Ranked Season 4 kicks off today and will run until January. Use the skills you’ve been honing in the off season, and earn those Ranked rewards to show off to the rest of the community.
These are hardcore 5v5 matches with friendly fire and team collision enabled, so party up with 1 to 4 of your friends and show the community who’s boss. It won’t be easy, but practice, teamwork and a steady hand will go a long way.
##GET RANKED
To start your ranked career you must be level 7. When you enter the new Season you’ll be asked to play 10 placement matches to determine your starting Rank.
Your placement will be affected by where you ended Season 3, but if you’re new to Ranked, then this opening salvo of games will give you your starting position.
##RANKED POINTS
As you play you’ll earn Ranked Points which you can use to buy exclusive Ranked Season 4 content. This content will only be available during this Ranked Season, so play hard and save up, because they won’t be coming back!
As well as earning these Ranked Points for exclusive content, you’ll also get a 50% credit bonus while playing ranked. So if you’ve got your eyes on a shiny new Merc, Ranked is the place to play.
You can earn Ranked Points by:
###1. Playing Ranked Matches
You will earn points for every match you play. The better your team does, the more points you earn.
| Team Result | Win | Draw | Loss |
|---|---|---|---|
| Points Earned | 50 | 30 | 10 |
###2. PLACEMENT
When Ranked Season 4 ends in January, you’ll earn points relative to the highest Rank you achieved in the season.
These range from 100 points for a Bronze Recruit, to 4500 for Elite Operative! All the purchasable content can be found on the ‘Ranked’ tab on the store, and the possible rewards are seen on the ‘Ranked’ tab in your profile.
When the Season ends, you won’t have long to spend any remaining points on the exclusive Ranked Season 4 content. After that, any points you have left will carry over to the next Season.
##EXCLUSIVE RANKED SEASON 4 CONTENT
Ranked content is back, and it’s better than ever.
###RANKED SEASON 4 CASES
You can score limited edition Loadout Cards by playing in Ranked Season 4.
Each of these rare cases contains one random Loadout Card with an exclusive skin for a Merc and their weapons, available only during this season.
They’re not easy to get, but carry a prestige that will get the rest of the server talking.
Every time a case drops at the end of a Ranked Match, there’s a 2% chance that it could be a Ranked Case.
###FRAGGER OBSIDIAN
For this season only, you can find two Fragger Obsidian Loadout Cards in the Store.
These reflect the most-played Fragger card in Ranked Season 3 and Casual Play. Pick them up to look the business!
###BATTLE HARDENED TRINKET
Need further proof of your Ranked prowess? A new Battle-Hardened Trinket is here for Season 4, a reminder to you and everyone else you frag about your dedication to Dirty Bomb.
###RANKED SEASON 4 TRINKET
On top of everything else you’ll also be rewarded with a Ranked Season 4 Trinket reflecting the highest Rank you attained during the Season. Moving down a rank won’t cost you a higher trinket, so don’t be afraid to work your way back up!
##WHAT ELSE HAS CHANGED?
We learned a lot during Ranked Season 3, and listening to your feedback has helped us tune Ranked Season 4 to make it the best Season so far.
###ADDITIONS
- Turtle makes his debut – The Turkish Engineer joins the Ranked fray for the first time
- Dome Redux and Vault have also been added to the map selection
- We’ve reduced the amount of time it takes to go up in Rank, allowing players to find their “correct” Rank more quickly
- If a player has never been Ranked before, we now factor in their Casual Skill Rating during their placement matches to improve balance
- Based on last Season’s analysis; large, higher-skilled parties will now be matched against even tougher opponents
- At the end of the match we now display the ‘Average Rank’ for each team, which includes the ‘hidden rating’ of Unranked players
###GAMEPLAY CHANGES
- We’ve made some general Overtime changes, with Overtime now being activated if the match ends while:
- C4 is being planted – before this only included C4 that was already planted
- EV is being repaired – before this only included the EV being actively Escorted
- To help prevent situations where Attackers can ‘steamroll’ a following Objective without Defenders getting a chance to contest the area, we’ve also added a ‘Fall Back’ grace period when a Primary Objective is completed.
- After a Primary Objective is completed, Defenders have a 5s grace-period where they can respawn instantly
So what are you waiting for? Those shiny new skins won’t be earning themselves - Jump in game and get competitive!
##CASUAL MATCHMAKING
We’re adding several more improvements to Casual Matchmaking as we continue to refine the feature, with a focus on getting you into matches faster.
- Searching for servers now occurs in the background during the Team Lineup
- This should reduce the wait-time in every single match by around 15 seconds
- Updated the expansion bar to give a more precise estimated waiting time
- Players can now join a match in progress during searching if a slot becomes available
- Improved feedback when party invites fail while actively searching
- Improved UI notifications when a game update is available while actively searching
- Fixed a few bugs that sometimes caused the Lobby to fail when a player lost connection
##OTHER IMPROVEMENTS AND FIXES:
###Vault
- Fixed hitboxes around several archways where players could be shot through the arches
- Fixed collision on the gate by the 1st defender spawn point which allowed players to jump on top of the gate
- Fixed collision around repairable bridge where players could clip through ceiling instead of being crushed
- Fixed bug where players could still be crushed by deliverable container after it has landed
- Removed invisible ramp in corridor near the 3rd Objective.
- Fixed inaccurate invisible collision on bridge in 1st Objective
- Fixed inaccurate invisible collision near one of the gates close to the second Objective Defender spawn point
- Fixed bad decal around car crash area
- Fixed several small gaps in level geometry where players could see outside the map
- Fixed collision on fan prop along Royal Road
- Fixed bug where the second slot of the Power Core container would play the wrong animation
- Fixed bug where building entrance near the 3rd Objective used interior wallpaper texture
- Fixed distance culling that resulted in undesired pop-in of numerous props throughout the level.
###Guardian
- Reduced the length of Guardian’s Special Taunt 3
- Fixed bug where Guardian’s batons used wrong sound effect when hitting walls
- Fixed bug where Guardian’s hand appeared in an unnatural pose while crouching
- Fixed bug where Guardian had no audio lines for when arming C4, constructing, dying, and several taunts
- Fixed bug where Guardian Sky Shield couldn’t be damaged by melee attacks
- Fixed bug where Guardian’s Sky Shield could sometimes fail to deploy after being thrown
- Fixed bug where Guardian’s Sky Shield could shoot projectiles slightly beyond the extent of its range
- Fixed bug where Guardian’s Sky Shield wouldn’t be disabled if thrown in to an active Phantom EMP
- Fixed bug where ‘Guardian’ XP could be earnt when incapacitating an enemy without defending a teammate
###Javelin
Javelin is not yet ready to be added to the Ranked pool, as we continue to get her to a place that’s more fun to play as and against.
Our aim with these changes is to make her ammo-gifting support ability more impactful, while signalling the direction of her Rocket charge-up to encourage the use of Guided mode rather than Standard when trying to get the drop on an enemy. We’ll be monitoring them and will be making further tweaks where necessary.
- Javelin’s Rocket Launcher charge-up now has directional loudness, so the charge-up is very audible to a potential target
- Smart Ammunition Armor:
- Increased radius to 3.2m (from 2.8m)
- Increased Javelin’s ammo giving rate to 1/2 of a Magazine per second (from 1/3)
- Increased cooldown for giving herself ammunition to 20s (from 12s)
- Increased Ammo Reach Augment to 25% extra ammo giving radius (from 15%)
- Fixed bug where Javelin’s rocket firing effects could only play once for the duration of a round
###General Improvements and Fixes:
- Tweaked positional audio for Hurtsall 2K, Hoigat .224 & SHAR-C to make them easier to identify and locate when in use by other players
- Fixed bug where melee attacks could be absorbed by walls/floors where they should have connected with a player
- Fixed bug that granted Tripped XP when Proxy detonated a Proximity Mine against teammates
- Fixed bug where quick action items (ammo packs, health packs, etc) appeared briefly back in player hands before switching back to previously selected weapon
- Fixed bug where third person animations for quick actions (ammo packs, health packs, etc) would only play once
- Fixed bug where completing the Assault Course with a new account could incorrectly award the wrong Achievements/Trinkets
- Fixed bug where player’s weapons could appear solid black after using fixed machine gun spots
- Fixed bug where reloading for some automatic weapons could take the wrong amount of bullets from player’s ammo pool to refill the magazine
- Fixed bug that granted Splash Damage XP when Kira suicides and is finished by her Orbital Laser
- Fixed bug where ‘Stick Together’ XP could be earned while incapacitated
Votekicks are disabled in ranked games?