Astatos News

To the Crown Mages,

We're back from the holidays with a new patch! This patch contains some small new content, as well as a bunch of bug fixes.

To begin with, the Trials portion of the User Manual has been re-written from scratch with the goal of improving the experience of new players learning the game. Additionally, over 70 images have been added to the manual to visually illustrate each entry. This was something that got left on the cutting room floor for the release earlier this month, so we're super glad to get this improvement into the game.



The chapter "In A Sweet And Fitting Way" is now available in Traditional and Simplified Chinese. Previously, this chapter was only available in English.



Additionally, several bugs related to Takeover and Conquest Trials have been resolved. In particular, relating to the Heroes Alkaios, and Drusus. Be sure to see the full changelog below for details.

And that's all for today! We're going to get back to work on fixing up Trial bugs, so be sure to keep on reporting them to us over in our Discord, it's a massive help!

- From the team at Studio Klondike


[h3]Key Changes[/h3]

• The user manual has been revised! The gameplay portions of the manual have been rewritten to help better convey the game mechanics. Over 70 images have been added to the manual to visually illustrate each entry.
  
• Various bug fixes to Conquest and Takeover Trials.
  
• Various new sound effects have been added.
  

[h3]Trial Fixes[/h3]

• Hovering over a Hero Card quickly will no longer result in the Hero Ability tooltip being stuck on screen.
  
• Hovering over the "End Turn" button during a Trial when a Spell Card is used to change the Trial Card/s will should longer result in the button becoming un-clickable.
  
• Hero Energy submitted in the Hero Summon menu will no longer be refunded twice during the Hero Stage if the Energy was submitted during the first turn.
  
• Alkaios will no longer soft-lock a Conquest Trial when the Card distribution menu is displayed.
  
• Spamming the submit Energy button on the Alkaios wager interface will no longer submit more Energy than you possess.
  
• Drusus now correctly tracks failing to pass his Ability's Trial Stages in Takeover mode, preventing previously frequent desync issues.
  
• Drusus now correctly tracks the use of Spell Cards during his Trials in Conquest and Takeover trials, preventing previously frequent desync issues.
  
• Rank loss will now be correctly calculated by the game client. Previously Rank loss was displayed, but never tracked. This meant that players would see an incorrect Rank which could only increase until they restarted the game and received the correct value from the server.
  
• Regulus and Timaios now display the correct text for their abilities.
  
• Resolved an issue that would cause the Trial to start with 8 cards being drawn before soft-locking.
  

[h3]Story Content[/h3]

• The chapter "In A Sweet And Fitting Way" is now available in Traditional and Simplified Chinese.
• A new animation has been added to the "system" text in the sub-chapter "Prologue".
  

[h3]Story Fixes[/h3]

• Fixed a decision in the sub-chapter "To Ashes" which would lead to an incorrect scene being displayed.
  
• Fixed a decision in the sub-chapter "The Devil's Son" which would lead to an incorrect scene being displayed.
  

[h3]Game Fixes[/h3]

• Levels will now be correctly tracked on your progress towards unlocking related Titles.
  
• Achievements and Titles related to playing Conquest and Takeover Trials should now all track the correct game modes
  

[h3]Known Issues[/h3]
While we're working hard to wrap up the remaining bugs in multiplayer trials, the following are issues that are known or carried over from the previous patch.

• Un-Summoning Sulpicius by using Nikos when your side is at the Hero Summon Limit will incorrectly keep Sulpicius' passive ability active.
  
• Some text may display incorrectly in Traditional and Simplified Chinese until the font is updated to include new characters added by this update.
  
• Heroes will sometimes display an incorrect summon cost In the Hero Summon menu. The actual Energy cost to summon said Hero should still be correct regardless of what is displayed on the interface.
  

To the Crown Mages,

Today we have one last update before we'll be taking a short break for the holidays. It contains a few fixes for surrounding the removal of passives from players, along with balance tweaks for Heroes in Takeover and Conquest Trials.

These changes include an update to how failing the Trial works in Takeover. Instead of losing Energy first, you will get to keep your Energy and instead you will lose Influence. This change is not currently documented in the manual, but we'll aim to get that out next week along with a larger update to the manual to make the game easier to learn. (Including images!)

We are aware of desync issues, and some conditions where Hero abilities will cause the Trial to stop continuing. We are still working hard to resolve these, but need some more time to catch them all.

This update also sends us more robust debugging information when you give us feedback. So if you run into any issues, be sure to hit the feedback button in the pause menu and send us details of what happened. (In particular what Heroes were used would be a massive help!)

We hope you enjoy your time playing Astatos!

- From the team at Studio Klondike


[h3]Gameplay Adjustments[/h3]

• Failing the Trial Stage in a Takeover Trial will no longer remove Energy from players. Instead players will lose 1 Influence. If both players fail the Trial Stage, no one will lose Influence.
  

[h3]Hero Balancing[/h3]

• [Takeover] Mukaki has a new One Time Ability. (Once per game) Lose one influence, then swap all the Cards in your hand with those held by your opponent.
• [Takeover & Conquest] Aristotle's ability will now activate only once per round. (The new round beginning with the Trial Stage)
  
• [Takeover & Conquest] Lysander's ability has been updated. Pick an Element, then a player. All matching Cards in their hand are converted into Energy.

[h3]Trial Fixes[/h3]

• Nikos will correctly remove Passive Abilities when he flips Heroes to their side. Additionally, passives will be correctly removed when one side already has 7 Heroes and the additional Hero is un-summoned and sent back to the Summon Menu. (Please note: There is a known bug where un-summoning Sulpicius will result in the next turn to break. We will aim to hotfix this in the near future.)
  
• Varius can now correctly remove Energy from Heroes with Passive Abilities.
  
• Drusus will no longer stop the match from progressing when letting the timer run out, or when failing the second of his Trial Stages.
  

[h3]Game Improvements[/h3]

• Feedback given by players will now send us the full debugging log to help us track down errors.
  
• When Makari-Hari or Mukaki have used their once per match Ability, their card borders will darken slightly to let everyone know the Ability has been used.
  
• Improved data loading. The deck, profile icon selection menu, and loading into Trials have each had their loading code reworked. This should help prevent unexpected hang-up's in these areas. In addition, a short loading screen has been added prior to opening the Deck Customisation menu.
  

To the Crown Mages,

Since last week we've been pushing out several updates as we continue to work on bug fixes and improvements to the game. Over this time we've resolved a significant amount of bugs related to the menus, story mode, progression, and overall game functionality. We can't thank our players enough for discussing these issues and helping us discover the causes.

As a part of this update progression, has been fixed as Monera should be given to players upon levelling up. To repay the lost rewards to players who didn't receive their level up rewards during this time, as well as thank everyone for playing the game while we get things in order, we will be increasing the Daily Reward to 250 Monera for the next 14 days.

Additionally, several issues relating to the game when played in Traditional and Simplified Chinese have been resolved. While some issues still persist, we hope our players in these languages will find the game much better than launch day.

From here on out, we'll be working on improving the stability of multiplayer. We hear you loud and clear about requested balance fixes, and we'll be looking out for small tweaks we can make — but our priority right now is to ensure a smooth gameplay experience.

Thank you all for playing, and we hope to make the game even better from here on out.

- From the team at Studio Klondike


[h3]Game Fixes[/h3]

• The Hero summon animation upon signing up now displays the correct artwork.
  
• When redeeming Hero Pack I and Hero Pack II as a part of the Game Pass, they will now correctly unlock immediately instead of requiring the game to be restarted.
  
• Players now receive EXP correctly upon the completion of Conquest Trials. This means EXP will scale as intended like Monera and Reward Points do.
  
• Players now receive Monera upon levelling up. Due to Monera not being awarded to players during this time, the Daily Reward has been increased to 250 Monera for the next 14 days.
  
• The Level menu would previously not display the correct text on the progress bar, and would also not display the EXP values to reach the next level.
  
• Fixed an issue where Conquest and Takeover titles would be counted for the opposite game move.
  
• Fixed an issue where the player icon menu would load the incorrect icons if you were using the Mukaki UI skin.
  

[h3]Hero Fixes[/h3]

• Resolved an issue that prevented the Card distribution menu from working during Conquest Trials. This also means that Alkaios should now work as intended in Conquest Trials.
  
• Fixed an issue where the correct popup text would not display if Alkaios has no opposing players to target in the Trial.
  
• Kyros now shows your opponent's hand as intended in Conquest and Takeover Trials.
  
• Improvements to the UI for the Trial Stage to prevent locking up when more than 5 Trial Cards are displayed.
  
• Fixed an issue where Zermes would break under some circumstances.
  

[h3]Game Improvements[/h3]

• The Victory Screen will now display when you have reached your Monera and Reward Points caps for the day.
  
• The Story Mode chapter menu will now show a "NEW!" tag when a chapter has uncompleted sub-chapters.
  
• The Story Mode chapter menu will now show you when you can unlock new Topics in the Interlude.
  
• The Story Mode chapter menu will now automatically open to the last chapter you saved a bookmark in or completed.
  
• Added a notice to the Shop button on the Main Menu when you have yet to bind your account, or unlock Hero Pack I and Hero Pack II as a part of your Game Pass.
  

[h3]Story Fixes[/h3]

• Fixed an issue where pauses in story scripting could last 10x longer than intended depending on the locale setting of your computer.
  
• Fixed various typos in Story Mode.
  
• Fixed an issue where deleting a save slot would delete all save slots instead of just the one you selected.
  
• Fixed a check in the sub-chapter "Mage Corps" which would lead to an incorrect scene.
  
• Fixed a check in the sub-chapter "Salaraius Magicus" which would lead to an incorrect scene.
  
• Fixed a check in the sub-chapter "To Ashes" which would lead to an incorrect scene.
  
• Fixed an incorrect sprite in the sub-chapter "The Devil's Son".
  
• Fixed an incorrect sprite in the sub-chapter "Spicae".
  
• Fixed visible pixels in the transparent areas across Volesus' and Zermes' sprite sets.
  
• The logic behind loading of sprites in Story Mode is now threaded, meaning sprite animations can no longer interfere with sprites appearing and disappearing.
  

[h3]Traditional & Simplified Chinese Fixes[/h3]

• Fixed an issue where the English font would always be loaded on boot— leading all text to be displayed in squares until the language was changed in the settings.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Rematch and Leave buttons were not translated.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Store would always display in English.
  
• Fixed an issue when the chapter "City of Peace" was not accessible.
  
• Some decisions would not display all options correctly in Story Mode.
  
• The Hero Card description of Caelius has been corrected.
  
• The Hero Card description of Zermes has been corrected.
  
• The Hero Card description of Makari-Hari has been corrected.
  
• Herclaus now displays the correct amount of Energy taken in Conquest and Takeover Trials.
  
• Updated the Chinese font files to cover more missing text in Story Mode. (Please report screenshots of any remaining missing text in our Discord.)
  
• A decision in "Journey to Irinipolis - Part II" would display the opposite text to the decision you made.
  
• Fixed an issue where miss-matched English characters were used in the Chinese font.
  

To the Crown Mages,

With the release of Astatos into Early Access, we've been hard at work over the past day fixing a bunch of bugs to make sure everyone has as smooth of an experience as possible. We made sure to prioritise bugs that prevented people from playing the game, and are keeping an eye out on remaining issues.

Thank you all so much for your amazing help in the Steam Community and the SK Discord which enabled us to tackle so many issues this fast. We've been gathering your feedback and will continue to look into issues over the next few days to prepare a full update patch.

We are also finishing the scripting on 7 additional Interlude topics for Chapter 1 which are also planned to release next week. We hope players will look forward to them!

- From the team at Studio Klondike


[h3]General Fixes[/h3]

• Fixed a server issue where random errors and slowdowns would occur after 100 people accessed the server simultaneously.
  
• Fixed an error where skins couldn't be bought with coins.
  
• Fixed an issue where friend room invites would appear to be from a blank user with a nonsensical name.
  
• Fixed an issue with story mode and various other systems breaking in French (and possibly other) locales.
  
• Fixed an issue where the skin "Herclaus - Luchador" would not load properly.
  
• Fixed an issue where you could not see your profile picture change when you selected a different one.
  
• Fixed an issue where the purchase window did not display the correct font in Traditional and Simplified Chinese.
  
• Fixed an issue where Hero names would not be displayed correctly in some pop-up messages during Trials.
  
• Fixed typos within some of the English Trial text.
  
• Fixed an issue where the buttons in the Store may freeze.
  

[h3]Story Fixes[/h3]

• Fixed an issue where the introductory scene to the Interlude would loop upon re-entry to the scene.
  
• Fixed an issue where the sub-chapter "New Arrivals" would stop progressing.
  
• Fixed a few issues where the playback of the chapter "Hope Dies Last" would not properly follow your decisions.
  
• Fixed an issue where the sub-chapter "Prologue" would stop progressing in Traditional and Simplified Chinese.
  
• Updated the scripting on sub-chapter "Prologue" to reduce scripted pauses and reduce confusion about the intended "error" messages.
  
• Fixed an issue in the sub-chapter "Prologue" where Mukaki would be unusually large.
  
• Fixed an issue where the Traditional and Simplified Chinese fonts were missing characters required for Story Mode. (Please report any remaining missing characters so we can update the font file as needed)
  

[h3]Balance Adjustments[/h3]

• The cost to summon Drusus in Conquest Trials and Takeover Trials has been increased by one.
  

[h3]Other Changes[/h3]

• Added additional feedback to the Store to guide players towards binding their accounts and redeeming the Hero Packs.
  
• Items in the store are now greyed-out once owned.
  
• Improvement to the loading and handling of fonts in non-English languages. (Please report any remaining issues if you encounter them.)