We recently covered patch 1.07 aka RIP Sage patch, we discussed the buffs and nerfs to agents. Now we’ll talk about all the weapon changes and the impact of these changes.
Let’s start with the Weapon updates.
All shotguns aimpunch update
- When getting headshot by a shotgun, the aimpunch will be lower than all the other weapons
The shotgun aimpunch(when you get headshot by shotgun pellets and your aim jerks) in the previous patch was nasty. You can’t hit the enemy rocking a shotgun once you got aimpunched. With this update, you now have a fighting chance against shotgun users.
All shotguns tagging tuned for targets beyond 10 meters
- Hitting an enemy past 10 meters will apply a different tagging value to them instead of the standard tagging
- New tagging: 30% slow for .5s on a smooth curve going back to normal speed
- The goal of these changes is to improve the feel of playing against shotguns and to ensure that they don’t end up doing odd things. For example, tagging or aimpunching people from longer than expected ranges and then a teammate ends up killing someone who’s debuffed, or makes it hard to fight back against a weapon that should be deadly up close but fairly non-threatening outside its effective range.)
Have you ever got shot by someone with a shotgun, got slowed, then gets double peeked by someone with a vandal? Sucks right? Now, the wouldn’t be slowed by long-range shotgun fire.
Shorty nerf
- 1st falloff range reduced from 9m >>> 7m
- Updated headshot multiplier from 3x >>> 2x (now the same as Judge and Bucky)
- Our goal here is to make Shorty users work a little harder for the kills they get by requiring them to be a tad closer to their target.
A 5 man shorty rush on eco rounds is a nightmare to deal with. Now, this strategy is a little harder to execute and shorty users need to closer to enemy agents.
Judge Nerf
- Price increased from 1500 >>> 1600
- Desire here is to see if giving the Judge a little hit—paired with the other shotgun changes—moves the needle when playing against this gun. We’ll continue to monitor and make other changes if necessary
With the shotgun nerfs and the judge price increase, we could see players buying judge less. Now you have to weigh other options like the Spectre or the Ares. This is also a slight nerf to Jett who likes to use Tailwind to get close and get kills.
Vandal buff
- Increased firing rate from 9.25 >>> 9.75
- Increased damage from 39 >>> 40
- The goal is to bring the Vandal in closer competition with the Phantom. We believe these weapons aren’t that far off in competition and hope these changes will do that.
Vandal has only seen a 10-15% pick rate these past tournaments. This is mainly because of the horrible first shot accuracy and, wonky recoil. The increased .50 fire rate is a good buff and will make more players pick vandal over the phantom.
HIT IMPACT VFX UPDATE
- We’ve made some small adjustments to hit VFX to try and improve hit registration clarity. With how sensitive changes around hit registration can be, we’ll be keeping an eye on player feedback on these changes and make adjustments accordingly.
- See our recent article on hit registration for additional details on some of the issues we’re trying to address with these changes:
- Server hit VFX confirms will now spawn at the location of the hit on the character and stay attached to that position (previously, it spawned at the game space location and stayed there)
- We’ve had issues with hit registration clarity caused by players moving into hit VFX (i.e. a player crouches their head into the space of a body shot VFX), which caused confusion on where a shot landed. This change should make it clear where a shot hit, and where on the body, even if a character is moving.
- An additional client-predicted small spark VFX now spawns immediately at the game space location of a hit
- With the change to attach our traditional server hit VFX, we wanted to add additional immediate bullet feedback so you can see the area where your bullet landed and adjust your aim accordingly. Think of this new VFX as an improved tracer. It’s important to note that a bullet is client-predicted: seeing this DOES NOT mean your shot has registered on the server (similar to tracers).
- Adjusted the sparks hit VFX coloring and shape adjusted to more closely resemble blood VFX shape
- Context: We want players to be able to play with either of these options without feeling one gives better clarity than the other
- Adjusted the size of headshot VFX, where both blood and sparks are scaled-down slightly
- Especially at large ranges, headshot VFX would often cover up the head of a player and add additional difficulty in tracking players through the effect. We’ve scaled down this VFX slightly in an attempt to make it easier to keep track of targets.
There are times that even though you are aiming for the head, the shot would register as a miss or a body shot. With the VFX update, the hits will be clearer.
COMPETITIVE UPDATES
- Remake match: When a match begins with a 4v5 (or more lopsided teams), players will now have the option to end the game they’re in and queue for a new one.
- If any player is disconnected at the start of the match (beginning of buy phase) through the entire first round, a remake call may be triggered at the start of the second round by typing /remake in chat.
- All connected players on the team that called the remake may vote to remake the game— It’s required that all connected players agree to remake the game
- The remake vote will last for the duration of the buy phase, if the vote is not passed by the end of buy phase it will expire
- If the vote is successfully passed and the game is remade, all players who voted do not receive any XP or MMR adjustments for the match. The match will also not show up in match history. All disconnected players not part of the vote will take a full MMR loss for the game, and receive a leaver penalty equivalent to disconnecting from a full match..
- Act Ranks visuals have been updated to better differentiate wins at different rank tiers
- Changed some potentially misleading verbiage in the restriction message for players who need to play more unrated games to unlock competitive play
- This is to better reflect that Deathmatch and Spike Rush do not count towards unlocking Competitive.
Ahhh, remake option! Feels good man! Now we don’t have to wait for 6 rounds just to surrender and rank down for an uneven team or because of some leavers.
INCOGNITO MODE
- For anyone who’d rather keep their identity private in-game, we’ve added these features:
- Hide my name from non-party members (Agent name will be used)
- Hide the names of others in my game who aren’t in my party (Agent names will be shown)
- These features take effect from agent select to game end. We also added an option to hide + auto-reject friend requests.
Now you can hide your in-game name from randoms and protect streamers from stream snipers.
QUALITY OF LIFE
- Observers can toggle aim lines for players (default bind: R)
- Observers can change which teams outline are visible (defaults: H – All, J – Friendly to spectated player, K – Enemies of spectates players, L – None)
- Corpse markers shown when corpses are disabled now obey colorblind settings
- Hotkey order for selecting players for observers should no longer shuffle in overtime
- Observers should now see the money on the HUD for the player they are spectating
- Added a setting for disabling the in-game UI (General -> Hide User Interface In Game)
- Added a setting for disabling the cross-hair (Crosshair -> Disable Crosshair)
- Observers can hide first person character arms. (General -> Hide First Person Arms)
- Observers can toggle team-based crosshair coloring for spectated targets via the settings menu (General -> Use Team Color for Crosshair Color)
- Improved framerate by allowing a wider variety of VFX to be multi-threaded, examples include Brimstone’s Sky Smokes and Breach’s Rolling Thunder
- Hit impact VFX improvements (see dedicated section for breakdown)
Most of these changes will benefit observers. Casters would definitely love these.
BUG FIXES
- Fixed a bug where if both teams try to call a surrender vote, the team who called it second wouldn’t get the option to vote
- Fixed a bug that displayed the Act Rank tooltip in English only when another language was selected
That was our rundown of the patch 1.07.
Are you gonna switch to the Vandal or still rock the Phantom?
Let us know in the comments!
