The Song of Silence Update

Hello Transposers!

As we step into 2024, we're pleased to kick start the year with a massive update. In fact, it is our biggest one to date. It features a brand new endgame quest line, unique bosses and an array of powerful items designed to enrich your experience. Are you ready? Let's dive into the thrilling details of The Song of Silence.

[Preparing for the update] Loading a save on the new version will immediately refund your mind tree to account for a few balancing changes.

NEW CONTENT

[h2]New endgame quest line: Song of Silence[/h2]

A brand new endgame quest line with multiple unique bosses and new challenge heights. Naturally, they’ll award you with many powerful new items and fusion recipes.

To trigger the questline, you must have completed the “Transpose a patient with the Neural Activity Enhancer set to level 2” objective, then transpose any patient in any area other than Hark.

The Silent Spider is a key patient of the new quest line...

[h2]Infinite enhance (or close enough)[/h2]

You can now raise Neural Activity Enhance level on endgame patients all the way up to 999.999. Each additional Enhance level beyond 3 is a lesser difficulty increase compared to what happens from 0 to 3, but it’ll still eventually lead to ridiculous challenge levels.

Normal synapses and equipment can now be enhanced all the way up to +8, with diminishing returns applying above +3.

Certain endgame boss unique items now also have enhanced versions, sometimes with brand new modifiers on them (these need to be obtained by defeating said boss in higher Enhance levels).

[h2]Broadcast menu[/h2]

Endgame bosses, including the one that already existed, are now spawned manually using a new menu. To summon them, you need special “Evidence” items you can loot on patients associated with the boss’ quest line. That gives you control over when you want to face the bosses, instead of having them randomly pop at the wrong time and with a long cooldown.

[h2]New synapses[/h2]

The following new synapses can be found anywhere:

[Effect] Shriek: stores a % of damage taken by the target, and deals it all in a single hit when the effect wears off.
[Effect] Analysis: stores a % of damage taken by the target, and heals it all at once when the effect wears off.
[Effect] Shield bash: deals damage equal to a % of your current Shield + Barrier values.
[Form] Rejecting: Shaking that doesn’t hit the caster, useful for summon buffing and friendly-fire builds.
[Form] Expelling: Quaking that doesn’t hit the caster, useful for summon buffing and friendly-fire builds.

We’re leaving the last one, from the endgame quest line, for you to discover.

[h2]New equipment[/h2]

The following new equipment pieces can be found anywhere:

[Trinket] Projector: Increases Punch range.
[Trinket] Insulator: Reduces damage taken depending on how many enemies are adjacent to you.
[Trinket] Shadow core: Counteracts part of the damage reduction stacking identical damage effects on a single skill (e.g 2 Strikes)
[Trinket] Charge builder: Causes excess restored AP to be stored as Overcharge, a stacking effect that’s consumed before AP whenever it’s available.

We’ll let you find the bulk of new endgame quest line gear yourself, but here’s a single example:

You are unaffected by tile effects while moving.
Killing an enemy grants Flight until the turn ends. Flight lets you move at no AP cost.

[h2]New area events[/h2]

The following endgame area events can now appear:

Fascinating rumours: patients are Knowledgeable (added item rarity).
Dialogue association: patients are Wise (increased XP reward).
Treasure sighting: patients are Materialistic (increased Token reward).
Enhanced goods: Synapses and equipment in Deeler’s shop are enhanced.
Shard supply: Deeler will buy your items for Knowledge shards instead of Tokens.
The elite: patients are Rich (all enemies drop items).
Catalyst stock: Deeler’s shop sells multiple catalysts.
Rare stock: Synapses and equipment in Deeler’s shop are Rare (when possible).
Exceptional stock: Synapses and equipment in Deeler’s shop are Epic (when possible).
Astonishing stock: Synapses and equipment in Deeler’s shop are Legendary (when possible).

The Song of Silence is an excellent opportunity to make new friends...

[h2]New synapse & equipment modifiers[/h2]

The following synapse modifier can now be rolled:

[Push/Pull] Push deals more flat damage
[Push/Pull] Pushed entities deal a % of their max hp to entities they pass through
[Push/Pull] Pushed explosives traverse entities
[Push/Pull] Pushed explosives deal more damage
[Rewind/All in] Excess restored AP is stored as Overcharge
[All healing] Gain a Shield equal to a % of healing done
[All buffs with a duration] Grants 1 Overcharge on expiry
[All buffs with a duration] Grants a Shield equal to a % of your max hp on expiry
[Dash] You can Dash through entities
[Efficiency synapses] Skill gives additional Awareness gauge % on kill
[Efficiency synapses] Skill has additional effect power when Awakened
[Efficiency synapses] -1 AP cost at maximum Instability (never less than 1)
[Form synapses] More effect power when affecting a single target
[Form synapses] More effect power per target affected
[Gloves] Additional Punch range

Relevant synapses have had their maximum quality increased accordingly.

[h2]New achievements[/h2]

7 new achievements were added to the game.

COMMUNITY REQUESTS & OTHER QUALITY OF LIFE IMPROVEMENTS

[h2]Faster, please[/h2]

Game speed can now be changed to be up to 4x faster. This can be done in the settings or through the +/ - inputs on the number pad.
Lengthy animations can now be skipped with ESC, Space or right-click. This includes Neural forging, entering transposition, winning/losing transposition, xp and currency count on the transposition end panel.
A new “UI camera speed” setting was added that lets you adjust camera speed on the Map and Mind tree menus.
Camera zoom speed was slightly increased.

[h2]Understanding the game[/h2]

A Glossary panel has been added, press [G] to open it anywhere in the game and search for keywords to get more information on. We’ve added a first batch of content to it, let us know if there’s a specific entry you’d like to see there.
Most of Eiris’ attributes can now be hovered for more information on the Mind tree and Equipment menus.
Holding [ALT] while inspecting Mind tree perks will now display extra information way more often than it used to.
Attempting to refund the mind tree while having perks that structurally alter Skills (e.g allowing for additional Effect slots) now warns you that some Skills may be dismantled.

[h2]Neural forge[/h2]

Custom skill name and icon are no longer reverted back to the default when modifying a skill.
Synapse collections and Shop inventory “In use” feedback was moved so as to not hinder visibility so much.
Synapse minimum cooldown now properly displays its current value, including Mind tree reductions.
Right-clicking a Skill now shows the Edit panel.

[h2]Neural fusion[/h2]

You can now Recycle up to 9 synapses at once.
The Transform fusion now pops a little slider you can use to choose how many Catalysts you want to transform at once.
Clicking a fusion’s resulting synapse slots it back as a fusion component.
If the fusion recipes you’ve just performed can be ran again on the resulting synapse (e.g Quantum shift or Dislocate), the “Fuse” button becomes “Fuse again” and lets you do just that without extra clicks.
Fusion recipes that destroy your synapse to create a new one (e.g Dislocate) now try to preserve the Skill that synapse was composing (if any), replacing the old synapse with the new one. That process might fail in certain edge cases.
A toggle on the Synapse inventory lets you indicate synapses that are in use in other skill sets, so you don’t accidentally destroy something important.
The “Fuse” confirmation popup now explicitly mentions Skills that would be destroyed.

[h2]Transposition[/h2]

Your camera zoom level is now saved, so you won’t have to zoom all the way out anymore. Map and boss introduction properly restore your saved zoom level.
Instability generation was added to the Combat log.
You can now right-click + drag to move the camera in transposition.
Depth feedback was added on room exit gates so you know what Explore Depth you’re getting into.
Enhance feedback was added in transposition on the patient’s portrait, so you can see what Enhance level you’re playing at a glance.
The Sharpshooter effect was added to multiple enemies that already ignored line of sight (for clarity).

[h2]Other[/h2]

Mind tree default zoom level now depends on how many perks you’ve unlocked.
Added an ambient track to the hub, so it’s more atmospheric and not completely silent with music disabled.
The main combat track has been polished so it’s a little less repetitive.
A transparent quick-save system was added, allowing the game to reload an older version in the event that a game breaking bug would end up damaging your save files.
A new setting was added to disable camera glitch effects.

BALANCING

[h2]Eiris’ endgame damage nerf[/h2]

As wisely suggested by some of you, we’ve reviewed Eiris’ damage calculations (in a nutshell, a lot of multiplications became additions). This mostly changes nothing in the early game, subtly nerfs your damage in the mid-game, and majorly nerfs big endgame damage numbers (we’re talking up to thousands of times less damage in the most extreme cases). This should make it more difficult to trivialize endgame challenges, though it is still possible to one-shot the strongest bosses in the game with the right setup. If you’re still one-shotting away, infinite Enhance should have you covered!
We’ve also uncovered a few bugs in specific modifier calculations that led to undue damage increases, these were fixed.

[h2]Enemies[/h2]

Enemies deal slightly less damage at all stages of the game.
Enemy hp increases less drastically with the first 3 Enhance levels.
A few enemies have had their HP reduced (you know who you are, Temptation).
A few enemies have had their healing potential reduced (Complacency, Temptation).
A few enemies have had their damage resistances reduced.
A few enemies have had their behavior reviewed (example: Inner gaze now charges for 1 turn before stunning you).
The tutorial Lesser regret (day 3) has been made much easier.
Thick haze healing has been reduced.

[h2]Synapses[/h2]

Efficiency synapse tiers were shuffled around so that high-ap-cost synapses are generally obtained later.
Eiris’ damage buffs and defense debuffs were nerfed, as their scaling with Effect power could lead to enormous damage numbers.
Blood burst was nerfed, it deals less damage and costs more hp (still leads to some of the highest damage numbers in the game).
Drain was nerfed, it now heals for 35% of damage dealt.
Rewind & All in have had their minimum cooldown increased.

[h2]Mind tree[/h2]

The Resilience perk now refreshes when entering a new room.
Ranged damage perks were nerfed, as the “Fear ranged damage” build had huge damage numbers and no weaknesses so far.
The Isolation perk now reduces a skill’s minimum cooldown by an amount equal to its movement effect’s base minimum cooldown, instead of completely nullifying it.

[h2]Other[/h2]

Magnify no longer increases the size of on-death skills.
Deeler now always sells a Ponder shard in Bleak island.
Ankhs are no longer affected by healing multiplier.

BUG FIXES

Fixed multiple typos.
Fixed a bug where Light-footed wouldn’t cause you to bypass certain tile effect movement penalties (Sludge, Foul ground).
Light-footed no longer causes you to ignore “positive” tile effects such as Flow.
The “Into the Shadow” fusion recipe is now properly limited by a Synapse’s max quality.
Fixed a bug where your allies would count toward the “Have enemies step on tile effects” secondary objective.
Fixed a bug where the “Always show item rolls” setting would also cause Mind tree tooltips to show all the time.
Fixed a bug where some of Eiris’ attributes wouldn’t show when you had too many different ones.
Fixed a bug where incompatible secondary objectives would still occasionally show together.
Fixed a bug where killing summoned allies counted toward certain secondary objectives and stunts.
Fixed a bug where Invisible was removed if an enemy spread its afflictions on death.
Fixed a bug where Awareness could display the wrong value.
Fixed a bug where combining Dash & Push led to numerous wrong raycast displays.
Fixed multiple typos on modifier values (+1 showing -99 instead, that kind).
Fixed a bug where Awakened skills wouldn’t match their normal versions.
Fixed a bug where Oppress skill preview could display incoherent values.
Fixed a bug where Opress + Sanity bond could lead you to become stuck on some “raised” tiles.
Fixed a bug where infinite enemy cooldowns would display as a very large number instead.
Fixed a bug where enemy replicas wouldn’t properly update their current hp %.
Fixed a bug where ally Hunger, Voracity and Emotion tumors would use skills they shouldn’t use as allies.
Fixed multiple entries not showing in the Transposer log.
Removed obsolete entries from the Transposer log.
Fixed Unstable memory having the wrong description.
Fixed a bug where modifier tiers would show as being above their maximum tier.
Fixed a bug where the Cruel Tri-perpetuation unique efficiency Synapse wouldn’t trigger its effect when killing an enemy with Affliction tick on application.
Fixed a bug where Fusion vfx would display above the confirmation popup.
Fixed a bug where raycasting a Drain effect would reveal invisible entities through the skill preview.
Fixed a bug where equipping a skill with left-click wouldn’t play the associated sound effect.
Fixed a bug where Blood burst’s Awakened version would have a changed damage type.
Fixed a bug where some affixes could roll 0% values.
Fixed a bug where enemy replicas could drop items.
Fixed a bug where enemies would obsessively move toward the bottom-left edge of the map if you were concealed.
Fixed a bug where Innar could spawn simultaneously with Pum introducing Explore depth 2, causing a soft-lock.
Fixed a bug where some sound effects would be unaffected by their associated sound volume slider.
Fixed a few bugs where the Punch skill wouldn’t properly update when swapping skill sets or unequipping gloves.

We're thrilled to introduce these changes, so wait no longer and explore the new quest line, face formidable bosses, and immerse yourselves in the myriad of enhancements and quality-of-life upgrades!

[h2]Join the Community![/h2]

You can find us on Twitter, Facebook and Instagram, or you may head over to our Discord server. We have also set up a community section over on Reddit where you can freely share and engage in discussions about Wantless.

We are grateful for your time and your continued support.

Stay tuned for more news!