Cross of Auria update for 19 December 2021

Before we begin, I have an announcement to make. The Cross of Auria YouTube channel has been deleted. This is not a commentary about the future of the game, but rather a necessity due to the change of copyright legality surrounding the music files used to create the original trailers between 2018-2020. From here on out, any Cross of Auria update videos will be posted directly to my personal YouTube channel @ http://www.youtube.com/Hardytier to its own playlist. An announcement will go up here whenever one of those videos has been posted, so there is no need to subscribe if you're not interested in the other things I do in my non-development time.

As of right now, we're on track to meet the Dec 24th deadline I gave myself for the Yuelslain's Village unless something happens to pull me away. If I am unable to complete the main questline by then, I will push back the release to January 15th. Yuelslain's Monarch is going to get pushed back even if I am able to meet the YV deadline. Rather than add a simple boss for $2, we're changing functionality of one of the YV zones or adding a new one altogether - I haven't decided yet.

Some of this isn't going to make any sense until the village is open, but the patch notes for release day were getting long - so let's chop it up a little bit and deploy what we can right now.

We haven't hit that point yet, but enemies whose HP is greater than the maximum RMMV can handle will have the remaining HP applied as Barrier Points. Also, some enemies simply have a fraction of their HP as Barrier instead. Some enemies in Yuelslain's Village use this concept, so tools to combat this must also enter the fray. For now, only a handful of abilities were added with the new concept: Warp. None of the characters learn these by level-up, so a Guidebook or skill-enabling piece of gear will be needed.

Yuelslain's Village will introduce the greatest challenge in CoA to date, so it should also introduce the greatest pool of rewards. At the time of writing this, there are 14 weapons and 44 armor pieces coded into the game just for the new zone. Of the armor, there are two full sets of gear (Yuel's Set & Festive Set), and one accessory only set (Resistance Set). Gear ranges from uncommon @ 400 points to legendary @ 600 points, marking the highest available set by points in the game. Some time after the release, I'll do another video explaining the gear to points situation, as it has evolved from my last explanation.

With the most recent series of updates, we saw the ability to change outfits for Ruby, Miles, and Riley. With Yuelslain's Village, we will see the first permanent Class change with the introduction of the Frostslayer class, which can be equipped by either Amaya or Eurus. As of right now, once their class has been changed, Wind Warrior and Wind Reaver can not be recovered. Additionally, all wind skills will be unlearned - even those learned by sources other than level up - this isn't a big deal right now, but it's worth noting for later when Guidebooks become more widely available. The highlight of the Frostslayer class is the Ice-Killer Normal Attack, which does greatly increased damage to Ice-type enemies.

Finally, challenges in the Colosseum Basement can be repeated without having to complete the An'ura Rift upstairs.

5.0.16 [Build #111, Release Date: December 19, 2021]
New:

• New key term: Warp - used to describe removal of barrier points. A skill that would "remove 200 barrier points if possible" simply shows "Warp (200)" in the tooltip instead. Warp is typically associated with Arcane and has no effect on targets who do not have an active barrier. The warp effect is in addition to regularly calculated damage.
• New key term: Actions - used to describe the chance to act multiple times in a single turn. Formerly called "Act Twice" or "Act Again". A weapon that adds a chance to act another time in a single turn will now say "Actions (+x%)". If a single weapon has this in the tooltip multiple times, it indicates multiple stacking possibilities to act another time as opposed to a combined singular chance to act twice.

Yuelslain's Village (Extra Info):

• Reputation is gained with the village by completing events in the quest chain and may also be lost by giving unfavorable replies. Rep can also be gained by completing repeatable quests which unlock once the NPC's corresponding main quest step has finished.
• The village smiths will create gear for Ruby once her reputation with the town is high enough. They will even expand their shops to accept Risen and Yuelslayer coins as the village reputation gets higher.
• Festive Coins, Risen Coins, and Yuelslayer Coins are the currency for crafted gear in this town.
• Yule Spirits & Festive Coins always drop from Yuel's Lv. 50 minions.
• Risen Coins sometimes drop from Lv. 50 Risen enemies.
• Yule Spirits do not drop from the Risen and only occasionally drop from enemies below Lv. 50.
• Yuelslayer Coins occasionally drop from Lv. 50 enemies throughout all Yuelslain zones and may be disassembled from some of the region's gear.
• Soul of the Frost Slayer can be purchased from the Item Shop if the village reputation is high enough.

Frostslayer Class:

• Soul of the Frost Slayer pemanently changes Amaya's or Eurus's class to "Frostslayer". All wind skills learned by level-up are unlearned in the process. Amaya or Eurus will retain their level.
• Frostslayer's normal attacks are imbued with Ice-Killer which does greatly increased damage to any Ice enemy above level 10.
• Frostslayer learns by level up all of the shared basic ice-type skills, which includes: Frostrike, Icestrike, Avalanche, Frostbolt, Ice Spike, Ice Barrage, Icefall, Freeze, and Shatter. Additionally, Frostslayer learns the new magic abilities Blizzard (ice) and Hailstorm (ice-killer).
• Changing from Wind Warrior to Frostslayer will remove the following passive effects: End of turn TP Regeneration, Increased TP Charge Rate, Increased EXP gain, Immunity to Wind-Weak & Air Current, Resistance to TP Degeneration, and On-Hit Air Current.
• Changing from Wind Reaver to Frostslayer will remove the following passive effects: Immunity to Wind-Weak & Air Current, On-Hit Air Current.
• Frostslayer has the following passive effects: End of turn MP Regeneration, Reduced MP Cost, Immunity to Freeze, Deep Freeze, & Slow, Increased Defense from equipment, On-Hit Bleed, and resistance to ice damage.
• Frostslayer for Amaya has the same stat spread from Lv. 1-100 as Wind Warrior, and for Eurus has the same stat spread as Wind Reaver.
• Frostslayer retains Triple-Strike, Swing, Disabling Slice, Silencing Slice, and Thermite Grenade at the same levels as Wind Warrior for Amaya.
• Frostslayer retains Singlehand Stance, Doublehand Stance, Arcane Shock, Swing, and Arcane Shock II for Eurus.
• Frostslayer allows Eurus to equip Straps and Amaya to equip Scabbards. Currently, no Accessory can be equipped to either Wind Warrior or Wind Reaver.
• Singlehand Stance & Doublehand Stance will select from ice instead of wind skills.

New Skills:

• Warpstrike I - V (Arcane, physical), hits a single target X times where X is the level of the skill. Warp 200 per hit. CD: X.
• Warp (Arcane, magic), hits a target once at regular magic power. Warp 200. Additionally may apply the new Warp states @ Warp I (66%), Warp II (50%), Warp III (33%), Warp IV (10%), Warp V (3%).
• Warpblade (Arcane, physical), hits a target once at regular power. This damage bypasses barriers. Warp 200.
• Barrier Shell (non-elemental, magic) applies a 5000 point barrier to self for 1 turn.
• Warpspark - (Electric, magic) hits a target once at regular magic power, plus 1/4th Electric power. Warp 200. May apply Warp III (33%). Unlike other electric skills, this skill benefits from but does not contribute to Electric Power.

New States (Buffs & Debuffs):
Name: Effect per turn. (# of turns)

• Warp I: Removes 10 barrier points. (5)
• Warp II: Removes 100 barrier points. (5)
• Warp III: Removes 500 barrier points. (5)
• Warp IV: Removes 1000 barrier points. (5)
• Warp V: Removes 2500 barrier points. (5).
• Barrier I: Gains 10 barrier points. (5)
• Barrier II: Gains 100 barrier points. (5)
• Barrier III: Gains 250 barrier points. (5)
• Barrier IV: Gains 500 barrier points . (5)
• Barrier V: Gains 1000 barrier points. (5)

Fixes:

• Gazer Trio now resets all world vents and does not give a game over on defeat.

Updates & Changes:

• Bosses in the Colosseum Basement may be challenged repeatedly and no longer have their respawns tied to completing the An'ura Rift upstairs. Winning any boss fight in this area still resets all world vents.
• Blazerblade reflects the new terminology for players acquiring it new.
• "Chance on Hit" is being converted to "On-Hit".
• "Added Effect" and other preface tooltip texts are being removed.
• Avalance I, II, & III now have a TP cost that matches their MP cost.
• Doublehand Stance has additional effects at level 1 and again starting at level 20.

Schedule - 5.1.X

• Yuelslain's Village is on track to be released on December 24th. If a delay is needed, it will release on January 15th instead. This release will begin the 5.1.X branch of the game.
• Yuelslain's Monarch has not been started due to the time it has taken to create Yuelslain's Village, and is hereby officially pushed back to at least January 15th.
• A preliminary design for an expanded Scarlet Cavern has been created. After some tweaking and integration, the original multi-map system of Scarlet Cavern will be Timelost until they are finally removed from the game. This expanded map was created to serve as the second Colosseum event.
• Orc War main story questline is on hold pending the release of Yuelslain's Village and Yuelslain's Monarch, and following that a revamp of the Quest Log system which is currently unsustainable.
• Quest Log revamp will see dialogue and other non-directional text removed, an overall simplified design, and inclusion of quests which are currently excluded.
• At the beginning of 5.2.0, all zones marked as Timelost will be removed from the game to reclaim Map space. RMMV has a maximum number of "Maps" that can be used before it won't let me make any more, and while I did enjoy the multi-map system of dungeons like Den An'ura, it's an unsustainable system moving forward as the game continues to increase in depth.