THE FINALS News

[h3]Update 3.8[/h3]

All that glitters is not gold.. Sometimes it’s Emerald!

It’s time to ask the age-old question, Contestants - CAN YOU REACH THE FINALS?

Today we’re finally unlocking THE FINALS inside the World Tour for all players who have reached a World Tour Badge Tier of Gold 1! Here you’ll be able to continue your badge progression past Gold and into Emerald, with unique rewards unlocking for each tier you achieve. In THE FINALS you only earn win points for winning an entire World Tour Tournament - so this truly is a challenge for our most seasoned contestants to show off their dedication.

We’re also heading to the next stop on the World Tour, the DISSUN Challenge. For this one, we’re updating the rules a bit by reintroducing cash loss on team wipe at 10% of total team cash. Make sure to play the DISSUN Challenge, and all of THE FINALS, with a friend or two because with this update we’re also introducing bonus Battle Pass & career XP when playing in a party!

When it comes to bug-fixes we have another fix for the infinite loading screen, fixed the issue which caused the very bright contestant selection screen and we solved the unclimbable stairs on Kyoto!

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Full list of changes below:

[h3]Balance Changes[/h3]

Game Modes

World Tour

• Teams now lose 10% of their cash total on team wipe

Dev Note: The rule changes we tested during the VOLPE Championship seem to have had positive results both with the community and in the analytics data we’ve been looking at. For our next World Tour stop, the DISSUN Challenge, we’ll keep testing this rule set, but with team wipe penalties reintroduced at 10%. This will allow us to continue to monitor how these changes impact the game. Huge thanks to everyone who provided feedback and impressions over the past two weeks!

• Increased the number of Win Points earned for reaching the second round of a tournament from 5 to 7
• Increased the number of Win Points earned for reaching the final of a tournament from 12 to 16
• Increased the number of Win Points earned for winning a tournament from 20 to 26

Dev Note: Win Points are not accumulative. They are awarded based on where you finished in a tournament, meaning that if you win a tournament, you earn 26 points in total.

[h3]Content and Bug Fixes [/h3]

Animation

• Fixed issue where charged weapons would stay charged visually for spectators at times

Characters

• Allowing watches to show properly when paired with the Alien upper body cosmetic

Gadgets

• Fixed an issue where goo would not stick to surfaces as intended

Game Modes

• “THE FINALS” seasonal event is now live in World Tour. Contestants who achieved Gold 1 can participate in THE FINALS to progress through the Emerald Badge Tiers where only tournament wins reward win points
• Respawn tokens should now show the proper amount
• The elimination sequence is now showing again before going to a new match
• Fixes for weather being applied wrong in the squad intro sequence
• Fixed lights being too bright during team introductions in some instances

Maps

Kyoto

• Tweaked Respawn points to be more evenly spread across the entire map
• Fixed staircase that was difficult to traverse

Progression

• Added bonus XP while playing in a party, players in a party of 2 will earn +7,5% XP and players in a party of 3 or more will earn +10% XP towards their Battle Pass and career levels

Specializations

• The Evasive Dash specialization will now open doors automatically when dashing into them

Stability

• Crash fixes
• Fixed another issue which could cause an infinite loading screen

Dev Note: This issue has been difficult to solve, so please make sure to let us know on our Discord Server if you still experience it after this update!

• Fixed a connection issue where users who crashed in the lobby could be marked as abandoned which could lead to faulty suspensions
• Added the ability for players who leave a ranked game to reconnect to their current game while suspended from matchmaking

UI

• Added the ability to see the leaderboard for each World Tour stop
• Removed showing faulty cash amount gained for friendly kills
• Fixed so the infinite damage symbol shows when falling off a ledge or other scenarios
• Fixed tracking being allowed on locked quests
• Hide respawn coins in the scoreboard for Terminal Attack
• Fix for unintended behavior of the dropdown menu in Private Matches
• Fixed issue with the camera sniper skin playing unintentional sound effects while equipped
• Fixed the issue which caused contestants outside of the top 500 on the leaderboards to appear as “unranked”

It’s summertime and the Embark office is officially in vacation mode! Don’t worry though, as we still have a crew of people working hard and diligently watching and listening. So next week, you can expect a patch with the update!

Check out the new store content here:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Last week, we added a whole new set of rules to the World Tour and we would love to gather your feedback on those changes! If you have played the new Cashout rules, please take a moment to give us your thoughts in this survey.

[h3]Update 3.6[/h3]

LET THE GAMES BEGIN!

We hope you’re warmed up and ready, Contestants, because the next stop on the World Tour is the VOLPE Championship, and it’s offering some contracts with exclusive sports gear rewards! We’re also running brand new Twitch Drops throughout this World Tour stop, so make sure you tune in for some THE FINALS on Twitch.Tv!

The sponsors are also in full swing fighting over exposure in this week’s store update; check it out below:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Summer is in full swing and vacation times are in full effect, but this week still has some rather substantial changes and bug fixes. In the VOLPE Championship, we’re upping the amount of money you earn per elimination in Cashout, and granting your team part of the vault value immediately when initiating a cashout! We’re also completely removing cash penalties from team wipes - make sure to try these changes out and let us know what you think.

On the bug-fixing side, we have a second fix coming in for the infinite loading screen issue and the issue that prevented contestants from using their specializations, weapons, and gadgets at certain times. For our controller friends, we’ve also fixed the aim assist issue introduced in 3.4 for controller players on PC.

Full list of changes and fixes below:

[h3]Balance Changes[/h3]

Gadgets

Goo Grenade

• Increased the time it takes for fire to destroy goo from 6s to 12s

Game Modes

Cashout

• Increased cash awarded for kills from $200 to $500
• ~30% of the cash in a Cashbox is now awarded to the team that deposits the Cashbox the moment it is added to the Cashout Station. The remaining ~70% of the cash in a Cashbox is awarded when the cashout is completed at the Cashout Station. These values are rounded off to give easier-to-understand values. This replaces the previous $2000 a team would receive for initiating a cashout.
• Removed all cash loss penalties for team wipes
• Updated the Vault spawning logic at the start of a match for more even distribution
• Added new notification messages to the HUD for when cash is awarded to a team
• Increased the time taken to steal a cashout from 6s to 7s
  

Dev Note: We’ve felt for some time that Cashout generates more ‘third party’ fights than intended, as well as long-lasting team-versus-team encounters, and that happens in part because of the incentives of the scoring system. We are testing the changes above to see if they address these issues and improve the overall experience. These changes have been selected as the ruleset for the VOLPE Championships. We’ll monitor how they perform via telemetry and your feedback and will adjust them as needed.

Ranked Terminal Attack

• Destruction is now reset at half-time without needing to reload the level
  Dev note: This should give a smoother experience and reduce downtime
  
  

Terminal Attack & Ranked Terminal Attack

• Added health regeneration thresholds per archetype to Terminal Attack, meaning players will now regenerate health up to a specific threshold based on if they are a Light, Medium or Heavy, rather than the current fixed 100HP. New thresholds are:
  • Light = 100HP
  • Medium = 125HP
  • Heavy = 150HP

Dev Note: We feel this change will help level the playing field, as well as reduce the effectiveness of ‘poke’ damage with weapons like the SR-84. We also feel this change better represents the variety in the archetypes.

Specializations

Evasive Dash

• Increased the cooldown duration from 5.5s to 6.5s per charge

Goo Gun

• Increased the time it takes for fire to destroy goo from 6s to 12s

Grapple Hook

• Decreased the cooldown duration from 10s to 8s

Healing Beam

• Decreased the time taken until the Healing Beam can overheat from 7s to 5.5s

Dev Note: Overheating is something Healing Beam users rarely have to manage, so we’ve lowered the time to overheat which means players need to be slightly more controlled in their use of it.

Weapons

93R

• Slightly decreased bullet dispersion when firing from the hip in all stances, making the weapon more accurate
• Decreased the amount of horizontal recoil when firing the 93R, making it easier to control and more precise
• Slightly tightened the cluster of bullets fired in a burst, making the weapon more precise

[h3]Content and Bug Fixes [/h3]

Contracts

• Updated the text on some contracts to say they are earned for ‘rounds,’ not ‘matches,’ to make them clearer
• Added some additional Contract types

Gadgets

General

• Fixed an issue where some Gadgets could become ‘locked’ and unable to fire/use

Goo Grenade

• Fixed an issue where goo could stick to the side of the warm-up zone in Terminal Attack modes

Game Modes

Private Matches

• Added ‘Pause match’ functionality to private matches. Anybody in a spectator slot can pause the match using the R button

World Tour

• Fixed an issue where the ‘elimination’ outro screen at the end of a tournament would not show up correctly

Ranked Terminal Attack

• Adjusted how Ranked Score (RS) updates are calculated for parties.

Dev Note: This should lead to more intuitive RS changes for parties with smaller RS differences between members. Parties with higher RS differences between members will see more appropriate updates based on their own RS. The result should mean that RS changes will be better based on the match result, i.e. larger RS gained when beating stronger teams, and less RS gained when beating weaker teams.



Specializations

General

• Fixed an issue where some Specializations could become ‘locked’ and unable to fire/use

Goo Gun

• Fixed an issue where goo could stick to the side of the warm-up zone in Terminal Attack modes

UI

Game Summary Screen

• Brought back the “deaths” statistic to the summary
• Brought back the mixed-caps style font

Front-end menus

• Fixed several issues that could result in ‘out of memory’ crashes
• Fixed an issue where having text chat open could block some button inputs

HUD

• Fixed an issue where the colorblind settings would not update in the Terminal Attack score widget

Ping System

• Changed default ping intent on Cashout Stations owned by enemy teams to "attack"
• Jump pads now generate an event log message when pinged
• Fixed an event log message that had incorrect player name data
• Updated event log message text from “Going to vault X” to “Move to vault X,” to bring it in line with other instructional pings
• Added a new HUD icon when pinging player statues

Weapons

General

• Fixed an issue where some Weapons could become ‘locked’ and unable to fire/use

Update 3.5.0

Protocol Core, Community Event & Bug Fixes!

Get ready for a brand new community event, the Protocol Core Set, and lock in your aim with the futuristic Mech-Arrow Set!

Check them out in the brand-new store update:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Today, we’re kicking off the first Community Event of Season 3, and we are challenging you to eliminate 1,900.000 contestants using the weapons and gadgets introduced in Season 3! Join in the race to fill the meter, and everyone who contributes will win the DISSUN Capacitor skin for Dual Blades.

We’re happy to announce that this update will also happen on Xbox, so the wait is over! With the issue resolved, we want to thank all of our Xbox players for their patience! This interruption in the update schedule was not planned and took far too long to fix. As a thank you for your endurance and as a nod to our own…issues… in this situation, we are gifting all Xbox players the Skill Issue Set. Expect your gift to show up in the next few days!

Certain fixes and server changes intended for this update have been postponed as we prioritized making sure all Contestants got up to speed on the updates, so you can expect more changes to come. But, in order to make sure things are running smoothly, this update will only include:

[h3]Content and Bug Fixes [/h3]

Build

• Ensured all platforms are on the same build to re-enable crossplay and content updates for Xbox

Performance

• This week we fixed one of the bugs causing players to be stuck in an infinite loading screen

• Fixed a bug that caused players to be unable to properly cancel ranked matches
  
  

Update 3.4

Update 3.4 is coming in hot with multiple features and changes fighting over the spotlight! ISEUL-T is entering The Arena as the latest sponsor on the next stop of the World Tour - The ISEUL-T Cup! The Pro Circuit also goes live with this update, however, both of these changes are sharing that spotlight with a certain green someone in our latest store update…

Introducing the Pond Dweller:

[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Also, we have quite the list of changes this time including several changes to Bank-It, shorter wait-times in Terminal Attack, the addition of party chat while in the main menu and the ability to equip multiple weapon animations to the same gun.

Those of you with a keen eye will also notice that we’ve added an info panel that explains the World Tour’s FINALS event - check it out in-game.

Finally, both Polish and Turkish translations of THE FINALS are now live with this update, so make sure to throw a “Cześć” or “Merhaba” into team chat at the start of a game!

Full list of changes included in this update:

[h2]Balance Changes[/h2]

Gadgets

Breach Charge

• Decreased minimum damage applied at outer edge of explosions to 0
• Increased damage radius from 2m to 2.5m
• Set damage fall-off to scale linearly from the max damage radius to the outer radius

Dev Note: Previously, our area of effect (AoE) Weapons and Gadgets had several ‘damage shelves’, where damage would fall off radically at the edge of the inner radius of a blast and at the edge of the outer radius. This could result in AoE damage feeling somewhat inconsistent. These changes now cause damage to fall-off linearly from the inner radius damage value, down to 0 at the outer edge of the radius, which we believe will feel much more consistent. The radius of each AoE weapon has been increased slightly as a result of this, as the outer edge of explosions now does much less damage than it did previously.

C4

• Decreased minimum damage applied at outer edge of explosions to 0
• Increased damage radius from 6m to 6.5m
• Set damage fall-off to scale linearly from the max damage radius to the outer radius

Explosive Mine

• Decreased minimum damage applied at outer edge of explosions to 0
• Increased damage radius from 3.5m to 4.25m
• Set damage fall-off to scale linearly from the max damage radius to the outer radius

Frag Grenade

• Decreased minimum damage applied at outer edge of explosions to 0
• Increased damage radius from 4.5m to 5m
• Set damage fall-off to scale linearly from the max damage radius to the outer radius

Game Modes

Dev Note: These changes are the first part of a series of improvements we’re planning to make to each of our game modes over the course of Season 3, including our Cashout and Power Shift modes. These changes will cover a range of areas, from pacing to scoring. The goal is to smooth out some of the rough edges in each of our modes, hopefully leading to a better overall experience across all our modes.

Bank It

• Removed team wipes
• Decreased respawn time from 17 seconds to 10 seconds
• Added the ability for players to change to a different Contestant while dead

Terminal Attack & Ranked Terminal Attack

• Decreased lobby duration from 15 seconds to 10 seconds
• Decreased warm-up duration from 25 seconds to 20 seconds
• Decreased round duration from 150 seconds to 130 seconds

Weapons

CL-40

• Decreased minimum damage applied at outer edge of explosions to 0
• Increased damage radius from 2.6m to 3m
• Set damage fall-off to scale linearly from the max damage radius to the outer radius

Dev Note: As with the AoE Gadgets, our AoE weapons have also been updated to get more consistent feeling damage fall-off.

MGL-32

• Decreased minimum damage applied at outer edge of explosions to 0
• Increased damage radius from 3.75m to 4m
• Set damage fall-off to scale linearly from the max damage radius to the outer radius

RPG-7

• Decreased minimum damage applied at outer edge of explosions to 0
• Increased damage radius from 4.5m to 5.5m
• Set damage fall-off to scale linearly from the max damage radius to the outer radius

[h2]Content and Bug Fixes [/h2]

Animation

• Fixed a bad transition animation between the Winch Claw and using the ability to lift items
• Fixed an issue where players could not play emote animations consecutive times
• Added support for enabling multiple custom weapon animations at once. If multiple animations are equipped, an animation will be randomly selected from that list when triggered

Characters

• Fixed a bug that caused ‘General Goodboy’ pet to be rendered with blurry artifacts
• Fixed various smaller issues with cosmetic items, such as various clipping issues

Gadgets

Thermal Bore

• Fixed an issue where the Thermal Bore could become stuck in mid-air

Game Modes

Bank It

• Fixed an issue where it would sometimes not be possible to respawn

Practice Range

• Added Season 2 trophies for Ranked, Terminal Attack event & season

Ranked Terminal Attack

• Fixed an issue where the full rank score gain could sometimes not be given to players due to the losing team abandoning the match

Localization

• Added support for Turkish and Polish languages

Maps

Kyoto

• Made various fixes to improve the quality of building destruction
• Fixed various issues were there were gaps in the map

Matchmaking

• Fixed an issue where the matchmaking region could be wrongly set for new players on consoles

Stability

• Fixed several issues that could cause client crashes
• Fixed one issue where players could sometimes spawn into a game and be unable to attack or use Gadgets
• Fixed one of the issues which would cause a player to be unable to fire their weapon or use their abilities

UI

HUD

• Fixed an issue where respawn markers could fly off to unintended locations

Ping System

• Increased max ping distance to 300m

Text Chat

• Added support for text chat in the front-end menus when in a party
• Improved profanity filter to include more languages
• Fixed an issue where chat from blocked players could sometimes still be visible
• Removed some status messages from text chat to make it less spammy

World Tour

• Added info panel for the World Tour ‘THE FINALS’ event

Weapons

General

• Fixed a bug that could cause players to experience different recoil decay rates when using some semi-automatic guns

Spear

• Reduced the impulse applied by the secondary attack, to prevent some objects being pushed a long way by the attack