Cross of Auria News

It's been a long couple of weeks. Good news is, I think we did great! However, every step forward is not without it's potential for stumbles. BE ON THE LOOK OUT for bugs starting with this version of the game. Much of the back end for skills was changed which is going to lead to some problems. I won't go too much into that now since it's covered in the notes below, so let's talk for a minute about what else is going on.

I was looking into doing something fancy for Halloween this year. There's good news and bad news. The good news is: we're going to be doing a separate side-story Halloween event which will be accessible from the Colosseum. The bad news is... I was going to make permanent costume changes available for everyone, but it isn't feasible. Without getting too much into it, adding new permanent costume changes would exponentially increase development time for every instance where the game looks for a specific character to be in the party. After 10 or so hours of developing the costume change code, I finally hit a brick wall where I scrapped the idea entirely. My entire Tuesday morning down the drain. On the other hand, the Halloween event is progressing nicely, and I hope to have it available starting on October 1st, but we'll play the release date by ear. I know I've been working on DLC lately, but this event is free to all players who own the game for the specified duration, which will be announced closer to its release. Just go to the Colosseum and the path will be open! After the event ends, there may be a DLC option to allow access to the event permanently, but this is another play it by ear for now scenario.

Some exciting news - the placement for all character based back-end skills is finalized. This is referring to the 197 new skills which were introduced a few months ago. These skills won't move again, and any item referencing them will be good to go from here on out. Aside from the 2 special moves per element, most of the detail has been filled out. Some -strikes and -bolts are missing their appropriate names, but all the damage formula and elements and animations are in place for now. Some animations or damage formulas may change over time depending on testing.

The Nexus Waterway is still under construction for the Orc War. The enemies were originally set to be level 9-15, but were scaled back to 7- based on my most recent playtest. A player who avoids Hunter Lodges would be expected to reach this location at level 6 or 7.

Speaking of new enemies in new zones, the back end formula for creating new enemies is completely finalized (for level 1-20) and it seems to function well for now. Some tweaking will need to be made at regular intervals (say every 15-20 levels or so) but on the whole appears to integrate nicely with the game's current structure which was 100% curated.

Final Notes before the Patch Notes Zones under construction:
- Nexus Waterway - an underground Revan-wide water system which connects the four kingdoms. This zone sits some ways above the Alpha Ruins.
--- This location is about 1/3rd finished. Major map transformations still need to take place and exits/entrances to the other three major cities need to be addressed.
- Terra Anatis - a home of aggressive humanoid avians and their masked followers.
--- This location is about 3/4 completed, pending side story integration.
- Obscurite, the Dusk Kingdom - A lost city northwest of Auria, now overrun by Orcs under the control of Azroff.
--- This location is about 3/4 completed, pending the completion of Nexus Waterway and progression of the Orc War questline.
- Den An'ura/Encampment - A more civilized area inhabited by An'ura which extends deep into the den. A malevolent power lingers within.
--- This location is about 1/2 completed and is currently a primary focus. This patch adds detail for the zone, but access to these new areas is currently restricted pending the full finalization of the An'ura Reconnaissance quest-line.
- Halloween2020 Event - A side story event filled with goodies. This event will function differently from the main game, in that you start the questline at level 1 and EXP will be awarded to the main party after the event is completed.
--- This location is about 3/4 completed, pending the integration of story events and minor finishing touches to battlegroups and terrain. This location is also currently also considered a primary focus.

My thoughts...
- I know it's taken a long time to move forward. The back end changes introduced here are meant to relieve some of that development time moving forward. Up until now, they were the focus since the last update. Now it's time to add some meat ;)


4.1 [Build #87, Release Date: September 09, 2020] MAC
- This is the version of the game for MAC players for the time being. Please keep in mind that MAC is not fully supported and bugs found on MAC may take longer to address, especially if they require special attention beyond the scope of regular in-game bugs.
- I know Steam shows a warning for certain OS's regarding the game's ability to play, but I was able to play on Catalina. If it turns out the game can't be played on later Mac OS's, Mac support will be terminated permanently.

Notes:
- Warning: The change in skill structure may result in some game files with Ruby having skills she should not. While most of these instances are patched out via the Delivery Boy debugger, a handful of these cannot be addressed due to the depth of their entanglement. Therefore, a new save file is recommended.
- Game data that is already held by the party (such as a reward from the Colosseum – Sterling Wand) will not have its passive effects changed. Only newly acquired versions will see changes. Multiple items in this patch have seen their referenced enabled skills change back end locations and therefore no longer target the correct skill for you unless you acquire a new version of the same item. As much as I would like to go through and debug every instance of this, the game isn’t so long where a new save file isn’t feasible. Therefore, for this additional reason, a new save file is recommended.
- A new save file is recommended for players returning to the game. However, it is not required. The game can still be successfully played using the mismatch of issues brought on by the back-end changes.
- Airslash was accidentally left in as a learnable skill for Ruby at level 1 in 4.0.6.1. It has been removed from her learned skills but will remain as a permanent ability for players who began new save files between then and now. (This falls under a new save file being recommended for any other issues it may cause when Ruby learns Airslash canonically.)
- Due to the change in skill positions, Ruby may know extra skills for players who spoke with the Neko in Lvell. The debug for this would be too comprehensive so it will remain as-is. For best experiences, a new save file is recommended.

Fixes:
- Fixed a repetitive issue with the Lightningstrike introduction at the Delivery Boy.
- Fixed text display for the Bolt Cutter schematic.
- Fixed an issue with Ruby’s Lightningstrike. Visit the Delivery Boy in Auria to reclaim this skill if you had it but have now lost it. New files, or files who have yet to claim Lightningstrike, will not experience this issue.

Changes:
- Enemies who use skills a character can use now use the same version of the skill as the actor. (This primarily affects -bolt and -strike skills).
- Many enemy specific skills have been merged or removed. Enemies who used special skills with similar effects to actor skills now instead use the actor skill.
- Enraged Frostbrood units have been removed from the game. Their corresponding battlegroups have been removed from Den An’ura zones.
- Changed the display text for Colosseum rewards.
- All Colosseum rewards may now be sold for a small amount of gold.
- Sterling Wand now adds the new Poisonbolt, which has a chance to apply the new poisons instead of % based poison.
- An’ura Rift enemies in the Colosseum no longer drop Tier 2 potions and have an overall reduced chance to drop restorative items in the level 8 and 10 versions of the Rift.
- Most skills which apply states now display the chance to apply the 1 turn version instead of the 5 turn version.
- All enemies in the Colosseum An’ura zones display on the field as An’ura Warriors instead of Rats.
- Lightningstrike now follows a new damage formula. Electric skills now have a 40% variance.
- Icons have been changed across the board for elemental skills.
- Field enemies in the Encampment now appear as An’ura instead of Orc placeholders.
- Increased exp yield of An’ura Taskmasters and An’ura Larvae.



This update should be ready for download by or before 5PM Eastern US time today, September 9th 2020.

Happy Wednesday everyone! Just stopping by to let you know that many skills are changing their backend IDs in the next update. Short version of the story is: I'm finally implementing the 197 new skills which have been in development over the last few weeks. Poisonstrike for instance, which existed in three different places, now has one combined effect for both actors and enemies. This is the case with many skills which have also been condensed.
What this means for you - Depending on where you are in the game, you may have access to a skill that is about to change. I have already fixed every armor and weapon granted skill I could find, but some other oddities may remain. For instance, Arcane Shock for Ruby and Alex will be broken for ALL current save files until you speak with the Delivery Boy in Auria starting a few patches from now. It will be left in for the time being to give players a chance to trigger the debug.

What you can expect from the new skills list: Most elements now have 3 tiers of 3 skills plus 3 tiers of 3 magics, plus an additional 2 of each. There are only a handful of differences from element to element in terms of skill number, but most follow this guideline. The way this will work is theoretically, if you have someone who learns Emberstrike, they will eventually be able to upgrade it to Emberstrike II, then Emberstrike III, then Flamestrike, then Flamestrike II, so on and so forth, up to Lavastrike III. Unless a piece of gear enables a skill, actors shouldn't have access to more than one skill or magic of the same element at the same time, save for the four specials.

BUG DETECTED! OOPS
During the most recent patch, I left in Airslash as a level 1 skill for Ruby. I actually haven't decided how I'm going to handle this yet, because if I set the debugger to take it away, I can't ever let her learn it... and well, I don't want to do that. So all I can say is, if you make a save file between now and the next patch (4.1.0), Ruby will have Airslash which is currently not canonically in her regular moveset.

But wait, there's more bugs!
Due to the nature of the current patch being worked on, I can not deploy smaller fixes for anything in the meantime. If a bug comes up between now and deployment, it's going to have to wait and go out side by side.


That's it for now, hope this all made sense, if you have any questions - feel free to ask!

//hardytier

Special thanks to people who report bugs! This build is being released immediately to address a menu access issue after the regular version of the pit (where if you finish the pit, you can not access the menu). However, this issue does not exist for the endless version. If you are on MAC, this update will not be live for a while, so the backdoor fix is once you leave the regular pit, go immediately into the endless version and "give up" ASAP. Giving up triggers the menu access code.

Additionally, much preparation is going into the 170+ new abilities and magic that I created to condense some of the overarching problems with skills. I've talked a bit about these before, but we'll discuss more once they're all live. For the time being, enemies will use their current skills. However, we will be merging down from multiple skills of the same name with different effects to no skills with shared names or effects.

4.0.6 [Build #85, Release Date: August 29, 2020] Fixes:
- Fixed a menu access issue at the end of the regular version of the Pit in Agartha.

Changes:
- The new wave of skills is finished! Enemies using -bolt and -strike skills share these with the actors, and they now function the same for both.
- Skill damage and healing formula variances have changed based on type across the board. The previous base variance for all skills was 20%. The new variances are as follows:
-- Fire: 25% / Ice: 20% / Water: 6% / Electric: 40% / Psychic: 15% / Soul: 15% / Ghost: 15% / Holy: 10% / Dark: 10% / Poison: 33% / Earth: 18% / Wind: 30%.
-- Variance determines the minimum and maximum damage any given attack can do which forms the range. Skills like Sparkstrike change their variance over time by including other variables into the damage calculation.
- All physical elemental skills now use the action sequence to make actors move in front of the target before attacking, except for Wind, Psychic and Ghost which will slash from afar.
- Some water skills now have a chance to apply Soak which reduces enemy evasion slightly, increases resistance to fire by 50% and poison by 30%, but reduces resistance to electric, wind, and arcane by 30%.
- An’ura Spore now applies turn based variable DoT @ 100% for 3 turn, 50% for 4 turn, 25% for 5 turn instead of a 3%/turn 2-5 turn DoT.
- An’ura Cure now applies turn based variable HoT @ 100/75/50/25/13% for 1-5 turn respectively.
- An’ura Cure now costs 15 MP, restores an additional 30 health and has a 33% variance (up from 20%).
- Starting at level 10, An’ura units are immune to poison damage and poisons but gain a weakness to fire.
- Starting at level 10, obvious fire units are immune to fire damage and burns but gain a weakness to water.
- Arcane and Dragon now exist as their own elements and are visible on the element page of the menu.
- The element page of the menu has been reorganized.
- Arcane Shock, Arcane Missile, An’ura Cure, Mend, Cure I, Cure II, Battle Surge, Hive Regeneration, An’ura Resurrection, Point Laser, Laser Sweep, Focus, Arcane Shot, Flash Heal, Arcane Ray, and Healing Wind are now classified as Arcane and benefit from additional resistances or weaknesses to the Arcane element.
-- From now on, new healing skills will also be classified as Arcane unless they have some other elemental benefit (example: Absorb and Cauterize used by mechs in Hell’s Gate will remain fire type only.)
- Poison Spit now has a 30/20/10% chance to apply v-DoT 1/2/3 turn respectively, now costs 10 MP (up from 0), and no longer applies % based DoTs.
- Poison Spew now has a 50/40/30/20/10% chance to apply v-DoT 1/2/3/4/5 turn respectively and no longer applies % based DoTs.

I have an idea. Right now, there's no great way to know what enemies stats are or what they can drop. Of course, there's two potential solutions for this - make a website, or add it in game. Personally, I'm a much bigger fan of necessary in game information appearing directly in the game. Plus, I think we all know I don't have the time to maintain a website. So, I want to develop a way to incorporate this information in game. I had the idea of character sheets, but I'm not sure about the best implementation yet. I'd like to make something of a 'card' background for the sheets to sit on top.
My question to you: Is this something you want to see in the game?
As it is right now:
- There is no way to see potential loot drops in game.
- There will be no way to see conditional loot drops in game.
- There's no way to know the stats of an enemy, the amount of gold it will drop, or the amount of exp it is worth.

Here's my idea in a nutshell.
- We use hidden items. Each unit has a chance to drop an item corresponding to themselves. Chests have a chance to drop items corresponding to multiple enemies in the area.
- Once you have enough of this item, lets say 5 for example, you'll be able to see the enemy card from some interact-able research station or via item/journal in your inventory.

The downside:
- The engine doesn't allow for conditional choices being shown. (Ex: Jack asks if you're ready, Ruby can only say yes or no. The answers "yes" and "no" can't be hidden and dependent on some other factor. They are visible as-is.)

I basically need to come up with a way to hide certain pages in the 'book' before they should be seen. Hiding the info on each individual character sheet isn't a problem, just having it all make sense is a rough situation.

But anyway, that's the idea, let me know what you think, and now onto the patch notes:
----------------------------------------------------

Highlights:
- Tier 2 flasks.
- Flask added effect adjustments.
- Debuff adjustments.
- Background data for conditional drops.

4.0.5 [Build #84, Release Date: August 23, 2020]
New:
- Earth, Wind, Water, Electric, Ghost, Dark and Holy Flasks may now be mixed at crafting stations.
- Tier 2 Flasks may now be mixed from crafting stations throughout Revan.
Changes:
- Severe stat debuffs no longer stack with one another. (Ex: Having a 50% reduction to attack also prevents 20%, 25%, and 33% reductions from being applied until the 50% condition ends). However, a stronger debuff may still replace a weaker one.
- Flasks no longer give TP when used.
- Some tier 1 Flasks now have a 25% chance to apply a stat debuff based on that element’s debuffing capabilities. Tier 2 of the same element have a 33% chance to apply this debuff.
- Poison Flasks now apply variable DoTs with a 100-75-50-25-10% chance to apply 1-2-3-4-5 turn duration respectively.
- Fire Flasks now apply variable DoTs with a 100-75-50-25-10% chance to apply 1-2-3-4-5 turn duration respectively and have a chance to apply a 20% ATK debuff.
- All tiers of Frost Flasks reduce enemy attack speed by 10. Frost Flask 2 has a 25% chance to reduce attack speed by 15 instead.
Notes:
- As of this build, only Frost, Burning, and Poisonous essences are available in game. As other enemy types and dungeons are discovered, the remaining essences will too be discovered. Essences include the following elements: Fire, Ice, Poison, Wind, Earth, Water, Electric, Ghost, Dark, Holy. However, there are other elements programmed into the game, such as Bird-Killer, Stone-Killer, “Combo”, Dragon, and several others. Some of these are unused placeholders but can still be seen in game (like Combo, which has absolutely no use), and the rest will not be available to be mixed into Flasks.
In-Progress (Rolling Out Soon!):
- Background data added for conditional drops beginning with the Oros tribe orcs.
-- Oros Archers have a 6% chance to drop an “Oros Band” ring accessory. Hitting them with any three fire attacks before the battle ends removes the chance for the Oros Band to drop and instead adds a 12% chance to drop a “Charred Oros Band” which has different stats than the original.
-- Many conditional drops have been added to the game. I am working on an idea to convey specific stats and loot rules to the player in game. This is not expected to be completed for some time. (See attached image & top of this thread).


------------------------------------------------
Example of enemy card:

TLDR: I'm working on the Orc War.
- This patch was triggered once I realized Empty Flasks and Blank Tomes couldn't be purchased. Now they can! Had I not come across this, there wouldn't be an update until this weekend.

4.0.4 [Build #83, Release Date: August 19, 2020]
Fixes:
- 1 turn bleed no longer increases application chance of 2, 3, 4 and 5 turn poisons.
Changes:
- All tier 1 flasks now sell for 33 gold.
- Various vendors through Revan now sell Empty Flasks and Blank Tomes.
Weapons & Gear
--Note: Percentages based on new states introduced in 3.2.3.2.
- Blazerblade now has a chance to apply variable burns at 66%, 50%, 33%, 25%, and 5% respectively and no longer has a 7% chance for percent-based damage burn.
- Mech Axe now has 66-50-33-25-5% chance to apply variable bleeds and no longer has a 15% chance for percent-based damage bleed.
- An’rim Blade now has 50-25-10-5-1% chance to apply variable bleeds and no longer has a 33% chance for 2% bleed.
- Scarlet Wand now has a 33% chance to prevent all burns. Previously was 33% chance to prevent percent-based burn only.
- Scarlet Wand now has 66-50-33-25-5% chance to apply variable burns. Previously, this weapon did not apply burns.
- Sterling Sword, Sterling Wand, Sterling Axe, and Sterling Dagger now have 75-50-25-10-5% chance to apply variable poisons and no longer have a 33% chance to apply 3% poison.
- Blazing Hatchet now has 66-50-33-25-5% chance to apply variable burns. Removed 75% chance for %burns.
- Heatweave Tunic now resists all variable burns.
- Green Ring now has a chance to apply 2 turn variable poison instead of percent-based poison. Chance remains 10%.
- Green Ring now resists 3, 4, and 5 turn variable poison.
- Mech Shield now resists all variable and percent-based burns at 25% instead of just a single percent-based burn.