Striving for Light News

[h3]      Improvements[/h3]

• You can now enter the options menu from the pause menu in game and after altering your settings resume the current run with the back button.
  
• Stats window UI has been redesigned to match the new introduced UI elements
  
• Key rebindings UI elements have been updated.
  
• Revert Shot has received some projectile pathing upgrades to make the skill more useful in combination with other skills and various different projetile types.
  

[h3]         Balancing[/h3]

• Enemy HP values of higher dungeon floors have been rebalanced.
  

[h3]         Bugfixes[/h3]

• Skill gems are now only placed in the skill tree when the mouse is not over the skill gem window. This should prevents accidential placements of skill gems.
  
• Portal areas no longer destroy player bullets.
  
• Skills and bullet spawn now do not duplicate on weapon exchange.
  
• World event rewards now do not contain two identical skill gems.
  

We wish you a lot of fun trying out these improvements. The best place to get involved in the ongoing development of Striving for Light is our Official Discord Server.

The Devouring Darkness Content Update will bring you a new system which allows you to influence the skill tree progression, challenging new world events, collectible skill gems which carry over from run to run and massive sound effect and performance improvements.

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

• Force back the devouring darkness on the new world events to earn a unique reward which lets you choose between three skill gems to obtain.
  
  
  
  
• Skill gems can be placed in the skill tree to influence the skill tree progression.
  
  
  
  
• Collect and hoard skill gems. The skill gems carry over from run to run but vanish when used.
  
  

[h3]Input[/h3]

• Improved input processing wich prevents mouse with high dpi settings to not constantly switch to mouse from gamepad controls
  

[h3]Sounds[/h3]

• New Sound System has been developed which prevents the stacking of sound effects and makes the individual sound effect to much more stick out in heavy fight scenarios
  
• Added new and improved sfx for existing abilities
  
• A new devouring darkness themed soundtrack has been added
  

[h3]Tech[/h3]

• Performance has been improved by removing the basic fog shader and replacing it with a better looking more performant particle effect solution
  
• Rendering is now threaded which should improve performance for most hardware
  
• Shared shaders and materials should reduce draw calls and therefore improve performance
  
• Framebuffer allocation has been changed to increase performance
  
• Deactivated the post-processing effect bloom which increases image sharpness and should lead to a noticeable performance increase
  
• Optimised shadows to increase performance
  

[h3]Graphics[/h3]

• Reworked endgame environments
  
• Improved player light radius and light interaction with the environment
  
• Reworked all portal effects to better integrate with the environments
  
• Reworked all player projectiles visual effects
  
• Reworked skill visual effects​
  
• New bow arrows trail effect
  
• Item glow effects have been reworked
  

• Reworked endgame trap density to have a max amout of traps
  

• Fixed a bug which caused projectiles being destroyed near the city portal in maps
  
• Fixed a bug which caused range attack speed to not be updated directly on ranged weapon pickup
  
• Fixed a bug which caused player hit effects to not be displayed when getting hit on enemy Area of Effects
  

We wish you a lot of fun with the newest additions to Striving for Light. The best place to get involved in the ongoing development of Striving for Light is our Official Discord Server.

Since more and more players reach very high levels and the development until now was mainly focused on the early-to-midgame experience, we are now happy to present you this patch which is fully dedicated to improve the endgame experience.

[h3]New features[/h3]

• We added a effect culling system which makes the endgame now more enjoyable. Effect culling prevents particle effect stacking and improves performance in endgame builds by an enormous amount. It even improves the readability of the action on screen a lot to make it easier to react on approaching dangers.
  
  Here is the comparison which shows the new effect culling system in action:
  
  [previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]
  

[h3]Improvements[/h3]

• All AoE effects have been overhauled to increase the readability in endgame scenarios
  
• Particle layer improvements to prevent enemies being covered by particle effects
  
• Updated button design
  
• Updated pause menu design
  
  

[h3]Balancing[/h3]

• Superboss HP now additionally scales with the cleaned floor levels
  
• Taking the increased arena sizes from the last patch into account the superbosses have now increased movement speed to keep fights more challenging in the endgame
  
• [Skill] Increased Area of Effect: AoE effects are increased by 30% (was 50%)
  

[h3]Bugfixes[/h3]

• Fixed a bug which caused the Superboss HP bar to become active again after defeating the superboss
  

We wish you a lot of fun trying out those improvements. If you encounter performance issues on an endgame build please feel free to report it. We are constantly working on performance improvements.

This patch 0.3.1.4 brings an urgent bugfix for new save files.

[h3]Important fix[/h3]

If you have just played Striving for Light the first time in the last couple of days, you might have received a crash directly on opening the skill tree. This was caused by a method which is responsible for unlocking your starting skills + weapons. In that case the unlocks may not save and you might have no starting skills + weapons unlocked.

To have the optimal game experience we recommend deleting the save file located at:
C:\Users\YOUR_USERNAME\AppData\Roaming\Godot\app_userdata\StrivingForLight\save.json

Then you will receive a fresh save file with your starting unlocks.

Since this bugfix was urgent we also decided to leave a small improvement which was planed for a future update already in this patch. Here is what this patch brings to you:

[h3]Improvements[/h3]

• Range Attack Replacers like Swirl and Reverting Shot now also modify projectiles created from other skills like the metal blades created from Metal Burst. This will open up much more build possibilities and playing styles.
  
  And that is how it looks:
  
  

[h3]Art[/h3]

• ​Added new game logo to the game
  

[h3]Bugfixes[/h3]

• Fixed a bug which caused the game to crash on new save files when entering the skill tree for the first time, leading to no starting unlocks (weapons + skills).
  

We appologize for any inconvinience this may have caused you and wish a lot of fun trying out the new build possibilities.

Patch 0.3.1.3 is centred all around improving the overall game experience of Striving for Light. 

[h2]Improvements[/h2]

[h3]General[/h3]

• Experimental voice acting is now an opt-in option, you can turn voice acting on in the options menu
  
• The starting amount of unlocked weapons is now 5 (was 4) to give new players more weapon diversity on chest drops
  
• The starting amount of unlocked skills is now 10 (was 8) to give new players more build options directly from the start on
  
• The possibilities for base skill nodes (max. HP, Energy/ Endurance Regeneration, Attack Speed) is now being increased on each unlocked skill. This keeps the base skill node spawn possibility constant even with more unlocked skills.
  

[h3]Enemies[/h3]

• The cellar spider enemy/ boss charge is now much more predictable
  
• Added additional movement animation to cellar spiders
  

[h3]Visuals[/h3]

• New player hit vfx to make player hits more visible
  
• Improved flash effects on player hit to make combat feel more impactful
  
• Improved flash effects on enemy hit to make combat feel more impactful
  

[h3]Audio[/h3]

• Added new sfx for player hit to make combat more impactful
  
• Added new sfx for enemy hit to make combat more impactful
  
• Improved bow sfx
  
• Improved jar destroy sfx
  
• Improved sfx mixdown
  

[h2]Balancing[/h2]

• Increased player invincibility duration after hit to 1.5s (was 1s)
  
• Increased super boss arenas size to 3x3 size (was 3x2)
  
• Decreased enemy ice crab hp to 12 (was 15)
  
• Decreased enemy ice crab hit collider
  
• Decreased projectile amount of ice crow to 3 (was 6)
  
• Decreased cellar spider charge range
  

[h2]Bugfixes[/h2]

• Fixed a bug which caused the flash effect not being activated on the latest added cellar ghost enemy
  
• Fixed cellar spider charging from off screen
  
• Fixed a bug which caused cellar spider to immediately charge multiple times
  

We wish you a lot of fun trying out the changes. You can participate in the ongoing development of Striving for Light by joining our Discord and sharing your thoughts!