Update 1 – New Save System is Live

Greetings, Ascendants!

Update 1 is here! It includes the new save system and more.

Save Game System

We’ve completely overhauled Underworld Ascendant’s save game system based on player feedback.

This new system saves the following:

World State

* Enemies, chests, doors, levers, chandeliers, torches, sconces, braziers, and water level will save their states and location

* All spawned items (e.g., weapons, food, etc.) including location and position

* Silver Sapling location and status

* Enemy Health

* Enemy status effect with durations

* Door damage

* Combustibles will remain lit

* Gate / Portcullis state (up / down / in transit)

Quest State
The new system will save and restore the current state of the quest, including the required items and enemies as necessary. If a player saves after finishing objectives, this objective will be saved.

Player State

* Position, rotation, crouching

* Current health/damage

* Current Mana

* Status effects

* Inventory

* Hotbar

* Stash

* Known spells

* Faction Favor

* Influence

* Completed quests

* Skills

* Held items

* Player session stats associated with level progress (e.g., enemies killed)

* Existing player stats associated with prior level progress

A few things are not saved:

* Arrows that are not at rest

* Spells in the middle of being cast

Important Note: Saving is disabled when the player is off the ground or within 15 meters of enemies

Combat

We made many updates to Combat in Underworld Ascendant as further outlined below. We have also made a few improvements to AI and have plans for more AI enhancements in the next update.

* Directional attacks are available at level zero without their status effects and they do the same amount of damage as a heavy attack. We’ve revised the previous skills granting directional attacks as follows (Swords / Axes and Maces / Unarmed):

* Blade Master / Mighty Blows / Fists of Iron – heavy left and right attacks now stagger enemies (LMB + Left and LMB + Right)

* Fighter’s Fury / Bloody Barrage / Fists of Fury – heavy forward attacks now stun, and heavy back attacks knock enemies down (LMB + W and LMB + S)

* Deft Maneuvers / Savage Maneuvers / Shielded Strike – holding heavy attacks longer charges up the attack and does a bleeding over time extra damage (hold LMB longer)

* Light attacks do a bit more damage (20% more)

* Light attacks if spammed have a reminder tooltip every 10 swings explaining the difference between light swings (tapping LMB) and heavy swings (holding and releasing LMB)

* Unskilled Heavy attacks no longer stagger opponents

* Pluto’s Gate received a combat tuning update: Spectral Knights (skeletons in chainmail) have been replaced by Spectral Warriors (skeletons with sickles and bows, who are now slightly weaker and do less damage) and some Spectral Warriors have been replaced by Spectral Thugs (headless skeletons, who are now weaker and unable to block).

* Combat VFX are now more visible: VFX Blood is brighter and VFX Collision FX are bigger – this goes for Stone, Wood and Bone impacts.

* Short swords have a bit larger attack colliders so they will connect hits more reliably

* We made tweaks to enemy stagger behavior during combat so they don’t get stuck on the defensive all the time

* Physics damage has been increased, making throwing objects at enemies a good strategy.

* Enemies now react better when they are hit with a thrown object

* Arrows should now working correctly in The Underswamp

* Outcasts teleport less often in and out in combat and have better flee point checking.

* Spectral Warriors no longer attack inanimate objects (like torches and doors) when damaged by them.

Quests and Levels

We made updates and improvements to the levels and quests in the game as follows:

* Removed many immersion-breaking holes and seams in the world

* AI population pass on all levels to better balance encounters and provide more and more varied creatures to fight.

* Later levels are now accessible earlier in the game due to changes we made to the doom counter.

* More to do and see on the first two main quests

* LODs adjusted to reduce graphical popping on higher end machines

* Gather quest items now have a map region highlighted

* Many enhancements to Upper Eberus

* Moved hub lever to a more interesting spot

* Made an easier connection to the top floor in the Ruins of Gwern

* Fix spike room trap

* More interesting way into transitional 2 façade

* Fix traps on path toward Necrotic Graveyard

* Call out first pungie trap

* See into first cell from entry

* More prison theming in murgo’s prison

* Bring cohesion and purpose to set dressing in murgos

* No way out of first drop down room

* Trap left path to gibbet cages

* Guard station up the guard station-stealth

* Clear death at the bottom of the incessant pit

* Puzzle to enter the tomb

* Traps in the tomb

* Wooden verticality in necrotic graveyard

* Clearer lead to tomb side entry

* Fix hole above typhon chest in tomb

Items

Weapon wear overhaul:

* Weapon wear is visible on the weapon model, and weapons at their lowest condition appear broken

* Added sound for weapon breakage

* Weapons degrade more slowly

Loot drop update:
* Better selection of weapons available in the shop
* Weapons are now easier to find in the world
* Updated some weapon models
* Brighter handheld light gem
* New health potion added to the game as a clear, available option for healing

Player Movement

Player movement is now more responsive and fluid
For Hotfix 1.03 (released 11/29) included improvements to player movement in and out of water, added swimming, and reduced keyboard and mouse input lag.

Player Growth

We’ve made some changes to player growth and to improve communication of skill availability

* When a spell fails for lack of an eligible target, it no longer costs mana. This should help you experiment more freely with new rune formulas.

* Resherak can now be found in Pluto’s Gate; visit him to train new skills earlier than ever before.

* New Feats are available in Pluto’s Gate to give players more Memora for their first encounter with Resherak.

* The Skills panel now grays out skills that are not yet unlocked, so you can tell the difference between them and skills whose precursors in the tree you just haven’t got yet. (Remember: you’ll be notified when returning to Marcaul if new Skills have been unlocked.)

Other

* The game now remembers your key binding preferences (one of the top requested fixes from the community)

* Hint text now stays longer on the screen

* Players can now brighten the overall game more using the slider found during new game creation and in the options menu

* Players can now read and listen to the Memora that they find as quest goals

* New option to disable mouse smoothing

* Disabled WASD movement key while in the character naming box. It’s now easier to have a name with an “s” in it, for example.

* Edits to English VO for length

* Full German VO now in game

* General audio balance tweaks

* Somewhat better performance

Understanding Weapon Wear

To help you understand how weapon wear works in the game, and how the different states of wear compare to each other, please see the below chart. Note: Magical items do not wear down.

Weapon durability is as follows:

* Pristine 80% and above

* Excellent 60-80%

* Serviceable 40-60%

* Worn 20-40%

* Broken 0-20%

Damage degrades from weapon. At 50%, “Serviceable,” a weapon will do 75% of its damage. For example a sword that had a base damage of 33, would now do 24.75 points of damage per heavy swing. At the absolute lowest, a “Broken” weapon with 0 points of durability will do half of its damage.

Weapon and Armor Types

To help you make decisions about what weapons and armor to chose, here is some more information about how those items work in game.

There is a baseline ‘par’ damage number per weapon type as follows:

* One handed sword – 33 points.

* One handed Axes and maces and bones – 35 points

* One handed dagger – 15 points

* Unarmed – 10 points

Armor from worst to best is as follows:

* Cloth/Robes

* Leather

* Chain

* Heavy (Plate/Splint)

Known Issues

* There are still some holes in levels — we will continue to fix them.

* A small handful of memora logs have no proper title text or text for the audio. These will be found in some Intrigue faction quests. The quests are still completable and will count towards your memora log count.

* “You have learned a spell!” text appears with no context when you head toward The Moat of Khnum in Upper Erebus.

* Some DLC items do not appear in the Midnight Forum stash unless the player starts a new game.

* After reloading a save, some items, like water bottles, may not return to exactly where they were when you last saved.

* Sometimes jumping into physics objects like tables, crates, or chests, can sometimes hurt you and sometimes gravely hurt you!

* The Dash skill isn’t as reliable over rough terrain as we’d like it to be.

* Climbing a chain while swimming can result in getting stuck on the chain.

* Steam cloud saves are not yet working correctly.

* You cannot scroll through the backpack with scrollbar when in trade UI

* You can occasionally lose a stack of items when you move it in a container (backpack or stash)

* Aelita can run out of money