Patch 0.14.0.2 will be going live later today (Thursday, October 26th). Approximate downtime will be 1 hour, follow us on social media for updates.
Upcoming Changes
We’ve heard your feedback on Patch 0.14.0. We knew this was going to be a risky patch with several updates coming at once and at the same time we saw this as a last opportunity to try out some big changes in Early Access.
As we communicated in an earlier devblog on queues and games modes, we would be keeping a close eye on the reaction to the removal of Casual and be quick to act. We have decided to reintroduce the Casual Arena queue without further delay.
With Battlegrounds we tried mixing the solid combat of Battlerite with the strategic element of objective-based combat. As always with new game modes, there’s a lot of experimenting and a lot of testing. Some people love it but some people don’t, and for us that’s not good enough. Battlegrounds will be labeled “Beta” as we continue to gather feedback. The intention with Battlegrounds was not to create a mode that would compete with Arena, but a mode that would be easy to jump into for some quick action, acting more like a playground.
Battlegrounds will be active in beta mode for a few weeks for additional testing and we will later run it on weekends similar to Brawls. We’ve already received a lot of good feedback – both positive and negative – and the team has a good understanding of how we can make this formula work better in the future but for now we will focus primarily on Arena, Champions, and the new Battlerite System.
We are feeling positive about the new Battlerite system, obviously there will be a lot of balancing similar to when we released big changes to primary attacks (“mouse 1” attacks) earlier this year. In the long run the new system allows us to better tailor Champions while allowing players to be more creative about their builds and their playstyle. You can expect a constant stream of tweaks and updates across all Champions as we continue to push the quality bar for each and every character.
Changing up a UI always creates confusion as you move away from something you’re used to. The UI team is carefully listening to all feedback and are doing lots of improvements as we speak. As been mentioned earlier, one of the main reasons to why we needed to remake the UI was to enable us to implement new features in a scalable manner. The new UI has room for several new planned features and allows us to more efficiently get these out to our players. It will receive regular updates to improve user experience over an extended period of time. At the same time we’re allocating resources for new features such as the long awaited pre-lobby.
With big updates comes additional technical issues and some people are experiencing worse performance now than before the patch. This is a top-priority and we will be rolling out improvements this week and the next to ensure that the game runs smoother than before the update.
/Ilves
General Updates
- Casual Queue has been returned to the game
- In-game chat now clears between matches
- Forfeit timer lowered in Battlegrounds when match starts
- Added an “equip all” button to Mounts in Customization
Bugfixes
- Fixed an issue where players were not gaining experience when playing in Battlegrounds
- MVP screen now displays player usernames instead of Champion names
Balance Changes
Blossom
- Dance of the Dryads (F)
- Now ignores Global Cooldown and post cast
- Interrupts Blossom’s own abilities when used (like escape abilities)
Ezmo
Battlerites
- Exhaust
- Fading Snare duration reduced from 0.8s to 0.4s
- Imp Rush
- Haste factor reduced from 50% to 40%
- Grimoire of Death
- Pull force bonus reduced from 50% to 40%
Freya
- Storm Mace (M2)
- Damage reduced from 12 to 10
Battlerites
- Hammer Time
- Now reduces the cooldown of Thunderclap by 2.5s for each hit blocked instead of resetting cooldown of Thunderclap
- Torrent
- Shield value per target hit reduced from 13 to 10
- Positive Charge
- Damage bonus reduced from 15% to 10%
Jade
- Revolver Shot (M1)
- Range increased from 7.2 to 7.4
- Stealth (Q)
- Cooldown reduced from 9s to 8s
Lucie
- Toxic Bolt (M1)
- Range increased from 7.2 to 7.6
- Projectile speed increased from 16 to 18
- Panic Flask (E)
- Movement speed bonus during panic increased from 25% to 30%
Pearl
Battlerites
- Soaking Wet
- Increased Silence duration reduced from 1.5s to 1.4s
- Ocean Tide
- Bubble Barrier is now consumed when Dive ends instead of when Pearl emerges
- Pearl can be hit by any remaining projectiles in Bubble Barrier
- Bubble Barrier is now consumed when Dive ends instead of when Pearl emerges
Poloma
- Spirit Rift (Q) and Soul Drain (EX Q)
- Movement speed bonus during Panic increased from 15% to 20%
Raigon
- Slicing Winds (EX M1)
- Healing reduced from 14 to 12
Ruh Kaan
- Defiled Blade (M1)
- Charged Defiled Blade Silence duration reduced from 0.5s to 0.3s
- Consume (Q)
- Cooldown increased from 8s to 9s
- Claw of the Wicked (E)
- Cast time increased from 0.4s to 0.5s
- Range reduced from 8 to 7.5
Shifu
- Kunju (Q)
- Travel time reduced from 0.6s to 0.5s
Battlerites
- Spear Lunge
- Travel distance increased from 50% to 75%