Talented News

First things first - The bug where Orbs would sometimes disappear until you gained more is fixed. Very sorry for that one!

Archer was feeling weak to the point of unfun on higher Mastery Levels with a lot of his Rare Talents feeling underpowered. We've given him real boost.

• Archer base Range increased to 3.20 (from 3.0)
  
• Archer base Time Between Attacks reduced to 0.9s (down from 1.0s)
  
• Quick Fire base Cooldown reduced to 12s (down from 15s)
  
• Explosive Traps Max Charges increased to 3 (up from 2)
  
• Frost Traps Max Charges increased to 3 (up from 2)
  
• Field Research Experience increase increased to 4% (up from 2%)
  
• All Rare Collector Talents now have a 3% drop rate (up from 2%)
  
• Liqourice Collector drop rate increased to 5% (up from 4%)
  
• All Rare Bounty Talents require 15 kills (down from 25)
  
• Savage Bounty and Brutal Bounty now refresh their buff duration instead of applying multiple buffs if they are already in progress (multiple versions of the same Talent still apply multiple buffs)
  
• Bountiful Bounty now requires 30 kills (down from 50)
  
• Bountiful Bounty Experience Granted reduced by 20%
  
• Inside Scoop now reduces Bounty requirements by 3 (down from 5)
  
• Minimum Bounty Requirement reduced to 5 (down from 10)
  

The Talent economy was getting pretty out of control, especially on Wizard! We've made some minor adjustments to keep a bit more of a lid on it in those especially OP runs.

• Masterful Combo XP Bonus reduced to 75% (down from 85%)
  
• Talented Combo XP Bonus reduced to 100% (down from 125%)
  
• Truly Talented Combo XP Bonus reduced to 150% (down from 200%)
  
• Increased the Experience required to gain a Level by 10% for every 50 levels (This is a 10% increase on the previous value, and should only really be felt on very high levels)
  

We will revisit the Talent economy more in 0.12.

Stay Talented

Some balance changes to Bandit to make his Common Talents more appealing and fix some infinite scaling issues.

• Luck Up now grants 5% Luck (up from 3%)
  
• Reload Speed Up now increases Reload Speed by 8% (up from 5%)
  
• Bandit can now hold a maximum of 999 Gold (down from 9999)
  
• Maximum Shop Reroll Cost increased to 100 (up from 50)
  
• Roll With It can no longer appear in the Shop
  
• Roll With It now grants 50 Gold (up from 25)
  

Note: The reduction of the Maximum Gold is only intended as a short term solution, we will be revisiting the Gold Economy in 0.12

Hello my Legendary Bandits!

It's update time, and OH BOY is there a lot to talk about. There should even be some surprises for those who've kept up to date with all of the devlogs. Let's dig in...

New Class - Bandit

Our first new Class in quite some time, and he sure does have class...



Cash Money

The Bandit will have access to a new resource - Gold Coins and a new stat - Luck. Luck will affect your percentage change for enemies to drop a Gold Coin upon death.

Luck can be increased by learning the Common [Luck Up] Talents

Hold Your Fire



The Bandit has a higher base attack speed and his basic attacks fire two shots. However, he will have to reload when out of ammo.

Big Spender

You can spend your Gold Coins that may drop from enemies on your abilities. Make the choice, will you spend all your coins defeating enemies, or will you save it for the...



A new Talent can be found on the tree - Cash Out . Once bought, a shop will open and you can spend your Gold Coins on Common and Rare Talents, and even abilities and epics if you're lucky.

Legendary Gamer Moment

Legendary Talents have been added to the Talent Tree. These Talents will be available on the tree extremely rarely (usually no more than once per run), and will cost more Talent Points than any other. In the right build they will be game breaking, but they're designed to also find a useful home in your build.



RNG Pooling

We have reworked how Talents generate in the Talent Tree. Instead of Talents being pulled at random from the total pool of Talents, when the Talent Tree is created at the start of a run, Common Talents will fill a pool. Whenever a Common Talent is placed on the tree, it will be removed from the pool. When the pool is empty, it will refill completely again.

Some Common Talents will appear multiple times in a single pool. (e.g. Attack Speed Up will appear 4 times in a pool for Archer, whereas Damage Up will appear only once).



This change should mean Common Talents will appear more evenly spread throughout the Talent Tree. Rare Talents, Abilities, Enemy Spawns and Enemy Wave Sizes will all use this pooling system also.

Combo Rework

New Combo Levels

Two new Combo Levels have been added, and the number of kills needed to achieve the levels have been adjusted.

• [Skilled] (+10% XP) - 20 Kills
  
• [Gifted] (+25% XP) - 50 Kills
  
• [Brilliant] (+50% XP) - 100 Kills
  
• [Masterful] (+85% XP) - 250 Kills
  
• [Talented] (+125% XP) - 500 Kills
  
• [Truly Talented] (+200% XP) - 1000 Kills
  

Combo Doesn't Completely Reset

We have also adjusted the Combo Meter penalty for getting hit. Instead of completely losing your Combo if you get hit, you will now be demoted to the previous Combo Level.



Minor Features

We've been monitoring the Discord and Steam Discussion forums closely and have hand picked some much requested Quality of Life features for this update. We'll be continuing to add even more in 0.12 so do keep that feedback rolling in!

• Added a button to allow Talent Packages to be rerolled on the Run Setup Screen
  
• Added a bonus Mastery Level unlock if a run is completed with fewer than 5 hits taken
  
• 20 brand new achievements have been added
  
• Added a setting to permanently keep the Stats Panel open
  
• Added a tooltip showing the current and maximum Health/Resource quantities
  
• Added Retry and Next Mastery buttons to the run end screen
  
• Added combat stats for Character Size, Shots Per Basic Attack, Orb Damage and Orb Count to the Stats Panel
  
• Added the current night you are on to the Clock in the Top Right
  
• Added a warning popup when exiting a run that explains progress will be lost
  
• Added a warning popup when save data is corrupted giving the option to reset or exit the game (so it can be reported to us!)
  

Class Balance

Each Class is getting their own set of major changes this update. We've been paying close attention to player feedback and doing many, many playtests of our own. Hopefully this should be a step in the right direction of all of our Classes, but do not fear, there will be a lot more to come in the future!

General Balance

• 1UP has been reworked into [Safety Mush] - You gain 0.25 Knockback distance and an extra life, ressurecting with 50% health points and instantly killing all enemies after death
  
• D6 has been reworked into [D6] - Rerolls all nearby unlearnt Common Talents into Rare Talents
  
• The One Ring has been reworked into [The One Ring] - Gain one of every Common Talent
  
• MP Regeneration Up Talents now increase MP Regeneration by 12% (up from 10%)
  
• Range Up Talents now increase Range by 0.15 (up from 0.1)
  
• Mastery 8 (Talent Tree Vision Range Down) has been replaced with [More Enemies]
  
• Mastery 15 (Talent Tree Vision Range Down) has been replaced with [More Enemies]
  
• Mastery 22 (Talent Tree Vision Range Down) has been replaced with [Larger Enemies]
  
• All Classes now have a minimum Time Between Attacks/Summons of 0.1 seconds
  
• Reduced the distance from the player that Smushrooms begin focusing
  
• Smushrooms are no longer knocked back when hit while focusing
  

Archer

• Piercing Blows has been removed (See Hole in One and Spectral Quiver)
  
• Twin Strike has been removed (See Invoked Weapon)
  
• Archer can now learn [Hole In One] (Epic) - You gain 5% Critical Strike Chance. Whenever you Critically Strike and enemy, your attack pierces through them and hits an additional target
  
• Archer can now learn [Spectral Quiver] (Rare) - Your basic attacks have a 5% chance to pierce through an additional target
  
• Archer can now learn [Invoked Weapon] (Epic) - Basic Attacks fire an additional arrow for 2 seconds whenever you use an Ability
  
• Gust Quiver now fires an additional Orbital Arrow when it activates (instead of making a shot orbital)
  
• Core Talent Unburdened has been replaced by [Field Research] - Each time you use an ability, you gain 2% Experience until the end of the Night
  
• All Quiver talents have a 8% chance to proc (up from 3%)
  
• Gumballs now increase Attack Speed by 3% (down from 5%)
  
• Enchanted Weapon and Charmed Weapon's buff is now extended when additional Abilities are used while they are active, instead of applying multiple times
  
• Enchanted Weapon now increases Attack Speed by 25% (up from 10%)
  
• Charmed Weapon now increases Critical Strike Chance by 10% (up from 5%)
  
• Three Hit Mechanic now grants double Attack Damage every third attack (instead of a guaranteed critical strike)
  
• Duplication Hack now has a 50% chance to duplicate a piece of loot when it drops (down from 100%)
  
• Cold Streak now grants 10% crit per non-crit (up from 1%)
  
• The Forbidden Harvest Package now contains [Savage Bounty] (Rare) - Killing 25 enemies grants 15% Attack Speed for 5 seconds
  
• Explosive Trap's cooldown has been reduced to 6 seconds (from 10 seconds)
  
• Frost Trap's cooldown has been reduced to 6 seconds (from 10 seconds)
  
• Frost Trap's size has been reduced by 33% (the size of the frost explosion is unchanged)
  
• Quick Fire now has 2 Maximum Charges (down from 3)
  
• Hail of Arrows now has 2 Maximum Charges (down from 3)
  
• Maelstrom now has 2 Maximum Charges (down from 3)
  
• Maelstrom now grants 90% increased Attack Speed (up from 25%)
  
• Maelstrom now buffs 5 Attacks (up from 4)
  

Wizard

• The Wizard can now control up to 50 Orbs
  
• Base Orb Damage is increased to 3 (up from 2)
  
• Base Size of Orbs has been reduced by 20%
  
• Damage Size Scaling of Orbs has been reduced by 50% (Orbs can now gain a lot more damage!)
  
• Wizard can no longer learn Gemmed Glove (this will likely return in a Talent Package at a later date)
  
• Wizard can now learn Dorble Up - Create two Orbs that permanently orbit you
  
• Arcane Orbs has been reworked: Create an Orb that permanently orbits you and your Ability Power strengthens your Orbs.
  
• Blazing Orbs now creates two Orbs that apply Burning (instead of making all Orbs apply Burning)
  
• Blazing Orbs no longer adds additional Orb Speed
  
• Earthen Orbs now creates two Orbs that always apply Knockback (instead of making all Orbs apply Knockback if you have 5 or more Orb Damage)
  
• Orbular Knowledge has been reworked - Gain an Orb that permanently orbits you. On Level Up your Orbs Gain 100% Speed for the next 2 seconds
  
• Atomize has been reworked: Duplicate an Orb until the end of the Night. Your Orb Damage is increased by 5 for the next 5 seconds. Atomize prioritizes special orbs.
  
• Echomancy is now a Legendary Talent and always activates (instead of having a 50% chance)
  
• Wizard can now learn [Evocation] (Epic) - Whenever you cast a spell you reduce the cooldown of other spells that are on cooldown by 2 seconds.
  
• Insight now grants 15% increased experience on kill with Ability (down from 25%)
  
• Crystal Orbs now grants 15% increased experience on kill with Orb (down from 25%)
  
• Simple Interest now requires 2 unspent Talent Points to grant a level increase (up from 1)
  
• Full House now also grants a random Ability
  
• Burning Ambition now increases Range by 5% of unspent Talent Points (down from 10%)
  
• Burning Ambition now requires 25 unspent Talent Points to grant Piercing (up from 10)
  
• Spirit Flame damage reduction per pierce increased to 8 (up from 4)
  
• Fireball Rank 2 damage increased to 20 (from 15)
  
• Reduced the speed of Cyclone by 50% (allowing it to hit and gather up more enemies)
  
• Studious Activation Chance down to 15% (from 25%)
  
• Spell Thirst kill requirement increased to 10 (up from 5)
  
• Deep Learning also increases the spawn rate of Legendary Talents
  
• Deep Learning increases the spawn rate of non-common Talents by 25% (down from 50%)
  
• Thesis now grants two Random Common Talents (instead of two random Combat Stats)
  

Warrior

• All Warrior Strike Abilities now have Attack Damage scaling (we listened!)
  
• Largening no longer grants a base Size Increase
  
• Largening now grants 10% Size Increase per 25 Health Points (up from 5%)
  
• Harsh Lesson now grants 50% of kill experience (up from 25%)
  
• Harsh Lesson can now also proc from Parries
  
• Earthquake now applies Wounded to all enemies hit (doubling their damage taken from all sources for 4 seconds)
  
• Warrior can no longer learn Bladework
  
• Warrior can now learn [Frustration] (Rare) - Your maximum rage is increased by 10, you start
  each Night with 5 additional rage
  
• Warrior starting Rage has been reduced to 20
  
• Bloodlust has been reworked - The first time you reach maximum rage each night your Size is increased by 2% for every 5 Rage for the rest of the Night
  
• Blast Strike's cooldown has been increased to 15 seconds (up from 10 seconds)
  
• Thrown Around knockback requirement has been reduced to 0.5 (down from 1.0)
  
• Blood Pact has been reworked - Sacrifice 10 Health Points to gain 5% Attack Speed until the end of the night
  
• Sore Loser now also grants 1 Attack Damage until the end of the Night
  
• All Planned has been reworked - The first time you take damage each night you do not lose your combo and Knockback all surrounding enemies applying Wounded to them
  
• Pure Brilliance now grants 1 of each Common Talent (instead of 1 of each Combat Stat)
  
• Skill Cap experience increase per combo level reduced to 5% (down from 10%) Note: This Talent became a lot stronger with the addition of new combo levels and the flat Experience increase on Harsh Lesson
  

Summoner

• Soul Absorption is now an Epic Talent
  
• Soul Absorption has been reworked - Lifestealing from 20 enemies grants 5% Summon Speed until the end of the Night
  
• Laid to Rest now costs 20 Magic Points (up from 5)
  
• Laid to Rest now places a Gravestone in all 4 Lanes (instead of a single random lane)
  
• Laid to Rest's cooldown has been reduced to 20s (down from 30s)
  
• Graveyard Shift has been moved to the Base Talent Package
  
• Grave Circumstances has been moved to the Appropriation Package (from the Rest in Pieces Talent Package)
  
• The Rest In Pieces Talent Package now contains [Hallowed Ground] - Spawn a Gravestone at the start of each Night. If there are at least 2 Gravestones present your MP Regeneration Rate is increased by 20%
  
• Vile Curses has been reworked into [Cursed Knowledge] Whenever you Level Up you spawn a Gravestone in a random lane
  
• Bomb Shells, Flame Shells and Blight Shells Talents all have an 8% chance to activate (up from 5%)
  
• Call of the Haunted no longer grants 5 Maximum Health to Helpers upon their return
  
• Skelebob's Bone Piles no longer deal damage to Helpers
  

Meta Game

• The unlock requirement for unlocking Warrior has been reduced to Completing Mastery 2 (from Completing Mastery 3)
  
• Lowered the Class Experience granted from a Mastery 0 run (so new players aren't bombarded with Talent Package choices)
  

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where connections between Talents would be invisible if an Ability Talent was rerolled into a Rare Talent
  
• Fixed a bug where Status Effects would be listed on Mystery Talents before they were learnt
  
• The Shadow from Shadow Boxing now correctly scales with Character Size
  
• Ability Procs now appear green, and no longer appear when an ability is cast
  
• Cyclone can no longer knock back Spectral Enemies
  
• Gulf's burrow particles no longer draw on top of other enemies when the Gulf itself is behind that enemy
  
• Fixed an issue where pausing the game on the run end screen would cause the music to stop entierly
  
• Fixed an issue where Fly Helpers would sometimes fly over enemies
  
• Fixed a bug where Vortech Generator would not correctly reduce the cooldown of Stim Pack
  
• Fixed a bug where Spectral Smushrooms wouldn't actually appear to be Spectral
  
• Fixed a bug where Warrior's current Rage would be reduced when they lost a Gifted Combo with [Sweet Combo] active
  
• Fixed an issue where Change of Heart would cause Bone Piles to be come undamageable and deal damage even after the night had ended
  
• Fixed several bugs that caused Talent that appeared to be connected to not actually be purchasable
  
• Fixed a bug where Busters would spawn more often than intended
  
• Fixed a graphical issue with the pillars to the left and right of the game on large aspect ratios
  
• Fixed several typos and description inaccuracies
  
• Fixed an issue where Rares from Eureka would not count towards Rares learnt for Thesis/Dissertation
  
• Fixed an issue where Archer's arrows would sometimes pass over the heads of enemies
  

Phew... Now I'm out of breath... We're so thankful for everyone who joined us on the journey to our first update, and we hope you'll stick with us to find out what is coming in 0.12!

Stay Talented

Hello Talented Gamers!

This will (hopefully) be my final devlog before the next update! I can't wait for everyone to get their hands on the new Bandit Class, Legendary Talents and all of the other features we've sprinkled in to respond to player feedback.

Something I want to be completely upfront about - we will be increasing the price of Talented with the 0.11 update. This was always the plan (you can even see it in our Early Access Q&A) and we've received a lot of feedback that there's plenty of content to justify it.

That being said, we will also be immediately putting the game on sale at its previous price for a week. This gives anyone who finds us at the start of the update period a final chance to get it at the original price. Hope that sounds fair to everyone!

Let's get on to the fun stuff!



New Achievements

0.11 brings 20 brand new Achievements to unlock! Some keen eyed members of the community have already spotted them, here's a few to look out for and destroy on update day:

Become the biggest know-it-all in the land

Me no think, me only shoot

And of course, the Bandit has a fresh set of Class Achievements to collect!



Class Balance

We have an absolute wealth of balance changes coming up, each class has 10 or more Talents being tweaked. Much of our balance is informed by player feedback, so do keep that rolling in! Here are just a few of the areas we'll be addressing this update...

Archer Piercing

Right now it feels like Pierce or Pain for the Archer. We're reworking pierce from the ground up and buffing other strategies to make the average run feel less like a dice roll.



Piercing Blows has been reworked into an Epic Talent without the Damage or Knockback reduction, and we've added a new Piercing Rare Talent that gets slightly less out of control:



Note: Spectral Quiver currently has placeholder art, but rest assured it will have its own icon in the update!

To compensate for this All Quiver Talents now have a 5% chance to proc and Archer has a chunk more other buffs too that I will go into in the Patch Notes.

O R B S

Ah Orbs, will you ever find true balance, or will you continue to endlessly roll off the table?

For Orbs, the Elemental Orbs Talents (e.g. Blazing Orbs) no longer apply their buff to all other Orbs. This has allowed us to make the baseline power of Orbs a little higher by increasing the Speed by 25%, the Base Damage to 3 and increase the maximum Orb Count to 50.



Note: Earthen Orbs now always apply Knockback (the damage requirement has been removed)

We've also replaced [Gemmed Glove] with a brand new Orb Talent:



Ability Crit enjoyers need not fear, [Gemmed Glove] will return in the future when we have more support for Ability Critical Strikes!

...And just so the other classes don't feel left out!

Strike Out!

Due to popular demand, all Warrior Strike Abilities now have Attack Damage scaling!



Music to my Soul

[Soul Absorption] is now an Epic Talent in the Base Package - finally, not every run will be a machine gun snail run!



Quality of Life

In these final phases of development we've taken some time to add a few frequently requested quality of life features.

Although this is not the long term plan for Talent Packages, in their current state having them randomized and out of player control is simply unfun. We've added a reroll feature to allow you to roll the dice until you get the packages you like (if you want!)



Next, we've been made aware that Mastery Progression can feel a little slow for some players very familiar with this type of game. We've doubled the rate at which you can level up your Mastery by giving a second Bonus Unlock if you take less than 5 hits in a run.



Andddd here's a few more assorted QoL features being added this update.

• A Slow Mode setting that reduces the in game speed to 50% of the default, but also disabling Achievements.
  
• A setting to permanently keep the stats panel open permanently.
  
• Tooltips for Health Points and Resources (e.g. Magic Points) when hovering over them, showing the current and maximum values.
  
• Restart and Next Mastery Buttons on the Run End Screen
  

That about does it for this time (and most likely this update!). There are more unannounced changes coming including a lotttt of bug fixes that will all be covered in the Patch Notes for 0.11, so keep your Googlys peeled for those.

Stay Talented

Hello Talented Gamers!

We've crossed 10,000 Talented players on Steam just in time for the Holiday Season! It's the perfect time to get nostalgia for the good old days when the Talent Tree looked like this:



Oh.. How far we've come. However, one thing was lost to time... Do you see those... Golden...

Legendary Talents

They're back and better than ever! They cost 5 Talent Points and we know at that price we need to get them right, so we had two goals for Legendaries:

• Legendaries should be simple but very powerful.
  
• Legendaries should never feel like a waste of Talent Points (even if they're not perfect for your build)
  

Here's a few examples that we feel really embody this:



This one is for Wizard. If you have a lot of Knowledge Talents that Activate from leveling up, this is a complete game breaker - but nobody will be sad to get a handful of free Talent Points each Night.



A new Summoner rule-bender. Completely insane with Gravestone Builds, but still offers a decent amount of defensive power even if you don't have a single Talent that cares about your Graveyard.



This is also a great opportunity to re-brand some Talents that we love but have had to be nerfed in an awkward way to fit into the power level of an epic.



Replacing Twin Strike, Coral Quiver can be what we always wanted - a true double shot.



Ah... the old Echomancy, back to its reliable self. (I'm sure no overpowered synergies will crop up from this)

Don't fear! Any class that has an Epic upgraded to a Legendary will be getting a brand new Epic to replace it.

Each class will have 4 Legendary Talents, with more coming in the future. You'll need to keep an eye out though - only 1-2 Legendaries will be appearing on the tree per run.

You Were Truly Talented

We have some changes to the Combo Meter coming in the next update.



Ever since the Game Pacing changes in 0.9 we've felt like it was too easy to achieve a Talented and Truly Talented combo, and it felt especially strange that there was no Combo Level increase at 500 and 1000 kills.

So we've fixed that by adding two brand new combo levels! Here's what the combo meter will look like in 0.11:

• [Skilled] (+10% XP) - 20 Kills
  
• [Gifted] (+25% XP) - 50 Kills
  
• [Brilliant] (+50% XP) - 100 Kills
  
• [Masterful] (+85% XP) - 250 Kills
  
• [Talented] (+125% XP) - 500 Kills
  
• [Truly Talented] (+200% XP) - 1000 Kills
  

Keen eyed players will notice a few changes to bonus experience rewards and kill requirements too, we've made sure there is a clear increase in power from each combo level and we've made the elusive [One Shot] Achievement a little less frustrating to collect.



That's all for this time! We're getting close to hitting our content goals for this update but there's still some exciting things to announce.

Next time I will talk about some of the new Achievements coming in 0.11, some Quality of Life features and maybe even begin to discuss balance! For now...

Stay Legendary