Patch 2.1

Our Live Ops Producer, Kevin, breaks down everything you need to know about the improvements we’ve made to the game!

New and improved features

• Players can now hold down a button during a match to pop up a window displaying the current match statistics and the progress of your tracked Contracts or other important Contracts (the same list we show you in the Hideout).
• Armazillo fans can now change the color of the Armazillo “face” by changing the makeup color. (My favorite is Dragon Fruit.)
• Dev note: This was a fan favorite request, and while it’s not the way we thought we’d be using the makeup color feature, we thought we’d give it a shot for y’all. Let us know what you think!
• Some power-shopper players were frustrated by the store being SOLD OUT after they bought an item, so now, when players buy an item in the Brawl Shop, it will be replaced with another item. Some restrictions apply; for example, we won’t restock the shelves with Event items or some other special items (like the ones from Heatwave), and we try to match the rarity of the item being replaced.
• We really want players to finish all the Training! Everyone should know the importance of techniques like passing the ball and throwing your teammates in ballform as Ultimates. To this end, we’ve added indicators in the menu to alert players to unfinished Trainings, as well as a reminder in the Hideout. We’ve also modified the Radio Bot behavior in the Hideout to make sure players don’t forget.
• Dev note: We’ve heard feedback from players frustrated that other players on their team don’t seem to know some of the basic gameplay techniques, and we’ve seen a correlation between completing Trainings and being more successful and less frustrated in the game. But we don’t want to be too pushy and force players to do something they don’t want to, either. Finding the right balance is a tough piece of experience design.
• When players enter the Hideout, a new display in the corner of the screen shows some Contracts you should go after. Completing contracts is the best way to make progress through Street Rank and get rewards. You’ll see up to four Contracts, starting with any tracked Contracts, and moving down the line through other relevant categories.
• Players can now page through the League Leaderboard to see more players (but still not indefinitely).
• Dev note: Why not indefinitely? Keeping the game performant for everyone is our top priority, and allowing people to page through the entire leaderboard would put strain on the number of database requests; and it’s best if we can set some limits to keep the game performant while still letting players scope out the competition.
• The Soda Ball gauge fills more evenly over time, helping players time their throws better. The HUD elements also fade more consistently. And now the soda effect applies to spectators as well, in case that could have been used to the advantage of the spectated player (as was pointed out by our community!)
• For players on PC, we improved targeting sensitivity when using mouse and keyboard, and added a slider so you can customize your experience. Check it out in the Settings menu in the Controls tab. This slider goes from 1 to 50, and defaults to 35. The higher the sensitivity, the less mouse movement is required to swap targets.

Bug fixes

• Fixed an issue that could cause players to attain a Skill Rating of over 4400.
• The game now pauses the inactivity timer between rounds to prevent unwarranted kicks back to the title screen for inactivity.
• Fixed an issue that caused Private Matches with spectators to not correctly cycle through maps and ball types.
• Dev note: This was a cool one. Ever think that random map selection is not quite random enough? In order to provide a variety of game play, we have a complex system that looks at the recent history of all players that are about to start a match together and pick a map and ball type that is the least recently seen by all players. However, the game was incorrectly considering spectators as well. Furthermore, at the end of a match we update players' history to note that they just saw this particular map and ball type, so it is less likely to show up again soon, but another bug was preventing spectators' history to update. So, successive Private Matches with spectators could cause the same map and ball type to show up again and again.
• Fixed an issue that could cause players joining a game in progress to appear in the game before the loading screen was cleared.

Brawl Shop and Bundles

• The crossed-out value in a Bundle now updates if the player owns one of the items in the Bundle. (This bug never affected the price of a Bundle.)
• Sometimes, purchasing a Bundle that contained Crew items would require restarting the game before those items showed up as available for customization. Those items should now show up immediately.
• Fixed a visual issue that could occur if a player bought all of the Bundles.

Contracts and Achievements

• Fixed an issue that caused players who joined a game in progress to not have their stats or Contracts update.
•  The “Secret Technique” Contract was not correctly registering Curve Shots, it will now count them.
•  The “Wreck 'Em” achievement no longer requires constant contact with the top of the Wrecking Ball when throwing a ball, and players can leave the wrecking ball before the thrown dodgeball comes in contact with the enemy player.

Customizations

• Crew logos were being shown in the rewards sequence as two separate items, now they are one.
• Fixed some selection issues in the Crew Logo customization screen.

Gameplay

• Fixed a case where extra players could show up in Private Matches if they had previously been spectators.
• Reduced the likelihood of opposite team members from spawning too close to each other in some game modes.
• Prevented the Soda Ball effect from popping a player out of a Cage Ball cage.

PC Players

•  Fixed an issue where the PC game could sometimes crash if it was in windowed mode, minimized, and then restored.
• Improved game startup times for some PC’s.

Sound Effects

• Passing the Soda Ball now has the correct sound effect.
• Fixed an issue in Holowood that could cause sound to be affected if a new scene appeared in between rounds.

Trainings

• Fixed various typos in Training 7 hints.