## HIGHLIGHTS
- **Loot Filter Studio Expanded** - Added preset-based strictness controls, quick toggles, deeper rule editing, profile management, and better hidden-loot visibility controls.
- **Rare Drops Upgraded** - Rare items can now roll as Greater or Perfect rares, with stronger top-end affix guarantees and distinct ground-label, card, and tooltip treatment.
- **Combat Presentation Pass** - Babylon locomotion, action presentation, enemy attack reads, and VFX behavior all received another polish and performance pass for cleaner fights.
- **Aether Card Refresh** - Official Aether art coverage expanded again, with 100 card art files touched in this local update alone (66 new, 34 refreshed), plus clearer element-driven card presentation.
- **Steam-First Web Refresh** - Landing/download flow, site icons, manifest metadata, and social preview assets were refreshed around the current Steam-facing presentation.
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## COMBAT AND ITEMIZATION
### Rare Item Tiers
- Rare drops can now roll as **regular**, **Greater**, or **Perfect** rares.
- Greater and Perfect rares guarantee more high-end affix quality when they drop.
- Greater and Perfect rares now show distinct visual treatment in ground labels, item cards, and full item tooltips.
### Affix And Drop Quality
- Affix tier rolling now favors better unlocked tiers more aggressively, especially on higher-level and rarer drops.
- Rare item generation and rare-tier enforcement were tightened so top-end rare drops land more consistently.
- Spire affix values were rebalanced across damage, flat damage, speed, crit, ailment, conditional, and utility families.
- More weapon-facing affixes now unlock meaningful tiers earlier in the midgame instead of bunching too much power at the top end.
- Some multiplier-style item stats now apply correctly on equipped characters instead of behaving like flat additive bonuses.
### Runtime Combat Feel
- Combat world-state and render-entity syncing were tightened for more consistent runtime playback.
- Presented unit positions and follow behavior were tuned to reduce jitter and keep movement reads cleaner.
- Ranged enemy basic attacks now render as projectile-style attacks when their weapon family calls for it, instead of reading like generic melee hits.
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## LOOT, UI, AND RUN FLOW
### Loot Filter Studio
- Added quick strictness presets from Very Soft through Uber Strict.
- Added quick toggles for normal items, magic items, all magic items, and low-value currency cleanup.
- Added better profile controls for creating, renaming, duplicating, switching, and deleting loot-filter profiles.
- Expanded the rule editor and added a coverage preview so you can see how much of the current sample pool stays visible.
- Added a persistent "show hidden in panel" style workflow so hidden drops are easier to inspect without fully turning the filter off.
### Loot Panel And Shell
- Loot panel flow was reworked so the meters view behaves more like a dedicated flyout instead of a cramped third tab.
- Hidden ground-loot counts and reveal controls are surfaced more clearly in the unlooted panel.
- Gold rows are consolidated more cleanly in the loot panel.
- Runtime shell panels, roster views, combat stats views, and meter surfaces all received another layout/presentation pass.
### Landing And Download UX
- The landing page now leads with Steam as the primary acquisition path and moves standalone desktop downloads into a clearer secondary lane.
- Download copy, release links, and storefront framing were refreshed to match the current release posture.
- Added new favicon, apple-touch, Android, and social-preview assets plus updated site metadata and manifest text.
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## ANIMATION, VFX, AND PERFORMANCE FEEL
### Motion And Animation
- Locomotion pacing, facing resolution, and shared motion presentation were tuned again to reduce sliding, awkward turn snaps, and unstable action transitions.
- VAT enemy animation state handling was refined so enemy motion reads more cleanly in combat.
- Contact-shadow transforms and presented-motion tracking were optimized to reduce per-frame churn while keeping movement readable.
### VFX Coverage And Readability
- Skill motif coverage was expanded across a much larger set of hero skills, giving more characters clearer visual identity.
- Added more particle texture variety and shape coverage for crystals, arcs, swirls, starbursts, energy wisps, bubbles, and other motif-driven effects.
- Projectile and impact phrases were updated for richer trail, burst, and follow-up behavior.
- Enemy melee VFX now branch into projectile-style presentation for ranged weapon families where appropriate.
### Long-Session Stability
- VFX budgets were tightened across quality tiers to reduce runaway effect load during heavy fights.
- Stale transient and persistent VFX are swept more aggressively.
- Orphaned sub-emitter meshes are explicitly cleaned up to avoid long-session scene buildup.
- Loot-label projection, world overlay drawing, and runtime-shell rendering paths received more memoization, pooling, and cleanup work for smoother sustained combat.
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## AETHER DECK AND CARD ART
### Official Card Art Refresh
- Added **66** new official Aether card art files.
- Refreshed **34** existing official Aether card art files.
- Direct official art coverage now replaces more fallback alias usage for cards that were previously pointing at placeholder or borrowed art.
### Card Presentation
- Aether cards now use element-driven overlays and border glows based on card tags, making elemental identity easier to read at a glance.
- Card readability and typography behavior received another pass to keep dense rules text cleaner.
### Recommendation Tuning
- Hero card recommendation presets were retuned across the roster so offense, defense, and support recommendations line up better with each hero's actual role and tag profile.