Cross of Auria News

I know, two days ago I said I was going to hold off on more posts until something huge came along. Then I went and made something huge immediately. A new zone is now accessible from the Veil for players who have all the party members and have reached The Orc War part of the main story. This update does not progress the Orc War, but adds an entirely separate challenging location with unique progression and rewards.

In-game tips suggest being level 20, but that's only half the story. I would strongly recommend gearing up in Sha'ri Desert or the Colosseum before trying to take on Bloodlust Manor.

Oh, and there's a new achievement tied to it.

Have fun
ps: in my minor notes, this was listed as "make a small valentines day enemy", which then expanded to "give the players a new usable Skill", which then expanded to "okay so lets put the enemy in its own locaton" which of course was "lets use this castle prefab we haven't used yet" and then of course I had to add different things to each wing of the castle so now there's 4 bosses and 2 major rewards from what was supposed to just be a single fight



6.601 [Build #162, Release Date: January 04, 2025] New:
- A new quest is available in The Veil after all party members have joined the team during the Orc War invasion of Revan! This quest poses a significant challenge. Keeping a save before entering is advisable. An achievement has been added to the game for completion of this quest event.
- New treasure has appeared in the Sha'ri desert! The remaining Desert Armor Set is now in play.
Updates & Changes:
- Reduced potion drop rate from worldspawn bats.
- Disassemble data added to newly acquired Wanderer's Armor.
- Many low level enemies now have a greater chance to drop elemental essences if defeated before turn 3.
- Reduced the sell price for Tomes.

Happy new year everyone! Early tomorrow morning, 6.600 will go live. This build brings some major changes to the landscape of the early game along with a boatload of fixes that have been plaguing the back end. New to look forward to is a quick quest from Elena Katali in Port Reception and an additional weapons & armor crafting set which appears after the 2nd Hive Mind in Den An'ura has been defeated. Also, the tier 2 recipe book for potions can now be found somewhere in the Nexus Waterway! Bigger changes include the removal of talismans, changes to the Disassemble Pool for various items and armor, and finalizations to the Swordsman class's abilities!

Important Note: I am still in the process of fully debugging the game. My goal is to try to break everything I possibly can as I go through. If you are able to create a scenario which should not exist, or occurs too early in the game, please reach out and let me know ASAP!

Most importantly with this build comes the deprecation of over 60 zones, merging most of them into single zones in place of their current multi-zone structure. The "Timelost Zones" will remain in the game data package until at least March 1st, 2025, after which point they will be deleted. If you still have a save file that will load into a Timelost Zone by that point, it will become corrupt after Mar 1st.

Please note that since debugging is still in progress, not all smaller patches will have their notes posted here as they go live. If you want to keep up to date on the most recent changes to the game, join us on Discord @ https://discord.gg/7GehvwKGCv (Hardy's Hangout). In the roles channel, select Cross of Auria to gain access to the CoA channels. You can see if the game has changed since the last time you played by viewing the Info page on the title screen of the game.

Here are the full current notes for 6.6 before any last minute changes. 6.6 will be live by noon EST tomorrow (Jan 2nd, 2025)

6.600 [Build #161, Release Date: January 02, 2025] New:
- A new quest is available from Elena Katali in Port Reception!
- A new recipe book can be found in Den An'ura near the Hive Mind. It allows the creation of 1 Item, 5 Weapons and 9 Armors from a new set!
Fixes:
- Fixed a lingering issue with Atropos repeating dialogue in the first visit to the Veil.
- Fixed an issue where the Talisman cycle would occur on new accounts.
- Fixed Phoenix Ash quest log data when embarking on the Day 1 quest.
- Both Phoenix Ash questgivers will add their most recent quests to the quest log by talking to them again in Port Reception if the quest has already been completed.
- Added an Essence Box to the Veil, near the center Gift Pack DLC warp. This item will hold more than 99 of each type of Essence and allow you to withdraw up to 99 essences at a time for use in crafting!
- "The Insect Menace" quest now adds and completes at the rift in Den An'ura/West. The original data for adding it has been lost at some point in the past. The rift now triggers the completion of the correct quest.
- Fixed a blocker in Scarlet Cavern which allowed Ruby to enter without Jack.
Updates & Changes:
- Downscaled the resolution of some currently unused files to reduce space requirements.
- Challenging the Headless Horseman in The Veil now requires completion of the neighboring Halloween event without the Challenge of the Headless DLC. DLC encounter remains unchanged.
- A prize for completing the Headless Halloween event now appears in the Veil for the party's main cast.
- A vendor in Port Reception now carried Frames and Patterns for a steep price.
- Talking to Elena Katali in Port Reception after completing the first quest will add its data to the Quest Log if it was missed previously.
- Talking to Lvell Hunter in Port Reception after completing his quest will add its data to the Quest Log if it was missed.
- Reverted Sparkstrike line naming convention due to the deprecation of other + elemental skills.
- Raphael's Tower world map location has moved to north of Lvell Forest. It is no longer accessible from the Veil.
- Increased the bonus damage done by Slash from 50 to 125. Reduced the Variance from 50% to 25%.
- Increased the bonus damage done by Cut from 25 per hit to 50. Cut now has a 2 turn warmup.
- Swordsman now can learn Double Slam, Lucky Strike, Disabling Slice, Silencing Slice, & Breath of the Dying.
- Swordsman amplifies Physical damage by 200%, up from 50%.
- The following items are no longer considered timelost: Frames, Patterns, Metal Chips, Metal Shards, Metal Plates, Iron Bars, Steel Bars, Leather Strips, Coarse Hide, Beast Hide, Thick Hide, Heavy Hide.
- Several items have had Chips or Strips added to their disassembly pool.
- Oros-Bane and Duskfall armor now have Pattern requirements.
- Gift Pack DLC essences from the red chest now deposit directly to the new Essence Box even if it has not yet been collected. The amount received remains unchanged.
- The elementals in the Forest Battle Area now despawn if the boss is defeated before they are.
- Minor terrain changes to Lvell outer areas.
- The Talisman armor type has been deprecated and new game files will not see it. The previously equipped Talismans for each character may be sold.
- Talismans are no longer given when taking control over Ruby or encountering any other character. New players should never see them.
- The Update event had details removed for Talisman cycling and changing Miles & Riley's outfits. We are now more than a year removed from this change to the game. Any player still using M&R Outfit #2 would need to restart the game. The update which added the debug was in Sept 2023.
- Pattern naming convention changed to match the armor type names in Class tooltips.
- Reduced the drop rate of HP/MP Potions & Revives.
- Increased the drop rate of Essences of Life & Magick.
- Changed the healing formula for Elixirs.
- Changed buy & sell cost for all HP/Mp Potions + Elixirs + Revives.
- Added Synthesis formulas for all potion types, and added the Tier II book somewhere in the world!
Classes & Skills:
- Double-Strike now has a max mastery level of 5 with 12% bonus damage per level and -5 TP cost.
- Poison Cut now has a max mastery level of 10 with -2MP & -1TP cost per level.
- Triple-Strike now has a max mastery level of 10 with +5% damage and -3 TP cost per level.
- Flamecutter now has a max mastery level of 25 with -2MP, -1TP, & +2% Damage Per Level.
- Double Slam and Lucky Strike are now Physical element.
- Return Spirit can now be learned by the White Mage class starting at level 10!
- Electrogenic class renamed "Sparkwraith". Available to Ruby after Stormchaser reaches 50 and Lightningwalker reaches 25, or by other story progression means.
- Lightningwalker class renamed "Electrogenic". Available to Ruby after Stormchaser reaches 25.
Timelost Zones:
The following zones have been merged into a single zone amongst themselves to reduce the amount of resources used by the engine overall. Freeing up Maps will allow more zones to be created in the future. All Timelost Zones have saving Disabled and will not receive updates after today. On March 1, 2025, all zones marked Timelost will be removed from the game files. If you still have a save file from inside a Timelost Zone come March 2nd, you will need to create a new save file as the data from the original will be corrupt. The safest places to save during this time are all zones where this conversion has previously occurred and will not occur again: Lvell, Auria, Agartha, Colosseum, Raphael's Tower, Frost Forest, Nexus Waterway, etc. If the map is a single map and it's huge, it's safe to save there.Saving is now disabled in all Timelost Zones and all previous Save Crystals have been removed from these locations.
- The Veil (first pass - saves 7 maps)
- The Veil (second pass - saves 5 maps)
- The Veil (third pass - saves 2 maps)
- Hell's Gate (saves 12 maps)
- Shoreline (day 1 - saves 1 map)
- Den Anura (first pass saves 10 maps)
- The Black Forest (first pass - saves 23 maps)
- First iteration of the world map "Revan" (1)
- Third iteration of the world map "Orc War Planet" (1)
- Lvell Forest first map (1)
Notes, Known Issues & Other:
- All "Fixes" apply to new zones only. Timelost Zones will not see fixes.
- All current timelost zones will be deleted in a future update to allow time for current players to exit those areas. After their deletion from the game files, if a player would try to load into them, the game will immediately crash.
- It is not possible to save in Timelost zones outside of Save Points from this point forward, and most of those save points should be removed. If any remain, please reach out.
- In total, 63 zones have been flagged as Timelost in this update.
- Most timelost zones now exit to non-timelost areas, especially exits to the World Map.

In the last few days, I went a little bit crazy with making some big internal changes to the game. The patch notes you're about to read are kind of long, so here are the highlights:

- Revamping multi-zone areas to be single zone big areas
- Mastery and Learn Skill menu updates
- Earlier access to "prestige" classes, though the details are still classified
- New quest in Port Reception
- New item "Essence Box" which can hold more than 99 of each of the 12 types of essences & allows customized amount withdrawal.
- "Gift Pack" DLC overflow fix - bulk essences now deposit directly to the Essence Box
- Various skill updates and changes, especially for the Swordsman class
- New learn skill for White Mage at level 10


My tentative public release date for this build is going to be January 3rd, 2025. However, I'm still in the process of squashing bugs and making changes. If you are interested in also squashing bugs and reporting them to me, you should join us on Discord @ https://discord.gg/7GehvwKGCv and follow these instructions to get on the Beta development branch of the game:

Right click Cross of Auria from your Steam games menu
Click "Properties"
Navigate to the "Betas" tab
Write in the code: sdnuorgnitset
Press Check Code
After it succeeds, make sure to select "testingrounds - dev test only" from the drop down selection box
Please note that you should Start a new save file to participate in the public beta. I will not tackle bugs to current save files based on errors during the beta, though you may still report them.

This will serve as the first half of the patch notes, with the official second half coming when the build goes public on Jan 3rd.

BETA6.600 [Build #161, Release Date: January 03, 2025] New:
- A new quest is available from Elena Katali in Port Reception!
Fixes:
- Fixed a lingering issue with Atropos repeating dialogue in the first visit to the Veil.
- Fixed an issue where the Talisman cycle would occur on new accounts.
- Fixed Phoenix Ash quest log data when embarking on the Day 1 quest.
- Both Phoenix Ash questgivers will add their most recent quests to the quest log by talking to them again in Port Reception if the quest has already been completed.
- Added an Essence Box to the Veil, near the center Gift Pack DLC warp. This item will hold more than 99 of each type of Essence and allow you to withdraw up to 99 essences at a time for use in crafting!
Updates & Changes:
- Downscaled the resolution of some currently unused files to reduce space requirements.
- Challenging the Headless Horseman in The Veil now requires completion of the neighboring Halloween event without the Challenge of the Headless DLC. DLC encounter remains unchanged.
- A prize for completing the Headless Halloween event now appears in the Veil for the party's main cast.
- A vendor in Port Reception now carried Frames and Patterns for a steep price.
- Talking to Elena Katali in Port Reception after completing the first quest will add its data to the Quest Log if it was missed previously.
- Talking to Lvell Hunter in Port Reception after completing his quest will add its data to the Quest Log if it was missed.
- Reverted Sparkstrike line naming convention due to the deprecation of other + elemental skills.
- Raphael's Tower world map location has moved to north of Lvell Forest. It is no longer accessible from the Veil.
- Increased the bonus damage done by Slash from 50 to 125. Reduced the Variance from 50% to 25%.
- Increased the bonus damage done by Cut from 25 per hit to 50. Cut now has a 2 turn warmup.
- Swordsman now can learn Double Slam, Lucky Strike, Disabling Slice, Silencing Slice, & Breath of the Dying.
- Swordsman amplifies Physical damage by 200%, up from 50%.
- The following items are no longer considered timelost: Frames, Patterns, Metal Chips, Metal Shards, Metal Plates, Iron Bars, Steel Bars, Leather Strips, Coarse Hide, Beast Hide, Thick Hide, Heavy Hide.
- Several items have had Chips or Strips added to their disassembly pool.
- Oros-Bane and Duskfall armor now have Pattern requirements.
- Gift Pack DLC essences from the red chest now deposit directly to the new Essence Box even if it has not yet been collected. The amount received remains unchanged.
Classes & Skills:
- Double-Strike now has a max mastery level of 5 with 12% bonus damage per level and -5 TP cost.
- Poison Cut now has a max mastery level of 10 with -2MP & -1TP cost per level.
- Triple-Strike now has a max mastery level of 10 with +5% damage and -3 TP cost per level.
- Flamecutter now has a max mastery level of 25 with -2MP, -1TP, & +2% Damage Per Level.
- Double Slam and Lucky Strike are now Physical element.
- Return Spirit can now be learned by the White Mage class starting at level 10!
- Electrogenic class renamed "Sparkwraith". Available to Ruby after Stormchaser reaches 50 and Lightningwalker reaches 25, or by other story progression means.
- Lightningwalker class renamed "Electrogenic". Available to Ruby after Stormchaser reaches 25.
Timelost Zones:
The following zones have been merged into a single zone amongst themselves to reduce the amount of resources used by the engine overall. Freeing up Maps will allow more zones to be created in the future. All Timelost Zones have saving Disabled and will not receive updates after today. On March 1, 2025, all zones marked Timelost will be removed from the game files. If you still have a save file from inside a Timelost Zone come March 2nd, you will need to create a new save file as the data from the original will be corrupt. The safest places to save during this time are all zones where this conversion has previously occurred and will not occur again: Lvell, Auria, Agartha, Colosseum, Raphael's Tower, Frost Forest, Nexus Waterway, etc. If the map is a single map and it's huge, it's safe to save there.Saving is now disabled in all Timelost Zones and all previous Save Crystals have been removed from these locations.
- The Veil (first pass - saves 7 maps)
- The Veil (second pass - saves 5 maps)
- The Veil (third pass - saves 2 maps)
- Hell's Gate (saves 12 maps)
- Shoreline (day 1 - saves 1 map)
- Den Anura (first pass saves 10 maps)
- The Black Forest (first pass - saves 23 maps)
- First iteration of the world map "Revan" (1)
- Third iteration of the world map "Orc War Planet" (1)
- Lvell Forest first map (1)
Notes, Known Issues & Other:
- All "Fixes" apply to new zones only. Timelost Zones will not see fixes.
- All current timelost zones will be deleted in a future update to allow time for current players to exit those areas. After their deletion from the game files, if a player would try to load into them, the game will immediately crash.
- It is not possible to save in Timelost zones outside of Save Points from this point forward, and most of those save points should be removed. If any remain, please reach out.
- In total, 63 zones have been flagged as Timelost in this update.
- Most timelost zones now exit to non-timelost areas, especially exits to the World Map.

Today, I'm going to begin the process of rolling out finalizations to the Skill Learn and Mastery systems. For those of you who don't know, Mastery is when you use a skill over and over and then it either becomes stronger or requires less resources to use or some other effect and Skill Learn is when you raise a class to a high enough level that you see abilities appear under the Learn Skill tab inside Skills in the menu.

Let's talk about the vision first. Since I began creating the game, I've programmed in dozens of skills that so far have never been accessible to players. My goal right now is to release everything I've had baking in the oven before working on too much new stuff. So that's where we get into Black Mage - the first class to receive Skill Learn updates. By level up, Black Mage will learn Arcane Shock, Firebolt, Waterbolt, Frostbolt, Poisonbolt, and Airblade. You can accelerate the learning of the latter 4 by purchasing them from Skills -> Learn Skill once the Black Mage class hits level 5. Once these 'tier 1' magic abilities are learned, the tier 2 abilities become available in the menu when other conditions are met, but no other abilities are learned via level-up alone. For example, Fireball becomes available to learn in the menu once Black Mage hits level 10. To purchase the ability, it will cost 2500 gold and 30 Burning Essences. What's so good about tier 2 skills to justify the cost, right? Well, they hit twice. So while they begin at Mastery level 0 and are expensive to use for a while, they are the best bang for your buck each individual turn. I don't want to give away everything here, but let's look at the fire line in detail:

Firebolt
MP Cost: 30
Damage Formula: (a.mat * 4)
Variance: 25%
Additional Effects: Burn (30%)
Max Mastery Level: 5
Mastery Effects: +3% Damage Per Level, -2 MP Cost Per Level
At Max Mastery: +15% Damage, MP Cost: 20

Fireball
MP Cost: 60
Damage Formula: (a.mat * 4)
Variance: 25%
Additional Effects: Burn (45%), 2-Hit
Cooldown: 1 Turn
Max Mastery Level: 10
Mastery Effects: +5% Damage Per Level, -3 MP Cost Per Level
At Max Mastery: +50% Damage, MP Cost: 30

Lava Burst
MP Cost: 100
Damage Formula: (a.mat * 4)
Variance: 25%
Additional Effects: Burn (60%), 3-Hit
Cooldown: 2 Turns
Max Mastery Level: 25
Mastery Effects: +5% Damage Per Level, -3 MP Cost Per Level
At Max Mastery: +125% Damage, MP Cost: 25

Eruption
MP Cost: 75
Damage Formula: (a.mat * 4)
Variance: 25%
Additional Effects: Burn (50%), Area of Effect (Enemies Only)
Cooldown: 2 Turns
Max Mastery Level: 10
Mastery Effects: +5% Damage Per Level, -2 MP Cost Per Level
At Max Mastery: +50% Damage, MP Cost: 55


By examining the above 4 skills, the effects of the Mastery system become clear - but how do you level up an ability? Simple - use it! By default, the amount of times an ability needs to be used to level up is 10 times per level + 10. Ex: Leveling from 0 to 1 takes 10 uses, from 1 to 2 takes an additional 20 uses, from 2-3 takes an additional 30 uses, so on and so forth. It is important to note that the default is not always used for every skill, but for the purposes of elemental abilities - the default is always used.

Important key notes about Mastery:
- Default Max Mastery: 10
- Default Level Formula: level * 10
- Default MP Cost: cost * (1 - (level * 0.05))
- Default TP Cost: cost * (1 - (level * 0.05))
- Default Damage Formula: (value * (1 + (level * 0.05))
- The default applies to every skill not explicitly mentioned in this or previous patch notes. As time goes on, there will be differences for players to discover.
tldr about the key notes... by using an ability more, it costs less to use and does more damage (or healing)!


[h2]Phase 1 -> 2[/h2]
Today, we roll out the changes to Black Mage, Mastery, and Skill Level Up. Over the next couple weeks (or however long it takes), I will continue to quietly roll out updates for the other available classes. If a new major class is not announced, then a post here on Steam is unlikely to happen. If you want up to date information on changes to the game, Discord is the best place for that (https://discord.gg/7GehvwKGCv - Select "CoA" role). To know if the game has been changed since this post, see the Version # from the title screen ("Info" under "Continue"). With today's roll out, the game version will be 6.507, the patch notes for which are listed below.

Ideally, I won't continue to make long posts about minor changes or updates to smaller side systems. The next post you can expect to see here on Steam would be about new experiences.

Until then, catch you on the flippidy flip

6.507 [Build #157, Release Date: December 16, 2024] Bug Reports:
- The fastest way to report a bug is on Discord @ https://discord.gg/7GehvwKGCv.
New:
- Skill Learn System beginning with Black Mage class. See "Mastery" section below for full details rolled out this update.
Fixes:
- Removed Eurus from the Raphael's Tower area when he is already in the party.
Updates & Changes:
- Hallows Shield, Scarf, Earrings, Scabbard, and Strap can now be sold for the same items they were purchased for. This will allow current players to swap the broken Talisman versions with the functional Accessory versions.
- Added minimum to tier 2 and 3 halloween skill.
- All Tier 2 magic abilities now have a 1 turn cooldown.
- All Tier 3 magic abilities now have a 2 turn cooldown.
Mastery:
- Tier 1 magic skills now have a mastery max of 5.Tier 2 set at 10, and tier 3 set at 25. Tier 4 (aoe) set at 10.
- Tier 1-4 should properly function for Black Mage class at various levels (up to 25).
- Triple-Strike mastery set to max 10, -5% mp cost per level, +5% dmg per level.
- Airslash & Airstrike mastery set to max 5, +3%dmg/-1TP/-1MP per level.
- Airslash II & Airstrike II mastery set to max 10, +7%dmg/-1TP/-1MP per level.
- Airslash III & Airstrike III mastery set to max 10, +15% dmg per level.
Notes & Known Issues:
- Mastery changes likely will not apply to abilities already learned by the characters.
- This patch will go live before the end of the day.

Between yesterday and today, I was able to make solid progress fixing some things that need to be fixed before moving forward. A little while ago tonight, I released a build that allows for interacting with the Rabbit's Foot crew in Agartha during the events of the Orc War. You must progress completely through everything available in Auria and Shoreline Area to open the building in Agartha. In a build in the near future, progression will be forced through Agartha rather than potentially discovered as it is right now. The ability to go there at this point will remain intact regardless.

Last night, without posting about the update, terrain changes were made to Scarlet Cavern and Nexus Waterway. This change includes important loot - so check it out if you're strong enough!

Next up, I'm going to start using my Discord server more for Cross of Auria related information. Keep in mind, the server is not specific to Cross of Auria, so if you join be sure to pick the "Chad" or "Hybrid" role to see the Cross of Auria section of the server. Any reader of this post is welcome to join
Server Name: The Black Chocobo
My Name in there: "Hardytier" (owner)
Invite Link: https://discord.gg/7GehvwKGCv


Previous patch notes for today and yesterday listed below.

6.502 [Build #152, Release Date: December 06, 2024] New:
- A new treasure path is available in the Nexus Waterway!
- A new treasure path is available in Scarlet Cavern!
DLC:
- ??? has appeared for a second fight somewhere in the Zodiac Overwatch! ??? must be defeated near the Headless Horseman before being challenged in the Overwatch.
- Visible field enemies have been added to the Zodiac Overwatch first area. Like other fieldspawns, they temporarily disappear after being defeated. Reloading the game or leaving the area and coming back will cause them to respawn.
- All random encounter fiends in the first are of ZO now have a chance to drop Encounter Half items. Return to Start items are also in play.
Fixes:
- Adjusted tooltips for some SDV items.
- Removed access to Swordsman, White Mage, & Black Mage during the Halloween event by swapping characters to their default then locking the class command while in the zone. Warping back to The Veil will unlock Class again.
- Added a new condition for Eurus to appear at Raphael's Tower after his questline is finished but while he is considered outside the party.
Updates & Changes:
- Additional enemies in the Snowdrift Village have been scaled down.

6.503 [Build #153, Release Date: December 7, 2024] New:
- Added a temporary hut for the Rabbit's Foot team in Agartha after going as far as you can in the Orc War storyline in the Shoreline area.
Fixes:
- Corrected the amount of MP restored by tier 1 and 2 Magick potions.
- Fixed the Save Point door in DenAnura/Inn to respond to the key the nearby enemy drops.
Updates & Changes:
- Fieldspawn Vine Snappers in Den An'ura encounter formula adjusted based on Ruby's level to allow for more challenging fights at higher levels.
- Minor expansion to Den An'ura, allowing for challenging three headed vine snappers as random encounters.
- Adjusted visibility of two tower markers in Frost Forest.
Notes & Known Issues:
- Orc War progress is halted at Lvell with the entrance tiles locked. When the next piece of the main story is released, Lvell will be accessible.