This Update adds more than 150h to the game for those wanting more challenges and it keeps the progression you made in previous Early Access version! There is a lot to share and won't be able to cover everything in this News post but here are the main things you may want to know -
Path of Destinies
We released Astral Ascent in Early Access back in April 2022 (feels like forever ago...) with a system named the Path of Destinies allowing you to keep playing the game with an increasing difficulty. Everytime you would defeat a Zodiac in a difficulty you didn't defeat them in yet, you would receive a Destiny Fragment, an unique currency that would not allow you to buy anything and the maximum Destiny Level was 12, at each level you would need to select from 1 to 3 maluses and keep going as much as you could.
Basically only a few very talented players succeed to beat Destiny Level 12 with only motivation to overcome a very hard difficulty (and to get a bit more Sun Pieces to spend in Zim-Zim shop).
Path of Destinies rework main objectives were :
Interesting - each element has to have an interesting effect
Easy to understand
Accessible start
Hard end
You now have 54 Destiny Levels instead of 12, you need to success (beat Libra or Aquarius for now) the 6 first Destiny Level to progress to next one. The 6 first ones being :
Destiny Level 1 -
Destiny Level 2 -
Destiny Level 3 -
Destiny Level 4 -
Destiny Level 5 -
Destiny Level 6 -
Once you suceed to beat Destiny Level 6, you can freely increase the Destiny Level as much as you want up to Level 54 (Do not worry, you can lower your Destiny Level anytime!) with many elements to choose from -
This is how Destiny Fragments loot works, each Zodiac owns 1 Destiny Fragment per Destiny Level, Master of the prison owns 3 per Destiny Level (available on final release).
With the 54 Destiny Levels it means you can find 810 Destiny Fragments(12*54 + 3*54) and we offer an additional 10 when you success a run for the first time so, on final version you could get a total of 820 Destiny Fragments, maximum 486 on current version. The way it works is that if you beat a Zodiac at a Destiny Level, you will unlock their Destiny Fragment of the the lowest Destiny Level available.
For example, you are Destiny Level 10 and you already have collected 4 Taurus Destiny Fragments - you could beat Taurus 6 times at Destiny Level 10 and still get new Destiny Fragments but then it would stop. Also, if you have Zodiacs that have no Destiny Fragments available for you, game in Destiny Levels will always prioritize making you face Zodiacs you can get Destiny Fragments from.
We would still recommend to increase slowly Destiny Level so you can collect Destiny Fragments and improve your Void Catalyst (explained lower).
Additionally, in the top part of the Path of Destinies, you can see this -
Each Destiny Level increase the Damage, Max HP of Enemies and Zodiacs. At NG+6 they reach +30%, including the +20% of NG+4. From then it will keep increasing faster, at NG+54 you will have:
Enemies +150% Damage
Enemies +200% Max Life
Zodiacs +300% Damage
Zodiacs +300% Max Life
It looks really hard (even more with all additional maluses) and you may not really be sure of the point of putting yourself in such a bad situation but do not worry, both of these questions get answers in a brand new major system you can see below!
Void Catalyst
This system is completely new and it will allow you to use the Destiny Fragments you collect during your Destiny Levels runs. This system is mainly linked to Final Boss - the Master of the Prison but for now we made it spoiler-free and you only need to defeat Libra or Aquarius once to trigger a quest to activate it.
The way we see it is really : Path of Destinies starts the Chapter 2 of the game, everything will be more intense, you will unlock many things and narrative true endings will also happen during higher Destiny Levels through the Master of the Prison final confrontations.
Once activated you can open the Void Catalyst interface, you start with 10 Destiny Fragments and you will need the 820 fragments to have everything maxed out and these upgrades are going to make you so much more powerful and make you change your playstyle too - you can even have different playstyle registered as presets!
In final version the Master of the Prison will give you 3 Destiny Fragment per level so a succesful run will give you 7 fragments while you will only get 4 for now, it may feel like the Void Catalyst progression to be a bit slower in this version for now.
When you start only one row is available and the more you progress in Destiny Levels the more rows you unlock and you can freely reset your points and attribute them again.
You have a lot of elements you can improve and you can check all of your improvements from Void Catalyst anytime in a new menu from from pause menu, it also displays the Destiny Levels and elements you selected from Path of Destinies -
You can choose from 24 different bonuses to upgrade in the Void Catalyst, we cannot show all of them here so let us show you a few interesting ones -
One goal we had in mind for the Void Catalyst was giving you some elements to fluidity/smooth your runs, that is the case for extra damage on full life enemies but also the possibility to reset Itinerant Merchant choises, increase the number of use of the Aura Upgrader or even get keys by defeating Zodiacs for example.
Zim-Zim rework
Last but not least, Zim-Zim has been reworked too. She now has more upgrades and a few old ones were removed.
Let's focus on a few of the new elements -
Other Elements
We have also improved a lot of things all around like UI elements in the Prowess Tree.
We have also re-activated the Spell Altar by popular request.
Created new Altar for Gambits.
That's it for this update, whole team has so much fun playing this update and we hope you will also have fun doing so and we are genuinely curious of how high you will be able to go in the Destiny Levels! We are sure there is balancing left to do so we would be very happy to have your feedback about it too.
Next Update should be mid August and it should add more content to the game and polish many systems that are still requiring our attention.
As always, thanks so much for following us and do not hesitate to share the game if you like it!
Have a great day and upcoming week-end,
- The Hibernian Workshop Team
Next Update Preview - Smell what we are cooking 🧑🍳
over 1 year ago
– Thu, May 25, 2023 at 02:24:55 AM
Hello everyone!
We released Colors & Elite Update on May 1st and next Major Update will be released at the end of June and today we want to share with you what this Update is going to be about.
Path of Destinies Rework
As you probably already know, we like to re-work things and this time it is turn for the Pathof Destinies (New Game + System).
CURRENT SYSTEM
Current System required you to collect Destiny Fragments by defeating Zodiacs and you needed a certain amount of Destiny Fragment to get to next Destiny Level.
You could only take one Malus per row then you would automatically to next row so it was always picking among few Maluses, there was a total of 12 Destiny levels and no purpose to collect Destiny Fragments except making the game more difficult if you want challenges.
New System is a simplified version of existing system, base is the same - defeat Zodiacs to collect Destiny Fragments (you will still have Destiny Fragments you collected before the Update) but now the Destiny Levels are fix from 1 to 6, you do not have to choose your Maluses until Destiny Level 7 because the 6 first Destiny Levels will be enabling a renewed game experience, a phase 2 of the game.
Enemies will have new or improved attacks
Bosses will have new or improved attacks
And other things...
These elements will mainly increase and change experience of the 2 first worlds that you know just too well at this point but all worlds/zodiacs will beaffected. We want Path of Destinies experience to make first worlds as interesting as last ones.
Before Destiny Level 7 you will need to unlock Destiny Levels one by one by finishing the game but from DestinyLevel 7 or more you can pick as many Maluses as you want in any order and some Maluses will have several levels for a total of more than 50 Destiny Levels. It will be up to you to decide in which order and how many maluses you want, we would recommend optimizing the Destiny Fragments gain and here is why -
Void Catalyst
A new piece of the story named the Void Catalyst will now be in the Garden, it will only be accessible once you defeat Libra (for now).
When using it you will access the system below -
mockup, still in progress
From there you will really be entering phase 2 of the game as your new goal will to collect as many Destiny Fragments as possible by defeating Zodiacs in higher and higher Destiny Levels to get really big power boosts, there is 24 power-ups to discover with from 1 to 5 levels each and you unlock them with more Destiny Fragments collected!
Some elements from Void Catalyst -
Start runs with Ikki Summon
First Andromeda's drink is free
Increase your Healing Shards power
Start with base Armor
etc.
So, even if you feel stuck at one Destiny Level you will keep collecting Destiny Fragments on Zodiacs and keep getting stronger. This is made to encourage you going into harder difficulties, in particular Destiny Level 6 because that's when you will reach True End oncewe reach 1.0 release.
The Void Catalyst also comes with Presets so you can create several builds that are saved and you can reset it at any time for free.
All of these systems are already implemented but it will take a lot of time to playtest and balance. We do not want things to be too complicated too quickly or to feel discouraging.
At the same time we are making progress on Final Boss encounter and it is going to be by far our biggest work in the game, we want to the Master of the Prison to be a memorable game boss.
We hope you are as excited as we are for this upcoming Update that will be completely renewing end-game experience.
Have a great day and upcoming week-end,
- The Hibernian Workshop Team
Colors & Elites Update is live! 🎉
over 1 year ago
– Mon, May 01, 2023 at 09:32:46 AM
New Update available!
So... last time we announced this Update to be ready by May 15 but we are actually ahead of our plannings so the Update is live... now for you to play! Including -
We have reworked all existing elite modifiers and added many new ones for a total of 13 Elite modifiers now including passive elements like Armor and Regeneration too.
Among the reworked elements we improved the rotating lasers as we knew many of you had issues with them and we completely removed the modifiers making nearby enemies invincible.
There are even 2 modifiers happening on Death of enemies so be careful about icons! (Do not worry we made sure these elements could not happen in Eclipse Room so you can enjoy you Eclipse Room victories peacefully!)
The spawn rates and amount of modifiers has changed a little and we hope you will enjoy these new encounters!
New room type - Eclipse Room
Talking about Elites, we created a new room dedicated to them : the Eclipse Room, this room gives you more Keys & more Stars than any Fight Room but it is also a much harder battle.
These rooms have 3 waves and at least 3 Elites in them, they also have traps. It can be very dangerous but you can also take advantage of it by exposing enemies to the traps!
As Eclipse Room is for experienced players, you will need to defeat a world 4 boss (Libra or Aquarius) before being able to get them in your runs.
Oloon extended
As you saw, Oloon is the face of this new update and we made quite a lot of changes there! It used to be very complicated to have style with old colors, they were too flashy, complicated to match and there was not enough of them.
That's why we added many new colors AND a new category of colors.
Ayla pants
Kiran shoes & belt
Octave boots & belt
Calie pants
New colors are way more natural and allow for much more variations. Oloon is pleased of your style and we hope you will be too! It will now require 144 Yalee tickets to get all colors!
Sun Room Rework
Another major rework from this update is about Sun Room. When you arrive you will be asked to choose among all elemental affinities we have in the game.
Then one gambit for each sub category of the elemental affinity will be spawned. These gambits are special, we have created a new type of gambit named Elemental Gambit that allows you to change a spell affinity to the affinity of this gambit.
To sum up how things work : when you go to the Sun room you are guaranteed to have any sub-category Gambit you could want as Myhic quality. If you want to build Sapling you can get a Mythic Sapling gambit there and this gambit will also change your spell affinity to Poison.
What it means is that you can find nice Fire gambits and start equiping them on a spell that is not of Fire affinity and then later change the affinity of this spell to Fire in the Sun room.
Regarding the elemental affinities we have also made a change, Neutrals affinity used to work with any types of gambits but they are now only working with gambits that are not from the 4 main elements.
The bonus damage for having 4 of the same gambits in the right affinity spell has also changed from +100% to +50%.
Many new Perks for heroes
With all the new effects we introduced in last update we did not have time to add perks related to all of them (Ice Swords, Meteors etc).
By adding these new perks we have also reworked and added some other perks for this update. For example, Octave can now summon several Bellators at once but they will be on self-destruction mode.
Heroes Signature Spells should now be a more reliable way to trigger synergies by equipping perks.
Debug and QoL changes
We have also addressed many bugs reports and added some quality of life changes that you requested such as being able to preview Auras upgrade anytime from loots and from inventory.
What is coming with next update?
This update is smaller than Auras update but it is also smaller than next update that will be about Zim-Zim and NG+!
We are going to fully rework the NG+ system, adding way more elements and a different progression system making Destiny Levels a part of global runs experience and giving real incentives to collect Destiny Fragments from Zodiacs.
Everything is designed but there is a lot to do, you can expect this Update to release in second part of June!
As always, thanks a lot for supporting us through this journey and let us know if you enjoy this update or if you want to share the best Oloon color changes outfit you made!
Have a great week,
- The Hibernian Workshop Team
Astral Ascent - Early Access One Year Anniversary 🎉
almost 2 years ago
– Wed, Apr 12, 2023 at 05:18:19 AM
Time flies! That's right, we released Astral Ascent exactly 365 days ago! So, as Kiran says, it's our One Year Anniversary! 🎉
Yes, Kiran & Ayla will have an introduction cinematic as we did for Octave & Calie!
First thing first, I would really like to fully appreciate how much the game changed since April 12 2022, the amount of changes is really big including -
2 new worlds
2 new playable heroes
Many new rooms
Major reworks like Auras' one
Countless iterations and polish all around
All these changes contributed making the game much better than it used to be and, honestly, much better than what we imagined! We hope it's better thanks to all the great feedback we receive daily but also because everyone in the team is having so much fun playing Astral Ascent.
All the updates we made improved the game and even if we initially announced a final release to be Q3-Q4 2023, we think we should aim a Q1 2024 final release in order to have enough time to polish every elements that need polish.
We hope you will understand this change of plans but be sure that this is for the best of the game. Whole team is working their absolutely best to deliver the best possible game but we are a small team and we do not want to compromise game's quality or push ourselves too hard to release later this year.
This is actually great news because it will allow us to improve everything you are waiting for and even more. So, what is next?
Next month - May 15 - we will be releasing an update including -
Rework of Sun Room - you will be able to change your spells affinity there now
Re-balancingof spells and new Perks
Bug Fixing
Elite modifiers polish
Red Fight Rooms - a new type of challenges during runs
Oloon will have one more category and many new colors for better customisation
Then the next month - end of June - we will be releasing a major Update, this one will be focused on NG+ and Zim-Zim experience.
We do not want to spoil too much but Zim-Zim should have a second version where you will be able to pay new upgrades with Destiny Fragments so farming NG+ will now have a purpose and you will also become stronger by farming NG+.
Each level of NG+ will now be unlocked by completing the previous one instead of having to collect enough Destiny fragments and we will change NG+ structure, levels and elements.
We have many more things planned but we prefer not giving a too precise roadmap and being able to adjust things if needed but you will have an update every 1.5 months approximatively. And we also have really exciting plans for post 1.0 Updates!
Thanks again for supporting us in this amazing journey and have a great day!
- The Hibernian Workshop Team
Spells & Synergies Update is live!
almost 2 years ago
– Thu, Mar 16, 2023 at 09:57:06 AM
First of all, thanks for the great reception of theWorld 4 Update! It has been by far the most appreciated of our updates since we launched Early Access back in April 2022. Everyone has enjoyed playing Calie, fighting the new Zodiacs and the new direction for game progression that felt more coherent and less chaotic.
It feels like everything is nicely coming together but we are not done yet! Today we release a new update, one of many planned before the Final Release of the game anticipated to be Q4 2023.
These upcoming updates, as well as today's one, are focusing on what is feeling to be the most urgent elements to work on at a specific state of the game. In this case we received a lot of feedback about how complicated it felt to make meaningful & varied builds in the game, so let's discover together what are the changes we made to improve this.
We have added a rarity system for Auras, similar to what is already in place for Gambits. We made it so you will find rarer Auras in each new world, this way you always improve your build through the runs instead of having always the same possible elements in each worlds.
There are 4 rarities for the Auras -
Common - white
Rare - blue
Mythic - orange
Astral - purple
Common, Rare and Mythics exist with better and additional effects depending of their rarities.
On the other side Astral Auras are extremeley rare but have very unique effects that can litteraly change your runs. You can even find them in World 1 if you are lucky but your chances increase when you go to next worlds.
The Common and Rare auras can be upgraded through a new system called the Aura Upgrader.
This new element allows you to upgrade -
a Common aura into a Rare aura
a Rare aura into a Mythic aura
It does not pick a random higher rarity Aura, it is the same Aura that evolves into a better version. It is free to use in Andromeda's bar but you can only use it 2 times in a run (or 4 times in co-oop). We did that so when you find a Common aura that you like in World 1, you are guaranteed to be able to have its Mythic version at the end of your run and be able to build around it if you wish to.
But you are also free to keep it to upgrade new ones later or even salvage it to get a drink from Andromeda.
In addition to that, we have created more effects for each elemental families -
Poison Meteors
Poison Explosions
Ice Swords
Lightning Strike
Fire Shield
There is also some new non-elemental effects unique to certain Astral Auras.
We have also improved existing ones visually and on their gameplay. Most of them now have possible new synergies like an Aura spawning Ice Sword when breaking Targets or the possibility to create Fire slimes or Giant slimes (or both!)
We had about 40 Auras that had little to no synergy with other elements, we removed most of them to create 250 new Auras. They are meant to create fun builds that will use your gambits & prowesses as much as possible. To us, this is the progression element that was missing to link every systems together in a coherent way!
Oh and yes we have made new Gambits for all the new effects that we implemented! Speaking of gambits we have made their icons and spells icons visible even when they are closed so you can know about them even before opening them, it made building much faster and game needed to be faster now that you need time to think to make your builds.
37 new hero Spells
We have increased the number of spells to 20 unique spells per hero, Kiran & Ayla in particular really deserved more attention as their spells were created a long time ago.
We kept as much as possible what makes each hero unique -
Ayla low mana costs spells & high mobility,
Kiran's raw power,
Octave's mobility, long range & speed
Calie's versatility
That being said, we have tried to give a bit of everything to each hero!
These new spells make us reach more than 130 spells in the game right now as you can see with the icons -
Progressions changes
A lot of things have changed in the progression as you can see right there!
That's right, merchants will now be in Andromeda's bar! Why? Because it allows you to build all at once and it prevents breaking the flow of the run when starting a new world. It also allows you to better prepare for boss fights! (They are no longer there at the start of each new world)
Removing one room per world allows us to have 2 special roomsper world instead of one(Cetus, Pavo, Yalee Kingdom, Forge etc.) so you will now meet more special rooms.
Speaking of special rooms, the Echo Isles (where you get NPC summons)are no longer linked to Minibosses rooms because it was complicated to understand and many players would not do these fights and miss the Echo Isles room that is crucial for progression.
The new synergies and more special rooms make you stronger than before and we had to increase enemies health points to balance the game - Building is now an important part of the game progression so we expect players to feel weak if they did not build correctly or on the opposite strong if they found good synergies!
Additionally, Gambits and Auras now become rarer with each new world and the rarest can be found in Minibosses instead of Zodiacs as Zodiacs will now give a choice of rarer Auras.
What is next?
We hope you will enjoy all this new content coming for Astral Ascent, there is still a lot more that we would like to take time to improve before final release including Zim-Zim, Minibosses, Echoes, Elites, Andromeda challenges and much more!
The very next update might be lighter than this one because we also need to make progress on the final release content including missing Zodiacs, final boss and reworked narration (a lot of changes are moving for narration!)
We hope you will have fun in the game with this update and as always do not hesitate to share the game if you like it, it is extremely appreciated!
