Striving for Light News

Update 0.5.2.2 brings an improved world save system. Now enemy proectiles and enemy AoE attacks are also saved when switching to the skilltree for example. Minimap icons update issues have also been fixed.

• Improved world save system which can now also save enemy projectiles and enemy AoE attacks
  

• Emerald Widow has now an increased cooldown after eggs have been spawned
  

• Emerald Widow spawned eggs are now also saved and persistent when switching game scenes
  
• Fixed minimap icon for chest not beeing updated directly when opening the chest
  
• Fixed minimap icons for map event markers not being deleted after the event is completed
  

First off thanks for all your continuous feedback and for participating in the ongoing development of Striving for Light. Update 0.5.2.1 brings a bunch of improvements and bugfixes for reported issues. Beside that we also redesigned the void crystal trap movement pattern to make it more predictible and overall rebalanced the endgame trap scaling system.

• Companions can now target and attack gatekeeper defence objects
  
• Changed and reworked circular movement of red stone trap in void map to make it more predictable
  

• Reduced trap amount in sand map
  
• Reworked trap scaling system in endgame maps
  

• Fixed a bug which caused unlocked and obtained weapons to get reset on level 1 characters when moving out of town
  
• Fixed a layering issue for ranged companions which resulted in companions partially invisible on map
  

With Update 0.5.2 we are adding a preview area for where the skill gem will be placed. We are also improving the unlock system by granting players a choice between 3 weapons/ skills for unlocking. This patch comes also with some improvements to the linux/ steam deck version.



[h2]Skillgem placement preview[/h2]
For the placement of skill gems a new preview will display the area in which the skill gem will be placed. The radius displays an approximation on possible connections.



[h2]Improved Unlocks[/h2]
Unlocking new skills or weapons at the NPCs in town will now let you choose between three weapons or skills to pick from.

• Improved camera pan input processing for the skill tree
  
• Increased player detection radius for enemies in sand environment and gatekeeper bosses
  
• Currently equipped weapons are now excluded from the drop list
  
• Increased basic font size for better readability of dialog on small sized screens (steam deck)
  
  

• Increased experience reward for defeated bosses on higher dungeon floors
  
• Increased experience reward for optional bosses (very low experience values before)
  
• Increased experience reward for gatekeeper bosses
  
• Increased drop chances for all skill tree shards for all chests
  
• Increased drop chances for all skill tree shards from enemies and destructible objects
  
• Increased weapon drop chances for map and optional boss chests
  
• [Enemy] Sand Worm Enemies now directly target player when charging
  
  

• Fixed missing weapon description for spear weapon
  
• [Linux] Fixed camera pan issues in the skill tree
  
• Fixed a bug which caused camera to pan unintended on controller input
  

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 0.5.1 we are adding a first iteration of an online league system to Striving for Light along highly requested quality of life improvements, balancing changes and bugfixes.



[h2]Online League System[/h2]
With the Update 0.5.1 you will have the option to enter online leagues. This feature is purely optional, you can still continue to play offline as you are used to. Each league has its own save file. So if you participate in a new league (like the public league) you will start at the same starting point as every other player.

As soon as you have entered a league you will see a new object in town which lets you see your ranking in the leaderboard.





You can now enter the league overview on the top right of the main menu.



When you enter the league window for the first time you will have the possibility to enter your player name which will appear on the leaderboard ranking.



In the league overview you can select the league you want to play or switch back to offline mode. You can also create your own private league.



[h2]Private League System[/h2]

For creating your own private league you choose your league ID and your player name for the league. The player name of your private league can not be changed later on. Share your private league ID with your community of fellow players to compete on a private leaderboard.



You can switch between the public league, your private leagues and your offline save file at any time. Each save file has its own progress and unlocks. Active runs are also saved so you can have multiple characters alive and continue to play them as you wish in different leagues or in the offline mode.

[h2]New Map Bosses[/h2]
We can not have a league start without new content. So we added two new map bosses for the Ice and Lava Environment.

• Stone Turtle Boss
  
  
  
  
• Ice Bird Boss
  
  

• Improved weapon stats now display your just acquired weapon next to the previous weapon to make it possible to compare weapon stats without the need to switch back to the old weapon again.
  
  
  
  
• Added weapon tooltips to the merchant trade UI.
  
• Improved world generation algorithm to prevent special world objects like events and portals to spawn very close or on top of each other
  
• Improved ice bird enemy animation
  
  
  
  

• [Range Weapon] Emerald Staff: Increased base weapon attack speed for summoning spiders to 1.0 (was 0.83 before).
  
• Increased experience for high dungeon floors bosses
  
• Adjusted maximum HP for map bosses on higher dungeon floors to be more consistent with new added bosses
  
  

• Assigned skill points in town are now saved when entering the portal stone to a level.
  
• Fixed a crash when using the charge attack modifier with the emerald staff.
  
• Fixed a bug which caused companions to not deal any melee damage before the skill tree was opened for the first time after loading a run. This mostly affected spider companions.
  
• Fixed not working connections for shard of conjunction on seldom instances.
  
• Fixed super boss room trap doors not displaying the opened state after defeating the superboss (gride/izamuth).
  
• Fixed emerald widow dropping loot out of bounds
  
• Fixed wrong +- for attack speed in skill tooltips
  

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!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]



[h2]New Gatekeeper Bosses[/h2]

Gatekeeper bosses have been added to the game. Gatekeepers are a new boss type in Striving for Light protecting the gates to deeper dungeon levels. After defeating a gatekeeper you can choose your next pathway. For the first iteration on this entirely new dungeon level system 3 unique gatekeepers have been added:

• Ancient Tree
  
• Bleak Worm
  
• Emerald Widow
  

Gatekeeper weapons have been added. These weapons can only be acquired by defeating the respective gatekeeper.

• [Melee Weapon] Spear: Fast stabbing weapon with large range.
  
• [Melee Weapon] Elder club: Very powerful but heavy and slow weapon.
  
• [Range Weapon] Emerald Staff: Each attack summons a spider companion which is lasting 6 seconds.
  

[h2]New Map "Eternal Sands"[/h2]

• New map "Eternal Sands" has been added. Featuring new enemies, two new bosses, new destructible and obstacle objects and a new trap.
  
• New soundtrack for "Eternal Sands" has been added to the game and the official soundtrack DLC
  

[h2]New Endgame Map System[/h2]

New endgame map system. After completing the unique dungeon levels you will now have a 50% chance on each map that you will find a gatekeeper portal which will lead you to even harder gatekeeper fights.



[h2]New Skills[/h2]

• [Melee Ability Skill] Poison Nova: Your melee hits unleash a poison nova dealing damage over time to all enemies nearby.
  
• [Range Ability Skill] Poison Shot: Your projectile hits unleash a poison shot dealing damage over time to all enemies nearby.
  
• [Advanced Skill Node] Empowered Companions: Your companions deal additional damage. Reduces your attack speed and dodge regeneration.
  

• When unlocking new weapons you will directly get access to these weapons in the town
  
• When unlocking a new skill you will directly receive a skill gem of the unlocked skill
  
• You now receive one skill gem for each of your 6 starting skills 
  
• Improved drop algorithms to make drops more consistent with increased unlocked weapon amount
  
• Weapon tooltips are now localised
  
• Advanced enemy condition system which allows enemies to have multiple conditions at the same time
  
• Increased dialog volume on experimental voice acting
  
• Performance improvements and optimisations for void enemies (centipede)
  

• Reduced drop chance for weapons from normal map chests
  
• Reduced drop chance for weapons from optional super boss chests (Izamuth/ Gride)
  
• Map chests and super boss chests now also drop skill tree shards
  
• Merchant now only offers basic weapons for trade (did also offer boss weapons before)
  

• Fixed some bugs which caused wrong world being loaded in the super boss arena when entering the skill tree or the options menu
  
• Fixed text alignment for skill gem window in skill tree
  
• Fixed typos in the skill descriptions
  
• Various smaller bugfixes
  

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!