Cross of Auria News

Today, I continue to focus on removing old unused plugin commands. I planned on holding out to do another big patch, but then I discovered that Dixon and Dan's customized vendor situations broke the economy entirely.

At this point, the 3.0.3.3 branch has been disabled but not deleted. In the event of an absolute dire emergency, it will be re-enabled. Until then, this 3.1.1.1 branch will serve as the new retreat point. This was done largely to prevent economy shattering.

Turning our eyes to the real world for a minute, I've been able to do more recently due to the quarantine and shutdown. Ideally, I'll be able to make some more progress before it's all over. Don't forget! If you want to connect with me outside of these little patch notes, my Discord that is mostly used for my slow-moving streaming career is always open @ https://discord.gg/zsF6DD7

3.1.1.1 [Build #56, Release Date: March 20, 2020] Fixes:
- Quest Log references have been removed from all Rabbit’s Foot and Dixon dialogue.
Changes:
- The Recipe for Moderate HP Potions is no longer obtainable. The corresponding Rabbit’s Foot quest now awards a small amount of XP instead. Players who still have this recipe may safely sell it for 250G.
- Changed cost and text for Dixon’s Special Potion.
- Price adjustments to all of Professor Dixon’s stocks.
- Minor dialogue change to Caravan Dan’s scenario.
- Armor types have returned. It is no longer possible for each character to equip items outside their preferred type (Alex = Cloth, Miles = Leather, Ruby = Mail, Riley = Plate). Currently equipped armor mismatches will be returned to the inventory.
- Minor terrain changes to The Rabbit’s Foot.
Other:
- Older versions from the game have been deactivated. It is no longer possible to revert Cross of Auria to a previous version. This release will serve as the checkpoint moving forward (if necessary).



Danger looms on the horizon...

The key focus from this week's update is the internal item restructuring, which will leave some players who log in wondering what happened to the items they had. Rather than wipe out everyone's inventory, I've decided to leave them intact regardless of what items you may now have. This item change will make development easier on me moving forward, but may require a new game file for you if you update to this version before getting to a point where you hold no quest items.
If you log in and decide that you need to roll back rather than restart, please use the following steps:
Warning: Please save on the world map before reverting to a previous version.
Rollback Steps:
(1) – Right click Cross of Auria from the Steam menu.
(2) – Click “Properties”
(3) – Go to the “Betas” tab.
(4) – From the drop down menu, select 3.0.3.3 (which is the most stable recent build).
(5) – Complete any remaining quests which cause you to hold quest items.
(6) – Save on the world map.
(7) – Repeat the above steps, but select “Default” instead to re-download the most current version of the game.

Warning - This is the final time 3.0.3.3 will be used as a rollback checkpoint. At the launch of the next update, you will be unable to revert your file and the following changes will be permanent.
- Items from #149-220 which are currently Timelost Item (former holder of Weak Potion, Essences, etc) will be re-written or removed from the game entirely. If you log in to any Timelost Items, sell them immediately. If you have and "blank" items, using them should destroy them from your inventory.
- Lost quest items will be inaccessible and require a game restart.
- Any remaining debug items in game will be removed.

Patch Summary
- Item list restructured on the back end, resulting in Timelost Items or changed inventory items.
- Some minor fixes.
- Mixing table now available in Lvell and Auria.
- Economy slightly restructured.

In the next update, my quest to remove the previous Quest Log components from CoA continues! Currently, all Rabbit's Foot quests are still affected by Quest Log dialogue and extra script commands, which currently have no function beyond confusing players.

Final note, the "x. Patch Notes" file contained within the game files incorrectly shows this release date as 2019. That's just me forgetting I'm getting older. :D


3.1.1 [Build #55, Release Date: March 17, 2020] Note: Updating to this build may require a new game file if your current position in game meets certain criteria. Please review item [A] under “Changes” for more details. If your file does currently fall under this category, avoid updating to this build until you are clear of the effects of the change, or make a new game file. New:
- A new friend has come to Auria/Entrance – the Delivery Boy! He is tasked with delivering to Ruby any missives that were previously obtainable from the world map or other less than realistic sources. He may be found in the expanded entrance of Auria that comes after the party’s stay at the Inn.
- Some enemy attacks now inflict Silence or Disable, which restrict access to Magic and Skills respectively.
- Mixing tables are now available in Auria and at Ruby’s house! From here, restorative and damaging items may be created.
- All non-mechanical and non-rift enemies have a chance to drop Essence of Life, which may be used to craft health potions.
- All non-rift magic specialist enemies have a chance to drop Essence of Magick, which may be used to craft magick potions.
- Added the new aekashics quarantine pack for potential future use. (Small game size increase)
Fixes:
- O’lan now appears in the expanded version of Market Town if the player is holding the corresponding missive.
- The Mystery Shop will no longer grant the player the first-time bonus twice.
- The Mixing Table at Rayman’s House now reacts to the player properly as long as Frost Essences are held.
Changes:
- [A] The internal list of items has been slightly restructured. Items removed from the game have been replaced with Timelost Item, which may be sold for gold. It is strongly recommended to sell these before the next update, as they will be removed from the game entirely which will leave empty item spaces and non-functioning items in your inventory. [Note: Some items have changed positions entirely - It is strongly recommended at this point to make a new game file OR be completely sure you are not holding any critical quest progression key items such as the Ewynn sidequest book. If you are not holding any critical items for quest progression, you will still be able to continue without restarting.]
- The way items drop from enemies has been restructured and reduced.
- The internal list of items has been restructured and reduced. Percent based regeneration items have been removed entirely.
- Some enemies now have a 1% chance to drop Mysterious Coins.
- Bosses now have a 3% chance to drop Mysterious Coins.
- Mechanical enemies no longer drop restorative items.
- Rift enemies outside the Coliseum no longer drop restorative items.
- Enemies in Frost Forest no longer drop restorative items.
- Soul Drain now reduces the target’s Soul resistance by 30%.
- Most non-humanoid enemies no longer drop gold. Some exceptions remain.
- Gold drops from most humanoid enemies have been increased.
- The price to buy and sell for restorative items has been adjusted.
- Vendor stock in Market Town has been adjusted.
- Minor terrain changes to Ruby’s House.
- Slightly reduced encounter rate in Den An’ura.
- Tokens now sell for 50 gold.

In the June 2, 2019 progress update, I announced that I would be working on version 3.0 of the game and that it would be the final update. Here we are working up to a year later and I still haven't put it down. There's a few reasons for this. First and foremost, the story I wanted to tell, even the greatly abridged chapter 1 only version isn't yet complete (thank all of you for sticking with this super early access situation). Secondly, I wasn't quite sure yet how I wanted to proceed. I have so many notebooks full of ideas and files on my computer outlining Cross of Auria's episodic release along with Honor At Sea (which focuses on some of the other heroes in Revan just before the scourge). But I kept thinking to myself - is this the way I want to move forward?

Well, the short answer is... no. As much as I would love to turn what we have here into some epic 1000 hour monster of a game, the technological limitations are too great. Plugins keep breaking and I keep having to reinvent the wheel when it comes to various systems because of their integration with now outdated or completely broken parts of the engine and plugin system. For a quick example, at some point last year we began running into an issue where the Quest Log text would completely disappear after the first save of the game. I have no idea when this began specifically and it wasn't caught until months later because it only affected the client side of the game and I do most tests on the engine side. Then we had a seemingly unimportant issue come up - the turn order display which shows you based on the attacks you've chosen who will go first.... well, that one just stopped showing altogether for reasons unknown and even reverting both the game and the engine to the working version didn't seem to correct the issue. It might have seemed small and meaningless, but it completely ruined my ability to focus on magic and abilities having individual speed values the way I wanted them to (think Quick Attack, Sucker Punch, etc from Pokemon) which would've made combat much more exciting. If you happened to be playing the game at that time, you may have noticed a difficulty spike in both the Flame Titan and the Frostbrood Titan. These were unintended consequences of the turn order display break. The difference between knowing when Flame Cutter is coming next turn or not is massive, don't you think? As such, both fights had to basically be crippled to be complete-able given the limited information that was now shown to the players.

All unintended nonsense in the past, let's have a look at today. I'm basically at one of the same crossroads I was at when I initially wanted to move away from further development of CoA. The limitations of the engine put me in something of a rough spot - I can either continue to develop for something only a handful of people will ever see, or start to put in motion something on a more modern engine that might be able to gain traction even though the release time would be significantly longer. I'm looking at the latter as the way to go, but there's still some things in CoA that need to be wrapped up before I can look at it and say "ok, this is done." Let's talk a little bit about those things.
#1 - Complete the chapter 1 story. (Not to be confused with the episode 1 story, which is what is currently available).
#2 - Completely restructure the Items, Weapons, Armor, Skills so they fall in a more intuitive order when viewed in game. Specifically, I hate how the second wave of potions ended up so far down the list away from the first wave. You'd normally expect your pots to all be in one place, right? That's what I'd like to give for anyone tuning into the game later and for those of you still on it.
#3 - Add more variety to the combat. This isn't as much of a difficult issue, as some of these changes will go live in the next update. Specifically, more types of attacks are being added to the existing enemies with a focus on Silence (prevents Magic) and Disable (prevents Abilities) - both of which will act as interrupts of they hit a character before the magic or ability is used. Also, and probably most importantly, moving of the Mend removal fight to before the Flame Titan as opposed to in Agartha. The reason for this is pretty much that it's too easy to just have Alex spam mend the entire time and get away without item usage in combat, or even strategic heal usage.
#4 - Release the prototype Battle Tower event in Agartha. If you've been on the game at the beginning and then again now, you may have noticed the bridge heading east in Agartha. This is where the Battle Tower will be, which was originally thought up as a standalone game. In it's CoA iteration, the idea will be to fight waves of bosses and handicaps to make it to the top of the tower and claim the prize. The Battle Tower standalone idea is significantly different from this straight up Ruby's party smash, but features the same enemy types.
#5 - Finish the Quest Log removal and new Quest Missive integration. This will absolutely happen before development on CoA-E1 is concluded, even if nothing else on the list makes the cut.

Okay, so... that's my version of where we're at in the near future for CoA-E1. But what about Cross of Auria as a story or franchise or whatever it's going to be? The shortest version of what I'm thinking that I can say is - I'd love to see CoA come to live as an action RPG. Think Kingdom Hearts with significantly less cutscenes. I know enough about Unity and C# (having gotten a degree in using it and all) to build a prototype on my own and then crowdsource to build a complete product, but this will be an absolutely monumental undertaking for me and may take several years to release if it ever does come to fruition. This version of CoA ideally would not release episodically, but would release as a whole for Ruby's story. Jack, Katya, and Kara's stories would all then also be able to come to life in similar fashion.

It's going to be a long road ahead, but this is definitely something I want to start doing, and there's no better time than right now. I sincerely want to thank all of you who have picked up Cross of Auria - Episode 1 and given it a try. I have so many more ideas that never made it into the game, but that's what happens when you're a one man team. I only have so many hands!


Alright, I know that was all super wordy, but I wanted to at least put it out there. The short version takeaway from this for all of you should be this:
- The next update will feature Silence and Disable as extra enemy statuses to be used against the players.
- The next several updates will continue the removal of the Quest Log dialogue ("questName has been added to the Quest Log!" and such) and replacement with the key item Missives.

In the event I continue on CoA-E1 after that, the following are high on the docket:
- The restructuring of the Items, Weapons, Armor, and Skills, which would result in a complete item wipe-out for current players including all held and equipped gear.
- Severely reducing the amount of item drops per battle. Currently, it's way too easy to get gold and stay alive. I need to light a fire under your butts!

On that note, I'm off to work on adding Silence and Disable. Get ready for it out there in Revan, and all of you have a splendid rest of your week.

//hardytier

This is a continuation of 3.1 with further terrain adjustments and the removal of the old Quest Log system. This process is still in progress and expected to take several more updates to complete. This update also fixes the Soul equipment type crash by removing it from the game. This equipment was meant to house elemental resistances, but I came up with a different and better way of handling it, so the Soul item is no longer needed. At this point, there were no equip-able Soul type items in the game, so only the equipment name was removed. Elemental resistance auras can be expected when the story continues which is after this wave of updates to what is currently in game.

On another note... I'm always looking for people to make any kind of content for CoA or try to "break" it so I can see what kinds of bugs still lurk. I'm a one man team of developer, so finding everything takes a great deal of time on my own. If you see something broken, please report it ASAP either here on Steam in the discussions, or preferably on facebook @ www.facebook.com/CrossOfAuria either by posting on the CoA wall or via DM.
If you're a content creator, go ahead and drop your links to CoA videos on my fb DM!

3.1.0.1 [Build #54, Release Date: February 29, 2020] Warning: Please save on the world map before updating to this build. Terrain changes are taking place across Revan. If you download this update and end up stuck, please rollback to 3.0.3.3 using the following steps:
Rollback Steps:
(1) – Right click Cross of Auria from the Steam menu.
(2) – Click “Properties”
(3) – Go to the “Betas” tab.
(4) – From the drop down menu, select 3.0.3.3.
(5) – Save on the world map.
(6) – Repeat the above steps, but select “Default” instead to redownload the most current version of the game.
New:
- A new quest tracking system has been implemented with the intent on making it easier for returning players to pick up where they left off. Once Ruby learns about a quest objective, an item appears in the Key Items section. This item gives a brief description or quote relative to the quest and will disappear once the quest is complete. [Previously, only the Quest Missive for Scarlet Treasure was in game –this will be the universal standard throughout CoA once it is completed.]
--- The new quest missive system is not yet complete and can only be accessed at the beginning of a questline. Players who have begun a quest but have not picked up the item will not be able to obtain the item at all. This will not hinder progress in continuing the quest, so feel free to continue as usual!
Fixes:
- Fixed a crash relating to the Soul equipment type by removing it from the game, as it was not yet functional.
- Fixed a continuity error with the Stable Toxic Core by preventing the player from leaving the Heart area if they have not created the item.
- Fixed a dialogue issue when trying to leave the Auria area before the party is ready.
- Dialogue fix to the outpost NPC in Auria.
Changes:
- Old Junk for Professor Dixon will be dropped upon exiting the area toward the treasure room.
- Adjusted the attack animation of Sparkstrike and Lightningstrike.
- Terrain changes to all Veil zones not changed in 3.1.

If you downloaded last night's 3.1.0.0, please restart Steam to download 3.1.0.0.1 which replaces the game exe (and fixes the crash introduced in 3.1.0.0).

Apologies for that! Short version - I tried to replace the exe that was used for Steam Achievements and was alerted just a few moments ago that was a mistake. That change has been reverted, so we'll still see the extra pop-up text box from time to time, but at least the game will launch. I'll look into a more permanent solution for that pop-up box in the future.