Y4S2.3 Designer's Notes

The constant work of our balancing team aims at improving the game experience and the overall game balance. Statistics gathered since the beginning of Operation Phantom Sight have played a major role in the upcoming changes detailed below.

Balancing changes are also motivated by community feedback, which is often an indicator helping us to pinpoint specific issues. A careful analysis relying on data gathered with our internal tools help us to picture what needs to be done. We are about to give you an insight about these statistics and to explain why certain changes have been made.

Attackers

Defenders

Note: these statistics are using a pick rate projection taking into account the Operator ban rate.

Current Status

TWITCH

With Phantom Sight release, we have increased the recoil of the F2 assault rifle. Therefore, her pick rate has reached a more acceptable level: from 60% to 43% presence per round. However, she continues to boast a high Kill / Death ratio from 1.25 to 1.17 and is still a very lethal attacker.

FROST

Along with Twitch’s F2 recoil adjustment, we reduced Frost Mats health points, this lead to Frost Mats to be destroyed more often as they are now destroyed 75% of the time instead of 68% before Phantom sight release.

KAID

To increase Kaid’s versatility we added the Nitro Cell to his loadout. This option has become more popular with 65% of people using it against 51% using barbed wires during Wind Bastion.

Upcoming changes

GLAZ

• Glaz’s focus gauge will now be depleted in 6 secs (from 2.5secs).
• Glaz’s focus will start depleting after a 120° rotation (from 90°).

Following Glaz’s rework during update Y4S2 and according to the statistics we gathered, Glaz’s rework appeared too drastic and is currently under picked and underpowered.

We are planning on tweaking the penalization while moving and to allow him to hold several angles simultaneously, it is now possible to rotate your camera up to 120° without any penalty.

JACKAL

• Lowered the number of pings from Jackal’s ability to four (five previously).

Jackal found himself in a situation comparable to Lion. Many comments and feedback from the player base deemed his ability slightly unbalanced.

We are aware that he has been identified as one the most frustrating attackers to play against; we are starting to explore how we can address the situation without making him irrelevant.

This change should give more leeway for tracked opponents to survive and lessen the negativity generated by his ability.

ECHO

• Reduced the duration of Echo’s Sonic Burst to 7 secs (10 secs previously).

Echo appears to be one of the most reliable and efficient anchors in the game now thanks to his intel gathering and plant denial abilities. We aim at reducing the effect of his Sonic Burst and are also looking at other options for the future.

We also hope that Echo will be less targeted by Operator bans, as he is quite powerful and at the source of frustration in his current form.

SHIELDS

• Increased the hip fire spread when using a ballistic shield.
• Using melee successfully with a ballistic shield will now put the enemy in a DBNO state.

Ballistic Shields have been an important source of frustration for players and lead to certain behaviour that were not initially intended. By reducing the hip fire accuracy, we want to reduce chances of shielded operators to score headshots too easily without exposing themselves.

The decision to change the shield melee attack, from lethal to non-lethal was decided to avoid players rushing towards an Operator hoping for a trade. We want to reinforce team play and synergy when using these Operators.

MAVERICK

• Changed Maverick’s blowtorch sound to a louder one.

Since Maverick has been released, the sound generated by his gadget was often said to be too silent.

We have decided to tweak the sound of his blowtorch and recorded and new sample that should be heard more easily by defenders. Let us know what you think!

NØKK

• Increased the duration of the HEL device to 12 secs (from 10 secs).

We would like to increase Nøkk’s performance and to make her slightly more efficient.

We have decided to increase the duration of her ability to allow players to use her full potential.

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