Striving for Light News

This update 0.3.3.8 is mainly targeted at improving the endgame experience for Striving for Light.

• New enemy scaling system for the endgame. The enemies HP is now scaling exponentionally to better match the player power gain. This should help to keep the challenge for endgame runs.
  

• Performance improvements for the new melee chaining skills. Melee chaining skills are now also culled when they overlap each other to keep the screenspace readable.
  
• Skill spawn algorithm has been improved to equal out spawn rates for the base skills and advanced skills
  
• Performance improvements for enemy death routines
  
• A new threaded physic model is now used which should improve performance for combat intense situations
  

• [Melee Skill] Wind Shock now has a base damage and is not scaling with player melee damage (did scale).
  
• [Melee Skill] Clash of Steel now has a base damage and is not scaling with player melee damage (did scale).
  
• [Melee Skill] Piercing Blow is now not anymore scaling with AoE size (did scale with AoE size). Activation chance has been reduced to 20% (was 50%).
  
  

• Fixed a bug which caused performance issues on enemy overkills (more damage dealt than available enemy HP).
  

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 Official Discord!

This update 0.3.3.7 is introducing 3 new melee attack chaining skills along with some big balancing changes.

Melee chaining are equivalent to projectile chaining skills. Currently only projectile skills had the ability to create new projectiles which then trigger skills again. With the introduction of melee chaining skills you can now have a melee attack trigger a skill like "Double Hit" which creates another "Melee Attack" which can then trigger other skills again.

• [Melee - On Hit Skill] Double Hit: You deal an additional melee hit when hitting enemies. The attack size scales with your AoE size. Double hit will have the same spawn rate in the skill tree as additional projectiles.
  
  
  
  
• [Range - On Hit Skill] Cutting Shot: Your projectiles create a cutting attack which damages all surrounding enemies applying a weak knockback. Damage scales with your melee damage. The attack size scales with your AoE size.
  
  
  
  Because Cutting Shot is a melee attack it can trigger additional melee on attack skills like the wind shock for example.
  
  
• [On Dodge Skill] Cutting Dodge: Your dodge creates a cutting attack behind you. Damage scales with your melee damage. The attack size scales with your AoE size.
  
  

• [Melee Skill] Wind Shot is now scaling with you melee attack damage. The proc chance has been increased to 50% (was 30%).
  
• [Melee Skill] Clash of Steel is now scaling with your melee attack damage. The proc chance has been increased to 50% (was 30%).
  
• [Melee Skill] Piercing Blow is now scaling with your melee attack damage. The proc chance has been increased to 50% (was 30%).
  
• [Ice Traps] Reduced projectile amount of ice traps to 3 (was 6). Ice Traps now aim at the player but therefore have a longer cooldown of 8 seconds (was 6). Ice Traps now also have a improved animation to indicate when they are ready to shoot again.
  
• [Range Base Skill] Additional Projectiles spawn rate has been decreased slightly
  
• [Wind Shock] Skill spawn rate has been reduced drastically since Double Hit will make up as a basic melee skill.
  
• [Phoenix] Phoenix activation fragment of light cost is reduced to 1 (was 3) 
  
• [Phoenix] Phoenix rewards have been increased
  

• Increased spawn radius for world events to map border to prevent enemies getting spawned outside of map borders.
  

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 Official Discord!

With update version 0.3.3.6 we are adding a total of 4 new weapons to the weapon arsenal of Striving for Light. We also added weapon drop vfx and drop sounds to make weapon drops more exciting.

• New Melee Weapon: Hammer
  A mighty hammer that smashes the ground below your enemies and applying a heavy area knockback.
  
  
  
  
• New Melee Weapon: Shield
  A magic shield that has a 20% chance to create a magic shield barrier which protects you for 3 seconds from attacking enemies and their projectiles.
  
  
  
  
• New Ranged Weapon: Throwing Spear
  A heavy throwing spear that applies knockback on enemy hits.
  
  
  
  
• New Ranged Weapon: Throwing Axes
  Swirling axes with balanced attack speed, projectile speed and range.
  
  
  
  
• New weapon drop visual and sound effect
  
  

• [Skilltree] Increased weight scaling factor for base skills to better compensate lower spawn rates when a lot of skills have been unlocked
  
• [Skilltree] Decreased skill spawning rate of max dodge and dodge regeneration
  

• Temporary fix for emty world saves. Now a new world is generated to prevent getting stuck on empty floors after returning from super boss areas. Note that this might re-generate a world instead of getting you stuck, which might lead to a loss in loot on the current dungeon floor. As soon we have reproduced the issue and located the cause this will be be fixed.
  
• Fixed a bug which caused multiple phoenix to spawn in the endgame.
  
• The librarian NPC will now only take your light when there are actually more skills to unlock.
  
• Increased spawn radius for world events to map border to prevent enemies getting spawned outside of map borders.
  

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 Official Discord!

With update version 0.3.3.5 we are changing the way enemy collisions with the player character are handled in order to make melee combat more predictible and viable. Some enemies have also got reworked and improved fighting patterns.

• Changes to the Enemey-Player-Collisionsystem
  Enemies now in general don't deal contact damage to the player character anymore. Enemies now only deal damage when they actually perform attacks. We therefore have reworked our attack animations to make it easier to differentiate when an enemy is attacking.
  
  
  
  The spider enemies are now indicating the attacks by a red glow. After the attack has been dodged the player can get close to the spider without receiving damage to follow up with melee attacks.
  
  
  
  The new collision handling also improves the readability of boss fights. You can now stay in touch with bosses and only dodge the attacks.
  
  Melee combat will benefit greatly from the collision system rework and should take away the feeling of not being allowed to touch anything and opening up more space for tactical player positioning. Staying close to enemies will now become a tactical decision which involves knowing the enemy fighting patterns.
  
  
• More complex enemy fighting patterns
  A lot of enemy fighting patterns have been reworked to make combat more exciting. Snails for example can now cut off the walking path and a lot of enemies now aim their projectiles.
  
  

• More reliable interruption of ​enemy attacks after knockbacks
  
• Timings of enemy fighting pattern have been improved to better match the new enemy-player-collision changes.
  

• Ice crab enemy and boss has now decreased melee hit range
  

• Fixed a bug which caused enemy attacks to get stuck after triggering a knockback
  
• Fixed a bug which caused enemy attacks to get stuck after getting affected by freezing effects
  

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 Official Discord!

This update is dedicated to your feedback regarding melee performance and build diversity. For the majority of players range builds are superior compared to melee builds. In this update we are introducing 3 new melee skills with new mechanics where one skill is serving as a basic melee skill which is unlocked directly from the start of your run (like the range skill for additional projectiles).

• [Skill] Clash of Steel:
  
  Your melee attacks have a 30% chance to create blades, which cut through your surrondings. Area scales with AoE size.
  
  
  
  
• [Skills] Piercing Blow:
  
  Your melee attacks have a 30% chance to create a piercing blow, which pierces through all enemies in the attack direction. Blow size scales with AoE size.
  
  
  
  
• [Skills] Wind Shock:
  
  Your melee attacks have a 30% chance to create a wind shock, which knocks back all enemies in front of you. Wind Shock size scales with AoE size.
  
  
  
  Wind Shock is a basic melee skill that is unlocked directly from the start and has the same spawn possibility as the additional projectile node for range attacks. This shall equal out the gap between range and melee possibilities on the start of a new run.
  
  
• A new animated tutorial for explaining how to use skillgems has been added.
  

• [Skill] Increased Melee Damage
  
  The skillnode design has now the same color as all melee nodes for improved consistency.
  

• Enemy HP scaling has been increased for the endgame
  
• Slightly increased heart drops from world objects
  
• Decreased heart drops from enemies
  
• Decreased dodge skill spawn rate in skilltree
  

• Fixed a bug which made it possible to unlock phoenix weapons by the NPCs.
  

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 Official Discord!