Cross of Auria News

Hey everyone, quick one today. I just wanted to let everyone know that even if we get some bug reports, updates are going to be on hold while 6.7 is in development. There's a lot on the back end that needs to be cleaned up and a ton of internal changes that you won't see, but most importantly I've started to build the next step of the Orc War moving through Lvell. The storyboard was completed today and implementation already is started.

If any bugs pop up that prevent progress or cause the game to behave abnormally, please continue to report them ASAP either here on the forums or preferably on Discord @ https://discord.gg/7GehvwKGCv. I do still technically have a facebook for the game, but it's too much to syndicate such small info to every single place.

Here are the details for all small patches so far.

[6.605.1] - Snake pet can no longer change classes.
[6.605.2] - If the water spirit is fought before the gazers, the gazers will despawn immediately after the water spirit is defeated.
[6.605.2] - The pet battle can now be lost or escaped from allowing a retry rather than resulting in a game over.
[6.605.3] - The pet is no longer overlapping Ruby in the Forest Battle Zone or in Ruby's Room.
[6.605.4] - Hidden items in Shoreline now sparkle on Day 1 and disappear on Day 2.
[6.605.5] - Cafe Lvellan now has a front entrance in addition to its other entrances.
[6.605.5] - Slightly extended the dimensions of Lvell Outpost.
[6.605.6] - Added flavor text to Wind-line Spells.
[6.605.6] - Fixed the internal height and shadowing of the Lvell Neko houses.
[6.605.6] - Adjusted the floor of Cafe Lvellan.
[6.605.6] - Minor dialogue adjustment to Auria Inn scene.
[6.605.6] - Minor conditional dialogue adjustment to Jack in Lvell Forest.
[6.605.7] - Waypoint to the Veil from Raphael's Tower now opens after completing Eurus's questline.
[6.605.8] - Mountainside Area - location between Lvell Forest and Den An'ura now available.
[6.605.8] - Minor changes to Den An'ura & surrounding world map areas.
[6.605.9] - Fixed an order of operations bug in the Veil randomized chests.
[6.605.9] - An'ura Coin Purse -> Tiny Coin Purse
[6.605.9] - Players who have not obtained the Essence Box in the Veil will now obtain it when using the Mystery Boxes from Giselle.
[6.605.9] - The items contained with in Giselles "Mystery Boxes" have changed. Previously acquired boxes will give the original items, while newly aquired boxes will appear further down the item list and give the new items. Only the new versions of the boxes can be purchased.
[6.605.9] - Terrain expansion to Den An'ura with new entrance from the world map. However, this entrance is currently blocked pending finalization.
[6.605.10] - Lvell is now blocked at the beginning of the Orc War conditional to progress in the Shoreline region. This patch was deployed without updating the Info section of the title screen, but it is on the live branch of the game right now.


This info (and more) is regularly updated on Discord as it happens rather than on the less frequent schedule of Steam posts. You're all welcome to join us there!

Quick one today - I've been quietly working in the background over the last few weeks on a new monster taming system. I rolled it out a few weeks ago in the Veil for current endgame players and then added it to the very beginning of the game for new players. If you missed that beginning of game pickup, it can be encountered in the Veil after the Orc War begins and all additional party members are found. This is the first time you can name an ally!

More recently, a new "epic quality" sword pattern can be pieced together in the Frostbrood Lair after the Titan is defeated. The challenge was created using level 10 enemies to combat the recent massive expansion to the An'ura-side rewards.


6.605 [Build #165, Release Date: February 13, 2025] Notes:
- Patch note data for the 6.603-6.604 builds have been lost, but their contents are still in game.
New:
- A new sword can be built in the Frostbrood Lair after the Titan is gone with parts gathered from nearby rifts.

6.602 [Build #163, Release Date: February 01, 2025] New:
- A new ally can be found in the very beginning of the game. If missed, they are instead wandering the Veil during the Orc War campaign. If collected during the Orc War, they immediately raise to level 20.
Fixes:
- When exiting the costumed Halloween event, the original versions of Miles and Riley are returned to the party even if the save file had the alternate costume versions.
Updates & Changes:
- Removed the script conditions for separating DLC from non DLC files. Now, only the DLC maps are removed.

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.