It doesn’t feel like long since we last wrote these words — oh wait, that’s because it wasn’t! The mini balancing patch was only two weeks ago, wasn’t it? Well, we hope you’re ready for another set of patch notes, because we’ve got some more for you!
This balancing update is, well, all about balance — we’re making further adjustments to the big Hero makeovers introduced in 1.4. But we also have a few features we want to tell you more about, such as:
- Discord Integration Improvements
- Game Server Location Changes
- In-Game Tips
- Minimap Update
- Anti-Toxicity Measures
Store News
New Skins
Archangel Muriel [Uncommon]
Striking as always, this time in copper.
Construction GRIM.exe [Uncommon]
Sorry, 's'cuse me, this is a construction site y’know! No, we won’t be excavating anytime soon, we’re on break.
New Bundles
Archangel Muriel Bundle
- Muriel [Hero]
- Archangel Muriel [Skin]
- Angelic Love [Overhead Emote]
- Archangel Muriel [Banner]
- Archangel Muriel [Icon]
Discord Integration Improvements
We’ve been thrilled by your positive feedback on our Discord integration and we’re taking it even further!
You can now link your Discord account to unlock expanded chat functionality. This allows you to send and receive private messages from your Discord friends even when they’re outside the game. You’ll also be able to message your party as early as the queue, or reach out to individual players directly.
You can still use in-game comms as usual, but with Discord linked, communication becomes even more seamless.
Coming soon: Linked Discord accounts in the future will also let you import your Discord friends directly into your Predecessor friend list — making it easier than ever to party up.
Game Server Location Changes
A long-awaited change has finally arrived — as of April 8th, the NA-EAST and NA-WEST servers will merge into a single server location: NA-CENTRAL. That means no more splitting our North American player base — and potentially shorter queue times? Count us in!
We’re also happy to confirm that OCE servers with location in Australia are staying - permanently!
We’re also aware of the questions about servers in other regions of the world - all we can say for now is watch this space!
In-game Tips
To support new players in learning the game more effectively, we’ve introduced a series of in-game tips aimed at improving awareness of core mechanics and gameplay concepts.
These tips will appear contextually during matches, most often after deaths, offering timely guidance to help players make more informed decisions next time. While primarily intended to ease the learning curve for newcomers, we believe even experienced players may find some of these reminders useful.
Minimap Update
If you’ve been following our social channels, you might be aware that we’ve been working on a minimap redesign to improve overall visibility. The first iteration of these changes will be introduced in this patch, and we hope the updated map will make in-game information clearer and easier to read.
We hope you’ll notice the following improvements:
- Increased lane visibility
- Objectives are now marked with the colour of the buff they provide, making them easier to identify
- A new outline helps the minimap stand out more clearly
- The increased minimap size makes icons and pings easier to see and interpret
This is just the beginning — further improvements to the minimap are planned for future updates, so stay tuned.
Toxicity
More tweaks have been done to our anti-toxicity measures. Hopefully you’ll see that toxicity will become less prevalent with this update. As always, if you witness undesirable behaviour in the game, please let us know about it through the in-game reporting system.
Gameplay Balance Changes
General:
- [Bugfix] Fixed an issue where various Item Effects and Ability Damage instances would unintentionally draw Minion and Tower Aggression.
Death Timers:
To begin with, Death Timers will be an ongoing topic that we will continue to monitor feedback towards. To provide some brief context, while it is important for kills to be convertible into Objectives for the structure and pacing of a match, we wish to be careful with early deaths not being too punishing to be on the receiving end of.
For example, if Death Timers are overly long in the early-game, in scenarios where you kill your opponent at Level-2 due to a single mistake, are then able to easily crash a wave and reset into a wave bouncing back into you, secure the freeze on an opponent who is down on items and experience, just to kill them again - this can quickly cascade into an aggressive snowball that can be both unenjoyable and incredibly difficult to come back from.
While there are many other factors such as Objective/Tower TTK relative to Death Timers and how convertible they post-kill, the relationship of recalling and death, or how Death Timers can contribute to games ending too quickly or too slowly, etc; as a general note, we wish for the pace of the average Predecessor to be engaging and exciting for all parties, with healthy doses of snowballing, comebacks, and strategy all present in any given match, with matches ending in a satisfying manner. With this in mind, we’re being conscious of not accidentally undoing many of the pacing improvements the community has generally responded well to with the v1.4 changes by overshooting too hard on Death Timer adjustments in the short-term while the balance ecosystem continues to stabilise with each update.
While we may make additional adjustments again in the near future, for now, Death Timers are seeing another small increase in the early levels to further increase the ability for Players to convert a kill into a subsequent objective, with further adjustments to be considered in the future as more feedback comes in.
- Death Timers at Levels 1-8 increased from 6/9/12/14/16/18/20/22 to 7/10/12/14/17/19/21/23.
Jungle:
Alongside some minor durability increases for various Objectives to provide a greater window to contest, we’re pushing back the initial spawn time of Fangtooth to provide some additional breathing room in the early-game for teams to navigate before the Objective rush begins.
Additionally, the respawn timer of Mini/Orb Prime is being increased to better desync their uptime from Fangtooth, thereby reducing the frequency at which they can simply be traded for one another if the disadvantaged team chooses to avoid fighting over them.
Finally, Fangtooth and Mini-Prime are seeing a reduction in the amount of Global Experience they award on death, decreasing the ability for a team to get ahead by taking them off cooldown and providing more of an opportunity cost should too many resources be thrown at them in the earlier stages of a match.
Fangtooth:
- Initial Spawn Time increased from 4m to 5m.
- Experience decreased from 120-400 (+20 per Level) to 80-290 (+15 per Level)
- Physical Armor increased from 30 (+5 per Level) to 30 (+6 per Level).
- Health increased from 5400 (+600 per Level) to 5600 (+650 per Level).
Mini Orb:
- Respawn Time increased from 4m 30s to 5m 30s.
- Experience decreased from 150-290 (+10 per Level) to 120-260 (+10 per Level).
- Health increased from 5000 (+500 per Level) to 5000 (+550 per Level).
- Physical Armor increased from 45 (+1 per Level) to 45 (+2 per Level).
Orb Prime:
- Respawn Time increased from 4m 30s to 5m 30s.
- Damage increased from 100 (+7 per Level) to 110 (+12 per Level).
- Physical Armor increased from 100 (+3 per Level) to 100 (+4 per Level).
Towers:
General:
Tower Gold Drops have a habit of flying out of view when dropped and can often be missed by Players as a result. We’re making some small adjustments to their travel trajectory, alongside taking the opportunity to speed up their decent time, which should ultimately have Gold Drops feeling snappier and more enjoyable to collect.
- Gold Drop Projectile Speed increased from 325 to 385.
- Gold Drop Gravity increased from 1 to 1.28.
- Gold Drop Projectile Pitch decreased from 75 to 60.
Outer Towers:
Minor adjustments are being made to the durability of Towers in the early-game, making the ability to take the first Plate or two more achievable, while ensuring the Outer Towers later segments still remain durable and more difficult to chain together back-to-back.
- Bonus Armors pre-8m decreased from 40 to 35.
- Plated Segments Bonus Armors while at 4/3/2/1 Remaining changed from 10/25/40/55 to 0/20/40/65.
- Temporary Armors On Plate Destruction:
- 2 Nearby Enemy Heroes increased from 140 to 150.
- 3 Nearby Enemy Heroes increased from 200 to 220.
- 4 Nearby Enemy Heroes increased from 280 to 300.
For a deep dive into balance, Hero and Item changes, as well as bug fixes, please visit our website.
