Striving for Light News

Update 0.6.0.4 brings an improved map generation algorithm, further projectile performance improvements, reworked freeze conditions and even more tweaks and improvements to Striving for Light.



[h2]Improved Projectile Performance[/h2]
A while back we added an alternative visual effect system for player projectiles which had graphic intense effects like the light or darkness projectiles. This system switched to a simpler visual effect once a spawner exceeded a specific projectile spawn threshold. However this system was only for the main projectiles created by your main attacks. We now extended this system to cover all created projectiles which should drastically improve performance for builds playing with darkness, light and ice projectiles.

Also the darkness projectiles have received an improved alternate visual effect:



[h2]Improved Map Generation Algorithm[/h2]
Special world objects and events now don't spawn next to traps and other obstacles which will make them better accessible in endgame maps. So a phoenix egg or merchant between multiple traps should now be a thing of the past.

[h2]Freeze Condition Rework[/h2]
The Freeze condition has been reworked so that enemies now get interrupted from their current attacks. Enemies now have different freeze resistance cooldowns. Normal enemies can be freezed and interrupted every 5 seconds, whereas bosses can be freezed only every 10 seconds and gatekeepers every 15 seconds. We also fixed some bugs related to the freeze condition where enemy AoE attacks end up invisible while still dealing damage.


[h2]Further improvements[/h2]

• Improved the visual effects of the meteor skills. The falling meteor is now smaller and has a reworked fade in effect to make it less distracting.
  
• Added SFX for emerald staff when summoning spiders.
  
• Reworked darkness projectile alternative visuals.
  
• Decreased SFX volume of meteor skills
  

• Fixed a bug with corrupted light map boss where it ended up not performing an attack.
  
• Fixed a bug with freeze conditions, which turned enemy AoE attacks invisible while they still remained active and were able to deal damage.
  

Thanks for everyone providing helpful feedback, which is what drives the development forward! You are invited to join our discord and participate in the ongoing development of Striving for Light!

Join the official Discord!

Update 0.6.0.3 brings some performance improvements to the rendering system and an improved responsiveness for the energy and endurance UI.



[h2]Performance Improvements[/h2]
The rendering system was improved to exclude all non visible elements on the map from draw checks. This should lead to a noticeable performance improvement, especially when there are a lot of projectiles which also move off screen and also when having huge maps with a lot of enemies and objects.

[h2]Improved responsiveness of energy & endurance UI[/h2]
The energy and endurance UI is now more responsive. While the animation worked out great in the early game chaining a lot of these animation times together on endgame builds ended up in a very unresponsive UI which made it hard to tell how resources are used and how fast the regeneration is, especially if the regeneration speed is higher than the animation speed.

Old UI:

New UI:

[h2]Further improvements[/h2]

• The burning ground effect has been tweaked for improved performance
  
• Added the keybinding for opening the skill gem menu which is the key "G" on default. This key can also be changed in the key bindings menu.
  

• Fixed a crash which occured frequently with new enemies unlocked at a later playthrough (v.0.6.0.3a)
  
• Fixed invisible obstacles of the swamp environment (v.0.6.0.3a)
  
• Fixed outdated asset reference, which might have lead to crashes (v.0.6.0.3a)
  
• [Gatekeeper] Fixed a missplaced collider on the stone smasher projectiles
  
• [Gatekeeper] Fixed too low projectile range of iron frost
  

Thanks for everyone providing helpful feedback, which is what drives the development forward! You are invited to join our discord and participate in the ongoing development of Striving for Light!

Join the official Discord!

WIth Update 0.6.0.2 a new shard of conjunction range preview was added to display the acting range also improvements to the trade UI were made. Last but not least the most critical current crash related to the skill gem event should be fixed now.


[h2]Shard of Conjunction Connection Preview[/h2]
The shard of conjunction now gives a preview in which area the shard will connect nodes.


[h2]Improved merchant trade UI[/h2]
Its now much more clear which items have been selected for purchase and which not. Also the controller support for the trade UI has been improved as well for proper highlighting which item you are currently viewing and which one has been selected.

[h2]Further improvements[/h2]

• Initial game volume has been lowered on first game start (v0.6.0.2b)
  

• The crash when receiving a skill gem reward from the darkness challenge map event sould finally been fixed now.
  
• Fixed a bug which caused you to be locked out of the endboss arena.
  
• Controller input to open stats and skillgems menu is now received from all input devices (was only device 0 before) (v0.6.0.2a)
  
• Fixed a bug which caused issues with the key rebinds (v0.6.0.2b)
  

There were plenty of hotfixes during the last 2 days to fix arising issues and optimising the experience with the legacy content update. The hotfixes have been merged in these patch notes: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1646790/view/3369274392194090582

If you have encountered issues during the last days make sure to check the the patch notes and if your issue is not listed and is still occuring please let us know.

Thanks for everyone providing helpful feedback, which is what drives the development forward! You are invited to join our discord and participate in the ongoing development of Striving for Light!

Join the official Discord!

Update 0.6.0.1 brings a variety of improvements & bugfixes to the Legacy content update based on various feedback.

• Added new skill tree icons for basic endurance and energy skill nodes. All basic skill nodes now have a unique icon to make them easier readable when taking color blindness into account.
  
  
  
• Some skill tree icons how have improved contrast to make them better readable on smaller scale.
  
• Now only one skill tree tutorial is shown at a time also preventing gamepad users to be locked out and use the mouse to close a tutorial window.
  
• Game is now paused on Merchant Trade
  
• Merchant Trade UI now also has tooltips when navigating with gamepad
  
• The librarian and smith dialogs are now updated directly after talking to the npcs and not only after switching scenes. Before you had to talk to each npc and return to town to trigger the unlock dialog, you can now do this direcly when talking to them for the first time.
  
• You can now re-interact with the Tree of Light and Leaderboard Stone after closing the pop up windows without needing to re-trigger the interaction button.
  
• The play online tutorial now also displays the information which season is the current one
  
• Added the possibility to only sacrifice one light to the Tree of Light.
  

• Fixed a bug which caused current run to be overwritten when renaming your public league name (v0.6.0.1c)
  
• Fixed a bug which caused leaderboard stone and tree of light UI to trigger again when already left the activation area (v0.6.0.1.c)
  
• Fixed a crash which could occur when finishing the darkness (skill gem) event on the map (v0.6.0.1b)
  
• Fixed a typo in the play public notification in the main menu.
  
• Fixes a bug which caused bursting companions to not die on enemy contact.
  
• Fixed scaling issue of play online tutorial UI in main menu.
  
• Active Dialog now deactivates the game zoom function
  
• Fixed piercing projectiles not actually piercing.
  
• Fixed a crash when entering the hidden superboss area on mountains map.
  
• Fixed a bug which caused projectile range to not be permanently increased by skills.
  
• Fixed a bug which caused yout to end up on a map with chickens when returning to a map from the town portal. Now a new map is generated therefore. (v0.6.0.0d)
  
• Fixed wrong skill descrition on meteor skills (melee and range was switched) (v0.6.0.1b)
  
• Fixed wrong acceleration speed of Piercing Blow (v.0.6.0.1b)
  
• Fixed a bug which caused the frenzy exp bonus to remain active when switching to the menu (v0.6.0.1b)
  

Thanks for everyone providing helpful feedback, which is what drives the development forward! You are invited to join our discord and participate in the ongoing development of Striving for Light!

Join the official Discord!

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The Legacy content update is our largest update for Striving for Light to date. The update features an extensive new meta progression system, 6 new challenging gatekeepers all with their own unique weapon drops, a map progression system along 3 new maps to explore filled with new enemies & bosses to hunt down. We are introducing new "Meteor" skills, some improvements to the controller support and requested chinese language support.

With the Legacy content update the EA-Season 2 will start.



[h2]Legacy Progression System[/h2]
You can now visit the Tree of Light to sacrifice light to gain permanent power ups which carry over between all future runs. The Tree of Light can also be found on certain maps.



The special thing about the new progression system is that you can dynamically change the Tree of Light on each run to match your current build or to compensate missing stats.

[h2]Map progression system[/h2]
Each time you have defeated the endboss-gatekeeper you will unlock a new map which opens a new pathway on your next playtrough.


[h2]New Maps[/h2]
3 new maps have been added. Each map comes with 2 new unique enemies and 2 new map bosses.

[h3]Mountains[/h3]


[h3]Cave[/h3]


[h3]Swamps[/h3]


[h2]New soundtracks[/h2]
Over 12 minutes of music have been added to the soundtrack of Striving for Light. Each new map has its own unique music.

[h2]New Gatekeepers[/h2]
All dungeon levels now have a unique gatekeeper. In total 6 new gatekeeper bosses have been added. Each gatekeeper comes with a unique possible weapon drop.


[h2]New Gatekeepers Weapons[/h2]


[h2]New Skills[/h2]

• Meteor Blow Your melee attacks have a 30% chance to cast a meteor to a random area in your surroundings. Dealing 2 damage and applying a knockback to enemies. Meteor size scales with your AoE size.
  
  
• Meteor Cast Your range attacks have a 50% chance to cast a meteor to a random area in your surroundings. Dealing 2 damage and applying a knockback to enemies. Meteor size scales with your AoE size.
  

[h2]Reworked Town Visuals[/h2]


[h2]Chinese Language Support[/h2]
Added chinese (simplified) language support.


[h2]Controller Support[/h2]
Added virtual keyboard for gamepad to allow text input without needing to switch back to the keyboard.

• Endgame maps now have diverse background parallax effects like the themed maps in the early game
  
• When starting the game the save file from your last run will be loaded automatically. So no need to switch to online mode on each game start anymore.
  
• The ladders in the hidden super boss arena now also need a confirmation to leave the arena similar to the ladders to enter the arena
  
• New and improved player minimap icon
  
• Improved performance for the huge skill trees and projectiles
  
• Language selection does now use translated language names instead of only abbreviations
  

• Enemies now all have the same base HP for endgame scaling (enemies had their standard base HP which was used for endgame scaling)
  
• Adjusted gatekeeper exp and hp to allign them with new added gatekeepers
  

• Fixed a bug which caused the online mode tutorial window to pop up everytime
  
• Fixed lost focus on main menu when navigating with keyboard or gamepad
  
• Fixed copying save state into new online league save file
  
• Fixed missplaced light occluder of tutorial spider boss
  
• Fixed layer issue for the gatekeeper ancient tree
  
• Fixed an issue which did not update the tutorials according to the current input type for gamepads
  

Thanks for everyone providing helpful feedback, which is what drives the development forward! You are invited to join our discord and participate in the ongoing development of Striving for Light!

Join the official Discord!