Talented 0.15 Update - Haunted Gateways

Greetings Talented Gamers!

Talented has officially been on Steam for 1 year, and what better way to celebrate than an update packed full of spooky surprises.

Portals and Endless Mode

Our most requested feature is finally here! You'll never have to put down your run just as it's getting exciting again...

Additionally, if you were concerned you might run out of Talents you can put that fear behind you. Portals allow you to teleport to a completely new Talent Tree!

You can find Portals at the very top of the tree and each comes with a powerful upgrade...

You'll be needing them as the enemies will be gaining more powerful bonuses in Endless!

More Talent Packages

We're wrapping up Talent Package work on Bandit and Alchemist this update with everything from rolling tons of dice to throwing books at your enemies! Which builds are you excited to try out?

Challenges

Challenges both new and old will be getting thrown into the mix with update 0.15. Bosses will be receiveing much requested health bars and you can now see the Challenge Description in the Run Info Panel.

With 6 new Challenges coming you'll be collecting more loot than ever, finding out what getting old feels like and stealing Abilities from other classes. And of course new Challenges mean new unlocks!

There's also plenty of balance changes coming to the existing challenges, which can be seen below in the balance section.

Overachiever

And with all of this new content there's new Achievements to unlock.. As well as the expected round of Endless Mode Achievements we've added some Challenge specific ones that will help spice up Challenges that our veteran players may have already completed!

Balance

General

A Knockback Reduction Enemy Bonus has been added
All Ability Cast Times have been reduced by 80%
(Meta Game) Class Experience granted each night per Mastery Level increased by 60%
Tatty's pre-burrow Movement Speed reduced by 25%
MP Regeneration Up Talents now grant 10% reduction to time between regeneration ticks (down from 12%)

Archer Upon inspection we are fairly happy with the number of viable win conditions Archer has, although we have observed that he can be on the weaker side in endless. The big exception to this was the Shrink Package - we've replaced this with a shiny new Pierce Package and moved some other things around. We also felt that it was unclear which Abilities counted as Inventions and which didn't. So we've ditched the Inventioned Tag and reworked the related Package to empower both Active Abilities and Homing Missiles.

All Projectiles now pierce through Shrunk Enemies
The Inventions tag has been entierly removed from the game
The Shrink Package has been replaced by a Pierce Package
Scoop Up has been replaced by Vortech Trap in the Pierce Package
Hole in One has replaced Science Project in the Pierce Package
Spectral Quiver has replaced Tiny Quiver in the Pierce Package
Spectral Quiver now causes Basic Attacks to Pierce all targets (up from 1 additional target)
Spectral Quiver activation chance reduced to 5% (down from 8%)
Tiny Quiver has replaced Iron Quiver in the Quiver Package
Tiny Quiver's Activation Chance has been increased to 5% (up from 4%)
Toy Box has been replaced by Trick Shot in the Pierce Package - If you kill 3 or more enemies with a single Basic Attack you gain 2% Critical Strike Chance until the end of the Night
Charmed Weapon has been added to the Base Package
Frost Trap has been added to the Base Package
Vortech Shrink Ray now has 1 Charge (down from 2)
The Gadgeteer Package has been reworked to focus on Homing Missiles and Active Abilities (instead of Inventions)
Remote Detonator has been moved to the Gadgeteer Package
Buttermint Collector has been moved to the Gadgeteer Package
Conservation is now an Epic Talent
Conservation can now activate from any Directional Ability
Increased the activation chance of Conservation to 50% (up from 25%)
Epic Collector has been added to the Base Package - Enemies have a 3% chance to drop an Epic Candy when killed (Epic Candies give a huge amount of Experience)
Cold Streak has been reworked into [Face Melter] - You gain 10% Critical Strike Chance. Your Critical Strikes apply Wounded
Binoculars has been added to the Critically Acclaimed Package - Every time you kill an enemy with a Critical Strike you gain 0.05 Range until the end of the Night
Vortech Bounty has been added to the Military Grade Package - Killing 25 enemies fires 2 Homing Missiles
Cola Bottle Collector has been added to the Ooh Shinies! Package - Enemies have a 3% chance to drop a Cola Bottle that increases Range by 0.05 Range until the end of the Night
Blast Quiver and Spark Quiver Activation Chance increased to 10% (up from 8%)
Strategise now grants 3 Attack Damage on Activation (up from 2)
Grindstone now grants 10% Critical Strike Chance (up from 10%)
Vortech Aimbot now grants 25% Critical Strike Chance (up from 15%)
Typhoon now creates causes your first 5 Basic Attacks to create an additional Orbital Arrows (up from making 3 Basic Attacks Orbital)
Vortech Turrets can now take 4 hits before being destroyed (up from 2)
Vortech Turret time between missiles is reduced to 2.5 seconds (down from 6)
Vortech Turret cooldown increased to 15 seconds (up from 14)
Vortech Turret now has a cap of 10 possible Turrets (down from no cap)

Wizard

Illuminate Vision increase reduced to 50% (down from 100%) (Note: This is to ensure that the maximum Vision increase on the Talent Tree is always 100% including the new Portal)
Illuminate Bonus Experience Gain increased to 15% (up from 10%)

Summoner While we're very happy with the number of unique strategies available in the Summoner Class, we recognise that only a small subset are viable on Mastery 25. We've added capstones to win conditions like Tanky Summons, Gravestones and Snail Builds and removed some of the less useful Abilities (namely Contracts)

Evil Scheme has been reworked - The first time you use each Ability each Night it has no cost
Gigantify now buffs 3 basic attacks (up from 2)
Helix Squad has been reworked - Gigantifys cooldown is reduced by 5 seconds and grants 50% Summon Speed while active
Flame Shells has been reworked - Your Snails have an 8% chance to create a flame on death that deals (1x Helper Damage) and applying Burning to enemies that pass through it
Slow and Steady has been replaced by Slow and Shieldy - Gigantify also grants Basic Summons a Shield that blocks the first hit and reduces their movement speed by an additional 25%
Two By Two has been reworked - Whenever you use an Ability your next Basic Attack summons two Snails instead
Laid To Rest has been moved to the Base Package
Shudder has been added to the Rest In Pieces Package - Create a Frost Nova from each Gravestone you control dealing Helper Damage and applying Frostbite to all nearby enemies
Grimoire has been added to the Refreshments Package - Use all remaining Magic Points to Cast all other Abilities without putting them on Cooldown
Good Boy has been moved to the Base Package
Call of the Haunted has been moved to the Forever Home package
Call of the Haunted now restores 50% Health (changed from flat 10)
Royalty has been moved to the Rotten Package (replacing Corrupted Contract)
Twisted Contract has been replaced with Snail of Arrows - Your next 2 basic attacks create snails in all 4 directions
All Blobs need to move quicker and should critically strike instead of dealing double damage
Osmosis has been reworked - All Blobs deal 2 more damage and move 25% quicker
The Altar has been reworked - All Sacrifice Talents Activate an additional time when they are
Activated
Initial Magic Points reduced to 25 (down from 30)
Premature Burial now has a 50% chance to Activate per Gravestone (down from 100%)
Squelcharim cooldown increased to 10s (up from 5s)
Frightful Motivation now grants 2 damage (down from 3)
Gravestones now have a cap of 10 per lane (up from 30 in total)
Gravestones spawning directionally now spawn 1.0 Range further than they did before
Messy Sacrifice no longer Activates when a Fly dies

Bandit Currently the Shop is simultaneously weak in the early game and an infinite Talent printing machine in the late game. We've reduced the cost of all Talents but made it scale quite quickly so spending money in the late game remains a choice.

Reload Speed Up reduced to 5% (Down from 6%)
All Rounds Talents Activation Chance increased to 25% (Up from Various lower values)
Round Robin now increases Activation Chance of Rounds Talents by 5% (Up from 2%)
Lightning Rounds now applies Shocked in an area
The Cap on Gold has been removed
Whenever you buy something from a shop the cost of all Talents increase by 10%
Remove reroll cost cap (but it increases by 50% per use down from 2x)
Common Shop Talent Cost reduced to 5 (from 15)
Rare Shop Talent Cost reduced to 10 (from 30)
Ability Shop Talent Cost reduced to 25 (from 60)
Epic Shop Talent Cost reduced to 25 (from 100)
Legendary Shop Talent Cost reduced to 50 (from 250)
Monopoly has been reworked - You Gain X Gold (50 x Nights Complete) and then double your Gold
The One Ring has been removed from the Shop Talent Pool

Alchemist

Runes now have a cap of 10 per lane (up from 30 in total)
Runes now explode 3 times (up from 1)
Runes now deal 100% Ability Power per explosion (down from 300%)
Comprehension now adds 50% additional Ability Power scaling to each explosion (up from 100% to a single one)
Increased the range of all Lances by 0.5

Challenges

Reduced the Health of the Smushroom in Threat: Smushroom by 15%
Tattys will no longer appear in the Curse of Luck Challenge
Insider Trading will no longer appear in the Pirate's Life Challenge
During the Investor Challenge you now gain 25% Luck per Night (instead of 175% Luck immediately)
Marathon has been reworked to increase the duration of each Night by 5 seconds (instead of being a 30 Night long run)
Basic Enemies no longer spawn automatically in the Detlenat Challenge
Enemies created in the Detlenat Challenge appear closer to the entrance of the lanes
Marathon has been reworked into a new Aging Gracefully challenge
All Abilities in the Whack A Rune Challenge now have double their initial charges
Abilities learnt in the Extinction Challenge now have 15 Charges (up from 6)
Abilities now appear 100% more often in the Extinciton Challenge (down from 150%)
Replaced Earthquake with Fury Unleashed in the Threat: Gulf Challenge
Increased enemy spawn rate by 15% in the Threat: Gulf Challenge
Increased boss movement speed in the Threat: Queen Challenge
Runes will now always spawn closer to the player in the Whack A Rune Challenge

Bug Fixes

Lances and Throwing Weapons should no longer travel over the heads of small enemies
Fixed a bug where Wave, Lance and Nova Packages would always appear first for Alchemist
Fixed a bug where a Talent Package could be rerolled into one that had already appeared in that discovery screen
Chefs Hat will no longer try to unlock purchased Alchemy Talents
Magical Hat will no longer try and unlock rare talents that have been rerolled by Talent Packages
Beginning a Night with Pure Brilliant and a Brilliant Combo will now grant 1 of each Common Talent instantly (instead of needing to lose the combo and regain it)
Vicious Sacrifice now correctly increases the damage of Ability Helpers instead of just Basic Attack ones
Added a maximum size multiplier of 5.0, reduced the size of the Warrior's hit box significantly when at large sizes
Fixed an issue where Shop Prices would appear unchanged by Slot Machine when the Shop was opened and had more than 3 Slots
Fixed an issue causing the range indicator for Talent Packages to be incorrect
Fixed a bug where Echomancy could appear on the same Talent Tree twice
Fixed a bug where some unlocked Legendary Talents would not actually appear in runs
Book of Souls no longer shows whenever Magic Points are regenerated and the package it is from is discovered
Arc Reactor and Massacre will no longer appear in the "The Basics" Challenge
You can no longer time out and fail the Whack A Rune challenge shortly after completing it causing you to not get credit
Batteries now correctly give an additional charge to Alchemist Abilities in the Pruning Challenge
Refine, Revitalise, Regenerate and Replenish now activate multiple times in the Big Gulp Challenge
Fixed an issue stopping the Abstain Achievement from unlocking correctly
Fixed a bug where the Warp Speed Achievement could not be unlocked by crafting Abilities as Alchemist
Fixed a bug where Warp Speed and Restock Achievements would not unlock when Abilities were added from sources other than Crafting or Ability Talents (e.g. Three of a Kind)
Fixed a bug where the Goosebumps Achievement would unlock without the correct amount of enemies being feared
Enemies below 25% Health Points will no longer instantly die to Decay
1UP no longer causes all damage related achievements to unlock
Premature Burial no longer creates giant flies when combined with Deathrite
Fixed an issue where Core Talents unlocked in Challenges could show the Core Talents of the incorrect Class
Tiny Blobs from the Replication Core Talent will no longer appear larger than Lil' Blobs
Talent Purchase sounds will no longer play when attempting to purchase a Talent that cannot be purchased on Gamepad
The Talent Package tooltip should now appear in the correct place when learning a new Talent Package on the run end screen on Gamepad
Talents in the Shop should now be correctly navigable when the middle Talent has been purchased on Gamepad
Talent Tooltips should no longer disappear when moving between Talents on the Talent Tree while using Gamepad
Fixed various typos and incorrect descriptions

Performance

Optimised collision and damage logic to improve performance accross the game for all Attacks and Abilities
Added a hard cap on the amount of loot that can spawn per frame and be active at one time (any loot above the cap will give its benefit immediately)
Added a cap to the number of Attacks and Abilities that can be spawned per from (50 per frame, so this will only come into play in extreme cases!)
Added a cap of 1,000,000% Bonus Experience Gain
Added a cap of 1,000,000% Bonus Ability Power

Quality of Life

You can now spend Talent Points before beginning the Eternal Nightmare Night
Added a range indicator for the D6 Talent
Auto-Fire can now be toggled with a hotkey (T)
Holding (R) now restarts the current run
Added a Select Random Class Button to character select
Added a more subtle sound to the Alchemist Basic Attack
Added a fade when entering a new run
The Challenge info can now be accessed from the Run Info Panel
The Run Info Panel now correctly displays enemy Health when it is above 1000
Added an indicator for the previous highest mastery completed on a class to the run setup screen
Clicking a crafted potion ability will now automatically add the ingredients for that potion to the crafting panel
Added Enhancements (the description below the Player Portraits) to various Talents
Added a visible cap on the Stats Panel to Basic Attack Range (it was always present but not shown)
Reroll buttons are now disabled in the Talent Package Discovery screen if no new Talent Packages can be seen
Added a Deck List for the Funky Dealings Challenge on the Challenge Info panel of the Run Info screen
Added a maximum number of times Skelebobs can ressurect to guard against them becoming stuck in untargetable states in rare cases
Hornets now have their own character sprite
Animations for moving between Talents on Gamepad are no longer faster when the Game Speed is increased
Zooming In/Out on Gamepad is no longer faster when the Game Speed is increased
Minimum time between movement on Game Pad is no longer shorter when the Game Speed is increased

...and that's an update! We can't wait to hear what everyone thinks of the highly requested Endless Mode, we'll be paying close attention to feedback to make sure we do the best job we can at ensuring it delivers on your expectations! Until next time...

Stay Talented