Early Access Patch V0.13

Hotfixes

V0.13.2 | Released (15.12.2023)

• Made improvements to mitigate error code P-4100
• Made improvements to mitigate an issue where Heroes would not appear on draft
• Fixed an issue where Gideon's Torn Space [Secondary] ability would cause micro stutters
• Fixed an issue where jumping while casting Gideon's Torn Space [Secondary] ability would increase momentum

V0.13.1 (08.12.2023)

• PlayStation on-screen keyboard now defaults to uppercase for friend codes
• Fixed an issue where discounts were not shown correctly in the store
• Fixed an issue where bundles would remain on screen after purchasing
• Temporarily set Adaptive Triggers default to "off" while we investigate an infinite auto-attack issue (players can turn this back on in Settings)
• Fixed an issue where Chat would open and lock all other inputs
• Fixed an issue where pressing Up on the D-Pad would open chat instead of Ward
• Fixed an issue where Onixian Quiver multishot would proc Infernum's Cinder effect
• Fixed an issue where Onixian Quiver multishot would proc cleave effects from items like Overlord
• Fixed an issue where Onixian Quiver multishot would proc Omen's Bestial Torment passive
• Fixed an issue where a Surrender vote couldn't be engaged after playing a match
• Fixed an issue where the previous game's Surrender vote could be seen on the Pause Menu
• Fixed an issue where Iggy & Scorch's inactive turrets would cause minion pathing problems

Patch releasing approximately 12.00 GMT December 5th, 2023.
There will be approximately two hours of downtime before this.

Introduction

It may be getting cold out there Champions, but our newest Hero is turning up the heat! 

That’s right, at long last Iggy & Scorch are finally here, bringing a blistering torrent of oil and flames to the battlefield! Need to cool off? Our new Winterfest event might be just what you need!

That’s not all though! V0.13 lets you tag the battlefield with a selection of seasonal sprays, while our controller improvements make it easier than ever to make epic plays from the sofa.

We also know you’ve been eagerly waiting for new items to sink your teeth into, so V0.13 adds 11 brand new items to the game, with even more items receiving reworks and tweaks!

It’s not just items we’ve hit this patch! We’ve made some great new changes to the ways that abilities buffer too, better reflecting player intention and hopefully making your abilities feel even more intuitive to use.

Last but certainly not least, V0.13 sees the dawn of Predecessor on PlayStation! It’s been a long and highly anticipated journey and we’re thrilled to finally be welcoming our console friends to the battlefield. Read on to learn more about when you’ll receive your code for the closed beta and more.

Strap in Champions, this is no small blog. Let’s! Go! 

A New Hero Appears!

Iggy & Scorch are ready to torch… well… everything! 

After literally years of community memes and badgering we’ve finally caved and added the pyromantic Hero pair of Iggy & Scorch to Predecessor!

Iggy & Scorch are Predecessor’s first Hero pair, combining their unique skills to deliver flaming chaos to the battlefield. Read on to learn more about these badland battlers!

Check out Iggy & Scorch in action!

Want to see what these flame-frenzied fighters can really do? Check out their Ability Overview below!

Abilities: 

Badlands Critter [Passive]:

Effect: Scorch hurls up oil with his basic attack that applies Slick to enemies hit, Slowing them by 2% per stack for 3s, up to a maximum of 5 stacks.

Enemies affected by Slick become Ignited when damaged by Flame Turrets, Molotov or Inferno. Ignited Enemies burn for 7 (+1.2 per level)(+6% Magical Power) magical damage per stack, over 3s.

Spew [Basic Attack]:

BAT: 1.4
Effect: Ranged basic attack dealing 50 (+60% Bonus Physical Power) physical damage.

Flame Turret [Primary]:

CD: 20/19/18/17/16 per charge (3 Charges)
Cost: 50
Effect: Iggy throws down a Flame Turret with 105 (+25 per Hero Level)(+30% Magical Power) health that shoots homing fireballs at Enemy Targets within 1300 units. 

Each fireball deals 10/16/22/28/34 (+16% Magical Power) magical damage. Up to 3 Flame Turrets may be placed at once. Hitting an Enemy with Spew redirects nearby Flame Turrets to attack the Target.

Flame Turrets take 60% increased damage from Melee Hero basic attacks.

Oil Spill [Secondary]:

CD: 16/15/14/13/12
Cost: 60
Effect: Scorch spews a ball of oil that rolls forward, dealing 40/60/80/100/120 (+30% Magical Power) magical damage to all Enemies hit. The oil will then remains for 5s, Slowing Enemies Units within it by 30% for 0.5s and applying Slick to them.

Iggy can ignite the oil with his fire abilities, refreshing its duration. While ignited, Oil Spill deals 10/15/20/25/30 (+8% Magical Power) magical damage per second.

Molotov [Alternate]:

CD: 8.5/8//7.5/7/6.5
Cost: 60/65/70/75/80
Effect: Iggy flings a Molotov that deals 60/85/110/135/160 (+45% Magical Power) magical damage to Enemies hit by the explosion.

A fire field will remain where the explosion occurs, dealing 30/40/50/60/70 (+20% Magical Power) magical damage over 2s.

Inferno [Ultimate]:

CD: 120/100/80
Cost: 100
Effect: Scorch unleashes a cone of fire, dealing 270/360/450 (+135% Magical Power) magical damage over 4s. 

At the end of the duration or upon reactivation, Scorch belches, dealing 75/150/225 (+65% Magical Power) magical damage and Knocking Back nearby Enemy Heroes.

Winterfest Event

Celebrate this holiday season with Winterfest! 

Winterfest is an in-game event that will start on the 12th of December 2023 and run until the 2nd of January 2024. Completing games during that time will net you XP that is used to earn a variety of exceedingly cool seasonal rewards.

Winterfest Rewards

And what exactly are those festive rewards?

• Five new profile icons
• Two new sprays
• A new banner
• Yuletide Feng Mao Skin [Common]

Winterfest kicks off on December 12th, so don’t miss out on unlocking these epic rewards! You might even spot some minions getting into the festive spirit too!

Store Update

Winterfest Skins 

Alongside the Winterfest Event we also have a selection of Winter-themed skins available in the store for a limited amount of time.

The following skins will be available from the 12th December 2023 until the 19th of January 2024. 

Peppermint Kallari [Common]

Jingle Bombs Iggy & Scorch [Common]

Old Saint Riktor [Rare]

Frost King Revenant  [Legendary]

Frost King Revenant is our first Legendary skin and includes new ice themed audio, a new VFX profile and modifications to his voiceover, along with his chilling new look.

Winterfest Bundles

During the Winterfest event we will have two Bundles available in the new bundle tab in the store.

Winterfest Mega Bundle

• Peppermint Kallari Skin [Common]
• Jingle Bombs Iggy & Scorch Skin [Common]
• Old Saint Riktor Skin [Rare]
• Exclusive Profile Icon
• Exclusive Banner 
• Exclusive Spray

Frost King Bundle

• Frost King Revenant Skin [Legendary]
• Exclusive Profile Icon
• Exclusive Banner 
• Exclusive Spray

Yuletide Feng Mao skin [Common] will be available in the store for one week after the Winterfest event ends.

Fireball Iggy & Scorch

The hottest flames burn blue, and the same can certainly be said for Iggy & Scorch!

Flambé your foes in style with Iggy & Scorch’s new Fireball skin [Common]!

Sprays

So you’ve just finished popping off. You’ve dominated your lane and executed the most incredible play this side of the PCC scene. What's next?

Well sure you can flex with an emote, but unless you’ve been sloppy with the clean up the enemy team won’t see it. The solution? Sprays!

Sprays are a fun way to express yourself in game by leaving lasting art in an area for all to see. In this update we’re adding six sprays that are unlocked by default, with more available through the Winterfest event and even more coming up in future patches. You equip them in the profile tab under “Sprays” and plop them in the world by hitting the [X] key on keyboard or pressing down on the d-pad if you’re using a controller.

Controller Improvements

To coincide with our console launch, we’ve completely overhauled the default control layout for PlayStation and PC players who will be using a controller. 

This new layout focuses on allowing the player to cast all of their abilities without taking their fingers off of the sticks. It’s not final, so expect a few more slight changes as time goes on to better suit player needs (we recognize for example that having the item shop on the D-Pad isn’t really ideal etc).

Turn Acceleration

Alongside the control layout, Turn Acceleration has also been added to the settings menu. This comes with two parameters that can be freely configured:

• Acceleration Strength: This value is a multiplier for your base turn rate. It will ramp up to its maximum strength over the value you set for Acceleration Delay.
• Acceleration Delay: This value determines how long it takes to reach that maximum strength.

PlayStation Exclusive Features

Lightbar

Every Hero and skin now has its own colour that is shown on the controller’s lightbar. This is mainly tied to the colour of the hero’s VFX profile, but if the Hero doesn’t have a particularly vibrant VFX profile (Steel for example) the lightbar will instead represent the Hero’s dominant mesh colour.

Adaptive Triggers

DualSense players will have the option of playing with their R2 trigger in adaptive mode. This will make every Hero’s Basic Attack feel unique. For example, if the Hero uses a gun, the trigger will have a unique trigger weight and pull distance better simulating the feel of that gun.

Advanced Haptics

DualSense players will have the option of playing with Advanced Haptics. This uses the two haptic motors in the DualSense controller to replicate the feeling of casting each ability directly in your hands.

Hero Unlock Stage Adjustments

We’re making some small adjustments to the amount of stages required to unlock 3 of our Heroes.

• Shinbi now requires 2 unlock stages (she previously required 1).
• Morigesh now requires only 1 unlock stage (this has gone down from 2).
• Kallari now requires 4 unlock stages (previously this was 3).

To compensate players for the stage increase of these Heroes, any player who has already gained Unlock XP towards Shinbi or Kallari will be granted 1 full unlock stage of XP (10,000) for them, ensuring that these changes do not increase the time needed to unlock these Heroes for players already progressing towards them.

Note: This XP increase is currently a one-off and we do not plan on increasing the XP required to unlock any given Hero in the foreseeable future. Likewise, to ensure our Hero roster stays reasonably obtainable to unlock as it continues to grow, we plan on decreasing XP requirements over time for select Heroes as they become older releases.

Play Together - Win Together!

We're not done spreading festive spirit just yet!

We’ve put together some community goals that we can all work together to achieve to unlock rewards for everyone!

Make sure your referrals are more than just numbers. Each referral counts only if the referred player redeems the code and completes at least one match. It's all about genuine engagement!

New Items

Still with us? Good, because this is the juicy bit!

In V0.13 we’re adding a range of brand spanking new items to the game! As if that wasn’t enough, we’re also reworking a bunch more for good measure!

We’ll go into full details further down in the Item Changes section, but to sum it up we’re delivering 11 completely new items, with 2 new or reworked items, per class!

There’s more to be discovered, so read on!

Ability Buffering Improvements

What Is Ability Buffering?

In Predecessor, when you are blocked from casting an ability due to an ongoing action - such as being mid-way through another ability’s animation - you may input another ability mid-way to “queue” it. Said ability will then attempt to cast at the next available opportunity. 

Improvements:

Our goal is to build upon this, to make it truly reflective of what you’re trying to do in the moment. With that in mind, we’ve made the following changes:

• The last ability that you attempted to use while buffering will now be the ability that is actually used - rather than whatever you may have queued first.
• Abilities may now only be buffered for a short time before they are “forgotten” and must be input again - they are no longer remembered “forever”.
• Abilities that fail to cast under certain conditions, such as Grux’s Smash And Grab or Belica’s Seismic Assault mid-air, may now be buffered, and will cast upon landing on the ground.
• Abilities can now be buffered while under Hard Crowd Control effects such as Stuns, and will cast at the next possible moment once the effect expires.
• Jumping may now be buffered.
• Active Items and Blinks may now be buffered.  

An ideal ability buffering system is one where your actions in game reflect your inputs and intent. With these changes, we’re taking another step towards a cleaner overall gameplay experience with less unintended actions occurring for the player, with further refinements to be made as we test this new functionality in a live environment.

Note: The issue where dashes do not register directional inputs after hard CC effects end is known and planned to be fixed in a future update!

PlayStation Closed Beta

December 5th marks the launch of the PlayStation Closed Beta - an important technical test and a huge milestone for our full release on console later next year.

Key Distribution

We will be sending out keys in waves based on your queue number (which itself is determined by how soon you signed up as well as how many people you’ve referred).

We will be sending out game keys in waves. We aim to deliver between 5,000 and 10,000 codes in each wave, with waves going out once or twice a day until we’ve reached everyone in the queue (excluding weekends). Once we’ve sent codes to everyone in the current queue, we’ll continue emailing further keys to anyone who signs up before the end of the Closed Beta period (January 5th).

The first wave of keys will be sent out to the first 10,000 players in the queue. This will occur at roughly 3pm UTC. 

For additional support and information, check out our recent blog, PlayStation Closed Beta | What You Need To Know.

Matchmaking Improvements

Over the last week of maintenance windows, we've worked with our matchmaking provider to make a number of backend changes to the matchmaking system.  These changes should improve overall match quality without affecting matchmaking times for most players, though players at the highest MMR ranges might see a slight increase in their queue times in exchange for stricter quality restrictions.  As a reminder, we're still working on our own fully-custom matchmaking solution to replace the current one, but these changes should improve the matchmaking experience until that system is ready early next year.

• We've made changes to how large parties are sorted and matched, which should increase the rate of similarly-sized parties playing against each other
• We've adjusted which tickets in the matchmaking queue are selected as the "center point" to build each match around, which should decrease the gap between the highest and lowest-MMR players
• We've adjusted the rate at which we expand the allowable MMR range for each match, which should bias towards stricter match quality for a longer period of time in queue
• We've adjusted the new player MMR compensation factor, which should decrease the rate at which newer players end up in matches with more experienced players

Other Improvements

• New player XP boost has been adjusted. We’ve reduced the boost at early levels and spread it out over later levels.
• Improvements have been made to the visuals of the active Hero on the Hero collection page.
• A 'Something New' notification will appear when you have rewards to be collected on the Affinity tab and in other areas and menus.
• The 'Buy Skin' button and price are now visible in the store when you do not own a Hero. These skins can also be purchased but you will be warned that ownership of the Hero is required in order to actually use the skin. We plan to improve this flow even more in a future update.
• The Skin Tab in the store has been improved, and clicking a skin will now navigate you to the Hero overview page. Pressing back will return you to the store.
• We've made some small performance improvements to the Affinity UI screen and the loading of Affinity related content.
• Improved Murdock’s Primary Attack SFX.
• Adjusted the Stim Pack siren visual.
• Imrpoved the sound/visuals of Silence Effect.
• Added some improvements to lane guidance SFX.
• We've made some small improvements to Rampage & Drongo's SFX.
• Made some improvements to Map ambience.
• Made some changes behind the scenes to the minimap to improve performance.

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Minion Changes

For this patch we’ve made some improvements to the general farming loop, with increases to the execute threshold and adjustments to how Towers interact with and damage Minions.  

Hold up, hear us out! We’re well aware that any change seen to be making farming easier will be met with concerns that we’re removing skill from the game. However, please be assured that the intent here is not to make farming overly easy, but rather to find a healthier middle-ground where farming is more intuitive to understand, less laborious, and less frustrating for new and old players alike. Easy to learn, but still a skill to be mastered.

While the increases to execute listed below may look large on paper, in practice this may not always be the case. While farming in smaller waves will now be slightly easier it is still entirely possible to miss a last-hit if you do not time it correctly. However, those moments of trying to farm in a stacked wave should feel slightly more manageable, while still proving a challenge. 

The most important (and interesting) interactions will still occur in lane, with players contesting each other and using last-hit windows to initiate trades and generate leads in farm and pressure. Not to mention that in many use cases, even with the previous threshold, Heroes would naturally eclipse the new Execute thresholds through inherent damage alone. For example, many Heroes can easily deal 20% max health to Ranged Minions with a basic attack pre-10m, meaning not much has changed in their case unless you are a low damage Hero, or have fallen significantly behind.

Towers also now deal slightly less damage to Minions, resulting in less of a chance that your minions will contribute enough damage to grief your farm by pushing the subsequent Tower Hit into lethal range. While there are some slight differences in timings, the farming patterns remain largely the same, with Melees still tanking 3-hits from Towers before they are ready to be farmed, and Ranged needing to be prepped’ appropriately beforehand with a basic attack in order to be secured.

In general farming under Tower should hopefully feel more intuitive, with new subtle ways emerging for skilled players to prep the wave efficiently as Towers will not overkill them as hard, with less cases of missing an entire wave due to random variance from your own Minions and Abilities.

Melee Minions:

• Execute threshold increased from 12% to 19%
• Damage taken from Towers decreased from 30% to 28%.

Ranged Minions:

• Execute threshold increased from 12% to 20%
• Damage taken from Towers decreased from 75% to 68%.

Siege Minions:

• Execute threshold increased from 12% to 17%

Super Minions:

• Execute threshold increased from 12% to 17%

Structure Changes

Core:

We’re making some brief adjustments to the Core’s damage potential in any given match. In general the Core does too much damage and this overly stifles moments where players feel like they should rightfully be able to successfully end a match. While by no means the silver bullet, these changes to the Core should help ending a match feel less Orb Buff reliant, and have games ending more naturally in moments they should actually be able to end in. 

• Hero damage multiplier decreased from 100% to 80%.
• Damage decreased from 380 to 300-360 at levels 1-18.

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where The Fey’s wings SFX would still play upon dying.
• Fixed a bug where Silentium would not play SFX for the user correctly.
• Fixed a bug where Morigesh and TwinBlast would stop playing certain impact ability VFX in-game.
• Fixed a bug where Rampage could hear Chain SFX on his Obsidian skin.
• Fixed a bug where purchase/sell SFX in the in-game shop would not play correctly.
• Fixed a bug where SFX would not play correctly around Towers. 
• Fixed a bug where Sky Splitter would not display “Rend” damage correctly in death-recap.
• Fixed a bug where AI Heroes could get stuck in a short “ping-pong” pathing loop.
• Fixed a bug where Serath could be Pulled out of her Heaven’s Fury by The Fey’s Fly Trap ability.
• Fixed a bug where Revenant’s Chrono Boss skin would have its Coat roll up on load-in.
• Fixed a bug where Dawn base would have incorrect water textures on the floor.
• Fixed a bug where notifications would not always show for friends going offline.
• Fixed a bug where Khaimera would not gain bonus physical power from his Passive interacting with Tectonic Mallet.
• Fixed a bug where Twinblast’s Vortex Grenade would deal delayed damage to its explosion.
• Fixed a bug where Sevarog's shoulders would not show their upgraded state in the post-match cinematic.
• Fixed a bug where Wraith would create too much water splash when turning in water.
• Fixed a bug where Blink would sometimes be unusable in Tutorial, resulting in a soft-lock.
• Fixed a bug where Blocking a user in your party would not remove them from your party.
• Fixed a bug where Twinblast's abilities were incorrectly labelled in draft.
• Fixed a bug where Dekker’s wrists would bend unnaturally in her “Single Ladies” emote.
• Fixed a bug where Muriel’s Mastery Skin would have an incorrect material on her chest.
• Fixed a bug where the waterfall VFX in practice mode would not render correctly.
• Fixed a bug where holes could be seen around the Red Buff camp terrain.
• Fixed a bug where basic attacks would play their Miss VFX at the wrong location.
• Fixed a bug where Gideon’s Void Breach portal VFX would overly block the camera.
• Fixed a bug where Kira’s Mercy “Begone” Voiceline would play unclearly.
• Fixed a bug where Main Menu Social notifications could get stuck on screen after a new party leader was chosen.
• Fixed a bug where Owned Banners would not show at the top of the Banners list.
• Fixed a bug where SFX would not play correctly for Feng Mao’s emotes.
• Fixed a bug where the Main Menu Social notifications would not display a timer.
• Fixed a bug where Dekker’s Ion Strike SFX would play twice on use.
• Fixed a bug where Kallari could fall from the map when using Guillotine into Dekker’s Containment Fence. 
• Fixed a bug where the background colors in the Dawn Side post-match cinematic would not display correctly.
• Fixed a bug where Shinbi’s Line Tempo wolves would not wrap around Towers.
• Fixed a bug where Revenant’s Reckoning projectile was missing a material.
• Fixed a bug where Adept and Master Recall VFX would show through Camouflage. 
• Fixed a bug where friend requests sent while a match is ongoing would cause both players to appear as offline to each other.
• Fixed a bug where Hero Idle SFX would play in the Main Menu.
• Fixed a bug where Kira’s Mercy ability would not play a different SFX on Hit/Miss.
• Fixed a bug where the Store would stop show content when navigating between Heroes and Store tabs.
• Fixed a bug where the Core’s protective rings would not disappear on Inhibitor death in Replay Mode. 
• Fixed a bug where Morigesh’s Swarm Impact SFX would not play when hitting multiple units.
• Fixed a bug where Countess’ Eventide ability would not play its Targeting SFX correctly.
• Fixed a bug where Riktor would not play his Respawn SFX correctly.
• Fixed a bug where Dekker would not be Rooted when using Rocket Boots at the same time as the Root occurring.
• Fixed a bug where Jump SFX would not play when input repeatedly.
• Fixed a bug where the incorrect category would be shown in Store tabs when all items are owned.
• Fixed a bug where Mid Lane Terrain would display holes on Low Graphics settings.
• Fixed a bug where Core’s damage VFX would appear too large.
• Fixed a bug where Riktor would not play SFX when targeting with his Skewer.
• Fixed a bug where Omen was not named correctly in death-recap.
• Fixed a bug where Crunch’s Raised Fist emote played the incorrect voice line.
• Fixed a bug where Drongo’s Boomerang could be blocked by an Ally Steel’s Force Shield.
• Fixed a bug where Hero Affinity could display a white icon when unlocked.
• Fixed a bug where the Invite prompt would stop working in the Party Menu.

Known Issues

• The Heroes & Profile tabs can sometimes incorrectly show a notification icon, even when there is nothing new to claim.
• Pressing Up on the D-Pad to place a Ward will sometimes lock the user into the In-Game Chat menu.

That's everything this time Champions, what do you think?

Let us know your feedback over on our Discord server or the

.

Until next time!

Kari
Community @ Omeda Studios