Cross of Auria News

In the halls of the Colosseum, a new rift has appeared! Journey through to take part in Cross of Auria's first seasonal themed event and earn exclusive loot! The new Trinket Collector in the Colosseum will trade for Sweet and Sour candies in exchange for new weapons and accessories for the team. Additionally, the two major bosses have a chance to drop a special item which will teach Ruby or Alex an upgraded version of Arcane Shock!

Once the event is finished, the party will earn 5000 experience and another rift will appear in the basement of the Colosseum. This rift is permanent and will be where you can challenge the final boss of the Halloween event repeatedly. If you miss the Guide to Arcane Shock in the event, fear not! For this boss will continue to have it on his loot table well after the event has ended. However, the vendor stock for the Trinket Collector will eventually change, so it's best to get what you want sooner rather than later.

The projected close date for the rift is November 15th, 2020. Players with a save point inside the portal will be able to continue until the event is complete. However, if you leave via teleport pad at will after this date, the rift will be gone. Until then, Ruby and company may come and go as they please with no penalty. Progress inside the rift will not be lost.

If you discover any oddities, bugs, or anything else you'd like to mention about this event - the fastest way to contact me is on Discord (link here: https://discord.gg/bMS9ktw).

Additionally to this event, a new questline is in development which has been redeemed by a twitch viewer and volunteer artist for the game - Fuzzystingray! Expect to see his quest drop in game in the next update. He and I also came together to create a special new friend in Auria who has a chance each fight to drop the Liquefier+ for Ruby. Find him and issue a challenge! This fight can be done multiple times, so there is no need to reset.

Now, onto the rest of the patch which has been far too long in the making. Thanks for making it this far!

4.1.4 [Build #91, Release Date: October 24, 2020] Removals:
- Deprecated Arcane Shock has been removed from the game. The skill in its place has been set to an Enemy Skill type. Until the debug is triggered at the Delivery Boy, it will not be possible to use Arcane Shock for either Ruby or Alex. New save files will not experience this issue.

New:
- Both versions of the pit now extend to level 20. Starting on the 11th floor, Pit Coins may drop after battles in the normal version only. Pit Coins may be exchanged with the vendor just outside the Pit warp for armor from the new 275-point defensive Challenger’s Battleguard set. Floors 11-19 have two different encounter possibilities per floor with one more heavily weighted than the other.
- Both versions of the Pit now use the new design introduced in 4.1.3.
- A new NPC has arrived in Auria/Castle Grounds West. Appropriately leveled players may challenge him for a chance at the Liquefier+, a water elemental sword for Ruby.

Fixes:
- End of turn bleed damage now displays as a hit effect instead of poison.
- Added a debug for the Basilisk Fang at the Delivery Boy. As part of the skill movements in between 4.1.0 – 4.1.3, “Infect” was moved down the back-end list and its place taken by Watershot III. Since weapons and armor do not automatically update given skills in a patch, they must be removed from the character completely then given back to have their new properties. This is the case with any weapon or ability that ends up debugged at the Delivery Boy.
- Fixed a despawning issue with Orcs in Frost Forest.
- Grapes now cure all variable and turn-based poisons.
- Apples now cure all variable and turn-based bleeds.

Changes:
- Sterling weapons now apply v-psn at a rate of 25%. Tooltips for these weapons have been updated to reflect the change.
- Smoke Bomb, Smoke Blast, Suppressor Bomb, Suppressor Blast are all now Physical damage element instead of Normal Attack. During testing, it did not make sense for these bombs to not do damage to poison enemies when Miles had a poison weapon on, so we’re reverting this change.
- Frostbrood Titan is now immune to all poison DoT effects.
- The Pit version of the Hive Mind is now immune to all poison DoT effects.
Known Issues:
- It is possible to have candy created from an attack even if the attack misses.
- Some field mobs have a chance to initiate a second battle even if they have despawned.

Before I get into too much about the Halloween event, let me just remind everyone that while I don't always post the minor updates here on the Steam community forums, I always discuss the on-goings of CoA on my discord (invite link here: https://discord.gg/j4pZKuv). I, along with my two volunteer artists, have been working hard to prepare future content to the game, including the upcoming Halloween Event.
So, if you're looking to see what's going on with the game in a more real-time setting, feel free to come on over to our discord! Just keep in mind, CoA is not the primary focus of the discord, but it does have its own section.

Also, I have some fun great news! Using Streamloots, I have created a card collection relating to CoA! Some key redemptions include creating your own questline, creating an enemy skill, adding a gold or loot box, or even creating a fun new enemy for the pit! Packs contain 3 cards each with a probability of 60% common, 25% rare, 14% epic, 1% legendary. Packs may only be redeemed while I'm live @ twitch.tv/hardytier and may be purchased directly at my streamloots store, or earned via other TBD means which will be listed in the #bounty_board channel of the discord. Most notably, providing a screenshot or video of defeating the level 20 boss of the Pit is worth 5 packs (one time only), and being the first person to say "FIRST" any time I go live is worth 1 pack each time.

But anyway, let's steer away from all the side stuff for a minute and talk about the game!

• As of right now, the Halloween event is mostly ready to go minus some boss fight detail and a handful of dialogue in the latter half. My original projection was to have it live by the 15th, but of course there were some setbacks. I'm giving myself the extra 10 days just to make sure I can definitely have it all finalized by then, but it realistically shouldn't take me past this weekend.
- This event features a one time side-story exploration mission and then a repeatable boss fight where various Halloween themed loot may drop. Official drops and rates will be posted in the release notes, but expect weapons for everyone.

• I spent last night drawing up the 'official pipeline' for CoA, which is basically just a list of what I'm working on and when I hope I can have it done by. The key takeaway of this really should be the order of events so you know what to expect. I'll do my absolute best to stick to the timeline I gave myself, but home life continues to throw a wrench into my development plans, for which I do apologize.

CoA Pipeline Breakdown We'll go over the specifics of each update as we get closer to release.

• Halloween Event (Target Release Date: October 25th) - Available to all players.
• Halloween Event Boss Ticket (Target Release Date: October 31st) - This is separate and supplemental to the event.
• The Orc War Main Story Update (Target Release Date: December 15th)
• Character Pack I (Target Release Date: January 1st, 2021)
• An'ura Recon Conclusion (Target Release Date: Jan 1st)
• Terra Anatis (Target Release Date: February 1st)
• Agartha End-game Updates (Target Release Date: March 1st)
• Scarlet Fire (Major Side-story DLC: Release Date TBA)
• ((TBA))

The goal of this one started as "extend the pit to lv 20," "extend the nexus waterway," and "extend the anura recon event." As you can see by the notes below, I got distracted. Good news, the Pit is formally under construction again and will extend to enemies of level 20 strength in addition to extending to the 20th floor. Unlike previously, the Pit will become home to units that have not yet been introduced in the main campaign.

While this looks like a lot of scattershot of framework, the unlisted good news is:
- The Pit up to level 20 should be ready by the next update. Structure is already in place, all that is left is adding enemies based on the new character sheets which were also made during 4.1.3.
- An'ura Recon Event should be ready for the next step by the next update. Many events and enemies are already in place.

In addition to what has been done here, I will address Hell's Gate, Obscurite, and Frost Forest units with the new character sheets within the next few updates.

Warning: This update has not been fully tested. If you run into any oddities, please reach out via Discord or comment to this post ASAP!
Known Issue: Enemies who counterattack may interrupt multi-hit attacks, yet the attack continues. Since nothing breaks because of this, I'll address it in a later update.

4.1.3 [Build #90, Release Date: September 20, 2020] Known Issues & Other Notes:
- The Pit (Normal) is being restructured. As it is right now, it is possible to get to floor 20 but the boss battles from level 10 repeat on every floor until then. The new details will be filled in soon.

New:
- New back-end character sheet introduced: Dragon! This is the 11th character sheet for enemies. The dragon character sheet has the following stats:
-- ATK: +++ | DEF: +++ | MAG: + | MDF: --- | AGI: --- | LUK: +
-- HP Roll: 9x D20 per level. EXP: Level * 9.5. Gold: Level * 1.4.

Upcoming Removals (October 1st):
- Arcane Shock (Skill #123) renamed: Deprecated Arcane Shock. Return to the Delivery Boy to debug this skill before the next update, which will remove both this skill and the debug.
- Percent based DoTs and HoTs will be permanently be replaced by the new BSC turn-adding states.

Fixes:
- Details filled out for higher level mp restore consumables.

Changes: • General Changes
- As part of the skill consolidation, many enemy skills have gained the “Normal Attack” element instead of “Physical”, which means these skills may now deal different damage to the party depending on your elemental resistances. (Normal Attack = whatever the user’s specific elemental damage is).
-- The skills affected by this change are: Smoke Bomb, Suppressor Bomb, Cleave, Swing, Insatiable Ravager, Smoke Blast, Suppression Blast, Slice, Shot, Cut, Slash, Chop, Wing Slap, Lick, Slap, Double-Strike, Blade Shot, Charge, Triple-Strike, Sting, Bloodfeast, Throw, Cleave+, Rush, Disabling Slice, Silencing Slice, String Shot, String Scattershot, Wicked Strike, Scratch, Fury Strikes, Blitz, Cutter, Rapid Shot, Volley Shot, Multi-Shot, Impact Shot, Lucky-Strike,
- Many skills have been condensed following the above change from element to NA type. These skills all have new damage formulas and are used more universally than before.
- I am now making use of the BuffStatesCore plugin, so some of the changes I made were unnecessary and are getting rolled back. The good news is it was a very quick fix and will not cause any in-game issues.
- The default turn application for HoT & DoT states is now 2-5 turns. Many attacks, skills, and other conditions which may apply states may now also increase the duration of these states.
- Many skills now display the new state application chance, based on the previous 3 turn version of the state. The recent addition uses the 1 turn rate instead.
- DoT formula & variance change: Poison - ((a.mat * 2) + (a.luk / 20)), 33%.
- DoT formula & variance change: Burn – (a.mat), 25%.
- DoT formula & variance change: Bleed – (a.atk * 2), 20%.
- HoT formula & variance change: (a.mat * 2), 15%.
- Cauterize now applies the fire based Burn instead of the non-elemental Cauterize state. This extra state has been removed from the game.
- Lick now calls any state the user may apply rather than having it’s own chance to apply burns at an 80% rate.
- Moombas, Living Flames, Scarlet Bull & Scarlet Toad now have varying chances to apply burns.
- Blade Shot can no longer land critical hits.
- Mech units from Hell’s Gate no longer have ‘mech’ in their name.
- Mech units now outright resist bleeds instead of having a significantly reduced rate to have bleeds applied.
- Barriers applied by Deflection Shield no longer expire over time.
- Sticky Slap TP Degen now lasts for 2-4 turns per application and can extend the turns in effect.
- Focus TP cost reduced from 50 to 25.
- Previous Lvell Archer shots removed from the game.
- Shield Bash now has a 133% chance to apply “normal attack” conditions, up from 0%.
- Cutter now has a 33% chance per hit to apply “normal attack” conditions, down from 100%.
- Lucky-Strike now does Physical damage, has a 30% better success rate, and has a 300% chance to apply “normal attack” conditions, up from 0%.
- Ruby now learns the appropriate version of Arcane Shock. New save files beginning after this update will not need to debug the skill.
- Fire skills no longer redundantly apply attack debuffs. The tooltips have been updated to reflect this change. (Since Burn inherently debuffs attack by 33%, the chance to apply an attack debuff is not displayed at all).
- All new elemental attacks have a 10% chance to apply “normal attack” conditions, down from 100%.
- Soul skills & magic have varying chances to apply Soulbroken, which increases Soul-type damage by 30%.
- Seraph Strike and Gargoyle Strike now have a 30% chance to apply “normal attack” conditions, up from 0%.
- Gargoyle Strike now applies “Stone-Killer” type damage. In addition to their other resistances and weaknesses, earth type enemies are 200% weak to Stone-Killer (the same concept applies to Bird-Killer for Seraph Strike).

• Enemies by Zone: Units now conform to the new character sheets resulting in…
- Den An’ura (First Pass) – Lower gold drops & minor changes in both directions to exp gains.
- Den An’ura (Return) – Lower gold drops across the board, less exp gains from An’ura units, lower stats on Toxic and Frostbrood units, & higher exp gains from Toxic and level 10+ units.
- Caravan Event – Drastically changed stats for enemies, lower gold drops, & minor fluctuation in exp.
- Exp and gold drops reduced for Drahkin (Lv. 3), but increased for Drahkin (Lv. 7).
- Scarlet Lava Spawns now grant slightly more exp and gold but continue to use a curated sheet for the sake of the Lightningstrike introduction battle.
- Scarlet Cavern – Increased exp and reduced stats across the board.
- Drone Scouts no longer use a curated character sheet. Point Shot, Point Laser, and Laser Sweep now have modified damage formulas.

This morning, I took a look at some of the longer standing skills in the game to see what could be improved. Theoretically, no bugs should come as a result of any skills changes - but as always, if you find anything broken, please report it as a comment to this post or directly in the #coa_general channel of my discord, invite here: https://discord.gg/j4pZKuv

There's a good chance that more of these small skill and state altering patches will be released throughout the course of the 4.x version of the game in order to lock things in permanently moving forward. Cards on the table, I made a big mess of the back end when I first was designing the game in early 2017. A lot of this corrects errors from when I was just figuring out the engine.

4.1.1 [Build #88, Release Date: September 11, 2020] Fixes:
- Removed an undefined skill from Mech Air Guardians.
- Replaced an undefined skill with Poisonbolt II for Catermoth (Lv. 8).

Changes:
- Removed the old versions of Soulfire 1-5, Cure 1-5, and Regeneration 1-5.
- Miles tool type skills (-bomb & -blast) now perform minor action sequences and no longer require selecting a target. Be careful if he is the fourth member of the party, as this will function similarly to Guard in that there is no confirmation after the skill is selected.
- Crush Armor now uses the same actions as basic Attacks.
- Ferocious Shout now applies the universal version of debuffs. The overall effect has not changed, but it will no longer stack with other skills which apply the same style of debuff.
- All new buff and debuff states are now removed at battle end. Buffs last for 5 turns and debuffs last for 3-5 turns.
- Bulk Up no longer uses its own version of buffs. Instead of the combined +30% DEF/MDF, it now uses the universal +33% versions.
- Battle Shout no longer uses its own buffs and instead of the combined 30% ATK/MAT now uses the universal +33% versions.
- Crush Armor now applies a 50% defense reduction, down from 70%.
- Sludge Bomb and Sludge Blast now apply a 25% defense reduction, up from 15%.
- Sludge Bomb now has a 30% chance to apply poisons and has a 33% variance (up from 20%).
- Sludge Blast now has a 50% chance to apply poisons, has a 33% variance (up from 20%), and can now land critical hits.
- Smoke Bomb and Smoke Blast now apply the basic blind which has a 50% effectiveness (up from 30%).
- The specific Ferocious Shout, Bulk Up, Battle Shout, Crush Armor, Sludge Bomb, and Smoke Bomb states have been removed from the game.
- Expose Weakness now applies a 33% DEF debuff, prevents the application of 20% and 25% DEF debuffs, and increases the chance for turn based poisons to land by an additional 20%.
- Cyclone now has a chance to apply air current (12%), wind weak 1 (10%), wind weak 2 (5%), and wind weak 3 (2%).
- Wind skills now display a slightly different tooltip. “Weakness” refers to the wind-weak states, while “vulnerability” refers to Air Current.
- Thermite Grenade now has a slightly weaker attack formula, can now critical hit, has a variance of 25% (up from 20%), and can apply variable burns with a maximum rate of 50%.
- Thermite Blast now has a slightly stronger attack formula, has a variance of 25%, and can apply burns with a max rate of 76%.
- Frost Blast now has an 85% chance to apply Slow and 40% chance to apply Freeze, up by 15% and 10% respectively.
- Cleave and Cleave+ now use a modified version of the Cyclone animations.

Notes:
- As of just after the release of 4.1, it was discovered that newer mac OS’s are unable to download the newest version of the game through Steam. Because a fix can not be created, support for MAC has been discontinued.


EDIT: Since this is being released on the same day, the notes for 4.1.2 are included as well.

4.1.2 [Build #89, Release Date: September 11, 2020] Debug Alert:
- For those of you with Alex above level 5 or if she has learned Regeneration I, return to the Delivery Boy in Auria to debug these two skills. In one of the next major updates, this debug will be removed and so will the placeholder skills.

Changes:
- Rockbreaker’s variance changed to 18% to conform with other Earth type skills (down from 25%).
- Tooltip changes for: Crush Armor, Sparkstrike, Lightningstrike, Bolt Cutter, Spark & Spark+.
- Spark now does slightly more damage.
- Spark+ now does more damage and can land critical hits.
- Lightning Rage now heals 33% HP, MP and TP on use.
- Sear now applies the 5 turn variable burn instead of the % burn and now does damage equal to the user’s magic attack (up from flat 1 damage).
- Disabling and Silencing Slice both now do slightly less damage, have a 20% variance (down from 25%), and may now land critical hits.
- Swift Kick now does additional damage equal to 1/6th the user’s Luck.
- Lvell Patroller (Archer) now uses the merged version of all -shot skills.
- For players with Alex above level 5, return to the Delivery Boy to debug Cure I.
- Arcane skills now have a 15% variance, changed from custom on a per skill basis.
- Regeneration now has a 25% chance to remove poisons and bleeds, up from 10%.
- Regeneration now heals 1/12th of all allies max HP when cast.
- Regeneration has been updated to account for the variable poisons and bleeds in addition to all original and percent based versions.
- The correct Regeneration is now learned during the quest, but due to the change, players who have already obtained it will need to debug it at the Delivery Boy in Auria.
- Flash Heal may now only be used in combat.

Only just a few minutes ago, I thought everything was fine on the MAC side. Up until a few weeks ago, I was on a much older version of MAC OS, which still updated and ran the game properly. Only recently did I update to Catalina.

To make a long story short, Steam does not want to automatically update the game on MAC anymore and there isn't anything I can do to change that. Even though the only available build for MAC is 4.1, my test PC is still locked at 4.0.2, which is likely the last version I exported specifically for MAC OS. It's probable that this issue has been going on all along - I'm only just noticing now since I have very recently updated my OS. Either way, since I can't test or force downloads moving forward for MAC, MAC OS support is officially terminated effective immediately and permanently.

Please note that the game still functions on whatever the most recent build you were able to download is and still functions via Bootcamp and other Windows emulating programs for current updates. I'm very sorry it ended up like this, especially since I was so excited to re-add that functionality to the Steam Store information.

While this is a sad development, I was not able to make DLC for MAC moving forward regardless, so it's likely that MAC OS's were doomed to fall behind eventually. It's just sad that today is that day.

In just a few minutes, MAC OS support will be removed from the CoA Steam Store.

I hope for better news in the next update.

//hardytier