Monster Hunter World Ryu armor is here, and it looks badass!
As part of Capcom’s cross-game promotion with Monster Hunter World and Street Fighter V, players will now be able to pick up the Ryu “armor” to show off the street fighting badass in the action game.
The Monster Hunter World Ryu armor is indeed live, though there’s a tiny condition that needs to be met before anyone can snatch it up. If you’ve played SFV before, and have data stored for it, you’ll be able to farm for the armor pieces now. However, for those who don’t, you’ll have to wait until next week, though there is a workaround for it.
Ryu joins the hunt in Monster Hunter: World! If you have save data for Street Fighter V, complete the quest “Down the Dark, Muddy Path” to unlock the gear. pic.twitter.com/3FRin0w0gH
What mission do I need to do in order to get the Monster Hunter World Ryu armor?
Players will need to go the “Gathering Hub” area of Astera, and once there, snatch up the “Down the Dark, Muddy Path” mission to unlock armor pieces to be able to craft the gear.
For those who don’t have any save data for SFV, here’s a workaround: search for missions (filter it by matchmaking for arena quests), and once you get in a match (presumably with someone who has the SFV data), you’ll be able to farm like normal.
Do I need to farm for the Ryu armor to complete it? How does it work?
Unfortunately, yes. You will need to farm seven pieces of the SFV tickets in order to get the entire armor set. And before anyone asks, nope. You can’t craft the armor set and equip it piece by piece. You’ll need to farm and craft the entire thing before you can equip it.
Now, as for the actual farming part, players will go up against a giant Barroth, and will need to do so in preset loadouts. The only weapons you can use are: greatsword, hammer, dual blades, heavy bowgun, and gunlance.
Completing the quest will net you an SFV ticket, though it depends on your time. Hitting bronze will get you a (1) ticket, silver nets you two, while gold gets you three. Once you get all the tickets required, head on over to the smitty and craft it.
What does it do and how do I throw hadokens?
Once equipped, players will see their character look like SFV’s Ryu and even sound like him! Note that the armor can be equipped by both male and female hunters, so gender shouldn’t be an issue.
The armor itself will grant players with an attack bonus (lvl. 1), health boost (lvl. 1), defense boost (lvl. 1), and latent power (lvl. 2). The armor set is upgradable, though don’t expect it to replace your end-game kit anytime soon.
Now if you want to throw hadokens and shoryukens, you’ll need to cough up real-world money for it via the PlayStation Store. The moves do damage, though not much, but it is indeed awesome to see Ryu doing his Street Fighter moves in the game. You can bet we’ll see people running Ryu-only moves and take down Elder Dragons and whatnot.
Well, there you have it! If you want to see the skin in action, or want a more detailed description of the Ryu armor, check out the video below.
Here’s the latest COD WW2 news straight from Sledgehammer Games!
Continuing its now-weekly Community Update for Call of Duty: WWII, Sledgehammer Games has disclosed some of the upcoming changes coming to the first-person shooter very soon.
First off, double XP on the Gun Game mode is being rolled out as part of the Resistance community event! Players can give it a go now until February 20, 10 a.m. PT.
Remember when we reported on the missing Winter Bribes for PC COD: WWII players? Fortunately, Sledgehammer Games has found a good middle ground as a solution — finally! PC players will be getting three Rare Resistance Supply Drops “soon.”
Sledgehammer has also given an update on the Dom XL (100 score per kill) playlist! Check out the studio’s statements on that, scorestreak tuning and more below.
Dom XL/100. We’ve almost done running internal tests and are excited to announce we will soon be ready to roll this out! We plan to run this as its own playlist and keep Dom 50 in the rotation, so you’ll have the option to try out both if you’d like. In fact, we highly encourage it!
Scorestreak Tuning. This week, we made some changes to Paratroopers and the way they interact with enemy aerial scorestreaks. On top of those changes, we’re also working on some additional tweaks to scorestreaks that we’ll be rolling out in a future update coming soon. Stay tuned.
Supply Drops. We’ve heard reports from some of you that some supply drops that have been redeemed are missing (or that the in-game UI you’re seeing might indicate that), especially when leveling up. We are working with all teams internally to investigate this. We totally understand the frustration, and will keep you posted once we have a solid answer. Thanks for your patience!
For the rest of the community update, which includes a look at Nazi Zombies, community emblems and more, click here.
Once DOM XL is now live, or there’s a new playlist update, we’ll be sure to let our readers know.
A new PSN Flash Sale is now live, featuring big titles like Overwatch, Uncharted 4: A Thief’s End, and Final Fantasy XV. These prices will only be available until February, so if you’re planning to buy, buy quick!
It’s Friday, which means it’s time for a Destiny 2 Xur location and items post!
Do remember that Xur now appears at 5 p.m. GMT / 12 p.m. ET / 9 p.m. PT.
Xur appears to players in the wilds of Destiny 2. His location changes every week, so players should watch out for where he’ll appear next.
This weekend, players can spend 29 Legendary Shards on the Merciless fusion rifle.
Hunters can grab the Lucky Pants leg armor for 23 Legendary Shards.
Titans can pick up the ACD/0 Feedback Fence gauntlets for 23 Legendary Shards.
Warlocks can purchase the Starfire Protocol chest armor for 23 Legendary Shards.
Players can also buy Fated Engrams, which contain a new not-yet-obtained Exotic, for 97 Legendary Shards. Three of Coins are also available for 31 Legendary Shards.
The Destiny 2 Xur location for this week is on the EDZ, near the Winding Cover landing zone.
The highlight of the latest Bungie weekly update has to be the changes coming to Destiny 2exotic weapons. While, yes, there’s another Faction Rally taking place next week, it’s the comments about Destiny 2‘s most powerful weapons that most players will want to know about.
Bungie Senior Designer Jon Weisnewski has provided an update on what’s coming with the “Exotic Tuning Pass,” which is scheduled for a March 27 launch:
Hello players! I’m here to talk to you about the work going into the Exotic Tuning Pass on the D2 road map.
When Destiny first launched, we built, play-tested, and shipped a batch of Exotic weapons that we hoped would be worthy of your time and hype. Shortly after release, we were happily inundated with a mountain of player feedback. This allowed us to check our assumptions, do some tuning, and push out one of the first Destiny sandbox updates which were solely focused on Exotic weapons. We’re doing this again with Destiny 2 and this time we’re including Exotic weapons and armor.
Gameplay goals for this pass:
Tuning pass on Exotic gear focused on adding and/or increasing player Power spikes.
Focus on low-usage items, but all items are being considered.
Lean into an item’s established gameplay and push it harder. Avoid catch-all improvements that dilute item identity.
So how does this play out? We can look at Graviton Lance as an example. The functional concept is a weapon that fires two Cosmic Void rounds that create a zero-air-resistance tunnel for a high-caliber precision shot to fire through. The first two rounds have almost no recoil and prime the air, and the third round does high damage with no falloff. A kill knocks the body back with considerable force, it tumbles, and then explodes.
Resounding player feedback has been along the lines of “looks great, sounds great, neat explosion! I can’t get kills in PVP because all the damage is at the end of the burst, kicks too hard for the follow up, and I can’t reliably damage targets with the death explosion in any activity because the body goes flying too far backwards.”
All spectacle, not enough utility.
To target the first pain point we reduced the recoil of the burst, added some aim assist, and changed it from three rounds to two. This still plays into the fantasy of a low-damage gravity-neutralizing round forming a projectile tunnel for the last bullet. It also allows us to ensure the damage per burst is at a competitive level for PVP engagements. In fact, it gives Graviton a slight mathematical edge against other pulse rifles.
On the second feedback item, we did some tuning to the ragdoll body. We made it so that rather than violently flying backwards and likely out of range of a potential splash damage opportunity, the defeated opponent floats back and up. Then we made the explosion bigger, increased the damage, and added some void field projectiles that seek out any remaining targets.
This is one of the more exaggerated examples to help describe how we’re looking at our goals and applying them to the gear. At the time of this writing, the weapons that ARE NOT getting an update are Merciless , Telesto, Wardcliff Coil, MIDA Multi Tool, Colony, Legend of Acrius, and Vigilance Wing. Some of the above perform well without needing changes, while others, like the Vigilance Wing Pulse Rifle, are already benefitting from the tuning changes planned for Update 1.1.4. Everything else has had some degree of power or utility increase, whether it’s simply bumping a stat or some deeper plumbing as described above.
We’ll be touching a lot of powerful gear with this update and to truly understand the impact for players requires a lot of design iteration and test time. It isn’t enough to crank up the damage and run one strike or Crucible match with a gun and helmet and move on. Dialing in the right amount of power, testing in all activities with all types of load outs, finding the bugs, fixing the bugs, updating the perk description text to reflect new behavior, and then handing that off to localization for translation—it’s a ton of work, but we’re up to it. We sincerely appreciate your patience. I believe it will be worth the wait.
We’ll be back soon to talk about Exotic Masterworks as well! Until then, continue being excellent to each other.
Capcom just rolled out a new Monster Hunter World update today on both the PlayStation 4 and Xbox One! Dropping at just a measly 81MB, the Monster Hunter World update 1.06 fixes a few things in the game, and also helps in the search algorithm for the Xbox One version.
Here’s the patch notes for each platform straight from Capcom:
PlayStation 4 and Xbox One:
Fixed an issue that occurred when hunters had 31 or more Slashberries in their item pouch at the time of the last update (PS4 v1.05 / Xbox One v1.0.0.10) where the maximum number of Slashberries a hunter can hold in their item pouch was reduced from 60 to 30. This update will move any Slashberries exceeding 30 in your item pouch to your item box.
Made additional fixes to an issue fixed in the last update (PS4 v1.05 / Xbox One v1.0.0.10) where, rarely, uninvited non-squad members could join a Squad Online Session, or Squad members could not join one of their own.
Xbox One:
Readjusted the search algorithm when searching for another player’s session to join.
Got that? Good! It might be small fixes, but it’s definitely appreciated by players like me. And of course, the patches only being 81MB in size for the last few ones definitely helps, too.
In other Monster Hunter World news, we just published a piece helping players check what each monster’s weaknesses are in one handy graph. We also posted a quick guide on how to help take down Nergigante. Finally, we also pushed out a post that helps explain Decorations and what to do, and not do.
If you notice any new changes not in the patch notes, let us know in the comments.
If you’re maybe one of the five people in the world that still haven’t tried Blizzard’s hugely successful Overwatch, now’s your chance! A free Overwatch weekend, and it applies to all platforms (PS4, Xbox One, PC).
Starting February 16, and running until February 19, the entire base game will be free, and that means the entire roster of 26 heroes, 17 maps, will be playable in all modes (except Ranked). If you decide to buy the game after trying, you’ll keep any progress earned during the free weekend. The mayhem starts on the 16th at 11 a.m. PT and will end on 11:59 p.m. PT on the 19th.
Note that the free weekend requires PS4 gamers to be a PS Plus member, while Xbox One gamers will need to be signed up for Xbox Live Gold.
In other Overwatch news, check out the latest patch for the game, where it sees Lucio getting a massive nerf in CTF.
Rainbow Six Siege free weekend is happening now! Go! Go! Go!
Want to try Rainbow Six Siege and see what all the hoopla is about? Well, it’s your lucky weekend! Ubisoft is dishing out a Rainbow Six Siege free weekend to mark the Six Invitational event happening right now!
Players can download and play on all platforms starting today until February 20!
Siege into the weekend for FREE! Play #RainbowSixSiege free NOW through Feb 20. Which operator will you choose?
This means you and your pals can all squad up, and try the game for free! Don’t forget, there’s a lot of content still coming out for the shooter, and there’s even two new Operators set to be fully revealed very soon!
Now might be the best time to try it with buddies since you can help each other out in getting rid of zombies! Yep, the walking dead have invaded the realistic shooter, and it’s not like Call of Duty’s!
This Monster Hunter World monster weakness chart might save your character’s life.
If you’re one of the millions of gamers out there toiling away at Monster Hunter World, chances are you want a quick and easy way to check the Monster Hunter World monster weakness info. Sure there’s your hunter’s notes, however, it’s a pain having to check your menu, check each monster and so on, right?
Enter Reddit user GrieverXVII! He compiled what each monster is weak to in terms of elements and ailments in one handy graph! Check it out below. Minor spoilers since it lists down every enemy you’ll see in the game, and yes, they include the Elder Dragons.
Now, isn’t this way easier? Don’t forget to bookmark this post so you can check it whenever you wish.
If that’s not enough, we have a few more guides linked below to help you in your quest to rid the world of these predators.
Rainbow Six Siege new Operators coming, and here’s their loadouts!
As part of Operation Chimera, Ubisoft is introducing new Rainbow Six Siege Operators! Named Lion and Finka, these Rainbow Six Siege new Operators are experts in biological warfare. Check out the announcement trailer below.
In Operation Chimera, even Team Rainbow is pushed to its limits. Therefore, Six calls in some of the very best biohazard specialists currently in operation within the world’s elite national CTUs: Lion and Finka. Respectively from France and Russia, these hot zone specialists are experts in matters of biological warfare and veterans of numerous conflicts involving bio-chemical weapons. They are Rainbow Six’s best hope against the dangers lurking in the Quarantine Zone.
The full reveal of the new Operators will happen during the Rainbow Six Invitational which is taking place this week, February 13 to February 18. I assume the reveal will happen during the weekend, live at the venue. However, Ubisoft has also shared backstories regarding the two, and what their gadget loadouts look like.
Finka delivers a nanobot shot to each operator before an operation. The nanites are made of zinc with the pharmacological cocktail laced into the nanobot’s construction. When she activates her signal, the nanobots disintegrate with the zinc being treated as a nutrient by the body and facilitating the absorption of the drugs. The operators receive a short boost of health to get them back on their feet, to give them an extra push, and to steady their aim
EE-One-D allows Lion to survey hot zones and maintain quarantine protocols on missions. He uses it to detect movement in an area in order to determine if someone is breaking quarantine, curfew, or a perimeter.
We’ll report on the full reveal when it happens.
What do you make of the new Rainbow Six Siege Operators so far?
Diablo 4? Yeah, this is definitely for Diablo 4, right??
Coming as a surprise to no one, Blizzard Entertainment is working on new Diablo games. This was confirmed by the recent job listings by the studio, where various roles have opened up.
Blizzard is hiring for an Associate Producer, with the listing stating the following:
The Diablo team is looking for a highly organized individual with outstanding communication, and project management skills. Self-direction and follow-up skills are a must, as well as the ability to anticipate production issues, and find effective solutions. The candidate must enjoy seeing a project from inception to completion and delivering games with the highest quality.
Responsibilities
· Liaise with different departments to facilitate interdisciplinary communication.
· Work with department leads to define feature requirements, determine resource needs, and establish task schedules.
· Coordinate and track the activities of personnel to ensure that project tasks are well-defined and completed on time.
· Provide motivation and organization to ensure that project goals, objectives, milestones, and deliverables are achieved.
· Facilitate discussion and record-keeping for team and department meetings.
· Assist the production team with administrative and organizational tasks as necessary.
· Support and take direction from production leadership.
Blizzard Entertainment is looking for a seasoned creative director to join our Diablo team as we look to the future! The ideal candidate will understand the core of what makes the Diablo universe resonate with players, and will be able to collaborate with art and design to rally around a consistent vision of world, story, and tone. Additionally, the candidate will possess an exceptional ability to inspire large teams and pitch and evangelize ideas as part of a larger-scale creative framework.
Responsibilities:
Inspire and align the team around creative goals
Ensure consistency of creative vision across art, story, design, and cinematics
Run kickoffs for new content ideas
Develop key story outlines and content briefs to guide art and content creation
Interface with external groups to ensure consistency of vision outside the game
Help steer strategic creative decisions at a franchise level
Mind, we don’t know if this is forDiablo IV or maybe Diablo III DLC or something else. Also, given how notoriously long Blizzard makes their games, we could be seeing a lot more hirings before any actual news come out.
At least we know Diablo is alive and well at the studio, no?
Another studio has been hit with the layoff hammer, as Mafia III developer Hangar 13 has been hit with a significant number of layoffs.
Publisher 2K Games confirmed that there has been staff reductions at Hangar 13, and has issued a statement about it.
2K can confirm that there have been staff reductions at Hangar 13 in order to ensure that the studio’s resources are properly aligned with its long-term development plans. These reductions will not influence 2K’s ability to create and deliver its products that are currently in development. We never take these matters lightly, and are working with the affected employees to support them and explore potential opportunities throughout our organization.
It’s not currently known how many people were laid off, and 2K didn’t specify it in their statement, though Kotaku’s sources say it was a “large portion.”
We wish everyone that got laid off the best of luck, and hope they land on their feet soon.
You a fan of PlayerUnknown’s Battlegrounds (PUBG)? If so, you might have noticed that the game has suddenly stopped rolling out updates ever since it hit 1.0, aside from the anti-cheat fix it rolled out last week.
Well, things are about to change soon according to Community Manager Sammie Kang. Over on Twitter, Kang shared that the dev team is working on an early 2018 PUBG roadmap that they’ll be able to share “soon.”
Our dev team has been working on a dev roadmap for early 2018 in the past few weeks.
It’s about time we update you on what’s happening and where things are at. We will share this roadmap with you soon once we have finalized all the details.
In case the tweet didn’t load, here’s what it says:
Our dev team has been working on a dev roadmap for early 2018 in the past few weeks. It’s about time we update you on what’s happening and where things are at. We will share this roadmap with you soon once we have finalized all the details. Happy Valentine’s Day, btw.
Hopefully, this roadmap includes fixes to make the game run better and more stable. And of course, include new weapons, maybe even a map or two.
In other PUBG news, the game’s player count has dipped for the first time ever! But even so, it’s still in an enviable position as possibly the most popular video game out right now.
We’re kicking off a brand new recurring feature here on MP1st, and it’s called “Knowing Your YouTubers” where we put the spotlight on today’s biggest and brightest YouTubers that focus on multiplayer games.
Kicking things off is “Drift0r” who covers Call of Duty games, and usually does a good in-depth video regarding the weapons, and their stats. Check out our Q&A with him below.
MP1st: For those not familiar with you, why is your YouTube name “Drift0r” and what’s with the yin-yang symbol?
Drift0r: The answer to both of these questions is the same. I just like them. I liked the name “drifter” and used it for a long time. However lots of people use that name and getting unique accounts on some websites was hard so I started using “driftor”. As the internet grew, so did the number of people also using “driftor” and eventually I had to start putting in 1337 letters. Eventually it became “drift0r” and not many people used that name so I didn’t need to change it. I think yin-yangs just look cool. I’ve had several items with that design over the course of my life starting with a yo-yo in 2nd grade. Thankfully the Halo 2 emblem editor allowed me to use a yin yang so I chose that as my player icon. The yin-yang I use today is a just a fancier version of this one from Halo 2:
^that is actually the original file pulled from Bungie.net ages ago.
MP1st: A lot of people think or assume that YouTubers who focus on one game, are in the publisher’s pocket. How do you react to this?
Drift0r: That is rarely the case. The reality is more that they are pigeonholing themselves to one particular audience. Publishers rarely have any sort of contractual or even quid-pro-quo kind of agreements with YouTubers. Big publisher marketing budgets don’t normally cover long term sponsorships of influences who rise and fall faster than a big corporation is even able to make a plan. That is the general view of the scene. But yes, some companies pay for game converge. The FTC has been incredibly strict the last few years so any company and (any) YouTuber with half a brain should be putting FTC disclosures in their videos for sponsored works. I know that since I am mainly a CoD channel and that this an article for a CoD audience I might as well address the current elephant in the room: Activision doesn’t pay. Period. I wish they did. If ATVI paid I would be able to afford a new computer instead of waiting and part shopping. They set up a hard rule over six years ago to literally never pay influencers. It sets up an unhealthy dynamic and is arbitrarily expensive in their eyes. They don’t have to pay when CoD is such a hot brand.
One exception to all of this is mobile game publishers and YouTubers. I have noticed that some mobile game publishers basically buy a YouTuber to only post content form their mobile games. It’s weird and I avoid mobile games like the plague so I don’t pretend to understand it. Sidenote to upcoming YouTubers, if you want to make fast cash and don’t give a damn about your audience, just promote a ton of mobile games.
MP1st: What do you do if you tweet, publish a video that Activision doesn’t like? Have you ever buckled under a company’s demands (you can choose not to name the game/company, etc.)
Drift0r: This answer to this is situational. Leaks, embargo dates, hacked or mined data, and incorrect info are legal matters that need to be abided by. Most game companies are focused on bad PR and impossible promises. A massive leak or sharing unfinished game assets but saying they are real causes huge problems for big companies. I try not to do those things because it hurts the company and rarely benefits me in the long run. As for stuff ATVI doesn’t like, oh man, ummm, I’m sure they would everything to be super positive all the time but that isn’t reality. If I’m going to criticize, complain, or be damaging, the goal is to do so in a sane and controlled manner. Helpful criticism is best too.
MP1st: How do you handle the so-called YouTube Adpolcaypse given YouTube is your full-time gig?
Drift0r: For no particular reason my channel has been almost unaffected. Out of 2,500 videos, only 12 have been demonetized. Of those 12, they are mostly ones that should be demonetized. I think my channel was somehow whitelisted. Any video get gets demonetized is usually fixed in less than a day. So as of now, my main channel is unaffected. My second channel is getting murdered by yellow dollar signs though. Funny thing is that I will upload videos there privately with the same title, tags, description, and thumbnail. They get demonetized on the second channel but are fine on the main channel.
All that being said it terrifies me. It absolutely terrifies me because YouTube is my full-time job that I use to support my family. However, I am subject to the whims of ever changing algorithm built on 10 years of fraken-code that basically nobody I’ve talked to truly understands. YouTube changes how it rewards creators (views, likes, video length, ad category ect) all the time and changes rules all the time. It makes me very uncomfortable to work in an environment where the rules will arbitrarily changed and not be explained. That is why I started streaming on Twitch again. My Twitch is small potatoes compared to YouTube but at least it is a plan B.
MP1st: What’s your favorite Call of Duty game of all-time and why?
Drift0r: Black Ops 2. It has the best overall balance, polish, and design of a game. I love CoD4 and MW2, but Black Ops 2 has far less flaws than those games. I can still boot up Black Ops 2 today and have fun. It had great zombies, DLC cycle, iconic weapons, fun streaks, fun maps, and just about everything I could want in a CoD game.
MP1st: Who’s your favorite COD developer?
Drift0r: I would rather not answer this question because I know people at all three studios and don’t want to hurt any feelings. I will say that Raven is underappreciated. They help make games for all three studios but don’t get the credit in the community. I for one want to see CoD on a four-year cycle with Raven in the mix.
MP1st: What are your plans for when Call of Duty “flatlines?” You have a backup franchise to fall back on?
Drift0r: Take up alcoholism and pray a lot. I realize that I am a long time overdue for a bigger and more serious backup plan.
MP1st: Do you often get asked by Call of Duty studios for development input regarding gameplay? Can you cite an example where it turned out well?
Drift0r:Nothing formal but I do talk to devs. Everything at the studio is under NDA and private conversations are private for a reason. I have to be vague, but the yes I do offer feedback. Devs from all three studios listen and sometimes incorporate changes from YouTuber/stream feedbacks. Most of the time it’s something that the studio is already having internal debates about and getting feedback from a high level player is helpful. Sometimes it”s a small detail that is missed. And sometimes is just a off that wall suggestion that is easy to implement. Rarely is it anything high level or radical. I can’t give specific examples though for reasons.
MP1st: What do you think keeps gamers coming back to Call of Duty each year? Most shooters are 60fps now, many have incorporated RPG-esque ranking up and customization mechanics, and yet Call of Duty remains strong.
Drift0r: The game is snappy and responsive in a way that very few consoles shooters are. Hits register fast, momentum changes are instant, controls are response and easy, there is no input delay, there’s no “50fps is almost as good as 60fps”, and when I shoot people in the face they die. CoD is game that runs fast with few delays. I know that many people reading this will instantly want to criticize lag, low damage, and magic bullets. But think of how many console shooters you’ve played that were 30fps, 45fps, or an unstable 60fps. How many of them had slow moving or unresponsive characters on top of input delay that makes aiming impossible. How many times have you played a CoD killer game for an hour and though “Was this developed by gorillas?” CoD simply works in ways so few games do on consoles.
MP1st: Favorite weapon, map, killstreak, etc?
Drift0r: For CoD WW2: M1941 Johnson, Operation Breakout, Paratroopers (I know yours are bad, but my Paratroopers get 6-8 kills every time). For all time: BO1 Akimbo Skorpion, BO2 Grind, BO2 Dogs
MP1st: If you weren’t a YouTuber today, what would you be?
Drift0r: Depressed.
MP1st: Any advice to those people who want to start a career as a video game YouTuber/streamer? Is it still a viable career path?
Drift0r: Start today. Don’t wait on exactly the right capture card, and exactly the right mic, and the best video ever, and best topic ever and best blah blah blah. Too many people make huge plans on how to take over YouTube and spends six months to a year waiting everything to be just right. Few ever end up doing anything. If you wait too long your dreams will just become day dreams. You actually have to start doing it now — today. You have to get serious about making something then go and actually do it. Tomorrow ins’t good enough. You also need to realize that you will fail hundreds of times before you ever get true success. The hardest part of YouTube/Twitch/Mixer/Instagram/Twitter is starting out with 0 followers. You have no reach and nobody cares. What you have to do is just follow your own passion and make content about things that matter to you. Don’t emulate what is popular, nobody will care. Instead speak from your heart or follow your dreams on stream and do exactly what you want to do. People will respond to that passion and care. Then it all starts to snowball. You first 100 follower is harder than reaching 500. Reaching 500 is a lot harder than reaching 5,000, and so on and so on. YouTube is still a super viable career path. It is just chaotic and hard.
MP1st: Are you privy to advance stuff from the COD devs? Aside from capture events, are you “in the know” usually when it comes to future titles, maps, specifics but can’t talk about it?
Drift0r:
😉
We’d like to thank Drift0r for taking the time out to answer our questions. You can watch his stuff on YouTube or follow him on Twitter for the latest updates regarding his work.
For Honor update out now for all platforms, and brings the new event!
Ubisoft is continuing with its awesome support for action game For Honor by kicking off Season 5 with a new For Honor update! Called the “Apollyon’s Legacy” event, it’s a free in-game event featuring a new PvE mode called “Test Your Metal” where you’ll battle against Apollyon and other villains from the campaign.
Available from February 15 to March 2, participating in the three-week eventwill give players chances to loot new themed items which include emotes, color swatches, armor embossing, weapons and outfits. In addition to that, players who log in during the timed event will get an exclusive Apollyon’s Crest emblem outline. Check out more details straight from the press release.
The special event will also bring a new Apollyon’s Wolves mask outfit, which will be available for purchase as a standalone outfit or as part of the Apollyon Bundle. The bundle will instantly unlock all special event items for a hero and will be discounted in price based upon the items players have unlocked.
Apollyon’s Legacy launches alongside Season Five, Age of Wolves, which will enhance the core player experience by focusing on Hero balancing, matchmaking and connectivity. Launching as a free update, Age of Wolves will bring major hero updates to five of the existing Heroes, fight system changes, new customization options and more. Dedicated servers will be launching on PC on February 19 with consoles to follow soon after, and a new training mode will also be released during the season.
The For Honor update is out now, and it’s at 2.5GB on the PS4 (2.7GB on Xbox One, 2.7GB on PC). You can check out the complete patch notes below (via Ubisoft).
FIGHTER REWORKS
KENSEI
Top Heavy Finisher Cancel
Cancels to side attacks now happen 200ms later.
All Light Finishers now have Uninterruptible Stance.
Cancel to Dodge now only happens at the same timing as the Side Cancels and Feint timing.
Can now be cancelled into Guard Break.
Top Heavy Finisher has a new animation.
Developer Comments:By changing the timing of the cancels, we will reduce the huge gap between “will it be a side attack or will they actually let the Unblockable fly”. Now opponents should have 200ms less to figure out what the proper defense is.
The Light Finishers now all gain Uninterruptible Stance, to make more trading situations favor the Kensei.
Before, the Dodge was really important because there were a lot of attacks that could easily guess the Kensei’s mix up. While we’ve made a change to the Dodge so that the timing is no longer variable, this timing should be good enough to use Forward Dodge to catch opponents who are Rolling away.
The new animation was used because we wanted the Cancels to look better and having the jump made this difficult (but fear not, this animation lives on! See “NEW MOVE Nature’s Wrath” below).
All 3 Top Heavies in the Chain can now be Side Cancelled
Side Cancels:
1st Top Heavy can now be cancelled into 1st Side Attacks, Dodge and the new Melee move “Pommel Strike”.
2nd Top Heavy can now be cancelled into 2nd Side Attacks, Dodge and Guard Break.
Timing Changes:
1st Top Heavy strike is now 1000ms (was 700ms).
2nd Top Heavy strike is now 1000ms (was 700ms).
1st Side Light, when cancelled from 1st Top Heavy, has a strike of 500ms (the regular 1st Light strikes from idle are still 600ms).
2nd Side Light, when cancelled from 2nd Top Heavy, has a strike of 500ms (the regular 2nd Light strikes are still 600ms).
3rd Light strikes are now 500ms (were 600ms on Top, and 700ms on Side before). This applies to the cancelled versions and regular versions.
Priority Changes:
For the recoveries of Light Attacks, switched the input priority so that it checks for Heavy Input first. This means it should be slightly easier to perform a “Heavy into Light Cancel” than it would have been before when it looked for Light Input first.
Dodge Cancels can now only be performed while Kensei has Stamina.
Damage:
1st Side Lights are now 12 damage (were 20 damage).
2nd Side Lights are now 16 damage (were 20 damage).
3rd Side Lights are now 20 damage (were 25 damage).
1st Top Heavy is now 40 damage (was 30 damage).
2nd Top Heavy is now 40 damage (was 20 damage).
Developer Comments:Kensei’s identity is based around the Top Heavy Finisher and its mix ups – so we have extended this concept to now “mix up” throughout the chain. This should allow Kensei to attack opponents more successfully. These Top Heavies were made into longer attacks to make these inputs easy for Kensei players, and make the cancelled attacks clear-but-difficult for opponents to deal with.
NEW MOVE: “Pommel Strike”
1st Top Heavy can now be cancelled into an Unblockable “Pommel Strike”.
Developer Comments:This Melee move is meant to crack turtlers. This lets the Kensei players have a solution to people who are dedicated to blocking everything.
We put it only in the 1st Top Heavy Mix-ups, so that they’re not so accessible that the Kensei’s can spam these safely.
New Chains
Heavy, Light, Light chain added.
Heavy, Light, Heavy chain added.
Heavy, Heavy, Light chain added.
Light, Heavy, Light chain added.
Developer Comments:These new chains all still follow the “3 hit chain” concept, and mean that the Kensei’s can perform any combination of Lights and Heavies for 3 hits.
Remember that the “Light Finishers” gained “Uninterruptible Stance” and are faster than they were, so there should be situations in which they are a good option.
(Note that these chains use the same attacks as seen in the existing chains. They’re not new attacks, they’re new branching’s, and are meant to give the Kensei’s more room to be creative in how they put pressure on their opponents).
Heavy Hit/Block Reactions
1st Top Heavy, now causes “Heavy Hit/Block Reaction” (was Medium).
2nd Heavy in the Chain, from any direction, now causes “Heavy Hit/Block Reaction” (was Medium).
Developer Comments:This means that the opponent will spend more time in “Hit/Block Recovery”.This means that, for example, if you hit with a 2nd Heavy and then go to the “Top Heavy Finisher”, they cannot launch a 500ms attack in time to counter the Top Heavy Finisher.
But if your 2nd Heavy is blocked, they have a little more time to counter your “Top Heavy Finisher” with a 500ms attack, but you still can trade with the “Side Light Finisher”, “Side Heavy Finisher”, or beat it with a “Dodge Superior Block”.
“Swift Strike”
“Swift Strike” now causes “Heavy Hit/Block Reaction” (was Medium.)
“Swift Strike” is now performed with the Heavy Input Button.
“Swift Strike” is now considered a Heavy Attack, allows Executions, cost 12 Stamina (was 6), and a suffer Heavy Parry penalty.
Developer Comments:This means that the opponent will spend more time in “Hit/Block Recovery”, making the Top Heavy Finisher mix up safer.You can still go to your Light Finisher or Heavy Finisher afterwards.
“Helm Splitter”
“Helm Splitter” is now considered a “Light” attack again, and is interrupted when blocked.
“Helm Splitter” damage is now reduced to 17 (from 20).
Developer Comments:We made this Uninterrupted on Block way back in Patch 1.08.01, with the hope that it would let the Kensei’s reach the “Top Heavy Unblockable”. It didn’t make the Kensei much stronger in 1v1 as hoped – instead it seems only really useful in group fights. With a stronger “Top Heavy Unblockable” mix up, we think we can make this interrupted when blocked again.
NEW MOVE:“Nature’s Wrath”
Performed by pressing “Dodge Forward into Heavy”.
Visualized as overhead strike (using the old “Top Heavy Finisher” animation).
This attack is blockable.
Strike is 800ms.
Strike does 20 damage.
Huge forward movement.
Developer Comments:This move is meant to catch opponents who attempt to roll away from the “Top Heavy Unblockable” mixup.
This is much slower than “Helm Splitter”, so it being Uninterrupted on Block should not be overly punishing in group fights.
Dodge
Forward dodge’s Superior Block phase now starts from 100ms to the end of the dodge, and now is always in the Top Stance.
Right dodge’s Superior Block phase now starts from 100ms to the end of the dodge, and now is always in the Right Stance.
Left dodge’s Superior Block phase now starts from 100ms to the end of the dodge, and now is always in the Left Stance.
(At the end of your Dodge, you keep the stance you were forced into by the dodge.)
(Backward dodge still keeps your stance in the direction it was for the whole dodge.)
Can perform your dodge attacks after Superior Blocking an attack (even if it’s late in the dodge).
Helm Splitter now can only be launched starting at 100ms (was starting at 300ms).
Grasping Pounce now can only be launched starting at 100ms (was starting at 0ms).
Developer Comments:Before, the Kensei’s could get a Superior Block while dodging – but it was extremely hard to perform, because it meant they had to spend time to Stance Change to the correct stance, and then Dodge. This change is meant to make this much easier to perform.
The longer time of the Superior Block will also mean that opponents, who try to counter your “Top Unblockable Heavy” with their top light attack, are going to be beaten by your “Forward Dodge Cancel” into “Grasping Pounce” and punished.
The change to make the forward dodge attacks start later is to avoid ‘Rewind’ problems, and to better control the Kensei’s range for Guard Break. When it was at 0ms, it allowed slightly more range to a Guard Break than expected, leading to “the best way for Kensei to do a regular Guard Break is to actually press Forward + Dodge + Guard Break extremely quickly”, which is not intended.
Zone Attack
Zone Attack has been reworked into a 3-strike attack. The first strike is 500ms, from Left Stance, hitting your locked target – and then flows into a similar version of the old zone attack for the second and third strikes.
Zone Attack no longer has Uninterruptible Stance.
All strikes now have increased knockback when in Revenge.
Developer Comments:TheKensei’s Zone Attack struggled to find a role before – it was too slow and weak to be good in a due, and the weird hit areas and timings made it extremely difficult to use effectively in group fights.
Since it now starts with a fast side attack, it should find a use in duels, and with the increased knockback and ability to hit forward first, we would like it to be able to find a role in group fights as well.
The loss of Uninterruptible Stance was made to avoid trading in duels, but if you use it in a group fight you can use the Revenge’s Uninterruptible Stance and be more effective in clearing opponents around you.
(Note: the first strike does 20 damage, it’s a 500ms attack, and doesn’t pay a stance change time cost to launch, so it should make up for the nerf to the light attacks’ damage.)
“Rushing Sweep”
Removed the bump after the Strike.
Throw
[Bug Fix] Throwing an opponent into another opponent now causes the same bumped reaction as any other heroes’ throws do.
CONQUEROR
Charged Heavy
Charged Heavies are now Unblockable.
There is no “Uncharged”, “Level 1 Charged” and “Fully Charged” version anymore – it’s either fully charged or it’s a regular heavy. A pink flash will show when it’s fully charged.
The “Charged Finisher” has been removed.
Fully charging takes 900ms.
Top Heavy Unblockable is 800ms, and does 44 damage.
Side Heavy Unblockable is 700ms, and does 33 damage.
The Stance Change while charging is now 100ms (was 300ms).
Conqueror can no longer launch a Light Attack while charging.
Has Immunity to Guard Break starting at 100ms into the strike.
Developer Comments:Charged Heavy Opener was in a very strange spot before – it was easy to reach because it had Conqueror’s passive Superior Block defense, but was easy for the opponent to block too. So now, we added risk by taking away the defense and added reward by making it Unblockable.
We removed the Light option to streamline what this hero is about – conceptually, we’re trying to position the Conqueror to have significantly different feelings while in the various states – regular mode, charging mode, full-block mode – and making fighting against them in these states have clearly different feelings.
We removed the various levels of charging because it’s now extremely clear if the Conqueror has charged his attack and what his options are, whereas before it was all exactly the same.
Superior Block Reworked
Conqueror no longer has passive Superior Block. It has been replaced with the same Regular Block properties as the rest of the roster.
Conqueror retains Superior block on
Heavy Openers,
Fully Charged Heavy Openers,
Front and Side Dodges,
Full Block Stance (see next entry below).
Developer Comments:Conqueror has enjoyed the ability to Block and follow with a free Guard Break against many characters’ heavy attacks.
The ability to get a guaranteed Guard Breaks off a simple Block was too good – the Conqueror risked nothing and got a huge benefit. It also shut down many opponents from being able to use heavies. While we take away the passive Superior Block, by having it on the states listed above, the feeling of being a Heavy should remain, but now Conqueror will take some risks to get those benefits.
NEW MOVE: “Shield Uppercut”
All Heavies can be cancelled into the new move “Shield Uppercut”.
Shield Uppercut is a:
800ms attack.
Unblockable Melee.
Does 10 Stamina damage .
Has Immunity to Guard Break starting at 100ms into the strike.
“Shield Uppercut” can do damage if the feat “Shield Basher” is active.
Hit Recovery is 700ms (was 800ms), and you get Stance Change / Default Defense at 600ms.
Miss Recovery is now 700ms (was 600ms), and you get Stance Change / Default Defense at 600ms.
Developer Comments:Conqueror’s Charged Heavies are easily dodged – but with this Melee as a Cancel option, it should help punish people who you correctly predict will do a side dodge. Hitting with this move guarantees a follow-up of a Light Attack.
Chains
Chains have been reworked. Now Conqueror can follow up any:
Light can be followed with any Light, Heavy or Shield Bash Mix Up
Heavy can be followed with any Light, Heavy or Shield Bash Mix Up
Shield Bash can be followed with any Light or Heavy
Developer Comments:Conqueror had a real problem where if you hit with a Basic Light Opener, you could only do another Light, but that hardly ever worked. Also, if Conqueror hit with a Heavy, you had to do either do a Shield Bash Mix Up or Heavy…but these had basically the same long timing.
Consequently, Conquerors mostly only took their guaranteed damage after a Shield Bash, but then stopped attacking. We don’t want you to have to stop attacking because of how unlikely your options are to work – so we improved the chain rules to help Conquerors sustain their attack.
Light Attacks
Top Basic Light Attack’s strike is now 500ms (was 600ms).
Light Infinite Strikes are now 500ms (were 600ms).
All Light Attacks do 15 damage (were 12).
Full Block Stance Cancel
Removed Full Block Stance cancel from all Light strikes.
Developer Comments:Cancelling the fastest attacks was causing Flicker and rollback issues, so this is why we removed it from the Light strikes. We kept the ability to enter Full Block Stance from the Heavy attacks, and from Light and Heavy recoveries.
Full Block Stance
When successfully Blocking an attack from Full Block Stance, Conqueror can now connect to new move “Flail Uppercut”.
Conqueror no longer can Shield Bash Riposte, Dodge, or basic Attack during Full Block Stance, or Full Block Stance Exit.
Conqueror can Zone Attack from Full Block Stance.
Full Block Stance defense is now considered Superior (was Regular).
Full Block Stance Entry is now 300ms (was 200ms).
Full Block Stance Exit is now 200ms (was 400ms).
Stamina cost for entering Full Block Stance is now 20 (was 6).
Stamina regen cooldown after Full Block Stance has been removed (was 4.0s).
Stamina cost for blocking an attack from Full Block Stance has been made 0, no longer regen stamina during these blocks, and Conqueror no longer is unbalanced when blocking and going out of stamina.
Developer Comments:In keeping with the general philosophy of risk/reward on this character, now if you block something from Full Block Stance, you can punish them with a “Flail Uppercut” (see “Flail Uppercut” below). The intention is that this is now something you use to punish predicted attacks with rather than a safe way to turtle.
NEW MOVE:“Flail Uppercut” (replacing Shield Bash Riposte)
“Flail Uppercut” replaces Shield Bash Reposte.
“Flail Uppercut’s” strike is 500ms (Shield Bash Riposte was 800ms).
Uses Heavy input.
Does 30 damage.
Can execute.
Developer Comments:This move is intended to be guaranteed after successfully predicting an attack from Full Block Stance.
We feel that since the Conqueror is taking a risk with Full Block Stance, Conqueror deserves to land good damage as the reward. Shield Bash Riposte did not do a good job to help Conqueror counter-attack so Flail Uppercut has been build specifically for that purpose.
Shield Bash Mix Up
After a hit, branching to Light Attack is now at 400ms (was at 0ms).
After a hit, branching to Heavy Attack and Full Block Stance are now at 400ms (were at 300ms).
Shield Bash Mix Up is slightly better at tracking opponents who dodge sideways.
Hit area reduced horizontally.
Shield Bash now does 10 stamina damage (was 20).
Immune to Guard Breaks property now starts at 100ms.
Hit Recovery is now 700ms (was 800ms), and you get Stance Change / Default Defense at 600ms (before you could perform any action at 600ms).
Miss Recovery is now 700ms (was 600ms), and you get Stance Change / Default Defense at 600ms (before you could perform any action at 400ms). You do get the ability to launch Light Attack, Heavy Attack, and Full Block Stance at 300ms.
Developer Comments:After the Shield Bash Mix Up, you are still guaranteed the Light Attack – but no longer guaranteed the Heavy Attack unless you hit them into a wall.
Note that all the Shield Bashes on the Conqueror now do 10 stamina damage – this is to move Conqueror away from sapping the opponent’s stamina, as the Conqueror is now better positioned as a mix of hard-hitting offense, and predictive defense with good punishes – rather than trying to be a stamina bully.
Shield Bash
Forward Dodge now branches to Shield Bash from 100ms-500ms (was 300ms-500ms).
Forward Dodge now branches to Full Block Stance from 600ms (was 800ms).
Forward Dodge can now branch to attack options, including Guard Break, from 600ms (was 800ms).
After a hit, all branching’s start at 100ms (some were at 0ms, some 300ms, some 600ms).
Light Attack is still guaranteed after a Shield Bash.
Hit area reduced horizontally.
Shield Bash now does 10 stamina damage (was 20).
Reduced Shield Bash attack range on Front Dodge to 1.25m (from 1.5m), and from Side Dodge to 1.25m (from 2.0m).
Increased forward movement by 1.0m.
Shield Bash knockback reduced by 0.8m, to reduce the situations in which you whiff the following Light attack.
Hit Recovery is now 700ms (was 800ms), and you get Stance Change / Default Defense at 600ms (before you could perform any action at 600ms).
Miss Recovery is now 700ms (was 600ms), and you get Stance Change / Default Defense at 600ms (before you could perform any action at 400ms).
Developer Comments:Light Attack is still a guaranteed follow-up if the Shield Bash hit. Heavy Attack is no longer guaranteed.
Movement changes should result in no significant change in function – we reduce part and increase another part so that it visually looks better, but reaches the same distance.
Charging Shield Crush
The Hit recovery is now 300ms longer.
The Hit recovery no longer forces Conqueror into Out Of Lock.
The Hit area reduced horizontally.
Charging Shield Crush now does 10 stamina damage (was 0).
Charging Shield Crush now moves the opponent 0.5m further backward.
Developer Comments:Before, the Conqueror was able to hit the opponent, but because the opponent was in the Get Up animation, the opponent does not react to the hit. The opponent could then get an Uncounterable Guard Break on the Conqueror.
Now, the Conqueror doesn’t get any guaranteed damage after a Charging Shield Crush. With the new timing, opponents will be up in time to block. We want this move to be good in group fights, and in certain situations where the opponent is near a ledge, but not something Conquerors would want to rely on in duels.
Top Heavy
Top Heavy is now 33 damage (was 25).
Developer Comments:Top Heavy is longer than Side Heavies and so isn’t guaranteed on Guard Break or after a Flail Uppercut. To help the Conqueror earn the ‘Hard Hitter’ moniker, we also increase the damage on this Top Heavy opener.
Zone Attack
When activated from Full Block Stance, we removed a 100ms gap on startup where the Conqueror had no defense.
Conqueror now can be Parried properly on the 2nd or later hit.
Conqueror is no longer interrupted by blocking a minion strike.
Developer Comments:Since this is considered Superior Block during the attack, the Zone Attack isn’t stopped when blocking an incoming attack. Opponents are expected to beat it with an Unblockable, a Melee, or just walk up and Parry it on their Left side.
BERSERKER
Light Opener and Heavy Opener
Light Opener and Heavy Opener gain Uninterruptible Stance if used immediately after a Feint.
Side Light Openers are now 400ms if used immediately after a Feint.
Top Light Opener is now 500ms if used immediately after a Feint.
Light Openers’ damage reduced to 15 (from 17).
Developer Comments:At high level, Berserker needs to mix Feints into the Chains. But Feinting means the Berserker would lose the Uninterruptible Stance benefit, and often end up taking a hit. Now, if you attack immediately after Feinting, your basic Light and basic Heavy will have Uninterruptible Stance. This should allow Berserker more opportunity to trades in mid-chains, if the opponent misreads, and allows him to continue applying pressure.
Heavy Finishers
3rd Side Heavy Finishers are now Unblockable.
3rd Side Heavy Finishers now do 45 damage (were 30).
2nd Top Heavy Finisher is now Unblockable.
2nd Top Heavy Finisher now does 30 damage (was 55).
Developer Comments:Berserker has a hard time cracking dedicated turtlers, especially Warlords and Conquerors. This change will let Berserker force the opponent to act or be hit.
We have adjusted the damage so the Top Heavy Finisher is lower damage than the Side Heavy Finishers, because they are deeper in the chain and harder to get to.
Dance of the Paired Blades
Infinite Light attacks from 2nd strike onward durations are now 400ms (were 500ms).
Infinite Light attacks from 2nd strike onward now do 15 damage (were 12).
Infinite Heavy attacks from 2nd strike onward now do 25 damage (were 20).
Developer Comments:We want these lights to be hard to block, since blocking one ends the chain, and it’s currently too easy. Speeding this up will make it tougher, and give a bit more contrast between choosing a Light or a Heavy. Note that this speed increase or damage buff does not apply to the chains openers – just to attacks inside the chain.
Bear Mauler
2nd Heavy attacks now do 35 damage (were 20).
Developer Comments:TheBerserker’s chained attacks generally felt extremely weak. It was strange that Berserkers who did what they are built for, taking risks and relentlessly attacking, didn’t have a reasonable reward.
Head Slicer
Now has Uninterruptible Stance starting at 100ms (was 300ms).
Developer Comments:Head Slicer is successful when used to dodge forward and trade with an attacker, so this is meant to make that a little easier.
Deflect (and “Brute Force”)
Now requires the player to press the Guard Break Button during the Deflect to perform “Brute Force” (the new name for the quick Guard Break).
If no input is pressed, the Berserker will not attempt the quick Guard Break.
Developer Comments:Berserker’s Deflect into Guard Break doesn’t beat everything – it fails against actions that “force no reaction” on hit – and the case we were seeing most was against Shinobi’s Top Light into Backflip. In this case, the Deflect into Guard Break would fail because the Shinobi won’t play a hit reaction during the Backflip, and when the Guard Break failed it actually allowed the Shinobi to punish the Berserker. This is the worst likely case for Berserker at this time, but it’s probable that over time, more scenarios could appear.
By changing the Deflect into Guard Break to now require a button press, we can retain Berserker’s strong Deflect into Guard Break in most situations, but also allow Berserkers to elect not to perform the Guard Break portion in situations that would be dangerous (such as the Shinobi case, or group fights).
Zone Attack
Now moves the Berserker 1m further forward (extra distance is spread across all strikes).
4th strike now causes a Light hit reaction (was Heavy hit reaction), and the connection to Infinite Light Attack afterwards was made 100ms later.
When Zone Attack is parried, Berserker will now use the shorter “Heavy parried” reaction.
Developer Comments:Zone Attack had an issue where if your opponent dodged backwards, you’d spin while standing in place whiffing, and be completely vulnerable to attacks. Now, the extra distance allows the Berserker to have a better chance to catch up to a back-dodging opponent.
This change to the 4th strike’s timing is because we buffed the Infinite Light Attack speeds – without this change, Berserkers would be guaranteed to hit the Light Attack after the Zone Attack.
“Slashing Rush”
“Slashing Rush” is now much easier to perform.
When “Slashing Rush” is parried, Berserker will now use the shorter “Heavy parried” reaction.
“Slashing Rush” can no longer Execute.
“Slashing Rush” now costs 65 stamina (was 12 stamina).
“Slashing Rush” no longer has extra stamina costs when missed or parried.
Developer Comments: “Slashing Rush” is basically like a backwards Zone Attack, and there were a lot of times where it seemed you wanted the backward version, but got the forward version accidentally. This felt bad and is now fixed.
The reason that “Slashing Rush” can no longer execute and has higher stamina costs is to unify it more with the forward Zone Attack – and if you’re using Slashing Rush you probably are using it to escape, and don’t want to get locked into the Execution Window.
“Head Crusher”
“Head Crusher” no longer gets stuck in the run portion if the opponent is dodging backward.
To lessen the cases where “Head Crusher” whiffs,
Short range leap now starts at 3.5m (was 4.0m).
Medium range leap now starts at 5.8m (was 7.0m).
Long range leap now starts at 7.8m (was 9.0m).
Developer Comments:Before the leap portion, there is a run portion that is meant to close distance – this run generally gets skipped because the opponent is close enough to start the leap. However, the leap could not start at all if the opponent was dodging backward, which caused the Berserker to run forward way too far and be vulnerable. Now, Berserker doesn’t check if the opponent is dodging backward anymore, and will just start the leap if close enough.
The range reduction is to reduce the number of cases where the Berserker would whiff and land right in front of the target. While this does represent a slight range reduction, the improved likelihood of actually leaping at a time that this attack will hit the target should help the Berserker.
Out of Lock Attacks
Out of Lock Attacks now have Uninterruptible Stance and Unblockable properties to match the functionality of the Locked attacks.
Throws
Forward Throw now does 0 damage (was 8) and 20 stamina damage (was 40).
Side and Back Throws now do 0 damage (were 8).
Side and Back Throws still do the regular 20 stamina damage, same as all characters’ throws.
Side and Back Throws no longer Unbalance the opponent if the Throw itself reduces them to 0 stamina. It now only Unbalances if the opponent was at 0 stamina before the Throw (this now makes it consistent with other heroes’ throws).
Developer Comments:Currently, the Berserkers have an extremely powerful Out Of Stamina punish (Throw Forward, Side Heavy, Top Heavy Finisher). Since we gave the Berserker better tools for regular combat, and Berserkers aren’t built to manipulate the stamina of their opponent, we feel this is an area Berserker is currently unnecessarily strong and can handle a nerf.
Parry’s Counter-attack Light (“Skilled Slash”)
Added Uninterruptible Stance to “Skilled Slash”.
Moved “Skilled Slash” timing to 400ms after the Parry (was 300ms), for improved ease of input.
Developer Comments:Giving it Uninterruptible Stance is mostly meant to continue the Berserker theme onto this move, and make it slightly more advantageous in-group fights.
Block Reactions
Removed an ability to counter-attack after blocking a light after 200ms. Now Berserker must wait for the end of the Block Stun before attacking, like every other character.
Developer Comments:Different block reaction timings have to be used with extreme caution – since this isn’t part of the Berserker theme, we standardize it.
Dodge Cancel
Removed Dodge cancel from Light Attack Opener strikes.
Removed Dodge cancel from Heavy Attacks starting from the 2nd in Dance of the Paired Blades.
Gave Light Opener’s miss recoveries the ability to branch to Zone Attack (as other miss recoveries already have).
Dodge Cancels can now only be performed while Berserker has Stamina.
Developer Comments:The dodge cancels were removed because they were causing Flicker and rollback issues on the shortest attacks.
To compensate, we allow whiffed Light Openers to branch to Zone Attacks – an ability that Berserker already had on other attacks. This should allow the Berserker to continue to be unpredictable, while showing a clean and fair user interface to the opponent.
HIGHLANDER
“Celtic Curse”
The Top Strike can now be Cancelled into Fast Flow to Top Offensive Form, by holding the Heavy Input Button – shows the pink flash of entry in Offensive Form.
Slightly increased rotation of Top Strike to better track sprinting opponents.
Improved ability to acquire targets that are sprinting at the Highlander.
“Celtic Curse” can now switch targets when cancelling to the side attacks.
Developer Comments: “Celtic Curse” needs to be strong so that Highlander can initiate combat, and here the cancel into Offensive Form will make the real attacks much harder to identify, while protecting the Highlander from the Full Block Stance of Conqueror or Warlord.
Stamina
Removed the stamina cooldown for entering Offensive Form.
Can now regen stamina while dodging in Offensive Form.
Reduced stamina cost of “Balor’s Might” to 24 (from 30).
Developer Comments:TheHighlander has been heavily limited by his stamina consumption and regen. Often, the Highlanders would do a lot of work to only get one hit in, then have to back off. Now, the Highlanders should be more able to sustain their offensive.
Note that while Offensive Form’s Enhanced Lights still cost 3 stamina when cancelled from “Balor’s Might”, when accessed directly they are reduced from 33 to 27.
Damage
Increased damage on Offensive Form “Balor’s Might” to 40 (from 30).
Increased damage on Defensive Form Side Heavy Openers to 35 (from 25).
Increased damage on Defensive Form Side Heavy Finishers to 35 (from 30).
Increased damage on Defensive Form Top Heavy Opener to 45 (from 40).
Increased damage on Defensive Form Top Heavy Finisher to 45 (from 40).
Developer Comments:Part of the Highlander’s fantasy is to hit hard and now he finally can.
Defensive Form’s 2nd Lights
Uninterruptible Stance is now applied to Defensive Form’s 2nd Lights, starting at 100ms.
Interrupt Blocked reaction is reduced to 800ms (was 1100ms).
Developer Comments:This move no longer gives up a free Guard Break when blocked. Furthermore, the Uninterruptible Stance allows it to be used occasionally in-group fights.
“Caber Toss”
Improved rotational tracking.
Improved ability to move forward during the strike.
Developer Comments:“Caber Toss” is now better able at catching players who are attempting to dodge. The intention is to improve the “Fomorian Kick” and “Caber Toss” mix-up, especially against back-dodges (and diagonally backward dodges).
Offensive Form Dodge
Increased movement on Offensive Form’s Forward Dodge by 0.25m.
Developer Comments:Small movement increase to help Highlander catch up to more opponents while holding the Offensive Form.
“Fomorian Kick”
[Bug Fix] Removed a loop of “Kick into Forward Dodge, repeat”, by removing the 100ms early connection from kick-to-dodge.
[Bug Fix] Reduced the knockback distance slightly on “Formorian Kick”, in order to reduce the situations in which you land the kick, but then whiff the Unblockable Heavy afterward.
Throw
[Bug Fix] Fixed an issue where Stance Change prevented Highlander from Fast Flowing into Offensive Form.
Execution
[Bug Fix] The “No Mercy” execution now executes at 2200ms (was 4300ms)
SHAMAN
Predator’s Hunger
Reduced the knockback of Predator’s Hunger by 0.5m.
Throw Left
Left Throws no longer Unbalance the opponent if the Throw itself reduces them to 0 stamina. It now only Unbalances if the opponent was at 0 stamina before the Throw (this now makes it consistent with other heroes’ throws).
NOBUSHI
Zone Attack
1st strike: Reduced to 20 damage (from 33 damage).
Total = Reduced to 41 health damage (from 59 health damage).
[Bug Fix] Added visual effect on Zone attack 2nd strike cancel.
Kick
Kick startup reduced to 600ms (from 800ms).
On Heavy the branching to Kick was delayed by 100ms.
Updated the attack range to 3.5m (from 4m).
[Bug Fix] Reduced invulnerability to Guard Break by 400ms on Miss (was from 0 to 700ms, now from 0 to 300ms) and by 300ms on Hit (was from 0 to 600ms, now from 0 to 300ms).
Developer Comments:Now when the Nobushi misses her Kick, the opponent is able to Guard Break her.
Removed the stamina cost on hit (10 stamina points).
Kick trajectory has been updated.
Attack Post “Hidden Stance”
“Hidden Stance” Top Light attack startup reduced to 500ms (from 600ms).
“Hidden Stance” Top Heavy Feint:
[Bug Fix] Defense was missing during the last 100ms of the Feint. It is fixed.
[Bug Fix] Feints could be performed while Out of Stamina. It is fixed.
Side Light Finishers
Side Light Finishers startup reduced to 600ms (from 700ms)
“Swift Recoil”
“Swift Recoil” can now connect to the Viper’s Retreat (after 200ms)
Chains Top Light and Heavy
[Bug Fix] Inside chains, the Nobushi can move horizontally during all her Top attack startup, which allows her to dodge the Block into Shove for example. It is fixed.
Developer Comments:Now the Nobushi cannot move on side direction during her chain top attacks, she only move forward as the other chains in the game.
Side Dodges
Increased the Nobushi side dodge recoveries durations to 600ms (Before was 500ms).
“Cobra Strike”
[Bug Fix] Nobushi Cobra Strike can hit an opponent without any visual contact when opponent succeed a dodge. It is fixed.
Developer Comments:The trajectories were updated to be closer to the “Cobra Strike” animations.
[Bug Fix] Nobushi was unable to cancel the Cobra Strike’s Recovery into a forward Dodge. It is fixed.
Developer Comments:It was not allowed to make a forward dodge during the “Cobra Strike”, only side dodges were allowed. Now, the Nobushi can cancel “Cobra Strike” by a forward or a side dodge.
Sprint Attacks
[Bug Fix] The Nobushi sprint light attack allows opponent to go through the guidance while the Sprint heavy doesn’t.
Developer Comments:So we did the opposite for the logic:
Sprint Light no longer causes the opponent to be knocked off ledges.
Sprint Heavy now causes the opponent to be knocked off ledges.
[Bug fix] The Nobushi can perform “Slithering Thrust” and “Coiling Slash” while out of stamina with the “Iron Lungs” feat active. It is fixed.
Developer Comments:Now the Nobushi has the same behavior as the other characters which share the same feat.She cannot perform her sprint attacks.
Light Attacks post “Hidden Stance”
Reduced the damage to 8 damage (from 18).
Developer Comments:Light attacks post “Hidden Stance” into Light (combo) now confirms 34 (instead of 44) damage.
“Sidewinder Form”
Removed the ability to cancel “Sidewinder Form” recoveries by a back dodge. Can only be cancelled by a Front or a Side Dodge.
Developer Comments:Same behavior than the “Cobra Strike”, will avoid to be able to escape.
PARRY
General
You can now Counter Guard Break if grabbed during a Parry Reaction.
Parrying now moves you 1m forward (was 0m).
Controller rumble on parry has been fixed.
Parried a Heavy Attack
Heavy Parry Reaction is now 1500ms (was 1400ms), and now allows Stance Change during the last 100ms.
If you Parry a Heavy, now you get 600ms frame advantage in which your opponent cannot block, parry or dodge.
Developer Comments:This means any hero can land a guaranteed Light Attack. Some heroes can also land certain other special moves.
Parried a Light Attack
Light Parry Reaction is still 1800ms but now allows Stance Change during the last 100ms.
If you Parry a Light, now you get 900ms frame advantage in which your opponent cannot block/parry/dodge.
Developer Comments:This means most heroes can land a guaranteed Heavy Attack. Some heroes can also land certain other special moves.
Added a Visual and Audio Effects to parrying a Light Attack, to indicate that your opponent will be vulnerable for a longer period than if you parried a heavy.
Developer Comments:When Parry used to guarantee a Guard Break, it meant that the attacker had a negative expectation of the result: the amount of damage your original attack could inflict was usually less than the amount you risk to a parry, including scenarios such as:
Thrown off a ledge (instant death)
Wall-Stagger punish
Out-Of-Stamina-Unbalance punish
Now, if you are parried you can Counter Guard Break. The opponent will still be given a window to strike you, so you’ll still take damage, but the amount is much more reasonable compared to what the original attack that was parried would have done.
We also think this will improve the pace of the Parry – before the Parry was usually followed by the Guard Break, which seemed to slow the pace of combat. Now, the Parry will be followed by an actual weapon-based attack and combat should feel a little more dynamic.
Character-Specific changes based on the New Parry Vulnerability Timings:
Berserker
Removed early connections from Parry to Light Attack and Heavy attack.
Developer Comments:We left Berserker’s dedicated Parry follow-up “Skilled Slash” as it was. We removed the specific early connections to attack because Berserker always got a Top Heavy, and now Berserker only gets a Top Heavy after Parrying a Light. This is more in line with the rest of the cast’s options.
Highlander
Fast-flow to Offensive Form from Parry now starts at 700ms into the Parry (was 600ms).
Developer Comments:This change is so that if the Highlander Parries a Heavy, it does NOT guarantee a “Fomorian Kick”. Instead, Highlanders should use their Light Attacks against Heavies. If the Highlander Parries a Light, “Balor’s Might” will be guaranteed.
Lawbringer
Counterattack Heavy now starts at 500ms into the Parry (was 400ms).
Counterattack Zone Attack now starts at 500ms into the Parry (was 400ms).
Developer Comments:Although there’s a change here, Lawbringer has exactly the same parry rewards as on before. These timing changes are just a consequence of the general Parry changes made above.
Orochi
Reduced Top Light to 15 damage (from 17).
Reduced Top Light 2nd Combo Strike to 7 damage (from 15).
Increased “Wind Gust” to 35 damage (from 25).
Increased “Riptide Strike” to 40 damage (from 30).
Developer Comments:TheOrochi’s Top Light into Top Light Combo damage output is reduced to 22 (from 32), so that it is in line with the rest of the rosters punishes when parrying a Heavy. Orochi is compensated with better damage on the special counter-attack moves.
Shinobi
Reduced backward movement during Parry Reaction to match other heroes.
Developer Comments:This is so heroes with low range attacks can still connect, such as Warlord’s Top Light.
Shugoki
Reduced forward movement during parrying to 1m (from 2m), to match other heroes.
Shugoki used to be able to act 700ms into the 800ms Parry. Now, Shugoki can launch Light, Heavy or Zone Attacks at 600ms, but must wait until 800ms to perform other moves like Dodge, Guard Break or “Demon Embrace”.
Developer’s comments:This means Shugoki can punish a Heavy Parry with a Light into Headbutt, and punish a Light Parry with a Heavy Attack as before. Shugoki no longer needs to switch stance to make this happen (he did before).
IMPROVEMENTS
BALANCING
Skill-based team balancing is now live!
After matchmaking completion, a new balancing phase is added to the game before the players join the lobby.
The teams will now be balanced towards the best composition through the players’ skill rating.
Note: in this first implementation, the balance is only based on the players’ skill, not their renown (or other parameters).
This will only affects new game sessions being created. Joining a game in progress or in the end lobby will not go through the team balancing phase.
Developers comment:This is a highly anticipated feature and we’re happy to introduce it to you. It will help greatly to balance the teams composition, improve the fun and quality of the matches. Please note that this is the first version. We are already working on additional team balancing improvements to push the quality even further.
Skirmish
Skirmish now uses a pulse respawn mechanic.
Developers comment:This means that all dead players will respawn simultaneously every 10 seconds, with a minimum of 3 seconds. This should make it much easier for teams to regroup after losing team fights, which in turn should make the whole game mode fairer. To supplement this change, executions will no longer inflict a respawn duration penalty and will instead give more hard points based on the duration of the execution (Short: 15 pts, Medium: 35pts, Long: 50 pts). This should ultimately create shorter and more intense matches that feel more like what a Skirmish should be.
SPECIAL ORDERS RULE CHANGES
Community Orders
Community orders rewards will only be given to players participating towards the order’s goal upon completion.
Example: As a community, perform 10000 executions in Dominion matches. – The player has to execute at least one enemy in a Dominion match while the order is active to receive the rewards.
Developer Comments:In order to encourage everyone to partake in the community orders, we decided to reward only those whose effort directly contribute towards the common goal. This was part of the original intents of the feature and we felt unfair for the players that did not participate in the community order just log in and get the rewards. This mean only players who participated by directly increasing the community order goal during its duration will be eligible for the reward, should it be completed.
All actions taken before or after the completion of the order will not count as participation. All actions taken during the order that do not contribute towards the order’s goal will not count as participation.
FACTION WAR
Strategic Territories
Strategic Territories are selected faction war territories giving a bonus to the Faction that controls them. The bonus given by the territory depends on its type.
There are 3 types of Strategic Territories (Mill, Forge, Castle). Each type gives a different bonus and is represented by a specific model on the world map.
Conquering an enemy Strategic Territory will transfer access to the Bonus to the new controlling Faction.
At the beginning of each Campaign, each Faction controls an even number of each type of Strategic: 2 Mills, 1 Forge, 1 Castle each. The type & positioning of Strategic Territories will not change during the season.
Mill
Each Mill controlled by a Faction gives a 5% bonus on the base XP at the end of matches. Base XP includes XP from Hero Actions, Match Completion, and XP Bonus if there’s any. Represented by a Windmill on the map.
Forge
Each Forge controlled by a Faction increases the Loot Rate of gear by 7% at the end of matches. Represented by a Forge on the map.
Castle
Each Castle Territory receives 10% more Troops from their controlling Faction. The bonus only applies to manually placed Troops, so Troops assigned by War Banner or by hand between matches. Each Castle Territory is independent and controlling multiple Castles territories does not increase their individual bonuses. Represented by a Faction-Themed Castle on the map.
Developer’s comments:We want to give a new level of strategy to the Faction War by adding Strategic Territories. They give concrete mid and long-term objectives, as well as rewards to player’s participation during the Campaign.
Mills & Forges give access to more resources, whereas Castles give important strategic footholds by making territories easier to defend. This is another step in improving the value and depth of the Faction War.
[Improvement] Capital territories are now restricted to 1 territory per faction. All previous gain of capital territories are reverted to normal territories. Only remaining capital territory with statue cannot be taken.
Developers comment:Following the addition of the strategic territories, we reverted the capital territories gained with Faction War Season victories to make sure the map stays balanced and fair.
[Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that caused Territories to receive Troops from the wrong Faction after a specific Battle resolution.
PROGRESSION UPDATE
New Reputation Levels
Max reputation level increased from 40 to 50. Each reputation levels come with an outfit as rewards.
Developer Comments:With more people reaching the max reputation and new XP progression, we introduced more levels to bring a new objective to high-level players.
XP Boost
Players can now trade salvage for XP Boosts. XP Boosts can be used before the match to grant extra XP for the player and their teammates at the end of a match. An XP boost provides a flat value of 250 extra XP for the player and 50 extra XP for every teammates.
Developer Comments:Since the different factions materials have been merged together, the community has been asking for another use of their salvage. We heard the claims and we believe that the XP Boost will not only help you with that but also with a faster progression. This allows players to control their progression; use high-level heroes salvaged gear to fuel low-level heroes progression and adds a social aspect with the shared boost.
XP boost cost increments with each purchase to a ceiling. The XP boost cost resets every day.
1st activation 500 salvage
2nd activation 1000 salvage
3rd activation 3000 salvage
4th activation 8000 salvage
5th+ activation 15000 salvage
Developer Comments:We settled on an incremental price to make the XP boost accessible for a multitude of players while safeguarding against excessive usage, which would have created a groove in the player base’s progression speed.
We want players with a low amount of salvage in bank but with one or more high level heroes to easily access a few XP boost per day with their loot while also giving an interesting option for those with huge amount of salvage to gain advantage from their resource. Having an incremental cost protects us from people simply consuming a huge amount of XP boost using scavenger crates to bypass the progression and getting too much of an advantage from the feature. Just like Orders, the objective is to reward player commitment and those who play everyday should get the most of the XP boost feature.
End of Match Rewards Rebalancing
Following the addition of the strategic points, end of match rewards were rebalanced to give value to the Mills while keeping same or better default XP income.
All base XP gain reduced to give same base XP value with base strategic territories Mill:
Base value before update: Dominion win = 500 XP
Base value after update: Dominion win = 460 XP
Received XP on game completion with default strategic territories: Dominion win: 460 XP + 46 XP (starting strategic territories) = 506 XP
Full base values updated below, with default strategic territories value:
PvP
XP gained on a Dominion (PVP) match win at the start of the Campaign changed from 500 XP to 506 XP.
XP gained on a Tribute (PVP) match win at the start of the Campaign changed from 400 XP to 396 XP.
XP gained on a Skirmish (PVP) match win at the start of the Campaign changed from 500 XP to 506 XP.
XP gained on an Elimination (PVP) match win at the start of the Campaign changed from 400 XP to 396 XP.
XP gained on a Brawl (PVP) match win at the start of the Campaign changed from 300 XP to 297 XP.
XP gained on a Duel (PVP) match win at the start of the Campaign changed from 260 XP to 264 XP.
XP gained on a Duel Tournament (PVP) match win at the start of the Campaign changed from 360 XP to 363 XP.
XP gained on a Dominion Ranked (PVP) match win at the start of the Campaign changed from 500 XP to 506 XP.
XP gained on a Dominion (PVP) match lost or tied at the start of the Campaign changed from 380 XP to 385 XP.
XP gained on a Tribute (PVP) match lost or tied at the start of the Campaign changed from 300 XP to 297 XP.
XP gained on a Skirmish (PVP) match lost or tied at the start of the Campaign changed from 380 XP to 385 XP.
XP gained on an Elimination (PVP) match lost or tied at the start of the Campaign changed from 300 XP to 297 XP.
XP gained on a Brawl (PVP) match lost or tied at the start of the Campaign changed from 220 XP to 220 XP.
XP gained on a Duel (PVP) match lost or tied at the start of the Campaign changed from 190 XP to 187 XP.
XP gained on a Duel Tournament (PVP) match lost or tied at the start of the Campaign changed from 260 XP to 264 XP.
XP gained on a Dominion Ranked (PVP) match lost or tied at the start of the Campaign changed from 380 XP to 385 XP.
PvAI
XP gained on a Dominion (PvAI) match win at the start of the Campaign changed from 400 XP to 396 XP.
XP gained on a Tribute (PvAI) match win at the start of the Campaign changed from 320 XP to 319 XP.
XP gained on a Skirmish (PvAI) match win at the start of the Campaign changed from 400 XP to 396 XP.
XP gained on a Elimination (PvAI) match win at the start of the Campaign changed from 320 XP to 319 XP.
XP gained on a Brawl (PvAI) match win at the start of the Campaign changed from 240 XP to 242 XP.
XP gained on a Dominion (PvAI) match lost or tied at the start of the Campaign changed from 300 XP to 297 XP.
XP gained on a Tribute (PvAI) match lost or tied at the start of the Campaign changed from 240 XP to 242 XP.
XP gained on a Skirmish (PvAI) match lost or tied at the start of the Campaign changed from 300 XP to 297 XP.
XP gained on an Elimination (PvAI) match lost or tied at the start of the Campaign changed from 240 XP to 242 XP.
XP gained on a Brawl (PvAI) match lost or tied at the start of the Campaign changed from 170 XP to 165 XP.
PvAI (Matchmaking Off)
XP gained on a Dominion (PvAI – Matchmaking Off) match win at the start of the Campaign changed from 250 XP to 253 XP.
XP gained on a Tribute (PvAI – Matchmaking Off) match win at the start of the Campaign changed from 200 XP to 198 XP.
XP gained on a Skirmish (PvAI – Matchmaking Off) match win at the start of the Campaign changed from 250 XP to 253 XP.
XP gained on an Elimination (PvAI – Matchmaking Off) match win at the start of the Campaign changed from 200 XP to 198 XP.
XP gained on a Brawl (PvAI – Matchmaking Off) match win at the start of the Campaign changed from 150 XP to 154 XP.
XP gained on a Duel (PvAI – Matchmaking Off) match win at the start of the Campaign changed from 130 XP to 132 XP.
XP gained on a Dominion (PvAI – Matchmaking Off) match lost or tied at the start of the Campaign changed from 190 XP to 187 XP.
XP gained on a Tribute (PvAI – Matchmaking Off) match lost or tied at the start of the Campaign changed from 150 XP to 154 XP.
XP gained on a Skirmish (PvAI – Matchmaking Off) match lost or tied at the start of the Campaign changed from 190 XP to 187 XP.
XP gained on an Elimination (PvAI – Matchmaking Off) match lost or tied at the start of the Campaign changed from 150 XP to 154 XP.
XP gained on a Brawl (PvAI – Matchmaking Off) match lost or tied at the start of the Campaign changed from 110 XP to 110 XP.
XP gained on a Duel (PvAI – Matchmaking Off) match lost or tied at the start of the Campaign changed from 90 XP to 88 XP.
Developer Comments:With the introduction of the Strategic Points, we had to rebalance the rewards to take in account the points that each faction has on its territory at the start of the season. This does not decrease the XP income; it, at the minimum, matches the rewards that we had in the previous season or improves them.
Example:
Before update: Dominion win = 500 XP
After update: Dominion win: 460 XP + 46 XP (10% coming from the initial 2 XP strategic points) = 506 XP
After update: Dominion win: 460 XP + 69 XP (15% coming from the initial 2 XP strategic points + 1 conquered strategic point) = 529 XP
But beware! If your faction lose a territory, you will have to live with the consequences:
After update: Dominion win: 460 XP + 23 XP (5% coming from the initial 1 XP strategic point) = 483 XP
Note that the Strategic Points bonus (and other percentage bonuses, like XP Fest and Champion Status) are applied after the calculation of the match XP.
Example:
Dominion PVP win: 460 XP (From Dominion match) + 250 XP (From XP Boost) + 50 XP (From teammate XP Boost) + 100 XP (Player performance) + 100 XP (Game Mode actions) = 960 XP + 96 XP (10% from the initial 2 XP strategic points) + 960 XP (100% from XP Fest) +240XP (25% from Champion Status) = 2256 XP
GEAR
Refine Gear
Refinable gear are new pieces of gear, not updates on current weapon and armor parts and must be looted.
Refined gear parts has a potential extra crafting level, available only on rare Legendary gear stat bundles. Meaning some Legendary gears can be Refined after they hit their maximum crafting level.
The bonus gained from Refining is different from normal crafting and varies per bundles.
Refining decreases penalties and only increases small bonuses while normal crafting increases all bonuses and penalties at the same time.
Refinable gears have a chance to drop whenever you loot a Legendary gear for a Hero of Reputation 9 or higher. The chances to gain a Refinable gear increases with their reputation level.
Refinable gears do not affect gear score, so the gear score cap is not be affected.
Refined gear is instead displayed as diamonds above gear icon. When a full set of gear is refines (all weapons and all armor pieces), the diamond is displayed in the character overall gear score.
Developer Comments:We added a new option of gear progression for the players who reached high Reputation levels on their Heroes without impacting negatively the progression when starting an Hero from scratch.
New Legendary Weapons
4 new Legendary Weapons visuals have been introduced for all Heroes.
USER INTERFACE
Multiple Effects
Players are now able to equip a different effect to each execution and emote slot.
Developer Comments:Continuing with the hero improvements, we added more options for you to further customize the executions and emotes, and rock those effects on the battlefield.
Improved visibility of non-Playable Heroes in the Heroes Grid
Non-playable Heroes (locked Heroes) are now greyed out in the Heroes Grid to increase the visibility on which heroes can be picked in the current match.
Improved Player Reporting Dialog
Added more granularity to the Player Reporting Dialog, now players can be reported for the following categories:
Abusive Chat (PC Only)
Inactivity / AFK
Cheating / Botting
Offensive Emblem
Offensive Name (PC Only. On Console, please contact Sony or Microsoft.)
Griefing
Spam
The Reporting dialog also includes the “Do and Don’t” of reporting in a selected category.
Reports are reviewed on a daily basis, and we will continue to monitor For Honor for inappropriate behavior, as well as take action as needed to preserve the integrity of game. You may refer to our code of conduct here: Code of Conduct.
Please Note: Abuse of this feature can lead to Sanctions against the Reporter. Furthermore, the ability to report each player is now limited to once per match.
Developer Comments:Thanks to this, players will be able to report toxic behaviors more accurately. It’s crucial for us to have a safe and fun environment when playing For Honor. We are committed to continue fighting against toxicity in our game.
Faster Access to the “Interactive Scoreboard”
Players can now access the Interactive scoreboard faster by using the following Shortcuts:
With a Controller: While Holding (View/Share) press (Menu/Options) to switch to the Interactive Scoreboard.
With Keyboard & Mouse: Press F5 to access the Interactive Scoreboard directly.
Developer Comments:Now players will find it easier to interact with a specific player name during a match.
PC SPECIFIC
Decoupled Rendering
Improved multi-threaded rendering which allowed us to fix a number of issues related to display mode changes (e.g. transition from fullscreen to minimized).
Additionally the command line /nothreadaffinity is enabled by default, which solves the stutter issue some players encountered that forced them to disable a CPU core.
Added the ability to Rotate Heroes in all Customization Menus using a Mouse
Heroes can now be rotated in any Customization menu screen while using a mouse. To do so, players need to click and drag the Right Mouse Button on the Hero.
Please note: The previous rotation in the “Preview” screen was achieved with the Left Mouse Button; this is now changed to the Right Mouse Button for consistency.
Added an option to enable/disable Adaptive V-Sync
The Current V-Sync selection box has been extended to include “Adaptive” as a separate entry. Available options now are: Off, Double Buffering, Adaptive, Triple Buffering.
Uplay notification for Memory & Virtual memory usage
Added new Uplay notifications to warn players when the PC is about to run out of memory or virtual memory
Improved crash messages by specifying the Crash Reason if known, e.g. (Out of Memory, GPU Crash, etc…)
Improved driver compatibility checks for Intel HD Graphics systems
Added Focused state to Scrollbars
BUG FIXES AND IMPROVEMENTS
FIGHTERS
All Heroes
[Improvement] Updated the camera orientation control to provide a better control to the player.
[Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that allowed the player to teleport to his target after launching an attack during the Snowball emote.
Warden
[Improvement] Zone Attack recovery is now 900ms (was 1000ms).
[Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that caused the Warden weapons pop after Guard Break into Push Forward.
[Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that caused the right arm of the Warden to pop during “Hilt Strike” execution.
Peacekeeper
[Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that cause the Peacekeeper weapons are incorrectly synced with the opponents movements during the “Instant Regrets” execution
Conqueror
[Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that caused the execution ‘Dislocator’ to be offset while performing on the female Conqueror.
Raider
[Bug Fix] Updated the move set page of the Raider in the Campaign. In the campaign, you can cancel heavy attack with a light attack but you cannot cancel “Raider Fury” with a Light attack it is only possible in PvP, so we have removed this false information.
Shinobi
[Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that caused the Shinobi to be interrupted by a Guard Break from an external attacker during the teleport behind his opponent after a deflect.
Developer Comments:This was inconsistent compared to other characters deflect. Now, a Guard Break cannot interrupt the Shinobi during all his teleport (when he is invisible) and during the 1st part of his recovery (before he starts to turn in the direction of his target).
[Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that cause the Shinobi to send the opponent in the wrong direction after performing Charged Kick mix up while he is not locked to him.
Developer Comments:The rotation speed of the target was too slow and do not have time to face the Shinobi when he hits him. Now the rotation speed is changed to allow the target rotation to face the Shinobi.
[Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that caused the Shinobi Guard Breaks to sometimes affect the opponent behind his targeted opponent.
Centurion
[Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that caused the Centurion to be bumped when using his “Jab” on an opponent from behind.
[Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that caused the Centurion to be unable to change stance during the end of Hit and Block Recoveries.
Gladiator
[Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that caused the Gladiator Sprint Attacks to misses when the opponent is standing against a wall.
[Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that caused the Gladiator “Fighting Dirty” execution to allow the Player to rotate camera throughout execution.
[Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that caused the Gladiator to go through ledges when a “Skewer” or a “Skewer Deflect” is performed against a wall
[Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that caused the Gladiator shield to go offset when countering Guard Breaks.
Shaman
[Improvement] Modified Guard Break entry animations, as well as added a new repulsion animation for shoulder tackles on unbalanced opponents.
[Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that caused the Shaman to be able to cancel “Mountain Lions Power” with a dodge or soft cancel it into a Guard Break when out of stamina.
[Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that caused the “Pounce” to not connect on an Out of Stamina opponent that has his back against a wall.
Aramusha
[Improvement] Aramusha’s Throw will now be able to go in diagonal direction depending on the input.
[Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that caused the Aramusha to automatically block an Unblockable attack after a Deflect.
[Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that caused the move set description of the “Twin Vipers” to refer to “Push Back Kick” input.
FEATS
[Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that caused the “Tireless” feat to not work. This feat now provides the player with 10% Stamina Cost Reduction on all stamina requiring actions.
Developers comment:The 10% stamina cost reduction does not apply to stamina damage received by other entity such as players and traps. It should be noted that this value effectively permits the player to feint moves like “Raider Fury” one more time before running out of stamina. This is true even with max gear.
[Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that caused the Samurai Bow feat would not face the target if the opponent dodges too early.
MAPS
General
[Bug Fix] Fixed a lot of Level of Detail issues across all maps
Citadel Gate
[Improvement] Moved the Duel location from the Bridge to the Courtyard Platform.
Tower Ruin
[Improvement] Tower Ruin, in the Tribute game mode, has been changed to provide a more interesting experience. Respawners, Offerings and Shrine placements have been moved and Ziplines were added at the top of the tower.
Shipyard
[Bug Fix] Fixed many issues regarding the navigation of the Shipyard map.
Zipline
[Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that caused a conflict in between Ziplines and other interactive objects such as Offerings and Revives.
TRIBUTE
[Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that caused the player to be unable to interact with Shrines while an Ally is standing in front of it.
[Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that caused Ziplines to become unusable if an Offering is dropped in front of it.
DUEL TOURNAMENT
[Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that caused the Duel Tournament menu to sometimes become unusable.
USER INTERFACE
[Improvement] Orders are now refreshed within 5 minutes after the previous ones closing time or after playing a match.
[Improvement] Updated Map Overviews for most Skirmish and Elimination to better represent the placements of the Boosts.
[Improvement] Prevented the player idle detection from triggering while the game is paused in menus during PvAI duel or PvAI with “No Matchmaking”.
[Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that caused the player to sometimes remain stuck in Tactical View for the whole game.
[Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that caused the Emote symbol to be displayed instead of Outfit bundle on all Legacy Outfit bundles in the store.
[Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that caused the user interface to display that Bots are “On” while playing PvP Duels.
CUSTOMIZATION
[Improvement] After the community request, The Frost Wind Festival Viking Mask has been reworked and improved visually.
[Improvement] Did some changes to the characters’ facial system. Everybody should look more lively!
[Improvement] The coin toss emote of the Aramusha can now be properly cancelled.
[Improvement] Reseting the pitch camera angle to default position when locking on no target while performing an emote.
[Bug Fix] Fixed various clipping issues with emotes and executions
[Bug Fix] Fixed material change on various arms (Gunteric, Procyon, Theudis, Fury, Stalkers) of the Berserker.
[Bug Fix] Fixed missing paint pattern (Heat Waves 1) on the Berserker outfit Reputation 31.
[Bug Fix] Fixed various symbols and paint patterns on the Warlord outfit Reputation 4.
[Bug Fix] Fixed wrong paint pattern (Fire Eye, Target) on the Warlord outfit Reputation 6.
[Bug Fix] Fixed missing paint pattern (Vertigo 1) on the Warlord outfit Reputation 35.
[Bug Fix] Fixed the thumbnail of the Bone Reign Hatchet Blade of the Shaman is that was misaligned in Barrack.
[Bug Fix] Fixed the clipping issues of the Hatchet Blade with some chest (Nightfox, Tundra Warrior, Forest Mystic) for the Shaman while in the barrack.
[Bug Fix] Fixed the outfit thumbnail for the Orbital Vortex battle outfit for the male Conqueror.
[Bug Fix] Fixed the unlock condition for the outfit Reputation 36 for the Vikings.
SOUND
[Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that caused the sound of the weapon clashing to be lower than expected.
BOTS
[Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that would cause the bots to fail using “Marked for Death” and “Chilling Stare”. This affects the Kensei’s and Raider’s Bots.
[Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that caused the Aramusha’s Bot chained Side Heavies to not flow into Side Heavy Finishers if they Hit.
[Improvement] Improved bot defense efficiency against Shinobi Heavy Full Charged Attack.
[Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that caused the Valkyrie Bot to initiate Sprint Attack too early.
PC
[Bug Fix] Improved check for outdated Intel drivers. This is also used to notify users to update their drivers.
[Bug Fix] Fixed the description of the “Quick Chat” option which was not clear enough on the actual purpose of the option.
[Bug Fix] Fixed Multiple Crashes Happening on Shutdown
[Bug Fix] Fixed an issue where certain steam controller actions were not remappable in Steam Big Picture
[Bug Fix] Removed duplicate loadouts boxes while hovering over the Boxes in the Hero Selection menu.
[Bug Fix] Fixed an Incorrect button depiction is shown for ‘LT/L2’ and ‘RT/R2’ buttons when toggled to PS4 in ‘Control icon display’ option while an Xbox 360 controller is connected
[Bug Fix] Fixed an issue that caused the game to sometime crash on Windows 8.1 after Quit To Desktop via Menu or Alt+F4.
Once we have more details regarding the freebies and other news, we’ll be sure to let players know.
Battlefield 1 Battlepack Revision #78 is here and brings the skins.
DICE is ringing in the Chinese New Year with this week’s Battlefield 1 Battlepack Revision update! Officially #78, the new Battlepack Revision roll out has ties to the Chinese content for the game (duh).
Check the complete list of skins and puzzle pieces available this week, as well as the current Exchange.
Find anything interesting in it? If you’re not a fan of Battlefield 1 Battlepacks, there’s also an infograph released by DICE that details just how successful Battlefield 1 has been so far.
Fans of the game will be glad to know that a free DLC trial is in effect, which means you can get a taste of the paid stuff out there, though any XP earned will be gated until you purchase the expansion. This free trial will last until February 19, 2018.
Fortnite 1.43 update brings the content and the love for the Lunar Year.
Fortnite players are in for a treat, as the big Fortnite 1.43 update (v. 2.5.0) update is out, and it’s a big one! Clocking in at 5.9GB on the PS4 version, the patch introduces the Impulse Grenade, Shrines and lots more.
There’s even new stuff added to the Save the World mode that’s tied to the Chinese New Year! Without further ado, check out the complete patch notes below.
Impulse Grenade
Shrines (Battle Royale)
Search for treasure in new, thematic Shrines hidden across the map.
Lunar New Year Heroes (Save the World)
New year, new gear! Harness the power of four Lunar New Year heroes.
Dragon Weapons (Save the World)
Celebrate the New Year in style and fight fire with fire.
GENERAL
Enabled dynamic resolution and high quality temporal upsampling on PS4 and Xbox One.
Dynamic resolution gives more consistent framerate during heavy combat and increases visual fidelity when load on the GPU is lighter.
Full 4K Resolution now supported on Xbox One X.
Added a key binding for “Toggle Pickaxe” on PC.
PC + Mac Social Panel has been expanded to make browsing long lists of friends easier.
Added distinctive sound variations when starting to build with Wood/Stone/Metal.
Fixed multiple scenarios where connectivity errors would block login.
Improved XMPP connection recovery on console.
Optimized XMPP payloads.
Removed extra queries when returning from match.
Removed redundant store queries.
Bug Fixes
Fixed a problem with empty progress bars incorrectly showing as full bars on Mac.
Fixed Discord game invites and rich presence information.
PS4
Bug Fixes
In continued partnership with SIE, we have been able to resolve the issue that occurred for some Fortnite players in which patches took longer to download than they should. If you experience a recurrence of this issue, please reach out to Epic Customer Service and we will address appropriately.
BATTLE ROYALE
WEAPONS + ITEMS
Impulse Grenade added.
Blue rarity.
Found in Treasure Chests and Supply Drops only.
The Scoped Assault Rifle is now perfectly accurate while scoped.
Scoped Assault Rifle headshot damage decreased from 250% to 200%.
Revolver now uses Medium ammo.
Crossbow drop chance decreased by 20%.
Minigun drop chance decreased by 12.5%.
Chug Jug drop chance decreased by 15%.
The White/Green/Blue SMG is rotating out and heading into the vault.
Tactical Submachine Gun
Magazine size increased from 30 to 35.
Firing rate increased from 10 to 13.
Bug Fixes
Fixed Sniper Rifles occasionally not registering hits when aiming downward with high network latency.
Fixed an issue with projectiles failing to hit nearby players when hitting another target.
Fixed an issue allowing players to fire around walls with the Crossbow and Minigun if they stood very close to the edge of the wall.
The reload-failed messages will no longer display on weapons that do not have a clip to reload (i.e. – Minigun).
Removed per-bullet rounding on shotgun damage calculation.
Damage was rounded down to the nearest whole number for each individual pellet.
Instead, all projectiles will be added together before rounding.
Fixed an issue which caused the Minigun’s barrel to continue to glow after use.
GAMEPLAY
Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue which prevented players from using the first weapon picked up on consoles.
Fixed an issue where under certain network conditions, players could be damaged by bullets passing through structures built at the last second.
These shots will now hit the structure instead of the player.
Fixed an issue which allowed shots to pass through doors right after they were closed.
Fixed an issue which allowed players to pick-up an extra weapon/consumable while holding a trap.
This issue was also caused players to drop full stacks of resources and preventing them from harvesting that resource for the rest of the match.
Fixed shield hit effects playing when taking falling damage.
Fixed supply drops hovering mid-air if the object beneath them was destroyed.
Fixed a possible crash that could occur while firing weapons before boarding the Battle Bus.
WORLD
Bug Fixes
The Soccer Stadium and other buildings should now load properly.
Fixed an issue which caused treasure chests to be empty in rare cases.
Fixed an ammo crate in Lonely Lodge that didn’t spawn ammo.
PERFORMANCE
Optimized performance of player animations to improve overall frame rate.
Optimized dust cloud and shield effects on low settings for better performance.
Eliminated various hitches caused by certain skins and items being loaded at unexpected times.
Character models, weapons and environment assets now utilize a Level of Detail system to improve performance.
Improved smoothness of level streaming by loading content on a background thread.
Major tweaks to FX settings, targeting Medium to Low specifications.
UI
Enabled “Net Stats” option for PS4. This feature shows your ping time to Epic’s servers and overall bandwidth usage while playing.
This option can be found in the HUD tab under Game Settings.
Added an icon to the HUD that indicates which button is used to open the map.
Added the total elapsed time to the Matchmaking UI.
The ammo widget above the player’s health bar now displays the count for any selected utility item.
The keybinding widget in the HUD no longer shows “Not Bound”.
Added the ability to let players scale the HUD.
Known Issue – This does not affect the HUD when spectating after death.
Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue where PS4 players were not getting credit for playing with friends.
AUDIO
Improved footstep audio by adding separate above and below step sounds for Wood, Stone, and Metal materials.
Moved volume attenuation to be based off player location, rather than from the camera.
Players can now better hear their surroundings while building.
Lowered the audio levels of initially placing a structure.
Added new Wood, Stone and Metal sound variations when placing structures.
Added a sound that plays when the Crossbow is ready to fire again.
Lowered teammate footstep volume slightly.
Lowered the volume of the Sniper impact sound.
Lowered the volume of emote music when in the pre-game phase.
Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue which prevented other players from hearing the Minigun’s spin up sound.
Fixed some audio panning issues when equipping the Minigun.
ART/ANIMATION
Improved visual FX when moving through deep water.
Bug Fixes
Fixed Royale Knight’s head clipping through the back of her helmet.
KNOWN ISSUES
Weapon crosshairs will disappear sometimes after using a scoped weapon.
Weapons will sometimes appear to be loaded, but cannot be fired.
In rare cases, an item dropped by an eliminated player cannot be picked up by other players.
SAVE THE WORLD
SPRING IT ON! EVENT
New quests will be introduced throughout the duration of the event! Spring It On! begins with a tale of love in a storm-ridden world, with the usual Fortnite twist…
Lunar New Year Heroes added, featuring 4 new kits!
Dragon weapons added
Quest Rewards (Sneak Peak):
Love Trooper Jonesy, Legendary Soldier
Choice of three Legendary Dragon Ranged Weapon
New Legendary Melee Defender
Firecracker Tickets
V-Bucks
Spring It On! Gold
Awarded for completing a repeatable Quest
Firecracker Tickets can be earned by using the new Opt-In Difficulty feature (detailed below). They’ll be awarded each time you complete a mission at increased difficulty.
Used to purchase Spring Llamas from the Loot tab.
Updated Loot Llamas to award Firecracker Tickets for the duration of the event.
Spring Llama is available in the Loot tab and costs 1000 Firecracker Tickets to purchase.
Each Llama will contain a Lunar New Years Hero, or a Dragon weapon.
Each stack of 1000 Storm Event Tickets has been exchanged for Storm Llamas.
Up to 3000 Seasonal Gold will be converted 3 to 1 into Firecracker Tickets, and any additional gold beyond that is lost. Spend any additional leftover event gold before the update! Spring It On! Gold is also seasonal and will be replaced when a new season begins.
Mutant Storm and Miniboss Mission Alerts are not tied to this event. Both have returned to their lower “passive” levels of activity, and neither awards event tickets.
Up to 3 Mutant Storms in Stonewood, 10 in other locations. | Quota: 4 per day
Up to 3 Miniboss Alerts in Stonewood, 6 in other locations. | Quota: 3 per day
New, Spring it On!-themed items will appear in the store throughout the event.
Event store Items will appear, and remain available for purchase until the end of Spring It On!.
Weekly store items will only be available for the week in which they appear.
NEW AND IMPROVED UNIVERSAL INVENTORY
*NOTE: This feature will be available on Monday, February 19 due to in-progress testing.
You can now prepare your inventory in the Armory before loading into the world.
Use the Backpack screen to craft, equip, and recycle world items.
Use the Storage screen to transfer items between backpack and Storm Shield storage.
These screens are available in an inspect-only version when connecting to a game session.
NEW OPT-IN DIFFICULTY
A new type of BluGlo Pylon can be found throughout the world, allowing the difficulty of most mission types to be increased up to 5x.
Each time it’s used, the number of enemies increases significantly, giving a small bump to their health + damage output.
Each time the game’s difficulty is increased, additional Seasonal Gold is awarded upon completion of the primary mission.
During the Spring It On! event, increasing the mission’s difficulty at least once awards a number of Firecracker Tickets, starting at 40 tickets in lower Stonewood, and topping out at 94 tickets at the end of Twine Peaks.
RARITY EVOLUTION AND RECYCLING CHANGES
The costs of Rarity Evolution have been reworked. The cost to increase the rarity of a Hero now costs more Training Manuals and evolution materials (Drops of Rain, Eye of the Storm, etc) depending on the star level of the Hero.
A partially-complete version of this change was released early in v.2.4.2 and had higher-than-intended costs for evolving 3,4 and 5-Star Heroes. These costs have been corrected in this patch.
When 2-Star or higher Schematics, Heroes, Survivors, Survivor Leads and Defenders are recycled they will now refund all evolution materials spent evolving the item.
This change was made because we wanted players to be able to level up and test out new heroes, weapons, and traps without the risk of losing valuable evolution materials.
HEROES
Introducing Lunar New Years heroes, featuring four new kits:
Berserker – A fearless Soldier who rushes into combat at close range with War Cry and Shockwave.
Thunderstrike – A Ninja who focuses on stunning nearby foes, and exploiting that state to deal increased damage.
Riot Control – Constructor focused on controlling the battlefield with DECOY, and wiping out packs of enemies with Plasma Pulse.
Flash – An elusive Outlander who uses Phase Shift to stun and escape from groups of enemies.
Plasma Pulse
Redesigned to no longer bounce when placed.
Rate of fire increased from 2 pulses/second at 8 pulses/second.
Base damage has been reduced from 80 to 14.
Goin’ Commando’s minigun is now flagged as a Ranged Weapon, causing it to benefit from Debilitating Shots and various other Soldier perks.
Outlander’s Phase Shift will no longer interrupt most actions when activated, allowing it to be used more fluidly during combat.
Long Arm of The Law makes Anti Material Charge no longer stop on the first building hit.
In The Zone ability
Updated the tooltip to clarify that it requires 5 hits in a row.
Increased the reset timer between hits to 5 seconds from 3 seconds.
Hearty Strikes base heal amount decreased from 12 to 10.
[Rework] Firewall Perk
Melee attacks against the Constructor’s shield trigger an energy pulse dealing Energy Damage and knocking back nearby enemies in a 0.5 tile radius (16 Second Cooldown).
[Rework] Firewall Tactical Bonus
Melee attacks against the Primary Hero’s shield triggers an energy pulse dealing Energy Damage and knocking back nearby enemies in a 0.5 tile radius (48 Second Cooldown).
[Rework] Flak Vest Perk
Reduces damage taken by 60%.
Reduction drops by 15% each time the Soldier is hit. Regain 15% every 10 seconds if reduction is lower than 60%.
[Rework] Structural strike has been reworked: When Anti Material Charge hits a building it will refund some of its energy cost and have a reduced cooldown.
[Rework] Survivalist Perk/Tactical Bonus
Killing an enemy with an ability or weapon recovers 3 base health/second (scaling with Hero level and Tech) over 3 seconds. Additional kills reset the healing duration. Will not activate on full health.
[Rework] Soldier Support Specialist
‘There Are Many Like It…’ Weapon lifespan increase reduced to 80% while War Cry is active.
‘There Are Many Like It…’ now unlocks at level 30 (up from level 18).
Added ‘Practiced in Combat’ perk at level 18.
Removed ‘Blitz’ from level 30 (replaced it with ‘There Are Many Like It…’)
Bug Fixes
Damage of Tactical Perk ‘China Shop’ now properly increases with Hero level.
Fixed an issue causing Constructor and Machinist Harper to have the Legendary stats at all rarities.
Fixed issue where Blitzen Base Kyle Hearty Blows did not specify that its activation required a Hardware melee weapon.
Updated tooltips for TEDDY and Shocktower abilities to explain that each ability adds to the max Fragment Charges capacity by 1.
WEAPONS
Heartbreaker Crossbow added
Valentines-themed Sniper Crossbow.
Fires bolts that pierce through enemies and deal high damage + knockback.
Bolts will drop slightly as they travel through the air.
Consumes heavy ammo.
Available in the Event Store for Seasonal Gold.
Dragon Weapons are available:
Dragon’s Roar – Semi-auto rifle that fires piercing rounds that afflict enemies with fire damage.
Dragon’s Might – Shotgun that fires several explosive firecrackers.
Dragon’s Claw – Sniper rifle that fires small rockets that stick to targets and explode after a short delay.
Dragon’s Fury – Rocket that leaves an explosive cloud behind after impact.
Dragon’s Tooth – Medium sword that deals fire damage.
Dragon’s Fang – Heavy spear that deals fire damage.
These weapons feature several unique perks – find them all!
GAMEPLAY
Weapons and Hero Perks that increase damage to ‘knocked down’ enemies now function while husks are in their recovery animation.
Reduced health, stability, and score awarded for defeating minibosses by 20%.
Slightly reduced the number of other enemies spawned while a Miniboss is present.
Drops of Rain and other evolution materials are now more heavily impacted by difficulty and mission reward chests. This causes an increase in drop quantity for everything except the lowest value chests.
Added Cozy Campfire Trap Schematics to Loot Llamas.
Also added a slot for Cozy Campfire in the Collection Book.
The following Quests have been moved to the Side Quests category in the Quest Journal since they are no longer Daily Quests.
A Little Van That Could!
Data Retrieval
Storm Chaser
Crafted weapons now come preloaded with exactly one clip of free ammo appropriate to the weapon (This does not consider the current hero, so the Waste Not Want Not perk does not apply to the clip size).
Bug Fixes
Twine Peaks Quest Glimmer of Hope should no longer list Retrieve the Data as an objective twice. Ride the Lightning should now be listed instead.
Clarified the description of Life Leech Attacks Storm Zone mutation.
Affliction can no longer deal critical hit damage.
Fixed an issue where players could occasionally not level up after outpost tutorial.
Fixed an issue where light swords heavy attack animation was interrupted by movement.
Fixed players seldom being unable to collect Bluglo when near a player-made building.
Fixed some ammo boxes being difficult to loot.
UI
New Updates featured added.
Bug Fixes
Fixed a case of text overrun in the Store tab.
It is no longer possible to add to a partial stack in Storm Shield Storage when the item limit is already exceeded.
Updated the tooltip for Survivalist tactical perk to clarify that it doesn’t stack with the Survivalist hero perk.
Fixed weapon perk lists disappearing temporarily in particular cases.
Fixed item level indicator not updating in certain situations.
Updated the Grenade Generation perk tooltip to properly list 20 instead of 30 required kills.
AUDIO
Added sounds to Dragon Daze Ninja ability.
New sounds for Firewall activate and recharge.
New sounds for Flak Vest impact and recharge.
KNOWN ISSUES
Event Side Quest “Things That Go Bang In The Night” appears on the Quest Map but is not available until the next phase of the Event.
Event Side Quest “Things That Go Bang In The Night” appears incorrectly complete in the Quest Map upon completion of the Main Event Quest “In Your Ears”.
Spring It On! Gold Is incorrectly named Sprint It On Gold!
Twitch quests are currently not giving out daily missions.
Crafting quest objectives must be completed in world zones.
That’s a lot, no? Don’t forget to nab your free Fortnite skins too! Here’s how.
Monster Hunter World Nergigante slain in record time!
With Monster Hunter World being in the hands of the public for the past few weeks, the player base for the highly addicting game can agree on one thing: Nergigante is the toughest boss in the game (or one of the toughest). Due to his “Superman Dive” move having an abnormal hitbox that can also one shot you.
However, one brave soul is taking the fight back to Nergigante in a big way. A video surfaced of a YouTuber slaying this pesky Elder Dragon in less than a minute. Yes, you read that right. Someone managed to kill Nergigante in less than a minute.
You can catch the video of it below:
For those interested on what the build might be, Reddit user rednu23 posted what the person in the video used:
Cera Coilbender (weapon)
Dragonking Eyepatch A
Nergigante Mail B
Kaiser Vambraces B
Odagaron Coil B
Lavasioth Greaves B
Attack Charm III
Attack Up 4
Critical Eye 4
Weakness Exploit 3
Crit Boost 3
Stamina Surge 2
Bow Charge +
Spread Shots
Non Elemental Boost
Looking at the list of items, it seems that it would require a bit of grinding to achieve a similar build, as items such as the Cera Coilbender and the Non-Elemental boosts will require a farming and RNG to be on your side.
Craving more Monster Hunter World news? Feel free to read about our guide on Nergigante’s weakness and rewards.
Horizon Zero Dawn multiplayer almost made it in, and it even worked!
For those who own a PlayStation 4, chances are you’ve played one of last year’s best games in Horizon Zero Dawn. While the game is a massive, single-player experience that needs to be experienced by every gamer out there, did you know Guerrilla Games had working co-op multiplayer during development?
In a video chat with Noclip, Horizon Zero Dawn Director Mathijs de Jonge revealed that Horizon Zero Dawn multiplayer was almost a thing, as the game had “functional” co-op between two players before it was pulled.
[W]e haven’t got that [in the final version] because the programmers basically said that if we wanted to have co-op, we would also have 50% of the features we had been asking for and not 100%. With Horizon: Zero Dawn being the first game [in the franchise], we wanted 100%, so we dropped co-op in favor of that.
Well, it seems Guerrilla Games made the right call, no? Of course, don’t be surprised if Horizon’s inevitable sequel gets co-op or some sort of multiplayer; this is Guerrilla Games after all, and they’re not stranger to multiplayer as evidenced by the Killzone franchise.
Would you have wanted Horizon Zero Dawn to have multiplayer? Or did Guerrilla Games made the right call? Let s know your thoughts in the comments.
If you want some multiplayer with a little bit of Horizon in it, don’t forget that Monster Hunter World has Horizon-themed content out for the game, with the upcoming one letting you look like game protagonist, Aloy.
Monster Hunter World Nintendo Switch happening? Doesn’t seem to be anytime soon.
While PlayStation 4 and Xbox One gamers are already slaying away in Monster Hunter World, the PC crowd won’t get their turn until later this year. But what about those who game on the Nintendo Switch? Well, it seems World won’t be brought over anytime soon.
In an interview with Toyo Keizai, Capcom president Haruhiro Tsujimoto commented on bringing Monster Hunter World to Nintendo’s portable hybrid console.
We’re aware of that request. However, taking into account various conditions, bringing Monster Hunter: World now for release is difficult. The reason is that the Switch has different functions from other stationary consoles as well as different players.
From now on, we’re looking at how we can support the Switch with our games, and that also includes Monster Hunter.
That doesn’t sound good, doesn’t it? What makes this doubly painful for Switch owners is, the Monster Hunter franchise has always been known as a portable game, and it managed a ton of success on Nintendo’s 3DS platform. This doesn’t mean it’ll never appear on the Switch, but the words released so far aren’t exactly the beacon of hope Switch owners are looking for.
In other Monster Hunter World news, Sony has announced that the action game was the best-selling game on the PlayStation Store last month!
You can check out the complete top 20 PS4 games list below.
PS4 games:
Monster Hunter: World (New)
Horizon Zero Dawn (11)
FIFA 18 (2)
Gang Beasts (6)
GTA V (4)
Rocket League (8)
Star Wars Battlefront 2 (1)
Call of Duty: WWII (3)
EA Sports UFC 2 (15)
Need For Speed: Payback (5)
Tom Clancy Rainbow Six Siege (13)
Minecraft (18)
Dragon Ball FighterZ (New)
ARK: Survival Evolved (20)
Gran Turismo Sport (17)
Friday The 13th: The Game (Re-entry)
The Witcher 3: Wild Hunt (19)
Assassin’s Creed: Origins (7)
Hellblade: Senua’s Sacrifice (RE)
Watch Dogs 2 (RE)
Mind, this isn’t exactly surprising news given Capcom has announced how successful Monster Hunter World is just a few weeks after launch.
