Striving for Light News

Just yesturday we have released a big update for Striving for Light and we are going full force ahead! This update 0.8.7.1 is full packed with performance improvements to make exploring the new added weapon as well as the new weapon effect / construct interactions more fun than ever! This update also fixes the portal not detecting the player after scene switch which made you require to leave and return to a pathfinder portal in order to activate it!

[h3]Improvements[/h3]

• Massive performance improvements for all enemy hit flash effects that have multiple body parts like worms/centipedes. Previously long worm enemies like worm map boss or the bleak worm gatekeeper endboss could lead to massive frame drops when attacking with a huge amount of frequent hits. The enemy flash effect was rewritten for maximum performance at exact same functionality.
  
• Massive performance improvements for all companion enemy hit effects. Previously all companions triggered additional enem hit visual effects that where not intended. This could lead to massive frame drops when a big bunch of companions attacked an enemy with much HP like bosses.
  

[h3]Bugfixes[/h3]

• The pathfinder portal now detects the player directly after scene switch and does not require you to leave the portal area and return to activate the portal and use it.
  

Thanks for being part of the development journey of Striving for Light. Participate in the ongoing development and join our official discord community!

With update 0.8.7 we are added a new weapon designed in cooperation with latest streamer race winner Sin. We are also adding a slider to adjust the minimap overlay transparency. We are reworking how weapon effect triggers work in combination with constructs and more.

[h2]New Features:[/h2]

[h3]New Melee Weapon - Frozen Vessel[/h3]


A new melee weapon designed in cooperation with latest Streamer Race winner Sin has been added to the game.

Frozen Vessel is a mid range melee weapon triggering a frost splash on each enemy hit freezing all enemies in reach. Area scales with AoE size.



[h3]Minimap Overlay Transparency[/h3]

Added new transparency slider for minimap-overlay. You can now seamlessly adjust the minimap overlay transparency by a new slider in the options menu.



[h3]Improved Weapon Effect Triggers[/h3]

Previously the weapon own trigger effects have not carried over to constructs. So for example if you had a bear caller equiped only your attack would have spawned a bear. This was a bit inconsitent as range constructs with emerald staff (spawning spiders) did work. Equiping a hammer also did not grant melee constructs the slam AoE of the hammer. To increase build diversity and to make those weapon/ construct interactions consitent the whole weapon effect trigger system got reworked.

Now all melee/range weapon effects are triggered from constructs. However, if you have the construct attack replacer on performing an attack no more weapon effects will be triggered from your own attack (which previously was the case). Now the constructs solely trigger the weapon effects as well as all the other skill triggers. We felt that this was the most immersive and logical way on how constructs should interact with your weapon attacks. This should open up a big variety of new playstyles.


[h2]Improvements:[/h2]

• Improved melee attack targeting. Melee attacks are now remaining in the started attack angle also when switching walking directions. This should especially be noticeable when using stabbing weapons like a spear.
  
• Improved boomerang weapon animations and prevented attack direction switch when attack was not yet finished.
  
• Softcore Mode required exp for level ups has been further reduced.
  

[h2]Balancing Changes:[/h2]

• Freeze condition now freezes enemies for 2 seconds (was 1 second)
  

[h2]Bugfixes[/h2]

• Fixed player spawning outside of the gatekeeper arena. Player is now moved inside the area when this occurs.
  
• Fixed crash due to issues loading sound file.
  
• Fixed missing description on charge skill node tooltips.
  
• Fixed layering of swamp and mountain trap damage fields to prevent them being invisible/ covered by other map elements.
  
• Fixed potential crash on flail weapon with boomerang attack replacer due to wrong animation paths.
  
• Fixed crash on new secret due to wrong sfx path.
  

[h3]Improvements:[/h3]

• If your you have gained additional max health on the tree of light legacy progression you will now start your run with full hp as well and not just empty additional max hp.
  

[h3]Bugfixes:[/h3]

• Fixed a bug that caused world events to remain active on a new run
  
• Fixed a bug that caused players to be ported into previously visited secret dungeons on a fresh run start.
  
• In general world reset bugs have been fixed which where introduced by the recent added softcore mode.
  

[h3]Improvements[/h3]

• Reduced loading times for save files. Players who have plenty of save games already will notice a speed up in loading save game manager and loading the save files.
  

[h3]Bugfixes[/h3]

• Fixed a bug that could cause map modifiers of other same named maps to be copied to your current map. This lead to unexpected situations receiving more damage than the map mods of your current map showed. This issue was introduced by recenet memory leak fixes and a rewrite of the code base but this is fixed now.
  

We have paid attention to the run performances for the new added softcore mode. We designed the softcore mode to feel more relaxed and less risky than the hardcore mode with a bit less exp gain (higher exp requirements for level ups) compared to the hardcore mode to compensate the additional shields you will have for your runs.

It turned out that the increased exp requirements for the next level ups are way to high and lead to a very slow and tedious leveling experience past level 25. Therefore we have lowered the exp requirements to only slightly sit above the requirements for the hardcore mode.

[h3]Improvements[/h3]

• Improved attack of centipede enemies.
  

Rest assured that we want this new game mode to be as enjoyable as possible for the majority of players and we will listen to your feedback and do adjsutments according to your feedback!

Thanks for being part of the development journey of Striving for Light. Engage in the ongoing development and join our discord.