03/01/23 Patch Notes
WHAT’S NEW?
Shards are more powerful but have a spawn time of 1 minute
Death timers have been adjusted to be more consistent
Aspect speed is faster in the beginning
Hitboxes to be more accurate to projectile/model/aiming UI
(e.g. Kiona SHIFT and E having a huge hitbox)
DESIGN
SHARDS
Last week the shards were too frequent but also didn’t give enough power to make it worth it. The Ult charge is strong, but the cost of returning a relic was too high. It wasn’t worth the risk/damage your team would take fighting a 3v4 to capture the shard.
We’ve now made shards spawn much less frequently, but give more power. This should move this objective more akin to Dragon/Baron in League, where it should be more of a powerful teamfight objective rather than a sneak behind enemies noses objectives.
15 >>> 60 second spawn timer
0 >>> 50% Heal
15% >>> 20% Bonus Damage
15% >>> 20% Bonus Armor
0% >>> 20% Bonus Healing
DEATH TIMERS
Death Timers were a little bit off, and as a result the pacing of the game would be drastically different depending on how many deaths you had. We’ve moved death timers to be more consistent. They increase based on the number of deaths you’ve had in the round AND increase based on the round time. Overall death timers have increased which should lead to shorter round times as you’re able to capture more objectives with more people dead on the field.
ASPECT SPEED
We’re looking to balance two parts of the game here. We want to make sure that games don’t end in 30 seconds from 1 or 2 team wipes, and we want to make sure that there’s a clear advantage to winning team fights. The solo push speed of Aspect has been increased while the team speed has been decreased. This should give an increased amount of threat/pressure to moving the Aspect, but also prevent super short games from happening if one team just deathballs the Aspect. This new curve should also feel much smoother instead of a sudden increase at 4 minutes.
There are some other game mechanics we want to try out to make early game feel more meaningful, but this is the first iteration of the changes.
HEALING AT SPAWN
There are two issues that we’re trying to solve here:
-Preventing players from getting spawn camped / stuck in staggered respawns
-Making sure the optimal move isn’t to die
For the first issue, staggered respawns can lead to a feeling of helplessness and snowballyness that makes a team feel unbeatable, even if the team isn’t that much better. Healing and turret damage was supposed to resolve this as it gives players an opportunity to coordinate their healths in a more controlled manner. Unfortunately, this lead to some other negative consequences like players wasting their time going back to base to heal. When we tuned this low, to reduce the benefit of it so it wouldn’t be worth it, but unfortunately it led to a lot of players inherently just going back to base to heal anyways, and stay in there for an even longer amount of time. When we tuned it high the pacing of the game felt a lot slower because fights that would normally end in a kill, would now allow players to retreat and heal up.
We want to try out a variation where there is no heal in base anymore. Instead, there is now one extra Health Relic near the South Shard. This should prevent any players from wandering back to base, and hopefully give players more chances to heal up that still engages with the rest of the map. This should also help out with the “it’s better to die than to live low” because it gives more chances for a player to heal back to full. The increased death timers should also help with that issue because the cost of dying is higher.
60 >>> 0 Health per second
BALANCE CHANGES
ASTRADA
Mobile control mage with mid level AOE threats
Flame Cage (Skill 2)
0.3 >>> 0.45s cast time
BRUTUS
Hybrid tank/damage bruiser that can set up engages
UPDATE: Brutus still felt too much of a poke/positioning hero than a jump and engage hero so we gave him some better engaging tools
Earthquake (SHIFT)
Removed the 0.25s stun
Mighty Leap (SPACE)
Added
55 Shield plus 55 for each enemy hit, lasting 2 seconds
Removed
50% slow for 1 second
ETHRYN
Tanky peeler and engager with high CC
NOTE: Her passive was mostly used to win duels rather than peeling and targeting damage threats so we removed it to simplify it.
Pummel (Passive)
Removed
9% reduced damage per Bash Stack on opponent
Talon Strike (Basic Attack)
50 >>> 45 Damage
Knightseeker (SPACE)
1.5 >>> 1s Root for pushing enemies into a wall
FIORNE
High mobility, high survivability, low to mid threat nuisance
NOTE: Added more damage on SPACE that should be for deciding between “lethal engages” and “surviving mobility”, and reduced some of her more consistent damage.
Swift Strike (Basic Attack)
35 >>> 32 damage
Nimble Thrust (SPACE)
25 >>> 55 damage
Retaliate (RMB)
1.5 >>> 1s counter
Grand Finale (Ultimate)
Removed
iframe during dash
ISHIR
High mobility, high threat killer
Ghostly Flicker (E)
1.5 >>> 1s counter
1.5 >>> 1s iframe
TUFTS
Tanky peel and engager with high CC
Nourshing Feathers (Passive)
7.5 >>> 10 armor
5 >>> 3 second armor duration
4 >>> 5 second cooldown
Sky Smack (RMB)
75% >>> 25% Movement Speed while casting
Wing Dive (SPACE)
0.25 >>> 0.5 second minimum cast
ZOEY & BOO
Immobile healer with long range
Cat Latch (Passive)
15 >>> 12 HP per second
Shards are more powerful but have a spawn time of 1 minute
Death timers have been adjusted to be more consistent
Aspect speed is faster in the beginning
Hitboxes to be more accurate to projectile/model/aiming UI
(e.g. Kiona SHIFT and E having a huge hitbox)
DESIGN
SHARDS
Last week the shards were too frequent but also didn’t give enough power to make it worth it. The Ult charge is strong, but the cost of returning a relic was too high. It wasn’t worth the risk/damage your team would take fighting a 3v4 to capture the shard.
We’ve now made shards spawn much less frequently, but give more power. This should move this objective more akin to Dragon/Baron in League, where it should be more of a powerful teamfight objective rather than a sneak behind enemies noses objectives.
15 >>> 60 second spawn timer
0 >>> 50% Heal
15% >>> 20% Bonus Damage
15% >>> 20% Bonus Armor
0% >>> 20% Bonus Healing
DEATH TIMERS
Death Timers were a little bit off, and as a result the pacing of the game would be drastically different depending on how many deaths you had. We’ve moved death timers to be more consistent. They increase based on the number of deaths you’ve had in the round AND increase based on the round time. Overall death timers have increased which should lead to shorter round times as you’re able to capture more objectives with more people dead on the field.
ASPECT SPEED
We’re looking to balance two parts of the game here. We want to make sure that games don’t end in 30 seconds from 1 or 2 team wipes, and we want to make sure that there’s a clear advantage to winning team fights. The solo push speed of Aspect has been increased while the team speed has been decreased. This should give an increased amount of threat/pressure to moving the Aspect, but also prevent super short games from happening if one team just deathballs the Aspect. This new curve should also feel much smoother instead of a sudden increase at 4 minutes.
There are some other game mechanics we want to try out to make early game feel more meaningful, but this is the first iteration of the changes.
HEALING AT SPAWN
There are two issues that we’re trying to solve here:
-Preventing players from getting spawn camped / stuck in staggered respawns
-Making sure the optimal move isn’t to die
For the first issue, staggered respawns can lead to a feeling of helplessness and snowballyness that makes a team feel unbeatable, even if the team isn’t that much better. Healing and turret damage was supposed to resolve this as it gives players an opportunity to coordinate their healths in a more controlled manner. Unfortunately, this lead to some other negative consequences like players wasting their time going back to base to heal. When we tuned this low, to reduce the benefit of it so it wouldn’t be worth it, but unfortunately it led to a lot of players inherently just going back to base to heal anyways, and stay in there for an even longer amount of time. When we tuned it high the pacing of the game felt a lot slower because fights that would normally end in a kill, would now allow players to retreat and heal up.
We want to try out a variation where there is no heal in base anymore. Instead, there is now one extra Health Relic near the South Shard. This should prevent any players from wandering back to base, and hopefully give players more chances to heal up that still engages with the rest of the map. This should also help out with the “it’s better to die than to live low” because it gives more chances for a player to heal back to full. The increased death timers should also help with that issue because the cost of dying is higher.
60 >>> 0 Health per second
BALANCE CHANGES
ASTRADA
Mobile control mage with mid level AOE threats
Flame Cage (Skill 2)
0.3 >>> 0.45s cast time
BRUTUS
Hybrid tank/damage bruiser that can set up engages
UPDATE: Brutus still felt too much of a poke/positioning hero than a jump and engage hero so we gave him some better engaging tools
Earthquake (SHIFT)
Removed the 0.25s stun
Mighty Leap (SPACE)
Added
55 Shield plus 55 for each enemy hit, lasting 2 seconds
Removed
50% slow for 1 second
ETHRYN
Tanky peeler and engager with high CC
NOTE: Her passive was mostly used to win duels rather than peeling and targeting damage threats so we removed it to simplify it.
Pummel (Passive)
Removed
9% reduced damage per Bash Stack on opponent
Talon Strike (Basic Attack)
50 >>> 45 Damage
Knightseeker (SPACE)
1.5 >>> 1s Root for pushing enemies into a wall
FIORNE
High mobility, high survivability, low to mid threat nuisance
NOTE: Added more damage on SPACE that should be for deciding between “lethal engages” and “surviving mobility”, and reduced some of her more consistent damage.
Swift Strike (Basic Attack)
35 >>> 32 damage
Nimble Thrust (SPACE)
25 >>> 55 damage
Retaliate (RMB)
1.5 >>> 1s counter
Grand Finale (Ultimate)
Removed
iframe during dash
ISHIR
High mobility, high threat killer
Ghostly Flicker (E)
1.5 >>> 1s counter
1.5 >>> 1s iframe
TUFTS
Tanky peel and engager with high CC
Nourshing Feathers (Passive)
7.5 >>> 10 armor
5 >>> 3 second armor duration
4 >>> 5 second cooldown
Sky Smack (RMB)
75% >>> 25% Movement Speed while casting
Wing Dive (SPACE)
0.25 >>> 0.5 second minimum cast
ZOEY & BOO
Immobile healer with long range
Cat Latch (Passive)
15 >>> 12 HP per second