Halls of Torment News

[h2]Hello Adventurers![/h2]
As we’re continuing our work on further content for Halls of Torment, we wanted to slot in a smaller bug fixing patch. This includes fixes for a couple of oversights we’ve had in abilities, traits, and quests.

We’ve also added a second frost based ability called Hail Storm. The balance in elemental damage sources was a little off with only one frost based ability, so we felt like this would make the selection of abilities more rounded.

We’re also looking into items in general. Our plan is to slowly improve on our items throughout future updates, and make more different item combinations viable for your character builds. As a small peek into those changes we’ve reworked the Blazing Shell armor. Additionally to its burn on player hit function, it now burns enemies in closer range to the player in given time intervals.

This is a rather small patch, and we know that you are patiently awaiting further content updates. We are working on those, but some types of content require more time than others. For example, we cannot ship a level before it’s finished in its entirety (monsters, bosses, and all that comes with them). That would hardly be an enjoyable piece of content. So entire levels are expected to take longer, while new abilities and items can be added on a more regular basis. That said, please expect upcoming updates to be a little bit further apart than the previous patches.

And here are the changes:

[h2]Change Log | 2023-10-16[/h2]
[h3]Features[/h3]

• New frost based ability: Hail Storm
  
• Reworked Item: Blazing Shell. It now burns enemies in the player’s vicinity and additionally when the player gets hit by an enemy.
  

[h3]Polish[/h3]

• Added class specific icons for proficient stance traits.
  
• Added missing icon for Frost Affinity trait.
  
• Added missing icons for Elemental Surge traits.
  
• Added missing icons for Berserker Boots and Ring of Ice items
  
• Added voice sounds for Lord of Pain.
  
• Phantom Needles stats got extended.
  
• Phantom Rift Area can now be upgraded.
  
• Astronomer’s Orbs stats got finished up.
  

[h3]Bugfixes[/h3]

• Tome of Mastery can handle Ability upgrades and fallback options (Alms and Health) correctly
  
• Elite beasts in Frozen Depths have now normal elite HP
  
• Fixed piercing on bullets and chain lightning
  
• Transfixion has been partly counted as physical/main weapon, not anymore.
  
• Sometimes when players picked up multiple overlapping items on the floor, only one of them actually got registered while all others have been ignored (and deleted).
  
• Arcane Splinter force now properly affects the duration of the bullets, especially fading was fixed
  
• Phantom Needles and Kugelblitz are now properly affected by Multistrike
  
• Longliving Quest reward unlock description fixed from "Duration" to "Force" blessing
  
• Stat tooltips now show proper format for additive mods. Also, stats now are more precise.
  
• Some minor stability fixes under the hood.
  
• Fixed a bug that prevented stat changes on cascading effects (like bullets spawning bullets). This also affected the proper display of certain ability stats (e.g. Meteor Strike).
  
• Fixed a bug that some “Effect on Hit” modifiers would show 0% chance in stats.
  
• Phantom Needles and Kugelblitz showed wrong attack speed stats.
  
• Sorceress no longer gets range traits shown per default.
  
• Archer now has range traits per default.
  
• Settings Menu: Ability Effect Opacity slider was not accessible via gamepad.
  

[h2]What's Next?[/h2]
As mentioned above, we are working on more content. But these things take a little more time than patches and bug fixes. If possible, we’ll try to bundle smaller content additions and release them as smaller updates. We also want to revisit early and mid game content and add a couple of things to make the overall game progression more interesting. In any case, we’ll keep you posted.

Take care! 🥕
Chasing Carrots

[h2]Hello Adventurers![/h2]
In this new patch we’ve tackled a couple of problems with the way information about your character was displayed in the UI. The way we’ve gathered attribute data until now was rather basic and limited. That also applied to how the data was converted into readable format. We’ve done another refactoring pass in that system and added more information to every (or at least most) entity that exposes attributes to the stats display. We hope that this will bring some more clarity, for example when it comes to figuring out what effect the “Force” stat has on different Abilities.



Another important addition is the new profile management UI. You can access it from the main menu while being at the campfire. We’ve received numerous reports of players losing their entire progress and we were not able to pinpoint the problem. Our best guess is that under certain conditions there is a failure during cloud synchronization.



That’s why from now on the game will make a daily backup of your current profile (stored in separate files). All those backups are shown in a list in the profile tab of the main menu. In this menu you will be able to delete particular backups or restore them as your current profile. Your current progress is shown at the very top of that view. This is also where you can reset your profile, in case you want a fresh start. Don’t worry, we have a confirmation dialog in place that ensures you won’t erase your profile unless you really want to.

Those are the two biggest topics of this patch. There have been a lot more changes, predominantly bug fixes, that are listed below:

[h2]Change Log | 2023-09-21[/h2]
[h3]Features[/h3]

• Refactored display of stats in character sheet and "Traits & Abilities" section
  
  • stats are displayed in a more dynamic manner: weapons and items are displayed in separate categories
    
  • Most stats of abilities are now displayed properly
    
  • Stat labels are more context sensitive, e.g. it is shown which attributes are affected by Force
    
  • (Some stats might still be missing and should be added later on)
• Profile containing game progress is backed up once a day
  
  
• Added profile management menu which allows you to:
  
  • Browse and restore profile backups
    
  • Reset your current progress (if you want a fresh start)

[h3]UI[/h3]

• Names of ability upgrades are listed in ability tooltips
  
• upgraded abilities are marked with chevrons in the HUD
  

[h3]Tome of Mastery[/h3]

• allows you to pick any ability from the pool of all available abilities
  
• replaces initial ability scrolls in all stages
  

[h3]Balancing[/h3]

• further reduced agony score ceiling in Frozen Depths so Agony V is achievable
  

[h3]Visibility[/h3]

• improved contrast of bright purple enemy projectiles against bright backgrounds
  
• increased sprite contrast of red and blue burning skull monsters
  

[h3]Bugfixes[/h3]

• Fixed "get xp while closing" exploit in chest UI.
  
• Fixed input issue caused when first time selecting a character using the keyboard.
  
• Fixed a bug that would give all enemies a 100% damage buff.
  
• Fixed a bug with modifier categories that caused modifiers to affect abilities they shouldn't apply to.
  
• Flame Strike “heatup” traits applied burn chance modifiers the wrong way.
  
• Kugelblitz crit chance traits now affect the lightning from the High Voltage upgrade.
  
• Frost affinity corrected text "frost damage" to "ice damage".
  
• changed frost avalanche "attraction" traits pushback force from -20 to -30.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused ballistic bullets to fly way too fast.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused electrified orb damage not being updated on movement speed changes.
  
• Shieldmaiden's "stalwart dedication" now restores health when max health is increased.
  

[h3]Prelude savegame import[/h3]

• Fixed prelude savegame format so import function in full game works again.
  
• (Start the prelude once to update the savegame before importing)
  

[h2]What's Next?[/h2]
With the overall improvements in convenience throughout the past few patches, we are planning to slowly transition into more content-based updates. We’re still seeing some room for improvement in different areas, but we think it’s also important to continuously extend the playable content and introduce new things that make the game actually fun. With that said, don’t expect a huge content update just yet. We will add a few smaller things first, before moving on to bigger and more varied chunks of content.

So long! 🥕
- Chasing Carrots

Today we want to tackle a couple of more technical issues of Halls of Torment. For this we’ve built the game with an updated version of the Godot engine. This update should fix a lot of crashes caused by Vulkan API errors. Since this engine version hasn’t been thoroughly tested, yet, and there might be some other changes that have an impact on the game as a whole, we decided to take a more cautious approach and release it on an experimental branch first.

If you had a lot of problems with crashes in the past and would like to see if they are solved with those newly introduced changes, we’re inviting you to check out the experimental branch on Steam and see if there are fewer problems than before (hopefully none!). Please note that things might break with an experimental build like this and new unexpected bugs might occur.

If you decide to give it a go, please share your experience with us, and let us know if anything breaks for you. We would appreciate any feedback that helps us to improve Halls of Torment.

This is how you access the experimental branch:

• right-click Halls of Torment in your Steam library
  
• click Properties…
  
• in the left bar of the Properties window select “Betas”
  
• under “Private Betas” enter the following beta access code: experimental
  
• Click “Check Code”
  
• Click on the “Opt in” button that appears
  
• Wait for the game to update
  

Take care! 🥕
Chasing Carrots

[h2]Hello Adventurers![/h2]
Before we proceed to the most recent patch notes we would like to spotlight a little collaboration we’ve struck up with Blobfish, the makers of Brotato. We’ve put both our games together in a delightful bundle called “Hot Potatoes”. So if you recommend Halls of Torment to your pals, or in case you’re reading this without having bought the game, yet, consider the “Hot Potatoes” bundle!

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/34876/HoT_Potatoes/

[h2]The Patch[/h2]
In this patch we’re introducing two major changes to Halls of Torment: The first is a buff to the Spirit Warrior ability. The second is an information display in the campfire character selection that shows all major stats of each playable character. We hope to reduce a little bit of initial friction for players who start playing a character they are unfamiliar with.

We are aware of other areas where stats and values still aren’t clearly communicated and we are working on those. We’re planning to add more transparency as we continue with the development, and we hope that we can introduce those improvements very soon.

Additionally, there have been plenty of smaller fixes and adjustments across different areas of the game. For a detailed list of changes, as always, have a look below:

[h2]Change Log | 2023-09-13[/h2]

• Spirit Warrior
  • Buffed melee attack
    
  • Buffed dash attack
    
  • Added stun effect to dash
• UI
  • Added a character description panel at the campfire
    
  • Added ability description in "Traits and Abilities" screen
    
  • Increased size of right panel HUD tooltip
    
  • Increased size of inventory item tooltips
• Difficulty
  • Agony champion projectiles are slower now and shouldn't off-screen the player so often
    
  • Shadow Cloak: uncommon version got buffed
    
  • Frost Avalanche: Increased direct damage from 25 to 50
    
  • Reduced the Agony score cap in Frozen Depths. It hasn’t been adjusted after rebalancing monsters.
    
  • First champions do now spawn after 90 seconds to avoid clashing with regular 2nd monster wave elites.
• Bugfixes & Typos
  • Fixed missing ingredient indicators on Gatherer's Charm (e.g. Dragon Nettle)
    
  • In some trait descriptions regeneration modifiers weren't described properly
    
  • Shadow Cloak: block strength in description now fits the actually applied block strength
    
  • Fixed typos in quest descriptions
    
  • Spirit Warrior: it is now possible to select a second ability upgrade after picking up trait VI
    
  • OnHit chance stats of abilities are now displayed as chance percentages instead of flat values
    
  • Flame Strike: typo in ability tags
    
  • Ring of Thunder & Ring of Frost: fixed typos in descriptions
    
  • "Purification" traits of Cleric have been fixed: areas and ranges were too low
    
  • "Voltage IV" trait fixed, now only triggers electrify on critical hit
    
  • "Summon Golem" - Magma Fists was missing "fire" and "burn" tags
    
  • Beast Huntress level 60 quest now yields a gold reward
    
  • Cleric’s movement speed was slightly to low, it’s now corrected to 4.5m/s
    
  • Beast Huntress had the physical tag instead of the elemental tag on her spear
    
  • Maiden’s Tear would make you invincible on unequip when it was fully charged.
    
  • There was falsely a Wraith Guard champion in the Frozen Depths, it’s now a Snow Effigy.

[h2]What's Next?[/h2]
As previously mentioned, we’re working on more quality of life improvements and fixes for various issues. We also have some engine updates in our backlog that could potentially fix a lot of crashes on some people’s machines. But before we can safely release those, they need to be tested properly, so stay tuned.

Have fun! 🥕
Chasing Carrots

[h2]Hello Adventurers![/h2]
This is the second smaller patch in the series of patches after the Frozen Depths update. While addressing further issues that have been pointed out to us, we’ve followed the discourse in the forums closely and of course played the game a lot ourselves. It was to be expected that for some players the difficulty reduction would render the game too easy. Others welcomed the change and of course we understand that we won’t be able to satisfy every single one of you just by tweaking the difficulty back and forth.

However, we have to point out that we always need to balance the progression as a whole. If you have everything unlocked (particularly the new class marks) naturally the game will be much easier for you even in the currently final stage. Keep in mind at which point Frozen Depths get unlocked. You can enter the stage after defeating the second boss of the Forgotten Viaduct. Each time we add a new stage, we move the goalpost in a way that doesn’t feel challenging for players who already have 100% of the content unlocked. But we need to make sure that players who follow a natural progression (i.e. when the game leaves Early Access) don’t hit a brick wall.

Frozen Depths is not the final stage. We have more content planned, and we also have a concept for the late game, which should allow challenge-driven players to ramp up the difficulty to their liking, while it doesn’t make other players feel like they have to take on those challenges. But this is an entire feature for a later bigger update. For now we will stick to improving the game where it still feels rough until we’re ready to add new content.

That being said, here is the list of changes for this patch. It’s focussed on improving the game feel of the Beast Huntress and her hound. There also have been some other minor tweaks, like small balancing adjustments in the Frozen Depths based on our own playthroughs and improvements in visibility.

[h2]Change Log | 2023-09-07[/h2]

• Summons in general
  
  • fixed floaty movement behaviour by adjusting mass/movement speed ratio
    
• Beast Huntress
  
  • improved game feel
    increased attack speed
    proportionately lowered damage and frost chance
    improved projectile visuals
    
  • Hound
    
    • increased attack speed
      
    • reduced damage proportionately
      
    • Hound will choose targets that are closest to the Beast Huntress instead of its own position
      
    • increased aggro range and movement speed
      
    • changed attack to a circular emitter in front of the Hound
      
    • added a better visual effect and sounds for the attack
      
  
  
• Norseman
  
  • added missing description of Frost Nova ability
    
• Visibility
  
  • Player's Frost Avalanche ability effects have been moved below characters sprites and enemy projectiles.
    
  • Enemies' frost avalanche effects have a higher contrast and stand out more against the frozen depth background.
    
  • Ability opacity setting now also affects Shadow Cloak, Arcane Rift areas, Arcane Rift Splinters, and Ringblades.
    
• Ember Grounds tweaks
  
  • minor adjustments in XP distribution during early waves
    
  • slightly increased pickups in stage
    
  • slightly increased health values of some enemies
    
• Bugfixes
  
  • Spirit Warrior falsely reacted to "+Spawn" modifiers, which was unintended.
    

[h2]What's Next?[/h2]
Don’t worry, we’ll get back to the Spirit Warrior ability soon. The list of planned changes is the same as it was in the previous announcement. We’ll keep you posted.

Godspeed! 🥕
- Chasing Carrots