New Trial Engine Update

To the Crown Mages,

This month's update for Astatos includes some big new gameplay changes. Alongside the monthly Hero Skin we’re releasing our new Trial engine.

It’s something we’ve been working on for the last few months alongside Cascade Trial. It's the largest technical change the game has ever had, and it lays the foundation for more reliable online play and faster content going forward.

Along with improved stability, the new framework allows us to quickly author new Hero Cards, passive effects, and gameplay modifiers. (For example, the core functionality of Hero Pack IV could be built in a single day— although that doesn’t include any new UI elements or testing.)

Plus we’ve brought over a bunch of Hero tweaks and balance fixes we’ve had our eyes on for a while now.

For the detailed list of changes implemented with Astatos v0.9.7, please read on below.

• From the team at Studio Klondike

The New Trial Engine

We've completely rewritten the systems behind Trials. Most of this happens behind the scenes, but here's what you'll notice:

• More stable online play. Player synchronisation has been rebuilt, greatly reducing desyncs and stalled Trials.

• Host migration. If the host disconnects mid-Trial, the match now continues under a new host instead of ending.

• Player replacement. If a player disconnects mid-Trial, they are replaced with an AI player in their place, allowing the remainder of the match to be played out normally.

• Smoother pacing. Ability animations and turn flow are now kept in step across all players.

• Revised AI logic. AI opponents now take actions faster, and cooperate better with players in Conquest Trials.

• New Hero Stage AI. The Hero Stage AI has been rewritten, with more advanced modelling of the Hero Abilities and the ability to plan longer-term actions on higher difficulties.

While we put a lot of work into testing this update, running through hundreds of Trials in each mode, we can only cover so many bases! Particularly when it comes to rare edge cases, or story content.

As with any change this large, please report anything unusual in the Steam community or our Discord.

Please also give us feedback on AI difficulty, particularly during the Story Trials!

New Content

• A new Hero Skin has been made available as the monthly reward. The previous month’s Hero Skin has been added to the in-game store.

• Cato - The Method of Madness

Game Changes — Rules

• [Conquest Trial] Resolve now persists between rounds. The effect now lasts until it blocks a player from Flipping sides. Additionally, undistributed Resolve is banked until it can be distributed.

• [Conquest Trial] Changed player side assignment rules. If there is an odd number of players, the final player is assigned to Mukaki’s side at the start of the Trial. (previously Makari-Hari’s Side).

• Takeover and Story Trial tie-break. When Influence is tied, Mukaki's Side now takes the first turn (previously Makari-Hari's Side).

• Spell - Divine Favour. Will now always draw a Card matching the Trial Card. (i.e. A matching Element or the Exalted Element Spell Card.)

Game Changes — Heroes

• Zermes. No longer discards the final pair when Elements don't match; it simply stops.

• Kyros. The hand reveal is now persistent from the moment Kyros is summoned, rather than a one-time reveal at the start of the Trial Stage.

• Alexios. Cooldown effect now excludes all future multi-turn Cooldowns in addition to Mukaki, and Makari-Hari.

• [Conquest] Lysander. You now select the player first, then the Element.

• Nikos. Now costs +1 Energy to Summon. (We intend to revert this change in the future with the release of Hero Pack IV)

Game Changes — General

• Sprite compression has been optimised, reducing the game filesize by roughly 100mb.

• AI opponents now act faster under certain circumstances.

New Features

• It’s now possible to skip dialogue during Story Trials! This option appears under different circumstances depending on the “Skippable Text” setting.

  By default you can only skip dialogue that you have already read that session. (Such as when replaying a Trial after a Game Over.) If you enable “Skip All” text, then the option will always appear when available.

Game Fixes

• Drafting system optimisations. It should no longer be possible to ban or pick additional Heroes outside the intended limits.

• Every Hero's Ability description has been reworded in English for clarity.

• Fixed an issue where the animation on the splash screen wouldn’t load in correctly.

• Card artwork is now properly preloaded in Story Trials even if the default skins are not equipped.

• Adjusted some story gameplay content for the changed mechanics.

• Fixed a soft-lock scenario in the Story Trial during ‘Journey to Irinipolis - Part II’.

• Various typo and text fixes in the story.

• The passive UI position of the skin ‘Amicus - Stellar Deliverer’ has been fixed.