To the Crown Mages,
This update features the next step of the PvE implementation for Astatos. Over the past few months we’ve been hard at work on a scripting system to introduce single player Trials with custom scenarios to the game.
Included with this update are three interactive Tutorial Trials, aimed at introducing new Crown Mages to the gameplay of Astatos. We hope this commonly requested feature serves to make the game more approachable to players of all skill levels!
These Tutorial Trials were the test bed used to engineer the scripting tools required for in-game story sequences and scenarios. Along with our A.I. implementation, we’ve managed to run these Trials locally on your computer while making use of our existing multiplayer framework.
For those curious about the details behind our new single player trials, we released a blog on the subject along with a bunch of concept art and design documents over at our Patreon: www.patreon.com/StudioKlondike
As mentioned, this is Part 2 of our PvE updates. Throughout three updates, we hope to implement the most commonly requested features for the game.
Part 3 will involve the Implementation of Trials into the Astatos story. In the initial update we hope to cover implementation for the prologue chapter (Ab Initio), then expand to cover Chapter I, and the upcoming Chapter II at a later date.
For the detailed list of changes implemented with Astatos v0.5, please read on below.
- From the team at Studio Klondike
New Features
Revamped Tutorials: A series of interactive Tutorial Trials have been added to the game. These Tutorials are designed to quickly get new Crown Mages up to speed on how to play Takeover, and Conquest Trials.
These tutorials involve several thousand new words of dialogue, and include a small teaser for upcoming story content.
Tutorial Trials can be accessed from the new Tutorials menu under, Trials > Training > Tutorials.
Please note: Tutorial Trials are run locally on your computer without assistance from the Astatos game server, therefore they are not included in counts of rooms displayed in the lobby.
Additional Notices: The save data has been extended to allow for one-time popup events. In this update, players will now be prompted to play the tutorial the first time they enter the Trials menu.
As this data is stored locally, these one-time popup events will be reset when installing Astatos on a new device.
Smaller Additions
New Button Prompts: The keyboard buttons to enable Auto and Skip functions during Story Mode are now displayed in the pause menu.
Title Screen Setting: A setting has been added to select the appearance of the Astatos title screen, variations of which are planned to be implemented as part of future major updates.
Change Log
Game Features
- Playable Tutorial Trials have been added to the Trials menu. Allowing Crown Mages to get hands-on in learning how to play Takeover and Conquest Trials.
- A tutorial popup now displays the first time a player enters the Trials menu, introducing the menu and directing them to play the Tutorial.
- When leaving a Trial, you will now return to the relevant section of the Trials menu. (e.g. when leaving a Training Trial, you will return to the Training Trials menu.)
Game Content
- New Hero Skins have been added to the store and made available as monthly rewards.
- Herclaus - Cyber Justiciar
- Zermes - Summer Delight
Trial Fixes
- [Conquest Trial] Sulpicius should no longer cause a Conquest Trial to soft lock under certain circumstances.
- [Conquest Trial] Resolved an issue where A.I. teammates would have their contributed Energy refunded at the end of the round if the player finished summoning the Hero Card.
- The Spell Card “Divine Favour”, will automatically draw a Card when there is only 1 player to select.
- The Summon Menu button will now always appear correctly if the mouse interacts with it during its appearance animation.
- When the Hero Card summon limit is reached, the Summon Menu will now close automatically and all unused Energy will be refunded to players.
- Improved stability of the “Keep or Redraw Cards” stage.
- General stability improvements when players have varying amounts of ping.
Game Changes
- Sulpicius has been added as a new A.I. opponent that can appear in Training Trials.
- A.I. opponents now display unique titles.
- Button prompts for Auto and Skip now appear on the pause menu during Story Mode.
- A new setting has been added to select the appearance of the Astatos title screen. “Chapter I” is the only option currently available.
Game Fixes
- The level-up reward displayed next level in the Level menu now displays the reward for the correct level.
- Improved the method the game uses to detect the correct display resolution upon first boot.
- Resolved an issue that prevented password reset and email confirmation emails from being sent.
- Added error handling for when the Steam overlay is disabled, which can prevent you from making purchases in the Store menu, or from binding your account.
- Fixed some menus not closing correctly when being invited to join a Trial by another player.
Known Issues
- Playing a card at the same time the Trial Card changes elements, can sometimes result in you being unable to play any more cards when you should be able to.