Astral Ascent News

Hello everyone!

We released Colors & Elite Update on May 1st and next Major Update will be released at the end of June and today we want to share with you what this Update is going to be about.


As you probably already know, we like to re-work things and this time it is turn for the Path of Destinies (New Game + System).

CURRENT SYSTEM

Current System required you to collect Destiny Fragments by defeating Zodiacs and you needed a certain amount of Destiny Fragment to get to next Destiny Level.

You could only take one Malus per row then you would automatically to next row so it was always picking among few Maluses, there was a total of 12 Destiny levels and no purpose to collect Destiny Fragments except making the game more difficult if you want challenges.

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NEW SYSTEM

mockup, still in progress

New System is a simplified version of existing system, base is the same - defeat Zodiacs to collect Destiny Fragments (you will still have Destiny Fragments you collected before the Update) but now the Destiny Levels are fix from 1 to 6, you do not have to choose your Maluses until Destiny Level 7 because the 6 first Destiny Levels will be enabling a renewed game experience, a phase 2 of the game.

• Enemies will have new or improved attacks
  
  
• Bosses will have new or improved attacks
  
  
• And other things...

These elements will mainly increase and change experience of the 2 first worlds that you know just too well at this point but all worlds/zodiacs will be affected. We want Path of Destinies experience to make first worlds as interesting as last ones.

Before Destiny Level 7 you will need to unlock Destiny Levels one by one by finishing the game but from Destiny Level 7 or more you can pick as many Maluses as you want in any order and some Maluses will have several levels for a total of more than 50 Destiny Levels. It will be up to you to decide in which order and how many maluses you want, we would recommend optimizing the Destiny Fragments gain and here is why -



A new piece of the story named the Void Catalyst will now be in the Garden, it will only be accessible once you defeat Libra (for now).


When using it you will access the system below -


mockup, still in progress

From there you will really be entering phase 2 of the game as your new goal will to collect as many Destiny Fragments as possible by defeating Zodiacs in higher and higher Destiny Levels to get really big power boosts, there is 24 power-ups to discover with from 1 to 5 levels each and you unlock them with more Destiny Fragments collected!

Some elements from Void Catalyst -

• Start runs with Ikki Summon
  
• First Andromeda's drink is free
  
• Increase your Healing Shards power
  
• Start with base Armor
  
• etc.
  

So, even if you feel stuck at one Destiny Level you will keep collecting Destiny Fragments on Zodiacs and keep getting stronger. This is made to encourage you going into harder difficulties, in particular Destiny Level 6 because that's when you will reach True End once we reach 1.0 release.

The Void Catalyst also comes with Presets so you can create several builds that are saved and you can reset it at any time for free.

All of these systems are already implemented but it will take a lot of time to playtest and balance. We do not want things to be too complicated too quickly or to feel discouraging.

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At the same time we are making progress on Final Boss encounter and it is going to be by far our biggest work in the game, we want to the Master of the Prison to be a memorable game boss.

We hope you are as excited as we are for this upcoming Update that will be completely renewing end-game experience.

Have a great day and upcoming week-end,

- The Hibernian Workshop Team

So... last time we announced this Update to be ready by May 15 but we are actually ahead of our plannings so the Update is live... now for you to play! Including -

0.44 Steam Patch Notes - https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1280930/view/3699187161343049277



[h2]Elites rework [/h2]
We have reworked all existing elite modifiers and added many new ones for a total of 13 Elite modifiers now including passive elements like Armor and Regeneration too.



Among the reworked elements we improved the rotating lasers as we knew many of you had issues with them and we completely removed the modifiers making nearby enemies invincible.



There are even 2 modifiers happening on Death of enemies so be careful about icons! (Do not worry we made sure these elements could not happen in Eclipse Room so you can enjoy you Eclipse Room victories peacefully!)
The spawn rates and amount of modifiers has changed a little and we hope you will enjoy these new encounters!

[h2]New room type - Eclipse Room[/h2]
Talking about Elites, we created a new room dedicated to them : the Eclipse Room, this room gives you more Keys & more Stars than any Fight Room but it is also a much harder battle.



These rooms have 3 waves and at least 3 Elites in them, they also have traps. It can be very dangerous but you can also take advantage of it by exposing enemies to the traps!



As Eclipse Room is for experienced players, you will need to defeat a world 4 boss (Libra or Aquarius) before being able to get them in your runs.



[h2]Oloon extended[/h2]
As you saw, Oloon is the face of this new update and we made quite a lot of changes there! It used to be very complicated to have style with old colors, they were too flashy, complicated to match and there was not enough of them.
That's why we added many new colors AND a new category of colors.

• Ayla pants
  
• Kiran shoes & belt
  
• Octave boots & belt
  
• Calie pants
  

New colors are way more natural and allow for much more variations. Oloon is pleased of your style and we hope you will be too! It will now require 144 Yalee tickets to get all colors!



[h2]Sun Room Rework[/h2]
Another major rework from this update is about Sun Room. When you arrive you will be asked to choose among all elemental affinities we have in the game.



Then one gambit for each sub category of the elemental affinity will be spawned. These gambits are special, we have created a new type of gambit named Elemental Gambit that allows you to change a spell affinity to the affinity of this gambit.



To sum up how things work : when you go to the Sun room you are guaranteed to have any sub-category Gambit you could want as Myhic quality. If you want to build Sapling you can get a Mythic Sapling gambit there and this gambit will also change your spell affinity to Poison.
What it means is that you can find nice Fire gambits and start equiping them on a spell that is not of Fire affinity and then later change the affinity of this spell to Fire in the Sun room.



Regarding the elemental affinities we have also made a change, Neutrals affinity used to work with any types of gambits but they are now only working with gambits that are not from the 4 main elements.
The bonus damage for having 4 of the same gambits in the right affinity spell has also changed from +100% to +50%.



[h2]Many new Perks for heroes[/h2]
With all the new effects we introduced in last update we did not have time to add perks related to all of them (Ice Swords, Meteors etc).



By adding these new perks we have also reworked and added some other perks for this update. For example, Octave can now summon several Bellators at once but they will be on self-destruction mode.



Heroes Signature Spells should now be a more reliable way to trigger synergies by equipping perks.



[h2]Debug and QoL changes[/h2]
We have also addressed many bugs reports and added some quality of life changes that you requested such as being able to preview Auras upgrade anytime from loots and from inventory.




[h2]What is coming with next update?[/h2]
This update is smaller than Auras update but it is also smaller than next update that will be about Zim-Zim and NG+!
We are going to fully rework the NG+ system, adding way more elements and a different progression system making Destiny Levels a part of global runs experience and giving real incentives to collect Destiny Fragments from Zodiacs.




Everything is designed but there is a lot to do, you can expect this Update to release in second part of June!

As always, thanks a lot for supporting us through this journey and let us know if you enjoy this update or if you want to share the best Oloon color changes outfit you made!

Have a great week,

- The Hibernian Workshop Team

⭐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
  [hr][/hr]
• 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
  [hr][/hr]
• 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
  [hr][/hr]
• 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
  [hr][/hr]
• 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
  [hr][/hr]
• 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
  [hr][/hr]
• 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]

[hr][/hr]
• 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
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ Portals found on end of rooms are now displaying on increasing order of difficulty - ☄️ hotfix 0.44.1
  [hr][/hr]
• Small changes on camera zone around end of level portals to make it feel more smooth and responsive - ☄️ hotfix 0.44.1
  [hr][/hr]
• 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]

[hr][/hr]
• Balanced the spell damage boost gained from elemental affinity of equipped gambits
  [hr][/hr]
• Re-balanced several Auras
  [hr][/hr]
• Complete re-balance of all spells depending of their mana cost and number of hits
  [hr][/hr]
• Calie base attack speed has been slightly increased
  [hr][/hr]
• 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
  [hr][/hr]
• 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
  [hr][/hr]
• Elite modifier increasing strength of enemies has been greatly reduced - ☄️ hotfix 0.44.1

[h2]Interface[/h2]

[hr][/hr]
• 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
  [hr][/hr]
• Reworked all Perks, Gambits and most Auras descriptions to be clearer
  [hr][/hr]
• 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]

[hr][/hr]
• Sylvanian thorn attack feedbacks are now behind players
  [hr][/hr]
• Improved feedback of NG+ missile
  

[h2]Bug Fixes[/h2]

[hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ Triggering an action that could heal player while it was dead could cause gameover not to trigger, resulting in a softlock
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ It was possible to kill the dummy in Leo's challenge if you dealt enough damage
  [hr][/hr]
• 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
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ It was possible to spawn multiple of the same aura in Yalee's kingdom room
  [hr][/hr]
• Fixed a small glitch that could happen with camera when finishing a fight room while too close to camera limit borders
  [hr][/hr]
• The text from equipped stats stones could display with the wrong color
  [hr][/hr]
• Enemies could prevent you from climbing small walls by pushing out while you climb
  [hr][/hr]
• Ice spell 38 was sometimes dealing twice its damage
  [hr][/hr]
• Octave base spell could hit NG+ phantom enemies
  [hr][/hr]
• Some enemies attack were not reduced by Pacification
  [hr][/hr]
• Aura effect that would trigger embers om Wisps hit would not work after stacking other auras modifiers on Wisp attacks. - ☄️ hotfix 0.44.1
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ Possible crash when leaving Andromeda's bar after spamming the action input there - ☄️ hotfix 0.44.1
  [hr][/hr]
• Formatting issues could cause Gambits descriptions to have adicional spaces between words - ☄️ hotfix 0.44.1
  [hr][/hr]
• The elite modifiers that buffs enemy damage didn't scale with the modifier level correctly - ☄️ hotfix 0.44.1
  [hr][/hr]
• community inspired ⭐ Fixed issues on system to prevent spawn of repeated Auras in the same layout - ☄️ hotfix 0.44.1
  [hr][/hr]
• Zodiacs would sometimes not trigger real time dialogs during fights - ☄️ hotfix 0.44.1
  [hr][/hr]
• 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]

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