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.