DOWN TO ASHES
It’s time for the Mid-Season Update! The Arena is bustling with a brand-new Limited Time Mode, tons of free cosmetics for you to grab and a long list of bug-fixes and balance changes. Check out the gritty details below!
The battle for the banner has begun! Dragon’s Claim is a brand-new Limited Time Event, where control, teamplay, and siege tactics are your path to victory.
In this 5v5 mode, take and keep control of the banner long enough to be able to plant it into the ground. Once you’ve staked your claim, a zone around the banner will appear and everyone in the Arena will know where to stand. Stay in the zone to rack up money, and take as much of the treasure as you can while the banner lasts. The team that plants the banner will receive a bonus, then every Contestant in the Arena will earn additional cash by surviving in the zone.
The battle around the banner is sure to be heated, but not nearly so intense as the Dragon raining fire from above! The banner will attract the dragon so keep an eye on the sky and don’t get burned!
The first team to earn the winning amount or the team with the most cash at the end of the round wins!
Play Dragon's Claim from now until May 28!
Once again, we’ve reinvented the wheel with the Scales of Fortune! Complete daily contracts to earn up to 3 tickets a day and use them to spin the wheel. Unlock more than 20 rewards with a Legendary outfit on completion.
Each spin will grant you a reward from the pool of prizes! Landing on a duplicate prize will convert that wheel tile into a Golden Ticket. Land on a Golden Ticket to earn an additional, extra special spin that’s guaranteed to be a new, unowned item! It is still possible to buy a reward out of the wheel with Multibucks, of course!
Get spinning, Contestants, and may the (vastly improved) odds be in your favor!
Earn all the free rewards before May 28!
Show them that you were born to rule the Arena! Heavy is the head that wears the crown (but Medium and Light, as well)!
The bundle includes a legendary outfit, grenade skin, an emote, as well as an epic charm and 2400 Multibucks.
Praise the stars for the Helion Exarch and the Helion Eclipse Set! Be the knight in shining armor you always wanted to be, where classic fits meet modern weaponry. Shine bright so your name can climb to the top.
Stock up on potions with the Brewed for Trouble set, and share them with the competition for maximum potency. It’s an aggressive way to use your wares, but business is cut-throat.
ALFA ACTA favorite test dummy M.E.L.V.I.N. Reforged is back for action, but he will be hard to eliminate! Try to run him through with your sword and see if he drops a few coins.
Conquer the heat with the newest Twitch Drops and rise up to the challenges. Link your Twitch & Embark account, watch a stream of THE FINALS with Drops Enabled to earn free rewards!
Watch 1 hour to get the Wyrmmarked Sticker
Watch 2 hours to get the Scale Crest Charm
Watch 4 hours to get the Scaelium Edge Chimera-XB Skin
*Drops available until May 21
Vanishing Bomb
Decreased the duration of invisibility on the user from 6s to 5s
Increased cooldown from 18s to 22s
Dev Note: Over time, the Vanishing Bomb has gradually become a must pick for Lights and this depresses the value of the Cloaking Device quite a bit. These changes are aimed at reducing its power relative to other items to move it into a much more balanced place.
General
Increased the minimum distance a player must spawn from enemies when using a coin by approximately 20%. This impacts Cashout, Ranked Cashout and Quick Cash modes
Dev Note: We’ve seen from live data that some of the spawn changes we made in 10.0 can cause coining players to spawn in positions that are a little too advantageous to their team, for example allowing immediate flanking of enemy teams. This adjustment should resolve that issue.
Ranked Tournaments
Recalibrated league rank distribution to more evenly distribute players across the different ranks
Dev Note: With some of the more recent changes made to Ranked Score we’ve seen the population become overly distributed towards the lower half of the ranking scale, which should not be the case. This change rebalances this, more evenly distributing players across the whole scale. The change will take place gradually as players play matches over the remainder of the season, until recalibration is complete. As a result, you may briefly see very different RS gains and losses while recalibration happens, with the net outcome being most players should see some rank gains.
Goo
Decreased the time it takes for Goo to break when overlapping a player from 0.8s to 0.35s
Dev Note: Following some adjustments to ensure Goo will still block interactions, and a re-evaluation on the stall duration of Goo based on feedback following the 10.3 change, we’ve settled on this new duration for how quickly Goo should break. We feel this should reduce frustration from blocking while still retaining some of the gameplay around Goo that players enjoy
Shockwave
Reverted a change made in 10.3 that constrained how high players could be launched when combining the Shockwave with the Jump Pad
Dev Note: The change in 10.3 was intended to constrain the absolute most extreme case of Shockwave combined with Jump Pad, which happens fairly rarely. Ultimately, it ended up being far too aggressive in practice. This change reverts the Shockwave to the previous state. Depending on how this continues to perform on live, we may still consider adding a cap at some point that nudges the extreme down by 5% to 10%, but we’ll see how things develop.
Guardian Turret
Increased the vertical vision angle from +-45 degrees to +-60 degrees, making it easier for the turret to attack targets above and below itself
.50 Akimbo
Decreased max bullet dispersion when firing from the hip from 8 to 7.5, making the weapon slightly more accurate
Decreased the default hip fire dispersion when firing from the hip while standing from 2 to 1.8
Decreased the default dispersion when firing from the hip while moving from 2.6 to 2.2
Dev Note: Despite being fairly popular, the Akimbo Pistols tend to underperform compared to most Heavy weapons. This change is a small nudge to try and help their viability a little.
Chimera-XB
Decreased damage falloff minimum range from 20m to 17.5m, giving the weapon a slightly shorter effective range
Decreased damage falloff max range from 30m to 27.5m, giving the weapon a slightly shorter effective range
Decreased damage falloff multiplier from 0.6 to 0.53, meaning the weapon now does slightly less damage at range
Dev Note: Now that we’ve had a solid period of time to see the Chimera settle in the meta, it’s outperforming some of the longer ranged weapons at distance, which was not intended. These adjustments should nudge it more towards the mid-range bracket,
KS-23
Disabled trigger-hold delay on the pump action, reducing the chance of shots being delayed by misclicks
Dev Note: When the player holds down the trigger after firing a manual action or pump action weapon, like a number of other FPS games, this blocks the action until the trigger is released, allowing some additional control for the player. We feel this is something that is rarely being used intentionally though, and it can have a hidden negative impact on players who are slower at pressing the fire button as it slightly slows their rate of fire due to briefly blocking the action. We’ve removed this blocking on all pump action shotguns to give a smoother and more consistent experience.
M11
Increased damage falloff max range from 17.5m to 20m, giving the weapon a slightly longer effective range
Decreased damage falloff multiplier from 0.52 to 0.45, meaning the weapon now does slightly less damage at range
Dev Note: The M11 is performing a little too well at medium to long ranges, causing it to cannibalize the roles of weapons like the XP-54 and LH1. These changes bring down its damage a little at those longer ranges, but with a small extension to its optimal range to offset that.
M26 Matter
Disabled trigger-hold delay on the pump action, reducing the chance of shots being delayed by misclicks
Model 1887
Disabled trigger-hold delay on the pump action, reducing the chance of shots being delayed by misclicks
Spear
Increased the cap on how many player targets a spin attack can hit from 8 to 24
Increased the cap on how many non-player targets on spin attack can hit from 20 to 60
Dev Note: This is a small quality of life change to the Spear’s secondary attack that has been pending for a little while. In light of the S11 melee rework, the Spear’s secondary may yet change in how it functions, but we don’t see that as a reason not to release this change in the meantime.
V9S
Decreased magazine size from 20 to 18
Dev Note: Among Light weapons, the V9S still slightly over-performs where it should be relative to other weapons available to the Light. This change is to bring it more inline with the other guns
ARN-220
Fixed an issue where the ARN-220’s inspect animation could stop midway and get stuck in a pose
Riot Shield
Fixed an issue where custom hand gestures would not play
Spear
Fixed an issue where sprinting sideways or backward with the Spear caused it to cover too much of the screen
General
Improved interactions with the right arm so they now track the target while looking around with the camera. This is purely visual and no boundaries on interactions have changed
Fixed a several bugs and inconsistencies regarding hand gestures
The cannon audio is no longer muffled by its barrel in Monaco
Fixed an issue where audience sounds could cut out completely in the middle of a round
Sliding sound now fades out faster when a slide is canceled
Fixed issues with Weapon firing sounds getting stuck when switching perspective while spectating
Fixed Vault and Cashout Station sounds getting stuck if a Practice Range challenge was cancelled
Fixed an issue where music could end earlier than the squad intro
Improved handling of replay and reconnect audio to prevent lingering sounds (e.g., objective and emote SFX)
Added Item Status Indicators to the Maw of Many Multidevice skin
Fixed an issue where the Contestant voice was not modified while wearing the Critical Hit Mask
For visual improvement, we removed the ability to use Crossbody items with the following Upper Body items: Skill Issue Vest, Predator Payload, Creamline Vest, Vaiiya Firewall Vest, Ospuze Tactical Vest and the Flak Vests
Added back compatibility between Puck Stopper and Dede's Mask as well as other masks that appear on the side of your head
Added compatibility between face masks and Duskvane Helmet and Tradition's Edge
Flower crowns should now work with more Face items
Improved cloth simulation performance
Expressions
Fixed an issue where the opening sound effects of the Furry Fury and Headstrong emotes were not audible in matches
Updated the Major Coronation expression so that Nama Tama’s face is visible from further away
Glitch Trap
Can now be pinged
Proximity Sensor
Pinging a placed Proximity Sensor now shows the correct icon, event log message, and voice line
General
Fixed a bug where trying to pick up objects (e.g. Barricade) could get unintentionally cancelled
Orbital Lasers
Fixed an issue where Orbital Lasers audio and visual effects could replay after you respawned and returned to your point of elimination
Scissor lifts now stop when a Contestant is underneath, preventing clipping underground or out of bounds
Fixed an issue where the Revive Statue could clip into walls or doors when dropped, thrown, or when the carrier was eliminated
Cashout
[Fixed an exploit where certain actions could move Cashout Stations much farther than intended
Charge ‘n’ Slam
Fixed bug where hitting an enemy with a Melee Weapon at the same time as cancelling Charge 'n' Slam would cause an unintentional boost in movement
Guardian Turret
Fixed an issue where Practice Range Challenge bots would shoot the base of Guardian Turrets (dealing no damage)
Hover Pad
Eliminations caused by opponents hitting a Hover Pad and falling into a death pit now correctly credit the Contestant who placed it
General
Fixed a bug where the default AKM could sometimes appear over your selected Loadout at spawn
Fixed an issue that allowed players to ping cloaked Contestants
Fixed an issue on controller where switching from H+ Infuser to a Weapon could sometimes trigger a false firing animation on M11, XP-54, LH1, SH1900, V9S, 93R, M26 Matter, and ARN-220
General
Reduced the depth of the floor indent below an escalator for smoother traversal in Fangwai City, Las Vegas, and Las Vegas Stadium
Monaco
Fixed missing shadows on a cliffside corridor
Fixed a visual issue where the map ceiling was visible during the tournament intro
Tweaked Vault placement and sped up defender approaches in the first phase of Point Break
Seoul
Fixed issue with invisible collision on a corner architecture piece
Private Match
Added Dragon’s Claim to Private Matches
Added a noise suppression option for voice chat to reduce background noise
The “X Contestants joined the party” message now shows the correct party size to all party members without appearing twice
Fixed an issues where voice chat could break after opening platform UI
Fixed an issue where items did not correctly display their active state while spectating
Fixed a crash that could occur during tournament intro/outro on some Arenas
Fixed a crash that could occur at the end of a Tournament
Fixed an issue that could cause the loading screen to remain visible and block gameplay
Fixed an issue that would sometimes result in a crash when switching Contestants
Improved visuals for the Match Summary Screen
Improved playstyle images in the unlock screen with higher-resolution art and refreshed icons
Fixed an issue where New indicators in the inventory did not clear for some Multidevice items
Fixed an issue where Vault and Cashout icons could become invisible after elimination
Removed the button click sound when opening the scoreboard in the MVP screen
Fixed an issue where Contestant icons could appear as black tiles or load with a delay in the Choose Contestant Pack screen
Fixed an issue where weapon level skin rewards were not shown in the end of round Progression tab
Added a Spectator Zoom Speed slider in Gameplay Settings to adjust third-person zoom speed
Fixed an issue where Sword, Dagger, Dual Blades, Riot Shield, Sledgehammer, and Spear showed incorrect ammo counts after spawning at the start of a match
Fixed an issue that sometimes caused sliders in settings to step to an incorrect value when editing with a controller
You can now see which tournament round you are in, in the tab scoreboard
Fixed bug where reconnecting Teams caused incorrect sorting in the scoreboard
Fixed an issue where the New marker on the Contestant button in the Home screen did not appear for some new items
Sights now show their zoom level (Slight, Enhanced, Strong) in the equipment screen when selected
Point Break
The Team list now shows all the players in your team, but in a more compact way
Requesting a revive now displays a revive request marker to help teammates locate your Statue
Sponsorship
End-of-round Progression screen now shows a checkmark when a Sponsorship track is finished
World Tour
Fixed an issue where the World Tour progression screen ended too quickly after the progress bar completed, improving readability of your updated score
General
Fixed an issue where reloading the Model 1887 or CB-01 Repeater could desync the ammo count when interacting with a zipline mid-reload