Greetings Knights-To-Be,

The Sands of Aura team are proud to announce that the Twin Thorns patch is now live!

Here are some of the major changes you’ll find in this update:

RUNE STAT REBALANCE

Runes primary purpose is to allow players to pick and choose their stat builds regardless of the armor or weapon they are using. Our initial design of the stat did not feel impactful enough for a player to notice the difference when they equip it onto a piece of armor. Overall, it just was not exciting to pick up a rune.

We have done a deep dive into the numbers and gave our entire rune system a proper rework and rebalance. Picking up a rune and equipping it at level 1 will allow players to feel the effects of their choices much sooner. Instead of feeling like the items were useless early on but better at the end game, it will feel exciting picking up a new rune for your build. We would not say the current iteration of this system is perfect, but it certainly feels pretty good.

However, all good things seem to always come at a cost. While we would have preferred to avoid wiping our players’ save files, we are yet again forced to do it. Our team decided it was necessary to do so because of the rework and rebalance to the Rune Stat system, along with a number of item tweaks. It is possible to do this without wiping our player’s save files, however, it would have taken significantly more time from our other development priorities. We understand that this can be frustrating and we hope to do better moving forward. We believe that these changes are worth it for the experience you will have as a new player or as a returning player.

RADIX STRONGHOLD

From the lush foliage of Tupi’s Grotto to the sweltering confines of the Cinderhold prison—etched across the sands of Talamhel are the tales of your valiant deeds, the myths of your daring escapades. Masses of Corrupted have been vanquished, countless ruins have been explored, and that which was desperately needed has been delivered safely back to Starspire. It seems that crisis has been averted.
But when the central pillar of a community collapses, does hope collapse with it?
A gale of uncertainty spreads across Talamhel. The way forward becoming more unclear than ever. Do you have the courage to rise? To answer doubt with the unfurling of sails?
Be it dagger or glaive, sword or mace, the melody of your method will echo against the crumbling barricades of Radix Stronghold, as you root out a way to restore stability to Starspire. Take to the sands with new allies at your side, provide solace to those in a world wracked by plague, and untangle what mysteries await you within this new perilous labyrinth.
For generations the righteous have endured, have wrestled back the hordes of corruption—but they are not alone in this tenacity. The Night Plague is escalating, adapting its cataclysmic essence into a figurehead of its own. How will you answer this call? What will you sacrifice in the name of progress, in the name of survival?
Choose wisely, Knights-To-Be… There are those who depend on you now more than ever.

0.02.00 — Twin Thorn Patch Notes

Character

• Added Moro, The Wilgrim Twins, Malek Mard, and others!
  
• Fixed texture seams on certain character models.
  

Quests

• New main quest taking you to Radix Stronghold.
  
• New side quests.
  
• New quest for Malek Mard.
  
• End of Early Access Credits have been moved to accommodate more story.
  

Islands & Environment

• Radix Stronghold added.
  
• Malek’s Menagerie added.
  
• Gamble’s Approach accessible.
  
• Added volumes to ideally prevent player glint from being dropped in inaccessible places on death. Improvement to the system overall.
  
• Improvements to level models to allow better player visibility through tall pillars/objects.
  
• Tweaks to elevators.
  

Items

• Quest items for Radix Stronghold have been added.
  
• Quest items for Malek’s Menagerie have been added.
  
• New Armor set to be found in Radix!
  
• The player will now find Testament bells during their journeys which will increase the maximum number of times they can heal in between resting at Resonance bells.
  
• Rune Stats Rebalance
  
• Runes are now more powerful and feel more impactful early on in the game
  
• Improved item placement when items spawn from chests and enemies.
  
• Fixed bug allowing the player to drop items in situations they shouldn’t. (Driving the boat, climbing a ladder, etc.)
  
• Fixed bug causing item effects on dropped items to appear in the incorrect orientation.
  

Combat Changes

• Fixed bug that would allow player to easily get stagger locked by rapid attacks.
  
• Remade all dodge roll animations, rebalanced i-frame windows, and made adjustments to recovery duration to make doding more responsive and give more feedback.
  
• Changed player movement animation to be driven by input rather than velocity to improve feel and responsiveness.
  
• Attacks that cause knockback will now scale their magnitude based on the distance between the attacker and target.
  

AI

• Enemies now use momentum prediction when aiming ranged attacks to varying degrees of accuracy.
  
• Fixed issues on various enemies that could cause them to get stuck in decision making indefinitely.
  
• Made adjustments to AI movement and avoidance so that they navigate around each other better and don’t clump up.
  
• Ubaani can now be stunned by relevant effects.
  
• Fixed a bug on npcs that caused them to stutter while walking around.
  

Code

• Fixed various instances of crashes.
  
• Made Cinderhold’s Overheated effect (and others) remove on death.
  
• Fixed wrong model for 2h slash weapons.
  

Interface

• New ForgeSmith to help boost your gear!
  
• Fixed the damage display for janky and mace head effects on the weapon creation screen, they now properly show their damage range.
  
• Better indications of debuffs for the player, as well as player buffs. There are now three separate locations for status effects, ones beneficial to the player are under the players current healing bells(Bottom left of player screen), harmful effects will show about that same element. Finally more significant harmful effects are displayed in the center of the screen with placeholder text to describe the effect (text will be changed once it has been localized)
  
• Changes made to ensure UI and HUD elements do not incorrectly display during cutscenes.
  
• Fixed item pick up displays to show up more constantly
  
• Added a larger fog of war reveal when the player discovers an island
  
• Cursor fixes in menus.
  
• Darkened Fog of War on the map.
  
• Fixed an item upgrade exploit
  

SFX

• New footstep sounds at times, improved grass footsteps.
  
• Tweaks to sound effects throughout the game
  
• Music polish on many tracks. Transitions feel smoother.
  
• Ambiance improved for music tracks in-level.
  
• Increased volumes on some of Greckko’s sounds.
  
• Heartbeat sound bug fixed.
  

VFX

• Boat particles adjusted for performance.
  
• Improvements to the fog wall.
  
• Improved shadow quality at lower graphic settings.
  

We have poured a lot of blood, sweat, tears and lots of sand into this one. And we hope you’ll enjoy it as much as we have.

Thank you for playing!
Chashu Entertainment