Ranked Season 4 Update Release Notes - 20th October, 2017


(Chris Mullins) #1

Ranked Season 4 kicks off today and will run until January. Use the skills you’ve been honing in the off season, and earn those Ranked rewards to show off to the rest of the community.

These are hardcore 5v5 matches with friendly fire and team collision enabled, so party up with 1 to 4 of your friends and show the community who’s boss. It won’t be easy, but practice, teamwork and a steady hand will go a long way.

##GET RANKED

To start your ranked career you must be level 7. When you enter the new Season you’ll be asked to play 10 placement matches to determine your starting Rank.

Your placement will be affected by where you ended Season 3, but if you’re new to Ranked, then this opening salvo of games will give you your starting position.

##RANKED POINTS

As you play you’ll earn Ranked Points which you can use to buy exclusive Ranked Season 4 content. This content will only be available during this Ranked Season, so play hard and save up, because they won’t be coming back!

As well as earning these Ranked Points for exclusive content, you’ll also get a 50% credit bonus while playing ranked. So if you’ve got your eyes on a shiny new Merc, Ranked is the place to play.

You can earn Ranked Points by:

###1. Playing Ranked Matches

You will earn points for every match you play. The better your team does, the more points you earn.

Team Result Win Draw Loss
Points Earned 50 30 10

###2. PLACEMENT

When Ranked Season 4 ends in January, you’ll earn points relative to the highest Rank you achieved in the season.

These range from 100 points for a Bronze Recruit, to 4500 for Elite Operative! All the purchasable content can be found on the ‘Ranked’ tab on the store, and the possible rewards are seen on the ‘Ranked’ tab in your profile.

When the Season ends, you won’t have long to spend any remaining points on the exclusive Ranked Season 4 content. After that, any points you have left will carry over to the next Season.

##EXCLUSIVE RANKED SEASON 4 CONTENT

Ranked content is back, and it’s better than ever.

###RANKED SEASON 4 CASES

You can score limited edition Loadout Cards by playing in Ranked Season 4.

Each of these rare cases contains one random Loadout Card with an exclusive skin for a Merc and their weapons, available only during this season.

They’re not easy to get, but carry a prestige that will get the rest of the server talking.

Every time a case drops at the end of a Ranked Match, there’s a 2% chance that it could be a Ranked Case.

###FRAGGER OBSIDIAN

For this season only, you can find two Fragger Obsidian Loadout Cards in the Store.

These reflect the most-played Fragger card in Ranked Season 3 and Casual Play. Pick them up to look the business!

###BATTLE HARDENED TRINKET

Need further proof of your Ranked prowess? A new Battle-Hardened Trinket is here for Season 4, a reminder to you and everyone else you frag about your dedication to Dirty Bomb.

###RANKED SEASON 4 TRINKET

On top of everything else you’ll also be rewarded with a Ranked Season 4 Trinket reflecting the highest Rank you attained during the Season. Moving down a rank won’t cost you a higher trinket, so don’t be afraid to work your way back up!

##WHAT ELSE HAS CHANGED?

We learned a lot during Ranked Season 3, and listening to your feedback has helped us tune Ranked Season 4 to make it the best Season so far.

###ADDITIONS

  • Turtle makes his debut – The Turkish Engineer joins the Ranked fray for the first time
  • Dome Redux and Vault have also been added to the map selection
  • We’ve reduced the amount of time it takes to go up in Rank, allowing players to find their “correct” Rank more quickly
  • If a player has never been Ranked before, we now factor in their Casual Skill Rating during their placement matches to improve balance
  • Based on last Season’s analysis; large, higher-skilled parties will now be matched against even tougher opponents
  • At the end of the match we now display the ‘Average Rank’ for each team, which includes the ‘hidden rating’ of Unranked players

###GAMEPLAY CHANGES

  • We’ve made some general Overtime changes, with Overtime now being activated if the match ends while:
  • C4 is being planted – before this only included C4 that was already planted
  • EV is being repaired – before this only included the EV being actively Escorted
  • To help prevent situations where Attackers can ‘steamroll’ a following Objective without Defenders getting a chance to contest the area, we’ve also added a ‘Fall Back’ grace period when a Primary Objective is completed.
  • After a Primary Objective is completed, Defenders have a 5s grace-period where they can respawn instantly

So what are you waiting for? Those shiny new skins won’t be earning themselves - Jump in game and get competitive!

##CASUAL MATCHMAKING

We’re adding several more improvements to Casual Matchmaking as we continue to refine the feature, with a focus on getting you into matches faster.

  • Searching for servers now occurs in the background during the Team Lineup
    • This should reduce the wait-time in every single match by around 15 seconds
  • Updated the expansion bar to give a more precise estimated waiting time
  • Players can now join a match in progress during searching if a slot becomes available
  • Improved feedback when party invites fail while actively searching
  • Improved UI notifications when a game update is available while actively searching
  • Fixed a few bugs that sometimes caused the Lobby to fail when a player lost connection

##OTHER IMPROVEMENTS AND FIXES:

###Vault

  • Fixed hitboxes around several archways where players could be shot through the arches
  • Fixed collision on the gate by the 1st defender spawn point which allowed players to jump on top of the gate
  • Fixed collision around repairable bridge where players could clip through ceiling instead of being crushed
  • Fixed bug where players could still be crushed by deliverable container after it has landed
  • Removed invisible ramp in corridor near the 3rd Objective.
  • Fixed inaccurate invisible collision on bridge in 1st Objective
  • Fixed inaccurate invisible collision near one of the gates close to the second Objective Defender spawn point
  • Fixed bad decal around car crash area
  • Fixed several small gaps in level geometry where players could see outside the map
  • Fixed collision on fan prop along Royal Road
  • Fixed bug where the second slot of the Power Core container would play the wrong animation
  • Fixed bug where building entrance near the 3rd Objective used interior wallpaper texture
  • Fixed distance culling that resulted in undesired pop-in of numerous props throughout the level.

###Guardian

  • Reduced the length of Guardian’s Special Taunt 3
  • Fixed bug where Guardian’s batons used wrong sound effect when hitting walls
  • Fixed bug where Guardian’s hand appeared in an unnatural pose while crouching
  • Fixed bug where Guardian had no audio lines for when arming C4, constructing, dying, and several taunts
  • Fixed bug where Guardian Sky Shield couldn’t be damaged by melee attacks
  • Fixed bug where Guardian’s Sky Shield could sometimes fail to deploy after being thrown
  • Fixed bug where Guardian’s Sky Shield could shoot projectiles slightly beyond the extent of its range
  • Fixed bug where Guardian’s Sky Shield wouldn’t be disabled if thrown in to an active Phantom EMP
  • Fixed bug where ‘Guardian’ XP could be earnt when incapacitating an enemy without defending a teammate

###Javelin

Javelin is not yet ready to be added to the Ranked pool, as we continue to get her to a place that’s more fun to play as and against.

Our aim with these changes is to make her ammo-gifting support ability more impactful, while signalling the direction of her Rocket charge-up to encourage the use of Guided mode rather than Standard when trying to get the drop on an enemy. We’ll be monitoring them and will be making further tweaks where necessary.

  • Javelin’s Rocket Launcher charge-up now has directional loudness, so the charge-up is very audible to a potential target
  • Smart Ammunition Armor:
  • Increased radius to 3.2m (from 2.8m)
  • Increased Javelin’s ammo giving rate to 1/2 of a Magazine per second (from 1/3)
  • Increased cooldown for giving herself ammunition to 20s (from 12s)
  • Increased Ammo Reach Augment to 25% extra ammo giving radius (from 15%)
  • Fixed bug where Javelin’s rocket firing effects could only play once for the duration of a round

###General Improvements and Fixes:

  • Tweaked positional audio for Hurtsall 2K, Hoigat .224 & SHAR-C to make them easier to identify and locate when in use by other players
  • Fixed bug where melee attacks could be absorbed by walls/floors where they should have connected with a player
  • Fixed bug that granted Tripped XP when Proxy detonated a Proximity Mine against teammates
  • Fixed bug where quick action items (ammo packs, health packs, etc) appeared briefly back in player hands before switching back to previously selected weapon
  • Fixed bug where third person animations for quick actions (ammo packs, health packs, etc) would only play once
  • Fixed bug where completing the Assault Course with a new account could incorrectly award the wrong Achievements/Trinkets
  • Fixed bug where player’s weapons could appear solid black after using fixed machine gun spots
  • Fixed bug where reloading for some automatic weapons could take the wrong amount of bullets from player’s ammo pool to refill the magazine
  • Fixed bug that granted Splash Damage XP when Kira suicides and is finished by her Orbital Laser
  • Fixed bug where ‘Stick Together’ XP could be earned while incapacitated

(LIGHT_BAGHEERA) #2

Cuz javelin is OP ya know :wink:


(Eox) #3

JAVELIN

Javelin is not yet ready to be added to the Ranked pool, as we continue to get her to a place that’s more fun to play as and against.

Our aim with these changes is to make her ammo-gifting support ability more impactful, while signalling the direction of her Rocket charge-up to encourage the use of Guided mode rather than Standard when trying to get the drop on an enemy. We’ll be monitoring them and will be making further tweaks where necessary.

Javelin’s Rocket Launcher charge-up now has directional loudness, so the charge-up is very audible to a potential target
Smart Ammunition Armor:
Increased radius to 3.2m (from 2.8m)
Increased Javelin’s ammo giving rate to 1/2 of a Magazine per second (from 1/3)
Increased cooldown for giving herself ammunition to 20s (from 12s)
Increased Ammo Reach Augment to 25% extra ammo giving radius (from 15%)
Fixed bug where Javelin’s rocket firing effects could only play once for the duration of a round

Still a step in the right direction, but still basically not enough. She will remain an extremely obnoxious merc to fight against until you guys decide to finally attack the core of the problem : the wind up time. Low wind up time is basically the reason why the rocket launcher is so frustrating to deal with, as it leads to situation where Javelin can cheese all kind of duels. And the sound cue happening is still not enough considering the fact that it does not exactly start as soon as you charge the rocket up. In the end, directionnal warning or not, the rocket remains the ultimate 1v1 cheese tool in the game most of the time and a poorly skill indexed frag grenade in the cases where you aren’t just aiming at one dude.

Bumping the wind up time to 1.5s at the very least or slowing down the wind up time if Javelin gets shot would very likely solve the issue. Some players on Reddit also suggested to make it so Javelin gets significantly slowed down when she winds up the rocket, maybe while making jumps impossible. This could also be a decent change.


(Press E) #4
  • Reduced the length of Guardian’s Special Taunt 3

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS


(GatoCommodore) #5

okay lets try javelin again now that her ammo is rebuffed.

also, why guardian is not in ranked? I thought shes pretty balanced…


(Eox) #6

@GatoCommodore said:
okay lets try javelin again now that her ammo is rebuffed.

also, why guardian is not in ranked? I thought shes pretty balanced…

Because she needs more playtesting.


(R4pingTr4in) #7

Statistics still not working? K


(binderr) #8

@stayfreshshoe said:

  • Javelin’s Rocket Launcher charge-up now has directional loudness, so the charge-up is very audible to a potential target
  • Smart Ammunition Armor:
  • Increased radius to 3.2m (from 2.8m)
  • Increased Javelin’s ammo giving rate to 1/2 of a Magazine per second (from 1/3)
  • Increased cooldown for giving herself ammunition to 20s (from 12s)
  • Increased Ammo Reach Augment to 25% extra ammo giving radius (from 15%)
  • Fixed bug where Javelin’s rocket firing effects could only play once for the duration of a round

all this is nice but…

  • Increased cooldown for giving herself ammunition to 20s (from 12s)
    …is that a buff or nerf i’m confused!!

(ragnak) #9

So, why cant we simply have solo only queue ? I am sorry but doesnt matter how hard you try you wont be able to even find a balanced match for a skilled due, let alone something bigger.

There is no community to support anything bigger than solo/due (and even then solo only would be the best option at this point), not really sure why this is such a hard concept to grasp :(.

What did you do with high level premades ? Unless those will only play against other high skill premades i just dont see how whatever you did will help.

What have been done to stop people from tanking their mmr so they can premade with friends against weaker teams ?

What have been done to stop mass smurfing that pretty much ruin ranked for new players ? (okay, this one is actually tricky and i guess using casual mmr might help a bit).

In any case i am not happy that ranked isnt solo only and i bet i am not the only one.

For the record i think there is nothing horribly wrong with javelin so just wanted to say thanks for not ruining her like majority of this community want you to do.

Oh, and when can we expect some mercs/weapons balance changes ? I understand that you wait for data but this is taking way too long at this point =/


(GatoCommodore) #10

@binderr said:

@stayfreshshoe said:

  • Javelin’s Rocket Launcher charge-up now has directional loudness, so the charge-up is very audible to a potential target
  • Smart Ammunition Armor:
  • Increased radius to 3.2m (from 2.8m)
  • Increased Javelin’s ammo giving rate to 1/2 of a Magazine per second (from 1/3)
  • Increased cooldown for giving herself ammunition to 20s (from 12s)
  • Increased Ammo Reach Augment to 25% extra ammo giving radius (from 15%)
  • Fixed bug where Javelin’s rocket firing effects could only play once for the duration of a round

all this is nice but…

  • Increased cooldown for giving herself ammunition to 20s (from 12s)
    …is that a buff or nerf i’m confused!!

half nerf half buff.
basically she is less independent on ammo now.


(Mc1412013) #11

@STARRYSOCK said:

  • Reduced the length of Guardian’s Special Taunt 3

YESSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSSS

Hell no that was my favorite gaurdian taunt


(FragU) #12

So whats with Fragger nerf? Why not mentioned?
Fraggers Failsafe loadout is now useless.
After the season 4 update, you die now from your own nades even with failsafe…
Thanks SD, first removing exe, now removing fragjumps…


(FalseLumpy) #13

@FragU that’s just a bug with augments atm


(speedydust) #14

I just played ranked game and in my team there was this player Thamiled (private profile on steam) he was jumping in spawn and he didnt want to play and i couldnt start votekick on this player :frowning: Votekicks are disabled in ranked games?


(Sithas) #15

I cant wait to get murdered as a solo player against pre made teams, its always fun…


(Jan S.) #16

That trinket looks great! Overall, interesting update, but I’m just worried ranked ‘hype’ will go away in few days, as usual :confused:


(videoboy4000) #17

Quite disappointed. Airstrike & Arty markers not fixed. Guess no ranked for me then…


(Your worst knifemare.) #18

I’m liking the purple very much.


(OwynTyler) #19

Emo colored skins?.. not sure if want

still those black+red ones from 1st season still my favorite, I wish you could just leave them…

Increased cooldown for giving herself ammunition to 20s (from 12s)

we’ve already seen majority of Javelins with “no ammo” icon over their heads, now we can probably not even think that they have any self-sustain ammo function at all as well…


(Xenithos) #20

@binderr said:
all this is nice but…

  • Increased cooldown for giving herself ammunition to 20s (from 12s)
    …is that a buff or nerf i’m confused!!

This is an adjustment to keep her ammo giving capabilities in line. Instead of getting a third clip (10 ammo) every 12 seconds, she now gets 15 ammo every (20). This is actually a NERF in the long run AGAIN. Since, ammo per second ratio is going down. Instead of generating 5 clips of ammo every 3 minutes (her previous rate) she will now be generating 4.5 clips of ammo every 3 minutes.

However, keep in mind that this is for HER. She was always meant to be a weaker unit in SELF regeneration of ammo. Her ability got a BUFF for her TEAM though. A very nice well rounded one at that, not one to tip the game back entirely into her favor.

EDIT - Unless the rate at which stuff she gains ammunition is buffed to a full clip, in fact, patch notes don’t say whether her OWN ammunition that she gives herself is at half or not. If it’s at a third of a clip every 20 seconds then this is just a flat unneeded nerf.