Update 4.4.0

Oct 23

2024.10.23

It’s getting spooky in The Arena!

With Halloween taking the spotlight next week, you might start seeing spooky changes around the Arena starting today! Dress up in your most ghoulish get-up, send shivers down enemy contestants' virtual spines as an Underworld Outcast, and get trick-or-treating before the season ends!

In this patch, you’ll find changes and fixes, including the introduction of a system to reward kills to players based on environmental kills that launch players off the map, among other things!

Check out the changes below and stay tuned for a World Tour update tomorrow that is out of this world, setting a spooky stage for things to come, and a new set of Twitch Drops to collect as we creep closer to Fright Night!

Balance Changes

Weapons

Sledgehammer

Decreased the sweep duration of the secondary attack by 25%
Decreased the sweep width of the secondary attack from 30cm to 25cm
Increased the sweep width of the primary attack from 12cm to 15cm

Dev Note: These changes make the Sledgehammer’s hit sweeps more accurately match the attack animations which hopefully makes the weapon feel more reliable for its victims. We noticed that in some cases players would be hit despite the Sledgehammer’s model not passing near to them at all, which could cause a lot of confusion.

Content and Bug Fixes

Animation

Fixed an issue where audio was looping when vaulting over certain obstacles

Audio

Replaced the Cl 40 grenade impact sound to lessen ear fatigue

Bugs

Fixed an issue that caused a hang for players using DX11
Fixed an issue where certain usage of goo could result in players bypassing collision
Potential fix for players becoming permanently invisible during a round
Fixed one of the issues which could cause destruction to appear out of sync

Cosmetics

Fixed an issue where the "Stuck on you" sticker on FCAR skin could be floating when using the Ironsight

Contracts

Re-balanced some of the distance-based Contracts to make achieving them a better experience

Environmental Eliminations

Updated the kill system to detect and reward players for ‘environmental kills’, i.e. kills where a player falls out of bounds and dies due to the actions of another player

Examples of the types of falling kills this system can now detect include:

Removing the floor from underneath a player (e.g. destroying Seoul’s sky bridge or removing it via the Dematerializer)
Blocking a player with Goo or a thrown carriables
Destroying ziplines carrying a player
Firing a player out of the level with a Jump Pad
Lifting a player out of the level with the Anti-Gravity Cube
Pulling a player out of the level with the Winch Claw
Knocking a player out of the level with Charge ‘n Slam
Causing a player to fall out of the level using the Gateway

Dev Note: This is the first iteration of this system. There's quite a few knobs to turn since there's a huge amount of ways in which players can end up falling out of bounds. We can't track absolutely all types of interactions due to the infinite amount of possibilities, including exceptions such as physics-to-physics interactions (i.e. objects/building pieces pushing at each other), but we've tried to catch most of the common ones. We'll keep on iterating and try to address as much of the feedback as possible in coming releases!

Gadgets

Anti-Gravity Cube

Fixed various unintended bugs with the Anti-Gravity Cube

Dev Notes: Unfortunately folks, with these fixes the age of the “Goo plane” is over. We loved your imagination with these creations, but this is not a form of locomotion we ever intended for the game and, as well as being very counterintuitive for many players, they can also negatively impact pacing.

Glitch Trap

Added squad colors to the Glitch Trap

RPG-7

Fixed an issue where the RPG would restock ammo too early in the reload animation

Game Modes

Practice Range

Fixed an issue where practice dummies would block explosive damage

Maps

Monaco

Added additional exit point at the top of the alley zipline, allowing players to jump directly on the opposite rooftop.

Kyoto

Small flow improvements around the side of the Pavilion, preventing players from getting stuck between bamboos or get snagged on lanterns

Settings

Added a new option called "Resolution Scale Mode" when TAAU is the selected resolution scaling method. This new setting defaults to the "Auto" option, which selects resolution scaling automatically based on your screen resolution. The alternative "Manual" option allows adjusting the resolution scale value with the "Resolution Scale" slider, just like before
Adjusted the way the GPUs FSR2 and XeSS are selected by default. Both of these are high-quality techniques that are not suitable for low-end GPUs. For low-end GPUs, TAAU will be the default resolution scaling method from now on

Specializations

Goo Gun

Goo projectiles from the Goo Gun will now stick to the base of turrets in the same way as goo from barrels

Fixed an issue where players moving from Platinum 1 to Diamond 4 in World Tour would see the wrong badge and progress bar on the World Tour screen
Fixed an issue where scoring events would show the score gained twice on the HUD, for example: “Vault Opened 500 +500”
Fixed an issue where the larger Battle Pass reward images didn’t cover the whole tile
Fixed an issue where Mouse and Keyboard users could only use the Mouse Wheel to zoom in/out on cosmetics on the Sponsor screen when the mouse was placed in the top part of the screen
Fixed an issue where game mode tiles could get stuck in the hover state
Fixed an issue where player names would not update immediately when using the ‘Hide Playernames’ option
Added friends filter to the leaderboard
Fixed an issue where friends’ names could show up incorrectly on leaderboards after toggling the friends filter
Adjusted healthbars back to intended height

VFX