Hello Everyone!
After an extensive internal playtest, we've gathered valuable data and insightful feedback. And we're excited to bring you a significant update! This patch features a range of balance adjustments and tweaks, along with some exciting new mechanics to elevate your experience.
Here are some of the key issues we identified and how we've addressed them:
- Issue: Games can go on for too long.
- Fix: We've introduced a Sudden Death mechanic to keep things fast-paced and thrilling.
- Issue: New players dying too quickly and spending most of their time spectating other players.
- Fix: We've adjusted the ball's speed curve — it now accelerates more gradually and becomes more dynamic toward the end of the round. This should make the early game more manageable for newcomers.
- Looking Ahead:
- To further address this issue, we're planning to implement a ranking system. This will help match new players with others at a similar skill level, reducing the chances of them being knocked out too quickly and ensuring they get more time to play and improve.
- Issue: Some abilities, like Hot Potato, felt too powerful and rarely on cooldown.
- Fix: We've rebalanced all abilities and deflect mechanics to improve overall fairness.
Stay tuned, and we hope you enjoy the improvements!
Change log:
Ball
- Intercepting the ball will not change the balls target.
- Intercept = Deflecting the ball when its targeting someone else
- The ball now accelerates more gradually at the start of a round
Settings
- Added separate sensitivity options for Controllers
- Added Deadzone settings for Controllers
Ability Balance
- Deflect
- Deflect duration 1.3s -> 1s.
- Deflect failed CD 3s->2.5s.
- Perfect deflect impulse increase 20%-60%.
- Time to get perfect hit changed from 0.2s to 0.05s.
- Hotpotato
- Hotpotato CD changed 10s -> 35s.
- Increased stack size change on Hotpotato from 100cm to 250cm per stack
- Upwards smash
- Upwards smash ammo 3 -> 1.
- Change CD on upward smash 10s -> 8s.
- Mimic Ball
- Power Boost
- Power boost deflect impulse increase 200% -> 150%
- Place bomb
- Changed Cd on place bomb from 10s -> 20s
- Placed bomb cast time 0.3s -> 0.1s
- Place jump pad
- Placed jump pad cast time 0.3s -> 0.1s
- Yoyo
- Yoyo cast time 0.5s -> 0.2s
- Redirect
- Redirect cast time 0.2s -> 0.1s
Sudden Death
We’ve implemented a Sudden Death mechanic across all arenas. However, we're already prototyping a variety of sudden death mechanics to keep end-game moments exciting and unpredictable. Our goal is to create a diverse set of mechanics, so each round feels fresh and intense.
- Sudden Death General
- Dynamic Sudden Death Timer
- (The sudden death timer becomes adaptive, starting sooner as more players are eliminated.)
- Default Sudden Death Start: 2 minutes
- Time Reduction per Player Elimination: 20 seconds
- Sudden Death Mechanic
- One Life Sudden Death
- When sudden death begins, all players are set to just 1 life. Additionally, life and cooldown reduction pickups are removed from the arena, creating a high-stakes showdown.
BUGS
- Resolved media lag in videos explaining how abilities work.
- Fixed several navigation bugs in the main menu when using a controller.
- Spectator camera now behaves consistently with the normal game camera.
- Properly capped FPS on the splash screen to improve performance.
- Fixed a bug where bombs placed on Rumble Rafts would land on the ocean floor instead of the water surface.
- Addressed an Issue allowing players to escape the lobby and jump beneath the level.
- Resolved multiple issues with matchmaking and the party system.
- Fixed a bug that prevented players from being teleported back to the lobby after a game.