Halls of Torment’s Experimental Branch Adds Weekly Challenges Ahead of Oct. 22 Update

Halls of Torment‘s experimental branch now has the game’s October update, giving Steam players early access to weekly challenge runs, Kill Count mode, expanded records, and a broad balance pass. The build is available starting October 5, while the stable update is scheduled for October 22, according to Chasing Carrots’ Steam announcement. In its September 28 preview, Chasing Carrots had described a planned Steam ranking for weekly challenges and detailed The Lost Archives’ Judgement-focused Inquisitor.

The rebalance cuts both ways: characters move faster and most abilities deal more damage, but enemies gain 50% more health and spawn in greater numbers across base-game stages. Weekly challenges also track scores, kills, times, and ranks, while challenge runs do not award Torment Shards.

To join the experimental branch, right-click Halls of Torment in your Steam library, open Properties, select Game Versions & Betas, and choose “experimental.” The game should update automatically, and players can switch back to the stable version at any time.

Chasing Carrots plans to keep updating the experimental branch over the coming weeks, taking feedback and bug reports into account before the October 22 release. The developer cautions that the current changelog may not be complete.

Halls of Torment Experimental Update Patch Notes

New Features

• Challenge Shrine: A new shrine in the overworld offers a weekly challenge run.
  • It unlocks after you defeat the Lord of Greed in the Vault.
  • Each week, everyone gets the same hall, game mode and set of artifacts.
  • Your best score, kill count and time are saved, along with your ranks.
  • Challenge runs don’t award Torment Shards.
• Kill Count Mode: A new game mode where you play until you reach a stage’s kill target.
  • Unlock it per stage through that stage’s “Berserker I” quest.
  • Kill targets range from 12,000 to 30,000, depending on the stage.
  • In Boglands it works the other way: Kill Count is the default, and “Boglands Champion I” unlocks Timer mode.
  • Switch modes at the Shrine of Torment.
• Statistics & Records: The Compendium has a new Stats page with your lifetime statistics.
  • It tracks kills, damage, playtime, deaths, gold, potions, status effects applied and more.
  • Separate records are kept for each character, ability and map.
  • New settings can show these records on your HUD during a run.
• Bottle Chests: Chests containing bottles now spawn during runs.
  • Unlock them with the Cupbearer quest “Gatherer” (it previously gave 2,500 gold).

Balance Changes

General Difficulty

• All characters move faster (about +20%; Norseman about +10%).
• All characters got slight adjustments to their damage output, mostly all increasing the damage.
• Enemies are tougher to make up for stronger players.
  • Enemies have more health (+50%).
  • More enemies spawn in all base game stages.
• Enemies are faster at the start but speed up much less over time.
• Torment and Agony no longer make enemies faster.
• Each Torment level now adds 10% enemy health and defense (was 9%).
• Enemy movement speeds were evened out: extremely fast enemies are slower, very slow ones are faster.
• Lords now summon more minions during their fight.
• Torment Score now rewards fast kills more and late kills less (gold rewards are unchanged).

Status Effects

• Affliction, Fragile and Slow were reworked to be stronger.
  • Their stacks no longer wear off over time.
  • Each extra stack adds a little less than the one before, up to a higher cap.
  • When an afflicted enemy dies, half of its Affliction stacks spread to nearby enemies.
  • Slow can now reach up to 70% and has no stack limit.
• The Cleric’s main weapon no longer applies Affliction by default.

Abilities

• Most abilities got a large damage boost to keep up with the tougher enemies.
  • Arcane Rift: More damage, larger explosions, rifts appear closer to you but last shorter.
  • Arcane Splinters: Fires more often with a wider spread.
  • Astronomer’s Orbs: Much more damage per orb, but 4 orbs instead of 5.
  • Dragon’s Breath: Fires more often and deals more damage.
  • Flame Strike: Much higher base damage, but a lower critical damage bonus.
  • Frost Avalanche: Fires more often and deals almost double damage.
  • Hailstorm: More damage and a longer charge distance.
  • Kugelblitz: Double damage.
  • Lightning Strike: More than triple damage.
  • Meteor Strike: More damage and bigger explosions.
  • Morning Star: More than triple damage and a wider swing.
  • Phantom Needles: Double damage, but fires slightly slower and pierces one fewer enemy.
  • Radiant Aura: More than triple damage, a larger radius and faster pulses.
  • Ringblades: More damage and a lower critical bonus.
  • Spectral Fists: More damage, and repeated hits no longer lose damage.
  • Transfixion: More damage, but each pierced enemy reduces damage a bit more.

Items

• Growth variants of common items gain about twice as much per level.
  • Affects Chain Mail, Plate Armor, Plated Boots, Runner Shoes, Hunting/Longfinger/Quickhand Gloves, Helmet, Hood and the Copper/Iron/Wooden Rings.
• Only Rare (and better) Signets drop now.
• Frost Dragon Helmet now has a limit on how many breath projectiles can be active at once.
• Health Potions heal twice as much.

Bottles & Rewards

• Elites drop bottles less often, and bosses drop them slightly more often.
• Champions drop bottles less often.
• Some quests now unlock a feature instead of giving gold.

Boglands

• Enemies start with more health but no longer get extra health over time.
• Enemy damage now grows much more slowly over a run.
• Growth Traits no longer appear by default.
  • The artifact “Leash of Stagnation” is now “Leash of Growth” and turns them on.
• The Crone and Alchemist quest boards now unlock step by step as you progress through Boglands.
• Enlightenment: Much more damage, wider reach and stronger knockback.
• Undergrowth: Vines hit harder, cover a larger area and spawn more often, closer to you.
  • Flying Thorns deal much more damage and pierce up to 15 enemies.
• Prismatic Cascade: More damage and many more bounces (4 → 12).
  • Chain Lightning hits more targets for much more damage.
  • Fire explosions are smaller and the Ice pull is weaker.

Quality of Life

• You can now deselect artifacts in the Shrine of Torment by clicking on them on the selected list.
• The Registry of Halls now shows what you need to do to unlock a locked hall.
• If your tracked quest can’t progress in the current run, the quest tracker shows one that can.
• The Tome of Mastery selection now fits all available abilities.
• The Compendium always opens on the correct page.
• New glossary entries were added, including Primal Energy.
• Items without a mod icon now have one.
• Drifting controller sticks are less likely to affect gameplay.
• Steam players can subscribe to our newsletter from the overworld.

Bugfixes

• Fixed the HUD health bar not animating properly when you took several hits in a row.
• Fixed healing effects (e.g. Life Leech) triggering after you had already died.
• Fixed sacrificing HP being able to kill you.
• Fixed being able to level up more than once for the same level.
• Fixed ability tags from the previous run showing on the level-up screen.
• Fixed items that couldn’t be selected after rerolling a chest.
• Fixed chests sometimes not rerolling properly.
• Fixed scrolling in the Shrine of Blessings window.
• Fixed starting items sometimes spawning inside walls.
• Fixed controllers not firing with auto-aim on and auto-fire off.
• Fixed being able to pick a character before the start screen was ready.
• Fixed the weapon info panel being in the wrong place after resizing the window during loading.
• Fixed being able to change Shrine of Torment settings while a stage was loading.
• Fixed being able to enter the Vault several times at once.
• Fixed quest progress not resetting correctly on stages where the quest isn’t tracked.
• Fixed the Lord of Despair’s invisibility effect cutting holes into the Exterminator’s flamethrower.
• Fixed incorrect text in several descriptions (Killer Riff, Pyrotechnics IX, well and artifact quests).

Crashes & Stability

• Fixed possible crashes when playing the Norseman.
• Fixed possible crashes with Frost effect stacking.
• Fixed a possible crash during the Lord of Blight fight in Boglands.
• Fixed getting stuck on a black screen when switching screens quickly.
• Fixed menus that could open twice and lock up the game.
• Fixed Frost Dragon Helmet builds slowing the game down heavily in long runs.
• Improved stability when starting the game with DLCs installed.
• General stabilization improvements on the Engine

Localization

• Updated translations for all languages.
• Traditional Chinese got additional support.
• Updated the credits.

Have you tried the experimental build, and which change are you most interested in testing? Follow the ongoing branch changes with us on X, Bluesky, YouTube, Instagram, Steam, and Telegram.

Halls of Torment

Developed by Chasing Carrots

Slay hordes of terrifying monsters in this casual roguelite action rpg. Descend into the Halls of Torment where the lords of the underworld await you. Treasures, magic trinkets, and a growing cast of heroes will grant you the power to vanquish the horrors from beyond. How long can you survive?

• Genre Role-playing (RPG), Indie
• Platforms Xbox Series X|S, Linux, Android, PC (Microsoft Windows), iOS, PlayStation 5
• Perspective Bird view / Isometric
• Modes Single player
• Release August 26, 2024
• Publisher Chasing Carrots, Erabit Studios
• Age Rating

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