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Pathfinder Redesign - Public Playtest

We are currently redesigning the pathfinder map system and want to invite you the chance to playtest the new system before the update 0.9.1 get released. This will give us the chance to gather valuable feedback to get the most out of the new pathfinder system.

To access the public playest simply go to the game on steam -> right click preferences -> betas -> select playtest.

As this is a public playtest you are allowed to stream and share your experience with the new system. Please share your experience with us here on steam forums or our discord.. We will also jump into livestreams and check out how the progress looks in actual runs to get better insights for balancing the new system.

Make sure you only play on the new playtest 0.9.1 online safe file and refrain from using the season 11 safe file. Playtest has its own leaderboards.

[h2]New Features:[/h2]
[h3]Pathfinder Redesign[/h3]

The pathfinder system got some major changes to not only make it easier for new players to get into but also to make runs less dependent on farming map shards. Shard of Augmentation and Shard of Mitigation have been completely removed. Maps now have a fixed amount of sockets which can be used to socked map modifiers into your maps. Starting from map tier 1 with two empty mod socket each increased map tier will add one additional socket to the map. Therefore the overall amount of spawned map modifiers has been drastically reduced.



This now limits the additional bonus exp you can get per maps and prevents runs where you could have >1000% bonus exp in one single map if you had enough farmed map shards, which then lead to outscaling the whole game. This now also allows us to lower the enemy HP scaling and also the amount of map modifiers that spawn on maps by default. This change will overall lead to much more accurate balancing opportunities as we do not have to cater towards these special cases. Also the difficulty curve is much flatter now so you should not experience "hitting a wall" quite as hard and early as currently.



Since we also reduced the amount of map mods that spawn on maps by default we can also much earlier spawn higher map tiers that allows you to challenge the Awakened Gatekeepers on much earlier levels. 

For the endgame scaling we target that even the highest maps only have half of the available modifier sockets filled with modifiers. So no longer there will be infinite more map mods stacked on top of each other. So for example a map tier XV map would have 15 available map modifier sockets but only 7 of them will be filled by default with random modifiers on an end-end game run.

[h3]Difficulty Scaling[/h3]
We did major changes to the difficulty scaling during the run. Enemy hp scaling for normal enemies and bosses has been drastically decreased which should make the run progression to much more gradually increase in difficulty as it currently had.

Higher game difficulties now not add additional map modifiers to your maps as they have previously. They will now simply add some more enemy HP and increase the elite enemy spawn rate.

We want to thank you for your ongoing support! If you want to stay up to date with the ongoing development and chat with fellow players you are invited to join our discord.

Hotfix 0.9.0.8b

[h3]Improvements:[/h3]
  • Eternal Sands trap is now much smaller and moves much slower.


[h3]Fixes:[/h3]
  • Fixed descent defense tower not being healed up when it get defeated
  • Decreased tidal crab AoE hitbox size to prevent unfair player hits
  • Fixed wrong audio bus for bloodstained chest sound effects
  • Fixed wrong audio bus for corrupted merchant boss
  • Controller input information is now on stats window and skill gem window is now hidden when now playing with controller
  • Fixed missing tag for "Ascend" map mod
  • Fixed unlock weapons/skills dialog being removed from unlock npcs in town which had to be re-triggered on activating introduction dialog
  • Fixed descent expedition UI scaling on other language settings

Update 0.9.0.8

[h2]Improvements:[/h2]
  • Phoenix fire line AoE attacks have been redesigned
  • Void enemies have received redesigned AoE effects
  • Cave enemies have received redesigned AoE effects
  • Plenty of enemy AoE effects have been redesigned (Izamuth, map bosses, ...)





[h2]Balancing: [/h2]
  • Descent Defense tower upgrades now do not get reset when the tower gets destroyed. This should make the Descent Defense event easier later during your run.



[h3]Fixes:[/h3]
  • Fixed stats window re-opening when entering the skilltree if it has been closed with crafing or skill gem button in previous skill tree sessions
  • Fixed language setting not being saved and reset on game restart
  • Fixed smith and librarian triggering dialog at first interaction that not enough light is available to unlock new weapons/skills, even though you have enough light
  • Fixed wrong assigned minimap icon for awakened gatekeeper leaderboard stone in town


We want to thank you for your ongoing support! If you want to stay up to date with the ongoing development and chat with fellow players you are invited to join our discord.

Hotfix 0.9.0.7a-b

[h3]🌟Improvements:[/h3]
  • Improved Softcore Mode: When you die on softcore all world events are deactivated to prevent you from re-dying when re-spawning on bloodstained chest border for example or getting you locked into a specific event
  • Void trap now has an indicator for the orbit of the trap crystal to make it easier to predict the trap movement
  • Implemented further checks if data from our server API's is corrupted or incomplete that would make the game crash when interacting with the leaderboards
  • Reduced initial dropped item movement speed out of chests
  • Adjusted some map brightness levels


[h3]⚖️Balancing:[/h3]
  • Trap amount on all map modifiers was reduced to +10% (was +20% before)
  • Trap amount scaling on all maps was reduced and maximum amount of possible traps on maps got reduced


[h3]🔧Fixes:[/h3]
  • Fixed Guardian Aegis Ability Effect not being hidden directly when the guard shield runs out
  • Fixed a bug that caused health points UI being slightly desynced when switching scenes in rare cases

Update 0.9.0.7

[h2]Update 0.9.0.7[/h2]
With 0.9.0.7 we are adding a new UI element that indicates how much unspent skillpoints you currently have. We have implemented a new sound effect system that fixes the sound effect cutoff on game objects that get destroyed before the sound has finished playing. We did some optimisations on scene loading for faster and smoother skill tree loading. Trinkets also got some improvements.

[h2]New Features:[/h2]
  • Unspent Skillpoint Indicator: A new UI element has been added for indicating your amount of unspent skillpoints. Located at the top left just below the circular EXP indicator it will remind you how much unspent skill points you currently have.



  • New Sound Effect System: The sound effect system was completely reworked to prevent destroyed and removed audio sources like projectiles to also interrupt the current sound effect playback before it was finished. 


[h2]Improvements [/h2]
  • Petrified Heart charges are now saved when you exit the game and continue your run later.
  • Reduced loading times when entering and exiting the skilltree.
  • General improvements to loading routines for reduced loading times and improved performance on scene switches.


[h3]Fixes: [/h3]
  • Further fixed Golden Lifecasque messing with your HP and also killing you when you had the ability active an switching scenes. This time for real ...



We want to thank you for your ongoing support! If you want to stay up to date with the ongoing development and chat with fellow players you are invited to join our discord.