HERO / MOVEMENT SPEED UPDATE COMING TOMORROW

By arCtiC on April 19, 2016

We have big changes coming this week! We are calling this one the Hero/Movement Speed update and it drops tomorrow (April 21). As part of that, we’re adding a new Hero, or more specifically, the Hero duo Iggy & Scorch to the Paragon roster. Also, after a ton of feedback from the community and testing by our internal competitive QA team, we’ve increased base Movement Speed and decreased Movement Penalties across the board.

We’ve also made significant changes to the Deck Builder experience with the new Card Linking feature and more.

Movement Speed changes in .24 are focused on reducing the speed penalties that were previously applied during combat and while strafing to allow for an increase in overall pace of gameplay. Additionally, we’ve increased the base movement speed 12.5% across the board for all Heroes. We’re hoping these changes will allow for teamfights to be more dynamic and allow for more opportunity to outplay your opponents with your movement.

We thought it was important to get the new movement speed changes in front of the community as soon as possible. Base Movement speed will not be increased beyond this point, however we will evaluate the changes and may slightly decrease the speed in the future based on data and community feedback.

We’ve been hard at work making changes to Deck Builder and .24 will introduce Card Linking to the system. Our goal with Card Linking is to improve the new player experience, allowing players to more easily understand how to itemize Equipment Cards with Upgrades. Select an Equipment Card and you’ll only be provided with Upgrades that can be used for that card. Again, this is early and we’d love your feedback.

RELEASE NOTES - .24

IGGY & SCORCH RELEASED!

MOVEMENT SPEED CHANGES

• Base Speed Increase of 12.5%
• Increased base move speed of Melee heroes from 420 to 472.5.
• Increased base move speed of Ranged heroes from 400 to 450.
• Removed Strafing Penalty
• Increased strafing movement scalar from .82 to 1.0.
• Increased travel mode strafing movement scalar from 0.8 to 1.0.
• Increased strafing movement scalar when attacking from .25 to 1.0.

• These changes remove the strafing penalty when Heroes are moving left, right, or diagonally. Now Heroes will move at the same speeds in all directions, effectively increasing Ranged Hero speeds when strafing side-to-side from 328 to 450 (37% increase) and diagonally from 389 to 450 (15% increase).

• We observed that players would inadvertently hold left/right when backpedaling from an enemy causing the previous penalty to apply. This wasn’t obvious to the player.

Reduced Combat Slow

• Decreased attacking slow for melee heroes from 100 to 50.
• Decreased attacking slow for ranged heroes from 125 to 75.
• This reduces the movement speed penalty for Heroes who are actively attacking with basic attacks.

MAJOR FEATURES OR CHANGES

• Added the ability to add friend in post-match screen.
• First-time players will be matched together for their first five games in Player vs. Player.
• Card Linking enabled in Deck Builder.
• Updated Live Hero Starter decks to use Card Linking.
• Solo vs. AI no longer provides XP or Reputation.
• Co-op vs. AI no longer reduces XP or Reputation gained after reaching level 20.
• Updated Level 50 Reward to 75,000 Reputation.
• Added Movespeed to the In-Match Card Menu so players can see their current movespeed.

GENERAL CHANGES

• Increased Respawn timer values.
• Increased the cap from 75s to 90s.
• Increased the base respawn time from 3s to 8s.
• Added a camera to the core so you can cycle to it while you’re dead.
• Decreased hitbox of vision wards.
• Increased Red Buff “on hit” speed boost to 60 per hit (180 max).
• Added a shield effect to the Inhibitor and Towers while invulnerable.
• Added a camera fade to the end of matches.
• You can no longer set your mouse sensitivity to 0.
• New welcome screen for brand new players.
• Added a new notification that tells players they can access the card shop while dead.

AGORA

• Many adjustments and polish to collision throughout all areas of the map.

• Updated and added more polish to Harvesters. On placing a Harvester, bolts sink into the floor and the fan at the top of the well begins to spin.

• Increased Movement Speed boost of Red Buff from 25 to 40 per hit (max of 120)

CARDS

• Increased Movement Speed on cards and Red Buff.

• Increased Movement Speed boost of Everglass from 70 to 280.

• Increased Movement Speed boost of Nanodrive from 20 to 80 per nearby Hero (max 320).

• Increased Movement Speed steal of Sirensong from 35 to 140.

• Increased Movement Speed boost of Heartshot from 70 to 280.

• Increased Movement Speed boost of Charging Brute from 5 to 20 per kill and increased duration from 10 to 15s.

• Added a delay and updated queuing to prevent Blink Charm from activating before Portal Stone was done activating.

• Corrected stats on Bounty Stalker. It is no longer a copy of Agoran Scepter. New Stats 7.6 Physical Damage 100 Max Health Unique Passive Basic attacks grant 4% Crit Chance for 2s (max 4 stacks).

• The card Dreadfeast Relic no longer applies life grant to structures.

• The card Hunter's Guile now triggers Cleanse FX and Sound Burst on Activation.

• The card Sinister Shock now correctly grants Energy Pen consistent with other "Shock" cards.

• Updated name of Stat Max Health and Max Mana to read Health and Mana, to improve clarity.

• Updated some card descriptions.

REPLAY

• Add "Lock" checkbox to timeline bar, which will prevent it from fading out when the mouse leaves.

• Added timeline bar fade in/out. One-second delay before fade out begins.

• Hooked up video recording feature on PS4.

• Bind circle to toggle recording in replays.

• Clips recorded this way will be available to upload to online services through the "share" button.

• Stop video recording and show a notification when getting to the end of a replay.

• Added ability to scrub +/- 10 seconds using left (-10) and right (+10) on the D-pad.

• Fix jungle camp respawn timers in replays.

• Fix replay timeline dimensions so that the timeline is closer to the player health widget and the recording controls are visible.

• Fix for core not respawning when scrubbing back in Replay timeline.

• Friend replays no longer populate with replays from accounts with unaccepted friend requests.

HUD & UI

• Facelift for the new deck dialog and the in-game escape menu.

• Level & daily rewards that give > 1 of an item show it appropriately in all places

• Added mana cost to the ability panel.

• Added to video settings Lowest and Nearest to Effects and View Distance categories.

• Adjusted font sizes and icon size on player status bar.

• Flipped the XP and Card Power indicators upside down, so that changes in them are more visible.

• Implemented smooth scrolling for hero list and deck builder.

• Loading Screen Update.

• Recommended star moved to hero bar

• HUD now shows numerical value for shield.

• Updates to style in Settings Menu.

• Visual updates to deck slot purchase flow and UI.

• Decimals on ability panel are removed.

• Moved "character over limit" message for chat entry to more readable location.

• Passives no longer have upgrade flames.

• Removing the legacy code that allowed players to adjust mouse sensitivity using comma and period. This was added before we have menu options to adjust this type of thing.

• Updated Master Challenge node tooltips on purchase to update the locked state of rewards.