Ascend

This document covers the complete player-facing update from Ascend 2.4.4 to 3.0.8.

Attribute balance at 100 points

The values below use Ascend's default configuration, a maximum attribute investment of 100, and an attribute scaling multiplier of 1.0. Optional effects require the named integration. Percentages applied through Minecraft attributes are described as bonuses to the relevant base value.

Main attributes

Removed Fortitude and weapon-scaling attributes

New soft-cap model

All eight current attributes use one reusable, configurable diminishing-return curve. With the defaults, investment is weighted as follows:

• Points 1–20: 1.00 effective value per point.
• Points 21–40: 0.75 per point.
• Points 41–60: 0.50 per point.
• Points 61–80: 0.25 per point.
• Points 81–100: 0.10 per point.

At the default 100-point attribute cap, this equals 52 effective points and is normalized to the configured maximum bonus. The soft-cap positions, segment gains, maximum investment, and global attribute multiplier are configurable.

Weapon scaling overhaul

Weapons no longer use Light, Medium, Heavy, or Magic Scaling player stats. Each weapon instead has grades for the main attributes. The registry currently supports Strength, Agility, Intelligence, Willpower, Charisma, and Arcane, allowing integrations and datapacks to add non-physical scaling later without changing damage-event code.

At 100 points, one attribute contributes the following percentage of the weapon's relevant base damage:

Contributions from multiple attributes are added. For example, a Diamond Sword with Strength C and Agility B gains 30% base weapon damage at 100 Strength, 40% at 100 Agility, or 70% when both are 100. The bonus targets weapon damage instead of multiplying the entire final Minecraft damage pipeline.

Vanilla weapon defaults

The Mace entry is registered only when the running Minecraft version provides that item. Snowballs, eggs, fishing rods, wind charges, and fireworks do not receive conventional scaling. Vanilla defaults are exposed through data/ascend/weapon_scaling/vanilla.json and can be overridden by datapacks. Grade coefficients are configurable.

Armor penetration API

Armor penetration reduces the target's armor value before Minecraft's armor-and-toughness calculation: 10% penetration treats 20 armor as 18 armor for that hit. The default global cap is 30% and is configurable through armorPenetrationCap.

Every eligible player hit posts net.fretux.ascend.api.event.ArmorPenetrationEvent on the Forge event bus. Integrations can add or replace the penetration amount, change the per-hit cap, or call disableCap(). Even with the configurable cap disabled, effective penetration is bounded to 100% because an attack cannot ignore more armor than the target has.

@SubscribeEvent
public static void modifyArmorPenetration(ArmorPenetrationEvent event) {
    event.addArmorPenetration(0.10); // Add ten percentage points.
    event.disableCap();              // Optional: bypass Ascend's configured cap for this hit.
}

Save migration

• Player data now has a persistent format version.
• The migration runs server-side once per player, including players who first join after the server was updated.
• Fortitude, Light Scaling, Medium Scaling, Heavy Scaling, and Magic Scaling investments are added together and refunded completely into unspent attribute points.
• Strength, Agility, Intelligence, Willpower, and Charisma investments are preserved.
• Vigor, Mind, and Arcane begin at their normal default value; Fortitude is not converted into either Vigor or Arcane.
• Ascend Level, Ascend XP, Knowledge, respec data, Moonseye Tome state, and unrelated persistent data are preserved.
• Missing legacy keys safely count as zero, and the new data version prevents duplicate refunds.
• The active server's configurable maximum Ascend level overrides stale cap snapshots in player saves.

Progression and configuration

• Ascend continues to use one shared Ascend XP value. There is no per-attribute XP.
• Gameplay activities award Ascend XP, Ascend XP raises the Ascend Level, and levels grant configurable unspent attribute points.
• The normal maximum Ascend level is 20, configurable from 1 to 100.
• Maximum investment remains configurable and defaults to 100 per attribute.
• Added settings for soft caps, all new attribute effects, Arcane's two duration categories, and every scaling-grade coefficient.
• Obsolete keys in an existing Forge config are tolerated rather than causing a startup failure.

Interface and usability

• Rebuilt the Ascend Stats screen around the eight current attributes in a wider two-column layout.
• Added clearer cards, color-coded accents, more spacing, readable values, upgrade availability, a progression panel, Knowledge, unspent points, and an Ascend XP bar.
• Removed the redundant “Ascend Stats” subtitle and fixed clipped Strength and Agility text.
• Replaced technical or ambiguous descriptions with direct player-facing language.
• Removed every legacy attribute from the screen, commands, tooltips, storage, networking, and gameplay calculations.
• Added weapon scaling-grade tooltips.
• Invalid attribute names used through commands are now rejected instead of silently doing nothing.

Compatibility and reliability

• Iron's Spells 'n Spellbooks remains optional. Its classes are isolated behind a guarded compatibility layer, and Ascend works without the mod installed.
• Mind & Motion remains optional. Ascend uses its public Sanity capability for existing shrine actions and leaves Sanity, Insanity, Madness, and Tempo ownership to Mind & Motion.
• Willpower's maximum Sanity and Tempo bonuses are supplied by Mind & Motion's existing Ascend integration; Ascend no longer duplicates or modifies Sanity-loss and Tempo-gain behavior.
• Player stats synchronize on login, death cloning, respawn, and dimension changes.
• Vigor health modifiers are safely replaced across upgrades and player lifecycle events.
• Arcane modifies eligible effects only at initial application, preventing repeated per-tick duration growth.
• Added automated coverage for soft caps, balance constants, optional Mind & Motion capability calls, save migration, duplicate-refund prevention, new-player behavior, and server-configured level caps.