The Astral link system was huge so I had to delay the achievements to the next patch. The Astral link is the main progression in game. I will add a quick tutorial with images soon but for now let me explain.
ASTRAL LINK - MAIN PROGRESSION
1) The 'Astral link' is a bond you have with a character in a location. Think of it as a friendship meter.
2) When you go to a location you have a best of 3 system. If you win twice in a row or if you win 2 battles out of 3 the Astral link increases. Then it's reset. Obviously, if you lose more than once nothing happens and you have to restart. The maximum Astral Link is 5. For now I only unlocked level 2 to do some testing, I will be unlocking a new level once per week.
3) When the Astral link increases MANY THINGS change:
a/ The dialogue (to make it feel like the character is affected by your actions).
b/ The Elementalist deck. If you check the deck viewer on the left you will notice that some cards are different.
c/ Your fastest time against that Elementalist changes based on the Astral link level. If it's level 1, the best time for level 1 is displayed. If it's level 2, the best time for level 2 is displayed (I forgot to add the code to update the values but it's added to the save system).
c/ The highest battle score (new) is displayed. Same thing as time.
d/ You can move from one Astral Link to another at any time. For example, if you unlocked level 2 but you want to go back to level 1 to improve your score you can do that.
e/ The story. There is no real story but all the dialogues add a sort of a story and finishing the game will require reaching level 5 with a couple of Elementalists. This will be more obvious in the achievements.
f/ Dark cards. Besides level up, there is no other way to obtain the strongest Dark cards (not in the shop) since they can't be crafted. So I am thinking that the best of 3 in level 5 should give a random Dark card. Basically when you are level 5 the best of 3 system becomes useless since you can't go beyond that. What if it made you unlock Dark cards instead?
g/ The amount of gold stardust and blue stardust increase. The equation is very simple. Amount = base * level. For example, level 3 = 100 gold * 3 = 300 gold stardust.
i/ The experience you get per battle increases. However, I am stupid again, I forgot to add it in this patch so it'll be added in the next one.
If each Elementalist has 5 decks that's 105 decks overall. As for dialogue lines, it'll be 500+ in total. Overall, you can see how impactful the Astral Link system is and why the progression was really bad at launch. Special thanks to Rayze and Whack on Discord for helping me to create decks for different Astral Link levels.
PLAYER FEEDBACK - GOLD GIFT
Someone mentioned that getting cards is very hard at the beginning. I completely understand. If the Astral link stays at 1, farming gold and xp takes forever. I added a free gift in the shop so that you get 4 booster packs of your choice. I hope that helps. Once all the Astral Links are unlocked things will get better since 1 win = 1 booster pack.
The idea is having a slow start but making grinding in the later stages a lot easier.
QUICK START - LOADING TIMES
I made some optimizations and you will notice the game starts very quickly now which is cool. However, the trade-off is that scene loading takes a bit more time. For example, going into battles will take a couple of extra seconds. Just wanted to mention it.
BATTLE TIME
I increased the MG in battles to 6k. 4k is perfect for the 5 mins battle length, however, if you have very strong cards you can demolish Astral link 1 levels very easily, making battles extremely short. I want to see if battles get longer now but if they are too long I will bring it back to 4k.
CONCLUSION
We moved to version 0.8.0 now and next month will be 0.9.X. We are getting close to the full release. Pretty much all the features are implemented now so it's all about adding the small details (finishing Dark overdrive effects, adding avatar skins, adding the remaining Astral links, etc...). I am not including controller input and localization.
CHANGES
- EXTRA: Added a free 2k gold in shop to help new players get some card variety at the start.
- FIX: Fixed Dark Kisu's effect.
- FIX: Fixed Dark Awakened Torinoshi's effect.
- FEATURE: Added the Astral Link feature.
- FEATURE: Battles now lead towards the next Astral link (only level 2 for now) via a best of three system.
- CONTENT: Changed all Elementalist decks (x21).
- CONTENT: Added new decks for all level 2 Astral Links (x21).
- CONTENT: Added new dialogues for Astral link level 2 (x21).
- GAMEPLAY: Added a way to change the current Astral link level in the destination UI.
- GAMEPLAY: Gold stardust won in battle scale with the Astral link of the AI you fight against.
- GAMEPLAY: Blue stardust won in battle scale with the Astral link of the AI you fight against.
- GAMEPLAY: Added a score in battle.
- GAMEPLAY: The player that plays second now gets 2 RSC instead of 1 at the start.
- GAMEPLAY: Added a player check/limitation before accessing the next Astral link levels.
- OPTIMIZATION: Re-organized assets to decrease build size a little bit more.
- OPTIMIZATION: Improved the game start time drastically (less than 3 seconds to start).
- OPTIMIZATION: Packaged many images into sprite atlases.
- BALANCING: Increased MG in battle to 6000.
- BALANCING: Nerfed Dark Capykyu line effect to 400 instead of 500.
- VISUAL: Added an icon for shields in battle.
- VISUAL: Removed company logo from the battle start screen.
- VISUAL: Removed company name from title screen.
- VISUAL: The maximum Astral link level is now displayed in the main map.
- VISUAL: The maximum Astral link level is now displayed in the elementalist dex.
- VISUAL: Time and score are now displayed in the Astral link UI.
- VISUAL: The Elementalist deck display now shows the deck adapted to the current Astral link.
- VISUAL: Added a text in battle results UI to show that the astral link increased.
- VISUAL: Added player name in battle results UI.
- TEXT: Fixed Dark Kisu line effect typo.