Halls of Torment News

[h2]Hello Adventurers![/h2]
Our work on the next playable stage goes on. To bridge the time until its release, we wanted to bring you some new items and ability upgrades. Naturally, those also come with a slew of bugfixes and minor balancing tweaks.

The most notable change is an adjustment in the Agony mechanic. You’ll notice that the agony rank will increase faster. This might feel more difficult at first if you don’t pay closer attention to what the changes actually entail. Previously killing monsters was the way of increasing your Agony score, while the number of monsters that are still alive contributed to how fast this score was decaying. In some cases this led to some overly dramatic rubber-banding. In order to gain more control over the Agony dynamic, the score is increased over time independent of how many kills you make. However, the Agony decay is still in place. So killing monsters fast will reduce the decay and as such contribute to the overall score increase. The score fluctuations are just not as steep as they were before.

This change will most probably require some tweaks after the fact. Let us know what you think, and we will see how we can improve it for a better experience.

There are a lot more things we have fixed and adjusted in this update. For the list of all changes, see the change log below:

[h2]Change Log | 2023-10-30[/h2]
[h3]Items[/h3]

• New item: Gorgon Mask (Head)
  • Slows down enemies in front of you.
    
  • Deals damage based on slow stacks.
    
  • Unlocked by quest: Viaduct Survivor III (Viaduct)
• New item: Mask of Madness (Head)
  • Take damage in regular intervals.
    
  • On each interval you get a permanent buff in exchange.
    
  • Unlocked by quest: Mark of Madness (Warlock)
• New item: Broker’s Cape (Body)
  • Selects a random debuff from an enemy.
    
  • Tries to apply the selected debuff to all enemies in range.
    
  • Unlocked by quest: Broken Body (Cleric)
• Item Rework: Rat Ring (Ring)
  • Rats now attack the closest enemy that they’ve not attacked yet.
    
  • If rats can’t find a new target, they wait and then attack the previous enemy again.
    
  • Rats deal 20 physical damage to enemies they touch.
    
  • Rat Ring is now affected by summon count.
    
  • Amount of debuffs applied is now affected by Multistrike.
    
  • New uncommon variants.
• Monsters can now have slow resistance and limits on how slow they can be.
  • Resistance: champion (25%), elite (50%), boss (66%), lord (80%)
    
  • Limit: champion (30%), elite, boss, lord (50%)
• It’s more likely now to get uncommon variants of items that the character has equipped.
  • The probability factor is distributed equally among all equipped items.
    
  • The probability factor considers the amount of unlocked items and is increased accordingly.
• Polish: Ring summons are now listed below the item stats.
  
• Polish: Summon rings now have better icons in the info area.
  
• Bugfix: Ring summons will now despawn when rings are unequipped.
  
• Bugfix: Ring summons now have correct summon count limits on re-equipping.
  
• Bugfix: Summoned skeleton mage attacks now also count towards summon damage.
  
• Bugfix: Certain summon counts were not accounted for.
  

[h3]Abilities[/h3]

• New ability upgrade: Phantom Fetter (Phantom Needles)
  • Unlocked by new quest: Phantom Needles Specialist (Viaduct)
    
  • Quest requirement: 10 000 double crits in a run with Phantom Needles
    
  • Slows enemies on hit.
    
  • Gets additional crit chance based on the slow stacks on the hit enemy.
• New ability upgrade: Orbital Shift (Astronomer’s Orbs)
  
  • Unlocked by new quest: Astronomer’s Orbs Specialist (Viaduct)
    
  • Quest requirement: Hit 40 000 enemies in a run with Astronomer’s Orbs
    
  • Orbs change distance from the player, forming a rotating ellipse.
    
  • Orbs deal damage based on the relative distance to the player.
• New ability upgrade: Amputation (Transfixion)
  
  • Unlocked by new quest: Transfixion Specialist (Archer)
    
  • Quest requirement: Apply 150 000 debuff stacks with Transfixion
    
  • Enemies take 10% bonus damage per debuff stack on them.
    
  • Adds an additional Transfixion emitter.
• Transfixion balancing:
  
  • Reduced base damage from 80 to 70.
    
  • Increased the multiplier for multi enemy hits from 66% to 75%.
    
  • Decreased the base damage from deadliness trait from 15 to 10.
• New trait: Crippling Strikes
  
  • Increases slow chance by 15%
    
  • 3 levels (10, 20, 35)
    
  • Unlocks with the new quest “Crippling Strikes” on the Viaduct quest board
• Polish: Swapped places of quests on the Viaduct quest board.
  

[h3]Agony[/h3]

• Agony decay from monsters now starts after a delay.
  • Default delay is 10s. Stronger enemies or enemies that spawn further away have a higher delay.
    
  • Enables slower starting builds or builds that need monsters closer to not lose Agony as long as they can keep up with the normal spawn rate.
• Agony is now generated over time instead of killing monsters.
  • Earliest possibly Agony rank ups are every 4 minutes with Agony 5 being achievable at 20 minutes in.
    
  • Each Agony rank now requires the same amount of points to reach.
    
  • There is a small buffer beyond Agony 5 to not directly fall below Agony 5 if the killing speed dips for a moment.
• Agony still decreases on revive, a revive now decreases Agony by 1 rank.
  
• Agony scaling has been adjusted so that Agony 5 difficulty is similar on each stage.
  • Adding damage scaling for all stages (stronger on lower stages) -> 2.5% - 10% per Agony level
    
  • Increased monster health scaling on lower Agony ranks.
    
  • Increased XP and gold drop scaling on lower Agony ranks.

[h3]Bugfixes[/h3]

• Auto aim now works for all characters on most of the visible screen space.
  
• Fixed name of Reverberant Bottle item (wrongly labeled Memorizing Bottle)
  
• Uncommon Firewalker Boots now give 1.0m/s base speed increase (previously 0.5m/s)
  
• Profile restoration is performed at game start when a corrupted profile has been detected.
  
• Adjusted ability descriptions
  
• Ring of Frost description stated wrong frost chance on hit (it’s 15% not 10%)
  
• Meteor Strike main projectiles were not affected by most Meteor Strike upgrades
  
• Hailstorm changes:
  • Traits now properly display they are associated with Hailstorm.
    
  • Increased satellite drop base damage from 200 to 500.
    
  • Increased satellite drop direct damage area radius from 3m to 4m.
    
  • Increased movement speed factor from x0.2 to x0.3.
    
  • Increased trigger distance of vortex and spikes from 2m to 2.5m.
    
  • Reduced base force of vortex from 100 to 75.
    
  • Reduced emit count from “Eyes” trait from +0.33 base to +0.3 base.
    
  • Added a movement speed factor reduction of base x0.05 to the “Wind” trait.
    
  • Changed “Updraft” trait base damage from flat +40 to 30%.
    • This means 40 -> 150 for the satellite drops
      
    • This means 40 -> 30 for the spikes

[h3]Performance[/h3]

• We’ve done some under-the-hood performance optimizations. There’s still room for improvement and we’ll keep on working on that front.

[h2]What's Next?[/h2]
We will continue improving the game'S performance while our work on the next stage and other additional content goes on. We also plan to release further smaller item-based updates to slowly fill your stash with interesting ways to customize your characters and playstyles. So stay tuned for the next one!

Take care! 🥕
- Chasing Carrots

[h2]Hello Adventurers![/h2]
Thanks for reporting all the issues with the latest patch.
We have fixed the most important bugs.

This should also recover save games in many cases.
To make sure the save game loading is working properly, restart Steam if it was open since the update of yesterday.

If there are still issues left, please let us know. If you want to manually check your save files, you can do that here:

• Cloud: https://store.steampowered.com/account/remotestorageapp/?appid=2218750
  
• Windows: C:\Program Files (x86)\Steam\userdata\\2218750\remote
  
• Linux: \userdata\\2218750\remote
  

[h2]Change Log | 2023-10-17[/h2]
[h3]Polish[/h3]

• Hailstorm spikes got adjustment to improve performance
  
  • Increased base damage
    
  • Lower spawn rate
    
  • Shorter duration
    
  • Delayed spawns
    
  • Increased area for spikes
• Hailstorm “Updraft” trait got the base damage increased from 10 to 40

[h3]Bugfixes[/h3]

• In some cases save files were lost, they should be back now
  
  • A restart of the Steam environment or the device (Steamdeck) might be needed.
    
  • If you still have problems with your current profile, we recommend restoring the most recent profile backup in the profile menu.
    
• Uncommon Berserker Boots do now use the new icon.
  
• Arcane Rift got its blast animation back.
  
• Hailstorm spikes visibility can now be adjusted through the ability visibility.
  
• Game got stuck when opening the Steam Overlay.
  
• Hail Storm quests are now properly unhidden, when adjacent quests have been completed.
  

Take care! 🥕
Chasing Carrots

UPDATE EDIT (2023-10-18): There seems to have been a little mixup while releasing the hotfix. Apparently it hasn't been updated properly, but the fixes above should be available now. Players on the experimental branch are not affected by this. Sorry for the delay!

[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