Alrighty! EndGame Beta Test is live! It'll be up for a couple weeks.
I'd be honored to include everyone who sends me any feedback into the Game's credits (accessed from the game's main menu)! (You can opt out of course)
Short Feedback form after you're done playing:
Short Feedback Form
To access the Beta, right click on Ash & Rust in your Steam Library and click Properties. In the new window that pops up, click "Betas" on the left side, then enter the password: "endgamebetatest". After it downloads the new update press play like normal!
I will be continually improving, balancing, iterating, and patching all modes, especially as feedback rolls in.
A huge thank you to all players! Don't forget to leave a Steam Review if you like the direction we're heading! They help out immensely!
EndGame Beta patch notes: 0.8611 beta test - 03/09/2023
End-Game Mode: Freelancer added!
- After finishing the campaign, new Quests unlock at all regions which you can complete to receive a special Ingredient reward.
- Mix and match ingredients and items at the new Science Station to rebuild the Titan in the Basement.
- Defeat the Titan to receive the rewards, including the new Crafting Items!
End-Game Mode: The Waves added.
- From the Hub, jump into the Waves portal on the Left path!
End-Game Mode: The Gates added!
- Acquire a Gates Key and proceed through the Gates in the Hub. (Left path then Up path)
Crafting System Implementation:
- New Crafting Items added that can improve all your Augments and Gear.
- Choose your desired Crafting Items from the Science Station and receive them when you defeat the Titan.
- The Trader in the hub can exchange various Crafting Items
Other Various Improvements
- Tooltips added when mousing over items on the ground.
- Bug Fixes:
- Fixed Augment Maximizers and Removers that were acquired from the trader.
- Fixed Augments not saving their new values after using a Reroller/Maximizer.
- Fixed finicky Interactable in Region 7.
Balance:
- Changed a few augments to different shapes to try and tune down their power a bit. If the Augment no longer fits in your inventory it will throw it to the ground when you first load into the hub.
Performance:
- added two new systems to help increase performance:
- 1) A shadow manager that caps the maximum amount of lights/shadows visible in frame.
- 2) A more aggressive object Culling system that prevents objects that aren’t in frame from rendering.
- went through each region and optimized various environment assets/effects.
- Environment Objects/Buildings optimizations (lower poly count, lower batch count, better LoDs)
- Still much more to improve upon each upcoming patch.
AI:
- Improved Summon AI to keep within player range better
- Improved enemy healing and kiting AI
- Changed Summon’s AI to now target the closest Enemies, instead of the Lowest Health Enemies. In the future I’m going to try to add an option for the player to be able to choose the AI style on the fly (closest, lowest health, farthest, strongest, weakest, etc). And perhaps more importantly, I’d like to add a way to command the AI to change targets.
Visuals:
- Replaced Spell Indicator visuals with new system that should be more accurate and track uneven ground better.
- Improved player spell indicator intuitiveness and mechanics. E.g. queuing up an ability and then changing it to a new ability now cancels the old spell indicator and brings up the new one or fires off the new ability instantly if it doesn’t use spell indicators.
- A dozen new hair styles for male and female!
- Several Regions have had their environments improved with better pathing, foliage, etc
Known Issues:
- Gear ability hotbar icons can get out of order
- Certain New Hair Styles won’t change their hair color.
- Some players have reported jumping random directions off plateaus in the Basement. I’ve added more code to try to fix the issue but I was never able to replicate the problem in the first place so I can’t be sure my solution will help. Please let me know if this is still happening in the new patch!
- The Combat Meter displayed at the end of some modes is wildly inaccurate! It doesn’t properly account for a bunch of complex interactions, such as Smite/Chastise with Targeted. I’ll continue to improve it over time. (Or remove it)