Spectre Divide News

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[h3]New Map. New Battle Pass. New Sponsor Kit. New Buy Menu. Hundreds of improvements, upgrades, and optimizations.

This isn't the Spectre you know- it's Spectre 2.0. A new era of Spectre Divide is about to begin – are you ready to forge your legacy?[/h3]

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Shatter defenses. Break spirits. Monark lets you do both.

Monark Tactical will come to the Santai arena when Season 1: Flashpoint launches!

Hey All, BopNSwap here, with our third Dev Q&A for Season 1: Flashpoint.

We’ve had a lot of questions around the new Buy Menu:

• What’s changing?
  
• Is it just a visual update?
  
• Will there be new weapon pairs?
  

We’ve dedicated this entire Q&A to Buy Menu 2.0, which is a complete overhaul from what you’ve experienced previously. Let’s dive in!



One of the major skill checks we want players to master is Weapon Breadth. We think FPSs are at their best when players are enjoying a variety of weapons, trying to discover the situations where each weapon excels to gain an edge and to outplay the competition.


Additionally, we wanted weapon pairs to lean into our unique Duality mechanic and force players to think differently about how they set up an attack or defense. Players need to think about their pair of competitors, using them both in the best combination of positions to compliment their round strategy. We also hoped players would get to live the Duality dream of covering their own OP body with a short ranged weapon as they get pushed.

A paired weapon system came with a unique challenge in that players could potentially have different weapon power levels on each body. For our first iteration, we really wanted to maintain power consistency when purchasing, so we grouped all pairs into Tiers where all weapons within a tier have similar power levels. This decision made it easy to understand your overall strength at a glance when making a purchase (e.g. Tier 4 > Tier 3) and to understand what you were up against mid-round.

The fallout of these goals was that the menu was more confusing than we liked for new players. While veterans learned the menu quickly, new players would struggle to wrap their heads around the pair concept. The original Buy Menu was simply not like anything seen in any other shooter in a way that added to confusion. On hover button state changes further exacerbated this problem. While we got many gameplay benefits, we paid a high price in terms of onboarding.

We eventually added a “Quick Buys” tab to the Buy Menu that could reduce cognitive load as a player was onboarding, but it wasn’t enough on its own.

With these pros and cons in mind, we set out to do better…



Our new iteration of the Buy Menu will allow players to build weapon pairs on the fly. Players can choose any Body 1 weapon and freely pair it with any Body 2 weapon. Players will have way more freedom to craft the perfect pair that meets the needs of their strategy in a given round.

First and foremost, we’ve massively increased weapon pair choice and freedom. Always dreamed of a Bouncer + Crusader combo? Or a Reaver + Trident for you headshot fiends? Now’s your chance. We’ve gone from 20 pairs to 56 - all while making it easier to understand! You’ll have more chances to get creative, more direct control over the amount of money you want to spend, and far fewer moments where you feel stuck with a weapon that doesn’t pair with something that augments your strategy.

Mastering a variety of weapons is still a core tenant of this system, while also allowing you more opportunities to play your own way. We’ve relaxed the weapon power level restrictions, so you can now pair what was a Tier 1 weapon in the old system with what was a Tier 4 weapon. We’ve adjusted the prices of a number of weapons as well, due to the impact of this flexibility. You’ll more easily get one high powered rifle, but it will be harder to get the Crusader/Blackout or Crusader/Reaver pair to compensate. Additionally, the machine guns have come down in price, so Berserker fans rejoice :)

Second, we wanted to ensure that the menu was overall much, much easier to understand. Gone are the state-changing buttons and tier restrictions. We’ve split the UI into two halves (one for each body) which feels more intuitive and more naturally communicates the most important information players need. The weapons themselves have also had their models updated and are now shown in full color for easier readability.

Simply buy a weapon from the Body 1 section and another from the Body 2 section and you’re good to go (assuming you have enough cash!). The buttons more clearly reflect what you’re getting and how the system works, which should help onboarding and learning significantly.

We’re also making a number of changes that will help players at all skill levels avoid feeling overwhelmed by the amount of information on screen, such as reducing the total amount of text displayed by introducing new iconography, and improving how your teammates’ current inventories are shown to you (hidden by default).

Third, the new Buy Menu is now “smarter” and it will help your team save money through the team inventory whenever possible. In the old version, you had to purchase a pair after a weapon was placed into the team inventory to get the benefits of the free weapon. The new Buy Menu will do this for you automatically whenever there is an opportunity to do so, saving you that hard-earned cash!

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This updated menu should feel great to use on both PC and console, and we’re confident that the updated visuals and improved design will help players no matter which platform they’re playing on.

This feature will completely change the way you play Spectre and we can’t wait for you all to try it soon!

See you all in Breakwater (2.0) 🙂,

BopNSwap

Hey everyone, BopNSwap back with our second Flashpoint Dev Q&A. Excited to dive into meta updates for sponsors and communications improvements.



Overall, we’re super happy with where Sponsor balance landed for our launch season. All the Sponsors are viable picks and no win rate is too far out of wack. That said, we wanted to bring down the power of our best performers slightly and buff up the underperformers to shake up Season 1’s meta. We’ve particularly focused on adjusting our trap abilities which have significant map control gains for low investment.

Let’s dive into all of the changes!

[h2]Nerfs[/h2]

[h3]Ryker Industries[/h3]

• Hull Mine price increased from $200 to $250
  
• Arc Sentry price increased from $200 to $300
  

Over the last few months, Ryker proved itself as the premiere pick for intel gathering and controlling space. We aren’t taking away its ability to lock down a site with utility, but we are making that a more costly strategy which should put some pressure on Ryker’s weapon and armor power if they want to fully lean into the controller role every round.

—
[h3]Morrgen United[/h3]

• Hidden Grasp price increased from $200 to $300
  

Morrgen has been a popular pick since launch and fills an important role as our only Sponsor with free smokes. For that reason, we’ve opted to nudge down Hidden Grasp and leave Smoke Shift untouched in order to maintain its focus on vision denial and exciting Duality plays.

—
[h3]Pinnacle International[/h3]

• Splinter Grenade max charges reduced from 2 to 1
  
• Splinter Grenade recharge time reduced from 75s to 45s.
  

We want to maintain Pinnacle’s ability to throw several grenades a round, but we specifically wanted to reduce grenade spam and grenade chaos. We hope players will be more intentional about the locations they want to clear, while still feeling like Pinnacle is a strong entry fragger option.

[h2]Buffs[/h2]

[h3]Umbra Reconnaissance[/h3]

• Recon Wing radius increased from 7m to 8.5m
  
• Glare Burst width increased from 4m to 5m
  

Umbra was our weakest launch Sponsor and is considered one of the hardest Sponsors to play due to the complexity of Pulsefinder’s enhanced abilities. We are moving some additional power into the core abilities that don’t rely on a Pulsefinder combo. By increasing the sizes of both Recon Wing and Glare Burst, Umbra should feel more forgiving and exciting to play. Keep in mind that a 1.5m increase to radius is quite a large change to the overall circle :)

—
[h3]Ghostlink Collective[/h3]

• Dupe cost decreased from $250 to $200
  
• Partition duration increased from 8s to 10s
  

Ghostlink’s Dupe is an exciting ability that’s core to the identity of the Sponsor. As players have become more familiar with the game, we’ve seen Dupe’s effectiveness decline, particularly at higher skill levels. We nudged down the price to better align with the current power level of the ability. We’re also giving Partition a longer duration to ensure it is a strong pick for vision-denial and to help Ghostlink better compete with Morrgen for the “smoker” role.

—
[h3]Muu Robotics[/h3]

• Hyperdome health increased from 150 to 300
  
• Dazzler covers more of the screen, but can now be turned away from
  

While Muu remained a fan favorite during Season 0, Hyperdome was underperforming as a defensive tool, especially during full buy rounds. Increasing the health of the bubble shield should give players more opportunities to pull off aggressive fast recalls and keep teammates safe.

We’re also shifting around the power of Dazzler a bit. Previously, enemies that were within line of sight and range of Dazzler would be flashed regardless of where they were looking. The tradeoff was that Dazzler wasn’t a “true” flash and instead distorted the vision for enemies hit. Enemies looking away from Dazzler will now be flashed for a shorter duration, but it will block more vision than it did previously.

—
[h3]Vector Dynamics[/h3]

• Dual Amp fire rate buff increased from 15% to 20%
  
• Vector Wall height increased from 3.5m to 4.5m
  
• Vector Wall width increased from 6m to 7m
  

Vector is generally performing where we want it, so we’re making small adjustments upwards to improve the feel of the kit and help it be a little better across the board.

[h2]No Changes[/h2]

[h3]Bloom Technologies[/h3]

• 🐝 All is well in the hive.
  

Another Flashpoint announcement we shared was that a number of improvements are coming to our in-game communication systems. Similar to the Sponsor updates, there was much speculation on what this would look like in practice. Let’s cover a few different aspects of what we’ve been working on here.

[h2]Gameplay Chatter[/h2]

While the game feels exciting and dynamic in gunfights, it could sometimes feel empty outside of those moments, especially if teams weren’t on voice comms. We’ve added a number of new situational voice lines that you’ll hear outside of combat to liven up the gameplay space.

Characters can now make call-outs automatically when spotting enemies, getting kills, and fully eliminating an enemy. Additionally, automated voice callouts will identify enemy sponsors, so you’ll more easily and more often know what Sponsor you’re up against!

We’ve also added callouts for other key moments in the match such as “last player alive” and ZEUS detonation timing.

These changes should give you a better sense of what’s happening around the map without your teammates having to verbally say what they’re doing at all times. We hope this is particularly useful for teams playing without voice comms enabled. And don’t worry - we’ve put cooldowns in place to ensure players aren’t getting spammed with voice lines from teammates.

[h2]Ping Improvements[/h2]

Building on our desire to add more non-verbal communication options, we’ve expanded pings to be more dynamic and useful:

• Ping an enemy’s Arc Sentry to remind your teammates that they need to avoid getting detected.
  
• Ping your own Patches to encourage your teammates to run over for some healing.
  
• Ping a weapon on the ground to call dibs.
  
• Ping a teammate’s ping to let them know the message was received loud and clear.
  

We’re excited about these changes and will be continuing to look for more opportunities to improve player communication in future seasons.

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Thanks for reading and make sure to share more of your questions with us for future weeks!

We’ll see you in the new-and-improved Breakwater very soon,

BopNSwap

On February 14th, we are going to retire the Spectre Divide Founder's Pack DLC from the Steam store.

If you've already purchased this DLC, the removal will not affect the content or SP that you received from the DLC purchase. This will not affect the main game, Spectre Divide, at all.

Have questions or concerns about this? You can reach our Player Support team by visiting this link: https://support.mountaintop.gg/hc/en-us/requests/new