I've been working nonstop this week on the end of the main story campaign and I really hope you all are going to like it... or even be able to complete it. Oros orcs are currently set in the level 20-30 range, and Dusk orcs found in the final area scale all the way to level 50. A new team pattern for the Dusk Orcs in the final area is -10kHP +10kBarrier, so packing Barrier Penetration and Bypass Barrier skills and gear isn't a bad way to go!
I'm about to start my first playtest on the final areas. Here's what I can tell you without spoiling anything.
Once you engage with the point of no return, it will not be possible to escape Obscurite. A clear warning will inform players that this is it - there's no going back.
Once the game is completed, Ruby will be returned to the outer part of Obscurite, but it won't be possible to play the end-game events a second time. There's already too many intertwined events using too many variables, switches, and self switches for me to make it viable to run multiple times. However, since content is still planned over the next month in locations throughout the world and in the Veil, Ruby will be able to return to the places that were accessible just before heading into Obscurite.
There is one missable achievement in Obscurite. However, if missed, I have plans to stick a redemption round somewhere else in 7.0.1.0 if not rolled out with 7.0.0.0, probably in the open in Obscurite/CityLimits.
While Oros and Dusk orcs are the primary enemies found in the final areas, they are not the only enemies. Ruby should continue to have a wide range of elemental attacks upon entering Obscurite.
7.0.0.0 will release without additional updates to Brandywine Forest or Snowdrift Village when it is ready to go. I have legitimately put 100% of dev efforts into this one questline moving through the final area and I'm not done yet. I expect to be completely ready to ship by the end of next week.
If development becomes more difficult toward the end, nothing has changed relative to what I said about 2026 being the end. If I can't launch 7.0.0.0 until Dec 31st, then all other plans for Snowdrift and Brandywine will be scrapped altogether. I hope this won't be the case and I don't expect it to be, but the crashes have been at their very worst this week. When you enter the final area, you'll see why. On the player side, you shouldn't see any crashes. But in the engine, there's so many events that its struggling to keep up.
If I can drop 7.0.0.0 next week, the remainder of December will go to patching up Snowdrift and Brandywine.
The 7.0.0.0 update already includes - New location, higher level enemies, new craftable gear, scripted events, progression on long since forgotten storylines, new temporary character, new learnable skills, and setups for where the story goes next as per the pre-alpha drafting (we'll talk about this one in the postmortem in January for the real worldbuilding nerds out there).
Realistically, all that's left for me to do is playtest what I have, correct any screw ups, then put in the very ending with the return to before the point of no return. The only problem is that I can never estimate how long playtesting will take. I have pre-nerf Aries gems on every character and a 50 hour play file with level 30+ characters. If anything, I might have to make the whole ending campaign easier.
Okay that's enough yappin' for today. There's no new game version this weekend, but I'm hoping to drop 7.0 mid to late next week, barring any huge problems with what I made this week. See you soon!
//hardytier
PS: And just to be absolutely clear, after the new year, there will be no content updated to CoA moving forward. Only bug fixes to address newly reported issues. Full development focus will go toward CoA2 and this project will be considered finalized, with all outstanding projects considered scrapped.