The Final Veil Trial
[p]Normally when I introduce an update like this, I give you a vague idea of what to expect as to prevent spoilers. However, since this one is such a post-game high level event, I'm going to outright tell you what you have to look forward to... in just a moment! First let's talk about development.[/p][p]I've reiterated recently that development on CoA is difficult because of the engine itself. It's getting worse. I'm honestly 50-50 on scrapping the concept of the Horseman Pass, Snowdrift Village, and Shadowfrost Citadel and just pushing out the 'end of game' scenario. I did a huge few hour segment last night that ended up not getting saved at all, all of which I have to rebuild in smaller pieces today. Realistically, I'm optimistic about a second game moreso than I am about the continuation of this one. So keep that in mind as we go forward toward the new year.[/p][p]2026 is our end development target. Regardless of what extra pieces I'm able to develop before then, I plan to neatly wrap everything up in a bow and have it in it's 100% final state by New Year's Day 2026. [/p][p]Final note before we get into the Veil trial rewards, the Sparkwraith and Electrogenic classes have had their requirements significantly reduced. Unlike Black Mage, White Mage, Swordsman, etc, Electrogenic is a prestige class on Stormchaser, requiring level 50 before unlocking for Ruby, and Sparkwraith is a prestige class on Electrogenic, requiring level 45 before unlocking for Ruby. With not enough time left in development, all other prestige classes are scrapped and their unique level up skills are instead being considered as Recipe Book / Guides / Drops instead. Since Ruby gains access to Dark, Holy, and Arcane abilities through the prestige classes, only hers are retained moving forward. However, actually achieving level 50 as a Stormchaser will be an achievement (not literally) in and of itself, as the most EXP awarded by any single fight exists in the Zodiac Overwatch with the final boss yielding 5,000 and the other nearby units occasionally dropping EXP tokens. While I am optimistic to finish the main story in a way that I'm proud of before the end of the year, developing Frostslayer, Sparkwraith, etc has shown me that the time it takes to draft, test, and launch a whole series of new skills is beyond the scope with the remaining time we have left for development. By the way, if you haven't discovered Frostslayer yet, it's time to do the story in Snowdrift Village via the free DLC Eyes in the Frost. This launched on April 17, 2022. Frostslayer gives access to the unique Ice-Killer skill Hailstorm and by default has Ice-Killer added to Normal Attacks. [/p][p]Okay, let's talk about this update.
- The 5th and final Veil Trial with an accompanying achievement is now available.
- The final boss has multiple chances to drop Daylight Essences, a previously unobtainable by normal means item. Also, one of each Light Flask are on the table plus lesser and greater tomes of Holy weapon.
- Guaranteed with each kill is the new Zodiac Bow and Zodiac Quiver. The bow has 5 upgrade slots, 66 attack, +25% hit rate, +7% critical rate, +1% MP/TP regeneration, a 20% chance for additional actions, 2 additional Normal Attack hits, and +33% to the equipped character's overall Attack stat. If you have not yet found the character who uses bows and quivers, I'll just leave that secret for now. The quiver reduces the chance to be afflicted by Saboteur debuffs by 15%, as well as Soak/Burn/Bleed/Bleed1 by 15%, and WarpI-V by 5%. It has 3 upgrade slots and a huge spread of additional stats.
- After the final boss, there's a final prize chest that can be collected once per save file. This chest grants the legendary Recipe Book: Exceptional Skill Guides. With it in hand via the crafting menu, Ruby will be able to create:
-- Dispel Guide (Dispel removes all Augments, plus a 50% chance each to remove all Synergist buffs)
-- Crystallize Guide (Earth magic which can stun for 2 turns and diminish def & mdf. Damage increases by 33% for up to 10 mastery levels)
-- Arcstorm Guide (End of turn lingering arcane damage skill. Gains +250 damage per mastery level up to 10)
-- Electric Web Guide (Teaches all of Ruby's pets Sparkstrike, Lightningstrike, Bolt Cutter, and Spark. This item was planned to be helpful for the pets released alongside Horseman Hunter Pass, but the DLC may get scrapped. It will still function for the Warchest Imp and the tameable Bat.)
-- Guide to Basic, Moderate, & Advanced Fire, Ice, and Poison. (These will still drop from their relevant Veil Trial bosses)
-- Guide to Basic Ghost (Will still drop from relevant Veil Trial bosses)
-- Exquisite Gem (Can not be bought anywhere and doesn't drop from any enemies)
While most of these guides require elemental essences or Essence of Magick, the Exquisite Gem is the one I want to focus on for a moment. We will end the game development with this being the most powerful socketable gem in the game coming in with +5 to all stats. To synthesize, Ruby must use 3 Essence of Magick, 25 Essence of Life, 10k gold, and 1 Hunter Token. With access to Lvell and Auria no longer restricted in the Orc War aftermath, Hunter Tokens are available from the hunter lodge repeatable quests.
- This Veil Trial goes up to level 50 and awards Challenge Level 50. However, there are more than 50 enemies present in this location.
- Unless I end up with time enough to develop Shadowfrost Citadel before the new year, this Veil Trial will be the most difficult challenge in the game. I was able to knock out the level 120 Horseman without too many problems, but even his stats are dwarfed by Sagittarius due to the Character Sheet 2.0 update a few years ago. As a DLC, the Horseman at levels 50, 75, 100, and 120 were never updated/changed.[/p][p][/p][p]6.9.2.0 \[Build #199, Release Date: November 24, 2025]
New:
- A new trial is available is in the Veil! This final trial rewards the final Veil Trial achievement. It extends to level 50.[/p][p]Updates & Changes:
- Aries Gemstone now has its action times reduced to 25% from 100% and attack times reduced to 2 from 3. This change only affects newly acquired items. The previously held ones will function as originally designed.
- Electrogenic now requires level 50 Stormchaser.
- Sparkwraith now requires level 45 Electrogenic.[/p][p]Notes, Known Issues & Other:
- The Aries Gemstone is one of the first items in the game to be released and be immediately nerfed. From my own 50 hour save file, I can definitively say that having a guaranteed extra action on an Accessory is too strong, especially with pets being able to equip up to 8 accessories. [/p][p][/p][p]Final Notes[/p]
- The 5th and final Veil Trial with an accompanying achievement is now available.
- The final boss has multiple chances to drop Daylight Essences, a previously unobtainable by normal means item. Also, one of each Light Flask are on the table plus lesser and greater tomes of Holy weapon.
- Guaranteed with each kill is the new Zodiac Bow and Zodiac Quiver. The bow has 5 upgrade slots, 66 attack, +25% hit rate, +7% critical rate, +1% MP/TP regeneration, a 20% chance for additional actions, 2 additional Normal Attack hits, and +33% to the equipped character's overall Attack stat. If you have not yet found the character who uses bows and quivers, I'll just leave that secret for now. The quiver reduces the chance to be afflicted by Saboteur debuffs by 15%, as well as Soak/Burn/Bleed/Bleed1 by 15%, and WarpI-V by 5%. It has 3 upgrade slots and a huge spread of additional stats.
- After the final boss, there's a final prize chest that can be collected once per save file. This chest grants the legendary Recipe Book: Exceptional Skill Guides. With it in hand via the crafting menu, Ruby will be able to create:
-- Dispel Guide (Dispel removes all Augments, plus a 50% chance each to remove all Synergist buffs)
-- Crystallize Guide (Earth magic which can stun for 2 turns and diminish def & mdf. Damage increases by 33% for up to 10 mastery levels)
-- Arcstorm Guide (End of turn lingering arcane damage skill. Gains +250 damage per mastery level up to 10)
-- Electric Web Guide (Teaches all of Ruby's pets Sparkstrike, Lightningstrike, Bolt Cutter, and Spark. This item was planned to be helpful for the pets released alongside Horseman Hunter Pass, but the DLC may get scrapped. It will still function for the Warchest Imp and the tameable Bat.)
-- Guide to Basic, Moderate, & Advanced Fire, Ice, and Poison. (These will still drop from their relevant Veil Trial bosses)
-- Guide to Basic Ghost (Will still drop from relevant Veil Trial bosses)
-- Exquisite Gem (Can not be bought anywhere and doesn't drop from any enemies)
While most of these guides require elemental essences or Essence of Magick, the Exquisite Gem is the one I want to focus on for a moment. We will end the game development with this being the most powerful socketable gem in the game coming in with +5 to all stats. To synthesize, Ruby must use 3 Essence of Magick, 25 Essence of Life, 10k gold, and 1 Hunter Token. With access to Lvell and Auria no longer restricted in the Orc War aftermath, Hunter Tokens are available from the hunter lodge repeatable quests.
- This Veil Trial goes up to level 50 and awards Challenge Level 50. However, there are more than 50 enemies present in this location.
- Unless I end up with time enough to develop Shadowfrost Citadel before the new year, this Veil Trial will be the most difficult challenge in the game. I was able to knock out the level 120 Horseman without too many problems, but even his stats are dwarfed by Sagittarius due to the Character Sheet 2.0 update a few years ago. As a DLC, the Horseman at levels 50, 75, 100, and 120 were never updated/changed.[/p][p][/p][p]6.9.2.0 \[Build #199, Release Date: November 24, 2025]
New:
- A new trial is available is in the Veil! This final trial rewards the final Veil Trial achievement. It extends to level 50.[/p][p]Updates & Changes:
- Aries Gemstone now has its action times reduced to 25% from 100% and attack times reduced to 2 from 3. This change only affects newly acquired items. The previously held ones will function as originally designed.
- Electrogenic now requires level 50 Stormchaser.
- Sparkwraith now requires level 45 Electrogenic.[/p][p]Notes, Known Issues & Other:
- The Aries Gemstone is one of the first items in the game to be released and be immediately nerfed. From my own 50 hour save file, I can definitively say that having a guaranteed extra action on an Accessory is too strong, especially with pets being able to equip up to 8 accessories. [/p][p][/p][p]Final Notes[/p]
- [p]This update will be launched later today, not alongside this post. By tomorrow morning, it will be live.[/p]
- [p]Once the game increments to 7.0 with the release of the final main story campaign quests, active development mode will conclude leaving us in repair mode.[/p]
- [p]I am actively monitoring for all bugs across the entire game and will continue to fix them as they are brought to my attention. The best way to contact me is via discord. My name there is "Hardytier", same as here. You may also post the bug here on the Steam forum, but I am less likely to see these in a timely manner especially after development is concluded. [/p]
- [p]There won't be any new patch notes over the holiday weekend. You can tell if the game has received a patch by checking the final number from the main screen Info tab. 6.9.2.0 is the base version rolling out today, 6.9.2.1 will be a fix/patch, etc moving up one number on the final digit. [/p]
- [p]The next major version release will be 7.0. It will either contain full data for Horseman Hunter Pass, or whatever content is finished there will become free and public. I won't know until we get into next month to see how much time is left for development. I plan to have a point of no return coded into the Frost Forest area which will be where Ruby gets ported to after the end-game sequence is completed, allowing that 'post-game' file the ability to roam the world in its finalized Orc War state. Completing the end-game sequence will yield the game's final achievement. There are no achievements planned for the paid DLC Horseman Hunter Pass if it does release.[/p]