Un-Anniversary Patch Announcement

[Sakebee 2270]

Hello everyone,

 

A new patch is going up onto the Live servers for PC. This patch will be happening on Wednesday 7/8/2020. The Patch is scheduled to start at 9 AM UTC and will last up to 4 hours. Console will have its normal maintenance starting at 9 AM UTC as well.

 

OVERVIEW

This patch brings the end of our 10th Anniversary celebration and the removal of the Beacon Bash district. We will also be removing several holiday and limited event items from ARMAS on 7/15/2020 (full list shown below). In the meantime, we have a few small changes to the Spotter to try and create some counter-play opportunities for those being spotted. Finally, we are streamlining our Battleye ban procedure. You can read more about this change here.

 

CHANGES/FIXES

• Beacon Bash district has been removed
• 10th Anniversary Log-In reward has been removed
• Spotter Changes:
  • Active Spotted Time: 15s > 8s
  • Cooldown for Mod: 45s -> 90s
  • Player can now see when they have been tagged.
• Valentine’s Day Items (To be removed from ARMAS on 7/15/2020)
  • Leather and Lace Bundle
  • Renaissance Man Bundle
• Christmas Items (To be removed from ARMAS on 7/15/2020)
  • Ugly Holiday Sweater Bundle
  • Fairy Wings
  • Soldier Hat
• Halloween Items (To be removed from ARMAS on 7/15/2020)
  • Occult Font
  • Demoness Clothing
  • Pentagram Clothing Bundle
  • Goat Stockings
• 4th of July Items (To be removed from ARMAS on 7/15/2020)
  • Patriot Jacket
  • Eagle Mask
  • Uncle Sam Stovepipe Hat
• STAR LCR 'Old Glory' (To be removed from ARMAS on 7/15/2020)

 

This post is cross-referenced under Game Updates for your convenience.

 

 Sakebee

[vsb 6171]

10 minutes ago, Sakebee said:

Spotter Changes:

• Active Spotted Time: 15s > 8s
• Cooldown for Mod: 45s -> 90s
• Player can now see when they have been tagged.

@VanilleKeks i appreciate you

[iRawwwN 283]

torch is king

[Flaws 1033]

35 minutes ago, Sakebee said:

 

• Spotter Changes:
  • Active Spotted Time: 15s > 8s
  • Cooldown for Mod: 45s -> 90s
  • Player can now see when they have been tagged.

These sound good on paper, I've been asking for that 3rd change for a long while now. Not sure about the time and cooldown changes but we will have to see about those in-game. However, I assume that you just made it so it appears on top of the player model so if you want to check, you'd need to pan your camera up? If that's the case, we will need a more robust notification which appears on the HUD/UI itself somewhere which should also work for Firework Launcher markers and Tagger mod tags, at some point in the future.

[vsb 6171]

32 minutes ago, Flaws said:

If that's the case, we will need a more robust notification which appears on the HUD/UI itself somewhere which should also work for Firework Launcher markers and Tagger mod tags, at some point in the future.

should fit nicely right next to the "witnessable" indicator under the radar

[Snubnose 640]

13 minutes ago, 404 said:

should fit nicely right next to the "witnessable" indicator under the radar

I like the battlefield 5 approach...



YOU ARE SPOTTED

[vsb 6171]

4 minutes ago, Snubnose said:

I like the battlefield 5 approach...

[image]

YOU ARE SPOTTED

i wouldn't mind that either but i'd like to see individual icons for each mod - spotter, flare gun, tagger (maybe even the custom ones from legendaries)

[Aeronaut 647]

9 minutes ago, Snubnose said:

I like the battlefield 5 approach...

people be looking

[Frosi 722]

19 minutes ago, Snubnose said:

I like the battlefield 5 approach...



YOU ARE SPOTTED

 

I think things like this could be pretty neat in the future, the entire UI while functional is pretty dated and im sure there is room for plenty of optimizations / improvements, however, seeing as they are still having UI performance issues on 2.1 I wouldn't expect something like this to happen until that was fixed or atleast not at the cost of performance.

[Flaws 1033]

26 minutes ago, 404 said:

should fit nicely right next to the "witnessable" indicator under the radar

 

4 minutes ago, Snubnose said:

I like the battlefield 5 approach...



YOU ARE SPOTTED

Which reminds me that the "Item not ready yet" red text should go away completely from the game and the indication for ability being on cooldown should just be a little flash/glow effect around the ability you are trying to use each time you click the button.

[Snubnose 640]

10 minutes ago, Flaws said:

 

Which reminds me that the "Item not ready yet" red text should go away completely from the game and the indication for ability being on cooldown should just be a little flash/glow effect around the ability you are trying to use each time you click the button.

yea, "ITEM NOT READY" - right on the crosshair... 

[NotZombieBiscuit 3146]

Hmm. I agree spotter needed a nerf but this seems like a bit too much.

[Mitne 724]

I'm normally using blowtorch but I think spotter mod gonna be a bit overnerfed.

 

[Frosi 722]

2 hours ago, NotZombieBiscuit said:

Hmm. I agree spotter needed a nerf but this seems like a bit too much.

 

Just now, Mitne said:

I'm normally using blowtorch but I think spotter mod gonna be a bit overnerfed.

 

 

Its a bit tricky, its partially a bug fix, a nerf and a long overdue way to add feedback and counterplay the mod.

 

Bug fix: Spotter duration change from 15 > 8 seconds. - This was long overdue and I dont think G1 ever mentioned or possibly intended for this change. 

 

Nerf: Modification cooldown: 45s -> 90s.  - Making it less spamable and therefore focusing the gameplay less around a gimmick as it'll now have lower uptime.

 

Counterplay / QoL change: Being able to see when you are spotted. - This is also just long overdue, there was no feedback to being spotted outside of the occassional, very rare guess based on someones movement / behavior. (Such as seeing him aim at you for a second when hes far outside of his effective range.) Knowing and reacting to being susceptible to being prenaded / pushed by multiple players adds a lot more creativity and thinking to both the player thats spotted and the player that spotted someone.

 

 

At the end of the day Spotter was essentially free 3D wallhacks on every push if you had atleast two of them on your team and it was generally unhealthy for the game to have constant 3D wallhacks with no feedback on it whatsoever and while certain other orange mods aren't in an exactly great spot either I think that these Spotter changes will change the meta for the better while also not making the mod obsolete as it is still a free wallhack which will most certainly have its advantages despite these changes.

 

 

[VanilleKeks 737]

Hey guys could you look at the Spo-

 

Thank you.

 

This is a good start but my battle is far from over. See you next week.

Edited July 7, 2020 by VanilleKeks

[TheHidden-Tember 142]

That third bullet point is really the only thing necessary.

 

Spotter duration and cooldown modifications are uncalled for IMO.

[VanilleKeks 737]

12 minutes ago, TheHidden-Tember said:

That third bullet point is really the only thing necessary.

 

Spotter duration and cooldown modifications are uncalled for IMO.

No. All of this is justified and preferably it should be removed as a mod entirely. There is not much "counterplay" to Spotter even with the third change. You can hide in cover and will still get nade spammed or flanked from two angles.

 

Not to mention that 3x15= 45 which means stacking three of those things and using it properly means you could have 100% uptime (which I've seen a lot of times). That's assuming you have no downtime inbetween fights, more often than not atleast two of the three are recharged by the next fight. It's horrible and it being nerfed is the absolute minimum.

 

Spotter also has no downsides, even after this patch, There are a lot of sources for ammo and the only pseudo-downside would be that you can't use a blowtorch which is another busted mod.

Edited July 7, 2020 by VanilleKeks

[Kiida 455]

Spotter duration was always meant to be 8 seconds. For years it was BUGGED and lasted 15 seconds instead. On a 45 second cooldown (which was also too short anyway) that's way too long.

 

One change I'd like to see next though is a buff to radar jammer since no one actually uses it. Give it the ability to nullify any spotter/flare gun tag on the player who activates it, while maintaining its current use for the rest of the team. 

Also remote det and Firebomb both 90 second cooldown pls.

[Nagletz 215]

I'm gonna miss these Armas items.

Pls make old clothing account bounded.

[Lord Cashpoint 269]

Whilst Spotter certainly needed a nerf, I'd rather they go down the route of making tracking icons not update in real time (This would apply to Deathmatch finale HUD elements too). If icons updated every 3 seconds then you'd still know when an enemy is roughly located, but as the spotted person you'd still have agency to do something. In a way it would be similar to how the minimap icons used to work, where after firing your position would update if you moved.

 

Also APB desperately needs a ping system, it would likely help out random teams a bit. Currently if you're not in voice chat, the only way to quickly alert team-mates is with a very clunky map ping system.

[FakeBungo 248]

could also make a bunch of simple weapon balance changes to spice the game up. but no its just car gameplay and a select few guns which are laser beams and ttk under 1 second.

[CookiePuss 5379]

4 hours ago, Kiida said:

Also remote det and Firebomb both 90 second cooldown pls.

This sounds good to me.

[Uke 101]

Nice one but there's a lot more stuff (easy) to fix, you might want to pick up the pace instead of doing one small fix once a month.

Edited July 7, 2020 by Uke

[Spookzy 1]

Yo that's sick great job but like please fix the servers at israel, we cannot play

 

[TheMessiah 430]

Thx for the Beacon event.Playd it couple of times only and was nice.Only this small event shows what potential the game have.I play other shooters as well..our game is just fun 

Edited July 7, 2020 by TheMessiah