Greetings Champions! Here's what happening in the Realm this week:
PTS Feedback & Changes
It's been a while! The team has been laser focused on Tidal Surge & PTS, but now that we've revealed the update and let players playtest the content, we have things to share and changes we plan to make based on player feedback.
Ranked, Season 7 Split 2
Some players noticed a lack of mention of Split 2 of Ranked in the PTS Notes. No worries, Split 2 is still starting in the Tidal Surge update with a Golden Cache and Limited Avatar to earn! We originally planned to make larger changes to Ranked, but after chatting internally and with the Partners we scraped the original vision we had for adjustments. We'll be writing a blog in a few weeks to share what we had thought up & what direction we are going in instead to let all players join the conversation. Stay tuned!
Wave Defense
We got a TON of helpful feedback on Wave Defense, from how it currently functions to areas we can expand and improve upon it in the future. For this initial release, we're going to be implementing a few updates from PTS:
- Wave Defense will be released as "Wave Defense Public Beta" and "Wave Defense Party Beta" to be clearer around how each queue functions and their state.
- Wave Defense will launch with more intense Wave 1, 2 and 3 than the PTS version, with Waves 2 onward featuring 2 different bot types.
- Due to this change, we expect performance to be slightly rougher throughout, however we are working continually on optimization. We want to make the mode as fun as it can be, then slowly beef up performance.
We're really grateful players are giving us the space to create something like this & hope everyone gives it a try when it releases next week!
Balance Updates
We were swinging for the fences with our mid-Year balance, and that meant a lot of hits and plenty of misses. We've been listening to all forms of feedback and have some adjustments planned for the Live version.
Armor Plating
- Reverted CC functionality
- Reduced scaling from 7% ➡️ 6%
While we wanted to try something a bit more nuanced to make this Item less of an obvious purchase, this idea wasn't the right one. We both heard the concerns and saw a few issues emerge that made us feel a further nerf of its strength is better for the game in the short term.
Bloodbath
- Reduced scaling from 450 ➡️ 360
This Item was performing very well on PTS with a return to True Healing and a significant scaling increase, so we want to be a bit more cautious and bring a bit down while preserving the True Healing. We're watching the strength of this item in conjunction with Rejuvenate but want to allow players to experiment more before we act.
Rejuvenate
- Added "Does not work with Lifesteal effects."
While this was originally a bug, after watching Rejuvenate's performance on PTS we feel leaving this in place for now is the best call. We saw a lot of polarized thoughts on this version of Rejuvenate and its impacts on Support Itemization and early vs late game, however there was enough conversation from both directions that we want to let the wider player base experience it and give feedback. We plan to watch & act quickly to bring back the previous version if too many painpoints arise over the next few weeks.
We'll share some info on additional PTS adjustments to Champions over the coming days ahead of Tidal Surge's launch on July 24th!
This Week's Community Creations
Temptation's Visage
Artist: ikohiki
End of the Fable
Artist: Cathelinos
Risen Once More
Artist: AngemonTk
Weekend Siege Remixed Modifier: Powerup Spawner & Truly Talented
To celebrate the upcoming release of Wave Defense, we planned to activate the Powerup Spawner featured in the mode for Remixed. However, player feedback also called out for another Year 7 staple to be added instead. Truly Talented rules will also be activated with Siege Remixed, with 3x Champion XP active all weekend long it's a great time to wave goodbye to this mode for now!
- EvilMojoKryptek