GAME BALANCE CHANGES

The Gooser Challenge - Based on recent feedback from fans of the game, the Gen 5 challenge requirement 'Gooser', requiring players to kill 50 ejecting pilots, will be reduced to 5 total. We had a couple of design goals for Regeneration. One was to give players a structured way to discover and experience ways of playing the game they might not have otherwise tried on their own. The second was to recognize players' mastery of various skills, going beyond just 'time played'. We went a bit too far with this challenge, especially considering the unique conditions that have to be met just to have the opportunity to get a kill on an ejecting Pilot. We understand some players have already completed the challenge, or have already earned more than the new requirement so we will be internally noting those players so we can recognize their accomplishments in a future game update.

40mm magazine capacity for default and Extended Mag – The default magazine size was making the 40mm too powerful. It is intended to be the only weapon that can take a Titan down without reloading, if used skillfully. However, 20 rounds per magazine were proving to be too high and overly tolerant of indiscriminate fire. We’ve reduced it to 12 rounds per magazine, which still allows players to take a Titan down without reloading, but helps balance it out against other Titan weapons. The extended mag has also been dropped from 25 to 16, with the same design principles applying to this change.

Titan Quad Rocket mag size change – During development, there was a time when the Quad Rocket was too powerful. We made a lot of changes to pull it back before shipping (lessened the screen shake impact, lessened the duration of the first person impact FX, lowered the magazine size, pulled the damage back, etc.) It currently can struggle against other Titan weapons and going back to the 5/6 (default/extended mag) magazine sizes helps balance the weapon and allows players to miss a few shots and still be effective. It was 4/5, now its 5/6.

Titan Quad Rocket damage vs Titan shields – It was taking too long to drop a Titans shields with the Quad Rocket (5 shots). This meant you had to reload before you could even drop an enemy Titan’s shields. This was the only Titan weapon that had this issue. We’ve now upped the damage against Titan shields so that it can drop a shield with 4 shots. Combined with the increased mag size, this damage increase effectively gives you one more volley in the mag to deal serious direct hull damage.

Titan Quad Rocket 'Rapid Fire' Mod's mag size change – We upped the magazine size for the Quad Rocket's Rapid Fire Mod to help it compete with the changes made to the extended magazine (from 5 to 6). The Rapid Fire Mod’s magazine size is going up from 16 to 18.

Amped Kraber Titan damage change – We upped the damage that the Amped Kraber Burn Card does to Titans. It is now the only significantly effective “small arms” weapon against Titans. Note that this only applies to the Amped version of the Kraber. The damage goes up from 100 to 800. We added this to give the Kraber Burn Card a little bit more character, as well as to give you something to shoot if you have a hard time hitting those little Pilots with the Kraber. So snipe away at those Titans…before they kill you!

Hardpoint Domination scoring changes – We wanted to reward and encourage players to go out and capture enemy hardpoints. As important as defending a hardpoint is, capturing them is more important and a tougher task, generally speaking. We did not want to completely remove points for defending, but attacking players were getting too little credit for their efforts. Here is a breakdown of the changes:
• Capturing a hardpoint from 150 to 250
• Assisting in capturing a hardpoint from 75 to 100
• Neutralizing a hardpoint from 50 to 150
• Assisting in neutralizing a hardpoint from 25 to 75
• Killing a player inside an enemy hardpoint from outside (nearby) from 75 to 50
• Killing a player inside an enemy hardpoint from outside (far) from 75 to 50
• Killing a player inside an enemy hardpoint from inside the hardpoint from 75 to 50
• Killing an NPC inside an enemy hardpoint from inside the hardpoint from 25 to 10
• Killing a player outside of a friendly hardpoint whilst inside of a hardpoint from 75 to 50
• Killing a player inside of a friendly hardpoint whilst inside of a hardpoint from 75 to 50
• Killing an NPC outside of a friendly hardpoint whilst inside of a hardpoint from 25 to 10
• Killing an NPC inside of a friendly hardpoint whilst inside of a hardpoint from 25 to 10
• Defending a hardpoint now goes from 75 to 25

CTF scoring changes – We wanted to make sure the big payoff in CTF came from capturing the flag. Killing the carrier and then returning the flag was worth 400 points (combined), while capturing the flag was worth 500 points in comparison. These changes are meant to reward players who capture the flag a bit more than those who kill the carrier and return the flag. Defense is still a very important aspect of CTF so we wanted to make sure to keep defending points high enough to still encourage playing defense. Here is a breakdown of the changes:
• Capturing a flag from 500 to 400
• Returning the flag from 250 to 100
• Killing the flag carrier from 150 to 100