STARSTRUCK UPDATE | PATCH NOTES
NEW GAME MODE
Adventure Mode – The Frozen Path
Adventure Mode is a high-stakes run through all of Kru - your ultimate test of survival, strategy, and endurance. In The Frozen Path, your team battles across five unique regions within Kru to reclaim the stolen Evercore Fragments. Longer runs, bigger risks, and wild, game-breaking builds await!
Adventure Mode is the main mode of the game and can be played in any way:
Solo Matchmake to join a party of 3
Duo Matchmake for 2+1 parties
Play as Duo and Trio Premades
Solo Mode
Adventure Mode is available to select on the new Co-Op Mode screen or in the Solo Mode screen. There is no pre-requisite to access The Frozen Path.
As players progress through The Frozen Path, they will be rewarded instantly with Evercore Fragments at certain points during the adventure. We anticipate a large portion of players not making it to the end on every run, but you can still play this way as you’ll be rewarded for progress.
Players will receive the same amount of Evercore Fragments in Co-Op or Solo Mode, but they will continue to receive a bonus for Valor Badges when playing Co-Op.
Players will encounter new variations of Enemies in each major region of Kru. Enemies and encounters have a unique balance setup in The Frozen Path that is separate from Co-Op or Solo Strike missions.
Players will see an Island Tracker system during Adventure Mode, so they can track their progress run to run.
NOTE: we are aware that on occasion, the Island Tracker may not display the correct landscape.
To promote The Frozen Path and keep matchmaking flowing smoothly, the existing standalone co-op maps of Shiverforge Mines and Stormspire Summit are now under a section called Co-Op Quick Strikes, and are available as premade Duos and Trios.
NEW HERO
Ace Everstar
Ace is a gunslinger who shoots enemies with his dual blasters as well as his razor sharp wit. He’s a fluid ranged attacker who can dial in targets via his unique Nemesis system, for maximum damage.
Ace’s Abilities:
[PASSIVE: NEMESIS] Ace randomly marks an enemy as Nemesis, and will apply 25% increased damage against the market target with all attacks.
[HEADSHOT] Ace targets a direction and fires a piercing bullet that will do damage to all enemies in its range. If the bullet passes through his Nemesis, he will apply a guaranteed Critical Strike to that target.
[VAULT] Ace leaps over a target and fires two Basic Attacks at it, allowing for any Basic Attack “on hit” effects to activate.
[MARKING SHOT] Ace does damage to the first target he hits, and that target now becomes his Nemesis.
[ULTIMATE: SHOWDOWN] Ace fires a barrage of bullets into the air, and after a short delay the bullets all fly towards his Nemesis. If there is no Nemesis, it will target the closest enemy.
NOTE: Ace’s ultimate is meant to apply heavy damage to a single target, and thus is overall less powerful than Cynder, so it should be available more frequently during play.
QUALITY OF LIFE IMPROVEMENTS
[HERO MOVEMENT & ATTACKS] We have reworked our animation system and Hero Animations to allow for more upper and lower body blending. The result should be smoother motion and better feel for all heroes.
[DISPLACEMENT ABILITIES] Heroes will now displace enemies where appropriate on either Basic Attacks or Abilities. This should result in more impact when certain hits land, as well as making it easier for some heroes to skirmish.
NOTE: We anticipate some existing players will take a little time to get used to the new system, and we want to strike a good balance between precision and feel. We will continue to tune and refine this system in future updates.
[SHARDS IN SOLO MODE] We’ve removed certain “co-op only” shards from Solo Mode in the Flame and Wild trees.
NOTE: We are aware that sometimes some players might see instead of the correct name, and are continuing to track these issues down.
[ENEMIES AFTER A DISCONNECT] Enemies will now scale if someone drops from a Co-Op game on the next Island.
[HERO PRICING] With the addition of Ace, we have lowered the price of all heroes going forward, to allow for a smoother ramp as players unlock new heroes.
NEW HERO PRICING
[HERO 1] 0 Evercore Fragments, 350 Valor Badges
[HERO 2] 3 Evercore Fragments, 750 Valor Badges
[HERO 3] 4 Evercore Fragments, 1000 Valor Badges
[HERO 4] 6 Evercore Fragments, 1500 Valor Badges
NOTE: The system does continue to scale based on how many heroes you’ve unlocked, as we feel this gives you the best choice when deciding who to play.
BALANCE CHANGES
[ENEMIES & DAMAGE] Enemies overall have had their Health and Damage reduced, while we have increased the number of enemies in encounters. This is intended to both provide a more distinct feel when fighting different enemies as well as make damage overall less spikey.
We have also reduced the amount of Health scaling between Solo, Duo, and Trio modes for certain enemies, as we don’t want small enemies to be damage sponges. Heroes should continue to feel powerful against small enemies in all modes.
[HEALING OVERHAUL] We wanted to increase the viability of hero comps in duos and trios that don’t include a Support Hero. While we want each role to have a specific purpose and unique feel, we want players to be able to make a conscious decision on comps and what they’re willing to bring (or forego) on a run.
[LOTUS & BEKO] have both had their healing reduced overall, with Lotus being impacted more than Beko, as she’s been very strong on all fronts.
[HEALING ORBS] will now drop occasionally from barrels and enemies, and heal the party for 5 health. They will cause certain shards and other effects to activate as well.
[RAMEN] Your individual healing potion, or Ramen, now heals for a flat amount and has a cooldown.
[SOLO MODE BALANCE] With the changes to Enemies, Damage, and Player Healing, Solo Mode should be much more smooth for all hero types (with some variation amongst specific heroes still of course).
[STORMSPIRE SUMMIT & SHIVERFORGE MINES SOLO] are both now marked as “two diamonds” for difficulty. We wanted to normalize the difficulty, but present players with different enemies and environmental gameplay without wildly scaling enemies.
[SHARDS] all shards now have 5 levels of Upgrades, up from 4. Several shards have had their power redistributed to be at the start and end levels. This allows players to try and maximize power in a variety of ways, such as going for variety, or trying to max out a few key shards.
All shards have been altered in some form. Here is a list of some of the larger changes worth noting:
[Basic Attack and Ability Power] have had their initial values reduced, to allow for more levels and incentivize more active shards.
[Parting Gift] has had its initial damage values reduced, but has a much higher output at level 5 than previously.
[Flex Armor] has been rebalanced significantly.
[Jagged Stoneskin] has been significantly increased in the damage that is returned.
[Bomb Rush] will now displace enemies in the area of the bomb detonating.
[Happy Gardner] has been changed to do a flat amount. Previously it was applying healing based on the caster’s Ability Power.
Players will receive a “MAX LEVEL” notification when they are presented with a shard that is already at its highest level. Please don’t select this, as it won’t do anything!!
[NEW SHARD – Fists of Fury] grants additional Attack Damage based on the amount of Luum you currently have. The more Luum, the more Attack Damage. This shard will occupy the “Basic Attack” slot.
[FROST EFFECTS] Players can no longer DASH out of Frost Stacks. As well, the Ice Block effect has been increased in duration to 4 seconds.
NOTE: We felt this trivialized the challenge of Frost Enemies, and as we move damage down overall, we wanted other types of dangers. The stack count remains at 6.
[WALLUMPS THE WICKED] has been tuned again for both its Amber as Frost variants.
[ENCOUNTERS - GAUNTLET] This encounter has been tweaked so that enemies now spawn in waves, allowing players to clear enemies quickly and make capture progress.
[ENCOUNTERS – SURGE] The number of enemies in all versions of Surge have been increased, to account for the enemy rebalance, and to make these encounters more of a threat.
[CYNDER] Cynder’s Ultimate Ability Burning Heart has been increased in cost, as it’s extremely powerful and encounter changing (as intended). We didn’t want to reduce his power, so we’ve made this available less often.
BUG FIXES
[BASIC ATTACKS] Fixed a bug that was sometimes causing “stutter stepping” on melee heroes, leading to a combo flow that was not smooth. Holding down or tapping the Basic Attack button should now be equally smooth.
[SHARDS & SOULBOUND BLOOMS] We’ve implemented more fixes for rewards that should make them more reliable to grant.
NOTE: We are aware that sometimes some players might see instead of the correct name, and are continuing to track these issues down.
[SOULBOUND BLOOMS] Players will no longer be presented with Soulbound Blooms that they already posses.
NOTE: we will be adding more levels of Soulbound Blooms in the future, as players technically could run out of choices and be presented with “Reward Name” blank choices.
[KYROSS THRASHCLAW] the pillars in this encounter will now more reliably block Kyross’s eye beam.
[KRAGGOR THRASHCLAW] we have temporarily reduced the damage and added other mitigating factors to help with the Prism Laser sometimes de-syncing.
NOTE: We are continuing to investigate and fix the root issue of the de-sync.
[HEROES] we have fixed several abilities that could cancel themselves or get into a bad state.
[UI] we have continued to fix various UI issues and loss of focus issues.
[SOUND] All Hero VO, Sound Effects, and UI Sounds should respect the Volume sliders in the options menu.
