NEW: Linux/SteamOS/Steam Deck support
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NEW: Guided Tutorial
Players are prompted on the first time they launch the game (or first time after this update) if they wish to play the guided tutorial. The tutorial is also accessible in the single player menu.
NEW: Realm Builder Custom Map Builder
Realm Builder now includes separate Generate, Build, and Triggers tabs for different map creation workflows.
Generate lets you quickly create randomised maps with preview and save support.
Build lets you handcraft maps sector by sector, including terrain, ownership, start positions, buildings, units, heroes, victory rules, and starting resources.
Triggers lets you create event-based map logic through a visual rules-and-actions interface creating your own scenarios and missions.
Hover tooltips across the interface explain what each control does.
All maps created can be played in Skirmish Mode.
NEW: Observer Mode
Observer Mode lets you spectate bot-controlled matches in both Skirmish and Ascension Conquest, with the option to view from specific team perspectives or both.
While observing you can left click units and buildings to inspect their stats in the bottom HUD, without being able to give them orders.
In Ascension Conquest the bot picks its own cards after a short delay, so an observed run plays through on its own.
The chosen Ascension card is now highlighted for a moment before the card options close, so you can see which one was taken.
Team perspective switching applies to Skirmish, where there are two sides to watch. It is hidden in Ascension Conquest.
NEW: Performance Benchmark
The new performance benchmark can be found at the bottom of the Settings menu. You can start a benchmark test, see the results in real-time then review the results at the end compared to previous runs. You can even export the results and view them locally with the benchmark_viewer.html tool.
Gameplay Updates
Armour debuffs can no longer reduce a unit's armour below 0%. Previously, stacking enough negative armour would begin amplifying incoming damage rather than just removing protection, units will now always receive at most the unmitigated damage value.
Hero: Tarkus
Summon Vermin ability cooldown increased from 2 seconds to 6 seconds.
Fixed Contagion Staff not striking up to 2 additional nearby enemies.
Fixed Swarm Caller Bell not applying the summon cooldown reduction.
Hero: Lysari
Fixed Arcflash Scepter not chaining attacks.
Fixed Annihilation Rune not piercing through enemies. Attacks now hit every enemy in a line.
Fixed Tome of Echoing Thunder not casting abilities twice.
Hero: Valdern
Fixed Banner of the Ironclad not working.
Fixed Reflective Aegis not applying ranged damage reduction bonus and not reflecting damage back to the attacker.
Ascension Conquest
Adjusted party scaling to improve parity across solo, duo, and trio runs.
Solo runs now grant 100% XP and use 90% enemy difficulty scaling.
Duo runs now grant 100% XP and use 97% enemy difficulty scaling.
Trio runs remain at 100% XP and 100% enemy difficulty scaling.
Updated party-size selection UI to reflect the new 100% XP values for all party sizes.
Reworked Ascension card stat buffs so shared numeric bonuses are split across the party instead of being duplicated for every hero.
Numeric Ascension card bonuses such as damage, armor, health, crit chance, evasion, regen, attack speed, and movement speed now provide equal total party value regardless of party size.
Special card effects still apply normally and are not reduced by party size.
Reworked enemy wave pacing to use staggered spawns instead of dropping full waves all at once.
Added separate stagger timing rules for normal waves and boss waves across solo, duo, and trio parties.
Reduced ranged-unit saturation in larger-party Ascension waves by lowering archer and wizard counts in ranged and mixed compositions.
Lowered late-wave crowding for duo and trio runs by softening maximum enemy-cap growth.
Added party-size tooltips to explain mode rules, including XP parity, difficulty scaling, saved loadouts, and shared numeric card bonuses.
Standardised Ascension Conquest Profile XP rewards so solo, duo, and trio runs now earn equal Profile XP for the same outcome.
Commander items now start to unlock from level 10 per hero instead of level 16.
Enemy waves maximum health increased by 20%.
Enemy waves damage increased by 10%.
Enemy waves armour increased by 10%.
Enemy waves spawn count increased by 5%.
Active Card: Overwhelming Presence - hero size increase reduced from +75% to +25%.
Active Card: Vampiric Strikes - lifesteal heals reduced from 40% of damage dealt to 12%.
Active Card: Devastating Impact - Instant kill threshold reduced from 50% health to 25% health.
Shard rewards changed:
Wave completion increased from 10 to 100.
Boss wave bonus increased from 5 to 500.
Path choices changed from 10 to 1000 for the easy path and from 20 to 2000 for the hard path.
Skirmish Mode/Instant Action
Fixed armour related technology tree bonuses being applied twice to Knights, Archers, and Shieldbreakers.
Fixed Archer critical chance showing as a higher number in the bottom HUD than it really is.
General Updates
The "First Win of the Day" profile XP bonus now correctly awards only once per calendar day.
Significant performance improvements and optimisations across the whole game.
Ability effects now correctly display plus or minus prefixing the values when it contextually makes sense.
The Ascension Conquest post-match statistics screen now shows the level up animation over a maximum of 5 seconds.
Added a Master Volume slider to the Settings menu and the in-match quick menu.
Master Volume now defaults to 60%, with Sound Volume and Music Volume at 100%.
When clicking outside of the game window in borderless windowed (fullscreen) it no longer minimises the game window.
Visual Updates
The active cards on-hover tooltip in Ascension Conquest now shows the relevant icon and card rarity.
The hero health bars in the Ascension Conquest left panel now animate smoothly on health gain/loss.
Bug Fixes
Fixed the default player profile avatar sometimes displaying too big.
Fixed it being possible for the jukebox and quick menu to be open at the same time and not being able to close the jukebox without surrendering the match.
Fixed buff icons at 1280x800 (Steam Deck) showing within the bottom HUD instead of directly above it.
Fixed several issues related to audio settings.
Fixed recruiting a unit from the controller radial menu doing nothing. The action was calling an empty placeholder that shadowed the real recruitment function, and was passing its arguments in the wrong order.
Fixed a controller in the first slot being excluded from Steam Input handling.
Fixed controller input functions erroring instead of returning safely when no controller state was present.
Fixed the [OBSERVER MODE] indicator being hidden behind the top HUD bar in Ascension Conquest.
Fixed hover tooltips appearing offset from the cursor instead of beside it, including every tooltip in Realm Builder.
Fixed hover tooltips ignoring the controller cursor and following the mouse position instead when playing with a gamepad.
Fixed the Save Map and Cancel buttons extending past the edge of the left panel on the Realm Builder Build and Triggers tabs.
Fixed controls in the Realm Builder right panel being drawn underneath its scrollbar.
Fixed the burn debuff visual effect displaying the wrong sprite on affected units.
Fixed extreme frame-time spikes (such as alt-tabbing and returning) so they no longer cause animation skips or jumps.
Fixed changing language in the Settings screen not always consistently applying immediately without requiring a game restart.
Fixed the language selection modal appearing completely off-screen in fullscreen and borderless windowed modes.
Fixed several interface labels displaying their internal text key instead of the translated text, including the Tech Tree button on the bottom HUD and parts of the player profile screen.
Text that has not been translated for your language now falls back to English instead of displaying the internal text key.
Fixed the Settings screen crashing if it encountered an invalid display mode value in the config file.
Fixed a crash related to buffs and debuffs being processed when sector data was not yet available.
Fixed a crash when all banners were deleted from the Banner Editor in the profile screen.
Fixed the top HUD and bottom HUD crashing in certain edge cases when resource, production, or unit stat data was temporarily unavailable.
Fixed garrisoned unit functions crashing in certain edge cases.
Fixed the Tech Tree allowing the same upgrade to be researched twice simultaneously in rare cases.
Fixed the game not exiting cleanly in some scenarios.
Fixed main menu tip text appearing off-screen in fullscreen and borderless windowed modes.
Fixed audio volume settings not correctly applying on startup if the settings file contained a non-numeric value (e.g. from manual editing).
Fixed the "New Game" button triggering a double room transition if clicked very rapidly.
Fixed the "Back" button occasionally navigating away from a screen while a dialogue was still open behind it.
Fixed the Discord button's clickable area not matching its displayed position at certain resolutions.
Fixed the Patch Notes button's hover detection area being misaligned at certain resolutions.
Fixed an issue in the Skirmish map loader that could crash if a map file failed to open.
Ascension Conquest
Fixed War Horn not applying its buff to allies at all. Nearby allies now correctly gain +40% damage and attack speed for 8 seconds.
Fixed Arcflash Scepter chaining for more damage than stated. Chained hits now deal 40% of the original damage.
Fixed Reaper's Edge dealing double damage to low health enemies instead of the stated +80%.
Fixed Rat King's Scepter spawning 1 rat every 5 seconds instead of the stated 3 rats every 10 seconds.
Fixed Stone Skin Talisman applying its flat 8 damage reduction after armour instead of before it.
Fixed Executioner's Mask reducing cooldowns by 1 second per kill instead of the stated 2 seconds.
Fixed Executioner's Mask not applying its +60% damage bonus to enemies below 25% health.
Fixed Precision Lens not applying its +25% accuracy bonus, which now reduces enemy evasion.
Fixed Bloodstone Amulet not granting its massacre damage bonus after killing 5 or more enemies within 8 seconds.
Fixed Plague Doctor's Mask not granting immunity to poison and disease effects.
Fixed commander item slots reading Locked (Lv16) in every language when commander items actually unlock at level 10.
Fixed Tarkus disease aura damage being amplified twice by certain disease-boosting wargear effects.
Fixed disease debuffs sometimes leaving behind stale slow, stack, or source state after expiring.
Fixed Shroud of the Pestilence not behaving as described. It now properly cleanses disease, prevents new disease while active, and grants temporary damage immunity.
Fixed Aerial Dash setting a brief invulnerability state that was not actually respected by damage calculations.
Fixed Infected Syringe not properly applying and building disease stacks from standard hero attacks and bonus proc effects.
Fixed the Ascension Conquest summary screen crashing on the first run completed with a previously unplayed hero.
Fixed hero units with the Barrier effect in Ascension Conquest having damage received numbers always shown as zero until the barrier is destroyed.
Fixed resurrection only working once in Ascension Conquest when Phoenix Feather and Immortal Soul are both present.
Fixed a bug in the Ascension Conquest loadout screen where you would see 2 on-hover tooltips for items simultaneously despite having only one dropdown menu open.
Fixed equipped items in Ascension Conquest that provide lifesteal not showing that lifesteal bonus in the bottom HUD.
Demo Limitations Introduced
This is the demo build, some content is now held back for the full game. Anything limited is shown in game rather than hidden, with an (i) or a tooltip explaining why.
Skirmish and Instant Action
Four official maps are playable: The Gauntlet, Crossroads, No Mans Land and Instant Action.
The remaining official maps are still listed so you can see what the full game includes, but they are greyed out and show a "Locked in Demo" tooltip on hover.
Maps you build yourself in Realm Builder are never restricted, so the custom map tab is fully available.
Ascension Conquest
Hero meta levels stop at level 5. An (i) beside each hero level in the left panel explains the cap on hover.
Profile
Your profile level stops at level 5, with the same (i) beside the level on the profile page.
The full patch notes can also be read here: https://ascendingrealms.com/patch/v0.7.6-demo