Another update, another batch of bugs being squashed! The second part of our Summer Squash season also includes key balance tweaks to even the score a little more.
We’ve got one more Summer Squash update to come, which will be heavily focused on optimization. Keep your eyes out for it in the coming weeks!
Balance
Mercs
Aimee
While Aimee is useful, she hasn’t quite been keeping up with the other snipers. We believe part of this is due to the long cooldown of her SNITCH Device once it’s destroyed.
We’ve reduced this cooldown so Aimee can deploy SNITCH’s more regularly. In doing so we’ve also reduced the maximum life-span of the SNITCH to match, effectively making it ‘one per spawnwave’ when it comes to Stopwatch play.
- Reduced the SNITCH cooldown to 25s (from 30s)[/*]
- Reduced the SNITCH lifespan to 25s (from 30s)[/*]
Redeye
In the right hands, Redeye has proven to be overly effective, especially when firing through Smoke, leaving his targets with little chance to fight back.
While this behavior is intended, we felt that Redeye could spend too much time in this state, so we’ve increased the cooldown cost of enabling IR Goggles. This not only reduces the total amount of time the IR Goggles can spend enabled, but also increases the cooldown penalty of constantly switching IR Goggles on and off.
To also provide a better counter to Redeye, we’ve also reduced the amount of explosive damage it takes to remove Smoke from an area, so now a single Frag Grenade will do the trick.
- Reduced explosive damage required to dissipate Smoke to 170 (from 225)[/*]
- Increased the initial Cooldown cost of enabled IR Goggles to 3s (from 1.2s) [/*]
Sawbonez
As the current top-dog Medic, Sawbonez needs marginally toning down. Since his healing is heavily based on quick-regeneration, we’ve reduced the instant ‘Direct Hit’ healing he provides with his Med Packs. This brings it in-line with the ‘Direct Hit’ bonus that Sparks’ Med Packs provide.
- Reduced Sawbonez Med Pack ‘Direct Hit’ instant heal to 10hp (from 20hp)[/*]
Sparks
The REVIVR Rifle makes Sparks a formidable reviver and the longest range Medic, however her reduced healing capacity means she’s often not as effective as the others.
With that in mind, we’ve increased the amount of healing her Med Packs provide to others, while keeping the self-healing the same.
- Increased health provided by Sparks Med Pack to teammates to 40hp (from 30hp)[/*]
- Increased collision box on Sparks Med Packs to make them a little easier to pick up
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Assault Rifles
Dreiss AR
The Dreiss has been seen to be the least effective Assault Rifle when it’s available. Since the main issue seems to be bullet spread when fired from the hip, we’ve significantly reduced initial bullet spread and toned down the maximum bullet spread after sustained fire.
- Reduced starting bullet spread by ~20%[/*]
- Reduced maximum spread by ~4%[/*]
Timik-47
The Timik-47 has been lagging slightly behind the M4. While it is intended to be harder to control, it should be initially more accurate. We’ve reduced the starting bullet spread a little more to emphasise this, while also toning down the vertical kick after each shot, to make it a little more viable when ironsighting.
- Reduced starting bullet spread by ~6%[/*]
- Reduced vertical recoil by ~4%[/*]
Sniper Rifles
PDP-70
While The PDP-70 has been seen to be very effective on Redeye due to his ability to hunker down and fire through smoke, it’s not seeing nearly the same performance when in the hands of Aimee or Vassili.
With that in mind, alongside the changes to Redeye, we’ve opted to increase its potential burst damage with higher damage per shot, but lowering it’s damage output over time.
This should reduce the effectiveness of spamming through Smoke, while leaving the weapon itself potent.
- Increased damage to 50 (from 45)[/*]
- Reduced rate-of-fire to 138RPM (from 180RPM)[/*]
- Reduced magazine capacity to 8 (from 9)[/*]
Grandeur SR
While it has good killing potential, the Grandeur SR requires a lot of control, often leaving the shooter as a stationary target. We decided to speed up the reload speed and make it more accurate when hip-fired to allow for a bit more mobility.
- Reduced initial bullet spread by ~10%[/*]
- Reduced reload time to 2.2s (from 2.6s)[/*]
SMGs
Hochfir SMG
While being the most accurate SMG, the Hochfir has been struggling in the damage department. To counter this we’ve marginally increased the rate of fire to bring its time-to-kill closer to the other SMG’s.
- Increased rate of fire to 833RPM (from 811RPM)[/*]
Machine Pistols
Compared to the semi-automatic Pistol secondaries, the MP 400 and especially the Empire-9 are both significantly over-performing.
MP 400
The MP 400 is the slowest-firing, hardest-hitting of the Machine Pistols, so we’ve lowered the rate of fire a little more here to tone it down while further differentiating it from the others.
- Reduced rate of fire to 619RPM (from 632RPM)[/*]
Empire-9
The Empire-9 is the fastest-firing Machine Pistol and intended to fill the air with low-damaging bullets. Currently it’s vastly out performing all other secondaries so we’ve increased the maximum bullet spread and recoil, making it harder to control over time.
- Increased maximum bullet spread by ~7%[/*]
- Increased recoil by ~10%[/*]
Pistols
Both the Caulden and the Simeon .357 are under-performing when compared to other secondaries.
Caulden
We’ve increased the number of rounds in the Caulden magazine, so it’s closer to the other pistols in terms of damage-per-magazine and players will have to reload less often.
- Increased rounds per magazine to 9 (from 8)[/*]
Simeon .357
The Simeon is the weaker, and thus easier-to-handle of the two revolvers. We’ve reduced the kick to make it easier to for players to land those devastating head-shots.
- Reduced maximum bullet spread by ~7%[/*]
- Reduced vertical recoil by ~6%[/*]
General
- Added an audible 3-second countdown when a match is about to restart due to a Restart Map Vote[/*]
- Added Team Chat to Ranked Lobbies[/*]
- Added the ‘Favorite star’ to the Loadout Card prompt when attempting to Recycle a Favorite Loadout Card[/*]
- AFK-Kicks no longer temporarily ban players from Server Browser games, they can rejoin when they are active again (if there is still space on the server)[/*]
- Automatically triggered AFK-Kick Votes no longer prevent the AFK player from calling other votes[/*]
- Estimated queue time is now only shown when there is enough data to predict the waiting time
[list] - Previously, displayed queue times where incorrect when coming out of downtime[/]
[/list]
[/] - Optimized Merc models by reducing the number of skeletal bones for Sawbonez, Rhino, Fragger, Thunder & Phoenix when viewed at a distance[/*]
- Loadout Cards on Death Ghosts are now introduced to players who reach Level 3, when the game has had a chance to explain how Loadout Card rarities work[/*]
