Hey Everyone!

It’s been a few weeks since our last update! In the meantime, we’ve been getting closer and closer to the next Major Update. Today, we’re going to take a look at the biggest upcoming addition - Astrology. Let’s take a look 👀 

💫Astrology Preview

Astrology is all about studying the constellations of Melvor to unlock new knowledge for your character. This knowledge can come in many forms such as content unlocks, bonuses, or unique modifiers not seen elsewhere.

Similar to Melvor Idle, you'll be tasked to study Constellations to progress the Skill and unlock the rewards it may provide, with each Constellation looking after 2 Skills in the game.

Astrology is designed to permanently boost your character in various ways, let's see how.

Studying Constellations & Gaining Knowledge

Studying a Constellation will grant you "Knowledge" for the specific Constellation. As you gain more knowledge, you'll be rewarded with the ability to unlock "Nodes" within the Constellation.

Nodes are permanent unlocks that remain with you forever once unlocked. Let's take a look at what they have to offer.

Minor Nodes

The first Node you will be able to unlock is called a Minor Node. These are relatively small and generic bonuses designed to assist you with their respective Skill. By themselves the bonuses are small, however you have the ability to unlock a total of 16 Minor Nodes per constellation which make them great as a collective.

Minor Nodes can be unlocked in any order you desire. We'll give you the option to unlock one, then its up to you to pick which one you want.

Many of the Minor Nodes have an extra Skill level requirement on them to unlock, so you'll need to ensure you're training the respective Skill alongside Astrology to really benefit from the Skill.

Minor Nodes are cool, but let's look at the big unlocks.

Major Nodes

After every 4 Minor Node unlocks, you'll be given the ability to select one Major Node to unlock. These Major Nodes contain the best permanent unlocks in the Skill, and what they provide is vastly different to Minor Nodes.

Each Constellation has 4 Major Nodes to choose from. You can unlock them in any order you desire, giving you the freedom to pick what's most important to you at the time.

There are a few types of unlocks you'll find locked behind Major Nodes:

Flat Bonuses - Some will provide flat modifiers to Skills that will greatly help with progression.

Unique Bonuses - You'll find some unique bonuses for Skills that you won't be able to find anywhere else in the game.

Content Locks - They will unlock something in a Skill for you to explore. New items with new bonuses and unique uses.

Combat Effects - Permanent Combat Effects for your character can be obtained.

Putting it all together - there are 16 Minor Nodes and 4 Major Nodes in every Constellation for you to permanently unlock up to Level 99.

Sightings

While studying Constellations, you'll come across a few events that can occur in the night sky. These are known as "Sightings", which can occur at random in the Skill and provide you with the ability to train on new content in certain Skills.

On release, these Sightings will be possible:

Meteorite: Allows you to mine Meteorite Ore in Mining

Starfall: Allows you to mine Stardust in Mining

Golden Starfall: Allows you to mine Golden Stardust in Mining.

Mining these items grants access to a whole new section of content, such as Meteorite Gear in Smithing for example.

Sightings arrive in the form of a consumable Item called a Sighting Log. For example, when you sight a Meteorite you'll be granted with a random quantity of Meteorite Sightings Log. Thematically, this is you noting down where the falling Meteorite has landed to mine at a later date.

You'll be required to equip this Sighting Log in the relevant Skill to access the content it provides, and it will deplete as you train on the content.

Observations & Unlocking New Content

Something else you'll be able to come across while studying Constellations are Observations. It's a very simple feature that provides you with some silly pieces of text while you Study.

HOWEVER

Some rare Observations will permanently unlock brand new content for you to explore and enjoy. This includes:

Astral Spellbook: Unique Magic Spells themed after Astrology

Astral Prayers: Unique Prayers that provide bonuses not seen by other Prayers

New Combat Content: Access to new Combat Areas/Slayer Zones/Dungeons can be gated by rare Observations.

New Skilling Content: Some will grant access to new content in skills such as Fishing or Hunting.

This is just another little flavour feature outside of Major/Minor Nodes that can provide benefits to your character.

Astrology Conclusion

We hope you enjoyed the preview for Astrology! We are excited to see you delve in to Astrology and check out all the various rewards it has to offer.

We're roughly 1-2 weeks away from the Major Update drop, so the next development update will be the patch notes for the update.

🏋️ What the team have been working on 

Here’s what the team has been working on since our last post! 

Development

Malcs:

Finalised the Astrology UI. Still some work to do, but am very happy with the outcome so far.

Assisted with content additions and planning for remaining Astrology tasks.

Additional mechanics and features added to Astrology to give more life to the Skill.

Began working on implementing the new UI for skills such as Woodcutting, Mining, as well as implementing visual updates to Artisan Skills. This won't come to light for a while but we've got a head start on this now and have been testing it for the last few weeks.

Further planning for the main storyline is still underway. Excited to start implementing this after the Major Update release!

Coolrox:

Finalised and finished all required Astrology related mechanics and features.

Implemented the Loot History feature in to Thieving, alongside adding additional requested values to the feature (for both Combat and Thieving)

Has begun working on the new Craft X feature. This comes with some upgrades to core systems that will allow for other related features to be implemented in the future.

Coolrox will be away for 3 weeks as of next week.

Game Design

Prat:

Balance changes! Focused on the skills from the last Major Update, these changes should bring everything more in line with where we intend it to be (more details will be included in the relevant patch notes).

Finalised Astrology balancing and planning. Only minimal touches remain for the Skill.

We’ve been able to add a few extra goodies into Astrology in the last few weeks that add a lot to the skill. This has taken a bit of extra time, but we think it’s 100% worth it.

Artwork

Tapi:

New Slayer Master NPC artwork (emphasis on the Slay)

Also worked on loads more item artwork, mainly Beastcrafting items!

Now working on some of the artwork for Astrology, including items and the core UI artwork 👀

Ash:

Continuing to work on the various Monsters that still need artwork!

Also working on loads of new items, including new Armour artwork (including upgraded Armour art!)

Conclusion

Thanks for checking out this week’s post! We’re really looking forward to getting the next Major Update into everyone’s hands. 

If you have any suggestions for Astrology, please let us know over on Discord! We’re always happy to hear everyone’s ideas:

https://discord.gg/melvoridle 

And lastly, thanks to everyone who filled out our most recent Survey. We got the most responses of any survey so far, and all of that feedback will be hugely helpful!

See you around!

Althalus and Malcs