Cross of Auria News

Earlier today, a game-breaking bug was discovered by a tester. It was possible to not collect the Toxic Cores in Den An'ura and then be locked in the Heart zone when prompted to create the poison weapon. This has been resolved and it is currently possible to leave den an'ura with Miles, Riley & Alex without creating the poison item.
Additionally, an audio load issue was discovered and resolved just before meeting Miles & Riley in Scarlet Cavern.

3.2.3.1 [Build #75.1, Release Date: May 20, 2020]
Steam Store:
- On May 19th, the description and title in the Steam Store were changed.
File Size:
- Many new assets were added to the game data resulting in slightly larger file size.
-- The “x. Credits” file included with the game files has been updated to reflect the use of new assets.
Fixes:
- Fixed an audio load issue in Scarlet Cavern.
- Fixed an issue where the game could become locked in Den An’ura if the party did not have both Toxic Cores.
Changes:
- It is now possible to leave Den An’ura without the completed poison item.
- Miles will tell Ruby if she does not have all the components to complete the poison item when trying to exit the Heart zone in Den An’ura.

On Friday, I spent most of the time working on the next steps of the An'ura Recon questline. Specifically, fully creating and making live the next step of the quest and designing several skills for a new character which involved hours of testing and tweaking. If I'm going to give you an archer, he's going to do cool things. The VOD for this will be available on the CoA youtube channel within the next 24 hours. I'm piecing both small streams together and removing some of the down time where I had to walk away.

In addition to the progression of the quest, I found it necessary to dramatically scale back the level of the enemies in the Encampment. Based on my most recent test, a new player could get to the end of the current main campaign at level 8. Sidequests from the Rabbit's Foot and Agartha would push a player to 20, but I won't rely on that for these side stories.

- Build already released on May 15th. I had every intention to make another update before this post, but I was sidetracked creating a rewards system and harvesting new assets.

The Rewards System
- Full details in the #coa_rewards channel of my discord. Invite link here: https://discord.gg/JcxZmeG
- Channel points accumulated from watching me on Twitch will now be used to make your own additions to the game! The details are still being worked out, but the highlights of this system are:
-- X points to create an NPC, the dialogue of which you may control if you want. Creation of an NPC or enemy involves hopping in a private discord call with me to make it in the engine generator.
-- X points to create an enemy, the backstory (of the days leading up to this character encountering the party) of which you may write given the existing lore of the world. You must also create at least 3 notable battle attacks for this character.
-- 100,000 points to create pretty much whatever you want, be it a small zone, a non-canon event, a playable character, etc.

Please keep in mind this will be one of the only times I mention this reward system here on Steam forums, as it has more to do with Twitch than it does with communicating with the players. If you're interested in participating, please join the Discord and coordinate there.
-- Points are obtained and exchanged on my personal twitch, @ twitch.tv/hardytier

Note: If you know how to make pixel art and want to inject an NPC into the game without using the generator, this does not cost points. You will need to provide a 3x4 sprite sheet of 48x48 px images, a name for the character, what they've been doing up until the party meets them, and an idea for what you want them to do moving forward. More specific detail to be discussed in discord. Keep in mind, this offer is only valid for non combat NPCs and for static enemy battlers only.

3.2.3 [Build #75, Release Date: May 15, 2020] MAC:
- This build will serve as the most recent for MAC users.

Fixes:
- It is now possible to create Fire Flasks and Poison Flasks.
- Fixed an audio load issue inside the Encampment.

Changes:
- Minor terrain pass-ability changes in The Black Forest.
- Alchemy tables now display required item counts on command in addition to after each success and failure.
- Dagger Rush (Miles) reworked:
-- Now has the same animation as Blitz.
-- TP cost reduced to 40 from 60.
-- Now has a 2-turn warmup and 1-turn cooldown.
-- Can now critically hit.
-- Now has a 6% chance to cause a bleed, up from 3% (per slash).
-- Damage formula remains the same (gains +1 to minimum damage every 2 times its used, effect is permanent.)
- An’ura enemies no longer show the cast animation on most attacks.

An’ura Recon:
- An expert in An’ura texts has arrived at the Grand Library. She would be interested in the “An’ura Documents” right away!
- Existing enemies in the Encampment have been scaled to level 7-8, down from 20-21
- Background data added for ????.

Last week's stream went so well that I think I'm going to make this a regular thing. Stop by on Fridays to watch the next update of CoA being prepared right before it goes live!

As of right now, there's no set schedule for exactly what time I'll be live (or times, in the event I have to take a break for family reasons). However, VODs stay live on the twitch channel for 14 days and will later be added to the CoA YouTube channel for those of you who missed out.

What goes on during the dev stream?
- This is where most of the next content update will be prepared which takes place in more than just the game engine. You'll get a look at some of my back end mechanical designs which are held in various text and excel documents in addition to how I place and test things in the engine itself.

Questions, Suggestions & Bug Reports
- These streams will be an excellent place to ask questions you have about the game such as functionality and mechanics or even about the lore of the characters and planet they inhabit. This will also be the absolute best place to alert me about a bug, as I will be able to take care of it immediately.

What I can't show...
- Sadly, there's part of the process that is covered by NDA with Steam, so I can not show anything having to do with the upload and distribution process. However, all things that go into making and exporting the game itself can be shown.


Where to catch the show
- I'm live every day doing the streaming thing, but part of every Friday from now into the foreseeable future will be reserved for CoA development.
https://www.twitch.tv/hardytier is my personal twitch where the live streams will take place.
https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCGxc2-7sJbZ9L3Lpgak43XA is the CoA YouTube channel where VODs of the development streams will end up after they have concluded.
-- Please note that due to the affiliate agreement with Twitch, these VODs will not make their way to YouTube until after 24 hours past the time in which they ended.


The Reward
- I'm in the process of preparing a reward for 100k channel points involving CoA, the finer details of which are TBA. What I can tell right now is: it will have to do with an entire new character, piece of gear, or zone added to the game based on YOUR description.... within reason. Things of a profane or otherwise too meme-y nature will be rejected and your points refunded to try again.

Let me start this one by saying thank you to everyone who stopped by today! It was a pleasure to get some work done and be live at the same time. Who knows, maybe I'll make this a regular Friday thing.

If you missed the streams and want to check them out, they will be available for 14 days at:
Stream 1: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/615040132
Stream 2: https://www.twitch.tv/videos/615132997

Almost this entire update was created during these two streams, so feel free to have a look at the development process that goes into making CoA!

Without further nonsense, the 3.2.2 notes:

3.2.2 [Build #74, Release Date: May 08, 2020] New:
- Vendor Stock updated for the Item Shop in Auria/Visitor District.
- A new 75 Point set is now available from The Phoenix Ash in Lvell.
- The pylon at the Research Shack in Auria has awoken!
- New field spawn enemies are on the prowl in Alpha Ruins.
Fixes:
- Fixed a missing image error in Agartha. To remove the error, save outside of the main Agartha zone, then reload the file and go back in. This fix also repairs the ability to go into the Pit building.
- Fixed several audio loading errors in Agartha.
Changes:
- Congealed Frost now have a chance to drop from various Frost Forest enemies.
- Frostbrood Tokens now have a chance to drop from Frostbrood enemies.
- Schematic: Mech Shield now has a chance to drop from Mechs in Hell’s Gate. The tooltip for this item has been changed.
- Schematic: Snow Shield now has a chance to drop from Ice elementals in Frost Forest. The tooltip for this item has been changed.
- Ice Shards now have a chance to drop from Ice enemies in Frostbrood zones.
- Field spawn units in Alpha Ruins now trigger battle on contact. Some enemies now chase Ruby upon entry to the zone.
- Congealed Fire now has a chance to drop from elementals in Scarlet Cavern.
- All enemy events in the Colosseum now trigger battle on contact.
File Size:
- Added test data for Scarlet Fire / Pit integration.

Occasionally, I'll do one of these for my twitch people, but I seem to always forget letting you guys in on the secret. Today, the secret's out.

In about two minutes from the posting of this, I will be going live @ www.twitch.tv/hardytier with a few hours of development on Cross of Auria. If you want to see how things or done, catch a sneak peak at the Orc War stuff, or ask some questions - feel free to stop by!

Hope to see some of you there!