to somewhere else -

To select the public beta, open Steam then :

 
 Right click on Astral Ascent in your Library
 Click on Properties
 Open Betas tab
 Select "public.beta"

The public beta already has a change related to Telescope making it offline now and if you see any issues related to spells or during the PvP it would be very appreciated if you could report them to us, thanks!

[h2]New Spells[/h2]
We have also started working on 5 new spells per hero, these new spells feel very cool to use and we tried to make some of them move enemies around as it was something often requested by the community!







[h2]Other Changes Coming[/h2]
We took time to read all the reviews, all the suggestions and bugs reports we received and we will try to fix and improve as much as possible of these beginning with the most requested ones.

For example we will be fixing the issue making Telescope unavailable in sone countries (and consoles) for this update but we have little time for fixes for this update so more fixes and improvements like improving the synergy between loots during a run should be following in a patch dedicated to improvements in March 2024.

[h2]Backerkit Survey
[/h2]We are finalizing the survey and should be able to send it this month. We are also talking a lot with Limited Run Games recently and things are moving in the right direction to prepare every physical rewards!



Wishing you a great day and the best for 2024! ːzimzimSmileː

- The Hibernian Workshop Team

Let's dive into the details of what is new in this new update!

You can see the complete Patch Notes here
https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1280930/view/3900744344840803063

[h2]Japanese voice-over[/h2]

We just loved the community calling us an "anime roguelite" (some of the late-game cinematics are really inspired by some animes!) and we decided to make a Japanese voice-over version of all the dialogs. It was a lot of work with the 7800+ dialog lines and 27 voiced characters but we assembled a great team to deal with this task and we are super happy with the result. Each character has so much personality and it is an always renewed joy to discover all the dialogs in a different language. You can listen to some of these new recordings below -

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

You will have a launching screen to choose the voice-over language one time now, we were afraid all this work would go unnoticed if we did not add a specific screen for it.


[h2]Brazilian Portuguese Translation[/h2]

Having members of our team from Brazil, we are very happy to have the game translated in Brazilian Portuguese!


[h2]Small Astral Dragon[/h2]

We pay a very close attention to the community feedback about the game and one of the most requested change is being able to have more control over the builds we are creating. With this in mind, we added a new Zim-Zim upgrade named "Small Astral Dragon". (also works in co-op!)


At first rank you have the choice between 2 Common Auras and at last rank you have the choice between 2 Mythic Auras. Everytime, Auras have 20% to be of an higher rarity level so you can sometimes start with an Astral Aura. Though we did not want to encourage what we consider being an unfun behavior - relaunching the game many times to get a different Aura - we made the game remember which Aura should appear.

We placed this Dragon at the very beginning of the first intro room so you can have an aura before taking the level up statue and have an initial target build to focus on. But do not forget, this is a simple first step into your build, if you started with a poison Aura and only find freeze oriented elements you can switch to it! As Bear Grylls said : Improvise. Adapt. Overcome!

As an addition for easier builds, we have added another gambit slot at the merchant in Andromeda's bar. It is not fun to reset many times the choices in order to find the right affinities and it should be a little easier now!



[h2]The Telluric Yalee[/h2]

Another feedback we received was not getting frequently enough the spells you prefer. Instead of garanting certain spells or banning some others, we implemented a Yalee in the Telluric room, this Yalee appears when you defeated the Master once (in Destiny Level 0) and can reset the spells choices for a small amount of Sun Pieces. We kept the amount low so it always feel fine to use and not frustrating.



We have been looking for a moment now on what could we do with extra Sun Pieces collected. It was supposed to be the Small Astral Dragon for a large amount of Sun Pieces but we felt like it was too important to have it unlocked early and to have this starting Aura in all runs so we reworked very recently to implement it as a Zim-Zim upgrade and we will try to find something else to do with the Extra Sun Pieces in the future!


[h2]New Explorations Room[/h2]

We added 10 new exploration rooms level design variations for each world in this update

We have made a poll on our Discord Server to know what you would like to see implemented in the game and the results really surprised us!



We created a Roadmap (see below) to take these feedback into consideration.

• A - Metaprogression content - making more heroes spells as soon as possible for February 2024 update, we have already created some and we tried to focus on making as many spells as possible focusing on creating gameplay like moving enemies or heroes etc as you feedbacked us.
  
• B - Ingame content - nothing planned for now given the poll results
  
• C - New games modes - PvP is planned for February 2024 and a new very cool mode is coming for Q4 2024, giving it a low priority given this poll
  
• D - Harder challenges - nothing planned for now given the poll results
  
• E - Exploration runs variety - 10 new exploration rooms level design variations available now! We made it a priority due to the poll.
  
• F - Combat runs variety - we planned an altervative world to come alongside Yamat update on Q3 2024!
  

Talking a bit more about the future below.


[h2]Damage Meter System[/h2]

This is the most biggest change of this update, it registers all the damage you input to any enemies for your current room and globally (also works in co-op). You can pause the game to open the "Damage Meter" option in the menu to see this -


There is also an overlay option that is "Off" by default and you can activate it to show the top 5 elements of either the global damage of your run or of the current room and it looks like this -



For those worried, it's not overlapping with much elements from the interface, we limited it to 5 elements showcased at once.

This new system is inspired by mmorpg addons making it possible to see what causes damage at any time in your build. Our goal is to make you fully understand your build, how it works, how it synergies and what deals damage in it.

We think that's not something very common but we have a lot of synergizing elements that we think it's really important in our game. Even if we made our very best during the development, this new tool is probably going to show a lot of unbalanced elements so you can expect changes based on our observations in the coming months.


[h2]Lisibility and Readability[/h2]

Among the reported feedback from the community, lisibility is something that we see a lot, we made so many changes regarding this during the development but we are still not there yet.

Most of games similar to Astral Ascent use a dark background because it makes everything stands out instantly but we really wanted the game to be colorful, it is definitively more work though!

In this update we increased lisibility again, we reduce some visuals FX, we set as many as possible behind everything, add some transparency on elements and so on. We have also added an option to remove Damage Numbers if you don't want them being visible on the screen.




We hope we will enjoy this update, as a reminder here is our 2024 Roadmap if you missed it -


We are going to take a well deserved break for the holidays season! Things have been really intense during 2023 with frequent major updates. You can check this link to see all the newsletters we released on Steam since 2020 to see how much the game evolved and how much we progressed as a team!

For now the game keeps selling well and for now it gives a nice future for the game and for our studio and we really appreciate players following us as developers and not just for a specific game, that goes right to our hearts!

That's the last news of this very intense year, 2024 should be easier for us. I will sound like a broken record but thanks again for following us, sharing and caring about Astral Ascent and we will keep you updated about what is next for the game in January!


Have an excellent holiday season everyone and thanks again!

- The Hibernian Workshop Team