Striving for Light News

Welcome back Wanderers to the 1.0 Release Reveal Marathon #9, where we will unveil a major part of the extensive 1.0 content update. Last week we reveiled the new Trinket Quality System, Permanent Companion Rework, Skill Stacking & Scaling Rework and more. You can check out the new announcement trailer here in case you missed it:

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1646790/view/543361383085900161

Update 1.0 is the biggest update we have ever developed for Striving for Light, we leave no stone untouched to deliver a cohesive playing experience.


You might have noticed the new music during our cinematic story trailer, so we are happy to announce that the already very expansive Striving for Light Soundtrack (1h 30 min long) will be expanding.

Ankerath now has its own original soundtrack! Experience a mystic, hopeful darkness through an evocative new soundscape composed exclusively for our Town Ankerath. Let the music offer you a sanctuary amidst your vast adventures into the lingering darkness.

Here is the new soundtrack for Ankerath ready to set the mood while reading...
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


We are now developing Striving for Light for nearly ~4 years and we are very excited about the release July 11th. To celebrate the release we will be hosting a 1.0 Release Event starting on launch day.

[h3]Event Duration[/h3]
July 11th - July 20th, starting and ending on the game release time

[h3]Pricepool[/h3]
Softcore:

• 3x Design with the Devs price to design a Weapon/Skill/Trinket together with us which will be implemented into the game.
  
• 3x Striving for Light Steam Key
  
• 3x Striving for Light Soundtrack Steam Key
  

Hardcore:

• 3x Design with the Devs price to design a Weapon/Skill/Trinket together with us which will be implemented into the game.
  
• 3x Striving for Light Steam Key
  
• 3x Striving for Light Soundtrack Steam Key
  

[h3]How To Win[/h3]
Reach one of the first 3 places on these following leaderboards:

• Honor Leaderbaord (General Leaderboard Game Difficulty Tier 1)
  
• Seasonal Challenges
  
• Rift Leaderboard
  

1st: Design with Devs, 2nd: SfL Steam Key, 3rd: SfL Soundtrack.
Each player can only win 1 price from each price category in Hardcore or Softcore (i.e. 1x design price).

[h3]How To Participate[/h3]

• Drop a short message in #🔥release-event-chat on our discord to sign up to be eligible for prices and get the @1.0 Release Event discord role.
  
• Please stick to fair-play, no cheating, no offensive player names, violation will result in disqualification of this and future events.
  

[h3]Join our Discord here![/h3]


Plenty of maps have aged quite a bit over the last years during Early Access so we felt its finally time to give them a redesign.









We spent a lot of time improving the controller support for 1.0 and since we now got our hands on a steamdeck testing unit we finally are able to experience all the steamdeck issues ourself to be able to fix them and further improve the steamdeck support.

Controller support especially when navigating in the skilltree has been improved. The node jump navigation in the skilltree is now only accessible by using the d pad. The thumbstick received a new non linear accelerated cursor controller that lets you precisely select nodes on initial thumbstick tilt with higher speeds if high tilts are hold down to reach the other side of the skilltree in shorter time.


Update 1.0 will be packed with countless quality of life improvements. Way too much to list them here.

• Improvements to the skill gems UI: Now when selecting a skillgem the skillgems menu gets hidden to grant you full view on the skilltree to allow easier skill gem placement. For placing skill shards the same functionality was added so that you do not need to move the skilltree to the right to reach the covered area below the skillgems menu. Once the skillgem or skill shard was placed the menu is becoming visible again to allow for further selections.
  
• Improved Companions AI: Companion enemy detection and companion movements have been reworked and improved target enemies faster. Range companions have received faster projectiles and attack speed which allows them to snipe down enemies with more accuracy.
  
• Softcore Shield gain/ loss effects: When gaining softcore player shields new effects have been added to indicate shield have been gained or lost.
  
• Pathfinder Improvements: Plenty of improvements to the pathfinder to make selecting maps more intuitive.
  
• Improved Tutorials: Plenty of tutorials have been improved and redesigned to better communicate the game systems to new players
  
• Descriptions & Translations: Plenty of descriptions and translations have been improved
  
• Performance Improvements: Plenty of game systems have been rewritten for performance improvements
  
• Bugfixes: Countless bugfixes
  

Plenty of assets have received major reworks and redesigns to make the game look more cohesive.
Just to name a very few:

• The skilltree has received a new origin background effect and a new background texture.
  
• The ascended weapon frame has been reworked entirely
  
• Plenty of assets in the town got reworked, chicken, walls, buildings ...
  

We could go on and on sharing highlights from the massive 1.0 update, which will be the biggest udpate the game has ever seen, but we will keep some surprises for you to uncover at the release next week on Friday July 11th.

There is one more 1.0 Release Patch Reveal marathon next week where we will share the full patch notes for 1.0 and the final details for the release event.

If you want to participate in the 1.0 Release Event, you can join our discord already to stay up to date and not miss anything:

[h3]Join our Discord here![/h3]


We hope that this preview excites you for the upcoming 1.0 release! We are looking forward to hear your thoughts on all the new features and content.

But behold, this is only a fraction of what will come with the 1.0 Release, we will continue the reveal marathon on next Wednesday 9th of July.

You are invited to join our official discord. Chat with fellow SfL Players, discuss builds, the new content update or just hang out with us.

[h3]Bugfixes:[/h3]

• Fixed a recursion in the latest compatability patch for the 1.0 save file structure that lead to center skilltree node be replaced by a random skillnode. This resulted in one additional random skillnode getting added to your build on each map load/scene switch. This also resulted in showing the message that you do not have enough resources to attack as the additional skill node added some additional resource cost.
  

Welcome back Wanderers to the 1.0 Release Reveal Marathon #8, where we will unveil a major part of the extensive 1.0 content update. Last week we reveiled Weapon Stash Slots together with a new Weapon Swap System coming to Striving for Light with the upcoming 1.0 release. You can check out the new announcement trailer here in case you missed it:

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1646790/view/543360749096927332?l=english

Update 1.0 is the biggest update we have ever developed for Striving for Light, we leave no stone untouched to deliver a cohesive playing experience. A main focus of the 1.0 content update is not only adding new content but breathing new life into older content, to make this content viable and exciting again.

Everything you have seen in the past episodes of the reveal marathon are only the highlights between the extensive array of change, new features and improvements coming with the 1.0 content udpate.
So you can expect even moaar surprises on the expansive patch notes for 1.0, than we will be able to share in these reveal marathon episodes.

Note that everything which is presented here is still in development and testing and might change until release.


Trinkets that "only" grant stat bonuses can be very helpful in the early game but fall off during late game in terms of usability. So with 1.0 we want to bring more excitement to all trinkets that do not grant additional abilities or legendary powers.

Offensive, Defensive and Utility Trinkets that do not come with abilities will be able to drop in 3 rarities. Minor, Greater and Mythic, which all come with their individual loot beams.



Trinket rarity will now determine the power of their stat rolls making hunting for loot even more exciting as mythic trinkes are very rare but hold expansive powers, never before seen on trinkets.







Permanent Companions can feel very powerful early on, but as your build develops and possibilities to spawn temporary companions increases they start to lack behind and can even feel useless. Why adding another permanent companion if you could just ramp up attack speed and further increase companion spawn rate from your weapon effects?

With 1.0 permanent companions will get some exciting buffs. Melee and Range Companions now have a 20% chance to trigger all your player attack effects for this attack type if you have the required resources this attack would require. If you do not have enough resources when the companion would trigger the attack only a normal attack will be performed dealing the companion damage but no additional player effects will be triggered.

We think this will open up new ways to play companion builds and allow for better damage scaling in endgame. This will also make the wolf and falcon companion different than the chicken companions. The resource penalty on chicken companions has therefore been reduced to -30% energy and endurance regeneration (was -40%). The resource penalties on wolf and falcon companion remains unchanged.



What about wolfs that cast molten orbs?



Permanent companions will have a 20% change to trigger all your range on attack effects and each projectile hit will have a 20% chance to trigger all your range on hit effects.



So what about crafting a build around lightning falcons? Well this should open up plenty of new build possibilites and playstyles. We are already looking forward what builds you will create!





You might have tried scaling damage on skills that only scale by stacking the same skill multiple times like meteor or lightning strike. As this scaling makes investing into these skills after a certain point simply not viable, especially for endgame scenarios. Therefore we have reworked the skill damage scaling of skills that only scale by skillstacking.

The damage scaling of skills that only scale with skillstacks (i.e. Meteor, Lightning Strike, Discharge) has now been decoupled from the skill trigger possibility. Previously the damage would only scale if trigger possibility reaches certain thresholds i.e. 200%, 300%. With the new skill damage scaling system each additional skill stack will always scale the skill damange even though the skill trigger chance is still below 100%. Furthermore the skill damage scaling now has a new skill stack damage scaling factor that will make those skills scale with greater magnitude to make them viable endgame skill choices.

Meteor Cast for example now scales on each skillstack:

• 1x Meteor Cast = 45 Damage on 50% On Range Attack Chance
  
• 2x Meteor Cast = 90 Damage on 100% On Range Attack Chance
  
• 3x Meteor Cast = 135 Damage on 100% On Range Attack Chance
  

Burning skills have been part of the game since pretty much the start of early access. Burning skills have been the very first condition damage skills and have been strong back then, but with the addition of weapons that feature inherent burning on hit effects they simply can not hold up.

Therefore, we gave burning skills a rework to feature bigger AoE sizes and also differentiate between on attack burning skills and on hit burning skills. On Attack burning skills will now feature a very large lava AoE effect that allows to cover huge areas to apply burning conditions to enemies.

The on hit burning skills drop a much smaller lava area effect as the on attack skills but overall remain bigger than all the burning AoE fields before 1.0. The effects have also been reworked for nicer visuals and improved performance. The skill descriptions have also been updated. Also each burning skill now has its unique icon to better tell them apart without needing to read the tooltips.

So what about to set the whole screen on fire?



We hope that this preview excites you for the upcoming 1.0 release! We are looking forward to hear your thoughts on all the new features and content.

But behold, this is only a fraction of what will come with the 1.0 Release, we will continue the reveal marathon on next Wednesday 2nd of July.

You are invited to join our official discord. Chat with fellow SfL Players, discuss builds, the new content update or just hang out with us.

Even though we are currently deep into playtesting 1.0 and hunting and ironing out the final remaining bugs we decided to roll in a fix for a few of the most anying controller bugs to bring more enjoyment to the game until 1.0 drops on July 11th.

1.0 will contain a huge amount of controller support improvements and fundamental redesigns. We finally got our hands on a steam deck testing unit so we did now as well run into all these issues you have been running into, which are very specific to the steamdeck and how input is handled.

We will share more information on what improvements are coming to Controller Support, Steamdeck, and general Quality of Life in one of our upcoming 1.0 Content Update Reveal Marathon Episodes :)

[h3]Bugfixes:[/h3]

• Fixed wrong attack angle when aiming with the controller thumbstick which some times randomly jumps to the current mouse position
  
• Improved controller menu navigation for controller (we can't roll in the full fix and improvement pre 1.0, but it will be fully resolved on 1.0)
  

Welcome back Wanderers to the 1.0 Release Reveal Marathon #7, where we will unveil a major part of the extensive 1.0 content update. Last week we reveiled New Weapons, New Skill, New Trinket and the new Enemy Weakening/ Debuff System coming to Striving for Light with the upcoming 1.0 release. You can check out the new announcement trailer here in case you missed it:

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1646790/view/517464419177858010?l=english


Note that everything which is presented here is still in development and testing and might change until release.


With the upcoming massive 1.0 release content update Weapon stashes will be added. This highly requested feature now allows to store one additional weapon for each attack type: a stash slot for a melee weapon and a stash slot for a ranged weapon.

When hovering a dropped weapon you will now have the possibility to press TAB on keys or the left thumbstick to switch between your currently equipped weapon of the same attack type or your stash space.



This weapon could not only be an alternate crafting weapon that you want to keep for later during your run. You will also be able to swap between those two weapons of the same attack type during combat to open up never before seen build possibilities.





The new weapon stash system comes with a new weapon swap system that allows you to switch between your 2 melee or your 2 range weapons on the fly during combat.



There will be a new hotkey for swaping weapons of the same attack type, which can be, of course, rebound in the options menu.

Actively using 2 weapons of the same attack type will surely unlock never before seen build possibilities. What about playing the new Sunderbow range weapon that increases projectile damage on your targets to then switch to your main range weapon to deal devastating damage.

On this occasion we also improved weapon pickup to make it easier to understand which weapon will be exchanged, preventing you from having to pickup weapons multiple times to understand what was picked up and which stats to compare.

Now when getting close to a weapon will bring up the stats of the dropped weapon as well as the weapon to exchange to allow a direct comparison.


The game now auto saves much more frequently to prevent progress loss.


We hope that this preview excites you for the upcoming 1.0 release! We are looking forward to hear your thoughts on all the new features and content.

But behold, this is only a fraction of what will come with the 1.0 Release, we will continue the reveal marathon on next Wednesday 25th of June.

You are invited to join our official discord. Chat with fellow SfL Players, discuss builds, the new content update or just hang out with us.