Rifts in the Veil - 8.5.0.0 Update

Pre-emptive TLDR; This update does not change the player experience or any non-Veil location, but does address a few bugs and overlooked changes that were meant to happen previously.

I've never forgotten about the concept "The Pit" ever since I had to remove it from the game. I've always wanted to restore a functional version of it while making it more meaningful to do. Today we're taking a step in that direction. Cross of Auria version 8.5.0.0 adds a new section to the bottom part of the Veil. This new path leads to new battles ascending in level, starting at level 5 and ending (for now) at level 30. This area introduces four rift types:

• Blue Rifts - Contain fiends not native to Revan who drop special crafting materials unique to this Veil event.

• Yellow Rifts - Contain mini locations Ruby will need to traverse to stop the threat.

• Red Rifts - Contain fiends native to Revan from other periods in time.

• Green Rifts - Contain corrupted and veilspawned combatants.

For now, only the enemies inside yellow rifts are one and done. Everything else is repeatable. With sufficient progress, new vendors become temporarily available until you buy their stock at which point they disappear. This challenge can begin as soon as Ruby has access to the Veil, and the level of the enemy is not necessarily indicative of Ruby's required level to participate.

After the first six rifts, blockers are currently in place for the next created but unused section. I intend to extend this challenge to enemies level 50 at least.

Sidebar, I ran a test on this location with my 65+hour save file and completely annihilated everything. This same file has a mild struggle with the end-of-game world bosses that appear. In doing so, I learned two things. (1) - Though released untested, the world bosses can be defeated. (2) - The effectiveness of participating in this event diminishes relative to how much higher of a level Ruby is than the enemies and rewards.

Because of those conclusions, I intend to immediately start on the next series of challenges to bring it up to end-of-game level ASAP, and then push it slowly beyond that. From my previous testing experience, gearing up the characters has a very clear hierarchy once you start to do all of the side content. This includes events in the Colosseum, the Hall of Challengers, the previously released Veil Challenge, and the Zodiac Overwatch. Instead of offering the usual armor and weapons found in those locations, I intend to make this one mostly utility in the form of battle items, crafted gear, and most importantly - skills & magic.

Updates to this event may come in the form of unannounced incremented game versions (8.5.1.0, 8.5.2.0, etc) as opposed to update announcements, depending on the frequency I can release them. If I hold back until next week, there will be a new full post instead. Please report any broken interactions as a comment to this or any other post right here on Steam!

8.5 - RIFTS IN THE VEIL

• Added a new battle challenge section to the Awoken Veil.

• Heart Strike has been updated to consume Bleed V.

• Fixed a broken tile in Mountainside Area.

• Attempted to fix Mend's Mastery Effect not working as intended.

• Fixed some broken tooltips on weapons & armor.

• Removed the Dual-Wield flag from the Commando class.

• Adjusted the tooltip of most usable Classes.

• Black Mage now also learns Fireball, Watershot, Sludgebolt, Wind Buffet, & Arcane Shock II from levels 50-75.

• Dark Insect Scythe now classified internally as "Scythe", was previously changed to "General Weapon" without regard for the requirements of Singlehand & Doublehand Stance.

• Frostwhirl Scythe now correctly classified as a Scythe - was previously Katana by mistake.

• Removed keyword Unremarkable from all tooltips.

• New poisons now grant immunity to lower tier poisons.

• Tamed Rattler now resists all new poisons.

• Tamed Rattler now applies the new poisons diminishing from 20% at tier 1.

• Tamed Rattler now applies Slow states diminishing from 20% at tier 1.

• Custom Slow states now reset turns when reapplied.

• Backstab now bypasses barriers.

• Lightning Rage no longer affects Evasion or Target rates.

• Removed several unused sideview enemy assets from the game files.