Bugfixes:

• Fixed a bug that caused your current leaderboard rank to not be displayed on the game over screen

[ 2025-04-17 11:14:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugfixes:

• Fixed a bug that caused tooltips on the skill gems panel get displayed after a skill gem or a skilltree shard was used.

[ 2025-04-02 13:51:55 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Features:

• Dynamic Rift Trial Spawn System: A new rift trial spawn system has been implemented that dynamically increases the chances of not yet completed rift trials on new characters to allow to enter rifts much faster on new runs.
• Controller Tooltips System Rework: Controller tooltips system has been reworked to display tooltips on controller for the crafting shards, skill gems, and the skillree shards in the skill gems menu. Previously you had to move the mouse over the buttons in order to trigger the tooltips, this new system should make using the controller even more straight forward, especially for new players which do rely on tooltips and displayed information.

Balancing:

• Hammerstorm - Goladir Specialisation: Now as well grants additionally +50% increased endurance regeneration and +20% attack speed

Bugfixes:

• Fixed echoes of fate minimap icons of not spawned world events
• Fixed wrong tutorial image being displayed on expedition world event tutorial window
• Fixed blazebolt movement bug when switching to skilltree and back

[ 2025-03-16 15:48:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

With update 0.9.12.3 we are extending our youtube and twitch integration.

New Features

• Youtube & Twitch Integration: You can now select both twitch and youtube and enter customised links for each of your channels. Furthermore your player name is now not tied to your youtube and twitch channel links.
  You can update your twitch/ youtube links for the current season by pressing the "change public player name" button from the league/save file selector.
  

Bugfixes

• Fixes and improvements to the leaderboard system. Also fixing some leaderboard entries not being displayed properly
• Fixed HC/ SC switch on leaderboards not working

[ 2025-03-07 12:32:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

Changes and Improvements

• Max health skill nodes now increase your current health by 1. This makes picking max health skill nodes a valid choice to heal in low life situations.

Bugfixes

• Fixes a bug that caused attack direction with controller thumbstick to not be updated correctly (v.0.9.12.2c2)
• Fixed wolf companion not having running animation (v.0.9.12.2c3)

[ 2025-03-06 14:37:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Features

360 Movement Support

The input system for controllers has received support for 360 character movement. This will make character movement feel even more responsive. Also the deadzone for character movement on controller has been reduced which also should lead improved responsiveness.

Rift Rework

We finally found the issue why enemy HP in rifts did not scale as intended, leading to way to easy enemy encounters no matter what rift level you are running. With this update enemies will be scaling as intended. As this patch features some major changes to rifts the rift leaderboard will be reset. Rift Changes and Improvements

• Rift enemies now scale as intended
• Rift bosses now have much lower shield charges
• The maximum rift time has been increased to 10 minutes
• The amount of enemy per rift floor has been increased and is now scaling with the current rift level. This will move the focus from running to find enemies to actual fighting enemies :)
• The scaling of the required amount of defeated enemies has been reduced so that you now have to defeat less enemies for a rift.
• Added a notification message when the rift collapsed due to running out of time.

Major Changes and Improvements

• Improve auto effect transparency scaling: The maximum transparency setting has been lowered slightly to maintain a bit more visibility of player effects on high character levels.

Bugfixes

• Fixed wrong initialised remaining time UI in rifts
• Fixed camera zoom on controller by using the RT/LT buttons not working in the skilltree
• Fixed effect screen position of glare in the select skillgem UI
• Fixed glitches in enemy movement for idle transition
• Fixed allignment of rift timer progress bars
• Fixed snail boss AoE effect spawn angles
• Fixed cyclic might interrupting on controller thumbstick attacks
• Fixed cyclic might following the wrong player character in coop mode
• Fixed not updating attack direction when using thumbstick on controller (v.0.9.12.2b)

[ 2025-03-05 07:57:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

Balancing:

• Rebalanced attacks of earth rift boss/trial difficulty to match other guardian difficulty

Bugfixes:

• Lowered sfx volume on event starts
• Fixed icons for not available echo weapons on minimap
• Fixed late collider deactivation on mad king running attack.

[ 2025-03-01 00:15:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

To celebrate the melee reforged content update we are hosting a 48h Softcore Race Event this weekend. Check out our announcement Post here: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1646790/view/543350606723548618 Bugfixes:

• Fixed a bug that caused the hover state on skills to get stuck that resulted in wrong skill connections when using shard of conjunction.
• Fixed a bug that allowed you to enter a new map from the pathfinder before the old map was completed.
• Fixed flickering tooltips on delve depth, remaining enemy counter and hardcore/softcore information UI.

[ 2025-02-28 17:00:07 CET ] [ Original post ]

3. PRE-RELEASE RACE EVENT

We are hosting our 3. 48h Pre-Release Race Event which will take place at the 28.2. - 02.3.2025 starting and ending at 7pm CET.

Unique Twist

• Softcore race.
• Utilise new melee skills and new weapons from the latest Melee Reforged Content Update!
• You can fully play the whole race event with the Striving for Light Demo.

Participate with FREE Demo Version

For this race you can fully participate with the free Striving for Light Demo. This is the perfect possibility to invite all your friends & content creators to join the event and experience Striving for Light.

Price Pool

• 1. Place: Design Weapon/Skill/Trinket together with the devs which will be implemented into the game.
• 2.- 5. Place: Striving for Light: Steam Key

How to participate

• Join the Igniting Spark Games discord & introduce yourself in #pre-release-race-3
• Please stick to fairplay, no cheating, no offensive player names, violation will result in disqualification of this and future events

How to win

• Complete seasonal challenges to earn challenge points, the player with the most challenge points wins!

Special Features:

• Softcore race!
• Utilise new melee skills and new weapons from the latest Melee Reforged Content Update!
• You can fully play the whole race event with the Striving for Light Demo.

This race celebrates update 0.9.12 which has featured a substantial rework to melee combat. Feel invited to Join the Igniting Spark Games discord !

[ 2025-02-28 16:02:13 CET ] [ Original post ]

The melee reforged content update (version 0.9.12) markes another big and important step towards the upcoming 1.0 release of Striving for Light as this update brings major improvements to melee combat along some exciting new content.

New Features

New Cyclic Might Skill Redesign

Instead of attacking you turn into a whirlwind of blade. Dealing melee damage to an area around you. Increased attack speed increases damage tick rate. Damage area triggers on hit effects like your normal melee attacks. The cyclic might melee attack replacer skill has been completely reworked. Cyclic might now creates a whirlwind area around you that frequently triggers all melee on attack and on hit effects. Attackspeed allows to increase the damage and ability tick rate. AoE size allows scaling the whirlwind effect size.

Colossal Strike - Charged Melee Attack Replacer

You can charge your melee attacks up to 3 seconds to unleash big AoE strike that triggers all your melee on attack and on hit effects. Charge duration increases melee damage up to 5 times and shatters additional boss shields for each charge. Colossal strike is the very first charge based melee attack replacer skill that allows to dynamically decide on low charge time and quick attacks or longer charge times with huge AoE reach and massive damage. Colossal strike also allows to shatter additional boss shields based on your attack charges.

New Melee Weapon - Sanguine Blade

Each melee attack has a chance to create a sanguine circle. Defeating an enemy inside the circle will leech one life.

New Range Weapon - Sanguine Scepter

Projectiles apply 1 bleeding condition on enemy hit when you are below 70% life, 2 bleeding conditions below 50% life, and 3 bleeding conditions below 20% life.

New Legendary Weapon Abilities

• Cyclone Hammer Legendary Weapon Ability: Chance to create a cyclone hammer that triggers melee on hit and on attack effects.
• Sanguine Leech Legendary Melee Weapon Ability: Chance to create a sanguine circle that leeches 1 life if defeating an enemy within the circle.

Rebalanced Rifts

Rifts have been rebalanced. Elite enemies and bosses in rifts now do not gain elite map modifier abilities. The enemy HP scaling in rifts have been increased to make rifts challenging earlier. The rift time limit has been decreased to 8 minutes as no one seemed to ever get close to the previous 10 minute mark. Successfuly defeating a rift boss will now grant a random rift key that will speed up collecting keys for the next rift run. A bit more enemies now have to be defeated to complete a rift. Since these are bigger balancing changes the rift leaderboard got resetted.

Major Changes and Improvements:

• Added trails to hammerstorm and cyclone hammer skills.
  
• Constructs are now as well affected by player effect transparency setting
• New skilltree respec algorithm that allows respecing the most complex tree shapes and edge cases
• Performance improvements for condition damage.
• Added additional hints to endurance and energy skill nodes to communicate that each resource is mainly for melee/ range attacks.

Balancing

• Noctelle attack patterns rebalanced for melee combat
• Enemy attack patterns rebalancing for improving melee combat
• All condition types now have faster tick rates: burning 0.7s (was 1s), bleeding 1.2s (was 2s), poison 1.5s (was 3s). The condition damage decay is remaining on 50% per condition tick as calculation inconsitencies have been fixed, that have lead to higher condition damage calculation that intended.
• Hammerstorm - Goladir Specialisation Skill: Hammers now circle around you for 2 rotations and 6s in total (was 3s before, as there was a bug with the recent patch)
• Cyclone Hammers - Amberforge Weapon Ability: Hammers now circle around you for 2 rotations and 6s in total (was 3s before, as there was a bug with the recent patch)
• Darokin weapon size has been increased to grant Darokin bigger melee range to allign Darokin with other player characters.

Bugfixes

• Fixed ascended weapon effects not being displayed in the build viewer on the leaderboards.
• Fixed unlockable base skills that are already unlocked.
• Fixed condition damage calculation inconsistencies that lead to higher condition damage than intended.
• Fixed wrong condition damage tooltips.
• Fixed missing weapon unlock achievement images.
• Fixed skills not being able to be refunded on very complex tree shapes and edge cases.

Thank you, everyone, for your immense support. Without you, the game would not be what it is today. If you have not yet shared your feedback, please consider throwing your feedback at us. This is immensly helpful in preparing Striving for Light for the upcoming 1.0 release. We truly appreciate each and every one of you!

[ 2025-02-25 16:22:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

Major Changes and Improvements:

• Revert shot rotation speed has been increased to improve revert shot usability on high projectile speeds (v.0.9.11.1d)
• Your resources are now fully recovered when entering a new map, preventing you from waiting until your resources have been recovered (v.0.9.11.1d)
• Skill gems UI now blocks skilltree camera zoom to enable properly browsing through the skill gem list. (v.0.9.11.1d)

Balancing

• Hammerstorm Goladir Specialisation skill now has increased AoE and a improved hitbox size and increased duration to 9s (was 3s) (v.0.9.11.1d)
• Forest Snake now has increased cooldown between bullet attacks (v.0.9.11.1d)
• Improved attack pattern of centipede enemies (v.0.9.11.1d)

Bugfixes

• Fixed weird movement of centipede boss after update 0.9.11.1 :D
• Fixed enemy AoE effect still dealing damage after enemy got frozen and attacks interrupted
• Fixed sklltree camera zoom when skill gem window is active (v.0.9.11.1d)

[ 2025-02-16 12:25:19 CET ] [ Original post ]

Major Improvements and Changes

• Improved companion AI to improve aiming for worm like enemies and bosses (centipede and sandworms)
• Updated Pathfinder tutorial with new images that represent the current visual state of the pathfinder UI
• Initial camera position and zoom has been adjusted to give better overview of the pathfinder system on first load

Balancing

• Crab enemies now have slower attack patterns to prevent instant charge after spawn

Bugfixes

• Fixed wrong teleport destination after completing the rift for some conditions
• Fixed too much bosses spawning at the Echoes Of Fate world event
• Fixed not updating fragments of light UI after spending light at the echoes of fate UI

[ 2025-02-16 01:31:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

Major Changes and Improvements

• Adjustments to auto transparency scaling
• Legendary and ascended weapon effects are now displayed in character selection screen (v.0.9.11.0c3)
• Moving the player effect transparency slider will automatically deactivate the auto effect adjustment (v.0.9.11.0d)
• You can now close stats and crafting window by pressing the esc button on keys and controller (v.0.9.11.0k)

Balancing

• Slightly increased awakened gatekeeper spawn chance scaling
• Slightly increased spawn chance of Echoes Of Fate world event
• Dodge regeneration skill nodes now grant +10 % dodge reg (was +40 before). (v.0.9.11.0g)
• Slightly reduced grace time after dodge trigger, as with the new added dodge cancelation possibilities would allow for permanent invincibility (v.0.9.11.0g)
• Heleja blink specialisation now has +1 dodge cost and as compensation grants +1 max dodge (v.0.9.11.0i)
• Gloomtide has reduced resource cost 6 endurnce (was 10) and 6 energy (was 10) (v.0.9.11.0g)
• Reduced movement speed of epic map mod enemy effect (0.9.11.0h)
• Reduced boss spawn rate (v.0.9.11.0k)

Bugfixes

• Fixed crashes for World Event that spawn specific enemies and bosses
• Fixed not able to attack after closing crafting window from in game
• Fixed wrong updated map info
• Fixed echo weapons showing icons on minimap
• Fixed multiple generated maps after unlocking the pathfinder for the first time
• Fixed long idle time for companions after respawn
• Fixed a bug that caused shapeshift trinket attacks to consume more resources as indicated
• Fixed lost focus for controller on eacho weapon crafting
• Fixed auto effect transparency setting not being correctly saved and applied (v.0.9.11.0c2)
• Fixed legendary and ascened weapon effects not being displayed directly after loading save file (v.0.9.11.0c3)
• Fix of a performance regression in latest hotfix for companions (v.0.9.11.0d)
• Fixed normal map bosses take over a shield from last boss fight (v.0.9.11.0d)
• Fixed a but that caused Echoes of Fate to be removed from maps (v.0.9.11.0f)
• Fixed shooting traps not shooting consistant (v.0.9.11.0h)
• Fixed a bug that caused emerald staff not having weapon resource cost applied (v.0.9.11.0j)
• Fixed condition damage not being updated directly after changing your skills (v.0.9.11.0l)
• Fixed map reset after completing a rift (v.0.9.11.0l)

[ 2025-02-14 20:58:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

The Echoes Of Fate Content Update (v.0.9.11) is now available. This update not only introduces a new endgame skill fate system, that allows altering skill spawn chances, but also brings a rework to the resource system as well as an huge array of improvements to further prepare the game for the upcoming 1.0 release. With this content update we are kicking of Season 18 and also the start of the 2nd Pre-Release Race Event. Everyone can participate! https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1646790/view/546727135334629503?l=english

New Features

Echoes Of Fate

A new endgame system has been implemented that allows you to turn skill gems into fate skills. Fate skills will increase the spawn chance of that specific skill + 20%. To unlock the Echoes of Fate system you will have to complete the world event encountered on maps of tier 3 or higher. Once you have successfully completed the world event the Echoes Of Fate system will also be accessible at Heleja in Ankerath.
In order to convert skill gems into fate skills you will need fate skill slots. Those skill slots can be aquired by offering a certain amount of echo fragments or light fragments. The cost will raise the more fate skill slots you have, but there are no limits on how much fate skill slots you can have on maximum. You can also create multiple of the same fate skills pushing spawn chances of the skill even furhter. You can at any time swap out your fate skills at no cost by visiting Heleja.
When to upgrade your fate skill slots becomes a strategic choice as you will encounter further Echoes Of Fate World Events. Those Events will grant you a random discount to the upgrade price, depending on the map tier the world event is completed on. Get ready for some though fights and steep discounts. This system is designed to bring a further long term progression system to the game and give you even more tools to craft your builds and mitigate the side effects of the growing skill pool.

Resource System Rework

The resource system has received a major rework. The new resource system only allows you to activate skills that do not exceed your max energy and max endurance resources. This system will not only make the resource system easier to understand for new players but also fix the balancing issues by abusing the dual resource system.

Further New Features

• New Awakened Gatekeeper Chests have been added with increased rewards for defeating an Awakened Gatekeeper
• Automatic Player Effect Transparecy Adjustment: A new setting has been added to the options menu that automatically adjusts effect transparency based on your player level. This should help keep visual clarity especially for new players that do not manually adjust the player effect transparency in the options. This can always be turned off and manually adjusted as before.
• New Seasonal Challenges

  Major Changes and Improvements

  
  
  • Tree of Light Controller Improvements: Tree of Light has received new quick access buttons for improved controller support
  • Added smooth zooming/panning to the skilltree and pathfinder camera

  Balancing

  
  
  • Reduced Epic Map Mod Enemy Effects: The effect amount enemy effects have been drastically reduced to reduce screen clutter.

  Bugfixes:

  
  
  • Fixed bouncing projectiles not correctly bouncing off map walls
  • Fixed traps resuming shooting animation immediately after moving close to traps again
  • Fixed exit localisation message on UI
  • Fixed wrong enemy on map counter UI
  • Fixed wrong controller hints in the skilltree bottom UI bar
  • Fixed pause menu opening on closing other UI with esc button
  • Fixed a bug that caused you to be unable to escape world events, if a boss enemy was part of the event
  • Fixed arda light bolt AoE effect causing a hit after effect went invisible
  • Only unlock event achievements on successful completing the world event
  Thank you, everyone, for your immense support. Without you, the game would not be what it is today. Like recently announced we are doing a price adjustment for the 1.0 release which will become active on the 18.2.25. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1646790/view/706602564760633468?l=english If you enjoy the game, leaving a Steam review is an incredible way to show your support and help us reach more players. We truly appreciate each and every one of you!
  
  [ 2025-02-14 17:28:55 CET ] [ Original post ]

2nd PRE-RELEASE RACE EVENT

We are hosting our 2nd 48h Pre-Release Race Event which will take place at the 14.2. - 16.2.2025 starting and ending at 7pm CET.

Unique Twist

• Softcore race.
• Utilize the new reworked resource system new content of the update v0.9.11!
• New Challenges
• You can fully play the whole race event with the Striving for Light Demo.

Participate with FREE Demo Version

For this race you can fully participate with the free Striving for Light Demo. This is the perfect possibility to invite all your friends & content creators to join the event and experience Striving for Light.

Price Pool

• 1. Place: Design Weapon/Skill/Trinket together with the devs which will be implemented into the game.
• 2.- 10. Place: Striving for Light: Steam Key

How to participate

• Join the Igniting Spark Games discord & introduce yourself in #rift-race
• Please stick to fairplay, no cheating, no offensive player names, violation will result in disqualification of this and future events

How to win

• Complete seasonal challenges to earn challenge points, the player with the most challenge points wins!

Special Features:

• Softcore race!
• Utilize the new reworked resource system new content of the update v0.9.11!
• New Challenges
• You can fully play the whole race event with the Striving for Light Demo.

This race celebrates update 0.9.11 which will come with substantial reworks to the resource system. Update 0.9.11 will go live a few hours before the race start. Feel invited to Join the Igniting Spark Games discord !

[ 2025-02-13 17:19:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugfixes

• Fixed hardcore characters on offline save file beeing stored on the softcore characters slot.

[ 2025-02-12 07:15:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

Major Improvements

• Loading times have been reduced tremendously to make switching to skilltree/ pathfinder less time consuming and get you back to the action as fast as possible. This also makes navigating menus more snappy and responsive.

[ 2025-02-11 16:39:12 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements

• Old save files and the offline save file that have been created before the Softcore/Hardcore game mode separation are now properly converted to a softcore save file.

Bugfixes

• Fixed a bug that caused old hardcore save files to appear under the softcore game mode section.

[ 2025-02-11 08:00:45 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Features

• New Camera Zoom System: A new fluid camera zoom system has been implemented that allows a much finer zoom adjustment.
• Improved Controller Skillgem System: The focus and hover system when activating and placing skill shards onto skill nodes with controller input has been reworked and improved. This prevents accidental skill node activation when trying to apply shard of change and also fixes lost focus after a skill shard has been applied. This previously required frequent focusing of the skill node again.

Major Improvements and Changes:

• Removed mouse warp to the top left screen position on various world events when playing with controller input. Instead of mouse cursor based tooltips these UI elements now use tooltips based on their screen position, allowing the mouse pointer to say unchanged.

Bugfixes

• Fixed triggering zoom when navigating dialogs on controller input.
• Fixed a bug that allowed respecing of close to center skill nodes that should not be respecable.

[ 2025-02-10 12:41:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements

• Mouse Cursor is now directly becoming when entering the skilltree and pathfinder. Previously any action was required to make the cursor visible again, which seemed like the cursor got lost somewhere. (v0.9.10a).

Bugfixes

• Fixed a bug that caused you to stay trapped in the descent defense world event when dying in softcore. Now the descent defense properly is set to fail state allowing you to restart the tower defense event on your next map as expected (v.0.9.10b).
• Fixed too low layer of epic map modifier for the molten ground effect (v0.9.10a).

[ 2025-02-09 18:25:51 CET ] [ Original post ]

Thank you all for your valuable feedback and for sharing your experiences with Striving for Light! Update 0.9.10 brings a massive wave of new features, major improvements, and balancing changesparticularly for melee combat and the rogue character. We're also redesigning the Pathfinder UI, adding dodge cancelation and dodge from a standstill for a more intuitive experience and reworking co-op mode to allow greater freedom of movement. These changes are rolling out early to ensure thorough testing and further refinement before the 1.0 release, so we encourage everyone to try them out and share their thoughts! We still have plenty of rough edges to polish for the 1.0 release and further improvements and redesigns planed (like condition damage rework), so fear not, if you do not find your feedback addressed in this patch.

New Features

• New Co-op Player Camera System: The existing co-op camera system has been completely reworked to make co-op feel more organic and give both players much more freedom of movement. The new camera system now features a fluid zoom-out when you move further apart from your co-op partner.
• New Pathfinder UI: The Pathfinder user interface has been completely reworked, as the Pathfinder system was quite confusing to understand and had plenty of downsides, especially when playing with a controller.
  The new Pathfinder system not only allows map crafting with permanently visible map stats, but it also introduces unique icons for each negative map stat and a new condensed view that grants you a sleek overview of map stats without cluttering the screen. You can seamlessly toggle between the detailed and condensed view. A new feature coming with the reworked Pathfinder UI is grouped map mods, allowing you to see which map mods have been applied multiple times. These map mods can now also be inspected using the controller, which was not possible before.
  
• Apprentice NPCs: Heleja, Darokin, and Goladir have found new apprentices! When playing character classes that are town NPCs, you will now find apprentice NPCs in town that take over their roles. This means you can still unlock weapons when playing Goladir, unlock skills when playing Heleja, and gamble when playing Darokin. This was a necessary change, as character unlocks are now possible even when not everything has been unlocked yet.
• Dodge Cancellation: A new dodge cancellation system has been implemented that lets you cancel the dodge animation on dodge button release. The dodge distance will now be equivalent to the duration the dodge button is pressed. Holding the dodge button for the full dodge duration will result in the maximum dodge time and the maximum dodge distance. This will also allow completely new uses of on-dodge skills. What about some bunny-hop leap slam?
  This is what a canceled dodge looks like if you immediately release the dodge button:
  And this is the full dodge range in comparison if you keep the dodge button pressed:
  
• Dodge without Movement: Pressing dodge will now trigger dodging in the last performed movement direction. This will lead to a much more consistent dodge experience, as it fixes the issue where a dodge might not register if a movement direction was not pressed at the exact same moment.
• Awakened Gatekeeper Rework: The Awakened Gatekeeper spawn chance has been reworked. The Awakened Gatekeeper will now only start to spawn on map Tier 4 and above (previously Tier 2). The awakened spawn chance on a map has been reduced to scale up to a maximum of 80% (was 100%) on a Tier 15 map. The maximum awakened gatekeeper spawn chance will now only be reached on map Tier 15 (previously Tier 10). This rework should keep the endgame more dynamic, as not all high-tier maps will contain an awakened gatekeeper.

Major Changes and Improvements:

• Increased base movement speed of all player characters.
• The maximum zoom level has been increased so that you can zoom out even further.
• Added a co-op icon on the co-op stone in town to indicate where you can start the co-op game mode.
• New Pathfinder tutorial.
• Boss projectiles now get destroyed when you are defeated. This will further prevent boss ability stacking in pinnacle boss fights.
• Projectile modifiers that extend projectile range now also increase the max distance for triggering projectile on-hit effects.

Balancing:

• Reduced boss shield duration scaling in rifts to result in overall shorter shield durations.
• The Rogue now has increased base damage stats with only -30% melee and ranged damage (previously -50%).
• Increased melee damage skill nodes now increase melee damage by +80% (previously +70%).

Bug Fixes:

• Fixed a bug that caused Trembling Ground to be triggered twice.
• Fixed a bug that caused Trembling Ground to deal 10 more damage than your current melee damage.
• Fixed a parallax background effect pop-in on the Pathfinder for ultrawide screens.
• Fixed rift boss shields so they are no longer applied to the first boss encounter in your maps.
• Fixed a potential crash on game startup when failing to receive server time.
• Fixed translations for exit button labels.

Thank you, everyone, for your immense support. Without you, the game would not be what it is today. Like recently announced we are doing a price adjustment for the 1.0 release which will become active on the 18.2.25. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1646790/view/706602564760633468?l=english If you enjoy the game, leaving a Steam review is an incredible way to show your support and help us reach more players. We truly appreciate each and every one of you!

[ 2025-02-09 13:56:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

Share your feedback!

As we rapidly approach the 1.0 release of Striving for Light, we're launching an in-depth feedback round to gather as much input as possible on the current state of the game. Your feedback will help us set the right priorities for the 1.0 content update. You can access the feedback form via the new Feedback button in the main menu of the game or directly on our website at: Share your Feedback with us! We also want to point out again that in preparation of the 1.0 release there will be a price adjustment on 18.2.25. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1646790/view/706602564760633468?l=english Thank you, everyone, for your immense support. Without you, the game would not be what it is today.

[ 2025-02-02 16:17:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

We have evaluated our recent Projectile Multiplicator -> Multishot redesign and noticed that Multishot in it's current state is not a valid skill choice anymore. This Hotfix brings Multishot up to pair with Scattering Projectile/Cast.

Balancing:

• Each Multishot skill now adds 2 projectiles (was 1 before), dividing the 360 angle further with each use to cover more directions. You will notice that picking up one multishot can even be beneficial for shotgun builds.
• Max distance where player projectiles can trigger AoE effects has been slightly increased (0.9.9.3c2)

Bugfixes

• Fixed a bug that caused the seasonal challenge to defeat 6 awakened gatekeeper not trigger in softcore (0.9.9.3d)
• Fixed collected hearts with the corrupted petrified heart trinket remain persistent on the minimap (0.9.9.3d)
• Fixed wrong resource cost initialisation for echo weapons after exiting the skilltree. A weapon switch had updated the wrong resource cost initialisiation.(0.9.9.3d)

As always we will closely listen to player feedback on our balance changes and stick to our pillar of having as much valid build variety as possible.

[ 2025-02-01 14:27:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements

• Enemy and Boss AoE effects now despawn when you get defeated in Softcore game mode. This prevents old AoE effects overlapping with new spawned AoE effects when re-entering a boss fight. (0.9.9.3b)

Balancing

• Increased corrupted weapon drop chance on corrupted maps
• Small adjustments to cooldown to awakened cinder colossus to prevent AoE overlaps
• Epic Map Mod: Icy Spikes now has reduced speed and longer grace time until the AoE effect deals damage. (0.9.9.3b)

Bugfixes

• Fixed defeat 6 awakened gatekeeper challenge achievement not being triggered due to Softcore and Hardcore awakened Gatekeeper achievements being triggered at once
• Fixed a bug that caused only 1 of each basic map mod to be able to be added onto a map with the shard of augmentation. This also resulted in tier 15 maps not being able to be fully augmented.
• Fixed unlock all characters seasonal challenge being unlocked too early
• Fixed rogue specialisation skill not being able to be refunded (0.9.9.3b)

[ 2025-02-01 08:16:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

Major Improvements

• Fixed player shield effect progress is now being displayed much more clearly with a radial clockwise progress (0.9.9.2f)

Bugfixes

• Fixed not being able to join the race from an selected online save file. (0.9.9.2b)
• Fixed flying loot goblin not reducing enemy count on escape leading to not triggering map clear achievement (0.9.9.2c)
• Fixed defeated awakened gatekeeper not uploaded to awakened gatekeeper leaderboard (0.9.9.2c)
• Fixed stacking sfx for falcon companions (0.9.9.2d)
• Fixed unlock weapon dialog not being triggered when having enough light (0.9.9.2e)
• Fixed hardcore awakened gatekeeper achievements triggering in softcore (0.9.9.2e)
• Fixed legendary vfx of moonblade (0.9.9.2e)
• Fixed Noctelle the Fallen AoE effect cooldowns to further prevent attack overlaps (0.9.9.2e)
• Fixed a bug that caused pathfinder tooltips to remain active after selecting a map (0.9.9.2e)
• Fixed player shield effects from character specialisations displaying the shield-ready effect too early after switching map (0.9.9.2f)

[ 2025-01-31 17:20:54 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements

• New skill node design for wolf companion
• New skill node design for falcon companion
• New skill node design for chicken companion
• Scattering melee skills: Scattering Hit and Scattering Sweep have been renamed to Molten Hit and Blazing Strike to match the recent skill redesign
• New skill node design for Molten Hit
• New Skill node design for Blazing Strike
• New application icon has been implemented for Striving for Light

Balancing

• Lifetime of temporary radiant wisp from darokin specialisation have been reduced to 14s (was 16s)

Bugfixes

• Fixed awakened gatekeeper seasonal challenges not being triggered on softcore mode
• Fixed dodge UI not being updated correctly when increasing your max dodge charges
• Fixed the hide tutorial button being visible even though all tutorials have been completed
• Fixed a visual bug for helejas blink specialisation

[ 2025-01-31 12:18:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

Major Changes and Improvements

• Preparations for Race Event
• Seasonal Challenge leaderboard is now properly separated for hardcore and softcore mode to prevent duplicated player entries for the different game modes.

Balancing

• Iron Frost Awakened Gatekeeper now spawns less AoE effects
• Reduced projectile spawn of earth rift trial and rift boss. Further timing adjustments have been made to make this boss encounters easier.

Bugfixes

• Fixed a crash caused by the yesterdays update 0.9.9.1 when encountering bosses without epic map mods active
• Fixed weapon attack trail delayed rendering
• Fixed a bug that caused dying in tutorial on hardcore mode to lock you out of the tutorial rooms

[ 2025-01-30 07:13:37 CET ] [ Original post ]

Major Changes and Improvements

• Elite enemies and bosses now only gain one of the epic map modifier abilities instead of every ability. This will drastically reduce difficulty on pinnacle boss fights.
• Trails of player effects are now properly affected by the player effect transparency setting.

Balancing

• Epic Map Modificators increase elite spawn rate by +25% (was +20%)
• Noctelle projectile life time has been reduced and AoE attack rotation speed has been reduced.
• Earth Rift Boss and Trial boss now spawns less projectiles.
• Reduced size and durations of several epic map modifier abilities for enemies.

Bugfixes

• Fixed layering of epic map modificator enemy effects that caused effects to be covered by other world elements.
• Fixed a bug that caused boss abilities to become invisible when freezing a boss and interrupting an AoE ability.
• Fixed a bug that caused tooltips for map nodes in the pathfinder to remain open.

[ 2025-01-29 22:25:33 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements

• Improved skill tree algorithm to further fine tune skill spawn chances for base skill nodes

Balancing

• Slightly decreased the multishot skill spawn chance
• Reduced skill spawn chance for increased projectile speed and range.
• Reduced skll spawn chance for increased shot angle
• Increased skill spawn chance for increased condition damage skill nodes
• Increased skill spawn chance for increased companion damage skill nodes
• Ravaging companions now reduce energy/endurance regeneration -40% like all other companion skill nodes
• Empowered Companion skill node now increases companion damage by +12 (was +10 before).
• Greater Empowered Companions Specialisation now grants +36 companion damage (was 30 before).
• Potato Trinket now grants +10 companion damage (was +5 before).

Bugfixes

• Fixed range attack offset to mouse pointer

[ 2025-01-29 08:02:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

With the Modstorm content update (v.0.9.9) we are starting Season 17 the (probably) last season before the 1.0 release of Striving for Light.

48 h Softcore Race Event

To celebrate the content update release we are hosting a 48h race event at 31.1.-2.2. starting 6pm CET featuring up to 200 pricepool and a design with devs price. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1646790/view/706602564760633463?l=english The Modstorm content udpate brings 11 epic map mods to the pathfinder system, a new falcon companion with improved range companion AI, projectile multiplicator skill redesign, plenty of balancing changes and several memory leak fixes.

New Features:

Falcon Companion

The range companion (a relic from the past) has been completely redesigned. This skill has now been renamed to falcon companion and not only features a new design but also a complete improved range companion AI.

Epic Map Mods

11 new epic-quality map modifiers have been added to the Pathfinder system. These modifiers introduce unique mechanics to all elite enemies and bosses, greatly enhancing the diversity and challenge of these encounters. With these new modifiers, rerolling and optimizing maps before venturing into the darkness becomes more strategic than ever. Lets take a look at what mechanics these new map mods will add to your foes:
Light Ray: Enemies summon rotating light beams around them. Enemy/Boss HP by +20%, Elite Enemy Spawn Rate by +20% Granting: +25% EXP, 50% Map Shard Drop Rate

Arrowstorm: Enemies summon a storm of arrows. Enemy/Boss HP by +20%, Elite Enemy Spawn Rate by +20% Granting: +25% EXP, +20% Legendary Drop Rate

Light Beam: Enemies target you by casting a light ray from the skies. Enemy/Boss HP by +20%, Elite Enemy Spawn Rate by +20% Granting: +25% EXP, +20% Skill Shard Drop Rate
This are only a few among the 11 available epic map mods for you ready to explore and master.







Epic Map Mods offer big rewards but come with even greater dangers by as well increasing the elite enemy spawn rate. Up to 3 Epic Map Mods can be active per map. Are you ready to face the challenge?

Chicken supply and demand

The giant chicken in town now adjusts the price for handing away their beloved skillgems dependend on supply and demand. Buying multiple skillgems at once will raise the price, coming back a while later will make the price drop again.

Sanguine Chest Improvements

Sanguine Chest Event now highlights circles to clearer communicate how the sanguine chest world event works

Remaingng Enemy Tooltips

Added new tooltip to the remaining enemy on map counter in the main user interface

Major Improvements and Changes

• Improved Range Companion AI: Range Companions now hunt down enemies while shooting that leads too improved shooting accuracy and less missed shots.
• Improved Audio: The mix and master chain for all sound effects have been reworked to improve sound effect dynamics and preventing sound effects sounding squashed when multiple effects have been played simultaneously.
• Music Fades for Dialog: Background Music now dynamically fades when playing dialog.
• Range constructs can now destroy interactable world objects by placing the construct on the object.
• Added crafting window tutorial message.
• Added echo fragment tutorial hint on game over screen.

Balancing

Projectile Multiplicator:

The skill has been completely reworked as the exponential increase of projectile not only leads to massive balancing issues (we do not want to balance the game around this, to keep as much build variety as possible) but also leads to performance issues sooner or later during a run. We have made an array of changes to compensate for this change and encourage everyone to try it out and share your experience with us after testing. Projectile multiplicator has been renamed to Multishot. Each Multishot skill adds a projectile, dividing the 360 angle further with each use to cover more directions. So you will get one additional projectile with each Multishot, to compensate the additional energy cost have been reduced to 1 (was 2) and the -20% projectile damage got completely removed. Furthermore the spawn possibility of Multishot in the skilltree got increased by 300% to make this skill node show up as often as additional projectiles to give you more chances to increase your amount of projectiles.

Array of balancing changes to compensate for the projectile multiplier changes:

• Projectile Range/Speed: Increased Projectile Range +10% (was +20%)
• Increased Shot Angle: Angle between spawned projectiles increase has been lowered to 20 (was 30), this skill now also increases projectile range by +20% (was not present on this skill node before)
• Increased Projectile Damage: Each skillnode now increased projectile damage by +60% (was +50% before)

Further Balancing Changes:

• Radiant Whisps: now follow player character and respawn, as compensation the total live time has been reduced to 16s (was 20s)
• Dark Wanderer Character: Melee Damage malus removed (was -30%), Projectile Damage malus removed (was -30%), No Max Health Malus (was -1), Energy/Endurance Regeneration malus removed (was -30%)
• Dark Wanderer Specialisation: Skeleton Spiders is now available directly at level 10. Rework of Dark Wanderer Specialisation now allows to use Golem, Harpies and Skeleton Spiders to bring mass companion fantasies to live.
• Dark Wanderer Golem Specialisation: Golem melee attack now scales with you melee damage and triggers all your melee attacks.
• Dark Wanderer Starting Melee Weapon Bone Breaker: Melee Base Damage increased to 8 (was 5)
• Noctelle: boss fight has been rebalanced to spawn slightly less projectiles.

Bugfixes

• Fixed a memory leak for damage numbers. This has led to degraded performance on longer playing sessions.
• Fixed a memory leak for condition damage. This has led to degraded performance on longer playing sessions.
• Fixed enemy counter on map being desync and preventing map clear achievements from triggering.
• Whisp skills for darokins specialisations have improved description.
• Added translation for min time display in rifts.
• Fixed map reset after completed rift.
• Fixed range construct not triggering when entering the game without switching weapon or switching to skilltree.

Thank you, everyone, for your immense support. Without you, the game would not be what it is today. Like recently announced we are doing a price adjustment for the 1.0 release which will become active on the 18.2.25. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1646790/view/706602564760633468?l=english If you enjoy the game, leaving a Steam review is an incredible way to show your support and help us reach more players. We truly appreciate each and every one of you!

[ 2025-01-28 14:53:54 CET ] [ Original post ]

Upcoming Price Adjustment for Full Release

As we approach the highly anticipated 1.0 release of Striving for Light, were excited to reflect on the journey so far and share some updates about the game and its pricing.

The new pricing will become active on 18.2.25.

We want to make sure to communicate this ahead of time to give everyone planing to purchase Striving for Light the chance to get it at the current low price. On Feb. 18th the price of Striving for Light will increase from the current $14.99 USD (14.79) to $17.99 USD (17.49). This change reflects the incredible growth and expansion of the games content since the last price adjustment nearly 1.5 years ago. During this time, weve significantly exceeded our initial content plans, adding a wealth of features and improvements to ensure Striving for Light delivers the most complete and engaging gaming experience possible. Lets take a moment to celebrate the major updates and content expansions from the past 1.5 years:

Awakened Gatekeeper - Eclipse Content Update:

• Added 2 new pinnacle boss fights.
• Introduced new weapons, trinkets, skills, and map decorations.
• Reworked all voice acting, rewrote the story, and added seasonal challenges.

store.steampowered.com/news/app/1646790/view/4034731337929043009

Rift Content Update:

• Introduced the Rift Endgame System with rift trail world events and ascended weapons featuring dual-embedded weapon skills.
• Added map corruption mechanics, corrupted items, and global echo weapon crafting to dynamically alter loot pools for all players in the current season.

store.steampowered.com/news/app/1646790/view/4553794655131533678

Specialisation Content Update:

• Added over 60 new skill nodes for character specialisation across all 8 classes, giving each class a unique identity and its own specialisation skill tree.
• Added 10 new starting weapons, separated softcore and hardcore modes, redesigned the Tree of Light, and introduced a new character selection screen.

store.steampowered.com/news/app/1646790/view/4487369735223116951

Some further selected highlights among the countless new features and improvements during the last 1.5 years:

• Introduced new mechanics to enhance rerolling and make taming the skilltree randomness more satisfying.
• Enabled players to modify skill spawn chances in the Tree of Light.
• Countless Improvements: Added quality-of-life features, bugfixes, and general enhancements to improve the overall experience.

Why the Price Adjustment?

The upcoming 1.0 release is a major milestone for Striving for Light. Over the past 1.5 years, weve worked tirelessly to expand and refine the game. The new pricing reflects the depth and value of the experience weve created. Were incredibly grateful for your support and feedback, which have been instrumental in shaping the game. We cant wait to share the full release with you soon! If you want to stay up to date with the ongoing development and chat with fellow players about the new update, you are invited to join our discord.

[ 2025-01-19 19:50:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

PRE-RELEASE RACE EVENT

We are hosting a 48h Pre-Release Race Event which will take place at the 31.1. - 2.2.2025 starting and ending at 6pm CET.

Unique Twist

The very first softcore race. Utilise the latest character specialisations and unlocking system for the first time in this race!

Participate with FREE Demo Version

For this race you can fully participate with the free Striving for Light Demo. This is the perfect possibility to invite all your friends & content creators to join the event and experience Striving for Light.

Dynamic Price Pool

This race has a dynamic price pool. The price pool will depend on the amount of participating players and increase by 1 / each participating player that reaches at least 50 challenge points in the leaderboards and has registered for joining the event on the Igniting Spark Games Discord.

Price Pool

• 1. Place: 50% of price pool + Design Weapon/Skill/Trinket together with the devs which will be implemented into the game.
• 2. Place: 30% of price pool
• 3. Place: 20% of price pool
• 4.- 6. Place: Striving for Light: Steam Key

Price pool will be rounded up to available steam gift cards, price pool can't exceed 200

How to participate

• Join the Igniting Spark Games discord & introduce yourself in #rift-race
• Please stick to fairplay, no cheating, no offensive player names, violation will result in disqualification of this and future events

How to win

• Complete seasonal challenges to earn challenge points, the player with the most challenge points wins!

Special Features:

• The very first softcore race!
• Utilise the latest character specialisations and unlocking system for the first time in this race!
• You can fully play the whole race event with the Striving for Light Demo.
• Dynamic Price Pool: So invite all your friends and your favourite content creators to increase the price pool!
• Race is hardcore only

This race celebrates the extensive Rift Content Update v.0.9.5. You can read the update preview here to prepare yourself for what is coming to Striving for Light: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1646790/view/4525646159699148751 Feel invited to Join the Igniting Spark Games discord !

[ 2025-01-19 19:05:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Features:

• Corrupted Weapon Improvements: Corrupted weapons now have their own visual effect when having them equipped. So that everyone can acknowledge your high level of risk tolerance.
  
• Countdown for the upcoming Pre-Release Race Event as our very fist Softcore Race have been added. Race announcement at:

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1646790/view/706602564760633463

Improvements:

• World events that you can not escape now have a new border effect to make these events visually more distinct
• The weapon preview in the softcore/hardcore character selection now properly displayes the weapon vfx for legendary, ascended and corrupted weapons.
• Corrupted weapon tooltips now have the same colored borders as in the stats preview when picking up corrupted weapons.

Bugfixes:

• Fixed bear ornament trinket stating that shapeshifting into a bear will grant you a range attack.
• Fixed unlocking darokin character after rescuing him in ankerath needing 30 light, instead of the displayed 10 light fragments.
• Fixed not calculated damage for character specialisation skill tooltips

[ 2025-01-19 17:51:30 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Features:

• Skill tooltips now display how much amount of effects they will have. For skills that spawn projectiles, this will display the amount of projectiles. On stacking this skill this number will also represent the total number of projectiles from that skill. This should make it much easier to understand how skill stacking actually works and how it interacts with the skill.

Bugfixes:

• Fixed wrong damage display in the tooltips for all skills that spawn projectiles. Skill stacks now properly reflect what they will change for that skill.
• Fixed skilltree tutorial not being able to hide when certain tutorials have already been completed.
• Fixed wrong state initialisation for skilltree tutorial hide button.

[ 2025-01-11 10:28:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

Happy new year everyone!

New Features

• Added a new tutorial hint that reminds new players to spend your skill points if multiple of skill points have been accumulated

Improvements

• Redesigned Melee Scattering Hit projectiles and skill node design to align it with visual standard of other skills and effects
  
• The toggle skills tutorial is now displayed when you first encounter the situation that you do not have enough resources for your attacks instead of directly when opening the skilltree for the first time
• Improved layering of endbosses to not cover up player

Bugfixes

• Fixed a bug that could lead to a crash when triggering the delete save file window
• Removing a save file with the delete button in the save file manager now also removes the hardcore save file of that league as expected
• Fixed pathfinder crash on first time accessing pathfinder on a fresh run
• Fixed light occluder for ancient tree endboss

[ 2025-01-04 14:31:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugfixes

• Fixed Poison Ricochet rogue specialisation not triggering on range hits.
• Fixed on hit skills only triggered by melee and not range hits.
• Fixed no exit portal spawned when completing rift not in time limit
• Fixed multiple rift forges spawned when completing rift not in time limit

[ 2025-01-03 09:32:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Features

• New Weapon Stat: Melee Range. You can now increase the melee range for all melee weapons with this new introduced weapon stat.
• Weapon Stat Ranges: You can now see the range of what each weapon stat can roll.
  
• Isolated Weapon Stats: Each Weapon stat roll is now displayed by itself and is not accumulated with other stat rolls of the same attribute. Previously rolling two times melee damage on a weapon would display it as a single high melee damage increase of like +53% instead of displaying 2 or 3 attribute roles (i.e. +20 +10 +3). This should now make it easier to understand weapon rarities and the amount of stats your weapon has and if it is beneficial to further craft and re-roll your weapon stats.

Improvements

• Shard of Power when applying to a weapon with max power value now does not remove further crafting potential.
• Player character Heleja now has increased weapon scale.
• Increased size of cycling hammer effects for goladir player character and the starting weapon ember forge
• Moved melee range stat to first page of stats window (life leech is now on the misc page)

Bugfixes

• Fixed weapon offset on some idle animation for Heleja player character.
• Fixed wrong weapon damage scaling for all echo weapons.
• Fixed animations for dark wanderer in main menu and character selection.
• Fixed a crash when opening build viewer on the leaderboards for players that had emerald staff equipped.
• Fixed unlock cost being added to all dialogs, instead of only the dialogs that are unlock themed

[ 2024-12-30 13:15:29 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements

• Improved description of shard of renewal to clearer explain what this shard does
• Improved description of shard of refund to clearer explain when skill can not be refunded
• Improved the pathfinder tutorial to now point to the next map node instead of an already completed map
• All tooltips are now hidden when UI containser change visibility states to prevent tooltips staying active
• The tutorial boss event now updates faster so that you can faster exit the tutorial area

Bugfixes

• Fixed a bug that caused map delve count to increase when going from gatekeeper arena to city and back. This caused the next level to be more difficult than intended.
• Fixed a crash on interacting with town portal after your first runs
• Fixed active trinket ability being applied multiple times when loading a save file that had an active trinket ability running
• Fixed a bug that caused the pathfinder to unlock too early
• Fixed a bug that caused the pathfinder tutorial to point to wrong map nodes
• Fixed weapon stats tooltips remaining active after weapon was picked up or you have moved away from the weapon

[ 2024-12-24 13:12:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Features

• A new tutorial for spending the first specialisation skill point has been implemented to guide new players on where to open the specialisation skill tree

Bugfixes

• The not enough "resource notification" is now properly displayed for all localisations
• Boss room HP bar is now properly localised
• Fixed rogue character UI weapon layering

[ 2024-12-21 18:21:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements

• Software cursor is now only active by default on Linux OS since most cursor issues have been reported on steam deck
• Max zoomed out is now the default setting when starting the game

Balancing

• Reduced rotate speed of water trial boss aoe effect

Bugfixes

• Fixed skill nodes not being able to be activated below the skill tree tutorial caption UI elements
• Fixed a crash that occured when traveling to new map when having permanent companions active

[ 2024-12-21 12:16:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Features:

• Improved Controller Support: The node navigation for the skilltree and the pathfinder on controller input got a entirely new algorithm to more precisely jump to nodes that are targeted by you thumbstick and d-pad input. The node navigation now works on all screen sizes and window settings and picks targeted notes much more precise. A bug was also fixed that caused tooltips to be hidden to early when navigating the skilltree with controller input.
• New World Event unlocking System: More complex world events are now gradually unlocked to make it easier for new players to understand how these world events work and what they are there for. Each unlocked world event will also display a new short tutorial, introducing the new world event types to new players. For all experienced players fear not after 12 completed maps you will have every world event unlocked.
• Hide Skilltree Tutorials: Added possibility to hide skilltree tutorials. They can be made visible anytime again.

Major Changes and Improvements:

• Added new Tree of Light minimap icon

Bugfixes:

• Fixed crash in skilltree and pathfinder when controller uses connection.
• Fixed hidden tooltips after input type change for the skilltree and pathfinder
• Fixed not being able to focus the reset player position on controller input at the pause menu. You can now also press button up to directly jump to the abandon run button in the pause menu.
• Fixed shortcut on buttons at choose game mode menu
• Fixed courtyard map not being able available before pathfinder is unlocked
• Fixed controller focus behaviour in save file manager

[ 2024-12-17 15:53:35 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Features:

• Default Software Cursor: A new software cursor has been implemented that guarantees for all OS and game setting combinations that the mouse cursor is visible. This options is active by default. You can enable/ disable the new software cursor in the options menu.

Bugfixes:

• Fixed a crash when using a teleport while being in bear form
• Fixed a bug with recent pathfinder changes that made you re-enter the same map again on controller input when pressing the A button
• The pathfinder option from the controller menu is now removed until you have unlocked the pathfinder
• Fixed clipping text on new pathfinder tutorial for some localisations
• Fixed typo at end of demo screen
• Fixed infinite progression loop when you had a new run that already opened up the pathfinder once

[ 2024-12-14 09:56:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

With update 0.9.8 we are reworking the character, skills and weapon unlocks to make it much easier to unlock the fun stuff and provide more determined progression. The pathfinder also got a major rework, with not only a new tutorial guiding new players but also allowing a direct teleport to a new map. With this update we are questioning old and dated systems to make them fresh and engaging. Just because it is like it is does not mean it has to stay as it is.

Major Improvements and Changes:

• Pathfinder Rework: The Pathfinder is a powerful device that lets you teleport to new maps. Critical components have been captured by the Aeodra and their servants. Utilising the full potential of the pathfinder will require to find the missing components first.
  The pathfinder system is now locked on new save files and will unlock after defeating the serpent on the void map for the first time. If you already have an active run past this progress the pathfinder will be unlocked automtically for you. Player feedback has shown that the Pathfinder system is an unnecessary layer of complexity. It is best introduced at a later stage when players have acquired map shards to make use of the system. Furthermore a new tutorial has been added to explain map mods and the map corruption system. Pathfinder teleporting got reworked. The time where you had to select a map in the pathfinder to go back to the portal, reactivate the portal and then enter the portal is over. You can now teleport directly from the pathfinder screen with the power of just one button click. Furthermore the pathfinder got a complete visual redesign as the old design was ancient.
• Easier Character Unlocks: Character unlocks are now much easier obtainable. Reaching level 10 on your first run will already unlock the Dark Wanderer. Reaching level 15 with Dark wanderer will unlock the Rogue character. Reaching level 15 with Rogue will unlock the Farmer character. Character unlocks from the town Ankerath are now possible directly without the need to unlock all weapons and skills. The unlock cost is also reduced to 10.
• Reworked Unlocks: Unlocks in general now have a dynamic price with the first unlocks being as cheap as 1 light fragment and then ramping up the more you have already unlocked. The dialogs now display the dynamic pricing showcasing exactly what you need for the unlocks. We want to give players access to the fun stuff as early as possible so that you can spend more time playing the game with everything it has to offer.
  
• Map Unlocks: The spawn chance of the map unlock device is now increased to unlock new maps much earlier.
• Descent Expedition: The cost to increase expedition depth has been greatly reduced. Cost per levels are now (2,4,6,8,10,12) was (10,20,30,40,50,60). The choice of which expedition depth you are choosing should be determined by what you build and playstyle can handle rather if you farmed enough sky gems.
• Improved Controller Navigation in Trees: You can now press two directions on the d-pad for more precise node jump navigation in the pathfinder and skilltree.
• Character Specialisation Rebalancing:
  • Range Unknown Wanderer Specialisation rebalancing: Powerful cast now can not be obtained directly at level 10 to allign it with melee unknown wanderer.
  • Powerful cast now increases projectile damage +150% (was 200%)
  • Dual Force now increases melee damage +150% and projectile damage +100% (was 150%)
  • Uber Slash now grants +10% crit chance and +100% crit damage (was +300% before)
  • Critical cast now grants 15% crit chance (was 20%) and +50% crit damage (was +200% before)
• Crafting Potential: Character starting weapons now start with 10 crafting potential (was 0 before).

Further improvements:

• Added glow effect to unused skill points in the skilltree
• Improved the available specialisations points UI design to allign it with the skilltree design. A glow effect now indicates you have specialisation points to spend.
• Improved position of legacy tree of light level
• The enter map button is now focused on default when clicking on a map using controller input

Bugfixes:

• Fixed sky forge weapons stats UI not updating when selected weapons
• Fixed a crash when dying and having ranged companions active
• Fixed serpent boss layering
• Added back the vanished map decorations in the basement map
• Fixed destroyable cave chests not being destroyable

[ 2024-12-13 16:56:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugfix:

• Fixed a crash when defeating a minor boss after defeating an awakened gatekeeper

[ 2024-12-11 18:48:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements:

• Improved character weapon layering in choose gamemode screen
• Improved shadow effect on player characters
• Improved weapon positioning for player characters

Bugfixes:

• Fixed wrong damage number calculation for glaring light skill
• Fixed popping in world fog effects when moving left or right
• Fixed corrupted merchant getting stuck in non attacking loop
• Fixed switching to skilltree on world event start preventing bosses or enemies to spawn
• Fixed a crash on choose game mode screen when wildfire wrath weapon was equipped

[ 2024-12-09 10:23:56 CET ] [ Original post ]

A small update with big performance impact.

Improvements:

• General Performance improvements: The enemy idle states have been completely reworked to not have any performance impact. Now the amount of spawned enemies on the map should not impact performance as it did previously and which could be noticeable on high endgame maps.

Balancing:

• Glaring light now increases your melee and range attack cost by 2 energy and 2 endurance to allign it with the cost to upkeep the ability. After the recent base energy and endurance max and regeneration increase glaring light was very easy to upkeep with the power and AoE it provided.

Bugfixes:

• Fixed sanguine strike hidden effect on very fast attack triggers
• Fixerd a crash with sunfire sceptre
• Added translations for secret sheep
• Fixed awakened gatekeeper achievements with corrupted weapons triggering on normal bosses
• Fixed leaderboard not being able to switch between hardcore, softcore game modes and to view other game difficulty tiers. (v.0.9.7.4b)

[ 2024-12-06 09:27:57 CET ] [ Original post ]

With update 0.9.7.3a-d we are introducing a highly requested feature: Displaying the possible weapon base damage rolls on the weapons. Fast pathfinder loading and improved enemy AI. Furthermore this update is packed with performance improvements, visual enhancements for the pathfinder, balancing reworks and bugfixes.

New Features:

• Display Weapon Damage Range Tooltips: On each weapon tooltips you will now find a new hint that you can press right mouse button or right thumb stick on the controller to view the base weapon damage range the weapon can roll
• Improved Enemy AI: enemies now have much smoother velocity transitions between idle, move and attack states
• New pathfinder loading system: Pathfinder now loads much faster after it has been initialised for the first time this fixes potential issues with memory leaks and long loading times in endgame

Improvements:

• Performance improvements for enemy path finding
• Performance improvements for all weapon drops
• Improved enemy AI and movement transitions between enemy attack states
• Echo weapons now only appear on the merchant trade and aeodra arena reward if there are available echos that can actually be dropped (previously the weapon just got directly removed if you selected an echo but there was none created)
• Improved elder branch range weapon visual effect
• Reduced size of high damage numbers.
• Random world events now all have the same chance to spawn. So you should see the different rift world events all spawn with the same possibility. Previously there was some code related favourism on spawn rate, depending in what order world events have been assigned.
• Performance improvements for all enemies and their idle state
• More natural enemy spawn positioning on maps
• Reduced enemy player detection time for enemies
• New pathfinder map connection design to bring it up to pair with the recent skilltree connection line redesign
• Further refined skilltree connection design
• Specialisation tooltips that contain condition damage now display the first 3 condition damage ticks like for the skillnodes

Balancing

• Flood damage now only scales with projectile damage (did scale with projectile and melee damage)
• Fragmentation damage now only scales with melee damage (did scale with projectile and melee damage)
• Bursting Shot and Bursting Hit now only scales with melee damage (did scale with projectile and melee damage)
• Increased condition damage decay condition damage ticks now get 50% reduced damage (was 40% before)
• Changed the specialisation tree for the goladir and melee unknown wanderer to make endurance shield as accessible as energy shield
  
  

Bugfixes:

• Fixed a potential crash in descent expedition world event
• Fixed layering of world objects, previously it could happen that the rift world events hide some traps. Or the background could cover up some player effects.
• Fixed missing translation for caustic wounds in rogue specialisation
• Fixed empowered ailments specialisation not buffing condition damage. It now increases your condition damage by +20
• Fixed rolling stone boss triggering end of aeodra arena event to early
• Fixed achievement for ancient tree and elder club not unlocking on awakened boss version
• Fiexd enemies getting stuck in pathfinding loop when there have been items located around your player position
• Fixed heleja blink ability animation getting stuck
• Fixed a crash on character selection screen if gloomtide weapon was equipped and if there are active melee on attack triggers
• Fixed construct range attack initialising wrong attack speed after loading a map
• Fixed a crash on closing crafting window with x button from in game. (v.0.9.7.3b)
• Fixed new introduced weapon damage range calculation. (v.0.9.7.3b)
• Fixed crashes due to the new introduced weapon range display. (v.0.9.7.3b)
• Fixed attack cooldown UI stopped working after closing crafting window from in game. (v.0.9.7.3b)

[ 2024-12-04 16:40:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugfixes

• Fixed Powerful Cast specialisation also increasing melee damage
• Fixed a bug that could case bosses with shield to get stuck in permanent shield mode
• Fixed one achievement not unlocking if achieved at the awakened gatekeeper version of the emerald widow
• Fixed button scaling on tree of light UI for localisations
• Fixed soft crash on leaderboard window (v.0.9.7.2b)

Balancing

• Energy Shield Specialisation: Now reduces 1 damage for each 12 energy (was 8). Recharge has been increased to 120 enemies (was 60).
• Endurance Shield Specialisation: Now reduces 1 damage for each 12 endurance (was 8). Recharge has been increased to 120 enemies (was 60).
• Bone Shield Specialisation: Recharge has been increased to 100 enemies (was 40).
• Protective Shell Specialisation: Now reduces 1 damage for each 8 health (was 6).Recharge has been increased to 100 enemies (was 50).

[ 2024-12-03 08:24:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

Balancing:

• Energy Shield: Now reduces 1 damage for each 8 max energy (was 4 before)
• Endurance Shield: Now reduces 1 damage for each 8 max endurance (was 4 before)
• Protective Shell: Now reduces 1 damage for each 6 max health (was 4 before)

Bugfixes:

• Fixed respec not working on certain skill nodes
• Fixed wrong specialisation description on skill tree origin node
• Fixed missleading translation for thunderforge weapon
• Fixed wrong assigned translation tags for respecing specialisations if no shard of refund are available (v.0.9.7.1c)
• Fixed multiple stacked companion skills not spawning multiple companions (v.0.9.7.1c)
• Fixed a crash on older save files due to not correctly set player character (v.0.9.7.1d)

[ 2024-12-02 15:39:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Features:

• All characters are now random displayed in the main menu.
• You will now gain exp for completing the full 3 section of the descent defense world event

Balancing

• Reverted the descent defense ability reset after 3 tower defense instances

Bugfixes

• Fixed damage tooltip calculation for rain of arrows for rogue specialisation
• Fixed a crash when using burning feather trinket to shapeshift into phoenix form
• Fixed some damage buff calculation errors for corrupted heart trinket ability
• Fixed corrupted heart label not directly updating when activating ability
• Fixed achievement for all melee weapons unlocked not working
• Fixed achievement for all range weapons unlocked not working
• Fixed achievement for all skills unlocked not working
• Removed achievement for unlocking increased collect range skill and chicken companion skill as those can only be found and not unlocked

[ 2024-12-02 10:09:51 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugfixes:

• Fixed a crash when defeating secret boss enemies
• Fixed missing boundless reach specialisation description
• Fixed a crash when rescuing darokin
• Fixed a few crashes when using emerald staff or accessing stats when carrying emerals staff weapon
• Removed left over glaring light description in darokin character tooltip.
• Fixed glaring light skill not remaining active on maps even if you had enough resources
• Fixed crafting potential got re-rolled on dropped weapons when restarting the game (0.9.7.0e)
• Fixed wrong energy shield translation (0.9.7.0e)
• Fixed serpent bosses get stuck on fire breath animation when being frozen (0.9.7.0f)
• Fixed one rogue specialisation skill nodes not being connected to origin (0.9.7.0f)
• Fixed bad performance on beach map (v0.9.7.0g)
• Fixed crash when attacking with lightning staff (v.0.9.7.0g)
• Fixed multiple shield gains when defeating an enemy. This affected all new shield specialisation abilities. Resulting in nearly instant shield recovery after it has been activated. (v.0.9.7.0g)
• Fixed wrong translation tag for corrupted heart (v.0.9.7.h)

[ 2024-12-01 16:26:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

The Character Specialisation Content Udpate has arrived, and sticking close to our tradition this update turned out to be much bigger than originally planed.

New Features

Character Redesign

All remaining 6 characters have received a complete redesign to align them with the latest unknown wanderer redesign. This was a huge undertaking and we hope you enjoy playing with these new characters. We did our best to preserve the personality of each character while bringing the design up to pair with the rest of the game.

Character Specialisations

Each character now has a new specialisation skill tree giving each character class a unique class identity and access to a unique set of powerful specialisation nodes that you can not find on the regular skilltree. For all character this totals up to over 64 new skill nodes.
You will only be able to pick 3 of these skill nodes and refunding them will cost 10 shards of refund. You will be rewarded with 1 specialisation point at level 10, 30 and 50. So lets see what the 64+ new specialisation skills will let you do. Not only you will be able to modify the way your dodge works, call new companions and massive amounts of chicken, there will also be damage mitigation shield effects available. But this is not all there are plenty of attractive stat improvements that will instantly make critical hit damage a viable option for your build or lets you specialise in very distinct build directions. Like you can let all your companions or all your weapons apply conditions. You can even get projectiles that bounce off walls and enemies.




You can expand this section to read through all the available character specialisation skills. Beware these are a lot! Unfolding this tab at your own risk :) [expand type=showmore ]

Heleja

[expand type=details expanded=true]

• Great Knowledge: Your Energy and Energy Regeneration is drastically increased. Max Energy +3, Energy Regeneration +200%
• Major Scattering Projectiles: All projectiles from your range attacks scatter into 4 new projectiles on enemy hit.
• Critical Cast: Critical Hit Damage +200%, Critical Hit Chance +20%
• Explosive Projectiles: All projectiles explode on enemy hits
• Reflective Projectiles: All projectiles bounce on enemy hits being able to hit another target.
• Bouncing Projectiles: All projectiles bounce on wall hits being able to hit another target.
• Energy Shield: Gain a shield that reduces your incoming damage based on your maximum energy. 1 damage reduction per 4 max endurance. Damage reduction can't exceed a maximum of 8. Shield recharges after 60 defeated enemies.
• Swift Cast: Your dodge is increased by +3. Movementspeed +10%. Projectile Damage +50%. Melee Damage +50%.
• Powerful Cast: Your projectile damage is increased. Projectile Damage +200%
• Knowledge of protection: Max Health +3. Max Energy +1. Energy Regeneration +100%
• Blink: When dodging you are spawning an echo of your self living for 6s performing range attacks on nearby enemies.

[/expand]

Goladir

[expand type=details expanded=true]

• Strong Hands: Your Endurance and Endurance Regeneration is drasitcally increased. Max Endurance +3, Endurance Regeneration +200%
• Armored: Max Health +6
• Powerful Slash: Your melee Damage is increased. Melee Damage +200%
• Agile Attacks: Attackspeed +100%. Melee Damage +50%. Projectile Damage +50%.
• Hammerstorm: Instead of attacking you spawn Cycling hammers that surround you triggering all your melee on attack and on hit effects. This will deactivate other melee attack replacer skills.
• Uber Slash: Critical Hit Damage +300%, Critical Hit Chance +10%
• Ground Slam: All your melee hits trigger a shockwave that applies minor knockback to all enemies.
• Leap: Instead of dodging you perform a jump that triggers a massive shockwave dealing damage and knockback to all enemies. Damage scales with your melee and projectile Damage. Size scales with your AoE size.
• Fortress: You can not dodge anymore. Instead all your incoming damage is decreased by -50%.
• Endurance Shield: Gain a shield that reduces your incoming damage based on your maximum endurance. 1 damage reduction per 4 max endurance. Damage reduction can't exceed a maximum of 8. Shield recharges after 60 defeated enemies.
• Arc of Might: Your melee weapon range is increased. Weapon Size +15%
• Cleave of Eternity: Your melee weapon range is increased. Weapon Size +20%

[/expand]

Dark Wanderer

[expand type=details expanded=true]

• Skeleton Spiders: Each fallen enemy creates a skeleton spider companions that lives for 6 seconds.
• Poisoned Fangs: All companions apply poison condition on enemy hits.
• Explosion Pets : All permanent companions trigger explosions when attacking enemies. Damage scales with your melee damage. Explosion size scales with AoE size.
• Greater Empowered Companions: Companion Damage +30
• Golem: Call a permanent golem companion. The golem performs melee and range attacks. Each range attack spawns 3 projectiles at once.
• Harpyie: Call 3 permanent Harpyie companions that attack enemies with range attacks.
• Bone Spear: Each Dodge creates a piercing bone spear that targets nearby enemies and pierces through all enemies in that direction. Damage scales with your companion, range and melee damage. Bone Spear size scales with your AoE size.
• Loopwarden: Summon two flying companions that orbit around you dealing companion contact damage and destroying enemy projectiles. Orbit radius scales with your AoE size.
• Bone Shield: Gain a shield that protects you from 3 damage and recharges after 40 defeated enemies.

[/expand]

Rogue

[expand type=details expanded=true]

• Raining Arrows: Each attack triggers raining arrows. Damage scales with melee damage. Size scales with your AoE size.
• Poison Reflex: Your dodge triggers a huge poison nova that deals damage equal to your melee and range damage and applies poison condition to enemies. Size scales with your AoE size.
• Ultimate Precision: Increases your Critical hit chance +15% and your critical hit damage by +20%.
• Deadly Precision: Increases your Critical hit chance +10% and your critical hit damage by +30%.
• Sharpened Focus: Increases your Critical hit chance +10% and your critical hit damage by +50%.
• Poison Ricochet: Each enemy hit triggers a poison ricochet projectile that deals projectile and melee damage and applies poison condition to enemies.
• Causitic Wounds: All your weapon attacks apply poison condition on enemy hits.
• Deep Wounds: All your weapon attacks apply burning condition on enemy hits.
• Evasion: You have a 20% chance to evade half of the incoming damage when getting hit. Damage can't be reduced below 1.
• Evasion Mastery: You have a 30% chance to evade half of the incoming damage when getting hit. Damage can't be reduced below 1.

[/expand]

Darokin

[expand type=details expanded=true]

• Radiance: Each attack casts glaring light that damages nearby enemies. Damage scales with projectile and melee damage. Size scales with your AoE size.
• Radiant Wisp: On Dodge spawn radiant wisp companion that lives for 20s shooting light rays. Light ray damage scales with your range and melee damage.
• Solar Surge: All range and melee attacks triggers up to 6 light rays. Damage scales with your projectile and melee Damage. Size scales with your AoE size.
• Wall of Light: Dodging creates a wall of light that destroys enemy projectiles. Wall of Light damages all enemies that pass trough the wall scaling with your melee and range damage and inflicts burning condition. Wall of Light is active for 5s.
• Fountain: +200% Energy Regeneration + 200% Endurance Regeneration
• Boundless Reach: Your AoE size and melee weapon range is increased. AoE size increased +40%. Weapon Size +15%
• Dual Force: Increasing your melee and projectile damage. Increased Melee Damage +150%. Increased Projectile Damage +150%.
• Aegis of Ruin: If you have trinkets equipped your incoming Damage is decreased by 50% but each enemy hit destroys one of your trinkets. Damage can't be reduced below 1.
• Solar Touch: Your melee and ranged weapon hits apply burning condition to enemies.
• Everburn Wisp: Spawn permanent radiant wisp companion shooting light rays. Light ray damage scales with your projectile and companion damage.
• Sharpened Focus: Increases your Critical hit chance +10% and your critical hit damage by +50%.

[/expand]

Farmer

[expand type=details expanded=true]

• Cluckocalypse: You call 3 permanent chicken companions that fight for you attacking your enemies with melee attacks.
• Chicken Herd: You call additional 2 permanent chicken companions and empower your companions. Increased Companion damage +10
• Feather Dash: Each dodge spawns a big temporary chicken companion that lives for 12s and has ranged and melee attacks.
• Greater Empowered Companions: Your companion damage is increased. Companion Damage +30
• Chicken Nest: Your melee and range attacks have a 20% chance to spawn a chicken nest for 4s that periodically deals AoE damage to surrounded enemies each 2 seconds. At the end of livetime the nest spawns a temporary big chicken companion that lives for 12 seconds and does melee and range attacks.
• Protective Shell: Gain a shield that absorbs damage based on the maximum health you have. 1 damage absorption per 4 health with a maximum absorption of 10. Shield recharges after 50 defeated enemies.
• Winter Weight: Winter is coming. Max Health +8. Max Dodge -1. Movementspeed -5%
• Sharp Beaks: All companions cause bleeding condition on enemy hits.
• Explosive Companions: All permanent companions trigger explosions on enemy hits.
• Regain: Energy Regeneration +300%. Endurance Regeneration +300%

[/expand]

Unknown Wanderer Melee

[expand type=details expanded=true] Unknown wanderer borrow an additional selection of skills from other character specialisations.

• Shattering Blast: All melee hits create 3 shattering projectiles that deal melee damage.
• Howl: Call 3 permanent wolf melee companions
• Empowered Ailments: Increased condition damage. Condition Damage +20.

[/expand]

Unknown Wanderer Ranged

[expand type=details expanded=true] Unknown wanderer borrow an additional selection of skills from other character specialisations.

• Horde: Call 3 permanent ranged companions

[/expand] [/expand]

Character Starting Weapons

10 new weapons have been added to the game giving each character now access to a new starting weapon to further enhance class identity. These weapons can be unlocked like any other weapons in the game as well, to be able to find them during your runs.









These new weapons feature new mechanics like chance to apply conditions to enemies and contain some of the beloved character starting skills in weaker form like chance to spawn chicken companions.

New Trinket

Corrupted Heart: A corrupted legendary trinket that increases your incoming damage by 1 but if you are willing to take on this burden you will be able to charge the item by collecting hearts on full HP. You can then unleash the charged corrupted into a massive damage boost aura lasting 20s that will increase all your damage types by 1% for each 2 hearts you have collected.

Game Mode Separation

Hardcore and Softcore game modes now have individual save files which allows to have two simultaneous characters (one for each game mode). New character selection has been implemented that displays your softcore and hardcore characters for the selected season save file.

Tree of Light Redesign

The Tree of Light legacy skill system got redesigned to align it with the other visual quality of the game. The skill tree UI is now Fullscreen to expand the tree a bit more and improve readability of the skill tree. Refunding of legacy skills now as well require shards of refund to align it with the main skill tree and bring more value to the vastly underused shard of refund.

Crafting Potential

The crafting system as received an overhaul introducing "Crafting Potential". Each weapon will drop with a random Crafting Potential that will be consumed for each of your crafting steps. When the crafting potential reaches 0 you will no longer be able to further craft the weapons. Legendary and Ascended weapons naturally drop with way less crafting potential than non legendary weapons. Ascendin weapons in the skyforge will not require crafting potential. We think this will add a new layer of strategy to the weapon crafting system and upkeep the excitement for weapon drops even during the endgame of your runs.

Performance Improvements

Performance critical systems have been rewritten and upgraded to improve performance on all attacks, object spawns and companions. This will now also result in faster loading times for entering and exiting the skilltree.

Improved skill connection design

New skill tree connection line design: All skill trees just got more pretty, introducing a new connection line design.

Major Changes and Improvements

• Game Load System: The game loading system got major reworks and improvements, you will notice that loading up the game will be much faster, and also switching between scenes in the main menu and character selection will be much more fluid.
• League and Season save file system got reworked to more efficiently load and read your save files. In the past when you had already plenty of seasonal save files the loading times could take up multiple seconds. With the new save file loading system you will be able to load you save files nearly instant.
• Map delve count now got tooltips, to explain what this user interface icon displays.
• New softcore and hardcore icons have been added to in game user interface to display if you are currently playing hardcore or softcore
• Weapon Resource Cost Changes: All weapons have received a global resource cost rebalancing to make very fast and weak weapons viable. Basically all slower and medium paced weapons have received an elevated resource cost by at least 1 point while keeping fast and weaker weapons like daggers or bows at resource cost of 1. The starting endurance and energy levels, as well as the regenerations have been increased to compensate for this change. This rebalancing has been applied to all echo weapons likewise.
• Game Difficulty Rebalancing: Enemy HP scaling has been slightly increased to compensate for player power gain from new specialisations. Therefore the boss shield duration scaling has been reduced so that in endgame shield durations and the required hits to shatter boss shields are drastically reduced.
• Boss Shield Rebalancing: To compensate for slightly higher enemy hp scaling and prevent very long boss shield times the boss shield scaling has been reduced by 33% and now has a cap at 40. As an example getting to map delve level 50 would lead to 52 boss shield charges. With this change map delve level 50 would lead only to 35 shield charges.
• Improved Boss Shields in Rifts: Boss shield charges for Rift bosses now scale with your rift level instead of the map delve level.
• Tooltips improvements: Tooltips are now hidden when changing input type from mouse to keys or controller to prevent multiple active tooltips after input type switch.
• You will now respawn with the last equipped attack type
• Improved level up visual effect.

Balancing

• All echo weapons now have elevated base resource cost of 2 (was 1 before) with the exception of daggers and bow which are now the archetypes for faster but weaker weapons
• Echo Weapon Bow now has decreased base damage to 8 (was 10) but remains at base energy cost of 1 (would have been 2 after rebalancing)
• Echo Crossbow has increased base damage to 10 (was 8) base energy cost is 2 (rebalancing)
• Echo Dagger gets reduced base endurance cost of 1 (would be 2 after rebalancing)
• Glaring Light now scales with melee damage only (no projectile damage)
• Incrased AoE size skill node now increases AoE size by 15% (was 25% before)
• After each fully completed descent defense instance the tower abilities are reset. The damage upgrades however carry over to the next descent defense instance.

Balancing Character Starting Stats

• Darokin starting character stats: Energy/Endurance Regeneration -20% (was -50%), attack speed -10% (was -35%). Glaring Light starting ability was moved to character specialisations.
• Goladir starting character stats now has one projectile (did not have a projectile before).
• Heleja starting charcter stats now does not have an additional projectile multiplicator (had 1 before). This was moved to the new starting weapon.
• Farmer starting stats now has attack speed +20 % (was +10%), max health -1 (was -2 before) Chicken companions got moved to character specialisation and new starting weapons.

Bugfixes

• Fixed a bug that caused conditions to initially only be applied for 1 second in some cases instead of the initial max duration like 9s for poison
• Fixed a memory leak in replicating projectile skills and weapons
• Fixed replicating projectiles not aiming at enemies
• Fixed a bug that caused projectiles that scaled with multiple sources to only scale with one source (i.e. scaling with melee and range damage)
• Fixed player damage numbers not beeing displayed on certain conditions
• Fixed awakened gatekeeper leaderboard not updating correctly
• Fixed being able to claim final reward in aeodra arena challenge when final boss was not yet defeated.

Thank you, everyone, for your immense support. Without you, the game would not be what it is today. If you enjoy the game, leaving a Steam review is an incredible way to show your support and help us reach more players. We truly appreciate each and every one of you!

[ 2024-12-01 14:54:44 CET ] [ Original post ]

We have already shared some hints on what will await you with the upcoming specialisation content update for Striving for Light. You might have asked yourself how this will look in action. What build possibilities this 8 new character specialisation skilltrees will open up? We are looking forward to answer all of that questions in the upcoming developer livestream at twitch: https://www.twitch.tv/deventide

Developer livestream on 27.11. at 7pm CET.

Focus of the livestream is showcasing the upcoming character specialisations, we will have some Q&A for season 16 so bring all of your questions. And don't forget to bring some !

[ 2024-11-24 10:58:35 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Features:

• Reset Player Position: A new button has been added to the pause menu directly above the abandon run button. This "Reset Position" button allows to activate a special rescue mode that will recover your player when it got stuck inside walls or world objects.

Bugfixes:

• Fixed a bug that caused transmute/gamble item tooltips to stay open once a item was selected.
• Fixed multiple re-teleport triggers when playing coop on world events that have multiple waves (i.e. devouring darkness or sanguine chest)
• Fixed a crash in coop mode that was caused by the re-teleportation in world events
• Fixed a bug that caused shard of conjunction connections be saved and create unintentional long connections through the entire skilltree
• Fixed a bug that prevented you to spend your skill points when exiting the skilltree with shard of conjunction selection active
• Fixed a bug that caused skill gem placement and skill tree shard placement effects to not get reset when they got terminated by exiting the skilltree

[ 2024-11-16 14:56:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

Even though we have just released our largest content update till date around 3 week ago we are already working full force on the next content update for Striving for Light. Timeframe for this update will definately be this year. Probably around end of November/ very early December. There will be a new Season 16 start with the update launch for obvious reasons. With the Specialisation Content Update we will continue our latest path in reworking our player characters. And what would be a better fit than adding character specialisations to all characters to not only double the amount of exisiting skill nodes with new, very powerfull skills, but also make character choices more meaningful and gameplay defining. Furthermore we will separate the softcore and hardcore meta progression so that you can have two active characters for each season with separate meta progression for each game mode. As cherry on top we introduce some major systems rework based on the plenty of recent player feedback. Thanks to everyone taking the time and sharing your impressions, thoughts and feedback <3. Please note that all presented here is still in active development, and everything is subject to change.

New Features

Character Specialisations

With update 0.9.7 each character will get their own specialisation skilltree with around 9 (+-2) powerfull specialisation skill nodes. These skill nodes are designed to be more powerful than normal skill nodes and grant some sort of gameplay defining effect or twist on your build choices. These specialisation skills mostly come without major downsides (i.e. no additional resource cost).
You will only be able to pick 3 of these skill nodes and refunding them will be quite expensive (but possible). So when will you be able to specialise... Each 20 levels you will be granted one specialisation poin that you can spend.
Doing the math specialisations will mean that we will add around 70 new unique skill nodes to Striving for Light (which currently already has around +70 unique skill nodes). This is a huge undertaking but we belive this will open up even more build choices and make character selection more exciting. So lets take a look at some of the specialisation skills, which are all still subject to change.
Loopwarden: Summon two flying companions that orbit around you dealing companion contact damage and destroying enemy projectiles. Orbit radius scales with your AoE size.
Evasion Mastery: You have a 30% chance to evade half of the incoming damage when getting hit. Damage reduction is always 1 or higher.
Poison Ricochet: Each enemy hit triggers a poison ricochet projectile that deals projectile damage and applies poison condition to enemies.
Deadly Precision: Increases your Critical hit chance +15% and your critical hit damage by +75%.
Poisoned Fangs: All companions apply poison condition on enemy hits.
Bone Shield: Gain a shield that protects you from 3 damage and recharges after 40 defeated enemies.

Character Redesign

With 0.9.7 we will continue the character redesign for all remaining 6 characters. You can already take a glimpse at the Rogue and Dark Wanderer redesigns. We will do our best to stay true to our initial concept but allign them with our visual standarts.

Game Mode Separation

Hardcore mode and Softcore mode will now have separated meta progression, to keep leaderboards as fair as possible. This also allows us to do more impactful balancing changes to softcore without worrying to affect the hardcore leaderboards in the future. But we will not simply separate the meta progression and call it a day. This change comes with some further major improvements to the save file system and the possibility that you can now have two active characters in parallel for each season. And decide which game mode you want to play or which character you want to continue.
The new character selection screen will display your current character with your current weapons as well as your current weapon rarity effects (like ascended weapond glow) in the character selection screeen. We also included new information messages with new tutorials on how the game modes work and how the shields in softcore mode look like. Oh and we now have icons for the softcore and hardcore game mode.

Major Changes

Weapon Resource Cost Rebalancing

With the shortsword /light staff being the first weapons Striving for Light has ever seen it was logical to start with base resource cost of 1 per attack. But as the game evolved and the roaster of weapons grew there is a need for rebalancing the resource cost of all weapons. Therefore all weapons will have 1 additional resource cost while weaker but faster weapon will stay at 1 base resource cost, in order to make them viable weapon choices. Fear not, we will adjust the starting resources of energy and endurance as well as the starting regeneration for all characters to make this change not affecting anything beside fast and weaker weapons.

Difficulty Scaling

With the addition of ascended weapons and now the specialisations it is no secret that player power will grow. We will do some adjustments to the difficulty scaling mostly in form of enemy HP scaling. This will then also allow us to reduce the boss shield durations for higher tier maps as the boss shield duration can get quite long during endgame. We think that this will lead to an overall more fun and exiting gameplay experience.

Refunding Changes

Currently the most invaluable skilltree shard is the shard of refund, as you only need it for refunding the very few skills in the skilltree you want to change. In order to better integrate this shard into the game and make skill tree choices overall more meaningful we will add 1 shard of refund cost to refund a legacy skill in the Tree of Light. This will also then allign it with the refund cost for the new specialisation skills.

Attack Modifier Skills

We will do some changes to the downsides of the non stackable attack replacer skills to better allign all those skills among each other.

Crafting Potential

Currently each weapon can be transformed in the most powerful version of that weapon for your current build by continuously spend crafting materials on that weapon. As this system comes from times where we did not even have weapon stats and no ascended / corrupted weapons and much less ways to aquire crafting materials, it is now at a time to re-think crafting. One major issue that the current crafting system imposes, is that once you found the weapon you need for want for your build every other weapon drop becomes unspectacular since you can forever change everything you like with your current weapon. For update 0.9.7 we will do some experimentation with a new weapon stat called "Crafting Potential". Weapons will roll a random crafting potential that will then be consumed when crafting on that weapon. We belive that this will bring excitement back to weapon drops in endgame, since dropping a second weapon with higher crafting potential might result in a better version of the weapon you are currently playing. Furthermore, you now need to do some crucial decissions when engaging with crafting. What matters the most. Do you need the legendary effect? Or do you currently more need higher base weapon damage for your build. This will also make dropping a legendary or ascended weapon even more valuable as you do not have to spend crafting potential on trying to upgrade the weapon to legendary/ascended. You might ask yourself, but what is with ascending weapons in the sky forge. Excellent question, the skyforge will not consume crafting potential and therefore make playing rifts to upgrade weapons an excellent choice.

Further Changes

There are some further planed changes in rebalancing some of the skills to make them more exciting to play. But nothing ready to share yet.

[ 2024-11-14 12:16:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugfixes:

• Fixed a crash when starting phoenix egg world events while your light fragments have dropped below 3 on the current map.
• Fixed replicating projectiles of Lightning Staff not working (v.0.9.6.0d)

[ 2024-11-10 11:11:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

Development means to make steps forward, but not each step might be in the right direction. We are aware of this and therefore we pay close attention to your player feedback and re-evaluate all changes and ideas we have pushing this game forward.

Major Changes

• Reverted back the softcore behaviour of the 0.9.6 update as it turned out to trivialise gameplay up to a point we did not intend, that would lead to further balancing issues. Gatekeepers and bosses will gain back their shields when you get defeated in softcore mode.

[ 2024-11-08 09:39:13 CET ] [ Original post ]

With Update 0.9.6 we are reworking and improving some major areas of the game based on the massive player feedback we have received recently. First-off thank you very much for your spent time to share your feedback. This is something we value a lot and we hope that this is reflected in our patch notes.

Major Changes and Improvements

New Gameplay Tutorial:

The current tutorial got completely redesigned. The old tutorial was actually around 2 years old. And even though the complexity of your game increased the tutorial remained the same. We noticed that one of the most difficult tasks for new players is actually to get into the game and understanding the core gameplay mechanics. It is easy to overread one of the vast amount of tutorial hints and then get stuck because information is missing. We want to take the tutorial to the next level with this update and improve the way how core concepts are communicated step by step instead of throwing a wall of text at new players and expect them to not miss any information. Finally legendary trinkets and how to use those abilities will be explained directly from the start. Thanks for all your feedback.

Improved Softcore Mode:

If you get defeated during an bossfight in softcore mode you will now now let you continue with the exact same boss HP without the boss regenerating shields and HP. All shattered shields will stay shattered (bosses did regenerate to 75% health again and gain back their 3 shields.

Improved Crafting:

Plenty of minor tweaks and changes have been made to the shard of power that lets you re-roll the base weapon damage. You can look forward to higher base weapon damage rolls. The crafting chances have also been reworked to compensate for these higher possible damage rolls. The inconsistencies of higher weapon damage rolls on legendary upgrade compared to upgrading base weapon damage with shard of power are now a thing of the past.

Improved Difficulty Tiers:

You will now gain global +25% increased drop rates on everything for each difficulty tier. Difficulty Tier 5 will therefore grant you with a staggering global +100% increase in all drop rates, doubling all of your active positive map modifiers. These droprates will multiplicative scale with all your map modifiers. The map tooltips will take the difficulty tier directly into account and display the multiplied drop rates when you hover over the map. Next to the increased drop rates difficulty tiers will increase elite spawn rates which will increase your EXP gain and the amount of dropped light fragments. An explanation about elite enemies was added to the tooltips to give more insight what the difficulty tiers will grant you. New tooltips have also been added to the in game difficulty tier icon on top right. As we see difficulty tiers as nothing we want to force players into and was initially added for another layer of challenge for players which have already achieved everything they wanted in tier 1 of the current season and search for a new challenge. Higher difficulty tiers will require very optimised builds and a lot of currency investment to deal with the increased challenge. We therefore hope that the increased drop rates will be a big enough carrot for those players willing to take on this additional challenge.

Improvements to Echo Weapons:

• Changed staff echo weapon base projectile range to 80% (was 100%)
• Changed bow echo weapon base projectile range to 100% (was 80%)
• Information that echo weapon is already existing is now not directly displayed when you have crafted the echo weapon.
• Added information on what echo weapons are and how they work to the craft echo weapon window.

Further Improvements:

• Added text info to sky forge that states if crafting failed or was successful
• Delete save file window got a new ui
• Corrupted weapon drop rate has been increased
• The base ascending chance in the sky forge got increased
• The enemies in descent expedition of the activated room now vanish if you get defeated in softcore mode, preventing from double amount of enemies spawn when re-entering the room.
• Fixed rounding error on damage difference display for altering weapon base power with shard of power
• Improved magic shield ability description to describe that the shield destroys enemy projectiles.
• Improved tooltip and focus on darokin transmute UI (former known as gamble).

Bugfixes:

• Fixed a bug that caused shards of power not to be able to roll weapon base damage to the full potential that was able to be reached by upgrading a weapon to legendary or ascended quality
• Fixed wrong attackspeed values displayed at the craft echo weapons UI.
• Fixed legendary trinket shapeshift stats being wrongly reverted on using portals or switching weapons
• Fixed echo shards being saved after the animation delay on game over screen. Now they are saved directly preventing from loosing echo shards when pressing continue right away.
• Fixed legacy level in build viewer not being displayed.
• Fixed a bug that caused elite enemy to spawn with wrong probability
• Fixed wrong attack animation after deactivating a melee attack replacer skill node like trembling ground
• Fixed all achievements tab not accessibe with controller input

[ 2024-11-07 16:39:13 CET ] [ Original post ]

Major Features and Improvements

• Added new tooltips to scaling icons on weapons

Balancing Changes:

• Reduced tutorial boss HP and movement speed
• No elite enemies will now spawn in the tutorial level
• Decreased required hits for emerald widow eggs to 5 (was 6)

Bugfixes:

• Fixed rogue character unlocking when defeating shadow rogue at any level (should only unlock after level 40).
• Fixed earth riftboss unintentionally spawning spider eggs
• Fixed multiple coop characters spawning when spamming the coop activation button
• Fixed coop mode being able to be activated multiple times
• Fixed weapon layer on melee unknown wanderer to prevent being visible even behind world objects
• Fixed gatekeeper portal at spawn position leading back to level (did somehow lead to city Ankerath)
• Fixed range echo weapons not displaying damage scaling icon on tooltips

[ 2024-11-05 21:52:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

Major Changes and Improvements

• Decrease minimum distance for projectiles to move until they can trigger on hit effects

Bugfixes:

• Fixed a bug that caused one player character in coop mode to not use the correct range/melee attack assignment, resulting in one character not attacking until switching scenes.
• Fixed companions not following Player. There was a recursion in the latest udpate.
• Fixed secret sheep dialog displaying wrong dialog after multiple interactions
• Fixed wrong legendary ability description for ravaging companion on attack and the ravaging companions skill node

[ 2024-11-05 10:25:33 CET ] [ Original post ]

Working on major improvements for the save file system I made a mistake that lead to unintended re-initialisation of loaded save files in the latest hotfix 0.9.5.10c. I have rolled back this update immediately after noticing a few minutes later. Some got affected by this update and might have lost progress. First off, sorry for the inconvenience this might has caused you. If you have lost substantial amount of progress, please reach out to me via discord or the bugreport button on the main menu, and I will try to see what I can do to restore your progress. The good news is that I was able to fix some major issues with the save file system making it more robust and fail safe for the future. Especially for upcoming timed events like races or mini leagues or mini seasons. Furthermore this update brings improvements to critical hit damage number visibility as well as plenty highly anticipated improvements and bugfixes.

Major Changes and Improvements

• Critical hit damage numbers now have a different colour scheme and are more orange tinted to make them better distinguishable from the remaining damage numbers. The critical hit damage number animation was also updated to make them stand out more compared to normal damage numbers. Let us know how you like this change, we are open to iterate on this based on your feedback.
• The Race Event system and how save files are handles has been improved. Preventing unintended switch of an offline save file to the race save file. A new system was implemented that checks if your offline save file is currently saved as race save file, if this is the case it will be converted back as normal offline save file.
• Highlighted Cursor is now deactivated by default for new players, since the Windows OS has some issues displaying the software cursor in fullscreen mode. If you are having this issue this windows mouse setting might solve it for you: [olist]
• Click on start and then go to control panel.
• Then click on mouse.
• Uncheck the option Enhance Pointer Precision. [/olist] If this still does not bring back your cursor navigate to the options menu -> display via keyboard and toggle the highlighted cursor option to reset behaviour.
• Lowered the maximum possible zoom in for player camera
• Implemented new UI for first online/offline choice window on first game start up
• Weapon resource cost on tooltips now do not display decimal values

Bugfixes

• Fixed crashes on opening leaderboard build viewer for some builds
• Fixed permanent companions duplicating when exchanging weapons
• Fixed wrong weapon attack resource cost in stats window
• Fixed a bug when dying in the tutorial level on softcore mode would incorrectly update your shields and not update your initial player stats. This resulted in incorrect initial damage stats.
• Fixed echo weapons resource cost for upgraded echos not being applied on attacks (you might now find strong echo weapons that exceed your current resources now, just to keep this in mind)
• Fixed currency inventory hot showing the amount of collected map shards and weapon shards
• Fixed abandon run button not being able to be accessed via controller input
• Fixed enemies spawning outside of map (let me know if you still found enemies outside the map)
• Fixed emerald widow spawning wrongly oriented AoE effects
• Fixed event border colliders to prevent player character being able to glitch out of non-exit world events
• Fixed tree collider to prevent player character getting stuck
• Fixed range projectile shooting direction offset when using mouse input. (v.0.9.5.11b)

[ 2024-11-04 10:47:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

Major Changes and Improvements

• Highlighted Cursor is now deactivated by default for new players, since windows has some issues displaying the software cursor on some windows versions. If you encounter this issue navigate to the options menu -> display via keyboard and uncheck the highlighted cursor option.

Bugfixes:

• Fixed a bug when dying in the tutorial level on softcore mode would incorrectly update your shields and not update your initial player stats. This resulted in incorrect initial damage stats.

[ 2024-11-03 19:37:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugfixes

• Fixed glaring light damage not directly updating when picking additional melee and projectile damage
• Fixed missing translation for the sky forge

[ 2024-11-03 08:12:27 CET ] [ Original post ]

Major Changes and Improvements

• All projectiles created by alternative spawners like slingshot additional projectiles or scattering projectiles now have increased max range to trigger on hit effects. This is limited for performance reasons and to prevent unintended offscreen chain reactions. You should find your additional projectiles created triggering on hit effects much more consistently now.
• Improved the display and glow effect for Echo Weapons on all UI.
• Gamble was now consistently renamed to transmute for Darokin Dialog and UI
• Increased space between skygems and fragments of light on UI to prevent covering on light charge counts >100

Bugfixes

• Fixed weapon tooltips for legendary weapons showing ascended skill container
• Fixed a possible crash when switching scenes shortly before death
• Fixed a crash when switching to skilltree and stats window was open when using non controller input
• Fixed wrong calculated weapon resource cost on ascended weapons
• Fixed charge range attack replacer effect active by default
• Fixed not enough resources hint in skilltree not taking ascended weapon cost into account
• Fixed skill tree node search tutorial not being able to complete on controller input

[ 2024-11-02 10:53:45 CET ] [ Original post ]

[previewyoutube=iqCTeyo-2uU;full][/previewyoutube] It would be an awesome support if you share it with everyone that might enjoy the game.

[ 2024-11-01 20:18:56 CET ] [ Original post ]

Major Changes and Improvements

• Random world events on maps now have a new randomisation behaviour resulting in all world events having the same chances to spawn. This is especially notable for the new trial events. They should all now have the equal chances to spawn.
• Challenge Window now has new UI and fixed scaling behaviour
• Added light rays to Tree of Light
• New Color grading system that Color grades the map backgrounds on faded maps and in rifts so that they look exactly like the backgrounds in normal maps
• Improved Descent Defense Projectile visibility

Balancing:

• Emerald Widow eggs required hits to destroy have been reduced to 6 (was 8)
• When activating "Prolonged" upgrade in Descent Defense the additional wave from the latest segment will automatically be completed, allowing you to directly start the new segment. As this would allow to just wait for the last defence segment and then apply the upgrades, the cost of the prolonged upgrades now increase by 10 sky gems with each additional segment. The same was applied for the intensify upgrade that now is more expensive when purchased later on to compensate for the lesser risk you take when upgrading on the last defence segment.
• Reduced duration of fire trial and Fire Rift boss following fire projectiles

Bugfixes

• Fixed difficulty tier 2 not unlocking
• Fixed wrong player icon for goladir character
• Fixed projectiles directly colliding with wall when standing just below a wall and shooting in downwards direction
• Fixed being able to switch to skilltree after death which could lead to crashes
• Fixed disabled y sorting in Ankerath, which did made world objects not layer properly with player character
• Fixed bug in descent defence that could lead to a crash when bosses start spawning on higher defense waves
• Fixed clipping shoulder with weapons on new player characters
• Fixed temporal companions not following player
• Fixed Rotational Earth Boulders on Earth Trial being covered by ground and invisible on spawn
• Fixed Moonblade and Sunorb AoE effects interrupting animations
• Fixed possible crash when having permanent companions and switching to skilltree
• Fixed melee attack replacer skills applying wrong animations for boomerang/ cyclic might for some weapons

[ 2024-10-31 16:01:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

Major Changes and Improvements

• Pause Menu now has updated UI elements
• League selection/ Savegame Manager window UI has been updated
• Join Create Private/Public League Window UI has been updated and improved
• Decreased interaction hint of various portal world objects portal
• Increased projectile size of Twilight Quiver legendary trinket ability
• Skilltree node search highlight now uses a slightly tuned down green tone
• Improved options menu text alignement for all translations

Bugfixes

• Fixed trial events ground tiles covering traps and other world elements
• Fixed wrong squished enemy AoE effects
• Fixed interacting with crafting window game overlay triggers attacks
• Fixed interacting with sky forge ui window triggers attacks
• Fixed melee attack properly reverting after deactivating an attack replacer skill node
• Fixed double trigger of sfx on echo ballista attacks
• Fixed tree of light node could be unspeced with wrong conditions
• Fixed persistent trail of Nature Calls legendary trinket ability after shapeshifting back to normal form
• Fixed trinket stats window screen overflow when exchanging trinkets and navigating with arrow keys or gamepad
• Fixed translation fonts for trinket stats being too big causing screen overflow
• Fixed clipping font in save game manager for all translations

[ 2024-10-30 21:55:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

Major Changes and Improvements

• Restructured Options menu with sub caption to make it easier for new players to find the options they are looking for
• Implemented the new UI design for the unlock new weapons and skills windows

Bugfixes

• Fixed wrong controller hints for gamepad to switch between pages in the skillgem window LB-> LT
• Fixed translation fonts not being correctly set on world object interaction hints, resulting in empty labels
• Fixed translation fonts not being correctly set on dialog boxes, resulting in empty labels
• Fixed stats window pages not being able to be switched on gamepad by using LT/RT buttons
• Fixed options menu displaying wrong controller hints RT/LT -> RB/LB
• Fixed wrong controller hints in achievements menu

[ 2024-10-30 10:01:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

Update 0.9.5.5 has lead to some crashes when having the stats window open while changing trinkets weapons and skills. You might have noticed that we have reverted the latest patch until we have fixed this recursion. This Update fixes these crashes and brings some further improvements to Striving for Light.

Major Changes and Improvements:

• Added the light rays for all trial world events back, as we know found the root cause of the performance issues on rift content update launch.
• Stats window and crafting window is now updated when you open them as overlay and exchange weapons or trinkets while windows remain open
• Added additional descriptions to the rift keys that the rifts can be accessed in the city Ankerath to prevent confusion.
• Added additional UI information that the rift in Ankerath has opened
• Improved brightness and contrast of legendary and ascended weapon UI frame to make it stand out more
• Improved weapon tooltips, legendary weapon ability names now use hyphenate to prevent weird line wrapping
• Dropped Echo Weapon now are saved in the world with their exact echo type

Bugfixes:

• Fixed a crash that could occur when picking up new trinkets when having stats window overlay open
• Fixed a crash that could occur when having the stats window overlay open when switching to the skilltree and applying skill points
• Fixed negative damage values for weapon tooltips at the blacksmith of ankerath
• Fixed weapon tooltips could show that a weapon is corrupted when having 4 weapon stats, even though it is not corrupted
• Fixed a bug that made it possible to remove corruption status of weapon with crafting
• Fixed crafting window in skilltree could block buttons above the crafting window
• Fixed blocked melee weapon button on crafting window
• Fixed a bug that caused weapons to roll higher base damage than they could normally roll when upgrading to higher rarity with shard of quality
• Fixed decimal damage numbers in legendary weapon ability tooltips
• Fixed sanguine chest not being able to be exited with taking 1 damage
• Fixed sanguine chest event not removing from minimap once completed
• Fixed heart UI clipping out of HP bar when having 6 max health
• Fixed wrong applied glow Colors for melee echo weapons

[ 2024-10-29 18:45:51 CET ] [ Original post ]

We could not wait to deliver these fixes and improvements to all of you.

Major Changes and Improvements

• Stats window and crafting window is now updated when you open them as in game overlay and exchange weapons or trinkets while windows remain open

Bugfixes

• Fixed negative damage values for weapon tooltips at the blacksmith of Ankerath when unlocking weapons

[ 2024-10-27 21:12:40 CET ] [ Original post ]

Post Race Event Rebalancing for Season 15. It might be the end of the 48h Race Event but Season 15 has just started with fresh Softcore and Hardcore Leaderboards to conquer. We spent a lot of time fixing all emerging issues during the event time. If you encounter any further issues please report them on our discord. Or via the bug report button in the main menu. Now we wish everyone good luck and a lot of fun diving into Season 15!

Balancing Changes for Rifts:

• Slightly increased enemy hp scaling in rifts.
• Reduced traps amount in rifts.

[ 2024-10-27 17:58:38 CET ] [ Original post ]

Major Fixes:

• Fixed video memory spike caused by rift content udpate regression

[ 2024-10-27 16:14:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

Major Changes and Improvements:

• Increased corrupted weapon drop rate on corrupted maps by +80% (they have been quite rare)

Bugfixes:

• Fixed out of map teleport after completing a rift
• Fixed shard of instability being able to craft 4 weapon stats, displaying the weapon as corrupted weapon even though it is not.
• Removed the reach level 150 seasonal challenge so that the challenge leaderboard is able to update again
• Fix for craft all echo weapon challenge not unlocking
• Fixed not found references that could lead to stuttering on map load
• Fixed companions not following you after switching maps (v.0.9.5.3a)

[ 2024-10-27 10:27:13 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugfixes

• Fixed huge memory leak for all companions with limited life duration - you should experience massive performance improvements when playing anything that heavily relies on minions
• Fixed map stats for increased damage being applied to rifts
• Fixed wrong % display of melee and range damage in character tooltip
• Fixed wrong damage calculation in echo weapons
• Fixed wrong teleport destination after completing a rift when you have been in gatekeeper arena
• Fixed shard of quality re-forging a legendary weapon multiple times when trying to upgrade the weapon to ascended quality

[ 2024-10-26 21:53:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements and Major Changes

• All enemies and traps now have deactivated animations when out of sight, which should lead to performance improvements. Please let us know if you encoutner weird enemy behaviour.
• Deactivated trial effects for improved performance (shader compilation)

Bugfixes

• Fixed a bug that caused a crash when unlocking weapons
• Fixed wrong calculated enemy melee damage on higher map tiers
• Fixed range projectiles colliding with upper walls when standing close
• Fixed map damage applied on rifts
• Fixed rift progress UI being active after completing rift
• Fixed persistant rift scaling on the current active map after completing a rift
• Fixed decimal values on tooltips
• Fixed corrupted trinket not displaying +1 received damage stat information

[ 2024-10-26 15:01:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugfixes

• Fixed crash on unlocking weapons and empty weapon unlock selection
• Fixed wrong portal destinations
• Fixed range attack mouse aim offset
• Fixed remaining echo weapon fragment icons on minimaps
• Fixed crash when viewing challenges
• Performance improvements for ranged companions (v.0.9.5.0e)
• Fixed Legendary Weapons having second legendary ability UI visible (v.0.9.5.0e)
• Fixed skilltree tutorial caption not being hidden when all tutorial have been completed (v.0.9.5.0e)
• Fixed treasure goblin dropping loot outside the map (v.0.9.5.0e)
• Fixed interrupted awaken gatekeeper leaderboard update (v.0.9.5.0f)
• Fixed temporarily wrong calculated weapon resource cost after crafting when using the in game crafting overlay (v.0.9.5.0f)
• Fixed not working rift sub 4 challenge (v.0.9.5.0g)
• Fixed crash when entering awakened gatekeeper arena (v.0.9.5.0h)
• Fixed a crash that can occur when starting trial event with less then 3 light fragments (v.0.9.5.0j)

[ 2024-10-25 16:55:26 CET ] [ Original post ]

We are happy to release the largest update Striving for Light has ever seen. You might have already got a first impression of the major features coming to Striving for Light with the Rift Content Update, but behold this update has even more in store for you! To celebrate this update release we will host a 48h rift race event where everyone (even with the free demo can join) and also 14 days steam sale. With this update we are also starting EA-Season 15.

Release Race Event - Season 15

As it already became tradition we will celebrate the update release and kick off Season 15 with a 48h race event. Plenty of new challenges await to be conquered. This race will feature a design with the devs price, up to 200 price pool and some SfL Keys. If you want to join drop us a message to register at our Discord. https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1646790/view/4553794655131533369?l=english Lets jump into all the new content that the Rift Content Update will hold in store for you!

New Features

Rift Endgame System

Some might have noticed a new portal that has appeared in Ankerath. This portal will allow you to enter Unstable Rifts. Rifts are unstable realms on the brink of collapse. Use your time wisely to conquer the darkness, unlocking new depths and challenges. Unstable Rifts are a new endgame challenge coming to Striving for Light. In these unstable rifts, you will face not only powerful foes and treacherous environments but also a new nemesis: Time itself. A entire new leaderboard will log your required time completing a certain rift level.
Rifts utilise a brand new world generation algorithm resulting in dense packed levels. Your current rift progress as well as the remaining time will be displayed at a dual progress bar on the right. Once you have defeated enough enemies a portal will spawn that leads to one of 4 new uber pinnacle rift boss encounters.
If you manage to complete a rift in time you gain access to the sky forge, granting a chance to upgrade your weapons to ascended quality. With higher rift levels your upgrade chances will rise.

Rift Trials

Entering an unstable rift is not easy, you will have to proof worthy and overcome the 4 trails of the elements to obtain the required key pieces to activate the portal and tear an unstable rift into reality.

Ascended Weapons

Conquering the unstable rifts now grants you access to the forge of light where you can utilise light itself to ascent your weapons beyond legendary powers. Ascended weapons can hold up to 5 weapon stats and always have 2 embedded legendary abilities. This are the weapons you want to get to break the game.
Ascended Weapons can also be crafted and found as a random drop but they will be a lot more rare to find compared to legendaries which makes the sky forge the most reliable source for obtaining those powerful weapons.

Corruption System

Greed comes at a cost. Maps now have a chance to become corrupted when applying modifiers. Corrupted maps increase your received damage by 1 but also grant you access to corrupted weapons and new trinkets.
But beware, the immense power of these corrupted items comes with a cost. Carrying a corrupted item will increase all received damage by +1. Corrupted weapons always roll 4 weapon stats and have increased base damage rolls.
You now might ask yourself what happens if you try to upgrade a corrupted weapon to legendary or ascended quality. Well... you will be able to craft Ascended Corrupted items, and they will benefit from both the increased base damage stat rolls of the corruption and the ascension. This will be difficult to obtain but for the ones that are willing to go all in, these weapons hold powers never before seen in Striving for Light.

Echo Weapons and Echo Crafting System

A complete new echo crafting system allows players to craft their own echo weapons which are then added to the global loot pool. There will be over 5000+ weapon combinations and the possibility to inscribe messages into your weapon. When your run ends you will be rewarded by one echo fragment per achieved level of your character. These fragments can be used to upgrade your echo weapons transforming them into very powerful options to strike down your foes.

Here are some design examples of the more than 5000+ possible echo weapons you will be able to craft. Echo fragments can also be used to upgrade your echo up to tier 25 improving various weapon stats. With echo weapons you can immortalise yourself and leave messages for other players. The item drop pool will be ever evolving and bring the online experience to a whole new level.

Redesigned Player Characters

The most iconic and oldest player characters have been completely redesigned to align with the visual quality of the new content.

Interaction Hints

All interactable world objects now have hints what your interaction will lead you into. This should make it easier for new players to see what portal leads to which destination and where an interaction will result in a dialog or a challenging boss fight.

New Evolution Weapon + Rework

A new ranged weapon Wildfire's Wrath has been added. Defeating enemies will charge up this weapon and increase the amount of projectiles per attack.
The Abyssal Hunger evolution weapon has received a rework. Now for all evolution weapons charges when getting hit vanish by -30% instead of a total number of charges which makes early charge gaining much more forgiving. Keeping high amount of charges will be more challenging as well which should make playing these weapons much more interesting.

Corrupted Trinket - Wraps of Dread

Increases all damage sources but also increases your received damage by +1. Increased companion damage +10, +10% Crit Damage, +80% Melee Damage, +80% Projectile Damage, +5 Condition Damage

Currency Inventory

There is now a currency inventory giving you an overview of all currency shard items you currently have collected without having to switch through all menus.

Reimagined UI

The complete UI of the game has received a complete rework, yes every UI, also the user interface that has been unaltered since our Early Access start over 2 years ago. Fear not we will do further iterations and closely listen to your feedback. If there is something you dislike or feel is missing that the old UI had, please let us know we want to further iterate on the new concepts and let you be part of this journey.
Your energy and endurance charges will now be included in a new bottom UI bar that should not only make it easier to read but also make it easier for new players to understand the resource system.

Improved Tutorials

All tutorials have been updated to make diving into the game for the first time less overwhelming and more straight forward. Opening the pathfinder for the first time will exactly introduce what maps are and where to click to jump into the action as fast as possible.

Redesigned Skill Visuals

Discharge and Lightning Strike type skills have been completely redesigned.

Balancing

• Male Unknown Wanderer starting stats now have additional +10% dodge regeneration and +10% crit damage
• Female Unknown Wanderer starting stats now have +3 companion damage and +10% movement speed
• Increased base movement speed of all player characters by +5%
• Increased Ice Staff Projectile Speed
• Increased Light Staff Projectile Speed
• Trasure Goblins now have half HP to make chasing goblins worth it
• Rebalanced Noctelle Bossfight, Noctelle now spawns less AoE fields
• 100 Bloodchest seasonal challenge has been removed

Major Improvements and Changes

• Range Companions now attack faster and the projectiles have more range and faster movement speed
• Performance improvements in skilltree
• Redesigned enemy AoE effects for improved perspective, utilising new shaders for improved performance and improved visibility
• Redesigned main menu
• Player Movement Animation has been reworked to fix delayed animation starts what made movement feel less responsive
• Invincibility after Teleport: Player Character is now invincible for 3s after teleporting to a new map or teleporting back into a map when you got defeated in softcore
• Leaderboards are now available in the city plaza even on offline save games (the empty plaza looked kind of awkward, and now offline play can also check out the builds and leaderboards).

Bugfixes

Softcore: Event spawned enemies now vanish if you die in softcore to prevent duplicating bosses and rewards Fixed bosses idle and not attacking player when player was keeping certain distance to the boss Fixed freezing enemies caused some enemies with AoE effects to hide AoE effects while still being able to deal damage Evolution Weapons (Abyssal Hunger, Wildfire's Staff) can now be charged with all enemies Fixed bug on gatekeeper portal that allowed switching nearby weapon while interacting with the portal If you are excited about this update please share the word, your support means a lot to us. After this content update we are quickly approaching the 1.0 release of Striving for Light. We tried to include all major new mechanics and systems into this update, so that there is enough time to iron out bugs and listen to your feedback to improve and polish the game for its 1.0 release. So it is more important than ever to report bugs, give us your constructive feedback and let us know what you think about these new features and what you would like to see improved for the 1.0 release. We value your feedback and appreciate your invested time. At this point we want to thank you for all your continuous support on this wild - almost 3 year long - early access journey. You are invited to join our official discord. Chat with fellow SfL Players, discuss builds, the new content update or just hang out with us.

[ 2024-10-25 15:49:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

RIFT RACE EVENT

We are hosting a 48h Rift Race Event which will take place at the 25th-27th October 2024 starting and ending at 7pm CEST.

Unique Twist

Plenty of new challenges from the new Rift Content Update await to be conquered!

Participate with Demo Version

For this race we again decided to update our Striving for Light Demo, to make it possible for all players to fully participate in this event with the Demo Version without any restrictions. This is a unique possibility to invite all your friends & content creators to join the event and experience Striving for Light.

Dynamic Price Pool

This race has a dynamic price pool. The price pool will depend on the amount of participating players and increase by 1 / each participating player that reaches at least 50 challenge points in the leaderboards and has registered for joining the event on the Igniting Spark Games Discord.

Price Pool

• 1. Place: 50% of price pool + Design Weapon/Skill/Trinket together with the devs which will be implemented into the game.
• 2. Place: 30% of price pool
• 3. Place: 20% of price pool
• 4.- 6. Place: Striving for Light: Steam Key

Price pool will be rounded up to available steam gift cards, price pool can't exceed 200

How to participate

• Join the Igniting Spark Games discord & introduce yourself in #rift-race
• Please stick to fairplay, no cheating, no offensive player names, violation will result in disqualification of this and future events

How to win

• Complete seasonal challenges to earn challenge points, the player with the most challenge points wins!

Special Features:

• New challenges featuring the new content of the rift content update.
• You can fully play the whole treasure race event with the Striving for Light Demo.
• Dynamic Price Pool: So invite all your friends and your favourite content creators to increase the price pool!
• Refined challenges. We removed the 100 bloodstained chest challenge :)
• Race is hardcore only

This race celebrates the extensive Rift Content Update v.0.9.5. You can read the update preview here to prepare yourself for what is coming to Striving for Light: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1646790/view/4525646159699148751 Feel invited to Join the Igniting Spark Games discord !

[ 2024-10-23 13:24:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

Changes

• Implemented Race Event Banner for upcoming Rift Race Event
• Preparations for Rift Content Update

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1646790/view/4525646159699148751?l=english

[ 2024-10-16 17:08:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

It is no secret by now that we have been working tirelessly over the past few months on the largest update Striving for Light has ever seen. We're thrilled to finally share a preview of what's coming your way with the "Rift" Content Update.

Release Date

The release of the Rift Content Update is planed for the 25.10.2024.

Release Race Event - Season 15

As it already became tradition we will celebrate the update release and kick off Season 15 with a 48h race event. Plenty of new challenges await to be conquered. This race will feature a design with the devs price, up to 200 price pool and some SfL Keys. You can already register for the race at our Discord. Just drop a message that you want to join. Everyone can join, you can even participate with the free demo! Lets jump into all the new content that the Rift Content Update will hold in store for you! All you are going to see is still in active development and not final and might change until update release.

New Features

Rift Endgame System

Some might have noticed a new portal that has appeared in Ankerath. This portal will allow you to enter Unstable Rifts. Rifts are unstable realms on the brink of collapse. Use your time wisely to conquer the darkness, unlocking new depths and challenges. Unstable Rifts are a new endgame challenge coming to Striving for Light. In these unstable rifts, you will face not only powerful foes and treacherous environments but also a new nemesis: Time itself. A entire new leaderboard will log your required time completing a certain rift level.
Rifts utilise a brand new world generation algorithm resulting in dense packed levels. Your current rift progress as well as the remaining time will be displayed at a dual progress bar on the right.
Once you have defeated enough enemies a portal will spawn that leads to one of 4 new uber pinnacle rift boss encounters.
If you manage to complete a rift in time you gain access to the sky forge, granting a chance to upgrade your weapons to ascended quality. With higher rift levels your upgrade chances will rise.

Rift Trials

Entering an unstable rift is not easy, you will have to proof worthy and overcome the 4 trails of the elements to obtain the required key pieces to activate the portal and tear an unstable rift into reality.

Ascended Weapons

Conquering the unstable rifts now grants you access to the forge of light where you can utilise light itself to ascent your weapons beyond legendary powers. Ascended weapons can hold up to 5 weapon stats and always have 2 embedded legendary abilities. This are the weapons you want to get to break the game.
Ascended Weapons can also be crafted and found as a random drop but they will be a lot more rare to find compared to legendaries which makes the sky forge the most reliable source for obtaining those powerful weapons.

Corruption System

Greed comes at a cost. Maps now have a chance to become corrupted when applying modifiers. Corrupted maps increase your received damage by 1 but also grant you access to corrupted weapons and new trinkets.
But beware, the immense power of these corrupted items comes with a cost. Carrying a corrupted item will increase all received damage by +1. Corrupted weapons always roll 4 weapon stats and have increased base damage rolls.
You now might ask yourself what happens if you try to upgrade a corrupted weapon to legendary or ascended quality. Well... you will be able to craft Ascended Corrupted items, and they will benefit from both the increased base damage stat rolls of the corruption and the ascension. This will be difficult to obtain but for the ones that are willing to go all in, these weapons hold powers never before seen in Striving for Light.

Echo Weapons and Echo Crafting System

A complete new echo crafting system allows players to craft their own echo weapons which are then added to the global loot pool. There will be over 5000+ weapon combinations and the possibility to inscribe messages into your weapon. When your run ends you will be rewarded by one echo fragment per achieved level of your character. These fragments can be used to upgrade your echo weapons transforming them into very powerful options to strike down your foes.

Here are some design examples of the more than 5000+ possible echo weapons you will be able to craft. Echo fragments can also be used to upgrade your echo up to tier 25 improving various weapon stats. With echo weapons you can immortalise yourself and leave messages for other players. The item drop pool will be ever evolving and bring the online experience to a whole new level.

Redesigned Player Characters

The most iconic and oldest player characters have been completely redesigned to align with the visual quality of the new content.

Interaction Hints

All interactable world objects now have hints what your interaction will lead you into. This should make it easier for new players to see what portal leads to which destination and where an interaction will result in a dialog or a challenging boss fight.

New Evolution Weapon + Rework

A new ranged weapon Wildfire's Wrath has been added. Defeating enemies will charge up this weapon and increase the amount of projectiles per attack.
The Abyssal Hunger evolution weapon has received a rework. Now for all evolution weapons charges when getting hit vanish by -30% instead of a total number of charges which makes early charge gaining much more forgiving. Keeping high amount of charges will be more challenging as well which should make playing these weapons much more interesting.

Corrupted Trinket - Wraps of Dread

Increases all damage sources but also increases your received damage by +1. Increased companion damage +10, +10% Crit Damage, +80% Melee Damage, +80% Projectile Damage, +5 Condition Damage

Currency Inventory

There is now a currency inventory giving you an overview of all currency shard items you currently have collected without having to switch through all menus.

Reimagined UI

A while back we have asked for feedback on our current work in progress UI redesign and even though the majority liked the redesign there have been votes for the old UI. We took this as an indication that the new UI needed some further polish so we further refined the new UI and hope that everyone is happy with the new design. If not please give us distinct feedback so that we know on which areas we need to improve to satisfy as much players as possible. Also the new UIs will feature a dedicated "X"-Close button :).

Major Improvements and Changes

• Redesigned enemy AoE effects for improved perspective, utilising new shaders for improved performance and improved visibility
• Redesigned main menu
• Player Movement Animation has been reworked to fix delayed animation starts what made movement feel less responsive
• Invincibility after Teleport: Player Character is now invincible for 3s after teleporting to a new map or teleporting back into a map when you got defeated in softcore
• Further minor improvements
• Countless bugfixes

We are sure that there will be even more new features and improvements ready until the Rift Content Update release on 25.10. for you to explore. We will post the full patch notes shortly before release day. If you are excited about this update please share the word, your support means a lot to us. After this content update we are quickly approaching the 1.0 release of Striving for Light. We tried to include all major new mechanics and systems into this update, so that there is enough time to iron out bugs and listen to your feedback to improve and polish the game for its 1.0 release. So it is more important than ever to report bugs, give us your constructive feedback and let us know what you think about these new features and what you would like to see improved for the 1.0 release. We value your feedback and appreciate your invested time. At this point we want to thank you for all your continuous support on this wild - almost 3 year long - early access journey. You are invited to join our official discord. Chat with fellow SfL Players, discuss builds, the new content update or just hang out with us.

[ 2024-10-15 18:36:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugfixes:

• Fixed a crash related to the added tree of light legacy skill nodes.

[ 2024-06-28 05:25:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

With update 0.9.4.6 we are adding a new long awaited feature that lets you modify the skill spawn chance of skills in the skilltree by 4 new legacy skill nodes available at the tree of light.

New Features:

• Modify Skill Spawn Chances: 4 new legacy skill nodes have been added to the tree of light that can be used to modify the skill spawn chances of certain skill types like melee, ranged, companions or condition damage skill nodes.
  
  
  
  This should make it possible to target specific builds even when you fully unlocked all the available skills and have more control over the skill tree randomness. Note that there are as well plenty of skill tree shards that can be used strategically to shape your skilltree.
  

Improvements

• Improved range construct aim: Ranged constructs have received an improved aim algorithm to better target enemies.
• Improved hitboxes: Plenty of enemy and destroyable map objects have received improved hitboxes

Bugfixes:

• Fixed active abilities not being re-activated when switching the map (fixing also not running out effects of trinkets like Lifecasque)
• Fixed melee weapon damage not being updated directly when activating increased melee damage skill nodes
• Fixed a recently introduced but that caused the first dungeon level scale as if it was already floor 2, this is now fixed and should result in smoother leveling progression

Let us know what you think about this new feature on our official discord.

[ 2024-06-27 16:18:05 CET ] [ Original post ]

With update 0.9.4.5 we are adding a new feature to skills and weapon unlocks many probably have waited for: a Reroll Option to skip certain unlocks especially early on new leagues/ events/ save files..

New Features:

• Reroll Unlock Choices: You can now reroll your unlock choices for weapon and skill unlocks. Yes, you have read correctly, from now one you can skip certain skills you do not want to unlock. The re-rolling will cost you 2 light fragments without changing it's cost. This will especially on new leagues or events make it possible to target specific builds early until you have farmed some more currency to make more extensive re-rolls of your skilltree possible for later runs.
  

Bugfixes:

• Fixed a bug that made it possible to enter the hideout and arena portal while having a dropped weapon focused which has duplicated the dropped item while entering the portal and also deleting your current carried weapon. This fix was already applied to all other portals, so therefore this bug should now be a Thing of the past. If you Encounter this on any portal just let us know.
• Fixed to many bursting companions respawn when changing the map
• Fixed missing unlock notification icons for skills sanguine shot/burst
• Fixed a bug that mad it possible to activate descent defense multiple times

Let us know what you think about this new feature on our official discord.

[ 2024-06-21 08:11:09 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugfixes:

• Fixed crash on reloading corrupted skilltree from save file
• Fixed a bug that caused map difficulty (delve count) to not be set correctly resulting in too low enemy hp scaling. Now on each start the delve count is updated and correctly set to the amount of already finished maps.
• Fixed skills not updading their stack count accurately

[ 2024-06-18 08:10:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

Thanks to everyone participating in the treasure race events and for spending your time reporting freedback and bugs. We took a step back and reworking the boss shield system.

New Features:

• Shielded Boss State: We have heared your feedback and decided to overhaul the boss shield system by implementing a new shielded state. Previously when dealing so much damage that you trigger the shield the boss has been immune to all sort of damage (beside the one or other bypassing bug). We understand that looking at a not changing health bar for a few seconds is unsatisfying. We therefore implemented a new damage reduction system that reduces all dealt damage to this boss by 90% for the duration his shield is active. So especially on high maps with higher shield durations this will be noticeable. We want to clearly state that our vision for boss fights is to retain a layer of challenge even on very well thought out, high dps builds. Please let us know your thoughts on this iteration of the boss shield system.
• Elite Goblins went core: As it seemed that everyone enjoyed the treasure race event, so we decided to roll the elite goblins into the core game. From now on every map you will have a small chance in encountering an elite goblin. Faded maps received another unique aspect as they come with a very high elite goblin spawn rate. Another reason to embrace the unpredictability.

Balancing:

• Condition Damage decay got increased to 40% (was 30% before)

Bugfixes:

• Fixed picking up a trinket deactivating your attack replacer skill node (like boomerang or cyclic might)
• Fixed corrupted light enemies getting hidden to early when running out of sight but still making it possible to hit you with their AoE attacks
• Fixed bypassing shields by dealing enough damage to one shot a boss
• Fixed a bug that caused faster companion spawns when switching scenes while pressing attack buttons on certain conditions

[ 2024-06-17 21:38:21 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugfixes:

• Fixed condition damage ticks bypassing boss shields
• Fixed "slight" collider offset for sanguine shot :)

[ 2024-06-15 19:14:05 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements:

• Reworked companion AI: Companions now much faster detect enemies in range, companions have less idle time between attacks and double check if enemies are around to switch back to attack state immediately, companions also have received a bit larger enemy detect range

Bugfixes

• Fixed unlock description of buzz harbinger, this weapon drops from regular drop pool

[ 2024-06-15 08:53:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

Balancing

• Decreased trasure goblin max hp
• Increased treasure goblin max player detect range
• Abyssal Hunger has increased initial attack range
• Abyssal Hunger charge stack on hit loss has been reduced to 10 (was 20)
• Treasure Goblins have slightly reduced movement speed

Bugfixes

• Fixed empty tooltips on descent tower defense
• Fixed 1 condition damage tick to deal damage even if boss shield is active

[ 2024-06-14 18:13:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugfixes:

• Fixed attack cooldown and trinket ability UI not working after switching to skilltree
• Fixed a crash in the demo version when playing in offline mode and triggering an achievement
• Fixed a missing translation tag on the moon blade weapon
• Fixed missing tooltips on the weapon shards in the crafting window
• Fixed enemies dropping items in the arena event

[ 2024-06-13 23:14:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

Update 0.9.4.3 has just dropped for Striving for Light adding a new special melee weapon as well as more soundtrack options. Quick reminder: we will host a 48h Treasure Race Event, if you missed that announcement you can read on how to participate here: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1646790/view/4161968803625725157?l=english

New Features

Abyssal Hunger - New Melee Weapon

Defeated enemies that grant experience charge up this weapon and increase the weapon damage. Getting hit will removes 20 weapon charges. This weapon will not only grow in strength but also shapeshift it's appearance. The charges are displayed in the weapon tooltips.
Initially this weapon is weak with a low range but can grow into a devastating weapon with huge range.

More Soundtrack Options

We have added the latest 4 sountracks of Striving for Light: Survival to Striving for Light. So if you want to have intense and pumping music for the race event starting tomorrow, this is the way to go! You can switch to the survival OST in the settings menu. If you have followed yesturdays news, you might already know that the full Striving for Light Soundtrack is now available on all major streaming platforms. You can now listen to the Striving for Light Soundtrack anywhere anytime:

Listen on:

• Spotify
• Apple Music
• Amazon Music
• Youtube Music
• Deezer
• Tidal and many more!

You can read the full announcement here: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1646790/view/4179983836283047015 Thanks for your support and for being part of this amazing journey!

Join the community!

Want to report a bug or talk with fellow players about the game and the new features? You are invited to join our official disccord.

[ 2024-06-13 15:33:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

We are thrilled to announce that the soundtrack for Striving for Light is now available on all major music streaming platforms!

Listen on:

• Spotify
• Apple Music
• Amazon Music
• Youtube Music
• Deezer
• Tidal and many more!

We have also set up a bandcamp page in case you prefer an uncompressed sonic experience: Official Bandcamp

Cutting Dark

We decided to release the soundtracks for all our games under the music project name 'Cutting Dark'. In addition to the beloved tracks from our games, we have a few new albums on the way, that you as well might enjoy.

• Eternal Horizons

  
  Release on 21.6.2024 The album captures the beauty, power, and recovery of nature, telling a story of destruction and renewal through powerful and emotional melodies. [previewyoutube=GXV1C7dfmQA;full][/previewyoutube]

• Into the North

  
  Release on 5.7.2024 An evocative album that musically captures the harsh, icy landscapes and the rugged, untamed spirit of the northern wilderness. [previewyoutube=f6sNKdEVwlY;full][/previewyoutube]

As we want to take you with us on this new sonic journey we decided to offer our two new albums as an limited 1 (pay what you want) pre-order offer on bandcamp which will be available until the full release. Pre-Order: Eternal Horizons on Bandcamp Pre-Order: Into the North on Bandcamp There is also a very generous full dicography bundle if you want to get all soundtracks at once. Of course all albums will be available on all major music streaming platforms on release day. As this is the very beginning of our music journey with this new project we appreciate every support. Happy listening!

[ 2024-06-12 15:41:07 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugfixes:

• Fixed glaring light skill not scaling with projectile and melee damage as intended
• Fixed not removed minimap icons when completing world events
• Fixed not removed heart minimap icons when collecting hearts with petrified heart trinket active
• Fixed double triggered and overlapping skilltree tutorials with lost focus when playing with gamepad

[ 2024-06-10 19:45:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Challenges:

• New Challenge added, have gloomtide and sunfire sceptre weapons equipped
• New Challenge added, have sun orb and moon blade weapons equipped
• Upated Challenge, equipp 4 buzz keeper trinkets and the buzz harbinger (was play the dark wanderer before)

• Bugfixes:

  
  
• Fixed permanent player effects not being directly activated after extiting skilltree
• Fixed persistent treasure goblin minimap icons
• Fixed challenge unlock all weapons triggered to early

[ 2024-06-08 11:25:46 CET ] [ Original post ]

TREASURE RACE EVENT

We are hosting a 48h Treasure Race Event which will take place at the 14th-16th June 2024 starting and ending at 7pm CEST.

Unique Twist

Each map will contain a special flying trasure goblin that you can hunt down for additional treasure! But beware some might fight back!

Participate with Demo Version

For this race we decided to update our Striving for Light Demo to make it possible for all players to fully participate in this event with the Demo Version without any restrictions. This is a unique possibility to invite all your friends & content creators to join the event and experience Striving for Light.

Dynamic Price Pool

Another twist is the dynamic price pool. The price pool will depend on the amount of participating players and increase by 1 / each participating player that reaches at least 50 challenge points in the leaderboards and has registered for joining the event on the Igniting Spark Games Discord.

Price Pool

• 1. Place: 50% of price pool + Design Weapon/Skill/Trinket together with the devs which will be implemented into the game.
• 2. Place: 30% of price pool
• 3. Place: 20% of price pool
• 4.- 6. Place: Striving for Light: Survival Steam Key

Price pool will be rounded up to available steam gift cards, price pool can't exceed 1000

How to participate

• Join the Igniting Spark Games discord & introduce yourself in #treasure-race
• Please stick to fairplay, no cheating, no offensive player names, violation will result in disqualification of this and future events

How to win

• Complete seasonal challenges to earn challenge points, the player with the most challenge points wins!

Special Features:

• Each map contains a special flying treasure goblin that can be hunt down for additional treasure. But beware some might fight back!
• You can fully play the whole treasure race event with the Striving for Light Demo.
• Dynamic Price Pool: So invite all your friends and your favourite content creators to increase the price pool!
• Refined challenges.
• Race is hardcore only

Update 0.9.4.2 also features:

• New minimap icons for treasure goblins to better seperate them from map bosses

Feel invited to Join the Igniting Spark Games discord !

[ 2024-06-07 19:01:45 CET ] [ Original post ]

This patch fixes the reported crashes when having an attack replacer skill active and trying to pick up a new weapon. This bug wasn't straight forward to fix as it had some further hidden issues related to the recently introduced new scene management system.

Bugfixes:

• Fixed occuring crashes when picking up a new melee weapon when you had an attack replacer skill active (like cyclic might, melee constructs, ...)
• Fixed a bug that caused wrong attack animations to be activated when switching between different attack replacer skill nodes
• Fixed skill effects not being correctly activated when switching weapons, activating skill nodes or changing embedded legendary skill effects on your weapons

[ 2024-06-05 12:28:21 CET ] [ Original post ]

The ground trembled as rifts tore open across Ankerath, unveiling gateways to instable realms where only the bravest wanderers dared to venture. They sought to prove their might amongst others and forge yet uncovered legacies. A sneak peak of the upcoming 0.9.5 content update for Striving for Light.
New Features:

• A new mysterious rift has appeared... no one knows what has caused this rift to appear nor how it can be utilised...

Bugfixes:

• Fixed crashes related to pressing the unspent skill point UI button.

[ 2024-06-04 22:19:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements

• New map design for descent expedition maps (v.0.9.4.0b)
• Improved cloak animation for unknown wanderers (v.0.9.4.0d)

Bugfixs

• Fixed skill tree tutorial not being hidden after entering the skilltree for the first time
• Fixed missing translation tags for new weapons and weapon achievements
• Fixed kill streak frenzy UI not showing up (v.0.9.4.0b)
• Fixed greatsword always showing swing vfx (v.0.9.4.0b)
• Fixed crash when switching scenes on maps where centipede like enemies are present (v.0.9.4.0b)
• Fixed multiple cashes on switching to skilltree during fights (v.0.9.4.0b)
• The heart positions are now not only updated on the minimap overlay but also on the normal minimap, yes that feature was actually missing until now (v.0.9.4.0c)
• Fixed player minimap position and boss minimap positions hidden after scene switch (v.0.9.4.0c)
• Fixed crashes on scene transitions (v.0.9.4.0c)
• Fixed persistent damage numbers after scene switch (v.0.9.4.0c)
• Fixed initial skilltree tutorial not being hidden (v.0.9.4.0c)
• Fixed unspent skillpoint ui not being hidden (v.0.9.4.0c)
• Fixed further crashes on scene transitions (v.0.9.4.0d)
• Fixed crash when freezing enemeis with frozen vessel weapon (v.0.9.4.0d)
• Fixed skygems not being removed from minimap after pickup (v.0.9.4.0e)
• Fixed not updated player walk animation when walking while attacking (v.0.9.4.0f)
• Fixed bug related to freeze conditions (v.0.9.4.0g)

Join the community!

Want to report a bug or talk with fellow players about the game and the new features? You are invited to join our official disccord.

[ 2024-05-08 21:36:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

Content Update 0.9.4 has arrived and is full packed with a new arsenal of weapons enabling complete new playstyles, plenty of QoL improvements like overlay stats and crafting, faster skill tree and scene transitions and major memory leak fixes. With update 0.9.4 we are kicking of our Early Access Season 14 and are also announcing the upcoming 48h Cataclysm Race event where things are a bit .... different.

48h Cataclysm Race Event

11.05. -12.05 at 7pm CEST. Featuring a price pool and a design with the devs price. Join our discord to participate and compete for the prices. Find out more! Join our official disccord.

New Features:

New Weapons

• Moonblade - Melee Weapon:
  Each attack casts an additional AoE in attack direction, damage scales with projectile damage. If carrying Sun Orb gain 2 sun orbs on attack, damage scales with melee damage.
• Sun Orb - Range Weapon:
  The projectile deal splash damage which scales with melee damage. If carrying Moonblade gain additional AoE on attack that scales with projectile damage.
• Gloomtide - Melee Weapon:
  Spawns two orbiting melee blades each 2 seconds without attacking. If carrying Sunfire Sceptre gain 1 additonal orbiting projectile. Both trigger all projectile/melee effects.
• Sunfire Sceptre - Range Weapon:
  Spawns an orbiting projectile each second without attacking. If carrying Gloomtide gain 1 additonal orbiting melee blade. Both trigger all projectile/melee effects.
• Buzz Harbinger - Range Weapon:
  Instead of projectiles each attack spawns bumble bee companions that move like your projectiles and scale with companion damage. 30% chance on enemy death to spawn a bumble bee companion for 6 seconds.

Overlay Stats/ Crafting

• You can now open and view the stats screen during gameplay by pressing the hotkey ("I" or "Z" button depending on your settings)
  
• You can now open the crafting window during gameplay by pressing the ("c" button)
  
• Added the new stats and crafting window options to the controller selection menu
  

Consolidated UI

• The energy ressource bar was moved to the bottom so that you can have energy/endurance and dodge charges as well as your trinket and attack cooldowns all at one place. Please let us know your thoughts on this change. We will closely listen to your feedback.
  

Major Reworks

• World and Skill tree are now cached which means no long loading times from switching between skill tree and gameplay anymore
• Fixed major memory leaks that could lead to degraded performance on long play time
• Performance improvements for projectile spawns.

Balancing

• Bumble Bee companions have reduced lifespan of 6 seconds (was 8 seconds before)
• Very minor increase in enemy hp for endgame
• Higher tier maps now spawn a little bit earlier

Update 0.9.4 comes with massive changes and improvements to the scene management system which was tested in the beta branch for a while now. However, if you encounter any bugs/crashes please report them so that we can fix those as soon as possible. Thanks for your support and for being part of this amazing journey!

Join the community!

Want to report a bug or talk with fellow players about the game and the new features? You are invited to join our official disccord.

[ 2024-05-07 21:31:56 CET ] [ Original post ]

The very first playtest version for the upcoming 0.9.4 update is now available in the public playtest branch. Note that this playtest version does not reflect the amount of content that will be included in the 0.9.4.0 content update. As always there will be moar... This update is meant for testing these new QoL features ahead of time, to be able to fix all regressions that come with these huge changes. Help battle test the newest features and give feedback to help shaping this new update! Note that there most likely will be crashes so bring your bug net and get ready to catch some bugs !

New Features:

• You can now open and view the stats screen during gameplay by pressing the hotkey ("I" or "Z" button depending on your settings)
  
• You can now open the crafting window during gameplay by pressing the ("c" button)
  
• Added the new stats and crafting window options to the controller selection menu
  
• World and Skill tree are now cached which means no long loading times from switching between skill tree and gameplay anymore
• Fixed major memory leaks that could lead to degraded performance on long play time

Join the public beta branch:

Right click on the game --> properties --> Beta Participation --> select: public beta branch

Join the community!

Want to report a bug or talk with fellow players about the game and the new features? You are invited to join our official disccord.

[ 2024-04-10 20:40:55 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements:

• Improved border endboss arena wall colliders to prevent player getting stuck when moving near to walls and opening doorways
• Improved collision detection in endboss arena to prevent player and loot getting stuck in the arena wall
• Added system that moves player and loot towards the arena center if it got stuck on the wall collider

[ 2024-03-11 16:14:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugfixes:

• Fixed not being able to view leaderboard on specific system language settings due to wrong converted digits (different floating point seperators)
• Fixed language selection in options menu showing wrong language

[ 2024-03-10 12:37:21 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Features:

Improved Defensive Layers for Bossfights

The recently introduced defensive layer system for boss encounters got improved.
We have added shield charges that allow players to shatter the defensive shield of bosses before reaching the health threshold that would have triggered the shield. One shield charge can be removed per second by simply attacking. If you manage to reach the health threshold faster, then this will trigger the defensive shield but only the remaining shield charges will determine how long the remaining shield duration is lasting. Taking the example of tier 1 maps: If you perform one attack each second and need longer than 3 seconds to reach the first threshold you will not trigger the defensive shield at all. If you are a bit faster and reach the threshold after 2 seconds with one remaining shield charge the shield duration will only be 1 second (3-2). Thanks for sharing your thoughts and opinions on this new system, we have closely listened to your feedback. We hope that this reworked system boosts the enjoyment of bossfights and keeps them challenging even on high map tiers with powerful builds.

Improved fragment of light visuals:

Major Changes and Improvements:

• The new weapon slash effects are now a bit more transparent to cover less screen space and improve visibility.
• You can now zoom out more (v.0.9.3.1b)

Balancing:

• Improved hitboxes of Noctelle's dark ray attacks

Fixes:

• Fixed a crash on awakened gatekeeper spawn
• Fixed infrequent a crash on player death (v.0.9.3.1b)

Come, join the community on our offical discord.

[ 2024-03-08 17:20:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

With update 0.9.3.0 we are introducing a new defensive layer balancing system for boss fights, a new lighting system for ground textures and player character models, we are also adding complete new weapon slash effects into the game to make melee feel more impactful, adding localisation support for polish, turkish and russian and many further improvements and changes and bugfixes. We are also happy to announce that Striving for Light is now Steam Deck verified.

New Features:

Defensive Layers for Endboss Encounters:

Lets start with some history of the Striving for Light balancing... We adjusted our balancing countless times over the last years. Enemy HP scaling reached from way too gradual up to way too steep rendering the game either too easy or too tedious. Our vision was always to have challenging gameplay and bossfights without tedious fights against enemies with very much HP where each encounter slows you down and throws you out of the gameplay loop. We did not settle with the system we had and around a year ago introduced map tiers which consistently ramped up the enemy and trap damage instead of just relying on map modifiers. Well, players with enough map shards were able to re-roll map mods to keep enemy damage low enough, which resulted in endless runs that went on as long as your hardware could take it. Map tiers allowed us to reduce the overall enemy HP and the enemy HP scaling by a tremendous amount, still keeping gameplay engaging, challenging and way more fluid as you did not get slowed down on each enemy encounter. Current State... We have been pretty happy with the overall balancing of the game difficulty recently and have not received feedback of the game being too hard, but there was still the issue that if you got very lucky on the early game skill tree, weapon drops or if you have farmed a lot of shards to optimise the skilltree, the game would become very easy and resulting in endbosses being one shot. Not even speaking from crafting a legendary weapon right at level 1. We have spectated that players managed one shot bosses far beyond level 150 which trivialised gameplay, which therefore becomes less challenging and fun. As this mainly applies to a very small fraction of the playerbase who know the game very well, we therefore do not want to have the game difficulty adapted to these players. So we have worked on a system that will upkeep the challenge in boss fights without making the game more difficult for newer players or lower damage output builds: Defensive Layers.
Defensive Layers: Endboss encounters (gatekeepers) will now have 3 defensive layers that will trigger at certain HP thresholds. Triggering a defensive layer results in the boss becoming invincible for a short duration of time. The duration scales with the map tiers and is designed to be almost negligible at the first map tiers. This will prevent bosses being one shot and upkeep the challenge especially on higher map tiers with very strong build setups. This system also gives us the possibility of consistently balancing the boss fight challenge a bit more independent from player powers so that we can balance the enemy/ boss HP in a way to keep as much build variety as possible.
Please note that this is a very first implementation of this new system and we will closely listen to your player feedback. This also just marks the start of further systems that could build on the defensive layers like special events triggered at certain enemy HP thresholds.

New Lighting System for Textures and Player Models:

We have created normal maps for all ground textures as well as for the player models which now allows us to use this height information on the textures to render more realistic 3D lighting on our textures. This results in much more plastic looking textures.

New Weapon Slash Effects:

All melee weapon slash effects have been completely reworked and a new slash system has been added that allows spawning weapon slashes on the global coordinate system for more precise slash trails. We have crafted complete new shaders, which feature a new blending technique that does not lead to color blow out on bright backgrounds. The new shaders now deliver great contrast and blend well with all different sorts of background brightness levels. We also have majorly upgraded our weapon slash system that allows us to have much more control over what slash is spawned for which duration to give melee combat more feel of impact.

These new shaders are also applied to all sort of skills where weapon slashes were used like Double Hit, Clash of Steel, Melee Constructs...

New supported languages:

Russian, Turkish, Polish We decided to make our localisation available on a public github repository so that everyone can contribute and improve the localisation of Striving for Light. If you want to contribute you can find it, together with a guide on how contributing works, here: https://github.com/IgnitingSparkGames/StrivingForLight-Localisation

Steam Deck verified:

WIth update 0.9.3 we are very happy to announce that Striving for Light is now Steam Deck Verified!

Dynamic Environment

Grass and other map decorations got sway effect.

Major Changes and Improvements:

• Companions can now break interactible world objects (like jars)
• Added support for 240Hz setting in the options menu
• Blade orbit tower attack now does not scale with player AoE size to prevent the attack from spawning outside the descent map
• Light Staff now has attack indicator glow
• Intensified shortsword attack indicator glow
• Fixed melee attack offset when attacking with the directional buttons on keys and gamepad
• Coop stone got its moss plants back
• Improved tree of light texture

Fixes:

• Fixed bug that spawned you into the gatekeeper arena when pressing F on a map
• Fixed final boss fight stage on awakened serpents spawning to early and triggering too many chests
• Fixed swamp crawler map boss misplaced hitbox
• Fixed unintended graphic glitch on serpent boss model

Come, join the community on our offical discord.

[ 2024-03-01 11:59:05 CET ] [ Original post ]

Fixes:

• Fixed coop player not being teleported into descent expedition events when one player enteres a room
• Fixed coop player triggered dodge skills spawning at player 1 position
• Fixed trinket stats not beeing added to the build inspector on the leaderboards (note that tree of light legacy skills are not taken into account on the build inspector)
• Fixed weird floating point values in crit stats of leaderboard build viewer
• Fixed darokins staff ranged weapon missing scaling with melee damage icon
• Fixed missing scaling with melee damage icon for glaring light skill

[ 2024-02-18 15:44:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

Challenges

• Added Tier 3 Challenge: Defeat the the Phoenix with Staff of the Phoenix and Sword of the Phoenix equipped

Improvements:

• Performance improvment for piercing blow attack
• Increased voice volume in reworked cinematic intro
• Trinket stats UI is now more responsive and centers itself vertically on the screen (v.0.9.2.0e)

Balancing:

• Ravaging companions now have a duration of 12s (had unlimited duration before).

Fixes:

• Fixed melee skills not spawning with correct spawn angle
• Fixed piercing blow despawn bug
• Fixed missing description tag for echo ballista
• Fixed missing achievement description tag for defeating Arda, the fallen
• Fixed random spawn angles not beeing applied to melee effects that spawned from other melee effects
• Fixed descent expedition tier 2 challenge reward not being triggered
• Fixed trinket stats flowing outside of screen bounds
• Fixed echo ballista projectiles not bouncing on enemy hits
• Fixed trinket stats UI not resizing properly (v.0.9.2.0e)
• Fixed Golden Lifecasque trinket bug not showing up duration UI on second activation (v.0.9.2.0e)
• Fixed a bug that could lead to Fortify active trinket ability remaining active after dying in softcore (v.0.9.2.0e)

[ 2024-02-17 10:43:51 CET ] [ Original post ]

Fixes:

• Fixed rare but where progress could carry over from other save files into the new challenge race save file
• Fixed crash on exchanging trinkets when dying
• Fixed to much map decorations spawn in faded map secret boss room
• Fixed descent defense prolong/intensify upgrades not being reset on successful completed event and destroyed tower
• Fixed wrong assigned sfx for completing challenges

Want to discuss the Eclipse content update with other players, or found any bugs, feel invited to join our discord.

[ 2024-02-16 23:03:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

Along all the new features we have already announced and showcased in our Eclipse content update patch notes preview there has been a feature that we felt needed some more attention and would bloat the patch notes, so we felt it would make most sense to give this new feature it's own news post. If you have missed our Eclipse Content Update announcement you can find out more about the update at this post: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1646790/view/4034731337929043009

Interaction icons for skills, weapons, trinkets and character tooltips:

Given the complexity and deepness of interaction the SfL skill system offers there has been urgent wishes by the community to streamline and improve the tooltips for a simplified and better way of understanding those skill/weapon/character/trinket interactions. As many tooltips are already rivaling the length of a one-page essay we decided to add a tag based cross reference system to all tooltips. Since the tooltips are already mainly text based we decided to add icons for all the differend damage scaling sources as well as for the AoE size modifier. This will allow you to directly grasp on how to scaling and interactions work. The icons have been designed to match with the corresponding skill node design that grants this damage source, i.e. the scaling with melee damage icon is looking equal to the one you find on the Increased Melee Damage skill node.




So lets take a look at some examples on how these new tooltips will look like:

Weapons

The new tag system will not only take into account the triggered weapon effects but also the additionally embedded legendary skills and display all possible damage scaling options.

Trinkets

Skills

Characters

This only marks the start of our journey to revise and improve fundamental systems as we move closer to the 1.0 release. We will closely continue to listen to your feedback, so please continue sharing your thoughts about these new features! Want to discuss the Eclipse content update with other players, feel invited to join our discord.

[ 2024-02-15 18:17:33 CET ] [ Original post ]

With Update 0.9.2 we are further preparing Striving for Light for it's approaching 1.0 release, not only adding new content like new pinnacle boss fights, weapons, skills and trinkets but also revisiting story content, adding things we wanted to do for ages and never found time for (looking at you map decorations), adding tons of improvements, balancing changes and fixes. So wanderers, behold what the Eclipse content update holds in store for you!
The Eclipse is releasing on 16th Feburary together with Season 13 and a 48h Challenge Race Event! The 48h Challenge Race event features new Seasonal Challenges and a new scoring system and a price pool free for all to join. If you want to join please register at our Official Discord.

New Features:

New Pinnacle Boss Fights

With the introduction of the Awakened Gatekeepers we layed the foundation for the pinnacle boss fights in Striving for Light. Since our pinnacle boss fights were not quite at the pinnacle we have envisioned, we are blasting the bounds of what was possible in Striving for Light until now.

The Gatekeepers, mighty creatures utilised by the Aeodra to keep wanderers from traveling through the shattered worlds. Once you have delved deep enough into the darkness the powerful Aeodra will Awaken the Gatekeepers granting those Gatekeepers new powers. But not only the Gatekeepers will receive new powers. The Aeodra will closely spectate your fight unleashing their darkness upon the gateway of worlds. If you manage to defeat the Awakened Gatekeeper you will be confronted with the Aeodra itself featuring a complete new Bossfight where you can encounter Noctelle, the Eclipse, or Arda, the Fallen.

New Weapons

• Grimm Rebound [Range Weapon]: Projectiles bounce off walls and create a dark explosion on wall hit. Explosion scales with AoE size and projectile damage.
• Echo Ballista [Range Weapon]: Projectiles bounce off opponents and can hit another opponent.
• Poisoned Blight [Melee Weapon]: Hit enemies are poisoned and spread poison condition to nearby enemies when defeated.

New Trinkets

• Mirror of Deflection [Trinket]: All your projectiles are deflected on enemy hit allowing the same projectile to hit another target after deflection.
• Buzzkeeper [Trinket]: Each defeated enemy has a 25% chance to summon a bumblebee companion for the duration of 8s.
• Titans Essence [Trinket]: Increased Melee Attack Range: +10% (increases weapon size and range)
• Solaris Bell [Trinket]: Each enemy hit has a 25% chance to unleash a light ray. Damage is scaling with your melee and projectile damage.

New Skills

• Sanguine Shot [Range Skill]: Your projectiles create a bloody splash covering enemies behind the hit position dealing additional damage and applying bleeding condition to enemies. Damage scales with projectile damage. Size scales with AoE size.
• Sanguine Strike [Melee Skill]: Your melee hits create a bloody splash covering enemies behind the hit position dealing additional damage and applying bleeding condition to enemies. Damage scales with melee damage. Size scales with AoE size.

Map Decorations

All maps have received new decorations to make the maps feel more alive and vibrant.

New Story Content

• Rewritten Story Content: The whole story content got completely rewritten. A lot of dialogs were a bit dusty and written years ago when we first entered early access.
• Voice Acting: Complete new voice acting featuring professional voice actors.
• Intro Cinematic: Reworked intro cinematic.

Seasonal Challenges

Starting with Season 13 and introduced by the 48h Challenge Race Event each season will have seasonal challenges. There are challenges in 3 difficulty tiers which grant different amount of challenge points. There is a new leaderboard in Ankerath that lets you inspect what player has finished which challenges and who currently has the most challenge points and who has completed the challenges at first.

Further New Features

• Trap Highlighting Option: You can now select highlight projectiles & traps from the option menu (it is enabled for new players) this option will give all traps a red outline to improve visibility and contrast
• New collision system for projectiles: With this new collision system for projectiles we have experienced a substantial increase in performance when playing projectile heavy builds.
• Performance Improvements for projectiles: The visibility check for projectiles have been removed which removes workload from the cpu.
• New Item Pick Up UI: The item pickup UI was completely reworked to make it more minimalistic and taking up less screen space
• Condition Damage Tick Info on Tooltips: Condition damage skills now show the calculated conditions damage for the first 3 ticks, also taking skill stacks into account. This should make it much more straight forward to understand the condition damage a skill will deal.

Historic Iconic Weapon Redesign

The historic and iconic Light Staff weapon finally got a rework. We must say that the Light Staff was the very first weapon we designed for Striving for Light, back in the Early Access Launch/ Next Fest Demo days over 2.5 years ago when we started our journey not knowing where it will head. It has been a blast working on Striving for Light and we are looking forward to all the future brings for Striving for Light. We have been hesitant about the redesign of this weapon as this weapon had this nostalgic touch reminding us where it all started. The origin. The very first designs and the evolution of your skills up to this day. So this redesign deserved a bit more attention and we wanted to share our thoughts about this with our community.

Thank you!

This is the time where we want to thank every single one of you! Without you this journey would not have been the same! Thanks for making all this possible, for your interest in our work and vision! For tireless bug reports, for countless discussions on features & improvements. For sharing our game and spreading the word, streaming our game, creating content for it and for spending your time striving for light.

Major Changes and Improvements:

• Performance improvements for all centipede/snake/worm type enemies
• More responsive world events: World events are now updated much faster resulting in much less waiting time for new wave spawns or time until the event ends after the remaining enemies have been defeated
• Shield area of effect which deals 0 contact damage now hides the damage number completely to prevent causing confusion on which skills now did not deal any damage
• Corrected and improved tooltips descriptions
• Condition Effects are now pooled for improved performance
• Improved visuals for the Aeodra Arda, the fallen
• Added improved condition damage calculation and companion damage calculation to legendary weapon skill tooltips
• Condition hits from abilities now also trigger hit vfx to improve impact feel of the abilities
• Updated Skilltree Tutorials: All skilltree tutorials have been updated with new animations that showcase the skill gem placement and the usage of all available skillgems

Balancing:

• Scattering Projectiles now scatters into two projectiles on enemy hit (was 3 before)
• Maximum Area of Effect size cap got reduced to 3.0 (was 4.0)
• Increased Area of Effect Skill now grants +25% AoE size (was +30% before)
• Darokin's Staff [Range Weapon]: Light strike damage now scales with range and with melee damage (was only scaling with melee damage before)
• Glaring light is now triggering from melee and range attacks (was only triggering from melee attacks)
• Flood is now scaling with your melee and projectile damage and skill stacks (was only scaling with projectile damage and skill stacks)
• Legendary Weapon Skill Fragmentation on Hit now has possibility to trigger 30% (was 100% before)
• Discharge now deals 20 damage (was 10 damage)

Fixes:

• Fixed snake boss turn bug
• Fixed descent defense portal spawning multiple times when tower gets destroyed
• Fixed wrong skill tooltips for bleeding swirl and bleeding blade
• Fixed wrong calculated condition damage in tooltips
• Fixed enemy having weird glow on highlighted enemies setting activated
• Fixed crit damage spawning additional blood decals
• Fixed various of memory leaks
• Fixed missing NPC name when dialog from selection was activated
• Fixed not being able to attack after aborted dialog
• Fixed Rogue character not unlocking on defeating shadow farmer after level 40
• Fixed discrepancies between the description of the skill and the actual damage
• Fixed discrepancies between the description of the legendary embedded skills and the actual damage output
• Fixed wrong damage description of explosive potion trinket ability
• Fixed wrong image for Goladir tier 2 achievement
• Fixed wrong damage calculation for legendary weapon fragmentation skills
• Fixed a bug that caused applied conditions to be shared among multiple hit targets what caused faster damage decline and also shorter condition durations.
• Fixed projectiles not correctly scaling with melee damage

Want to discuss the Eclipse content update with other players, feel invited to join our discord.

[ 2024-02-09 18:18:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

Fixes:

• Rolled back recent changes to world events as this caused some crashes

[ 2023-11-30 15:07:27 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Features:

• New Shard of Conjunction connection preview: With this new feature you will always see a preview of the exact connections the shard of conjunction will forge. No more guessing and try and error if the range will last.
  
• New designed legendary weapon minimap icon
  

Improvements and Major Changes:

• More responsive world events: All world events have new update systems that make them much more responsible and remove waiting times between waves or at the end of the events.
• Improved widescreen scaling of tree of light and descent defense UIs
• Interacting with the dialogs and UIs now does not trigger your attacks
• The numerical health values are now activated when you have more than 12 health (was 20 before)
• increased brightness of trinket ability duration UI

Balancing:

• Rebalanced enemy, boss, superboss & endboss HP scaling

Fixes:

• Fixed various UI notification elements blocking mouse input on pause menu

If you found a bug or want to chat with fellow players about the game you are invited to join our discord.

[ 2023-11-29 20:58:29 CET ] [ Original post ]

Major Changes and Improvements:

• Trade items at the merchant are now saved between game sessions. Restarting the game and re-visiting the merchant will now load the previous state of the trade UI.

[ 2023-11-28 21:09:22 CET ] [ Original post ]

Major Changes and Improvements:

• Stone boulders roll speed now no longer scales with projectile speed
• Improved tooltip description of Shard of Recast

Fixes:

• Fixed legendary embedded skill of range weapon applying cost to melee weapon and embedded skill of melee weapon applying cost to range weapon.
• Fixed attack speed not updating correctly after picking up a new range weapon
• Fixed trinket effects not being active directly after picking up a trinket (needed weapon swap or skill tree scene switch before in some cases)

[ 2023-11-27 17:11:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

Thanks to everyone participating in the race event or battle testing the pathfinder changes. Based upon your feedback and reports we have been working on a post-race patch with plenty of fixes and improvements for the just started Season 12. You can join season 12 in main menu top right over the league and save file manager.

Improvements:

• Shooting Trap Rework: Traps in the Frozen Lands and in the Caves have been reworked. Both traps now have much clearer attack indicators and prolonged charge time until they shoot. Both traps now shoot only 1 projectiles (was 3 projectiles before).
• Improved skill tooltips for condition damage. The old tooltips have been ancient and needed to actually reflect how condition damage works now.
• Added AoE cap information to AoE tooltips in stats window.
• The node search highlights now keep active when paning the skilltree

Balancing:

• Cutting Shot range skill now does now does not trigger additional melee attack and melee hit skills.
• Map shards have been added to descent defense and descent expedition loot tables
• Condition damage decay got reduced. Now 70% of condition damage remains for next tick (was only 60% before).

Fixes:

• Fixed bug that caused high tier maps to not spawn any map mods past a specific run progression
• Fixed skilltree node highlight staying active for shard of exchange or shard of renewal when pressing on different skilltree shard.
• Fixed descent defense progress not resetting after all completed defense segments
• Fixed descent increased reward not resetting after all completed defense segments

We wish everyone a lot of fun in season 12 and want to thank you for your ongoing support ! If you found a bug or want to chat with fellow players about the game you are invited to join our discord.

[ 2023-11-26 17:59:40 CET ] [ Original post ]

Fixes:

• Fixed copied legacy progress from old save files
• Clarified shard of renewal skilltree shard description

[ 2023-11-24 23:19:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

The Earthshaper content update is here together with the start of season 12 & a 48 h race event. The race event holds special prices for those streaming their full progress. More information on the race at: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1646790/view/3812920173355944610?l=english With the earthshaper content update we are not only adding earth-shaping weapons and trinkets to your arsenal but also reworking the pathfinder system, rebalancing difficulties and game progression as well as adding two new skill tree shards to give you even more possibilities in shaping your skilltree!

New Features:

New Weapons

• Earthshaper [Melee Weapon]: Each melee attack throws a stone boulder in a random direction piercing through all enemies and scaling with your melee damage.
• Woodweaver [Range Weapon]: Your light bird projectiles are swirling around the shooting direction.

New Trinket

• Earthwalker [Defensive Trinket]: Each of your attacks casts a stone boulder in a random direaction piercing through all enemies in that line. Scaling with your melee damage.

New Skilltree Shards

Shard of Exchange

A shard that holds the power to exchange all unused skillnodes of the same type by new random skills. The Shard of Exchange will let you exchange all unskilled nodes of the same type into new random skills. This opens up new possibilities for even stronger specialisations. You don't need any energy regeneration for your build at all? You can now exchange all energy regeneration nodes at once with new random skill nodes. And this is how it looks in action:

Shard of Renewal

A shard that holds the power to transform all unused skillnodes into new skillnodes but excludes the selected skill as well as all direct connected skills. The Shard of Renewal lets you reroll the entire skilltree at once (only unskilled nodes) while also giving you control over what skills you want to have excluded from the skill pool for this specific reroll. The selected skill as well as all directly connected skills will be excluded for the reroll. This opens up a new horizon of posibilities where you might want to form a cluster of skills that you want to have excluded first by using the Shard of Change and then connecting them by using the Shard of Conjunction. After you have formed a cluster of unwanted skills you can then apply the Shard of Renewal to it to reroll the entire skilltree of unskilled nodes with the exclusion of your selection. And here is the Shard of Renewal in action:
These new Skilltree Shards have been integrated to the Merchant, gambling recipes, arena rewards and all the available loot tables in the game. Some of the hardest challenges like the hideout boss encounters will have a high chance in receiving these new shards.

Pathfinder Redesign

The pathfinder system got some major changes to not only make it easier for new players to get into but also to make runs less dependent on farming map shards. Shard of Augmentation and Shard of Mitigation have been completely removed. Maps now have a fixed amount of sockets which can be used to socket map modifiers into your maps. Starting from map tier 1 with two empty mod socket each increased map tier will add one additional socket to the map. Therefore the overall amount of spawned map modifiers has been drastically reduced.
This now limits the additional bonus exp you can get per maps and prevents runs where you could have >1000% bonus exp in one single map if you had enough farmed map shards, which then lead to outscaling the whole game. This now also allows us to lower the enemy HP scaling and also the amount of map modifiers that spawn on maps by default. This change will overall lead to much more accurate balancing opportunities as we do not have to cater towards these special cases. Also the difficulty curve is much flatter now so you should not experience "hitting a wall" quite as hard and early as currently.
Since we also reduced the amount of map mods that spawn on maps by default we can also much earlier spawn higher map tiers that allows you to challenge the Awakened Gatekeepers on much earlier levels. For the endgame scaling we target that even the highest maps only have half of the available modifier sockets filled with modifiers. So no longer there will be infinite more map mods stacked on top of each other. So for example a map tier XV map would have 15 available map modifier sockets but only 7 of them will be filled by default with random modifiers on an end-end game run.

Reworked Difficulty Scaling

We did major changes to the difficulty scaling during the run. Enemy hp scaling for normal enemies and bosses has been drastically decreased which should make the run progression to much more gradually increase in difficulty as it currently had. Higher game difficulties now not add additional map modifiers to your maps as they have previously. They will now simply add some more enemy HP and increase the elite enemy spawn rate. We want to thank you for your ongoing support! If you want to stay up to date with the ongoing development and chat with fellow players you are invited to join our discord.

Major Changes and Improvements

• Skill tree node search now deactivates the highlights when ending search and clicking outside the search box.
• New tooltips for melee attack cost and endurance attack cost in the stats window.
• Tooltips in stats window and skill gems window are now displayed faster and have much much shorter delay. This should prevent new players hovering too fast over tooltips and missing out on the informations in stats window.
• Improved Woodweaver weapon icon.
• Reworked Enter Skill Tree Tutorial.
• Removed confusing Skill Type section on legendary effect tooltips.
• New and Improved Distortion Effects: Distortion effects have been reworked from scratch to fix artifacts and improve overall impact of skill effects.
• Improved fire breath of Serpent gatekeeper for clearer attack hitboxes. Sperpent abilities also got performance improvements.

Balancing

• [Character] Heleja now only has + 1 additional projectile multiplicator from the start (was 2 before) and the additional projectile damage is now +20% (was 50% before).
• [Skill Node] Projectile multiplicator now has an increased additional energy cost of 2 (was 1 before). Projectile multiplicator now also decreases projectile damage by -20%.
• [Skill Node] Increased projectile damage incrases projectile damage by +50% (was +100% before)
• [Condition Damage] Default starting condition damage was reduced to 5 (was 10 before)
• [Skill Node] Increased Condition Damage now increases condition damage by +5 (was +10 before)
• Explosive Potion now deals 1000 damage (was 500 before). Explosive Potion also scales with your melee and projectile damage.
• Twilight Quiver Rework: Twilight Quiver now shoots 3x12 Projectiles instead of only 12 projectiles. Twilight Quiver now also got it's own projectiles.
• All dodge skills now have reduced cost. Dodge skills now only reduce dodge regeneration by -10% was (-20%)
• Condition Damage decay has been reduced by 5% (now 60% of next tick will remain, was 55%)

Fixes

• Fixed minor Memory leaks for some melee skill effects.
• Fixed cyclic might leading to unusable attack patterns for bleeding star and amber melee weapons.
• Increased item drop de-acceleration to make them slide less.
• Removed confusing Skill Type section on legendary effect tooltips
• Fixed not being able to target items near tower in descent defence
• Fixed lost focus on gamepad when accessing the skillgem menu without containing skillgems
• Fixed ravaging companions not having getting grim reaper effect visually appearing
• Decreased tidal crab AoE hitbox size to prevent unfair player hits
• Fixed wrong audio bus for bloodstained chest sound effects
• Fixed wrong audio bus for corrupted merchant boss
• Controller input information is now on stats window and skill gem window is now hidden when now playing with controller
• Fixed missing tag for "Ascend" map mod
• Fixed unlock weapons/skills dialog being removed from unlock npcs in town which had to be re-triggered on activating introduction dialog
• Fixed descent expedition UI scaling on other language settings
• Fixed descent defense ending on scene switch and locking you into the descent when dying in softcore mode
• Fixed blocked progression (0.9.1.0a)

Information about the improved league and save file manager: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1646790/view/3846698443466679529?l=english We wish everyone a lot of fun in season 12 and the 48h race and want to thank you for your ongoing support ! We want to thank you for your ongoing support! If you found a bug or want to chat with fellow players about the game you are invited to join our discord.

[ 2023-11-24 16:38:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

The upcoming "Earthshaper" content update will launch together with the Race Event on 24th November at 7pm CET. Since the next update for Striving for Light is just around the corner we will do a Developer Livestream tomorrow at:

Livestream on: Saturday, 18.11.2023 - 1pm CET on: https://www.twitch.tv/deventide

Join us live on twitch and get the first sneak peak on the new upcoming Earthshaper content and changes. We will also do a Race Event Q&A so bring all of your questions. Don't forget to bring someand see the Devs dying in their own game. The upcoming Earthshaper content update will feature:

• Pathfinder rework
• 2 new skilltree shards, Shard of Exchange, Shard of Renewal
• Woodweaver - A new nature themed range weapon
• Earthshaper - A new nature themed melee weapon
• Earthwalkers - A new nature themed trinket
• Plenty of further improvements and optimisations

With the release of Earthshaper Season 12 will start at 24th Nov. 7pm CET. If you found a bug or want to chat with fellow players about the game you are invited to join our discord.

[ 2023-11-17 19:33:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Features:

• Reworked save file management system.
• New notification when new seasons are available in main menu.
  
• Joining new seasons is now done by entering the save file manager on top right in main menu. There you will also have an overview of the current season you are currently playing and what new season is available.
  

[ 2023-11-16 17:39:02 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements:

• Improved dialog system for all NPCs in town. It is now not required to press the contine button in order to unlock further dialog options like unlocking weapons/skills in town. Also unlocking new dialog options for Darokin the old man in Ankerath are now only listed in the dialog list and not automatically triggered, which lets you access gambling and unlocking the character without clicking throuh all the dialogs.
• Redesigned Darokin's Staff projectile
• Improved performance for all shadows
• Improvements to save file loading. If you encountered any weird bug that loaded the wrong safe file just press the top right button in main menu and re-select your offline/online save file again.
• Improvements to projectile shadows
• All melee weapons now have new alternate random sound effect. This marks the end of machine gun sounding dagger attacks with extreme attack speeds
• Aeodra arena has received new parallax background effects and got a redesign

Fixes:

• Fixed wrong dialog caption for Goladir Blacksmith that showed Unlock Character instead of Unlock weapon
• Phoenix egg is now removed when activated and dying in softcore game mode
• Fixed wrong save files being loaded after the race event timer initialisation in main menu
• Fixed wrong save files being loaded after entering the save file manager
• Fixed player getting stuck on city plaza wall collider when walking along the side walls

These improvements and fixes have also been rolled into the playtest branch.

[ 2023-11-12 12:53:12 CET ] [ Original post ]

We are continuosly working on the upcoming patch 0.9.1 and want to share some news about a new skill tree shard that will expand your arsenal of possibilities on reshaping your skilltree.

New Features:

Shard of Exchange

A shard that holds the power to exchange all unused skillnodes of the same type by new random skills. The Shard of Exchange will let you exchange all unskilled nodes of the same type into new random skills. This opens up new possibilities for even stronger specialisations. You don't need any energy regeneration for your build at all? You can now exchange all energy regeneration nodes at once with new random skill nodes. And this is how it looks in action:

Shard of Renewal

A shard that holds the power to transform all unused skillnodes into new skillnodes but excludes the selected skill as well as all direct connected skills. The Shard of Renewal lets you reroll the entire skilltree at once (only unskilled nodes) while also giving you control over what skills you want to have excluded from the skill pool for this specific reroll. The selected skill as well as all directly connected skills will be excluded for the reroll. This opens up a new horizon of posibilities where you might want to form a cluster of skills that you want to have exluded first by using the Shard of Change and then connecting them by using the Shard of Conjunction. After you have formed a cluster of unwanted skills you can then apply the Shard of Renewal to it to reroll the entire skilltree of unskilled nodes with the exclusion of your selection. And here is the Shard of Renewal in action:
These new Skilltree Shards have been integrated to the Merchant, gambling recipes, arena rewards and all the available loot tables in the game. Some of the hardest challenges like the hideout boss encounters will have a high chance in receiving these new shards. You can jump onto the public playtest branch right now and try out the new shards along the pathfinder rework. Information about the pathfinder rework coming with 0.9.1: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1646790/view/3736358345144658291?l=english We want to thank you for your ongoing support! If you found a bug or want to chat with fellow players about the game you are invited to join our discord.

[ 2023-11-10 21:37:33 CET ] [ Original post ]

Fixes:

• Fixed duplicated Corrupted Merchant after dying in Softcore
• Fixed Aeodra Arena not being ended after Dying in Softcore
• Fixed additional spawned portals and trees of light in the Aoedra Arena on scene switches
• Fixed a bug that might cause no enemy hit effects to be played after multiple scene transitions
• Fixed missing achievement translation tag

[ 2023-11-08 21:01:21 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Features:

• Implemented new system that limits the maximum amount of concurrent enemy hit effects for improved performance

Fixes:

• Fixed a crash related to offline save files and the race countdown system
• Fixed enemies shooting duplicate projectiles
• Fixed clipping cape on character selection screen

[ 2023-11-07 16:55:22 CET ] [ Original post ]

The next 48h Race will take place at the 24th-26th November 2023 starting and ending at 7pm CET.

Everyone can join and compete for the highscores in the 48h race event. Additionally there are several prices that can be won by streaming the full race progress live on twitch with active VODs (to prevent cheating)!

Price Pool

[olist]

1. Place: 100 Steam Giftcard + Design Weapon/Skill/Trinket together with the devs which will be implemented into the game.

2. Place: 70 Steam Giftcard

3. Place: 50 Steam Giftcard

4.- 10. Place: Striving for Light and SfL: Survival Steam Key [/olist]

How to participate

[olist]

Join the Igniting Spark Games discord & introduce yourself in #streamer-race

Stream your full race progress on twitch & have VODs active to prevent cheating [/olist]

Special Features:

• All characters, weapons and skills are unlocked from the start for everyone for the race event.
• Race is Hardcore only.
• Race will use the reworked pathfinder system of update 0.9.1.0 which is currently in playtesting. You can start training already by joining the public playtest for SfL and give us balancing feedback.

Not streaming yet?

Set up a twitch account and begin livestreaming or invite your favourite twitch streamer to participate in the event! Download and use this attached invitation card to invite other streamers: Download invitation card here.

[ 2023-11-05 19:30:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements:

• Improved Sound Effect Mixdown: The recent rewrite of the sound manager lead to sound sources levels not sending the desired volume levels to the manager which resulted in all sfx being played at the same volume. This hotfix brings back the proper sound effect mixdown.

[ 2023-11-05 18:05:30 CET ] [ Original post ]

In Update 0.9.0.9 we took a step back and focused on the games visuals with improved lighting, shadows and brand new blood effects. We also optimised our rendering pipeline for performance improvements

New Features

• Blood decals: New blood effects have been added to the game. This should not only improve hit feedback but will add three dimensinal depth to the game.
  
• 3D Projectile Shadows: All projectiles now have 3D shadows that will seperate them better from the background improve the feel of depth.
• Improved enemy shadows: Enemies now have improved shadow effects.
  
• Abandon Run: Added abandon run option to the pause menu which lets you directly end your current run and start a new one. A confirmation window has been added to prevent accidental button clicks.
  
• Improved Performance: Optimised rendering pipeline for performance improvements.

We want to thank you for your ongoing support! If you want to stay up to date with the ongoing development and chat with fellow players you are invited to join our discord.

[ 2023-11-04 15:37:13 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Features:

• Weapons Stats and tooltips now have frames according to their rarity/stats count

Balancing:

• [Condition Damage] Default starting condition damage was reduced to 5 (was 10 before)

Fixes:

• Sandworm map boss now has larger aggro range to prevent him from blocking pathways before you can aggro him.
• Companions respawn is now triggered after each performed attack to prevent them being lost in the map when they are locked into an attack loop.
• Fixed lost map chest key when leaving game and returning run later on.
• Companion projectiles are now as well affected by player effect transparency setting.

[ 2023-11-02 20:28:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements and Major Changes:

• Smarter Companions: Melee Companions now move away from the target to re-attack and are smarter now.
  
• Switched leave and trade button on the corrupted merchant UI

Balancing:

• Condition damage stack decay per condition tick is now back to 55% which is only slightly less than the initial 67%. The latest change to 30% has been reverted. The maximum condition damage duration is now a maximum of 20s. Hitting during this duration will extend the condition duration by 1s per condition hit.
• A major "bug" in the condition calculation was fixed which made the condition decay to be applied before the first condition tick which made it nearly impossible to wrap the head around how condition damage is calulated. This fixed bug will lead to ~ 45% increased condition damage, to compensate we lowered the condition damage skill nodes to grant +7 additional condition damage (was 10 before). Overall this should be a further buff for to the already strong condition damage. Please give us feedback how this affects your builds and run performance. (v.0.9.0.8e)

Fixes:

• Fixed companions not being teleported to player position when entering descent expedition rooms.
• Fixed NPCs and loot can be target the same time which made it possible to trigger dialog and change items at the same time.
• Fixed seldom bug that made you teleport to the gatekeeper arena when interacting with objects on the map.
• Fixed triggering gatekeeper portal and exchanging a trinkets or weapons at the same time which lead to duplicated items.
• Chickens, buildings and map obstacles now do not distract range constructs and make them shooting more reliable. Range constructs are now also able to aim at the training dummies in town. (v.0.9.0.8e)

[ 2023-11-01 19:04:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

Balancing:

• Increased condition damage stacks decay per tick to prevent abnormal high condition damage stacking to -60% (was -30%)

Fixes:

• Fixed additional projectiles and weapon stats not being applied directly on weapon pickup
• Fixed gap lines in ground tiles especially visible on the beach map
• Fixed range constructs enemy targeting issue.
• Fixed bloodstained chest counting defeated enemies wrong
• Fixed very long skill tree connections on skill tree expand

[ 2023-11-01 08:34:50 CET ] [ Original post ]

We are currently redesigning the pathfinder map system and want to invite you the chance to playtest the new system before the update 0.9.1 get released. This will give us the chance to gather valuable feedback to get the most out of the new pathfinder system. To access the public playest simply go to the game on steam -> right click preferences -> betas -> select playtest. As this is a public playtest you are allowed to stream and share your experience with the new system. Please share your experience with us here on steam forums or our discord.. We will also jump into livestreams and check out how the progress looks in actual runs to get better insights for balancing the new system. Make sure you only play on the new playtest 0.9.1 online safe file and refrain from using the season 11 safe file. Playtest has its own leaderboards.

New Features:

Pathfinder Redesign

The pathfinder system got some major changes to not only make it easier for new players to get into but also to make runs less dependent on farming map shards. Shard of Augmentation and Shard of Mitigation have been completely removed. Maps now have a fixed amount of sockets which can be used to socked map modifiers into your maps. Starting from map tier 1 with two empty mod socket each increased map tier will add one additional socket to the map. Therefore the overall amount of spawned map modifiers has been drastically reduced.
This now limits the additional bonus exp you can get per maps and prevents runs where you could have >1000% bonus exp in one single map if you had enough farmed map shards, which then lead to outscaling the whole game. This now also allows us to lower the enemy HP scaling and also the amount of map modifiers that spawn on maps by default. This change will overall lead to much more accurate balancing opportunities as we do not have to cater towards these special cases. Also the difficulty curve is much flatter now so you should not experience "hitting a wall" quite as hard and early as currently.
Since we also reduced the amount of map mods that spawn on maps by default we can also much earlier spawn higher map tiers that allows you to challenge the Awakened Gatekeepers on much earlier levels. For the endgame scaling we target that even the highest maps only have half of the available modifier sockets filled with modifiers. So no longer there will be infinite more map mods stacked on top of each other. So for example a map tier XV map would have 15 available map modifier sockets but only 7 of them will be filled by default with random modifiers on an end-end game run.

Difficulty Scaling

We did major changes to the difficulty scaling during the run. Enemy hp scaling for normal enemies and bosses has been drastically decreased which should make the run progression to much more gradually increase in difficulty as it currently had. Higher game difficulties now not add additional map modifiers to your maps as they have previously. They will now simply add some more enemy HP and increase the elite enemy spawn rate. We want to thank you for your ongoing support! If you want to stay up to date with the ongoing development and chat with fellow players you are invited to join our discord.

[ 2023-10-31 18:42:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements:

• Eternal Sands trap is now much smaller and moves much slower.

Fixes:

• Fixed descent defense tower not being healed up when it get defeated
• Decreased tidal crab AoE hitbox size to prevent unfair player hits
• Fixed wrong audio bus for bloodstained chest sound effects
• Fixed wrong audio bus for corrupted merchant boss
• Controller input information is now on stats window and skill gem window is now hidden when now playing with controller
• Fixed missing tag for "Ascend" map mod
• Fixed unlock weapons/skills dialog being removed from unlock npcs in town which had to be re-triggered on activating introduction dialog
• Fixed descent expedition UI scaling on other language settings

[ 2023-10-31 17:47:56 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements:

• Phoenix fire line AoE attacks have been redesigned
• Void enemies have received redesigned AoE effects
• Cave enemies have received redesigned AoE effects
• Plenty of enemy AoE effects have been redesigned (Izamuth, map bosses, ...)
  
  

Balancing:

• Descent Defense tower upgrades now do not get reset when the tower gets destroyed. This should make the Descent Defense event easier later during your run.

Fixes:

• Fixed stats window re-opening when entering the skilltree if it has been closed with crafing or skill gem button in previous skill tree sessions
• Fixed language setting not being saved and reset on game restart
• Fixed smith and librarian triggering dialog at first interaction that not enough light is available to unlock new weapons/skills, even though you have enough light
• Fixed wrong assigned minimap icon for awakened gatekeeper leaderboard stone in town

We want to thank you for your ongoing support! If you want to stay up to date with the ongoing development and chat with fellow players you are invited to join our discord.

[ 2023-10-30 17:09:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements:

• Improved Softcore Mode: When you die on softcore all world events are deactivated to prevent you from re-dying when re-spawning on bloodstained chest border for example or getting you locked into a specific event
• Void trap now has an indicator for the orbit of the trap crystal to make it easier to predict the trap movement
• Implemented further checks if data from our server API's is corrupted or incomplete that would make the game crash when interacting with the leaderboards
• Reduced initial dropped item movement speed out of chests
• Adjusted some map brightness levels

Balancing:

• Trap amount on all map modifiers was reduced to +10% (was +20% before)
• Trap amount scaling on all maps was reduced and maximum amount of possible traps on maps got reduced

Fixes:

• Fixed Guardian Aegis Ability Effect not being hidden directly when the guard shield runs out
• Fixed a bug that caused health points UI being slightly desynced when switching scenes in rare cases

[ 2023-10-28 08:50:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

Update 0.9.0.7

With 0.9.0.7 we are adding a new UI element that indicates how much unspent skillpoints you currently have. We have implemented a new sound effect system that fixes the sound effect cutoff on game objects that get destroyed before the sound has finished playing. We did some optimisations on scene loading for faster and smoother skill tree loading. Trinkets also got some improvements.

New Features:

• Unspent Skillpoint Indicator: A new UI element has been added for indicating your amount of unspent skillpoints.Located at the top left just below the circular EXP indicator it will remind you how much unspent skill points you currently have.
  
• New Sound Effect System: The sound effect system was completely reworked to prevent destroyed and removed audio sources like projectiles to also interrupt the current sound effect playback before it was finished.

Improvements

• Petrified Heart charges are now saved when you exit the game and continue your run later.
• Reduced loading times when entering and exiting the skilltree.
• General improvements to loading routines for reduced loading times and improved performance on scene switches.

Fixes:

• Further fixed Golden Lifecasque messing with your HP and also killing you when you had the ability active an switching scenes. This time for real ...

We want to thank you for your ongoing support! If you want to stay up to date with the ongoing development and chat with fellow players you are invited to join our discord.

[ 2023-10-25 23:17:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements:

• Loot is more physically dropping out of chests
• Trinket active abilities now stay active when you switch scenes and continue when also entering a new map or environment. This should make all trinkets with longer durations more useful.
• Further Improved Skilltree Algorithm: Further improved the balancing of node variety when a lot of skills have been unlocked. Also fixing a unwanted side effect of yesterday's patch, which caused some skill nodes to spawn more frequent as intended.

Balancing:

• Golden Lifecasque: Fortify cooldown was reduced to 25 enemies (was 30 enemies)
• Guardian Aegis: Guard ability duration was increased to 10 seconds (was 6 seconds) also cooldown was reduced to 25 enemies (was 30 enemies)

Fixes:

• Fixed Golden Lifecasque messing with your HP and also killing you when you had the ability active an switching scenes. (v.0.9.0.6a)
• Fixed crash when applying shard of power on emerald staff. (v.0.9.0.6b)
• Fixed trinket being hidden behind chests
• Fixed missing descent expedition device map icon

[ 2023-10-24 16:16:31 CET ] [ Original post ]

Update 0.9.0.6

This update adds a new legendary trinket, streamlines the pathfinder experience and makes the pathfinder easier to understand for new players, reworks the awakened gatekeeper system, balances defensive trinkets and reduces difficulty of descent expedition dungeons.

New Features:

• New Legendary Trinket - Golden Lifecasque: Granting you life, melee, projectile damage, and movement speed. Also granting the active ability Fortify, which temporarily grants you 8 max life and 8 health that will vanish after the effect duration.
  
  
• Improved Skill Tree Algorithm: As you unlock more skills, the likelihood of base skill nodes appearing in the skill tree increases, ensuring a balanced range of possibilities. We've implemented a new weighting system that boosts the spawn chances of rare essential nodes as your skill count grows. This enhancement means you're now more likely to encounter skill nodes for things like condition damage, companion damage, or increased melee/projectile damage within the skill tree (with a lot of skill unlocks).
• Reworked Awakened Gatekeeper System: Map tiers now increase the chance of spawning an Awakened Gatekeeper on the current map. The higher the map tier, the higher the chance you will encounter these new and challenging uber boss versions. The Awakened Gatekeeper Chance is now directly indicated on the map tooltips.
  
• Streamlined Pathfinder Experience: If you now activate a map in the pathfinder, the radial menu automatically closes, and a new bigger "enter the map" button will appear at the bottom of the screen, which should make the whole pathfinder system much easier to understand. You can now go back to the portal by pressing the "B" button on the controller or "ESC" button on the keyboard.
  

Improvements:

• Descent Expedition Device now only shows a rift instead of the full device on the minimap once the event was completed.
• Original OST is now the default option for the first launch for new players. This was unintended, and the soundtrack option is now set to the default original OST for all players.
• Improved trinket indicator visuals for active ability duration UI.
• Updated skill textures for bleeding blade skill nodes and meteor skill nodes.
• Improved meteor visuals.
• The game now defaults to the highest zoomed-out camera setting (was a bit zoomed in before).

Balancing:

• Descent Expedition enemy spawns have been drastically reduced. The enemy spawn amount now also does not scale with the overall map depth but only with the descent expedition level upgrade chosen by skygems.
• Bloodstained Chest events now grant experience for each enemy that was defeated in the circles. This XP also scales with your map XP modifiers.
• The most lethal descent expedition traps have been decreased in size or received changed animation speed to make them easier.
• Swift Amulet - Defensive Trinket: Now additionally grants 15% movement speed.
• Guardian Aegis - Legendary Trinket: Ability now requires 1 offensive, 1 defensive, 1 utility trinket (was 3 defensive trinket requirement).
• Heartwood Bulwark - Defensive Trinket: Now grants 2 additional max life (was 1 max life before).
• Elixir - Legendary Trinket: Ability now requires 1 offensive, 1 defensive, 1 utility trinket (was 3 defensive trinket requirement). Elixir now always grants 1 max life and 5% movement speed.

Fixes:

• Fixed placed skill gems having inactive connections to other surrounding skills.
• Second and enemy tags are now also added to trinket stats UI when picking them up in maps.
• Fixed overlapping tutorial on ground of first map.
• Fixed bug with highlighted enemy projectile setting not being saved.
• Fixed descent defense tower being able to survive on negative HP

We want to thank you for your ongoing support! If you want to stay up to date with the ongoing development and chat with fellow players you are invited to join our discord.

[ 2023-10-23 17:10:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Features:

• Highlighted Enemy Projectiles: A new highlighted enemy projectile option is enabled by default for all players that adds a red outline to all enemy projectiles further improving projectile visibility. This option can also be toggled off in the gameplay options menu.

Improvements:

• Softcore mode is now the default selected mode for new players on the first launch (was hardcore before)
• Bloodstained chest border does not deal damage 3 seconds after re-entering the run on softcore mode after dying
• Some gatekeeper projectiles are now brighter and more red tinted for improvedvisibility

Fixes:

• Updated softcore/ hardcore tooltips
• Fixed wrong teleport related to descent event maps when re-entering the run after death in softcore mode

[ 2023-10-22 19:36:24 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements:

• Increased the brightness and line thickness of skill gem placement connection previews

Fixed:

• Fixed skill shards icon when assigning them to skill nodes not following mouse
• Fixed stats window preventing skill tree UI buttons to be clicked
• Fixed activating zoom when toggling through tooltips in stats window with controller

[ 2023-10-22 08:14:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Features:

• New Skillgem Placement System: The skillgem placement system as well as the placement preview was completely reworked. If you now want to place a skillgem you will see exactly where the skillgem will be placed and also which connections will be forged to your existing skills. This removes the randomness and makes skill gem placement a 100% accurate and predictable experience.
  
• New Tooltips for Stats: For all important stats new tooltips have been added to explain what each stat does. This should ease diving into the game for new players.
  
• New Options Menu: The options menu has been completely redesigned and is now structured in tabs which makes it much easier to find the options you are searching for. The keybindings menu was now also integrated in to the options menu and does not have to be opened by an additional scene switch. The additional space on each option tab was used to display your current screen resolution or display what soundtrack is currently selected. No more double-applying from drop down menus to ensure the right option was selected.
  
• Improved Descent Loot: Map shards have been removed from the Descent loot pool to increase the drop chances for more valuable loot. Skill point gems now have been added to the Descent loot pool as well.

Balancing:

• Tower projectile speed upgrades now increase tower attack speed by 25% (was 20%)
• Tower melee hammer attacks got reduced cooldown to 8s (was 10s) and upgrades now increase attack speed by 20% (was 10%)
• From all descent event chests for expedition and defense all map shards got removed from the drop pool in order to increase the chances of rarer loot being dropped. Also skill point gems have been added to the descent chest drop pool.

Fixes:

• Fixed a bug that caused cutting shot to not stack when multiple nodes were taken. This might have caused other projectile on hit skills to not stack correctly.
• Fixed a crash when tabbing trough tooltips in the stats window when using a controller

Misc:

• Updated game icon.

We want to thank you for your ongoing support! If you want to stay up to date with the ongoing development and chat with fellow players you are invited to join our discord.

[ 2023-10-21 19:01:37 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Feature:

• Awakened Gatekeeper now have softcore achievements.
• The Awakened Gatekeeper Leaderboard got Softcore implementation. Now your progress in defeating all awakened gatekeepers on softcore as well as the time you completed this achievement in the season is tracked by the Awakened Gatekeeper Leaderboard in town.
• Sorting of Achievements: There are now 3 tabs in the achievement menu which allows you to sort between locked, unlocked and all achievements.
• Improved controller support on leaderboard UI: You can now use the LT/RT buttons to switch between HC/SC in the leaderboard.

Fixes:

• You can now use the node navigation on the controller when the stats window is open.

[ 2023-10-18 21:17:16 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Features:

• Cycle through Loot: You can now cycle through multiple dropped trinkets and weapons if they have dropped nearly next to each other by pressing down d-pad button on controller
• Improved Loot Physics: Weapons and Trinkets now behave more physical featuring de-acceleration when dropped, what makes them less likely to lay on top of each other. This should also make it easier to see what items you have dropped from chests

Improvements:

• Improved loot drop positioning for the gambling at Darokin. Also reduced dialog collider of Darokin to make it easier to pick up items around Darokin without triggering his dialog.

Fixes:

• Fixed city plaza wrong collider placement
• Trinket stats UI is now as well directly closed when exchange trinket UI is closed
• Fixed massive shadow on ice bird enemies

[ 2023-10-17 09:25:37 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Features:

More Accessible Softcore Mode

In softcore mode you will now gain a new shield charge after each defeated gatekeeper. The gained shield charge is now also indicated by a new blue visual effect. Previously shields recharged after each 10 levels. This was way to unclear when shields are recharged and way to unsteady. With this new change softcore mode should be more accessible for new players.

Shockwave Culling System

A new shockwave culling system was implemented that prevents multiple shockwaves being spawned on top of each other, preventing screen articfacts. This should also lead to improved performance.

Improvements:

• Companions are now teleported to your current player position whenever you enter a gatekeeper arena, descent expedition room or world event with barriers.
• Companions on respawning when getting out of reach do not perfectly stack on each other keeping better overview on the amount of companions you have
• Improved player level up visual effect
• Redesigned Light Staff and Phoenix Staff Projectile visuals
• Improved Descent Expedition background visuals
• Improved bleeding blade visuals

Balancing:

• Tower Defense Upgrades: Blade Orbit now does not knockback enemies (did knockback)
• Tower Defense Upgrade: Each Blade Orbit upgrade now increases the chance to spawn an additional blade orbit (was a guaranteed spawn increase before)

Fixes:

• Fixed wrong wording on descent defense event start button
• Paused game on tower defense while selecting upgrades now does not trigger further tower abilities on pause and release all of them when continuing
• Fixed reset serpents phase spawn on softcore when you have died and re-entering the gatekeeper arena
• Fixed glaring light total duration of only 1s (should be 3s) (v.0.9.0.1a)
• Fixed vanishing trinkets that have been exchanged and dropped again (v.0.9.0.1a)

[ 2023-10-16 11:31:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Features:

• Quality of Life for Trinkets: On trinket exchange now automatically the next empty slot is focused. If all slots are taken the first trinket slot is focused as usual

Improvements:

• Improved Trinket Tooltips: Trinket ability duration now has the suffix "s" to indicate that the trinket ability duration is measured in seconds
• Improved Trinket Tooltips: Trinket ability cooldown has the suffix "enemies" to indicate that the ability cooldown is depending on defeated enemies
• Improved player level up visual effect (rolled back)
• Performance improvements for chicken companions (vfx rework)
• Performance improvements to range companions (vfx rework)
• Increased brightness on forest map

Fixes:

• Fixed crash when exiting rescue darokin world event

[ 2023-10-15 15:47:43 CET ] [ Original post ]

Fixes:

• Stats window now resumes if it was kept open on closing the skill tree
• Fixed a crash when loading offline save files
• Fixed ancient tree root attack layering
• Inverted the functionality of the transparency sliders in the options menu as they actually have controlled the opacity.

[ 2023-10-14 13:45:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

[previewyoutube=Deku9Kd1QQQ;full][/previewyoutube] After many months of hard work we are hyped to release the long anticipated "Descent" content update! In this post we will go over all the new features, improvements, balancing changes and fixes that version 0.9 will bring to you.

Awakened Gatekeeper Event

Together with the release of the Descent content update we are hosting an Awakened Gatekeeper Event. Stream your progress live on twitch, defeat all Awakened Gatekeepers in Hardcore mode to unlock the new achievements. First 3 players succeeding will win: 20 Steam Gift Card + 1x Striving for Light Steam Key + 1x Striving for Light Soundtrack To participate join our Discord and register for the Event-Role.

Patch notes

New Features:

• Descent Defense: A new tower defense like game mode with new run specific currency.
• Descent Expedition Dungeons: Upgradable dungeons utilizing the new currency.
• New Trinket System: 31 unique trinkets added to the game featuring legendary trinkets and new active abilities (shapeshifting, healing, attacks, skills, stats).
• Active Abilities System: Next to your main attacks you can now find trinkets that grant a second ability that you can trigger on "Q" by default (can be changed in options) and "RB" on controller.
• New Attack and Ability UI: We added a new attack and ability UI for more responsive combat
• Maps and Enemies: 2 new maps: Beach & Courtyard featuring 6 new enemies, 6 new map bosses and 2 new gatekeepers to fight.
• Gatekeeper Weapons: 2 new gatekeeper weapons have been added, featuring a melee weapon that triggers projectiles and a ranged weapon that enables mine throw play styles.
• Bloodstained Chest: Engage in this new mysterious world event.
• Rewoked Tree Of Light: The legacy skill tree got a complete rework and new kind of skill nodes have been added to the legacy tree (like companion/projectile/melee/condition/crit damage node) for even more specialised runs.
• City Plaza: The city has been redesigned and a new plaza was added to the city where you can now find the leaderboards in online mode.
• Awakened Leaderboards : There is now a new leaderboard tracking your progress and the time and date when you have defeated all 11 awakened gatekeepers in the current season.
• Enemy Designs: All "old" enemies have been completely redesigned (6 enemies in total and 1 new enemy and map boss added to older maps).
• Gatekeeper Arena: A new battleground awaits.
• Awakened Gatekeepers: Fearsome foes that spawn at map tier 6 and beyond. There are band new achievements for defeating those Awakened Gatekeepers.
• New Soundtracks: 5 new tracks with over 18 minutes of playtime. Prepare for some of the darkest sounds Striving for Light has seen so far. This takes our SfL OST to a total playtime +77 min
• Softcore Mode: Softcore mode now grants 1 more shield and features the same leveling experience as the hardcore mode.
• New Visual Effects: A big portion of older visual effects got a complete rework and got optimised for improved performance.

Major changes and improvements:

• Player Movement Speed: The base player movementspeed got increased.
• Player Skills: Numerous abilities have been redesigned with fresh visuals.
• Blazing Dodge: It's not just a dodge with a burning dot anymore - leave a burning trail in your wake!
• Accurate Enemy Spawns: Enemy spawn algorithm got a complete rework. All enemy spawns are now indicated by a red dot and do not spawn upon your current player position.
• Enemy Attacks: Redesigned to offer a fresh challenge.
• Map Unlocking System: A map unlocking device was implemented that you can find on maps to unlock new environments.
• Extended Map Modifiers: A new map modifier has been added that increases elite enemy spawn rate and increases trinket drop rates
• Crafting UI: The crafting UI got a redesign
• Map Redesigns: Old maps have been given a visual overhaul.
• Performance: Game runs smoother with our latest improvements.
• Map Lighting: Map lighting got a complete rework granting more vibrant colors and removes this feel of a dark vail covereing the screen
• Old Content Updated: Plenty of tweaks and improvements to older content for a fresh feel.
• Improved Hitboxes: Plenty of enemies have received improved hitboxes. No more invisible hits from corrupted merchant or devourer.
• Improved Controller Support: Stats window got improved controller support to be ableto view tooltips on weapons, character and the new trinkets. Improved controller support for the skill tree and skill tree UI navigation.
• More world Event Variation: World event spawnrates got adjusted to not overload maps with events. Now there are more different events on maps for more variety.
• Consitent Arena Music: The music in the aeodra arena is now continuously playing and not jumping to the action loop on each wave start.
• Consistent Naming: Remove items at darokin in town for gambling has been renamed to "convert items" as it now also converts left over trinkets and weapons to light fragments

Balancing changes:

• Phoenix world event now has a lower skill shard drop rate (was 100% before)
• Elite enemies now only have a chance in dropping additional huge light fragments containing a light fragment and additional exp (was 100% before)
• Life leech got buffed to 1HP/120 defeated enemies on the first node taken (was 1HP/150 before)
• Plenty of enemies got improved and changed attack patterns
• Softcore mode now has the same required exp scaling as hardcore mode

Fixes:

• Fixed some crashes on some weapon skill combinations
• Fixed controller issues in the skilltree
• Fixed not being able to go back to map from the gatekeeper arena
• Fixed some missplaced enemy hitboxes and colliders
• Fixed and cleaned up old art that had some artifacts on borders creating weird red lines floating around enemies when highlighted enemy option was enabled
• Fixed various cases where using a portal has removed the collected map chest key

In case you missed our last two previews for the descent content update, where we go into detail about the new featues and mechanics, you can read them here: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1646790/view/3694694975390397377 https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1646790/view/3754369573818192135 We want to thank you for your patience and the ongoing support! If you want to stay up to date with the ongoing development and chat with fellow players about the new update, you are invited to join our discord.

[ 2023-10-14 08:29:13 CET ] [ Original post ]

[previewyoutube=Deku9Kd1QQQ;full][/previewyoutube] We are back with the final post before the launch of the Descent Content Update. On our latest two descent content update previews we promised there will be even more content included into this update so we will share the full set of content coming with patch 0.9 to Striving for Light. In case you missed our last two previews for the descent content update you can read them here: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1646790/view/3694694975390397377 https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1646790/view/3754369573818192135

Descent Release Date

The descent content update will be released at Saturday 14.10.2023 at 10 pm CEST.

Awakened Gatekeeper Event

Together with the release of the Descent content update we are hosting an Awakened Gatekeeper Event. Stream your progress live on twitch, defeat all Awakened Gatekeepers in Hardcore mode to unlock the new achievements. First 3 players succeeding will win: 20 Steam Gift Card + 1x Striving for Light Steam Key + 1x Striving for Light Soundtrack To participate join our Discord and register for the Event-Role.

Full content overview

New Features:

• Descent Defense: A new tower defense like game mode with new run specific currency.
• Descent Expedition Dungeons: Upgradable dungeons utilizing the new currency.
• New Trinket System: Over 30 unique trinkets added to the game featuring new active abilities (shapeshifting, healing, attacks, skills, stats).
• New Attack and Ability UI: We added a new attack and ability UI for more responsive combat
• Maps and Enemies: 2 new maps: Beach & Courtyard featuring 6 new enemies, 6 new map bosses and 2 new gatekeepers to fight.
• Gatekeeper Weapons: 2 new additions for your arsenal.
• Bloodstained Chest: Engage in this new mysterious world event.
• Enemy Designs: All "old" enemies have been completely redesigned (6 enemies in total and 1 new enemy and map boss added to older maps).
• Gatekeeper Arena: A new battleground awaits.
• Awakened Gatekeepers: Fearsome foes that spawn at map tier 6 and beyond.
• New Soundtracks: 5 new tracks with over 18 minutes of playtime. Prepare for some of the darkest sounds Striving for Light has seen so far.
• Softcore Mode: A complete rework to enhance the experience.

Major changes and improvements:

• Player Skills: Numerous abilities have been redesigned with fresh visuals.
• Blazing Dodge: It's not just a dodge with a burning dot anymore - leave a burning trail in your wake!
• Enemy Attacks: Redesigned to offer a fresh challenge.
• Map Redesigns: Old maps have been given a visual overhaul.
• Performance: Game runs smoother with our latest improvements.
• Old Content Updated: Plenty of tweaks and improvements to older content for a fresh feel.

Updated Pricing

The release of 0.9 marks the completion for all major features that we plan to include for the 1.0 release of Striving for Light. Post 0.9 we will focus on polishing and giving you more of the great and improving what's not great already. Therefore we will update our pricing with the release of the new content update. Since the release of the Aeodra Content Update 0.7 around a year ago the amount of content has grown tremendously without adjusting the price for around a year now. To better align with the enriched content and enhanced value of the game, we'll be updating our pricing as communicated on our steam early access page. The price for Striving for Light will raise from the current $9.99 USD (9.75) to $14.99 USD (14.79) when the Descent content update drops. The price for the Striving for Light Soundtrack will raise from the current 8.99 USD (8.79) to 9.99 USD (9.75). Grab Striving for Light now before the price rises with the 0.9 update! We will post the full patch notes on the release day at 14.10.2023. We want to thank you for your patience and the ongoing support! If you want to stay up to date with the ongoing development and chat with fellow players about the new update, you are invited to join our discord.

[ 2023-10-09 20:22:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

We are sure the latest update preview for the upcoming "Descent" content update has left you wondering how active abilities will work, how the trinkets look in game, how you will equip them, if we are really adding shapeshifting abilities to Striving for Light and what are those descent dungeons and the world event? We hope that this update preview will quench your thirst and give you some insights on what will await you with the upcoming update. Since all major features of the 1.0 release will be implemented with the 0.9 content update we are updating our pricing with the release of Descent content update. In case you missed the first descent update preview you can read it here: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1646790/view/3694694975390397377?l=english

Shapeshifting

Yes, you have read correctly, we are adding shapeshifting abilities to Striving for Light. Those active abilities are bound to legendary trinkets and will temporarily transform you into a powerful creature granting you access to a new attack exclusive to the shapeshifted form. Use the active ability of the Burning Feather to trigger Ashen Awakening and arise as a blazing phoenix bringing fire to your foes.

If you are more fan of melee combat you might want to search for the Bear Ornament that gives you access to ability Nature Calls that lets you shapeshift into a bear granting you access to a massive ground shattering AoE attack.

Using Trinkets

Now as we have shown some of the new active abilities of the new trinket system you might wonder how you will acquire and use the trinkets. Dropped trinkets will be highlighted by new designed and unique loot beams and drop sounds for the different trinket types. Interacting with the trinket will open up a new trinket exchange UI that lets you select one of your four trinket slots. If you select one already used slot it will show the new trinket on the left and the selected trinket on the right so that you can compare those stats and figure out which ones to exchange. All new UI's have been designed with controller support in mind.
You might want to check the trinket stats when there is no trinket to exchange so you also view the trinkets in the re-designed stats window. The stats window also has received improved controller support so LT/RT will now not only zip through the stats pages but also your weapon stats, character stats and all four trinkets.

Active Ability System

You might have already noticed the two new circular UI elements we have added at the bottom of the screen centre. This left UI element is displaying your basic range/melee attacks also indicating your attack speed cooldown. This should overall improve attack feedback.
The right UI element will display the legendary trinket ability when the color requirements for other trinkets are met. In general the active abilities of legendary trinkets have a cooldown based on defeated enemies. Our goal at designing the trinket abilities was to not introduce a "wait for the ability cooldown" scenario that will interrupt gameplay as this would be the "safest option". As they recharge with defeated enemies this gives us better possibilities in balancing these new powers. When activating an active ability the remaining ability duration will be shown by a new ability indicator on the top centre.

Trinkets Abilities

We are going to big variety of trinkets with the launch of the Descent content update, bringing complete new build possibilities to the roster of Striving for Light. As you might have already guessed from the last image there will be legendary healing potions that let you heal your wounds.
There will also be exclusive new companions only gained by the respective trinket. What about hatching a small phoenix fighting along your side.
Have you ever wished you could collect some of the left over hearts when you already are on full HP, you can search for a mysterious new item that conserves unused hearts just to be released later when you need them.

Descent Dungeons

In the last preview we mentioned a new type of side dungeons. We decided to make the dungeon accessible even without using the new skygem currency you will be able to find deep below the surface in the already showcased tower defense arena challenge. You will always be able to use the descent device to travel to descent depth 1. To increase reward and the size and challenge of the descent dungeon you will have to use skygems to power the descent device to take you deeper below the surface.
But be careful this is a one way ticket to descent, you will have to fight your way back up alone. The deeper you descent the higher your rewards will be, if you make it back up...

Bloodstained Chests

Traveling through the vast lands around Ankerath you will encounter bloodstained chests. No one has seen them before... The bloodstained echo calls; brace for the falls.
With the bloodstained chests we are adding a complete new world event with a unique mechanic to all maps of Striving for Light.

Improvements and old content rework

With the 0.9 update we are also revamping a lot of the old content. Just to name a very few:

• You might have noticed the completely new blood visual effects
• More responsive range combat
• Improved enemy spawn algorithm that prevents enemy spawns upon player position
• Rebuilding some left over old particle effects to utilise GPU calculated particles to prevent CPU bottlenecks.
• Gatekeeper arena re-design
• Plenty of performance improvements to enable you to further push the bounds with your created builds.
• Improved scaling of softcore mode
• Improved controller support for skilltree UI navigation
• Updated skill effects for older skills like explosions, meteors ...

Updated Pricing

The release of 0.9 marks the completion for all major features that we plan to include for the 1.0 release of Striving for Light. Post 0.9 we will focus on polishing and giving you more of the great and improving what's not great already. Therefore we will update our pricing with the release of the new content update. Since the release of the Aeodra Content Update 0.7 around a year ago the amount of content has grown tremendously without adjusting the price for around a year now. To better align with the enriched content and enhanced value of the game, we'll be updating our pricing as communicated on our steam early access page. The price for Striving for Light will raise from the current $9.99 USD (9.75) to $14.99 USD (14.79) when the Descent content update drops. We will again post a reminder as soon as we have a release date for the update. So that everyone has the possibility to get the game for the current price.

What comes next?

This only marks a fraction of all the new content that will be included in the Descent content update. All main systems are now implemented and will go into playtesting very soon. We will share more details on Awakened Gatekeepers and the new gatekeeper arena as well as more of the improvements to existing content as we get closer to the update release. Please note that all of what we have showed you here is subject to change as we are still full in active development for all of the new content. Abilities, names and stats might change as we see fit. Also since the scope of this update is huge and we want to make sure everything is polished and enjoyable on the update release day this will still need some time to cook until its ready. We want to thank you for your patience and the ongoing support! If you want to stay up to date with the ongoing development and chat with fellow players about the new update, you are invited to join our discord.

[ 2023-09-20 18:30:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

We are proud to announce the name and theme of the upcoming 0.9 content update. Update 0.9 will be the biggest content update Striving for Light has ever seen! "Descent" With the upcoming content update traces of a new ore have been found in the vast lands around Ankerath. The ore was a shimmering hue of blue, as deep and mesmerizing as the sky. News of the discovery spread like wildfire. It's told that some light fragments formed the ore when colliding at the great scatter.
The lands are transforming. Where once there were meadows and forests, now wooden scaffolds shadowed the ground. The clang of hammers and pickaxes became a constant echo as mine shafts, like scars, began to appear, burrowing deep into the belly of the earth, driven by the insatiable hunger for the new ore. No one thought we would awaken these ancient dormant terrors...
In Descent you will find frequent tunnels that lead into the belly of the earth. Construct mine shafts and install defense upgrades to defend yourself and your mine shaft from the awakened horrors to descent and digg for skygems.
Prolong and intensify your descent to maximise the risk and reward of your expedition into the deep!

New Trinket System

The upcoming content update will introduce a new item type: Trinkets. Trinkets come in 4 different types and can not only grant you passive stat improvements but also active and passive abilities. So lets take a look at the different trinket types. You will be able to carry 4 trinkets at the same time and you can combine them freely as you see fit.

Legendary Trinkets

Legendary Trinkets are the rarest and most powerful trinkets you can find. These trinkets do not only hold passive stat improvements but also an unique active or passive ability that you can gain by meeting the trinket power requirements. These are indicated by colored circles that stand for other trinket types you need to have equiped to gain the ability. In general legendary trinkets belong to no color and do not count towards meeting the requirements for other trinkets.
Once you have met the requirements you can use the new active abilities by the right mouse (or assigned) button. Active Abilities have a cooldown that requires to empower the trinket by a certain amount of enemies that have to be defeated. The active abilities can be everything from shapeshifting into a new form, a temporal shield preventing you to receive damage, berserker auras or massive new attacks.

Normal Trinkets

Normal trinkets are colored blue (defensive), red (offensive) and green (utility) and can hold a variety of stats but also passive effects. Those trinkets are required to activate the abilities on the legendary trinkets. While the active abilities from legendary trinkets are powerful they might not be best for all builds. Some builds will benefit more from stacked passive effects from normal trinkets or even combining multiple legendary trinkets without activating the legendary ability. The possibilities are endless.


We are planing to add a huge amount of different trinkets with the upcoming content update to bring a huge variety of new build possibilities to explore. Here are some of them to give some hints on what will await you.











These trinkets can be aquired all throughout the world but also in the new descent events.

What comes next?

This only marks a fraction of all the new content that will be included in the Descent content update. You will be able to use the new skygem currency to descent into several brutal mini dungeons. There are plans for a new world event. We are currently experimenting with awakened gatekeeper bosses that you will call once you dived deep enough into the darkness. There might even be a complete new map. And this is just the new content, we not even have talked about all the improvements that will come to the existing content like reworked range combat with overall faster projectile speeds to make range attacks feel more responsive. Please note that all of what we have showed you here is subject to change as we are still full in active development for all of the new content. Abilities, names and stats might change as we see fit. Also since the scope of this update is huge and we want to make sure everything is polished and enjoyable on the update release day this will still need some time to cook until its ready. We want to thank you for your patience and the ongoing support! If you want to stay up to date with the ongoing development and chat with fellow players about the new update, you are invited to join our discord.

[ 2023-09-06 09:52:26 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements

• Performance improvements for all constructs
• Additional projectiles from weapon stats do now update the range attack immediately (was updating after next skill tree scene switch)

Bugfixes:

• Fixed a memory leak when using range constructs
• Fixed skill tree node search camera pan after searching for nodes that contained letters "wasd"
• Fixed a crash on player death (v.0.8.7.2c)
• Fixed a crash due to new improved scene loading (v.0.8.7.2.c)

[ 2023-07-12 22:27:58 CET ] [ Original post ]

Update 0.8.7.2a is making getting hit more fun than ever... with complete new player hit visuals and sound effects.

Improvements

• Player hit visual effects have been completly reworked. Player hit has also got a brand new sound effect. This will make player hits feel much more responsive and impactful. And last but not least they should make getting hit more fun than ever :). And this is how it looks in action.
  
• Reworked trembling ground visuals effects and fixed inconsitent visual effect drop outs

Balancing

• Fragmentation projectiles now have increased range and less travel speed

Bugfixes

• Fixed crahses that have been introduced by the latest loading rewrite to reduce scene transition loading times
• Fixed wrong number of assigned enemy on death effects

[ 2023-07-11 17:42:50 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improved Controller Support

Controller usage on the skill tree and the pathfinder has been improved. You can now as well use the thumb stick to jump between nodes. Fast movements make the cursor jump to the next node in the targeted direction. Slow thumb stick movements unlock the cursor for fine adjustments. This should hopefully make navigating the trees more fun using the controller. You can now use the LB+RB button to switch between softcore and hardcore mode at the start of the run when using a controller.

Improvements

• Highlighted nodes in the skill tree and the pathfinder now have an animated highlight for improved visibility when using a controller.
• Darkness skill gem world event reward window now also on keyboard / mouse focuses first option so that selection can be made by UI arrow navigation
• Further performance improvements on critical hit enemy flash effect
• Fissure skill is now fully affected by the player effect transparency setting
• Improved distort shader effect for the fissure skill effect.
• Reduced loading times when switching scenes.
• Player character is now remaining facing in the latest walking direction instead of always facing in the downwards direction.

Bugfixes

• Fixed map tooltip offset to the right when activating a map or deactivating a map
• Fixed misplaced tooltips on the pathfinder radial menu when using a controller.

[ 2023-07-10 22:01:07 CET ] [ Original post ]

Just yesturday we have released a big update for Striving for Light and we are going full force ahead! This update 0.8.7.1 is full packed with performance improvements to make exploring the new added weapon as well as the new weapon effect / construct interactions more fun than ever! This update also fixes the portal not detecting the player after scene switch which made you require to leave and return to a pathfinder portal in order to activate it!

Improvements

• Massive performance improvements for all enemy hit flash effects that have multiple body parts like worms/centipedes. Previously long worm enemies like worm map boss or the bleak worm gatekeeper endboss could lead to massive frame drops when attacking with a huge amount of frequent hits. The enemy flash effect was rewritten for maximum performance at exact same functionality.
• Massive performance improvements for all companion enemy hit effects. Previously all companions triggered additional enem hit visual effects that where not intended. This could lead to massive frame drops when a big bunch of companions attacked an enemy with much HP like bosses.

Bugfixes

• The pathfinder portal now detects the player directly after scene switch and does not require you to leave the portal area and return to activate the portal and use it.

Thanks for being part of the development journey of Striving for Light. Participate in the ongoing development and join our official discord community!

[ 2023-07-06 18:09:41 CET ] [ Original post ]

With update 0.8.7 we are added a new weapon designed in cooperation with latest streamer race winner Sin. We are also adding a slider to adjust the minimap overlay transparency. We are reworking how weapon effect triggers work in combination with constructs and more.

New Features:

New Melee Weapon - Frozen Vessel

A new melee weapon designed in cooperation with latest Streamer Race winner Sin has been added to the game. Frozen Vessel is a mid range melee weapon triggering a frost splash on each enemy hit freezing all enemies in reach. Area scales with AoE size.

Minimap Overlay Transparency

Added new transparency slider for minimap-overlay. You can now seamlessly adjust the minimap overlay transparency by a new slider in the options menu.

Improved Weapon Effect Triggers

Previously the weapon own trigger effects have not carried over to constructs. So for example if you had a bear caller equiped only your attack would have spawned a bear. This was a bit inconsitent as range constructs with emerald staff (spawning spiders) did work. Equiping a hammer also did not grant melee constructs the slam AoE of the hammer. To increase build diversity and to make those weapon/ construct interactions consitent the whole weapon effect trigger system got reworked. Now all melee/range weapon effects are triggered from constructs. However, if you have the construct attack replacer on performing an attack no more weapon effects will be triggered from your own attack (which previously was the case). Now the constructs solely trigger the weapon effects as well as all the other skill triggers. We felt that this was the most immersive and logical way on how constructs should interact with your weapon attacks. This should open up a big variety of new playstyles.

Improvements:

• Improved melee attack targeting. Melee attacks are now remaining in the started attack angle also when switching walking directions. This should especially be noticeable when using stabbing weapons like a spear.
• Improved boomerang weapon animations and prevented attack direction switch when attack was not yet finished.
• Softcore Mode required exp for level ups has been further reduced.

Balancing Changes:

• Freeze condition now freezes enemies for 2 seconds (was 1 second)

Bugfixes

• Fixed player spawning outside of the gatekeeper arena. Player is now moved inside the area when this occurs.
• Fixed crash due to issues loading sound file.
• Fixed missing description on charge skill node tooltips.
• Fixed layering of swamp and mountain trap damage fields to prevent them being invisible/ covered by other map elements.
• Fixed potential crash on flail weapon with boomerang attack replacer due to wrong animation paths.
• Fixed crash on new secret due to wrong sfx path.

[ 2023-07-05 15:53:17 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements:

• If your you have gained additional max health on the tree of light legacy progression you will now start your run with full hp as well and not just empty additional max hp.

Bugfixes:

• Fixed a bug that caused world events to remain active on a new run
• Fixed a bug that caused players to be ported into previously visited secret dungeons on a fresh run start.
• In general world reset bugs have been fixed which where introduced by the recent added softcore mode.

[ 2023-07-03 14:43:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements

• Reduced loading times for save files. Players who have plenty of save games already will notice a speed up in loading save game manager and loading the save files.

Bugfixes

• Fixed a bug that could cause map modifiers of other same named maps to be copied to your current map. This lead to unexpected situations receiving more damage than the map mods of your current map showed. This issue was introduced by recenet memory leak fixes and a rewrite of the code base but this is fixed now.

[ 2023-07-03 08:33:26 CET ] [ Original post ]

We have paid attention to the run performances for the new added softcore mode. We designed the softcore mode to feel more relaxed and less risky than the hardcore mode with a bit less exp gain (higher exp requirements for level ups) compared to the hardcore mode to compensate the additional shields you will have for your runs. It turned out that the increased exp requirements for the next level ups are way to high and lead to a very slow and tedious leveling experience past level 25. Therefore we have lowered the exp requirements to only slightly sit above the requirements for the hardcore mode.

Improvements

• Improved attack of centipede enemies.

Rest assured that we want this new game mode to be as enjoyable as possible for the majority of players and we will listen to your feedback and do adjsutments according to your feedback! Thanks for being part of the development journey of Striving for Light. Engage in the ongoing development and join our discord.

[ 2023-07-02 19:05:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements

• The recently added secret has been improved and the spawn mechanics have been changed since it was not yet discovered.

The efforts which flowed into the past streamer-race event have also brought back a species which seemed extinguished in the vast lands around Ankerath.

Bounty Hunt

We offer a bounty for the first 3 persons who post a screenshots of the new secret into our discord in the #screenshots channel. The first 3 players who share the right screenshot will receive a steam key for one of our games or soundtracks of your choice! With the updated secret there is now also a secret puzzle to solve. Have fun solving! Join the discord and the bounty hunt now: https://discord.com/invite/GNEBkQDyUb

[ 2023-07-01 11:12:24 CET ] [ Original post ]

This patch notes will be updated whenever the beta branch will receive an update until its feature complete for the upcoming version 0.8.6.

Patch notes v. 0.8.6.0a

• Transitioned to multi threaded physics model for increased performance. Plenty of technical changes on how collisions are processed to enable multi threaded physics.
• Performance improvements on hitting enemies due to new and improved enemy detection range change for all enemies.
• Fixed inconsistent map enemy density which could lead to very poor performance on very unplayable enemy densities on forest and sands map for example. Previously some maps due to weak enemy spawn restrictions could end up having tons over overlapping enemies that was leading to massive performance issues. This should now be fixed as enemies have now the same spawn restrictions on each map.
• Sand map now has larger trap distance to prevent trap cluttering.
• Memory leak fixes.
• Fixed invisible AoE field on corrupted merchant.
• Fixed off-flowing tooltips in the pathfinder when applying shards to maps.
• Increased spawn possibility of the new added secret.

Bounty Hunt the new Secret

The efforts which flowed into the past streamer-race event have also brought back a species which seemed extinguished in the vast lands around Ankerath. We offer a bounty for the first 3 persons who post a screenshot of the new secret into our Discord in the screenshots channel. The first 3 players who share the right screenshot will receive a steam key for one of our games or soundtracks of their choice!

Bug Reporting

Please use our Discord or the steam forums to report any occuring issues so that we can fix and improve all the new features to make the upcoming udpate the best it can be! Thanks for being part of this journey!

[ 2023-06-26 22:33:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements:

• Rearranged the dialog box options so that all dialog boxes have confirm action to the right and leave or cancel actions on the left. The phoenix, merchant, coop stone, chicken dialog boxes there have been update with new option arrangement.
• Stone statue enemy eyes now as well have a red outline
• Fixed inconsistent worm enemy attack collider activation

Bugfixes

• Fixed crit damage value not being displayed in the stats window
• Fixed cape glitch of unknown wanderers (v.0.8.5.3a)
• Fixed wrong translation tag in game difficulty icon (v.0.8.5.3b)

A new secret has been added to the game. We offer a bounty for the first 3 persons who post a screenshot of the new secret into our discord in the #screenshots channel. The first 3 players who share the right screenshot will receive a steam key for one of our games or soundtracks of your choice! Join the discord and the bounty hunt now: https://discord.com/invite/GNEBkQDyUb

[ 2023-06-23 16:52:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Features:

A new secret has been added to the game. We offer a bounty for the first 3 persons who post a screenshot of the new secret into our discord in the #screenshots channel. The first 3 players who share the right screenshot will receive a steam key for one of our games or soundtracks of your choice! Join the discord and the bounty hunt now: https://discord.com/invite/GNEBkQDyUb

Improvements:

• Smoother player camera movement and performance improvements.
• Improved positioning of player collider on rogue, heleja, dark wanderer and farmer.
• Treasure event enemies now have bigger player detect radius.

Balancing:

• Darkness Staff now has 5 base damage (was 10 base damage).

Bugfixes

• Reverted to serial physics model due to some regressions.

[ 2023-06-22 23:53:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements

• Fixed memory leaks on scene switch which lead to degraded performance over time.
• Glaring light has reduced visual stack count to prevent visual blow out
• Darkness Challenges for receiving skill gems now do not spawn enemies on current player position
• Fixed wrong displayed shadow on phoenix superboss
• Fixed stats display fraction of values decimal values
• Stone Statue enemies now as well have red outline for hands
• Loading screen now has translations

Balancing

• Worm enemies now do not deal damage on tail edge

Bugfixes:

• Fixed world event glitch that makes it possible to activate an event multiple times
• Rolled back previous change that always difficulty tier 1 is automatically selected. Now always the highest current difficulty tier is selected by default on the start of a run
• Fixed increased projectile damage skill nodes not affecting the projectile damage (v.0.8.5.1b)

[ 2023-06-21 21:48:02 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Features:

• New training dummies have been added to Ankerath.
  This training dummies always have the same HP Pool as regular enemies of your current difficulty setting. So the HP pool dynamically grows with your enemy strength making it the perfect dummy to test build changes before going back into a map. Once a training dummy HP pool is depleated it will immediatly get refilled.
  
• Re-designed damage numbers. We completely redesigned the damage number animation to make damage numbers feel as responsive as possible and more satisfying to look at. So the new animation is designed to reflect the damage inpact. Also the damage numbers have got a complete new color code with gradual tint shift from pure white - yellow - golden depending on the damage amount. The previous color code was just to diverse with a more rainbow disco feel.
  
• Re-designed tooltips for skills, maps, map mods, shards and consumable items. The previous tooltip design can be dated back to our pre-early access days over a year ago so it definately needed a long awaited redesign. Here is how the new tooltip design looks like.
  
  
  

Improvements

• New multi threaded physics model for improved performance
• If new difficulty tiers are unlocked a new run now always defaults at difficulty tier 1 and has to be increased by the player

Bugfixes:

• Fixed the cursor hotspot offset for the software cursor
• Fixed crashes for new players that did not have any savefiles
• Fixed crash/ missing placement preview on placing skill gems with new multi threaded physics model (v.0.8.5.0a)

Information about the upcoming 24h streamer race on 24th June at: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1646790/view/3653029068484924458?l=english You are invited to join our official discord to connect with the community and discuss and prepare your builds for the upcoming Rush Event. Join the official discord!

[ 2023-06-21 07:29:35 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Features:

• New maps can now be unlocked in one run by pushing deeper delve levels. Previously you had to do a few runs to unlock all maps
• Rewritten object pooling system that will prevent memory leaks from happening. Previously playing the game for 7+ hours straight has lead to some degraded performance due to accumulating unused game objects from the pooling system. Gameobjects are now reused more efficiently to prevent memory leaks and keep performance stable for very long gaming sessions. But we encurage everyone to take regular breaks, stand up, refill water bottles to stay hydrated, and take care of your self!

Streamer Race

- Implementations for upcoming streamer race - Stramer Race Changes: All weapons and all skills are unlocked from the start of the race. The increased Fragments of light drop rates have been lowered for race events.

Improvements:

• Improved damage number coloring
• Overall performance improvements and improved performance after scene switches
• Software cursor is now active by default, if you got hidden cursor issues you can still dectivate the software cursor in the options menu

Balancing:

• Darokins Staff: Projectiles now have 40% chance to unleash a light ray upon hit enemies. (was 25% trigger chance)

Bugfixes:

- Fixed a crash when applying a shard of power on weapons without projectiles (Emerald Staff) Information about the upcoming streamer race at last steam announcement: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1646790/view/3653029068484924458?l=english You are invited to join our official discord to connect with the community and discuss and prepare your builds for the upcoming Rush Event. Join the official discord!

[ 2023-06-14 18:32:58 CET ] [ Original post ]

Since our new in-game race event system has now been throughly tested in several race-event iterations we are now happy to announce our very first streamer-race with the new in-game event system.

The 24h Streamer-Race will take place at the 24th-25th June 2023 starting and ending at 7pm CEST.

Everyone can join and compete for the highscores in the 24h streamer-race event. Additionally there are several prices that can be won by streaming the full race progress live on twitch with active VODs (to prevent cheating)!

Price Pool

[olist]

Place: 125$ + Design Weapon/Skill/Companion together with the devs which will be implemented as a new secret into the game.

Place: 75$

Place: 50$ [/olist] (Price pool provided by event host QuietForMe)

How to participate

[olist]

Join the Igniting Spark Games discord & introduce yourself in #streamer-race

Stream your full race progress on twitch & have VODs active to prevent cheating

PayPal for receiving price money (price pool provided by event host QuietForMe) [/olist]

Balancing changes

• All characters, weapons and skills are unlocked from the start for everyone for the streamer race event
• The increased Fragments of light drop rates have been lowered for the streamer race event

Not streaming yet?

Set up a twitch account and begin livestreaming or invite your favourite twitch streamer to participate in the event! Download and use this attached invitation card to invite other streamers: Download invitation card here.

[ 2023-06-12 18:32:21 CET ] [ Original post ]

New features:

• Software cursor is now a opt-in option in the options menu. As plenty of players reported back that windows hides the software cursor for some specific resolutions and screen scaling settings in fullscreen mode the software cursor is now disabled by default. This should always yield a visible cursor with the option to activate the nicer looking software cursor if your windows settings support this.

[ 2023-05-24 07:33:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

3 Days Character Race Event

At 18.05.2023 7pm - 21.05.2023 7pm CEST we will host our second Rush Event. This time all players will get access to all characters right from the start of the event. All further weapons/skills have to be unlocked as normal but players will get a +100% increased light drop rate during the Rush Event.
Whats different about this event?

• 3 day event duration, giving all players a more time to compete and try out the still pretty new timed event system.
• All characters are unlocked from the start of the event
• Only tier 1 difficulty tier is available for the rush events

Improvements

• Range constructs now more accurately attack near enemies. Fixed a bug that caused range constructs to often times miss enemies. (v. 0.8.3.2b)
• Reduced glaring light sfx sound volume (v. 0.8.3.2b)
• On rush events only difficulty tier 1 can be played and no further tiers can be unlocked
• Rush events now grant you access to all playable characters right from the start of the event
• Visual improvements for the event system
• Tweaks and improvements for the event system

Balancing:

• Character Heleja now does not get additional energy regeneration as starting stat (was +0.5 energy/second) (v. 0.8.3.2b)
• Character Heleja now does not gain additional AoE size as starting stat (was +20%) (v. 0.8.3.2b)

Bugfixes:

• Fixed a bug that could lead to a crash when entering skill tree
• Fixed wrong rounded resource regeneration values in the leaderboard build viewer
• Fixed resposiveness number overlay for healthbar that activates after exceeding a certain health treshold
• Fixed Bear Caller always having active weapon swing effect when switching to this weapon (v. 0.8.3.2b)

You are invited to join our official discord to connect with the community and discuss and prepare your builds for the upcoming Rush Event. Join the official discord!

[ 2023-05-16 20:29:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements:

• Build Viewer now displays energy/reg, endurance/reg and dodge/reg for builds on the leaderboards.
• Offscreen spawned particle effects are now culled after the total duration to not fire them up when moving to that offscreen area at a later time. This should improve performance on endgame scenarios.

Bugfixes:

• Fixed 90 offset in triggered attack effects when using the gamepad thumb stick to aim your attacks

[ 2023-05-07 13:10:50 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements:

• All companions now spawn scattered around the spawn position to prevent them being perfectly stacked on top of each other which made it hard to see how much companions have been created.

Bugfixes

• Fixed alt-f4-ing to save death characters

[ 2023-05-02 18:36:54 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugfixes:

• Fixed 2 second iteration in the main menu countdown (this was only a UI display bug, it does not affect the event time synchronisation)
• Farmer and Dark Wanderer Challenge Spawner Eggs can now be targeted by your companions
• Fixed a bug that switched from the offline save file to an "phantom save file" that required to reselect the offline save file in the save manager to continue playing this save file. If you got this bug simply go to the save file manager in the main menu (top right button) and re-select the offline save file. You should now be good to go.
• Fixed a crash on offline save files
• Fixed Rush-Event timer being displayed on offline save files

[ 2023-04-28 19:10:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

Join the first 24h Rush-Event. The very first Rush-Event will be on this Friday starting at 7am CET/ 2pm CEST at 28.04.2023 with a duration of 24h. Everyone is invited to try out this new event system and give us valuable feedback on how to improve this system. On Rush-Events all players start with equal conditions on a fresh save file but gain a +100% light fragment drop rate from enemies and world objects.
How Rush-Events work Whenever there is a planed Rush-Event it will show up in the main menu of the game with a countdown until the eventstart. Rush-Events are synced for all players around to world to our server time. Once the coutdown runs out you will be able to register and log into the event. It's important to note that Rush-Events will coexist next to our seasons and the offline save files. You can at any time switch between the Rush-Event, the current season or the offline save file from the save file manager on the top right in the main menu. During the event When you start playing the RushEvent you will notice a new timer on the right of the screen below your minimap. This timer always displays the remaining time within the Rush-Event. When this timer hits the last 10 minutes an additional highlight a sound effect and information is displayed to remind players to get to town on time or get defeated before the time runs out so that the score is updated. We wish everyone a lot of fun with this new Event Type! You are looking for fellow players to talk/ share your build ideas or discuss strategies feel free to join our official discord at: https://discord.com/invite/GNEBkQDyUb

[ 2023-04-28 09:55:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

For the Rush-Event all Light Fragment drop rates from enemies and destroyable world objects are doubled! Improvements:

• Life Leech tooltip has now information on how the life leech effect scales on multiple life leech nodes

Balancing:

• Changes to life leech skill nodes. Life leech now has a base leech of 1 health of 150 defeated enemies (was 170) also the leech amount now reduces by -20% for each additional stacked life leech node (was -20 finite value).

Bugfixes:

• Fixed a crash when loading offline save files (v.0.8.3.0f)
• Fixed not spawned companions
• Some tweaks to controller support
• Fixed legendary effects not being applied directly without scene switch
• Tweaks for Rush Event

We wish everyone a lot of fun at our very first Rush-Event! Please give us your feedback about your Rush-Experience so that we can improve those Events on future iterations. In case you encounter any bugs or crashes or want to share your feedback, you are invited to join our official discord at: https://discord.com/invite/GNEBkQDyUb

[ 2023-04-27 19:28:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

Update 0.8.3.0 brings a new Rush-Event-System to Striving for Light, adds a loading screen which displays loading progress of the next scene, makes leaderboards available from the main menu, as well as further improvements and a fix for the crash on game start that could occur when no internet connection was available or API calls have failed.

New Features:

Rush-Event System

With this update we are adding a new type of timed adrenalin packed events into the game. These events are named Haste events and share some of the functionalities of a new season but with a much shorter timeframe. Haste events usually range from only a few hours to a few days. On Haste events all players start with equal conditions on a fresh save file. The very first Rush-Event will be on this Friday starting at 7am CET/ 2pm CEST at 28.04.2023 with a duration of 24h. Everyone is invited to try out this new event system and give us valuable feedback on how to improve this system.
How Rush-Events work Whenever there is a planed Rush-Event it will show up in the main menu of the game with a countdown until the eventstart. Rush-Events are synced for all players around to world to our server time. Once the coutdown runs out you will be able to register and log into the event. It's important to note that Rush-Events will coexist next to our seasons and the offline save files. You can at any time switch between the Rush-Event, the current season or the offline save file from the save file manager on the top right in the main menu. During the event When you start playing the RushEvent you will notice a new timer on the right of the screen below your minimap. This timer always displays the remaining time within the Rush-Event. When this timer hits the last 10 minutes an additional highlight a sound effect and information is displayed to remind players to get to town on time or get defeated before the time runs out so that the score is updated.

Leaderboard in Main Menu

You can now access the leaderboard from within the main menu.

Ranking on Game Over Screen

Your current ranking is now displayed on the game over screen. The screen

New Loading Screen

The simple scene transition has been replaced by a new loading screen also displaying loading progress and a loading animation. Most of the times switching scenes is nearly instant but on older hard drives/ rigs or on very large skill trees or pathfinder trees loading might take up to a few seconds. Previously you would see a frozen screen which fails to communicate if the game is just loading a heavy scene or if the game froze and is going to crash. In general the scene transition system has been reworked for much smoother scene transitions.

Improvements

• Darokin now grants one light fragment for each removed weapon in town (was 1 light fragment for each 3 weapons)

Bugfixes

• Fixed crashes on startup due to failed requests in receiving data from our APIs
• Fixed controller navigation in skilltree/pathfinder for PS4 controllers (v.0.8.3.0b)

If you encounter any bugs or issues please report them so that they can be fixes as soon as possible. The best way to engage in the ongoing development of Striving for Light is our discord: Join our official discord!

[ 2023-04-26 18:39:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Features:

Projectile Shield Range Attack Replacer Skill got a complete rework and now works different. First of this is how the projectile shield rework looks in action:
Projectiles now orbit around you with your player position as the origin. Projectile Shield now sets the projectile speed to a much lower value which is not dependent on the type of projectiles. Previously you would find Projectile Shield almost unusable on very slow or very fast projectiles as the radius would have been to small or too large. Also aiming was quite hard if you did not have a few projectile multiplicators set up. This as well changes with the new projectile shield rework. All projectiles orbit with the same radius and are therefore much easier to aim. You can now even increase the radius of the orbit by increasing your Area of Effect. Skill descriptions have been adjusted accordingly. The game now initialises in fullscreen mode. If you still getting crashes on startup please report them on our -> Official Discord or through our website at: Bugreport-Form.. Please also attach your settings.cfg and your save.json files which are located at: %appdata%\Godot\app_userdata\StrivingForLight\ Thanks in advance!

[ 2023-04-22 20:34:25 CET ] [ Original post ]

Update 0.8.2.5 focuses on balancing and improvements for the skill lightning strike. Also negative tradeoffs from life-leech and collect range have been removed.

Balancing

• Projectile Shield now grants additional 50% projectile range
• Lightning Strike now targets aimed direction
• Life Leech now has no tradeoffs (had +1 Dodge Cost before)
• Increaesd Collecting Range now has no tradeoffs (had +1 Dodge Cost before)
• Darokin glaring light effect now is triggered on melee and range attacks (was only melee attacks)
• Dark Wanderer gained additional 5 companion damage

Bugfixes

• Fixed wrong lifeleech display in build viewer
• Fixed darokin offering the unlock character dialog even though you have already unlocked the character darokin

If you still getting crashes on startup or during gameplay please report them on our -> Official Discord or through our website at: Bugreport-Form.. Please also attach your settings.cfg and your save.json files which are located at: %appdata%\Godot\app_userdata\StrivingForLight\ Thanks in advance for helping us tracking down those bugs and crashes :)

[ 2023-04-21 18:22:45 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugfixes:

• Changed display settings queue order to prevent crashes on startup.

If you still getting crashes on startup please report them on our -> Official Discord or through our website at: Bugreport-Form.. Please also attach your settings.cfg and your save.json files which are located at: %appdata%\Godot\app_userdata\StrivingForLight\ Thanks in advance!

[ 2023-04-21 06:36:02 CET ] [ Original post ]

Thix update focuses on fixing frequent occurring crashes as well as some further bugs. Some further improvements have been added as well. If you encounter any crash please report them to us so that we can fix them as soon as possible. If possible please also attach your settings and save files using the bugreport button in main menu or on our website at www.strivingforlight.com/bugreport

Improvements

• If emerald staff is equiped no projectiles are displayed in the stats window to indicate that you don't have any projectiles when emerald staff is equipped
• New save files now initially don't have any skill tree shards to not overwealm new players with the initial tutorials

Balancing

• Glaring light damage scales with your projectile damage.

Bugfixes

• Fixed a crash when entering a map and keybindings have been changed in a way that one action is not set to a key
• Fixed a crash when trying to freeze chicken enemies
• Glaring light effect can now be displayed multiple times to prevent hidden visual effect on fast attack speed or multiple glaring light stacks
• Fixed heleja carrying weapon offset
• Tooltips for each stat in the stats window has been fixed so that you can now get more information on the different stats.

If you encounter any bugs or issues please report them so that they can be fixes as soon as possible. The best way to engage in the ongoing development of Striving for Light is our discord: Join our official discord!

[ 2023-04-17 17:35:53 CET ] [ Original post ]

This update fixes some of the most frequent crashes. If you encounter any crash please report them to us so that we can fix them as soon as possible. If possible please also attach yous settings and save files using the bugreport button in main menu or on our website at www.strivingforlight.com/bugreports.

Improvements:

• Crab enemies and stone golem enemies now have red hitbox indicators
• Added Dodge + Move hint in the tutorials to make it clear that dodge needs a move direction.
• Performance improvements for enemy hit and enemy critical hit visual effects
• Game now starts with windowed initialisation to prevent startup crashes on multi monitor setups (if you still have issues please send us your reports and describe your setup and attach your save and settings files)

Bugfixes:

• Fixed a crash that occurred when picking up a weapon with +1 max health as weapon stat
• Fixed a bug that could lead to a crash when defeating an boss enemy and collecting a key
• Game now default uses original Striving for Light soundtrack instead of the Survival soundtrack on initial game start
• Bursting skills now display correct damage numbers
• Fixed damage numbers decimal values
• Fixed locked initial characters in demo version on first run

[ 2023-04-16 19:05:31 CET ] [ Original post ]

With this update we are focusing the sound effects of Striving for Light.

New Features:

Random Alternate Sound Effect Trigger System

Until now sound effect where rather static as each action was only firing the same sound effect sample. This could become annoying playing weapons with very fast attack speed like the dagger. With this update we are introducing a new alternate sound effect trigger system that not only picks a random sample from a pool of sound effects but also applies random small pitch shifts to the samples so that you will hear a differnt sound effect each action. So now fast dagger stabs will all sound individual and dynamic.

Brand New Sound Effects

Furthermore we have redesigned all projectiles, player skill effects and weapon sound effects and added plenty of new sound effects to the game. This combined with the new alternate sound effect system is adding so much more dynamic and depth to the sonic atmosphere of Striving for Light.

Improvements

• Performance improvements for all projectiles

Bugfixes

• Fixed a crash on older save files which did not have a character selected from the new character selection on an active run (v 0.8.2.4a)
• Fixed a crash on character death on old save files without selected character from the new character selection (v 0.8.2.4b)
• Fixed weird centipede movement where the enemy could end up accelerating and surrounding you (v.0.8.2.3a)
• Fixed a crash that could occur on game startup with multi monitor setups and older save files. Now the saved screen resolutions are checked if they are compatible with the current monitor before loaded to prevent crashing the game on startup (v.0.8.2.3a)

Not satisfied with any mechanic or implementation of systems in the game? You encountered a bug or weird behaviour? Then please share your feedback with us so that we can make this game the best it can be! We are very open to feedback and are looking forward to hear your suggestions and follow the discussions on discord and steam forums! If you encounter any bugs or issues please report them so that they can be fixes as soon as possible. The best way to engage in the ongoing development of Striving for Light is our discord: Join our official discord!

[ 2023-04-13 19:22:38 CET ] [ Original post ]

Continuing the trend of our latest update we are now granting the shard of conjunction and the shard of change a new unique visual and sound effect which should make using those shards even more satisfying.

New Features:

• Shard of Change has received a visual & sound effect on activation to make using shards more satisfying and improve feedback if the activation was successful. Using the Shard of Change now looks like this:
  
• Shard of Conjunction has received a visual & sound effect on activation to make using shards more satisfying and improve feedback if the activation was successful. Reforging connections between nodes now looks like this:
  

Improvements

• Pathfinder tooltips have been improved. The overall size of the pathfinder tooltips for the maps and map mods are now much smaller in size which will prevent making them flowing outside of the game window.
  
• Vsync is now enabled by default on windowed mode to prevent micro stutters especially in capturing the game via capturing software like OBS

Bugfixes

• Descriptions for different maps in the pathfinder are now back implemented into the game.
• Fixed weird centipede movement where the enemy could end up accelerating and surrounding you (v.0.8.2.3a)
• Fixed a crash that could occur on game startup with multi monitor setups and older save files. Now the saved screen resolutions are checked if they are compatible with the current monitor before loaded to prevent crashing the game on startup (v.0.8.2.3a)

Not satisfied with any mechanic or implementation of systems in the game? You encountered a bug or weird behaviour? Then please share your feedback with us so that we can make this game the best it can be! We are very open to feedback and are looking forward to hear your suggestions and follow the discussions on discord and steam forums! If you encounter any bugs or issues please report them so that they can be fixes as soon as possible. The best way to engage in the ongoing development of Striving for Light is our discord: Join our official discord!

[ 2023-04-12 16:45:31 CET ] [ Original post ]

Welcome Wanderers! We want to share our updated roadmap with you all so that you get some insight on what we have planed in our upcoming content updates until the full 1.0 release. Lets start with a recap of the last 6 months of Striving for Light development. Game development is a very dynamic process as we are constantly listening to player feedback and also schedule our updates according to how the game evolves over time. Some features might not bring as much value to players like others so we reschedule planed features to a later or earlied date. This not only affects the announced features but also features we only had in mind and not even announced yet. So looking back at our last posted Roadmap from October last year we implemented most of the announced features along many further features we did not even have on the road map like adding legendary weapons, adding rare/epic weapons with random generated weapon stats or adding 6 new unique playable characters, map tiers, game difficulty settings, twitch& youtube integration, leaderboard build viewer and much more...
We specifically tried to re-schedule features to release as early as possible so that they will get as much testing-time as possible so that we can nail those core features like itemisation, weapon stats, characters and map tiers for endgame balancing for the 1.0 release. That said we did not forget about lore notes and more story content and the steam deck verification.

October 2022- February 2023

From the last posted roadmap until early this year we released 5 major content updates and over 30 patches and updates featuring plenty of new content including 5 new skills and 4 new weapons.

Survival Release and lessons learned for Striving for Light

We had some great ideas for a fun spin off and released an arena roguelite bullet-heaven game on the end of February 2023. This has proven as a great testing ground for performance optimisation and further QoL improvements like player effect transparency settings, new dynamic enemy health bars, player hit overlay effect, a completely new +20 minute rhythmic and intense alternative soundtrack, new colour coded damage numbers, and so much more. Those features are now all available in Striving for Light. If you haven't checked out the alternate Soundtrack option its available from the options menu. This not even includes the countless new ideas we had because we were looking at Striving for Light from a complete different angle while designing a new & fun resource system that lets you directly jump into the action. We applied many of the lessons learned and rolled new variations into Striving for Light with a massive 0.8.1 update which was the biggest change we ever did to the codebase of a game ever. As announced this came with some more introduced bugs than on our usual content updates.

February - Present

After the release of Survival (in the last 50 days) we already released 2 major content updates and over 14 updates and patches which include 7 new added skills and 2 new weapons, playable characters, in game achievements, map tiers, game difficulty tiers, rare/epic weapon system with weapon stats and many more improvements.

New Roadmap --> 1.0 release

Just a few days ago we have released the hideout content update, adding 6 unique playable characters, new main menu, character selection, 3 new secret bosses with a new boss arena, UI overhauls, rare/epic weapons new crafting options and more and are already setting sails for the next content udpates. That being said we want to ensure that all present content is in good shape and that remaining bugs are hunt down before we go full force onto the next content update. So we will take some time for bugfixes and improvements for especially those areas that could need some long awaited improvements and fixes. A good example for this is the Shard of Refund algorithm which just now has received a complete rewrite to make refunding possible even on the most complex and difficult tree-shapes. Game development is not always straight forward and some implemented features turned out to simply be more complex than initially expected and just need more time to implement. As we focus on spending our development time on features that serve the majority of the playerbase first, improvements like this are split up along the regular updates to not have weeks without updates and then only an updated respec algorithm that only a few players deeply care about. So whats on the horizon for next Striving for Light updates until the full 1.0 release:
Next to the pushed back features of the previous roadmaps we will start working on the new parallel secret dungeons that will let you aquire new set items that can be combined to grant you new & never seen before powers in the world of Striving for Light. These powers will be active abilities that are granted by the new set item types that require to actively trigger those abilities. Some of them might as well carry some passive abilities. These new dungeons will impose new challenges with great rewards. We will further implement new skills & weapons as we have always done. We plan to add at least one new map with new enemies and bosses and a new gatekeeper. Along the new map we are working on additional map and environment decorations to make the environments feel more alive and diverse. There will be more story content and more / new voice acting and we will implement steam achievements for the full 1.0 release. As always this is just the bare bone planed features until the full 1.0 release of Striving for Light. Most likely there will be more features added as the game evolves and grows of the next updates. If you have suggestions always feel free to drop them on our Discord or the steam forums. We hope that this gave you some insight into the past and future Striving for Light development. You are invited to join the community on discord and discuss the future of Striving for Light with other players and participate in the ongoing development of Striving for Light. Join the official discord community!

[ 2023-04-11 20:59:19 CET ] [ Original post ]

With update 0.8.2.2 we are improving the Shard of Refund - Respec algorithm so that the shard should actually be able to refund every valid skill that does not disconnect other skill nodes from the origin. Actully we are really excited about this new algorithm as this was not the most straight forward feature to implement. It took several iterations to make it working for all thinkable complex tree shapes and node connections. Previously you would find yourself using a Shard of Refund and the skill node would simply not be refunded if you had bad luck and the validator algorithm which is crawling along all the active branches of the skill tree got stuck on a dead end. The new algorithm should now be able to crawl the complete tree no matter how much dead ends and how complex the shapes and connections are. This is the new algorithm in action:
The feedback we have received and also the gameplay we watched mostly showed that the Shard of Refund was the least used skill tree shard. Especially in endgame scenarios most players probably have given up hope that the Shard would actually work on important branches as the tree simply just got to complex for the old algorithm. The new algorithm might now make the Shard of Refund an acutal useful tool to revert some early run decissions and respec depending on your weapon drops and how the skill tree evolves. Even in endgame scenarios you should now be able to rely on the Shard of Refund to fine tune your builds. To celebrate this we have also implemented a new respec sound and visual effect that should make respecing feel more impactful and fun.
We have also implemented this effect for the Tree of Light.

Bugfixes:

• Keybindings have been fixed and can now be accessed in game from the pause menu --> options menu.

If you encounter any bugs or issues please report them so that they can be fixes as soon as possible. The best way to engage in the ongoing development of Striving for Light is our discord: Join our official discord!

[ 2023-04-11 20:50:59 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Features

• Your current leaderboard rank is now displayed seperately above all leaderboard rankings. As the leaderboard list already is pretty long it is getting more and more time consuming to see your actual ranking. Furthermore only the top 300 entries are displayed. This feature makes it possible to see your leaderboard rank independently from being included in the top 300 or not.
  
• Crafting Tutorial added. When you now collect your first weapon shard a new crafting tutorial will be displayed in the skill tree that introduces new players to all the different crafting options.
  

Bugfixes

• Fixed locale dependent weapon stats display

[ 2023-04-10 12:25:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugfixes:

• Fixed locale dependent display of weapon stats in the build viewer due to "." and "," decimal separators. Now for all locales the right weapon stat values should be displayed
• Fixed always displayed weapon glow even on weapons that did not have any weapon stats
• Fixed overflowed weapon stats unlock description
• If Fullscreen and borderless mode is both set active
• If fullscreen is active borderless mode is now always deactivated on game start as this might lead to crashes on the steam deck.
• Fixed not unlocking difficulty tier after run was saved and loaded again
• Fixed some not existing achievements triggering

[ 2023-04-09 16:06:27 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Features:

• Constructs can now trigger all legendary on hit and on attack effects
• Stats window and build viewer now also display weapon glow effects

Balancing

• Constructs now have +2 resource cost and -50% attack speed (unintentionally they did not have any tradeoffs in the last few updates) Melee constructs now attack once each 2 seconds to allign them with range construcs

Bugfixes

• Fixed a bug that could lead to a crash when interacting with the leaderboards

[ 2023-04-08 13:35:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Features:

• Constructs can now trigger all legendary on attack and on hit effects
• Stats window and build viewer now display weapon glowing effects for legendary/rare/epic weapons

Balancing:

• Melee constucts now have +2 endurance cost and -50% attack speed (was unintentionally 0 for both)
• Melee constuct has now attack speed of 0.5 attacks per second to be equal as range constructs (was 1 attack per second)
• Range constucts now have +2 energy cost and -50% attack speed (was unintentionally 0 for both)

Bugfixes:

• Fixed a bug that could lead to crashes when viewing other builds on the leaderboards

[ 2023-04-08 13:00:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Features:

• New Legendary Weapon Skill Call Bear
  Your weapon attacks call a bear that attacks for your. Bear attacks count as your melee attacks. Bear lives for 6s. This can appear as a legendary skill on melee and range weapons.
• New Legendary Weapon Skill Light Ray
  Your attacks have a 50% chance to trigger a light ray on enemy hit. This light ray scales with your melee damage and size scales with your AoE size. This can appear as a legendary skill on melee and range weapons.
  
• New item pickup sound effect

Improvements:

• Performance improvements for all projectiles, this should help improve stuttering issues on mass projectile builds (v.0.8.2.1a)
• Darokin is now more intelligent and stays in town so that you only have to rescue him once per run
• Added unlock description to game difficulty tiers
• Added unlock description to characters in character selection
• Added new images to toggle skill tutorial
• Enemy projectiles are now always layered above enemies to make them better visible
• Ice crystal projectiles have more intense glow
• Performance improvements for range constructs

Balancing:

• Slightly reduced enemy & boss hp scaling for easier progress in mid game and to make transition into endgame more fluid
• Shadow Farmer Chickens have less hp scaling in endgame

Bugfixes:

• Fixed a bug that could prevent you from entering the gatekeeper arena after reloading your run
• Fixed dropped legendary weapons converting to non legendary weapons when switching maps
• Fixed text overflow in weapon stats UI
• Fixed map swap when leaving aeodra arena, secret basement bosses and the hideout bosses
• Fixed melee weapon in crafting weapon not being able to be selected on first clicks (v.0.8.2.1a)
• Fixed removed light fragments when a second "unlock character" dialog is chosen at an NPC (v.0.8.2.1a)
• Corrupt save file uploads now display a corrupt upload info instead of crashing the game (v.0.8.2.1b)

If you encounter any bugs or issues please report them so that they can be fixes as soon as possible. The best way to engage in the ongoing development of Striving for Light is our discord: Join our official discord!

[ 2023-04-07 15:38:55 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements:

• Completly reworked controller cursor navigation in the skilltree and in the pathfinder, you will find the cursor navigation with the controller much smoother now
• Added new controller sensitivity setting in the options which lets you adjust the sensitivity of your thumbsticks, this will give you complete control
• New tooltip system for pathfinder that prevents the tooltips of your map and the tooltips for the radial menu to overlap when using controller input. The tooltips now dynamically re-adjust depending on which radial menu item has focus. This is how it looks in action.
• Hideout Bosses now drop a chest that contains valuable items (v.0.8.2.0e)
  

Balancing:

• Hideout Bosses now have reduced HP scaling
• Shadow Farmer now spawns less chickens, chicken eggs now also have less hit points
• Gatekeepers have reduced HP scaling

Bugfixes:

• Fixed a bug which made it possible to call the pause menu during scene switches which could lead to a screen freeze in the options menu.
• Fixed missing cursor in pathfinder on controller input (v.0.8.2.0c)
• Fixed a bug which caused pressing the public league button to already switch to an online save file (v.0.8.2.0d)
• Fixed missplaced leg on frog enemies (v.0.8.2.0d)
• Fixed a bug that could cause no exit portal to spawn in the hideout arena (v.0.8.2.0e)

If you encounter any bugs or issues please report them so that they can be fixes as soon as possible. The best way to engage in the ongoing development of Striving for Light is our discord: Join our official discord!

[ 2023-04-06 10:44:00 CET ] [ Original post ]

With the Hideout Content Update (v.0.8.2) we are adding 6 new playable characters, a new character selection, 3 secret hideout boss encounters, 3 new weapon tiers that feature new weapon stats, a new weapon shard to craft stats onto weapons, improved enemy projectiles, AoE effects and HP bars and much more!

New Season Start

EA-Season 9 will start at 05.04.2023 at 6pm CEST with the release of the hideout update.

New Features

6 New Player Characters

With the hideout update we are adding 6 new player characters to Striving for Light. Some of them you might already know from your journey through Ankerath and surrounding territories. This now leads to a total of 8 unique player characters each with unique starting stats and abilities. Along the new characters there are 3 new secret hideout bosses to defeat in order to unlock some of the new characters.
The new characters come along with new in-game achievements to master during your season journey. The world dynamically changes based on which character you play so for example playing as Darokin will remove the option for gambling items in Ankerath for this run.

Uncommon/ Rare/ Epic Weapons

We are also introducing 3 new weapon tiers. Next to the familiar common weapons and the quite rare legendery weapons, we are adding uncommon, rare and epic weapons to the game. These new weapon tiers feature additional weapon stats which can be nearly every stat which is available in the game. These stats count always when you have this weapon equiped but you don't have to use the weapon for gaining the stat. So if you have a sword that grants you +1 projectiles you will have this stat also when using your ranged weapon. This should bring more useability to "off-hand" weapons when you are totally focusing on a range or melee build.


Each weapon tier has a unique loot beam and an unique weapon frame effect that should make it easier to see what tier the an item is.

• Common weapons have low intensity yellow sparkles
• Uncommon weapons have a yellow beam
• Rare weapons have a blue beam
• Epic weapons have a purple beam

There is now also a new weapon shard which allows you to craft stats onto your weapon and transfrom weapons into higher tiers. Shard of Instability
A shard that holds the power to reforge weapon stats and transform weapons in uncommon, rare and epic versions. And if you might asked you self if you can upgrade an epic weapon with 3 weapon stats to an epic legendary weapon... yes, you are right, you can! Here is an epic legendary version of the hammer.
Epic Legendaries are very rare to find and very hard to craft but hold insane powers for the ones who take it upon themselves to go on this hunt!

Improved Leaderboard Backend

The new wapon tiers with weapon stats are now also transfered to your leaderboard entry so you can show off your best weapons to the whole playerbase.

New Character Selection

To complement the new characters a new character selection was added to the game. When you now get defeated you will find yourself in this new character selection where you can also adjust the difficulty for your next run. Don't worry if you forget to select the right difficulty you can still change it in the pathfinder before you enter the first map.
In the new character selection you will find a "hide UI" button that lets you disable all the UI which you can use to create your own wallpapers or thumbnails for your favourite character.

New Range Weapon: Darokin's Staff

Your projectile hits have a 25% chance to cast a light ray upon enemies. Damage scales with your melee damage.

Pathfinder Improvements

When the game difficulty is locked the pathfinder will now only display the currend difficulty instead of the deactivated buttons.

New Collect Item UI

The legacy collect item UI was replaced by a new designed UI.

Improvements

• Pathfinder mouse and controller navigation has been improved
• Pathfinder tooltip positioning has been improved
• Improved enemy projectiles
• Improved enemy AoE Effects
• Performance improvements for all enemy projectiles and enemy AoE effects
• Reworked companion movement
• New craft weapon visual effects
• New designed enemy HP bars to make them better readable with the highlighted enemy option
• New enemy HP bars now automatically switch to alternate colour when highlighted enemies option is enabled
• Improved visuals of base characters
• Increased player dodge acceleration to make the dodge more responsive
• Improved Forest Map design
• Highlighting of possible skill connections in the skill tree

Balancing:

• Player invincibility is now 2s after you received damage (was 1s)
• Companions have increased movement speed
• Reduced elite enemy spawn rate has been decreased to 2/4/6/8/10% for Difficulty Tier 1-5 (was 3/6/9/12/15%)
• Gatekeepers and secret bosses now also scale with player level to prevent them being unproportionally easy on the first map
• Bear Caller weapon now has 1 endurance and 1 energy cost (was 1 endurance and 2 energy before)

Bugfixes

• Fixed missing key icon in game UI
• Fixed restarting of original soundtrack when switching between skill tree and gameplay
• Fixed not interactible radial buttons in the pathfinder on first click
• Darokin Rescue event now also uses new NPC model
• Fixed a bug which caused the skill node additional projectiles to not cost any additional energy
• Fixed tooltips in the pathfinder not hiding when they should leading to overlapping tooltips
• Fixed freeze when player died directly on scene load
• Fixes for hidden mouse cursor (if you still have issues with this please report it in discord/via mail or steam forums so that we can gather more information what is actually causing this for some players)

If you encounter any bugs or issues please report them so that they can be fixes as soon as possible. The best way to engage in the ongoing development of Striving for Light is our discord: Join our official discord!

[ 2023-04-04 22:11:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements

• Increased the spawn possibility scaling for the base skill nodes when a lot of skills are already unlocked. This should help keeping the base skill node spawn possibility on the same level as when only a few skills have been unlocked.

[ 2023-03-26 16:14:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Features:

Map Tiers X - XV

All map tier map node designs have been reworked to make it easier to differentiate between the different map tiers. New Map Tiers X- XV have been added to the endgame.

Balancing:

• The higher map tiers now spawn quicker after you have reached level 70
• Enemy HP scaling slightly increased
• Dodge skill now reduce dodge regeneration by -20% instead of reducing max dodge by -1. This should make dodge skills a more valid choice.
• The increased AoE size is now capped to +400% (which is around a screen size for most of the skills) to maintain performance in endgame scenarios.
• Increased spawn possibility of increased critical hit chance skill node
• Reduced drop chance of skill point gem

[ 2023-03-24 19:15:23 CET ] [ Original post ]

With update 0.8.1.1 we are introducing a new balancing system to Striving for Light. This new balancing system will make it possible to have a gradual difficulty increase without bloating enemy HPs.

New Features

Map Tiers

Maps can now be of a certain tier (I, II, III, IV, V, VI, VII, VIII, IX, X). Each tier comes with a unique map icon.









Once your character reaches level 30 these higher map tiers will start to appear in the pathfinder. The map tiers are bound to your character level so weaker characters that struggled progressing will get higher map tiers later. Maps with a higher tier come with additional enemy and trap damage. These modifiers can't be changed or mitigated. Each map tier adds 1 additional enemy and trap damage to the map. In contrast to compensate this we have reverted the increased HP scaling to a value only a bit over the pre 0.8 level. We hope that this makes early-mid game more fluid and enjoyable by also making the endgame challenging without bloated enemy HPs.

Balancing

• Massively reduced enemy hp scaling to only be slightly above pre 0.8 update
• Increased spawn rate of increased melee and increased projectile damage
• Energetic Stone Boss now has larger attack range
• Gatekeeper Iron Frost attacks have been reworked
• Gatekeeper defence objects now have a slight hit cooldown to prevent them being one shotted in endgame. Therefore the hit amount was reduced to 8 (was 10)
• Reduced maximum trap cap by map mods to +200% (was unlimited before) to prevent small maps being overflooded with traps
• Excluded chicken companion and increased collect range from the skill spawn pool. It can be still be obtained by events and added manually to the skill tree.

If you encounter any bugs or issues please let us know. The best way to engage in the ongoing development of Striving for Light is our discord: Join our official discord!

[ 2023-03-23 17:51:38 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugfixes

• Fixed Lightning Strike scaling with melee damage
• Fixed wrong skill description for the damage of scattering hit and scattering sweep
• Fixed damage description on Fragmentation as those projectiles actually scale with your melee and your projectile damage
• Fixed a crash when entering the secret basement on the Caves map

[ 2023-03-23 06:36:47 CET ] [ Original post ]

With update 0.8.1 we are adding 2 new lightning skills which are also available as legendary effects, we are reworking how condition damage works, improving critical hit feedback and controller and steam deck support.

New Features

New Skills

The new skills bring some brand new mechanics to Striving for Light: Survival. The lightning skills have a range of 1-3 possible effect triggers which can be increased by stacking the skills. Damage is also scaling with skill stacks but as a trade off they don't scale additionally with your projectile or melee damage. So in contrast to other skills you will gain not only more skill damage but also more possible skill effect triggers. If you for example stack 5 of the same lightning skill your attacks will trigger 5-15 of those lightning effects.

Discharge: New Melee On Attack Skill[/h3
Your melee attacks discharge a lightning ray from your position in a random angle piercing through all enemies in this attack angle. Damage and the amount of discharge rays scale with your skill stacks.

Lightning Strike: New Range On Attack Skill

Your range attacks call 1-3 lightning strikes to a random area around you damaging all hit enemies. Damage and the amount of lightning strikes scale with your skill stacks.

Critical Hit Feedback

New critical hit visual effect that is always triggered when dealing critical hits to enemies has been added. This should making dealing critical hits feel more impactful. Also the critical hit sound effect is now triggered independently from your damage number settings.

Backend improvements and fixes

Backend systems have been improved and several fixes have been supplied which should fix the issues with not transfered and saved builds and characters to your leaderboard entries.

Controller/ Steamdeck improvements

Cursor movement with controller has been completely reworked adding a softer and more fluid cursor movement when using a controller in the skilltree and the pathfinder.

Condition Damage Rework

Conditions got a complete overhaul and now work a bit different in terms of damage and duration calculation calculation. Lets first recap how the old condition damage system worked. Old condition damage system: You apply a burning condition which has a total duration of 3 seconds and deals 10 damage per DoT tick. If you have applied further burning stats to enemies the damage would add up. So for each burning stack the damage would be increased by the amount of your condition damage. But this is the part where it gets not so straight forward to calculate the actual condition damage because the timing on when the stacks are added play a big role. Lets say your attack speed is a bit lower than 1 attack per second you would only be able to apply the next condition stack a bit after the second DoT tick has applied the damage. So you would loose out on the +10 damage for second first DoT tick. So therefore only the last DoT tick would deal the 20 damage. After the total burning duration has expired all DoT stacks were removed which lets you start at 1 stack again. As you can see this lead to some unsatisifying situations especially for low attack speed builds where conditons could not be applied efficiently in the duration of a condition. We therefore redesigned the condition system so that condition damage is valid choice also for low attack speed builds. New condition damage system: The new condition damage system allows to prolong the total duration of a applied condition. If we take the above example of applying a burning condition in the new system each additional conditon stack will prolong the total condition duration for 1 second. So if you have a bit below 1 attack per second you will as well lose out on the added condition damage on the second DoT tick but as the total condition duration is increased from 3 to 4 seconds now there will be one more DoT tick which also benefits from the added skill stack. So with this new system you can in theory pretty much keep this burning condition going forever if you always prolong the duration in time by adding additional stacks. As this alone would lead to infinite DoT damage ramp up as the damage is increased by your condition damage on each applied condition stack we introduced a system that was present a while ago in Striving for Light and tweaked this to balance out the prolonged condition duration. For each DoT damage tick the additionally applied damage from condition stacks will be reduced by 1/3. So when you fail hitting enemies consitently the ramped up condition damage will slowly decrease again but never fall below the base condition damage value. On more example how the damage decays on multiple applied condition stacks. Lets say you apply 3 further burning stacks all at once after the first burning DoT was calculated this will lead to 3+(3)= 6s of total condition duration. If you then dont apply further stacks this is what the condition damage for base 10 condition damage will look like:

• 1st DoT: 10 (only one basic burning stack)
• 2nd DoT: 10 + 2/3(3x10) = 30
• 3th DoT: 10+ 2/3(20) = 23
• 4th DoT: 10+ 2/3(13) = 18
• 5th DoT: 10+ 2/3(8) = 15
• 6th DoT: 10+ 2/3(5) = 13

We hope that this new system makes playing with conditions a lot more enjoyable and we are looking forward to hear your feedback on this new condition damage system. We might roll this system into Striving for Light if there is enough positive feedback. So let us know what you think.

Improvements

• Performance improvements to all enemy hit and enemy death visual effects.
• All player projectile trails are now also affected by the player effect transparency setting, so now it is possible to hide your projectiles completely by setting transparency to 0.
• Achievements for already unlocked skills and weapons are now synced on each game start
• Improved visuals of the light staff projectiles

Balancing

• Reduced enemy HP scaling
• Reduced boss HP scaling

Bugfixes

• Fixed weapon achievement description to reflect what weapon has to be unlocked by the NPCs in town and which weapons have to be found defeating bosses
• Fixed tooltips flowing off screen

If you encounter any bugs or issues please let us know. The best way to engage in the ongoing development of Striving for Light is our discord: Join our official discord!

[ 2023-03-22 19:02:42 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements

• Improved Fissure distortion shader effect
• Fissure is now traveling in attack direction

Balancing

• Elite enemies now have -20% HP. This should make them less HP sponges in the early game.

Bugfixes

• Fixed range constructs stop shooting at enemies
• Fixed range constructs not aiming at enemies
• Fixed multiple spawned constructs on a single attack
• Fixed missing skill stack count in the skill section of the stats window
• Fixed unlocked weapons when dropping them
• Fixed to early unlocked skills
• Fixed Darokin NPC interact icon misplacement

[ 2023-03-19 12:31:51 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements

• Game now starts in native full screen mode which should fix issues with wrong display resolutions being detected.

Bugfixes

• Fixed duplicated projectile spawns when picking up a new ranged weapon. This has lead to a massive performance issue on projectile shield but also doubled projectile spawns for normal shots.

[ 2023-03-18 12:49:56 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugfixes:

• Fixed player effect transparency slider not being saved in the options menu. The option should now work as intended.
• Fixed builds not being transmitted to leaderboards.
• Fixed crash when activating coop-mode

[ 2023-03-18 00:34:20 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements:

• Pet now move faster

Balancing:

• Tree of Light legacy skill nodes for endurance and energy regeneration now grant +30% reg (was +15%)
• Flated out enemy hp scaling a bit for higher delve counts

Bugfixes:

• Fixed not displayed attack cost in the stats window
• Fixed crash when interacting with the leaderboard stone
• Removed duplicated crit stats on skill node tooltips
• Fixed bear caller converting to magic shield when picking up the weapon
• Fixed map completed achievements triggering wrong achievement ID
• Fixed frenzy UI not being show
• Fixed crash when using bear caller
• Fixed bug that caused wrong soundtracks to be played

[ 2023-03-17 08:10:54 CET ] [ Original post ]

Welcome back Wanderers to the biggest Update we have ever done for any of our games. Since our last content update for SfL we worked hard to try out and evaluate new directions and concepts with the release of SfL: Survival. We have gathered plenty of feedback and consolidated everything to this massive update that will make SfL appear like a new game with so much new content and QoL improvements. This being said thanks for all your feedback and suggestions that helped bringing Striving for Light to the point.

New Features

New League Start - EA Season 8

With the first warm breezes the remaining snow is melting and heralding the spring in Ankerath. So with Update 0.8 we are starting off the new Early Access Season 8 for Striving for Light. We did heavy balancing changes that speed up and intensify the early game experience but also tweaked endgame to make it more challenging. More about balancing changes later on. New NPC models have also been added to the game.

5 Difficulty Tiers To Compete

For the very first time we are introducing difficulty tiers to Striving for Light. You will start with Tier 1 and progress as usual. But once you have reached level 60 the next difficulty tier will be unlocked. For the next run you can now choose between those unlocked difficulty tiers in the pathfinder on the new difficulty tier UI.
You can only change the difficulty setting before you actually starting your run. Once you have activated your first map from the pathfinder the difficulty setting is locked and can earlies be changed on the start of your next run. All difficulty tiers come with their own leaderboard. So with update 0.8 you will have 5 seasonal leaderboard to compete against other players. These changes of course also carry over to private leagues. You will also be able to compete against your friends in the private league on those 5 leaderboards.
For each difficulty tier enemy HP get increased by +50% and the elite spawn possibility is increasing by +3%. Yes you have read correctly we are adding elite enemies to SfL. More about them later. Difficulty tiers are designed to impose additional challenges will need optimised build setups and maybe some preparation before taking on a Tier 5 run! The current difficulty tier is also displayed on the ingame UI next to the delve count.

Armory Build Viewer

Talking or leaderboards we are extending the leaderboard system by implementing a armory build viewer which lets you view others builds on the leaderboard by clicking the character icon on the entry. You will not only be able to see the character stats but also the chosen skills and the equiped weapons including their stats and the embedded legendary ability.

In-game Achievements

With this update we are also adding an in-game achievement system to SfL. This is the first step towards implementing steam achievements. All added achievements are seasonal achievements which are tied to your savegames. The achievements not only give a great overview over all weapons and skills that can be unlocked but also hold some information on how these can be unlocked. It also serves as a tool to check what skills and weapons are currently available in your runs and what still has to be unlocked. This should also help guiding new players. Currently there are over 150 seasonal achievements awaiting to be completed.

Elite Enemies

We are also introducing a new elite enemy mechanic which adds the possibility to enemies to be spawned as elite version. These elite enemies have 10x the HP of the regular enemy but therefore give a guaranteed special light fragment drop, which also grants you additional 3x the EXP of a regular enemy. Since the elite enemy spawn scales with the difficulty tier you will have the chance to grab some extra EXP and light fragments on higher tier runs.

New Melee Weapon: Bear Caller

Each of your melee attacks calls a bear which attacks for you. The bear attacks are treated as your own attack and can trigger all your melee on hit and on attack effects.

New Range Attack Replacer Skill: Projectile Shield

Your projectiles surround you like a projectice shield.

New Melee On Attack Skill: Fissure

Your melee attacks tear the ground and create a fissure traveling away from you. Fissure has the chance to replicate itself with a 50% chance.

New Critical Hit System

All attacks and skills can now deal critical hits if your critical hit chance is higher than 0. Along the new base skill node two new stats are introduced: critical hit chance and critical hit damage. Where critical hit chance is discribing the chance of all your attacks and skills to deal a critical hit. Critical hit damage describes the damage bonus for your ciritical hits.

New Life Leech System

A new life leech stat has been added along a new base skill node. When investing in live leech you will regain 1 HP after defeating a certain amount of enemies.

New Base Skill Node: Collect Range

A bit more specific skill node has been added that lets you increase your collect range which might become useful in endgame scenarios.

Korean, Japanese and Portuguese Localisation

With 0.8.0 We are adding support for Korean, Japanese and Portuguese language.

Extended Twitch Livestream Integration

In the main menu there is now a new twitch icon. Whenever you enter the main menu it will be checked if there are current livestreams on twitch in the Striving for Light Categories. The number of online channels will be displayed along a red dot if there are some. Clicking on the twitch icon will open up a livestream browser giving you more information about the current live stream options. You can quickly jump to a livestream by clicking the twitch icon on the channel entry. We hope that this feature helps further connecting the community.

New Damage Number System

Damage numbers are now colour coded to display your damage amounts. With higher damage the damage numbers are also scaled bigger. Critical hits have also received their own critical hit icon.

Striving for Light: Survival Soundtrack Option

We added the recently composed Striving for Light: Survival Soundtrack as an alternative OST to switch between.

Improvements

• Performance improvements for player projectiles and companions
• Performance improvements for enemy movement and enemy collisions
• Improved responsiveness of player character movement
• Improved enemy hit visual effect
• Chests now always spawn in front of the gatekeeper portal to reduce backtracking and make the overall game experience more fluid.
• Player effect transparency slider has been added to the options menu to make your projectiles, skill effects and companions partially translucent.
• Completely reworked all enemy projectile + trap colour and contrasts to make them better visible.
• Added option to give enemies a red outline to make them better standout on various backgrounds.
• Updated some of the skill node textures with clearer representations of the skill node.
• Added option to display player damage screen overlay effect to improve player hit feedback.
• Environment effects got reworked.
• New weapon trails and a new weapon swing visual effect was added.
• Reworked skill tooltip damage and trigger possibility calculation. Skill tooltips got some futher reporks.
• Improved widescreen support for environment effects.
• Added new player level up effect.
• Added new button hover and button click sound feedback.
• Melee constructs can now trigger double hit.
• Fissure has been added as legendary effect.
• Visual Improvements for Double Hit and Clash of Steel.
• New NPC models for Darokin, the old man of Ankerath, Heleja, the scholar of Ankerath and Goladir the blacksmith of Ankerath
• Exploding dodge now shows that the skill is actually scaling with your projectile damage
• Random starting skills have been replaced with static skill selection to ensure a balanced distribution of skill variety.

Balancing

• Increased default endurance and energy regeneration on fresh run to 1.5/s (was 1.0/s)
• Max endurance and max energy skill nodes now increase your max resources by +2 (was +1)
• Increased endurance and energy regeneration now increase your regeneration by +100% (was +60%)
• Increased companon damage skill nodes now decrease your endurance and energy regeneration by -30% (was -25% attack speed and -15% dodge regeneration)
• Increased condition damage skill nodes now decrease your endurance and energy regeneration by -30% (was -15% attack speed and -20% endurance and -20 energy regeneration)
• Reduced frenzy exp bonus and rebalanced frenzy time limit scaling for high frenzy stacks
• Trembling ground now has -50% attack speed
• Increased melee damage has been decreased to +70% (was 80%)
• Constructs have been removed from the legendary effect pool.
• Enemy HP scaling has been increased for the endgame.

Bugfixes

• Plenty of smaller bugfixes

Known issues

Since this is the largest update we ever did on one of our games with many fundamental changes we are aware that there might be a bit more bugs introduced as on the usual updates. So we recommend going to gown as often as possible so that your run gets saved on a regular basis in case you encounter crashes. Backing up the save files now and then is also never a bad idea. We wish everyone a lot of fun with this new update and the new early access season 8. See you in the leaderboards! If you encounter any bugs or issues please let us know. The best way to engage in the ongoing development of Striving for Light is our discord: Join our official discord!

[ 2023-03-17 00:10:04 CET ] [ Original post ]

As many might already be hyped about the upcoming 0.8 content update we want to give you some news on our progress and plans for all the new stuff coming to Striving for Light. Actually the scope for 0.8 has steadily increased since we last posted our initial plans for the 0.8 content update. Our 0.8 anouncement: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1646790/view/3642883289649903034?l=english So lets summarize what was already planed for 0.8:

• New Side Dungeons
• New Item Type
• Difficulty Tiers
• In-game achievements
• Pathfinder rework

With this already being a massive update we decided to add another feature:

Armory and Build View Integration

We are currently developing back and front end for an armory and build view system that lets you check out the builds, stats and weapons from all players on the leaderboards. This will grant players a whole lot of new inspiration by checking out what other players have played or which weapon and skill combinations they used. Furthermore this will help us balance skills and weapons and also make cheating obvious. Overall this should be positive additon to the online seasons and leaderboard experience.

Performance Improvements

We did a lot of fundamental from the ground up testing and refactoring the code base to improve performance and convert some of the few remaining older cpu based particle effects to use the GPU. This will further increase the endgame experience for Striving for Light. Since more content and features also means more time needed until you can get your hands on all of this, we decided to repack all of those features into two seperate updates so that you can get your hands on them sooner.

Update 0.8.0 will contain

• Armory and Build Viewer
• Difficulty Tiers
• Endgame rebalancing
• In-game achievements
• Pathfinder rework

Update 0.8.1will contain

• New Side Dungeons
• New Item Type
• more to be announced...

With Update 0.8.0 we will also kick off the new Season 8. With the introduction of in-game achievements and difficulty tiers that can be unlocked we will give players even more to achieve in one season.

Difficulty Tiers

With update 0.8 you will get access to 5 difficulty tiers. In the beginning only the first difficulty is unlocked but as you progress in your runs and reach certain level thresholds you will be unlocking new difficulty tiers. These higher tiers come with a complete fresh leaderboard. So you will need to start a fresh run for these higher tier runs. These difficulty tiers will mainly impose additional challenges and do not come with additional rewards. You will get the chance to compete agains the best players on the highest tier leaderboards. We will release some further information about the 0.8 content update as soon as it is ready, so stay tuned for this. Let us know your thoughts about the new armory and build viewer! Join the official discord and participate in the ongoing development of Striving for Light! Join the official discord!

[ 2023-02-11 19:27:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

Join the next Igniting Spark Games Developer Livestream on Twitch on Sunday 29th Jan. at 7pm CET/ 10AM PST. Join at: https://www.twitch.tv/deventide Bring and hang out with us! We are looking forward to read you in chat!

[ 2023-01-28 23:55:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

[previewyoutube=TUs24n17ml4;full][/previewyoutube] We are happy to announce a new upcoming game originated from Striving for Light!

Striving for Light: Survival

It's our take on the roguelite arena survival genre!

Here is the steam page: https://store.steampowered.com/app/2286450/Striving_for_Light_Survival/ Early Access release will be on 20th Februrary 2023 for 2.99 / 2.99$ for windows and linux. There will also be a demo where you can already dive into this new experience pretty soon!

So what is this game exactly?

Striving for Light: Survival is a roguelite arena survival game where you try to survive waves of enemies unlock achievements and climb the ladder in various leaderbords for different maps and difficulty tiers.

What makes it different from Striving for Light?

Striving for Light: Survival is much simpler in its mechanics and playstyle. You choose your weapons and skills for each run, select a map and the difficulty tier and jump right into the action. Attacks are performed and aimed automatically, so you are mostly focusing on your movement. Movement is crucial in this game as defeating enemies does not grant you experience directly. Each defeated enemy drops light fragments which only grant you experience if they are picked up in the current wave. So if you take a look at a full run there is a finite amount of enemies where experience can be obtained. This makes a perfect foundation for competitive leaderboards as its all about performing best in the given timeframe. A futher big difference is that there is minimal resource management. Melee and range attacks are all based on cooldowns. Managing plenty of resources (energy, endurance, dodge regeneration) in Striving for Light can be very overwhealming for new players at first. So those resources are completely removed from the skill tree which makes the tree much more compact and impactful when placing a skill point. Overall the player progression is much faster than in Striving for Light. No endless runs, but defined compact runs of around 20-30 minutes. Both games can be played independently without the need of having played the other game. We hope that you enjoy this new experience with Striving for Light: Survival and are looking forward to hear your feedback!

Wishlist now!

https://store.steampowered.com/app/2286450/Striving_for_Light_Survival/ Get involved in the ongoing development of Striving for Light at our discord: Join the official Discord!

[ 2023-01-27 15:02:58 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Features

New dynamic healthbar

Last update we introduced an alternative healthbar which replaced the lengthly healthbar in the endgame with a numeric alternative to display your current health points. We received a lot of feedback regarding the alternative healthbar, and heard your voices about the need of a visual representation about how much of your health is acutally missing without having to do the math to keep the focus on the important stuff. So we worked on an improved healthbar concept that combines all the positives from the legacy and the alternative healthbar and removes all the negatives of each individual healthbar design. So how does the new healthbar look?
But wait isn't this just looking like the legacy healthbar? Exactly for low max health points the healthbar is looking like the legacy healthbar. We especially wanted to keep the legacy design for now as it matches the collectible hearts perfectly and makes the health concept easy to understand for new players. Once you increase your max health pool the healthbar will at first extent in length but then decrease the heart sizes up to a point where individual hearts are still clearly visible.
If you further build up your max health pool the hearts will gradually fade into a bar-type health bar with the additional numeric information about how your current health versus your max health points.
There is technically no limit for the new healthbar concept. Even going way beyond 100 health will yield a readable bar-type healthbar with additional numeric information.
We hope this new health bar concept will meet your requirements on your journeys into the deepest corners of darkness. Let us know your thoughts and experience using the new healthbar!

Improvements

• NPCs in town now recognize immediately that you have enough light to unlock weapons and skills.
• Replaced shadow behind player character with additional light source. This should make the player outline better visible in dark environments.

Bugfixes

• Fixed unlock notification window blocking pause menu buttons for mouse input.
• Fixed wrong tooltips on stats window elements.

If you encounter any issues please use the bug report button in the main menu to report them to us. Also consider attaching your save file for any issue which frequently comes up during your run. Join the official discord: https://discord.com/invite/GNEBkQDyUb

[ 2023-01-26 22:22:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Features

An alternative health bar is activated once you reach over 20 max health to improve visual clarity of the health bar. The alterative health bar will display your current health points and your max health in numbers to keep it compact no matter how much max health you gain.

Improvements

• All companions (melee and range) now are able to trigger enemy on death effects that are not bound to your weapons like fragmentation.
• If you have multiple of the same skill nodes active the stats window will now display the total amount of each skill node

Bugfixes

• Fixed a crash when pressing a button in the skill tree while the placement of a skill gem or skill tree item is active
• Fixed blocked UI elements when crafting window in the skill tree is open
• Fixed a bug which caused to large window/ game resolution settings from other system (steam cloud) to launch the game in very suboptimal settings. Its now checked if the saved settings are valid for the current system and if not they are replaced with the native OS settings.

If you encounter any issues please use the bug report button in the main menu to report them to us. Also consider attaching your save file for any issue which frequently comes up during your run. Join the official discord: https://discord.com/invite/GNEBkQDyUb

[ 2023-01-21 17:11:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

We are already working on the next major update (Version 0.8) for Striving for Light. There is a lot to cover so this is what it will bring to Striving for Light.

New Side Dungeons

This update will bring new side dungeons to Striving for Light where you fight through random generated rooms all the way to a dungeon boss. Here you fight for acquiring a new item type that can also hold new active skills. You might have asked yourself what the 4 unused slots in the crafting window are for. Yes, exactly these will be able to hold 4 of the new items.

New Item Type

The new item type introduced with version 0.8 can hold both, passive stat improvements and active skills which can be used by the right mouse button. Those skills have a higher cooldown and can be used to temporarily protect you from received damage or cast an aura that increases your damage output for a short amount of time with also making you more vulnerable to incoming damage. But this is not all these items can also hold completely new skills that do not cost any additional resources. You will be able to carry 4 of these new items in total. These items can hold set bonuses which grant you powerful skills when you have a set completed. So you will have to enter the new dungeon multiple times to find the perfect item combinations to suit your current build.

Difficulty Tiers

Players constantly push the limits on the leaderboard so we want to provide additional challenges for players that already reached their level goals in the current season. Therefore, we will introduce new difficulty tiers that can be unlocked reaching a certain level on a run. This unlocks the next difficulty tier where you can complete on a new leaderboard specifically for this difficulty tier. With this we will also rebalance the endgame difficulty of Striving for Light.

In game achievements

With 0.8 we will add a new achievement system which will give you transparent goals to aim at. These achievements can also grant unlocks if completed. This should make it easier for new players to get into the game.

Pathfinder rework

The pathfinder system will be reworked slightly to support the new difficulty tiers but also to make the start for new players much easier. Your feedback made us clear that the pathfinder especially for new players is hard to understand and does not bring value for the first runs in a new season or in a new save game. Therefore you will need to unlock the pathfinder in order to use it. Most players dont utilise the pathfinder until enough map shard have been collected so we want to remove the additional needed interactions to activate a map for early runs in a new season and make it available later when it will actually be used.

Beyond 0.8

Different Character Classes

Moving towards the full release of Striving for Light we will add new playable characters to Striving for Light. These characters can be unlocked completing specific challenges. Each character will have a different starting weapon set and a unique twist on starting stats or special abilities.

Changes to Unlocks

We will do some experimentation on alternative unlock systems that give you a better overview on what weapons can be unlocked and a better possibility to set your goals to unlock the weapons you want.

Changes to skill system

We will do some experimentation with changes to the skill system that will grant you possibilities to modify the skill pool that will be active for your next run in some extent. This will make it possible to plan a kind of build or playing style at the start of the run to some extent. We still want to keep the randomness of the skill tree and the available skills since this gives players great opportunities trying out new skill combinations and experimentations during runs. The skill tree discovery and experimentation playground will be preserved. And there is even more to come. Since the next major update is holding a lot in store for you it will not be directly around the corner. But there is another Striving for Light related project in the works that we are already hyped to talk about in the next days. So, watch out for this announcement as it will keep you entertained until 0.8 lands. Join the official discord and participate in the ongoing development of Striving for Light! Join the official discord!

[ 2023-01-20 19:31:18 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements:

• Fragment of Light has received a visual overhaul.
  
• Reworked some glow amber particle effects.
• Improved tooltip positioning for the pathfinder.

Bugfixes:

• Rolling stone enemies now don't roll to the outside of the map.
• Fixed cut off dialog for the old man world event.
• Fixed cut off dialog for the emerald staff effect description.

If you encounter any issues please use the bug report button in the main menu to report them to us. Also consider attaching your save file for any issue which frequently comes up during your run. Join the official discord: https://discord.com/invite/GNEBkQDyUb

[ 2023-01-12 22:58:47 CET ] [ Original post ]

New features:

• You can now delete your save files within the game by using the delete button on the save file entry. So there is now no need to head to the save location to get rid of old season save files or to delete your private league save files. When pressing the delete button a confirmation dialog will ask you to confirm the deletion of the save file.
• The offline save file is now also displayed as the first entry in the list of save games. This makes it clearer what save games you have available. You can now also easily delete the offline save file to start with a new save file within the game.

Improvements:

• The damage number cap has been reworked to display a maximum of 10 damage numbers each 0.1 s (before 1 / 0.05 s). The overall goal is to still keep damage numbers readable in endgame scenarios but still display enough numbers to actually get a feeling on how much damage you deal. Let us know if this cap feels reasonable.

Bugfixes:

• Fixed a bug which caused to load a new save game with a dead character in rare cases after creating a new save file.

If you encounter any issues please use the bug report button in the main menu to report them to us. Also consider attaching your save file for any issue which frequently comes up during your run. Join the official discord: https://discord.com/invite/GNEBkQDyUb

[ 2023-01-03 19:21:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements:

• Limit to damage numbers to keep them readable in the endgame scenarios and to limit the performance impact. You might have noticed that in the endgame a lot of damage numbers can pop up which could make them unreadable and therefore miss the purpose of having them in the game. With the new damage number spawn limit only a maximum amount of 20 damage numbers per second can be displayed which keeps them readable and minimises the performance hit.
• Improvements and fixes for stuttering with v-sync in window mode. This should solve stuttering issues especially on capturing the game via OBS or other video capturing software.

Bugfixes:

• Fixed old man missing dialog.
• Some on attack effects of legendary weapons have not been applied to range constructs after weapon switch. Now all on attack effects are immediately updated.
• Fixed infinite map loading bug for endgame maps (v.0.7.2.1c)
• Increased message queue length to support skill trees with very high number of skill nodes (v.0.7.2.1c)

If you encounter any issues please use the bug report button in the main menu to report them to us. Also consider attaching your save file for any issue which frequently comes up during your run. Join the official discord: https://discord.com/invite/GNEBkQDyUb

[ 2022-12-26 18:48:10 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugfixes: Fixed recurring crashes on loading save files. If someons still gets crashes on loading save files or when opening the skill tree, please report it via the bugreport button or via discord and please attache your save file where you get the crashes so that we can fix it as soon as possible. Join the official discord: https://discord.com/invite/GNEBkQDyUb

[ 2022-12-25 08:50:02 CET ] [ Original post ]

• You can now remove weapons from the town and receive a small gift of appreciation from the old man once you unlocked gambling.

• The Aeodra portal now also has to be interacted with the interaction key to enter the portal. This should prevent accidentally entering the arena during fights.
• Increased minimap icon size of fragments of light.

• Fixed wrong displayed/calculated damage of weapons on tooltips.
• Fixed cut off weapon description in weapon stats.
• Fixed mouse cursor on reward and unlock UI's jump to the top left of the window.
• Fixed double tooltips on reward and unlock UI's.
• Fixed a bug which caused a random map environment to be loaded instead of the previous environment when exiting a secret boss arena.

If you encounter any crashes or issues please use the bug reports button in main menu and dont't forget to attach your save file so that we can fix the bugs a soon as possible. Join the official discord at: https://discord.com/invite/GNEBkQDyUb

[ 2022-12-24 16:54:06 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements

• Performance improvements for all snake/worm like enemies. You might have noticed decreased FPS in the desert map or other maps where snake like enemies were present. You should now have a fluid experience on those maps as well.

Bugfixes:

• Fixed crash when opening/closing the gamble window

If you encounter any bugs or issues please report them using the bugreport button in the main menu. Join the community on discord: https://discord.com/invite/GNEBkQDyUb

[ 2022-12-23 19:07:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

With the Hunt & Rescue Content Update we are introducing two new world events, a gambling system, damage numbers and winter themed weapons to Striving for Light. With this update we are also kicking off Season 7 of our Early Access Online Leaderbords.

Hunt Event

Maps can now have a rare new monster type to hunt down. Make sure you hurry up before it escapes to get rewarded with guaranteed loot drops.

Rescue Event

Rescue a NPC in a difficult world event to unlock gambling in town for your current run.

Gambling

Once gambling is unlocked for your current run you can always access a new gamble system in Ankerath. There are different recipes to discover to convert your collected items into new different items.

Fragments of Light Limit

The limit to 10 fragments of light which you are able to carry has been removed. You can now carry as many fragments of light as you wish. We have heard your feedback regarding the light limit and decided to remove it to have less interruption during your runs and reduce backtracking. The icon for the fragments of light has also been updated with a more accurate representation of what the fragments in the game look like. This should prevent new players from getting confused. As the new light fragment UI displays numbers it will also be easier for new players to connect these numbers to the fragments of light you have already collected.

Damage Numbers

Damage numbers have been added to the game displaying your dealt damage with all your AoE skills, weapon hits and projectiles. If you receive damage a big red damage number will also be displayed to improve the visibility of received damage. Damage numbers can be deactivated in the options menu anytime.

Winter is here!

Temperatures have dropped, and the snowfall has also reached Ankerath. To keep you warm in this cold season two new winter themed weapon have been added to the game. These weapons can of course also be found as legendary versions. Furthermore some small visual surprises are waiting for you.

New way to report bugs!

The main menu now has a bug report button which takes you directly to our webpage where you can fill in all relevant information about the bug/crash you have encountered. You can furthermore attach a screenshot and you can attach your settings.cfg and your save games to help us fixing the issues as fast as possible. This is now the preferred option to report bugs but you can still use the discord channels/ steam forums for this as well.

Controller Support

The cursor is now locked to the elements on the current screen and does not flip outside of the screen when using the node navigation method with the d-pad buttons.

Further Improvements

• Weapon Shard now also have unique loot beams to make item drops better visible.
• Destroyable world objects can now be destroyed by all skills.
• Explode skills have now smaller distortion VFX which should improve performance using this skill with large AoE increase.
• Piercing blow melee skill got visually reworked.

Condition damage:

• Subsequent damage over time ticks now deal all equal damage instead of slightly reduced damage for continuous ticks. This will ramp up condition damage in general.
• Increased condition damage skill node now increases condition damage by +100% (was 70%) and reduces attack speed by -15% (was -10%), energy regeneration by -20% (was -30%) and endurance regeneration by -20% (was -30%).

[Melee Skill] Piercing blow

Has an increased chance to be triggered which is now 50% (was 20%). Piercing blow also has now increased traveling speed and a higher range.

General Balancing

• Increased Boss HP.
• Increased Gatekeeper HP.
• Adjusted player exp level curve. In the endgame exp curve has been adjusted slightly to give a steeper exp increase for very high player levels.
• Reduced attack speed of great sword.
• Enemy HP now also scale slightly with player levels.

• Fixed corrupted merchant projectiles having too short range.
• Fixed some legendary effects not being triggered.
• Fixed a bug which did not apply projectile damage to burst skills correctly.
• The throwing spear ranged weapon now no longer bypasses the immune to knockback map modifier.

In case you have encountered any kind of bugs or crashes please report them via the new bugreport button in the main menu or via our discord. We dont track player data and rely on players reporting their issues. We are always happy to receive your feedback and reports! Thanks for being with us on this exiting journey and we are looking forward to hear your thoughts on the new content update. Join the community on discord!

[ 2022-12-21 18:33:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

With the Hunt & Rescue Content Update we are introducing two new world events, a gambling system, damage numbers and winter themed weapons to Striving for Light! With this update we are also kicking of Season 7 of our Early Access Online Leaderbords.

The update will release at the 21th December at 7pm CET.

We will share the full patch notes shortly before the update launch in the next days. Here is the overview of the new features coming to Striving for Light:

Hunt Event

Maps can now have a rare new monster type to hunt down. Make sure you hurry up before it escapes to get rewarded with guaranteed loot drops.

Rescue Event

Rescue a NPC in a difficult world event to unlock gambling in town for your current run.

Gambling

Once gambling is unlocked for your current run you can always access a new gamble system in Ankerath. There are different recipes to discover to convert your collected items into new different items.

Damage Numbers

Damage numbers have been added to the game displaying your dealt damage with all your AoE skills, weapon hits and projectiles. If you receive damage a big red damage number will also be displayed to improve the visibility of received damage. Damage numbers can be deactivated in the options menu anytime.

Winter is here!

Temperatures have dropped, and the snowfall has also reached Ankerath. To keep you warm in this cold season two new winter themed weapons have been added to the game. These weapons can of course also be found as legendary versions. Furthermore, some small visual surprises are waiting for you.

Balancing & Bugfixes

This content update also includes plenty of balancing changes and bugfixes to Striving for Light. In case you have encountered any kind of bugs or crashes please report them via our steam forums, our discord our our website via the contact form. We dont track player data and rely on players reporting their issues. We are always happy to receive your feedback and reports! Thanks for being with us on this exiting journey and we are looking forward to hear your thoughts on the new content update when you have it in your hands on December 22th. Join the community on discord!

[ 2022-12-19 14:46:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Added a new melee version of explode which scales with your melee damage instead of projectile damage.
• In the skill tree and the pathfinder music presence is now rolled back by a smooth transition. This should make a more relaxed atmosphere while crafting your builds and modifying your maps before jumping back into the action.

• Constructs can now attack destroyable world objects by their own.
• Improved gamepad navigation for the pathfinder.
• The trembling ground effect is now positioned below enemies. On huge AoE size trembling ground just overlayed everything making enemies and enemy projectiles very hard to see. This should now be fixed by proper layering of the particle effects.

• Fixed a bug which caused projectile damage to not be applied correctly.
• Fixed a bug which caused the altered base damage of ranged weapons from crafting not being displayed and updated projectile damage correctly
• Fixed a bug which caused the frenzy mode 1 exp gained message to show up even though no frenzy mode was started
• Fixed disappearing cursor when using gamepad on the pathfinder.

If you encounter any bugs or inintented behaviour please report it on the steam forums or on our discord! This helps us a ton to hunt down those bugs. Thanks for being part of our game development journey for Striving for Light. You are invited to join our discord and participate in the ongoing development of Striving for Light! [url=https://discord.com/invite/GNEBkQDyUb] Join the official Discord!

[ 2022-12-10 11:53:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Features

• When using a shard of power you now see the applied difference in base weapon damage.
• When using a shard of quality you now see an additional failed or success information.
• You can now only apply a shard of power if the weapon is not already maxed out. This should prevent re-rolling the base weapon damage from the highest possible value to a much lower value. Its now also displayed once a weapon is maxed outcraft.
• Companions can now destroy world objects (v.0.7.1.2b)

Improvements

• Player health bar now scales even further down to make +100 hearts visible on the screen (v.0.7.1.2c)

Balancing

• Massively increased shard of quality legendary crafting chance.
• Slightly reduced shard of quality drop rate.
• Increased the aeodra arena exp reward, the exp reward is now scaling with the dungeon floor you are visiting the arena.
• Increased melee damage skill node now increases +80% base weapon damage (was +100 %)
• Exploding Projectile skill nodes now additionally scales with your projectile damage (v.0.7.1.2a)
• Exploding Hit skill nodes now additionally scales with your projectile damage (v.0.7.1.2a)
• Bursting Shot skill node now additionally scales with your melee and your projectile damage (v.0.7.1.2a)
• Fragmentation skill node now additionally scales with your melee and your projectile damage (v.0.7.1.2a)

Bugfixes

• Fixed a bug which caused shard of quality have a much lower chance to craft a legendary item.
• Fixed a bug which caused altered base weapon stats from crafting not being saved.
• Fixed a bug which caused hearts in the aeodra arena getting lost on scene switch.
• Fixed a bug which caused old save file which have not completed all levels to forever stay on dungeon floor 1.
• Fixed wrong tooltips on merchant UI when revisiting the merchant later on.
• Fixed several wrong calculated skill damage numbers in the skill tooltips on when having multiple stacks active (v.0.7.1.2a)
• Fixed player cloak layering (v.0.7.1.2a)
• Added further description for emerald staff that spiders count as companions (v.0.7.1.2a)
• Fixed range weapon shard of recast not changing the embedded skill of a legendary weapon (v.0.7.1.2b)
• Fixed wrong displayed resource cost on legendary weapons with embedded skills (v.0.7.1.2b)
• Fixed shard of recast not working on ranged legendary weapons (v.0.7.1.2b)
• Fixed bosses having to low player detection range (v.0.7.1.2c)
• Fixed stone smasher gatekeeper projectiles having reduced range (v.0.7.1.2c)

If you encounter any bugs or inintented behaviour please report it on the steam forums or on our discord! This helps us a ton to hunt down those bugs. Thanks for being part of our game development journey for Striving for Light. You are invited to join our discord and participate in the ongoing development of Striving for Light! [url=https://discord.com/invite/GNEBkQDyUb] Join the official Discord!

[ 2022-12-02 14:27:50 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Features

• Map mods now have legendary drop rate and weapon shard drop rate modifiers. So now you can enjoy increased legendary and weapon shard drop rates on higher tier maps.
• Map mods now have weapon drop rate as a modifier. So you can now enjoy higher weapon drop chances on higher tier maps.
• Added small tutorial hint for the crafting window that a weapon has to be selected first in order to craft.

Improvements

• Triggered AoE Effects are now positioned on the enemy instead of next to the enemy. This should make it easier to apply conditions with smaller AoE effect sizes.
• [Ranged Weapon] Unstable Potion has received a new SFX when the poison splash gets triggered.

Balancing

• [Skill Node] Increased Condition Damage is increased to +70 % condition damage (was +50%) (v.0.7.1.1a).
• Readjusted drop rates of all shards, in general drop chances of all shard has been increased.
• Massively increased drop chances for weapon shards from chests (there was a 0 too much :) )
• Increased drop rate for weapon shards.
• Increased exp reward of Aeodra Arena.
• Enemies now also have a small chance in dropping weapons.
• Small adjustment to enemy spawn rates in the Aeodra Arena.
• Boomerang now decreases your attack speed by -50% to balance out the power gain on increased attack range. Especially when using slower weapons with high base weapon damage.

Bugfixes

• Fixed a bug which caused condition damage stacks to deal always 10 damage instead of the actual increased damage per damage tick (v.0.7.1.1a)
• Fixed not saved settings on first game launch. When you experienced weird behaviour when first launching the game and changing resolution or also the sound volume and it reverted back instead of saving it. This all should now be fixed.
• Fixed the UI scaling bug on the Tree of Light legacy UI.
• Fixed to small player detection radius on enemies and bosses.
• Fixed Flood skill not reducing cooldown time on increased skill stacks.
• Fixed a crash when picking up a flail weapon.
• Fixed a bug which only let you aquire one chicken companion skill gem at once from the chicken in town.

If you encounter any bugs or inintented behaviour please report it on the steam forums or on our discord! This helps us a ton to hunt down those bugs. Thanks for being part of our game development journey for Striving for Light. You are invited to join our discord and participate in the ongoing development of Striving for Light! [url=https://discord.com/invite/GNEBkQDyUb] Join the official Discord!

[ 2022-11-30 16:59:32 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements

• Weapon Shard Items can now also be obtained from the merchant (v.0.7.1.0c)
• Improved visual effects for the unstable potion ranged weapon poison splash (v.0.7.1.0c)

Balancing

• [Range Weapon] Unstable Potion: Now inflicts poison stacks also on bullet hit additionally to have a 30% chance in triggering a poison splash AoE effect. Base Weapon Attack Speed reduced to 1.1/s (was 1.0/s). Attack Cost has been increased to compensate the power gain to 1 Endurance and 1 Energy (was 1 Endurance).

Bugfixes

• Fixed a bug which caused legendaries to vanish on gatekeeper and aeodra arenas (v.0.7.1.0a)
• Fixed a bug which caused legendary weapon vfx being always active on certain weapons (v.0.7.1.0a)
• Fixed a bug which caused unreliable projectile range behaviour with reverting shot and increased projectile range nodes. Mostly the projectile range increase of skill nodes was only affecting the first spawned projectiles and had no effect on later spawned projectiles. (v.0.7.1.0b)
• Fixed a crash when entering secret boss arena on void map (v.0.7.1.0c)
• Fixed a crash when changing ranged weapons with active range attack replacer skills (v.0.7.1.0c)
• Fixed a crash on certain enemies with reverting projectiles (v.0.7.1.0c)
• Charge does now actually scale the projectile damage when charging projectiles (v.0.7.1.0c)

If you encounter any bugs or inintented behaviour please report it on the steam forums or on our discord! This helps us a ton to hunt down those bugs. Thanks for being part of our game development journey for Striving for Light. You are invited to join our discord and participate in the ongoing development of Striving for Light! [url=https://discord.com/invite/GNEBkQDyUb] Join the official Discord!

[ 2022-11-28 23:13:27 CET ] [ Original post ]

Here are the full patch notes for the Legendary Content Update (v. 0.7.1.0) featuring legendary weapons, a crafting system, reworked stats window and skill gem UI, reworked skills, balancing changes and further highly requested improvements.

The Legendary Content Update will be released on Monday 28th of November at 8pm CET.

With the update lauch we will start Season 6.

Legendary Weapons

With this update we are adding a complete new weapon tier to the game: Legendary Weapons. All weapons in the game receive a legendary tier which not only has a higher base damage but also comes with a skill socket. The skill socket can hold a big variety of different ability skills which can freely be combined with your abilities from the skill tree. This will lead to over 1000 new legendary weapons to hunt for and bring your builds to the next level.

Crafting System

With this update we are introducing a crafting system as well as 3 collectible weapon shards into the game. These weapon shards are rare drops which can be found in every corner of the world granting you new ways to upgrade and modify your weapons. This are the 3 new introduced weapon shards and what you can use them for.

• Shard of Power
  A shard which holds the power to modify the base damage of any weapon.
• Shard of Quality
  A shard which holds the potential to transform a normal weapon into a legendary weapon.
• Shard of Recast
  A shard with the power to recast an embedded skill into something new.

Reworked Weapons

All weapons now have random generated damage stats. It is easy to find a weapon with normal base damage but in rare cases you can now find weapons with very high base damage.

New Damage Scaling

Along the random generated attributes we are also changing the damage scaling of skill nodes. In the past it did not make a huge difference how much damage a weapon has dealt because the base damage got quickly overshadowed by the increased damage buffs from the skill tree. With this update we are scaling the increased damage skill nodes based on your weapon base damage. So if you are wielding a dagger with a lower base damage but fast attack speed the increased damage nodes from the skill tree will grant less damage increase compared to wielding the elder club with over 3 times more base melee damage. This should make weapon choices more substantial and not only about their attack speed and range.

Reworked Stats Window

The stats window has shown its age and got completely reworked with unique icons for energy, endurance and dodge. Also the weapon attack cost are now displayed much clearer to make it easier for new players to understand the resource system. The second page of the stats window now has more space to display your active ability skill nodes.

New skill gem filters

You can now use optional category filters on the skill gem UI to quickly find the skill gem you are searching for.

New increased Condition Damage Skill Node

A new increased condition damage skill node has been added to the game which lets you further scale your condition damage. All conditions inflict +50% additional damage per tick and damage stack applied.

• Ability skill nodes that deal condition damage now also display the total damage per tick considering all skill stacks and increased condition damage nodes.
• On each new skill tree there will always be a ranged and melee ability node spawned near the centre.
• You can now search the skill tree with the shortcut CTRL+F and end the search with the return button.
• Decreased volume of intro cinematic.
• Weapon stats can now be viewed directly when walking over a weapon without the need to equip it.
• Weapon stats can now be viewed anytime from the stats or the crafting window.
• Portals now require to interact to use them. This should prevent not intended interactions when accidentally walking near a portal when during fights.
• Added a save button in the options menu that simply saves your altered settings, you can use this button if the back button does not automatically save your changed settings.

General

• Increased base character movement speed.

Weapons

• [Melee Weapon] Hammer: Smash AoE does now scales with player melee damage. Base damage has been increased to 16 (was 10). Hammer attack animation was reworked leading to an overall faster hit attack animation.
• [Melee Weapon] Elder Club: Decreased attack speed and upated attack animation. Base damage got reduced to 25 (was 30).
• [Melee Weapon] Greatsword: Base damage got reduced to 18 (was 20).
• [Ranged Weapon] Unstable Potion: Deals 7 base damage (was 5).
• [Melee Weapon] Searing Axe: Weapon has been renamed to Ripping Axe.
• [Melee Weapon] Greatsword: Reduced attack speed of greatsword.

Aeodra Arena

Decreased EXP gain in the Aeodra Arena and increased the item rewards of the Aeodra Arena (weapons, shards, fragments of light). This should make the Aeodra Arena a better farming experience. In general the level based exp gain of the arena reward has been changed to a flat exp gain which still is affected by random exp bonuses on rewards per wave and your current map modifiers. Increased enemy spawns in the early waves of the Aeodra Arena to make the first waves more challenging.

Skills

• Increased Endurance Regeneration is increased to +60 % (was +50)
• Increased Energy Regeneration is increased to +60 % (was +50)
• Decreased the spawn rate of attack speed skill nodes in the skill tree.
• Increased spawn rate of Projectile Multiplicator skill nodes.
• Increased spawn rate of Empowered Companions skill nodes.
• Increased spawn rate of Projectile Damage skill nodes.
• Empowered companions now has less dodge regeneration malus -15% (was -25%)
• Increased Dodge Regeneration skill node now increases Dodge Regeneration by +40% (was +20%)
• Trembling Ground does now trigger 3 On Hit effects instead of On Attack Effects this should also make it possible to combine the attack replacer skill with more other skills.
• Wind shock has reduced knockback strength.

Legacy Tree

• Attack speed legacy skill nodes now grant +5% attack speed ( was 3%).
• Dodge Regeneration legacy skill nodes now grant 15% increased dodge regeneration (was 5%).

Enemy

• Increased Gatekeeper max HP.
• Increased Arda, the fallen max HP.

Drop Chances

• Increased drop rate of Fragment of Light.
• Increased drop rate of skill tree shards and map shards.

• Fixed a bug which prevented the Skill Ability Flood to only hit enemies once. This mainly affected bosses as only one time damage could be dealt.
• Fixed a bug which caused set resolution not being saved when entering the options menu from the main menu.
• Fixed darkness challenge reward window effect scaling on ultra wide monitors.
• Various smaller bugfixes

Thanks for being part of our game development journey for Striving for Light. You are invited to join our discord and participate in the ongoing development of Striving for Light! [url=https://discord.com/invite/GNEBkQDyUb] Join the official Discord!

[ 2022-11-27 22:18:49 CET ] [ Original post ]

In this post we are going to take a deep dive into the new weapon tier we are adding with the Legendary Content Update (Version 0.7.1)... yes, you guess it right, we are adding legendary weapons to the game. And we will also take a closer look on how you can modify weapons with the new introduced crafting system.

The Legendary Content Update will be released on Monday 28th of November at 8pm CET.

With the update lauch we will start Season 6.

Legendary Weapons

With this update we are adding a complete new weapon tier to the game: Legendary Weapons. All weapons in the game receive a legendary tier which not only has a higher base damage but also comes with a skill socket. The skill socket can hold a big variety of different ability skills which can freely be combined with your abilities from the skill tree. This will lead to over 1000 new legendary weapons to hunt for and bring your builds to the next level.
The legendary abilities will open up completely new build possibilities. You want to build melee constructs while casting a shot from your ranged weapon, or summon companions on melee attacks, or what about trigger AoE explosions directly on attacks? Furthermore legendary weapons complement themself. So if you wield 2 legendary weapons those legendary abilities can influence each other.

Crafting System

With this update we are introducing a crafting system as well as 3 collectible weapon shards into the game. These weapon shards are rare drops which can be found in every corner of the world granting you new ways to upgrade and modify your weapons. This are the 3 new introduced weapon shards and what you can use them for.

• Shard of Power
  A shard which holds the power to modify the base damage of any weapon.
• Shard of Quality
  A shard which holds the potential to transform a normal weapon into a legendary weapon.
• Shard of Recast
  A shard with the power to recast an embedded skill into something new.

With the new crafting system you can not only re-roll the base damage of the weapon you can also try your luck with shards of quality to upgrade a normal weapon to a legendary weapon.
Once you obtained a legendary weapon you can re-roll the socketed skill with shards of recast to a new ability to hunt for the perfect synergies for your builds.

Reworked Weapons

All weapons now have random generated damage stats. It is easy to find a weapon with normal base damage but in rare cases you can now find weapons with very high base damage. Along the random generated attributes we are also changing the damage scaling of skill nodes. In the past it did not make a huge difference how much damage a weapon has dealt because the base damage got quickly overshadowed by the increased damage buffs from the skill tree. With this update we are scaling the increased damage skill nodes based on your weapon base damage. So if you are wielding a dagger with a lower base damage but fast attack speed the increased damage nodes from the skill tree will grant less damage increase compared to wielding the elder club with over 3 times more base melee damage. This should make weapon choices more substantial and not only about their attack speed and range. There is even more to come with the legendary content update (version 0.7.1), we will post the full patch notes close to the update release date. Thanks for being part of our game development journey for Striving for Light. You are invited to join our discord and participate in the ongoing development of Striving for Light! [url=https://discord.com/invite/GNEBkQDyUb] Join the official Discord!

[ 2022-11-25 19:07:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements

• The health bar is now dynamically decreasing the size to fit all of the max health onto the screen. Yes, actually players managed to break the game and gain over 50 health.
• Re-enabled player cloak. Did anyone notice that the cloak was missing? We didn't...

If you encounter any crashes please report them via discord or the steam forums, this is of great help to fix them all. You are invited to join our discord and participate in the ongoing development of Striving for Light! [url=https://discord.com/invite/GNEBkQDyUb] Join the official Discord!

[ 2022-11-23 22:42:03 CET ] [ Original post ]

In this post we are going to take a deep dive into some of the UI improvements coming with the Legendary Content Update (Version 0.7.1) and a small hint which features you may also expect with the upcoming Striving for Light Update.

Crafting

A new crafting window will be introduced which can be opened anytime during your run or also from the skill tree. The crafting window will also serve as your gear inventory showcasing your equipped weapons and the new item type we will introduce in the future. You may have noticed the 3 new shards located at the bottom of the crafting windows. And this is exactly what it looks like...

Skill Gem Window

When you have collected plenty of skill gems finding the right one might consume some time and requires some serious scrolling action. With the upcoming update we are introducing optional filters which can be toggled to only show the selected skill gem type. So if you search for a melee skill gem you simply toggle the melee filter and all skills which are not for melee attacks will be hidden.

Stats Window

Futhermore, the stats window has shown its age and its time to replace the stats window with better structured and visually upgraded version. The stats window now also shows your equipped weapons and also the cost related to the attacks are now displayed much clearer which should make it easier for new players to understand the resource system. You may also have noticed the tab menu on the bottom which allows to switch to the skills tab where all active skills are now displayed with a lot more available space compared to the old stats window where icons tend to get very small if plenty of different active skills have been activated.

Skill Tree

We are also improving the skill tree algorithm. So with the new update at least one range and one melee active ability is spawned on each new run so that it is immediatly available. This should prevent having to re-roll a run due to no active ability skills being spawned from the start and a lack of goal to craft a build towards. Along this we are also balancing spawn possibilities of some skills in the skill tree.

Skill Reworks

With the upcoming update we will rework some skills to improve their usability. We are also adding support skills for condition damage and will rework the companion support skill. Which skills do you never use, and why? Let us know in the comments!

And more...

There is even more to come with the Legendary Content Update, you may already have a guess what we will introduce. Let us know your guess. To learn more about the upcoming update watch out for the second part of our content update preview. Thanks for being part of our game development journey for Striving for Light. We want to share our current early access roadmap to give you a basic idea of the upcoming content & feature updates. You are invited to join our discord and participate in the ongoing development of Striving for Light! [url=https://discord.com/invite/GNEBkQDyUb] Join the official Discord!

[ 2022-11-21 21:52:26 CET ] [ Original post ]

Almost a week has past since our 0.7 Aeodra content update release with plenty of smaller improvements and bugfixes already, so you might ask yourself whats next. On this post we will give you some insight in what we are working on for the next bigger update 0.7.1 and give a hint for the scope of the 0.8 content update. As already mentioned before our 0.7 update release we will adjust the pricing for Striving for Light tomorrow (17.11.22) 7pm CET. So there is still time to get the game on the lower price before the adjustment happens.

Pricing

Since our initial Early Access release, less then a year ago, the amount of content has grown tremendously with around 40 released content updates and over 50 smaller updates with improvements and bugfixes. Until now we have not raised the price for Striving for Light. As we are approaching the full release in 2023 we will increase the price as planed and communicated during Early Access and with the final 1.0 release. The price for Striving for Light will raise from the current $7.99 USD (6.59) to $9.99 USD (9.75) (we have adjusted the pricing accordingly to steam's recently updated pricing since our last announcement).

Update 0.7.1

Reworked Skill Gem Window

The skill gem window will be reworked featuring filter options to sort gems by melee, range, basic and misc nodes to have an better overview and make finding a certain skill gem easier if a lot of them have been collected.

New Weapon Stats

Weapon stats will be viewable independently from picking up a new weapon.

Skill Rework

Plenty of skills will receive a rework and rebalancing based on your recent feedback. This is only a fraction of what we have in store for the 0.7.1 update.

Update 0.8

New side dungeons

New side dungeons where you can acquire a new item type which hold passive as well as new active abilities when the set is completed. These items can hold set bonuses as well as single buffs. Enter the dungeon multiple times to complete item sets or combine those items as it suits your build.

New item type

The active abilities of the new items can be actively triggered using the right mouse button. This can be powerful new attacks temporal buffs and more. This is also just a small hint what is to come with the 0.8 update. We will give more information on the next updates as we approach the release of those updates. Thanks for being part of our game development journey for Striving for Light. We want to share our current early access roadmap to give you a basic idea of the upcoming content & feature updates. You are invited to join our discord and participate in the ongoing development of Striving for Light! [url=https://discord.com/invite/GNEBkQDyUb] Join the official Discord!

[ 2022-11-16 17:40:15 CET ] [ Original post ]

• Portal to town in tutorial is now automatically opened if tutorial boss is defeated.
• Improvements to input responsibility routines. This should make button presses to switch scenes more reliable.
• Portals are now interactible after scene switch without needing to walk away and approach them again.
• Companions refresh their attacks now which should yield much more constant damage output also if they don't move.

Companion Rebalancing

• Companions have increased attack range.
• Range companion has increased projectile speed.
• Companions have faster movement and attack speed and in general are more responsive to your movement.
• Wolf Companion: Cost has been reduced to only reduce resource regeneration of energy/endurance by -40% (was energy/endurance regeneration -50% and reduced max energy and endurance by -1)
• Range Companion: Cost has been reduced to only reduce resource regeneration of energy/endurance by -40% (was energy/endurance regeneration -50% and reduced max energy and endurance by -1)
• Chicken Companion: Cost has been reduced to only reduce resource regeneration of energy/endurance by -40% (was energy/endurance regeneration -50% and reduced max energy and endurance by -1)
• Bursting Companion: Cost has been reduced to only reduce resource regeneration of energy/endurance by -20% (was energy/endurance regeneration -40%)

• Fixed double hit and melee constructs not being able to attack bosses, especially gatekeepers and deal any damage.
• Fixed skill effects sometimes not being shown on false culling. Now skill effects should always be displayed also on gatekeeper fights, where you tend to fight long on one spot where this issue previously occured.

Thanks to everyone providing helpful feedback, which is what drives the development forward! You are invited to join our discord and participate in the ongoing development of Striving for Light! Join the official Discord!

[ 2022-11-15 19:02:55 CET ] [ Original post ]

Hovered nodes in the skill tree and in the pathfinder are now highlighted to improve visibility especially on playing with controller.

• Increased mouse cursor size.
• Tooltips are now activated from the whole boxes and not only the icons.
• Reworked active button visuals to better highlight which button is currently hovered and has focus.
• [Range Skill] Charge: Charge now also increases the projectile damage up to x3 depending on your charge duration, with a maximum charge duration of 3 seconds.

• Fixed crash when talking to the chicken in town multiple times.
• Fixed missing German translation for Searing Axe description.

Thanks to everyone providing helpful feedback, which is what drives the development forward! You are invited to join our discord and participate in the ongoing development of Striving for Light! Join the official Discord!

[ 2022-11-14 16:02:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Tutorial Game Guide

When you now enter the game you will find a new tutorial system that guides you through the base functionality of the skill tree and also the pathfinder system. This should improve the game experience especially for new players and prevent that essential information are getting lost. The new tutorial game guide uses a checklist system to guide new players through the first steps of picking skills, resource management, activating/deactivating skills, the skill tree search functionality and also how to use the skill gems and the skill tree shards to shape your skill tree.

• The pathfinder window can now be closed by pressing the ESC button on the keyboard.
• New save games now get one from each skill tree shard for explaining their functionality with the new tutorial guides.
• Increased visibility of enemy and trap projectiles.

• Fixed errors in the localisation.

Thanks to everyone providing helpful feedback, which is what drives the development forward! You are invited to join our discord and participate in the ongoing development of Striving for Light! Join the official Discord!

[ 2022-11-13 18:51:31 CET ] [ Original post ]

• [Range Skill] Range Construct: Increased enemy detection range.
• [Melee Weapon] Hammer: Increased Ground Slam size.
• [Bleeding Swirl] Reworked the skill to make it less distracting and prevent nausea. Decreased size of Bleeding Swirl, reduced the swirling speed and they now also not move to target radius. They now swirl at a constant radius. This should also make it easier to target enemies with this skill.
  
• The Shard of Refund validator algorithm has been improved so that circular skill tree shapes are still able to be broken up and refunded. Note that this new validator is not active for runs that are already in progress. It will automatically switch to the new validator scheme on your next run. (Since Version 0.7.0.0f).
  
• Added missing information that Flood Skill is scaling with AoE size.
• Improved Skill Tooltips.

• Fixed wrong skill description for Trembling Ground. Trembling Ground is triggering 3 On Attack Effects (wrongly stated that its triggering On Hit Effects).
• Map Modifier that makes enemies immune to knockback now actually makes enemies also immune to knockback from AoE and skill effects.
• Fixed a crash which could occur on refunding skills with the new validator algorithm.

Thanks to everyone providing helpful feedback, which is what drives the development forward! You are invited to join our discord and participate in the ongoing development of Striving for Light! Join the official Discord!

[ 2022-11-12 22:39:58 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements

• The Shard of Refund validator algorithm has been improved so that circular skill tree shapes are still able to be broken up and refunded. Note that this new validator is not active for runs that are already in progress. It will automatically switch to the new validator scheme on your next run.

Thanks to everyone providing helpful feedback, which is what drives the development forward! You are invited to join our discord and participate in the ongoing development of Striving for Light! Join the official Discord!

[ 2022-11-12 16:42:02 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements

• You can now deactivate the controller shake in the options menu.
• Arena Reward now displays the EXP amount with also taking the map exp modifiers into account.

Bugfixes

• Fixed a bug which caused merchant trade UI not opening after a first trade has been made.
• Fixed a bug which unintentionally unpaused the game on lost focus when the setting "pause game on lost focus" is active.

[ 2022-11-11 20:05:39 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements

• When enabling the twitch streamer checkbox you will also get a preview of your twitch link to make it easier to see if your player name matches your twitch name.
• The Aeodra dialog when choosing your arena reward now only triggers with 30% possibility instead of each time.
• Small improvements for the voice acting.

Balancing

• The boss amount in the secret boss room is now always 1 independend from the increased boss amounts of map modifiers.

Bugfixes

• Fixed closed portal for secret boss rooms.
• Fixed a bug which caused to reset the active map when leaving the new arena.
• You now not need to switch scenes to trigger the unlock weapon/skills dialog from the NPCs in town.
• Fixed leaving the new arena map resetting the fog of war on the previous map.
• Fixed missing weapon description for Searing Axe.

[ 2022-11-10 21:43:48 CET ] [ Original post ]

We are happy to announce all the upcoming new features and improvements coming with the Aeodra Content Update (Version 0.7) on the 10th of November 2022, 7pm CET. With this update we are also kicking off the Early-Access Season 5.

Streamer Race Event

We are also hosting a Streamer Race Event (10th - 17th November, 7pm CET) featuring a 70 price poolfor the best 3 streamer leaderboard placements. All streamers can participate by reacting to our discord post at: Join our Discord here! [previewyoutube=RVNDNMsp6KI;full][/previewyoutube]

Arena Mode

Find the mysterious portal to a brand new Arena Mode where you fight hordes of enemies with increasing challenge. Will you resist the tempting offers of the Aeodra? Will you fall in battle? Or will you overcome and persist, challenge the Aeodra itself and claim unimaginable loot and treasures?

New Skills

• [Melee Attack Replacer Skill] Melee Construct:
  Your melee attacks create a melee construct instead of attacking directly. The melee construct performs 1 melee attack each 2 seconds and triggers all On Attack and On Hit Effects like your attacks do. Multiple constructs can be active at a time.
• [Range Attack Replacer Skill] Range Construct:
  Your range attacks create a range construct instead of attacking directly. The range construct performs 1 range attack each 2 seconds and triggers all On Attack and On Hit Effects like your attacks do. Multiple constructs can be active at a time.
• [Melee Attack Replacer Skill] Trembling Ground:
  You slam the ground in front of you creating a trembling shockwave traveling away from you. The shockwave is always triggering 3 On Attack Effects without hitting enemies. The size of trembling ground is scaling with your AoE size.

New Weapon

[Melee Weapon] Searing Axe:
A great axe with slower attack speed, large range and a chopping attack range. Enemy hits cause a bleeding condition which deals additional damage.

New Intro Cinematic

The old intro cinematic has shown its age so it was time to add a new intro cinematic with a better introduction to the story and world of Striving for Light. Here is a preview of your new intro cinematic for Striving for Light. [previewyoutube=dUsNuDplJI4;full][/previewyoutube]

New Story Content

• The complete story has been reworked with new improved voice acting

New Dialog System

• Dialog options are now displayed in a new dialog hub when talking to NPCs
• Redesigned dialog UI

Improved Leaderboard System

• Death indicator Whenever a character with a new personal highscore gets defeated the leaderboard entry will display a death indicator that shows that the personal best run of the player has ended. The icon will be removed whenever a new personal best run is active.
• Twitch Stream integration Streamers can choose to receive a streamer badge for their leaderboard appearance by selecting the "twitch streamer" checkbox when joining the public league. Whenever a streamer plays Striving for Light it will be highlighted in the leaderboard with an online icon. Hovering over the streamer name will show information about the current livestream as title, stream language, how long the stream is already online, the viewer count and their twitch channel. You can easily join any livestream easily by clicking on a twitch badge.

We have shared more details for the new leaderboard functionalities at our latest news post. Which can be found here: https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1646790/view/3376037401301033582

Companion Rework

• Redesigned melee and ravaging companions. The melee companion is now renamed to wolf companion and now calls a permanent wolf companion at your side.
• Improved companion pathing and movement. This should make companions in general more useful and prevent them from getting stuck too easy. Companions movement speed now scales with the player movement speed so that they can keep up with you.

Controller Support

• Skill gem menu list now always follows focus on controller input
• Node Navigation with the Dpad now uses animated cursor movement to better visualise the rapid cursor movement instead of directly jumping to the next focused node.
• Cursor is now hidden when activating the radial menu in the pathfinder UI when using controller input
• Cursor speed now scales and adjusts to the actual screen resolution

World Events

• Events are no longer interrupted by switching scenes directly on enemy spawns

Pathfinder

• Back button now changes dynamically to make clearer when a new map has been selected and can be played.

Tree of Light - Legacy Skill Tree

• Improved UI

• Slightly increased gatekeeper HP

• Fixed another bug which caused melee on hit skills not being activated on gatekeeper fights.
• Fixed wrong damage numbers in the tooltips for condition skills and improved condition damage tooltips for better clarity
• The smith and librarian now only tells you to bring them more light fragments if there are still skills and weapons left to unlock
• Fixed a bug which caused the node navigation on controller input not correctly focusing the node which required to manually move the cursor to be able to interact with it. Jumping between nodes on the pathfinder and the skill tree now always grabs the right focus and makes it possible to interact with the focused object.
• Fixed melee on hit effects only being triggered one time after scene switch when using double hit.

We will update this post until the 0.7 release with further changes and additions. Thanks to everyone providing helpful feedback, which is what drives the development forward! You are invited to join our discord and participate in the ongoing development of Striving for Light! Join the official Discord!

[ 2022-11-06 21:07:33 CET ] [ Original post ]

We are hyped to announce a Streamer Race Event and the 5th Season for the Striving for Light Early Access. The new content update will also bring massive improvements and new features to the leaderboard system which we will dive into right now.

Streamer Race

Event Start: 10th November, 7pm CET (release of the 0.7 content update) Event Duration: 1 week until 17th November, 7pm CET Price Pool: 70 Steam Gift Cards (1. Place: 40, 2. Place: 20, 3. Place: 10) Requirements: Join our discord to register, stream the full progress live on twitch! The new Public Season 5 will start with the release of the content update at the same time as the Streamer Race.

Leaderboard System

With the upcoming content update we will add massive improvements and new features to the leaderboard system.

Death Indicator

Whenever the personal best run of a player ends it will be marked by a death indicator. The death indicator will be removed again whenever this player has another run with a higher scoring than before. For the race event this will make it easier to see if the player is still alive taking a break or got defeated and is already on the next run.

Twitch Integration

Twitch Streamers will be able to enter their Twitch Username to receive a Streamer icon in the leaderboard. By pressing the twitch icon players can directly jump to your twitch channel to follow your progress.
For each streamer leaderboard entry it will be automatically checked if they are currently live streaming and receive an online icon in front of the twitch icon. Note that the online icon will only be displayed when the game Striving for Light is streamed or if Striving for Light is included in your Stream Title. So make sure to have these settings right. By hovering over the leaderboard entry players will be able to see further details of the current livestream like the stream title, the stream language and viewer count as well as the twitch name/ twitch link. To join the live stream simply click on the twitch icon and you will be taken to their twitch channel directly.
If you want to stay up to date you are invited to join our official discord! https://discord.com/invite/GNEBkQDyUb

[ 2022-10-30 14:48:24 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugfixes

• Fixed a bug which caused projectiles not hitting bosses if they have been spawned from hitting the boss. This was mostly noticeable on gatekeeper fights.
• Fixed a bug which caused skill effects not being displayed and wrongly culled on gatekeeper boss fights. Leading to confusion which skills are triggered and which not.
• Fixed some overflowing UI elements.

[ 2022-10-29 09:27:08 CET ] [ Original post ]

Update 0.6.3.3 brings some highly requested improvements next to some major bug fixes to Striving for Light.

New Features

• Increased Projectile Range and Speed now has its own unique skill icon:
  

Improvements

Improved Player positioning

You now never have to walk away from a portal in order to activate it after a scene load. The world generation algorithm now checks if portals are near to your player position and if so the player spawn position gets modified so that the portal gets activated the first time you aproach it.

Improved damage calculation on skill tooltips

Skill tooltips for skills that scale with your melee or projectile damage now also display the amout of damage they deal.

Improved skill gem window

The skill tree shards are now located on top of skill gem window. This makes it easier to reach the skill tree shards on controller input when having a lot of skill gems stored.

Improved font sizes

Font sizes have been adjusted to make them easier readable on smaller screen sizes like on the steam deck.

Bugfixes

• Fixed a major bug which caused a lot of melee skills to not deal any damage unless you had skilled additional melee damage. Affected skills: Double Hit, Cutting Shot, Clash of Steel, Windshock.
• Fixed a bug which caused pressed skill tree shards to be highlighted even though they lost focus on controller input.

Thanks to everyone providing helpful feedback, which is what drives the development forward! You are invited to join our discord and participate in the ongoing development of Striving for Light! Join the official Discord!

[ 2022-10-27 21:43:12 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements

• Increased overall font sizes to make fonts better readable on the steam deck.
• Increased dialog box sizes.
• Improved readability of tutorial fonts.

Bufixes

• Fixed a recursion for wrong dialog box assets being assigned from latest patch.

[ 2022-10-25 21:43:59 CET ] [ Original post ]

New features

• Your game zoom is now saved when exiting the game and restored on your next gaming session.
• Esc button can now be used to close the skill tree and the legacy window.

Improvements

• Added improved game logo.
• Enemy bullet contrast has been increased for the cellar and the ice floor enemies.
• The game has now english as default language.

Bugfixes

• Fixed a few bugs with condition damage stacking which made multiple condition stacks only increase the damage ticks by 1 instead of 10.
• Fixed wrong asset dependency for dialog boxes.

Thanks to everyone providing helpful feedback, which is what drives the development forward! You are invited to join our discord and participate in the ongoing development of Striving for Light! Join the official Discord!

[ 2022-10-23 21:34:01 CET ] [ Original post ]

Content Update 0.7 Release Date

We are happy to announce the release date of the next massive content update for Striving for Light. Content Update 0.7 will be released on the 10th of November 2022

In advance we are releasing our new cinematic story trailer for Striving for Light which will be the new intro cinematic in the game with the release of the 0.7 content update. The trailer will premiere this evening at 7pm CEST. Enjoy watching! [previewyoutube=dUsNuDplJI4;full][/previewyoutube]

New Content

Hall of Persistence

With version 0.7 a new arena mode will be added to Striving for Light which can be accessed during your runs whenever you find a mysterious portal. In the new arena mode you are fighting waves of enemies with a tempting offer after each wave. Choose wisely if you want to accept the reward or continue for even bigger loot.

New story content

With the next big content update we are revamping all of the current story elements as well as all voice acting. You will be able to dive deeper into the story and learn more about the world of Striving for Light. The update also brings an upated dialog system.

Future Pricing

Since our initial Early Access release, less then a year ago, the amount of content has grown tremendously with around 40 released content updates and over 50 smaller updates with improvements and bugfixes. Until now we have not raised the price for Striving for Light. As we are approaching the full release in 2023 we will increase the price as planed and communicated during Early Access and with the final 1.0 release. The price will increase 1 week after the launch of the 0.7 content update. So that everyone has the possiblity to get the game for the current price. The price for Striving for LIght will raise from the current $7.99 USD (6.59) to $10.99 USD (8.99). As we move closer to the 10th of November we will share more details about the new arena mode, the new story content as well as all the other new features coming with the 0.7 content update. You are invited to join our discord and participate in the ongoing development of Striving for Light! Join the official Discord!

[ 2022-10-22 15:55:11 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugfixes

• Fixed crashes related to changed keybindings on game start and on saving the game settings.

[ 2022-10-18 16:23:14 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements

• New game logo has been added to the game
  

Bugfixes

• Fixed a crash when opening the stats window when emerald staff is equipped
• Fixed a crash due to negative attack speed values

[ 2022-10-15 10:28:34 CET ] [ Original post ]

Bugfixes

• Fixed wrong attack directions on controler input when using the right thumb stick to aim.

[ 2022-10-09 17:11:02 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements

• Game now initially start in fullscreen with the right screen resolution assigned.
• Game now initially starts with reduced music volume.
• Always on top mode has been disabled for borderless window mode to enable alt tabing out of the game.
• Camera Shake is now activated by default on initial game start.
• Enemy health bars are now activated by default on initial game start.

[ 2022-10-09 09:41:36 CET ] [ Original post ]

Improvements

• Improved the visual effects for Staff of the Phoenix projectiles.

Bugfixes

• Fixed a bug which caused your increased projectile damage to only be applied on the first spawned projectile. Now all subsequent projectile spawns have the right additional projectile damage applied to them.

[ 2022-10-08 12:01:28 CET ] [ Original post ]

New Features

Dynamic skill damage tooltips

Skill stat tooltips now display the calculated total damage of a skill. This is also including additional damage from your general melee or projectile damage stats. This should make it much easier to understand what damage a skill will actually do if you activate it twice or in combination with increased melee damage or projectile damage nodes.

Health Bars

Health bars have been redesigned to directly display the current health with an additional animation of the health reduction. Death spots at endboss health bars have been fixed so that health bars are in general more responsive and less misleading.

Improvements

• Particle effect culling threshold has been increased to display a few overlapping particle effects.

Balancing changes

• [Skills] Flood: Cooldown time can be now decreased with the amount of active flood skills in the skill tree.
• [Skills] Clash of Steel: Now additionally scales with player melee damage.
• [Skills] Glaring Light: Now additionally scales with player melee damage.
• Increased drop chance for Shard of Augmentation.

Bugfixes

• [Skill] Increased Melee Damage: This skill now increases the melee damage by 15 (this was 10 before).
• Coop-Object in the town now has the right mini map icon.
• Fixed a crash when entering the woods.
• Small adjustments for player light.
• Fixed a bug and crash for spawning multiple companions (v.0.6.3.2b)

Thanks to everyone providing helpful feedback, which is what drives the development forward! You are invited to join our discord and participate in the ongoing development of Striving for Light! Join the official Discord!

[ 2022-10-07 17:39:49 CET ] [ Original post ]