Astral Tree, QoL and Launcher Updates
This devlog is mostly about quality of life, client improvements and some important Astral Tree changes.
A lot of the bigger systems are already in place, so the current focus has been on making the existing features feel better while playing. Some of these changes are small, some are much bigger in the background, but all of them should make Project Astral smoother and more comfortable to use.
Astral Tree Performance Improvements
The Astral Tree has grown a lot over time, and with that came some performance problems.
Moving the window, scrolling around, zooming in and out, or handling larger parts of the tree could cause heavy FPS drops because of how much data the addon had to deal with.
The whole backend behind the Astral Tree communication has now been reworked.
The addon and server side now handle the data in a much cleaner way, so the tree should feel a lot smoother than before. This was an important fix, because the Astral Tree is one of the main systems of Project Astral and it needs to feel good to use.
That being said, I am not fully happy with the performance yet. It works for now and is already in a much better state, but there is still room for improvement. This is something that will continue to be improved over time.
Account-Wide Reagent Bank
A bigger new addition is the account-wide Reagent Bank.
This can be unlocked through the Astral Tree and gives players shared reagent storage across the account.
The goal is simple: less annoying material management, less mailing items between characters, and more space for actual gameplay.
If the Reagent Bank node is removed from the Astral Tree, the bank does not delete anything. It simply becomes frozen. All items stay saved, and once the node is unlocked again, the bank becomes available again with all stored items still inside.
This should be especially useful for players who like professions, farming or playing multiple characters.
New Convenience Nodes
Several new convenience nodes have been added to the Astral Tree.
These are not meant to be huge power upgrades. They are there to make the game feel better over time and remove some of the small annoyances that come with older WoW gameplay.
New nodes include:
– Account-wide Reagent Bank
– AoE Loot
– Instant Flight via Flight Master and cost reduction
– Water Walking
– Water Breathing
– Reduced fall damage
– Resurrection Sickness reduction, up to completely removing the debuff
– Hearthstone cooldown reduction, down to a 3-minute cooldown
– Movement speed
– Mounted movement speed
– Flight speed
– Profession bonuses for gathering, crafting speed, skill points and craft amount
These bonuses should make progression through the Astral Tree feel useful even outside of combat.
Mythic Raid Difficulty Selection
Mythic raid difficulty has been added to the player frame raid difficulty menu.
Players can now select Mythic difficulty directly through the normal raid difficulty selection, making the system feel much more natural and closer to the default WoW interface.
This should make entering Mythic raids cleaner and easier to understand, without needing extra commands or workarounds thru the AstralHub.
AoE Loot
AoE Loot has been added as a new Astral Tree unlock.
This is one of the bigger quality-of-life features in this update.
After unlocking the node, nearby corpses can be looted at once, similar to modern WoW.
This should make farming, leveling and clearing larger groups much smoother, especially when clearing old content or doing big AoE pulls.
Instant Flight
Instant Flight has also been added as an Astral Tree unlock.
Once unlocked, flight paths become instant, but the cost is increased by 5x. Follow-up nodes can reduce this extra cost by up to 99%, making instant travel much cheaper again over time.
This gives players another useful long-term convenience upgrade without making it completely free right away.
Profession Nodes
New profession nodes have also been added to the Astral Tree.
These nodes are focused on making professions feel better and more rewarding over time. They include bonuses for:
- Gather amount multiplier
- Craft speed multiplier
- Skill point multiplier
- Craft amount multiplier
This should make farming, crafting and profession leveling feel much smoother as players progress through the tree.
AwesomeWotLKLib.dll
Project Astral now includes AwesomeWotLKLib.dll.
This adds a few client-side improvements like better nameplates, adjustable FOV and autologin support through the launcher.
It also opens up more possibilities for future custom hooks. A lot of future modules can benefit from this, especially systems that need deeper client-side support. One example for later development is the Transmog module.
For now, the most noticeable parts are the quality-of-life improvements, especially nameplates, FOV and launcher autologin.
Optional HD Patch
The launcher now has support for an optional HD Patch.
Players can enable it directly in the launcher settings. Once enabled, the launcher downloads the HD files automatically.
The patch includes things like:
- HD mounts
- HD spell and ability visuals
- HD character models
- Other visual upgrades
If the option is disabled again, the launcher removes the HD files automatically.
So players can decide for themselves if they want the upgraded visuals or if they prefer the original look.
Example (CLICK HERE)
Astral Tree UI Changes
The Astral Tree got a few small UI improvements.
The Total Bonuses window is now scrollable. Since the tree already has a lot of nodes and bonuses, the old version was starting to feel a bit cramped once more things were unlocked.
It is not a huge flashy feature, but it makes the overview much cleaner and easier to use.
Automatic Cache Cleanup
The launcher now deletes the Cache folder by default.
This helps prevent a lot of common client-side issues, especially with custom content. New items, spells, NPC gossip menus, names and other client data can easily conflict with old cached files.
Having the launcher handle this automatically should prevent many small problems before they happen.
Players can also disable this option at any time. The launcher saves the choice, so if someone does not want the Cache folder to be deleted on launch, they can simply turn it off.
Final Words
This update was mostly about making Project Astral feel better to play.
The Astral Tree should run smoother, the UI is cleaner, new convenience unlocks have been added, AoE Loot is now part of the tree, and the new account-wide Reagent Bank should make material storage much less annoying.
The launcher also got some important upgrades with optional HD patch support, automatic cache cleanup and autologin support.