The latest patch is now live, with a pretty massive changelog! While most of you will care most about the new features, I’d definitely encourage you to check out all the other updates and fixes. Most notably, you can now edit the match settings without having to leave the player lobby, which should help you keep your group together online. This patch also tremendously improves initial network connections when creating and joining online matches, and a bunch of surrounding edge cases. Alright, on to the shiny stuff!

Ability Boost

Ability Boost is a hero-centric powerup that affects each character in a unique way. It’s now more important than ever to pay attention to what powerups your opponents have picked up, because Ability Boost can really shake up the match dynamics.

Emotes

If you die in a round and other players are still battling out, you can pass the time by choosing a quick emote to display on the scoreboard UI. When the round is over, your chosen emote will also show up over your hero’s remains on the battlefield. Stay tuned for many more emoticons to come in future updates!

Dualshock 4 Lights

Self-explanatory. This was pretty satisfying to add. :)

New

• New powerup: Ability Boost
• UI: You can choose an emoji to display on the scoreboard after you die
• UI: You can now edit the match settings without leaving the lobby!
• UI: Dualshock 4 lights reflect in-game player colors (except via Bluetooth on Mac)
• NET: Online matches will auto start from the lobby after 30s of inactivity
• NET: All matches will auto return to the lobby after 30s of post-match inactivity

Updates

• Land Grab: Markers appear a little bit faster when you’ve reached a tile
• NET: Better selection of open UDP ports
• NET: Remote players option is now 3 choices: None (local only), IP/LAN, or Online
• UI: Unified inputs for all pause- and context-menu interactions (Start/ESC to toggle, Fire to interact)
• UI: Better render texture selection for screen recording depending on platform
• UI: Loading indicator in lobby shows when match is preparing to start
• UI: Most menus and options now wrap vertically and horizontally when navigating
• UI: Map selectors show an indicator for how many maps there are & which you are on
• UI: Updated Cerebrus planet look
• UI: Unified lobby actions menu and start match behavior / inputs
• UI: Hero profile demos updated; some have a second player to show ability interactions
• GAME: Improved handling to protect against saved data corruption
• SFX: Increased buffer for simultaneous replay audio cues (less dropped replay SFX)

Fixes

• EPI: Ghost cluster bombs have much shorter stun time to prevent stun lock
• EPI: Fixed situations on ghost death (real Epi dying, position swapping, etc) (regression bug)
• RONIN: Slash will correctly hit multiple players and projectiles in its path (but powering up is capped)
• SELENE: Fixed Selene leaving soot footprints even if jumping over Cronus’ bomb impact tiles
• GAME: Fixed potential for minecarts to bump objects on opposite side of a shot hitting them (for real)
• GAME: Fixed empty powerup crate falling once on clients if all powerups are disabled (for real)
• UI: Some localization fixes for button labels
• UI: Fixed being able to navigate to the title screen bulletin items even if they aren’t visible
• UI: Fixed cooldown indicator errors if pausing and resuming before ever having spammed abilities
• UI: Fixed some display issues with hidden indicators in replays
• UI: Controller reference in pause menu shows more info about each player (type, ping, nickname, etc)
• UI: Partial GIF files are deleted if the export process is canceled
• UI: Fixed different spectator modes visibility in time delayed situations
• UI: Fixed fade-in on tips screen
• UI: Fixed copyright date
• UI: Potential fix for instant replay starting too soon, overlapping the “Match Over” message
• UI: Some Italian localization corrections and updates
• NET: Game doesn’t soft-lock on catastrophic network transport layer failures
• NET: Fixed edge case that could leave a client in a joining state while the match is being delisted
• NET: Fixed potential for online lobbies to fail to continue after playing local matches
• NET: Fixed LAN matches not broadcasting for local network discovery after multiple match sessions
• NET: Fixed LAN match joining
• NET: More reliable LAN broadcasting and discovery
• NET: Removed duplicate LAN match listings due to multiple network interface broadcasts
• NET: Fixed LAN matches counting as online matches in stats
• NET: Fixed delayed spectators end-of-match soft deadlock if the remote kill happens during the countdown
• NET: Fixed an issue that could cause some matches to not properly list and delist from the matchmaker