11-21-2024 Update

Matchmaking Rework

• This update includes a new version of the matchmaker. The matchmaking pools are no longer split between normal and ranked, there is only one primary matchmaking mode and there are no limited hours.
• Badges will update immediately whenever you gain or lose enough MMR to change badges. You no longer have to wait a week or play a certain game count. There will sometimes be monthly global maintenance updates where we readjust the global curve based on the population, cheaters banned, recalculation adjustments, etc (this will be done as needed and not necessarily every month).
• Hero MMR is now used in the Matchmaker. Each player will have a "core" MMR and your MMR per hero will be offsets of your core MMR. When you queue, we will match you based on that hero's MMR. So if you are unfamiliar or play worse with a given hero, you will be put in an easier match than your usual. Judgement on your skill and familiarity with a hero will be based on the 20 most recent games with that hero. In your profile, we have UI that shows you what the matchmaker thinks your relative ranking for each hero is (give us feedback on this, we expect to iterate on this calculation).
• Leaderboards are also included per region (North America, South America, Europe, Asia, Oceania). There is a top 1000 Core MMR leaderboard as well as a top 1000 Hero MMR leaderboard for each hero (for each region separately). To qualify for being considered in leaderboards in general, you must have 50 games played in the last 30 days. To qualify for a specific hero's leaderboard, you must have played at least 20 games on that hero in the past 30 days.
• You can queue as any party size, however there are a few details. If the range of skill in your party is too wide, the amount of MMR you can gain will be reduced somewhat based on the degree. This is especially true if it’s a player we don't know anything about (like a very high mmr player queuing with a "new" player, we will minimize updates to the known player until we are more confident we can trust the skill of that party overall).
• The previous limit on high MMR party sizes is increased from 2 to 3. This applies to Ascendant 1 and above. This is the old limit we had on disallowing too many high MMR players to be in the same party together, for matchmaking quality reasons.
• Given the updated no hour limits, if we think a match is a bad quality (like 5am games where there weren't a lot of players to pick from), we will weigh the match less heavily towards a rank update relative to what we would do with an average quality match.
• If you prefer playing with only solos, there is a convar (mm_prefer_solo_only) you can use.
• When queuing as a party, you will have an option to override the default balance oriented lane assignment system and make the system prioritize putting your party members in the same lanes together.
• Added Swap Lanes feature. During the rooftop and zipline phase at the start of the game, you can now request to swap lanes with your teammates by clicking the button below their portrait on the scoreboard. If the other player accepts your request, you will immediately be swapped. You may decline an incoming request by right clicking it.
• There is an option to notify you anytime your rank levels up. There is also an option to show the average badge of each team for the post game.

General Changes

• Added secondary key binds for actions
• You are now able to browse and favorite builds in the dashboard
• Sandbox mode now shows the souls value of the current items you have in your inventory
• Abilitiy tooltips now list exactly which items the ability has been imbued with rather than "Ability is imbued"
• Items in the shop that imbue abilities are tagged with a label with a similar styling to active items
• Commend toasts now stay on your screen until they are dismissed
• Commend toasts now have a button to return the commend to the player that commended you
• Adjusted the behavior of the Incoming Damage UI so that it can still be used in Sandbox mode
• There is now a Change Hero button in the Build Browser which brings up the hero picker to choose a different hero in both Sandbox and in the Dashboard

Quickbuy:

• Decision dialogs for dealing with item limits, imbuing, and activation slots are now shown at queue time rather than purchase time whenever possible
• You can now queue items to sell. If you right click on items that you own it will add them to the front of your quickbuy queue, and they will be queued to sell. The sale price of these items will be added to your current souls to calculate when you can afford to purchase the next item in your quickbuy queue..
• Adjusted Powerup Runes' design to look more visually breakable (due to melee change explained later in the gameplay section)
• Low priority games now require wins to count
• Gaining Rejuvenator buff now shows what stats have been improved on your hero (like powerups and other buffs)
• Fixed Abrams camera
• Added icon variants for high or low ground for small/medium/large camps
• Adding note below Cancel key in Settings explaining that "Abilities will be cancelled with the Cancel Key when possible"
• Purchase Log in the shop now shows enemy and ally purchases with different colors
• Fixed F1-F5 Keys not working (for moving camera to allies)
• Updated active items to have uniform sliding/cast delay behavior

• The through-wall ally silhouette health bars are now more accurate
• Optimized lighting in the map for better rendering performance
• Fixed a bug where you would be prompted to sell an item if the component wasn't in the same category as the component you were buying (i.e. you go to buy slowing hex with your item slots full and you already own the component)
• Removed redundant Replay keybinds (now shares with Spectating)
• Added Chat Wheel Options as keybinds so you can bind keys to certain responses
• Fixed not being able to ping enemy items
• Added music and ambient sounds to hotel
• Added new run animation for Seven
• Revised Mirage Fire Scarabs projectile and cast sounds
• Revised Casting bridge buff loop
• Remastered weapon fire for Seven
• Remastered weapon fire for Paradox
• Fixed a bug where nearly all sound stops and never returns
• Fixed respawn music cue failing to play with shop menu open
• Fixed music not playing while the player is outside their base and their base is under attack
• Fixed haze smoke bomb loop not playing for teammates
• Improved negative feedback sound effect timing
• Fixed some cases where some sounds could overpower everything else
• Added key and button name localization support for keybinds
• Visual update to Mirage Tornado bullet evasion buff
• Visual update to Medicinal Specter to improve visibility
• Visual update to turret tracers, muzzle flash and impacts
• Sand Blast revision to help user judge distance and AOE
• Added preview state to Flying Strike
• Added effect to when the zipline ability first starts
• Added an AOE landing indicator for where units will be thrown with Death Slam (only shows for allies)
• Fixed Ground Strike preview cone visual to be more accurate
• Updated Patron VO to give the Amber Hand more lines that are unique to him as opposed to having the identical script of the Sapphire Flame (for instance, while the Sapphire Flame might praise Haze by saying "you are perfection, Haze", the Amber Hand would say "Haze will dance, and they will fall")
• Related to the above, both patrons will now call out the Greenwich/Green Lane objectives specifically when they are destroyed

• Stubbed in first pass VO for Fathom, Magician, Trapper, and Viper - the primary goal for these is to give coverage for pings, but we also added lines for hero select and ability usage

• Some rendering performance improvements
• Fixed some lightmap quality regressions
• Fixed textures being slightly too blurry in FSR2
• Fixed some rendering features (such as distance field shadows) running despite being disabled in UI
• Fixed right-clicking on an item in the shop in build editing mode causing it to be added to your Quickbuy queue
• Steam Game Recording no longer records kills/deaths if you're dead and spectating another player
• Steam Game Recording timeline no longer records Shrine objectives as "The World"
• Fixed fps_max accidentally being changed to slider maximum value when out of slider range
• Video Settings slider for fps_max goes up to 400
• Fixing tooltips on keybind dropdowns not working correctly
• New sounds added to Yamato's Flying Strike while aiming
• New sounds added to Mo & Krill's Burrow and Sand Blast abilities
• Hit confirm sound added to Lash's Flog ability
• Fixed a bug causing Mo & Krill's Burrow emerge sound to double up when not cancelling the burrow early
• Fixed Mo & Krill's Burrow traveling/underground sound not looping correctly
• Steam Input support
• Fixed Controller binds not working when the same Keyboard binds were empty
• Fixed Show Scoreboard glyph in Sandbox Mode UI

Misc Gameplay

• Soul Sharing ratios post-lane reduced from 100/70/45/33/25/20% to 100/60/35/25/20/16% (for 1/2/3/4/5/6 players, original was 100/50/33/25/20/16%)
• Hero Kill souls decreased from 175->2000 to 175->1600 (from 0 min to 45 min)
• Walkers Stomp now also deals 10% Max HP as damage
• Walkers Laser now also deals 2% Max HP DPS
• Walkers now provide nearby allied heroes 25% Bullet and Spirit Resistance
• Walkers now have Resistance based on how many nearby enemies there are (0/8/16/24/32/40% for 1/2/3/4/5/6 players; they are more tanky against a large attacking team)
• Middle Lane Walkers HP increased from 5800 to 8000 (side walkers HP is 5175)
• Patron Laser now also deals 3% Max HP DPS
• Flex Slot changed from All Shrines to 1 Shrine and 2 Base Guardians
• Mid Boss trooper health for first spawn reduced from 95% to 70%
• Trooper Spirit Resist at 25 minutes reduced from 30% to 20% (still scales to 70% at 50 minutes)
• Respawn time curves changed from happening at 17/30 minutes for 40s/70s respawn to 20/40 minutes
• Trooper soul changed from 60/40% in the kill/orb to 65/35%
• Medic Trooper now has 3 charges of heal rather than 2
• Falloff min range reduced from 22m to 20m
• Air Drag when getting off the zipline increased from 20% to 25% (default in general is 20%)
• Improved various issues with Heavy Melee vs Dash/Parry when there is latency
• Killing the first Patron now causes any existing enemy hero respawns to be reduced by 20 seconds. However, it does not reduce remaining respawn time lower than 10s.
• Powerups now require a heavy melee to claim (art visuals updated)
• Powerups now start weaker and grow stronger (from 10 minutes to 40 minutes)
• Gun Powerup:
• Previously was +20% Fire Rate and +40% Ammo for 160s.
• Now starts at "+10% Fire Rate and +30% Ammo" and ends at "30% Fire Rate and +60% Ammo"
• Survival Powerup:
• Previously was +400 Health and +1% Max Health Regen for 160s.
• Now starts at "+250 Health and 1% Max Health Regen" and ends at "+700 Health and 1.5% Max Health Regen"
• Casting Powerup:
• Previously was +25 Spirit Power and +20% Cooldown Reduction for 160s.
• Now starts at "+20 Spirit Power and +15% Cooldown Reduction" and ends at "+40 Spirit Power and +25% Cooldown Reduction"
• Movement Powerup:
• Previously was +2 Stamina, +3 Sprint, +30% Stamina Regen and +50% Zipline Boost for 160s.
• Now starts at "+1 Stamina, +2 Sprint, +20% Stamina Regen and +40% Zipline Boost" and ends at "+4 Stamina, +4 Sprint, +50% Stamina Regen and +80% Zipline Boost"
• Urn time to reveal increased from 20s to 25s
• Initial Urn bounty reduced from 4050 to 3000 (changed from 1750 + 230*Min to 700 + 230*Min)
• Adding an alternate Urn mechanic as an experiment for 2 days. This will be enabled this weekend only and Monday will be back to normal. Urn pickup location is the same, but drop-off location is now always at the top of mid temple. The bonus souls the team gets is reduced by 60% (the delivering player reward is unchanged). The reveal time is now 40s.
• Moved rooftop neutral camps on Amber Yellow and Sapphire Purple to rooftops closer to the Guardian
• Added a truck to climb up into the interior bridge area at the Port Authority and Jazz Club buildings

View attachment truck_update.mp4

• Moved stairs up from the central canal to the Radio Station interior closer to the inner lanes
• Removed stairs up to the Radio Station interior from the underground Teleport Station
• Redesigned Radio Station interior to be more open

View attachment canal_update.mp4

• Moved connection corridor between Inner and Outer lanes (Amber Yellow and Sapphire Purple) to be farther from the base entrances
• Removed the cosmic veils from the entrances of the connection corridor

View attachment connection_update.mp4

• Changed entrance to the Armory/Warehouse from the inner lane to be more direct (not a hallway)

View attachment armory_update.mp4

• Moved the side lane teleporters to the crawl space under the Hard camp

View attachment teleporter_update.mp4

• Removed bookshelf model inside the upper floor of the Police Station/Garment Building to see the corridor behind it
• Removed Rope inside the Police Station/Garment Building
• Added interior stair connection in Factory/Mansion to stay inside from lower to upper areas
• Added a fence guard beside the stairs inside the Garage/Night Club
• Added zapper effect to the antenna models on rooftops
• New building facade art in Amber Blue and Purple lanes
• Added a street gate structure between the Garage and the Record Shop

Heal / Anti-Heal Rebalance

• Below is a group of changes bundled together that pairs reducing sustain abilities/items as well as anti-heal mechanics by some percentage (some things less than others depending on the specific circumstances of the ability)

Weapon Items

• New T3 Weapon Item, Spellslinger Headshots: Requires Soul Shredder Bullets. Landing a headshot on enemy heroes increases your total Spirit Power by 3% for 12s. Cooldown 1.5s. Max stacks 12. Grants +12% Weapon Damage, +8% Spirit Amp/18% Spirit Lifesteal (component passive), and +150 Health.

Vitality Items

Spirit Items

Heroes