Striving for Light

Igniting Spark Games Developer

Igniting Spark Games Publisher

2021-11-29 Release

Indie Casual RPG Adventure Singleplayer EATags

Game News Posts: 318

🎹🖱️Keyboard + Mouse
🎮 Full Controller Support

Mostly Positive (70 reviews)

https://www.strivingforlight.com/

Steam Store

Public Linux Depots:

HE4R Content [330.44 M]

1.0 Release Reveal Marathon #10 - Patch notes

Welcome back Wanderers to the final 1.0 Release Reveal Marathon #10, just 2 days before our 1.0 Release. Update 1.0 is the biggest update we have ever developed for Striving for Light, we leave no stone untouched to deliver a cohesive playing experience.

Striving for Light 1.0 Release Time

July 11th, 4pm CEST

With the game Release we will also kick off Season 1 and put the Early Access seasons to rest! We are also hosting a 1.0 Release Event with "Design with the Devs" prices running from July 11th -July 20th, 4pm CEST. If you want to participate drop a short message in #release-event-chat on our discord to sign up to be eligible for prices and get the @1.0 Release Event discord role. Today we will share the full 1.0 patch notes and the release time for Striving for Light. So get ready Wanderers, this one will be exciting! But first of all we want to thank every single one of you for being part of our ~4 year journey from the very first start of Early Access to the 1.0 Release. Thanks for your trust in us and our vision for Striving for Light. Without your support this game would not be what it is today. Thanks also to all playtesters and players reporting bugs and sharing their thoughts on how to improve the game <3 We are deeply grateful and this all goes way beyond what we have ever expected when we started developing Striving for Light. 3... 2.. 1.. Patch notes go:

New Features

New Cinematic

A complete new cinematic has been added. We went back and created a new fully hand drawn cinematic including new voice acting and a new tailored cinematic soundtrack.

Weapon Stash Slots

Weapon stashes have been added. This highly requested feature now allows to store one additional weapon for each attack type: a stash slot for a melee weapon and a stash slot for a ranged weapon. When hovering a dropped weapon you will now have the possibility to press TAB on keys or the left thumbstick to switch between your currently equipped weapon of the same attack type or your stash space.

This weapon could not only be an alternate crafting weapon that you want to keep for later during your run. You will also be able to swap between those two weapons of the same attack type during combat to open up never before seen build possibilities.

Weapon Swap with Stashed Weapon

The new weapon stash system comes with a new weapon swap system that allows you to switch between your 2 melee or your 2 range weapons on the fly during combat.

There will be a new hotkey for swaping weapons of the same attack type, which can be, of course, rebound in the options menu. Actively using 2 weapons of the same attack type will surely unlock never before seen build possibilities. What about playing the new Sunderbow range weapon that increases projectile damage on your targets to then switch to your main range weapon to deal devastating damage. On this occasion we also improved weapon pickup to make it easier to understand which weapon will be exchanged, preventing you from having to pickup weapons multiple times to understand what was picked up and which stats to compare. Now when getting close to a weapon will bring up the stats of the dropped weapon as well as the weapon to exchange to allow a direct comparison.

New Pinnacle Bosses

It has been a while since we implemented the Awakened Gatekeeper bossfights with 2 Aeodra to face off in epic pinnacle bossfights. So we felt that having more variety in pinnacle bossfights would be a welcome addition. With the massive 1.0 update we are introducting 2 new bosses.

Lyxara, the Dawnbreaker, channels the searing wrath of the sun itself, scorching all who dare oppose her.
Vareth, the Suncleaver, wields a colossal blade infused with solar fury, cleaving through foes with blinding, sunlit strikes.

We think these new challenges will not only bring more much needed bossfight variety into the endgame but infuse the game with new challenges.

Honour System

With the current leaderboard the focus is entirely on the maximum reached level and terminating a run just before reaching your previous milestone just feels not very satisfying. Therefore, we want to further shift the focus away from the maximum level and introduce a gradual progression where every run feels meaningful for the progression on the leaderboards.

With 1.0 the leaderboard ranking will be based on a new ladder system called honour. After each run you will gain honour based on the amount of experience gained during your run. You will then gain honour levels that determine your sesonal leaderboard placement. For players with the same honour level the ranking will be determined based on your highest character level. Your honour level is unique for each game mode (hardcore and softcore) and is also unique to each season or save file. So each season you will start with honour level 1. This new honour system will let you constantly progress on the leaderboard and prevent runs feeling useless for leaderboard pushes when you did not beat your current max level record.

New Weapons

1.0 will add 5 new weapons to the core weapon pool. These weapons feature complete new mechanics never before seen on any item in Striving for Light. These weapons will feature not only the bouncing molten orbs that allow for a flexible melee range hybrid builds but also introduce brand new enemy weakening effects that utilise the with 1.0 new introduced enemy debuff system. But lets take a look at the weapons first:

Moltenedge - Melee Weapon: Every attack creates 3 molten orbs that bounce in attack direction piercing through all enemies. Damage scales with melee damage. Orb can trigger all your projectile on hit effects.
Shardpiercer - Melee Weapon: Every weapon hit weakens enemies and makes them receive +20 % increased damage from projectiles.
Nightgrape - Range Weapon: Every hit weakens enemies and makes them receive +10 % increased damage from companions.
Sunderbow - Range Weapon: Each projectile hit weakens enemies and makes them receive +5% more projectile damage.
Shatterspire - Melee Weapon: Every weapon hit weakens enemies and makes them receive +10% increased damage from melee weapons.

New Trinket

Emberclast - Offensive Trinket: Orbs of molten fury leap from every strike. Every attack creates a molten orb that bounces in attack direction piercing through all enemies. Damage scales with melee damage. Orb can trigger all your projectile on hit effects. And yes you guessed right, since this is no legendary trinket ability you will be able to equip this trinket 4 times. For the full molten orb mayhem :)

New Skill Nodes

Cinderfall - Melee Ability Skill Node: Every melee attack creates a molten orb that bounces in attack direction piercing through all enemies. Damage scales with melee damage. Orb can trigger all your projectile on hit effects.
Cinderfall - Legendary Weapon Ability: Every attack creates a molten orb that bounces in attack direction piercing through all enemies. Damage scales with melee damage. Orb can trigger all your projectile on hit effects.
Hybrid Empowerment: Increase you maximum endurance +2 and maximum energy +2
Hybrid Regeneration: Increase you endurance regeneration +100% and energy regeneraton +100%

Evasion that previously was exclusive to the Rogue character class will now be available as a basic skill node in the skill tree. Evasion grants you a chance to decrease your incoming damage by 50%. It will need some investment to effectively utilise this stat, but combined with the Rogue you will be able to push evasion up to 100% to reduce all incoming damage by 50%.

Evade: Increase your evasion chance by +2%. Evasion reduces your incoming damage by 50%.

Unknown Wanderers Rework

Unknown Wanderers starting characters have been redesigned to focus on hybrid build playing styles. Therefore both characters have received plenty of new specialisation skill nodes that empower hybrid playing styles. This should also give those characters a unique space among the roaster of different character options.

Unknown Wanderer now has +30% increased melee damage and +20% increased projectile damage.
Unknown Wanderess now has +30% projectile damage and +20% melee damage.

Furthermore Unknown Wanderers will be the only character classes that have access to increased spawn rate of a new type of skill nodes: Hybrid Skill Nodes granting endurance and energy resources. New Specialisation Nodes New Specialisation Nodes have been added to the Unknown Wanderers Specialisation Trees:

Hybrid Mastery: Max Energy +1, Max Endurance +1, Endurance Regeneration +100%, Energy Regeneration +100%, Hybrid Skill Spawn Chance +30%
Hybrid Potential: Max Energy +1, Max Endurance +1, Endurance Regeneration +150%, Energy Regeneration +150%, Hybrid Skill Spawn Chance +50%
Hybrid Combat: Melee Damage +120%, Projectile Damage +80%
Hybrid Aim: Melee Damage +80%, Projectile Damage +120%
Hybrid Training: Melee Range +15%, Additional Projectiles +1, Attackspeed +10%, Area of Effect +10%, Projectile Range +20%

Character Skill Spawn Bonus

All characters now have unique bonuses to specific skill spawn chances on the skilltree. This should further make them feel unique and allow for different build approaches.

All characters now feature unique skill spawn chance bonuses.
Unknown Wanderer: +15% melee skill spawn chance and +30% higher hybrid skill spawn chance
Unknown Wanderess: +15% ranged skill spawn chance and +30% higher hybrid skill spawn chance
Goladir gets +40% melee skill spawn chance
Heleja +40% range skill spawn chance.
Dark Wanderer +40% companion skill spawn rate.
Farmer +20% companion skill spawn rate.
Rogue +30% condition skill spawn rate.
Darokin +20% condition skill spawn range.

Trinket Qualities

Trinkets that "only" grant stat bonuses can be very helpful in the early game but fall off during late game in terms of usability. So with 1.0 we want to bring more excitement to all trinkets that do not grant additional abilities or legendary powers. Offensive, Defensive and Utility Trinkets that do not come with abilities will be able to drop in 3 rarities. Minor, Greater and Mythic, which all come with their individual loot beams.

Trinket rarity will now determine the power of their stat rolls making hunting for loot even more exciting as mythic trinkes are very rare but hold expansive powers, never before seen on trinkets.

Permanent Companions Rework

Permanent Companions can feel very powerful early on, but as your build develops and possibilities to spawn temporary companions increases they start to lack behind and can even feel useless. Why adding another permanent companion if you could just ramp up attack speed and further increase companion spawn rate from your weapon effects? With 1.0 permanent companions get some exciting buffs. Melee and Range Companions now have a 20% chance to trigger all your player attack effects for this attack type if you have the required resources this attack would require. If you do not have enough resources when the companion would trigger the attack only a normal attack will be performed dealing the companion damage but no additional player effects will be triggered. We think this will open up new ways to play companion builds and allow for better damage scaling in endgame. This will also make the wolf and falcon companion different than the chicken companions. The resource penalty on chicken companions has therefore been reduced to -30% energy and endurance regeneration (was -40%). The resource penalties on wolf and falcon companion remains unchanged.

What about wolfs that cast molten orbs?

Permanent range companions have a 20% change to trigger all your range on attack effects and each projectile hit will have a 20% chance to trigger all your range on hit effects.

So what about crafting a build around lightning falcons? Well this should open up plenty of new build possibilites and playstyles. We are already looking forward what builds you will create!

New Enemy Weakening/ Debuff System

The new weapons will utilise a new enemy weakening/ debuff system which will increase the damage enemies will receive for:

Direct Projectile Damage
Direct Melee Weapon Damage
Direct Companion Damage

Weakening Effects will be displayed above enemy HP bars to indicate your current damage bonus on the targeted enemy.

Burning Skills Rework

Burning skills have been part of the game since pretty much the start of early access. Burning skills have been the very first condition damage skills and have been strong back then, but with the addition of weapons that feature inherent burning on hit effects they simply can not hold up. Therefore, we gave burning skills a rework to feature bigger AoE sizes and also differentiate between on attack burning skills and on hit burning skills. On Attack burning skills will now feature a very large lava AoE effect that allows to cover huge areas to apply burning conditions to enemies. The on hit burning skills drop a much smaller lava area effect as the on attack skills but overall remain bigger than all the burning AoE fields before 1.0. The effects have also been reworked for nicer visuals and improved performance. The skill descriptions have also been updated. Also each burning skill now has its unique icon to better tell them apart without needing to read the tooltips. So what about to set the whole screen on fire?

New Merchant Redesign

The merchant encounter was completely redesigned, featuring new voice acting and better lore integration as well as holding some new surprises in store...

Skill Stacking & Scaling Rework

You might have tried scaling damage on skills that only scale by stacking the same skill multiple times like meteor or lightning strike. As this scaling makes investing into these skills after a certain point simply not viable, especially for endgame scenarios. Therefore we have reworked the skill damage scaling of skills that only scale by skillstacking. The damage scaling of skills that only scale with skillstacks (i.e. Meteor, Lightning Strike, Discharge) has now been decoupled from the skill trigger possibility. Previously the damage would only scale if trigger possibility reaches certain thresholds i.e. 200%, 300%. With the new skill damage scaling system each additional skill stack will always scale the skill damage even though the skill trigger chance is still below 100%. Furthermore the skill damage scaling now has a new skill stack damage scaling factor that will make those skills scale with greater magnitude to make them viable endgame skill choices. Meteor Cast for example now scales on each skillstack:

1x Meteor Cast = 45 Damage on 50% On Range Attack Chance
2x Meteor Cast = 90 Damage on 100% On Range Attack Chance
3x Meteor Cast = 135 Damage on 100% On Range Attack Chance

Improved Controller Support

We spent a lot of time improving the controller support for 1.0 and since we now got our hands on a steamdeck testing unit we have been finally able to fix the present steamdeck issues.

Improved Controller Skilltree Cursor Navigation: Controller support especially when navigating in the skilltree has been improved. The node jump navigation in the skilltree is now only accessible by using the d pad. The thumbstick received a new non linear accelerated cursor controller that lets you precisely select nodes on initial thumbstick tilt with higher speeds if high tilts are hold down to reach the other side of the skilltree in shorter time.
Continuous Controller Menu Navigation Holding down the right thumbstick will now continously navigate trough UI elements.
Controller Setup & Custom Keybindings You can now access a new controller setup menu in the options that allows to rebind your controller buttons, beside walk and attack thumbstick. Would be awesome to get some feedback if there are some bugs, also in coop due to this new system.
Dynamic Controller Tutorial Hints The controlls tutorial on the ground now dynamically displays the controller keybindings you have set in the options menu.
Improved Dpad Node Jump in Skilltree & Pathfinder: Using the dpad node jump on controllers in the skilltree and pathfinder now allows to hold down a directional button to continuously jump to the next nodes with accelerated speed the longer you hold it down. This should speed up tree navigation by a lot.
Controller improvements for Skillgems No more duplicated tooltips when using the skillgems menu on controller. Also mouse cursor is dynamically hidden and enabled again when scrolling the skillgem list and when activated when placing skillgems or shards on the skilltree.
Improved controller support for sliders in options menu to allow fluid value changes with held down thumbstick or dpad.
Added new acceleration on camera movement and panning in the pathfinder and skilltree
Added scroll acceleration in Achievements menu for Controller
Fixed shoulder buttons not detecting Input reliably on controller for the achievements menu and the tree of light

Enemy Ragdoll System

A new enemy ragdoll system will make combat feel more impactful and fun. Slaying enemies will now trigger a ragdoll effect with a gradual death animation. This will be a huge step up from the simple vanishing before, which looked odd especially on big enemies like endbosses. Here is how it looks in action.

Character Slots

We heard your feedback and have put in tremendous work to expand the file save system to make this dream come true. 4 Character Slots will be added for each Game Mode, so you will be able to have up to 8 active characters on each season or save file. This will now allow you to start new runs without terminating your current active run. All items will be synced anytime between all your characters, so you are able to farm shards on a new character and jump back to your highest character once you found some crafting materials to improve your weapon for example.

No more Enemy Contact Damage

We have heard your feedback regarding enemy contact damage and we are happy to share that plenty of enemies will receive new attack pattern to remove default enemy contact damage entirely. With update 1.0 there will be no enemies dealing contact damage by default.

Steam Integration & Achievements & Stats

With the 1.0 Release we are bringing Steam Achievements to Striving for Light. Currently we are at a total of 196 Achievements and counting. These achievements will be shared accross all your leagues, game modes and save files and synced with Steam.

Reorganized Achievements: Achievements have been refactored and split between unlocks which are seasonal/save file dependent and global Steam achievements.
Steam Achievements: 196 Steam achievements have been added to the game. Featuring plenty of new achievements and including 3 secret achievements.
Steam Stats: Steam stats with offline support have been added to the game that now count defeated enemies, bosses and collected light fragments and player deaths. These stats can be viewed in the achievement menu. Some achievements are tied to these stats but they also give you a nice long term overview on what you have achieved playing Striving for Light.
Steam Rich Presence: Your current game activity will now be displayed on your Steam friendlist. Information like character, level, map, map tier and various game activities will be displayed.
Steam Trading Cards, Badges, Profile Backgrounds and Emotes With the release of Striving for Light you will also be able to collect Steam trading cards for the game and craft badges.
Steam Overlay Support: The game now pauses and mutes audio when opening the Steam overlay.
Energy Save Mode: The game now enters low cpu profile during pause and activated Steam overlay to save battery on the steamdeck and energy consumption / performance when playing on a desktop.
When switching OS software cursor is now activated by default for linux OS to prevent hidden cursor from carried over windows settings.

On crafting badges you can get rewarded by Striving for Light Steam emotes and profile backgrounds. Restructured and Redefined Achievement System: Therefore we have reworked the existing achievement system to clearly separate and structure: [olist]

Steam Achievements - Global across all leagues and save files

Seasonal Challenges - League and game mode dependent

Unlocks - League and game mode dependent

Stats - Global across all leagues and save files [/olist]

Further New Features

Softcore Mode Shield Effects: The visual effects for gaining new player shields on softcore mode has been completely reworked and now indicated with a clear visual effect on the shields around your health UI that you have gained a shield charge. Also when getting defeated you will now see a vanishing shield animation when the game restarts in town.
Added new enemy attack indicators as glowing ground area whenever an enemy will charge and deal contact damage - let me know how you like the new indicators, I hope this will allign all enemy behaviour to visually showcase that they will attack and not make players feel like they received random hit damage by a charging enemy they have overseen :)
New Tutorials: Tree of Light now shows a tutorial when first using it.
Improved Auto Saving: The game now auto saves much more frequently to prevent progress loss.
Save File Validation: A new save file validation check has been implemented as well as a save file fixer that lets you choose what save file parts to keep and which to overwrite when inconsistencies occur due to altered save files or big game updates.
Hardcore Softcore Switch in Achievements Menu that is accessible from the main menu Implemented hardcore and softcore switches to gatekeeper and seasonal challenges leaderboard windows

Visuals

Redesigned Skilltree

Since the heart of Stiving for Light is the skilltree we thought it deserves a complete redesign as well. The skilltree has received a new origin background effect and a new background texture.

All skill nodes have been completely redesigned with an entire new concept for the skill node frames. Up till now plenty of melee, range and companion skills had the same skill frame design and only a colour difference was indicating the type of skill. We went the extra mile to redesign ALL skill nodes icons. We also created distinct skill node frames for all different skill types. Range skills will now be indicated by a spikey arrow type skill frame. Melee skills will have a more massive steel inspired skill frame. Companion skills will have wings. Universal ability skill nodes that trigger effects but are working with melee and range attacks now have a more universal skill node frame. Attack replacer skill nodes now have an exchange inspired skill node frame indicating that you can only pick on of those and that this skill will replace a functionality. Scattering projectiles and scatter cast now have distinct and different skill icons. Melee Skill Nodes:

Range Skill Nodes:

Companion Skill Nodes:

Universal Skill Nodes:

Attack Replacer Skill Nodes:

Advanced Skill Nodes:

Basic Skill Nodes:

We also think this will be a further step in making it easier when navigating the skilltree with less hovering is required to distinguish where you want to go. Furthermore the skilltree background got reworked as well. Shard of Exchange Halo Effect: Since using a shard of exchange will reroll all skillnodes of the same type into something new it might be hard to keep track off which nodes habe been changed. Therefore a new halo effect was added that stays persistent for 8s and only starts when the nodes are visible on screen. Now you can pan through your tree to find all new rolled nodes.

Redesigned Town Ankerath

Many town objects have been completely redesigned to make Ankerath feel like a true sanctuary a cozy hideout and shining beacon of light amidst the darkness that engulfs the land.

Redesigned Bosses & Enemies

Since we have been working on this game for around 4 years, some art assets look quite dated compared to all the new additions. For the 1.0 release nearly all Gatekeeper map bosses have received a total visual redesign with fresh animations and new art. We tried our best to maintain the character and personality of each character.

Redesigned Enemies: 3 enemies redesigned (caves enemies and void enemies)
Phoenix has been redesigned
Izamuth has been redesigned
Gride has been redesigned
Merchant has been redesigned
All chests have been redesigned
Map Endboss portal has been redesigned
Plenty of bosses and enemies have received improved animations, especially new enemies
Plenty of bosses and enemies have received glow effects for improved visuals.

World

Plenty of maps have aged quite a bit over the last years during Early Access so we felt it is finally time to give them a redesign.

Redesigned Forest Map
Redesigned Void Map & Map Objects
Redesigned Eternal Sands Map and Map Effects
Map Endboss portal has been redesigned
We also added some new chest designs to not only better communicate on which chests you need a key, but also make awakened gatekeeper chests look more impressive and apropriate in size to hold all the loot they hold in store for you.

UI

New Main Menu: Complete redesigned main menu
New Character Menu: Complete redesigned Character selection menu.
New Game Mode Selection Menu: Complete redesigned game mode selection menu.
New Game Over Screen: The game over screen has been reworked and a new honour level progress bar has been added.
New Achievement Unlock UI: The achievement unlock notification UI has been completely redesigned
New Font: The base font was changed to a different font from the same font-family that is intended for screen use to make everything more clear and readable also on smaller screen sizes -> if you encounter weird text alignment please report
All legendary weapon effects got new unique icons to match their attack type to make it easier to see what skill is embedded without needing to hover and read the tooltips
Dodge UI and UI tutorials are now locked in place when resizing game window
Fixed virtual keyboard "I" letter displaying wrong translations
Added padding to rift progress UI
Fixed skill tooltip containers not being updated in size when skills are re-rolled or replaced

Further visual enhancements

Plenty of assets have received major reworks and redesigns to make the game look more cohesive. Just to name a very few:

The ascended weapon frame has been reworked entirely
Plenty of assets in the town got reworked, chicken, walls, buildings ...
Improved tinket lootbeams
Added color grading to rift map textures
Improved legendary trinket lootbeam vfx
Softcore Shield gain/ loss effects: When gaining softcore player shields new effects have been added to indicate shield have been gained or lost.
Modified endboss arena for better perspective
Basement spiders now have a glow effect to make them better visible, Not available rift keys on the start rift UI are now indicated by a dark greyed out effect. Also the key count now has a much bigger font to better indicate why rifts cant be started if no keys exist.

Major Improvements and Changes

Skilltree

Skill gem list is now sorted alphabetically: Find your skill gems faster!
Improvements to the skill gems UI: Now when selecting a skillgem the skillgems menu gets hidden to grant you full view on the skilltree to allow easier skill gem placement. For placing skill shards the same functionality was added so that you do not need to move the skilltree to the right to reach the covered area below the skillgems menu. Once the skillgem or skill shard was placed the menu is becoming visible again to allow for further selections.
You can now zoom when skillgems menu is open when playing with keys/mouse
Open UI elements in the skilltree (stats, skillgems, crafting) is now indicated by highlighted buttons.
The cycling through UI elements in the skilltree with controller input is now more intuitive and logical to go from left to right and the opposit.
Respec for skill nodes that cost resources is now always possible, previously some skill nodes could not be respeced when even after the respec your resources have not been sufficient for your attacks.

Echoes of Fate

Echoes of Fate Endgame system rework: Fate skill slots can now only be bought after completing the echoes of fate world event. After each completed event you are only able to unlock one fate skill slot. You can still change fate skills at Heleja in Ankerath but you can not unlock further slots there.

Companions

Improved Companions AI: Companion enemy detection and companion movements have been reworked and improved target enemies faster. Range companions have received faster projectiles and attack speed which allows them to snipe down enemies with more accuracy.
Range Companions now have faster projectile speed for better targeting enemies.

Endgame

Echoes of Fate handles UI scaling better to prevent translations to make fate skill unlock cost unreadable Improved tooltip UI placement on weapon shards in the crafting menu.

Pathfinder

After selecting a map on the pathfinder the enter map button now catches focus so that you can enter a map directly by pressing a confirmation button like "A" on controller or "enter" button on keys.
Pathfinder Improvements: Plenty of improvements to the pathfinder to make selecting maps more intuitive.

Tech

Resolution selector in the options menu now updates resolution directy after each window size change
All option settings now feature a direct update without the need for scene switches or exiting the game to become visible/active
Keybindings Reset to Default: A new reset to default button has been added to the key and controller bindings. You can now reset your keybindings and controller bindings back to default with the press of one button.

Combat

Faster Range Projectiles: All player projectiles now have increased projectile speed. This brings major improvements to the gameplay responsiveness for range attacks and will improve targeting not only for your attacks but also for all placed constructs and things that shoot for you.
When damage reduction through evasion chance as well as shield effects was applied it is now indicated by a new damage number with a shield icon, indicating that a damage reduction was triggered.
No more attacks on World Interactions: No more attacks are performed on controller when interacting with world elements, objects and weapon pickups
Replicating projectiles now shoot in random angle instead of always the same angle if no target is found
Increased accuracy of Heleja blink clone aiming at enemies
Increased accuracy of range constructs aiming at enemies

Tutorials

Redesigned Tutorials: The unlock skills / weapon tutorials have been redesigned to show udpated art. Added new achievement images for awakened gatekeeper achievement for softcore and hardcore Old Achievement Images have been updated
Improved Tutorials: Plenty of tutorials have been improved and redesigned to better communicate the game systems to new players
The toggle skill notification now displays what attack type has not enough resources, to help new players what to toggle to be able to attack again
First 6 jar in tutorial level now do not drop any loot to prevent players from obtaining a trinket that will mess with the later trinket tutorial

Misc

Descriptions & Translations: Plenty of descriptions and translations have been improved
Increase max zoom out level slightly, and max zoomed out is now the default when loading the game. Also the nearest zoom level has been slightly reduced.
Improved description for purify items at Darokin
Fixed multiple UI tab switches possible in the skilltree leading to some inconsistent game states
Improved shard of renewal skillshard tooltip description
Removed the confirm interaction option as pickup and world interactions have been redesigned and improved making this feature unneccesary
Improved descriptions and achievement descriptions for improved clarity
Improved attackspeed tooltips to state that the unit is attacks per second.

Music and Sound Effects

Added trinket swap sfx
Added corrupted map info on pathfinder that states you cant further modify corrupted maps
Switching the game soundtracks in the options menu now instantly updates the ingame soundtrack
New Soundtrack: Ankerath now has its own original soundtrack! Experience a mystic, hopeful darkness through an evocative new soundscape composed exclusively for our Town Ankerath. Let the music offer you a sanctuary amidst your vast adventures into the lingering darkness.
Redesigned Ascended weapon frame design
New Soundtracks: The main menu now has a new soundtrack
New Boss Soundtracks: 2 new bossfight soundtracks have been added
Updated Soundtrack DLC: now also includes the additional trailer and cinematic soundtracks. Extending the already expansive soundtrack for Striving for Light with over 11min of new music equaling to over 1:30h of original soundtrack length.
Variable Soundeffects: Plenty of sound effects now have variable pitches that make them feel less static and more interesting to listen at. For example item player dodge or pickup sounds. Plenty of old sound effect sources have been converted to our new sound effect system that prevents sound effects to be triggered too frequently and also fixes sound cutoffs on sound effects like portals sounds or player level up effects.
Starting world events now does not trigger a player attack as well, to prevent wasting attack resources that you would need for the actual fight on the world event.
Improved dodge sound effect
Pickup SFX now has a fade out at sfx end
Fixed large light fragment sfx cutoff
Fixed secret basement bosses sound effect not affected by audio volume settings
Reduced sfx volume when collecting echo fragments in the game over screen

Performance Improvements

Plenty of game systems have been rewritten for performance improvements
Performance improvements for replicating projectiles
Performance Improvements: Performance for all player area of effects have been improved
Performance Improvements: The lagg when at first walking near a world event was fixed by improved initialisation of all world events.
Performance improvements for trinket lootbeams. This should especially be noticable when playing on the steamdeck.

Balancing

Weapons

Emerald Staff: Energy Cost increased to 3 (was 2 before), base attackspeed got reduced to 0.5/s (was 0.9 / s)

Skills

Skillnode spawn chances scaling with new unlocked skills has been improved to maintain the relative spawn rate of base skill nodes like energy and endurance max/regeneration no matter how much additional ability skill nodes you have unlocked.
Blazing Strike and Molten Hit melee attack and melee hit skill nodes now create 3 projectiles (was 2 before)

Characters

Rogue Character: No Max Energy and Endurance malus anymore (was -1), condition damage +10 (was 0 before due to a bug)
Farmer Character: Energy and Endurance Regeneration -20% (was -30%)
Reduced minimum projectile travel distance to trigger on hit effects

Character Specialisations

The 3rd character specialisation point is now granted when reaching level 60 (was level 50 before)
Dark Wanderer Specialisation Loopwarden now scales with AoE size. Base AoE size of Loopwarden has been increased by 10%
Dark Wanderer Specialisation - Exploding Companions: Damage now scales with your projectile and melee damage.
Fountain: +300 % Energy and Endurance Regeneration (was +200%)
Strong Hands: +4 Max Endurance
Great Knowledge: +4 Max Energy
Hybrid Potential: Max Energy and Endurance +2 (was +1)
Hybrid Mastery: Max Energy and Endurance +4 (was +2)
Hammerstorm: Endurance Regeneration +100% (was +50%)
Percent based damage reduction from shields can now reduce damage to 0 (was always 1 before)

Companions

Companions now have increased movement distance before teleporting back to player is triggered.

Projectiles

Projectile on hit effects now trigger on much larger distance
Swirl range projectile modifier now has a higher swirl speed to make it more useful for faster projectiles
Range projectile mods like swirl or returning projectiles not triggering hit effects on extended projectile range

Enemies & Bosses

The basement spider attack was reworked to make the damage area and damage duration more fair
Reduced enemy hp scaling in rifts
Reduced required enemies scaling in rifts

Bugfixes

Fixed occasionally triggering wrong attack directions when using thumbstick on Controller
Fixed tooltips for difficulty tiers not showing when using Controller.
Fixed wrong window rotation in the skilltree by using the LB/RB buttons on the controller.
Trinket exchange UI now does not always show controller hints.
Fixed missing translation for cinematic
Fixed skilltree tutorial blocking skill node interaction
Fixed new hybrid skill nodes now unlocking for existing save files
Fixed game overlay menues like stats window and crafting window did not prevent triggering attack/dodge character movement while navigating the UI
Fixed switched LT/RT controlls to select crafting weapon in crafting window
Fixed dodge replace attacks to properly play when using controller input
Node search controller hints are now hidden without controller input
Fixed beach crabs not hiding attack effects when dying
Fixed crash when getting defeated with while having permanent companions attacking enemies
Fixed pathfinder tutorial not being hidden after selecting and traveling to the first map
Fixed toggle hide/unhide skilltree tutorial showing wrong button image
Fixed wrong displayed achievement unlock count
Fixed offline achievements without steam running not synced and saved properly
Fixed overlapping unlock achievement UI
Fixed trinket prefixes on tooltips and wrong assigned loot beams for trinket with abilities
Fixed enemy turtle spawning out of map bounds
Fixed missing enemy outlines when highlighted enemy outlines is enabled
Fixed error on loading void gatkeeper arena
Fixed wrong void enemy orientation on attacking
Fixed character slot displaying old character level even though the previous run was terminated
Fixed overlapping tooltips on the trade UI when playing on gamepad
Fixed wrong trinket quality prefixes for legendary trinkets and trinkets with abilities
Fixed screen stacking of multiple achievement UI notifications
Fixed minimap icon for merchant persistent after event failed
Fixed awakened gatekeeper loosing prefix when dying during fight
Fixed lost focus when deleting save files with controller input
Fixed missing translation on enter rift UI
Fixed missing translation on skyforge UI
Fixed leaderboard section being displayed in completed rift UI when playing in offline mode
Fixed wrong portal label on return portal in gatekeeper arena
Fixed overlapping tooltip on weapon unlock
Fixed enemy woodcrawler spawning out of map
Fixed Darokin being named old man on UI elements
Fixed a bug that caused descent defense (tower defense event) to not be able to be activated leading to players getting stuck. This mostly happened after failed events and restart on a new map.
Fixed a potential crash when changing map scene on defeating enemies.
Fixed the decimal values on the boss shield counter in rifts
Fixed world objects and elite enemies spawning out of map bounds
Fixed not updated echo fragments on game over screen after crafting echo weapons
Fixed boss shields not restored when dying on softcore game mode
Fixed mouse flickering when moving the cursor in the skilltree on controller inputs.
Fixed specialisation tree UI not being able to be closed on Controller inputs.
Fixed completed rift ui not being able to close with Controller
Fixed wrong description on Goladirs specialisations
Fixed tooltips on the crafting UI covering the crafting shard buttons
Fixed stuttering when paning and zooming with controller in skilltree and pathfinder
Fixed exit not grabing focus when using controller and no map can be selected on the pathfinder
Fixed inaccurate thumbstick UI and menu navigation
Fixed pause menu button trigger not being registered sometimes
Fixed focus drift when selecting gambling items at Darokin
Fixed persistent weapon/trinket icons on minimap after removing weapons
Fixed descent expedition portal sfx continuously playing after completed descent expedition world event
Fixed wrong leaderboard rank display on the game over screen
Fixed displayed controller hints on leaderboard UIs
Fixed gamble UI focus drift on selecting skilltree shards with controller
Skill node tooltips are now properly updated when the skill stacks change
Increased player damage number size
Fixed beach and forest maps spawning enemies and world objects on not reachable map locations
Blood Decals options are now working as expected and let you disable blood decals on the ground
Fixed pressing home button in options menu resuming the game or entering unintended behaviour
Fixed a potential crash when exiting the secret basement in the moment when you get defeated
Fixed achievement notification UI floating off screen in rare cases
Updated shard of quality description to include the hint that ascending a weapon on crafting is possible
Fixed clipping tooltips for corrupted weapons
Fixed corrupted weapons being not correctly displayed on the sky forge
Fixed display error for endurance/energy bar when you had a lot of resources
Leaderboards ranking is now hidden by default when opening leaderboards from a loaded offline save file
On loading a character save file the initial camera settings for the pathfinder and skilltree get reset to start from tree center
Improved trinket tooltip layout and descriptions for conditions
Fixed a bug that caused echoes of fate to stop game music from playing after event ended
Fixed a crash when entering any portal while having ingame crafting/stats UI open (you now have to close the UIs before doing world interactions like using portals)
Fixed not reacting enter skilltree hotkey when closing skilltree with ESC button
Fixed skippable tutorial when exiting through pause menu.
Fixed crafting keybinding not being able to be set
Fixed S in keybindings being displayed without capital letters
Fixed charged attacks releasing attacks when moving attack direction with the thumbstick on controller
Fixed missing focus on controller when entering options menu
Fixed not registered directional attacks on the steamdeck
Fixed skill unlock reroll not working when you only have 1 remaining light fragment
Fixed overlapping weapon/trinket popups/tooltips when walking/hovering over overlapping item Drops
Fixed attackspeed for crafted echo weapons with Upgrades not taken into account
Added missing translations
You can now switch input types in the game over screen to display the cursor properly when switching from controller to mouse
Fixed loot goblins dropping loot out of map bounds
Fixed missing translations in the rift leaderboard entries
Descent expedition is now properly reset on death, to prevent locking out the player
Improved robustness for unlocking game difficulty tiers, to prevent difficulty unlock resets. Selecting game difficulty tier is now only possible before selecting the first map.

Whats up next?

We hope the full patch notes fuel your excitement to get your hands on the 1.0 version of Striving for Light on July 11th, 4pm CEST. The 1.0 update is is the biggest udpate the game has ever seen. We are already looking forward to see you on the leaderboards! If you want to participate in the 1.0 Release Event, you can join our discord already to stay up to date and not miss anything:

Join our Discord here!

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.

[ 2025-07-09 19:53:22 CET ] [ Original post ]

Striving for Light is a rogue-lite ARPG where you utilise a unique infinite expanding skilltree to fight your way through the darkness, striving for light.

All about exploration

Dive into a dark, mysterious world full of dangers
Everything is hand drawn
Explore a big variety of random generated maps
Unique soundtracks for each environment
Level up and utilise a unique random generated and infinite expanding skill tree
Unlock new skills and weapons
Endless progression system

Skill system

Each run gives you a new unique skill tree to explore
Dynamic expanding skilltree depending on your skill pathway
Infinite skilltree for infinite progression
Collect skillgems and shape your skill tree

Combat system

Dynamically switch between melee and ranged weapons during fights
Dual resource system to manage melee and ranged attacks
Challenging enemies and boss encounters
Dodge enemy attacks

Weapons & Loot

Collect light shards to unlock weaons and skills
Hunt for your perfect weapon and skill combination
Weapons with unique mechanics for various different playstyles
Loot is hiding in every corner waiting to be uncovered
Find shards which grant additional skill points

Story & NPCs

Uncover a dark and mysterious story
Town hub as a place to return and prepare for the next journey
NPCs for unlocking new skills and weapons

MINIMAL SETUPProcessor: 3 Ghz or higherMemory: 4 MB RAM
Memory: 4 MB RAM
Graphics: Nvidia GeForce GTX650 or equivalent
Storage: 500 MB available space
RECOMMENDED SETUPStorage: 1000 MB available space

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