ROCKET ARENA SEASON 1 UPDATE – BALANCE AND TUNING CHANGES!
Our first big update gets us ready for Season 1 with Balance and Tuning Changes.
Our goal on Rocket Arena is to be prompt with gamepl...
Update 1.2 brings with it some Competitor and combat updates and more!
These notes have been updated to include some more items that were added.
Global Combat
For this update, it was important for us to address a sentiment expressed by players of feeling too “floaty” at times while playing Rocket Arena. This feedback is often tied to scenarios where players are being shot at mid-air and feel like they can’t get back to the ground quick enough. While we’ll still need to spend more time thinking of the best ways to fully address this sentiment in future updates, we saw an immediate opportunity to tackle part of this feedback with a couple tweaks to the Dodge Ability. First, we slightly decreased the duration of Dodge’s low gravity effect so that you spend less time hanging mid-air. Think of this as a general quality of life improvement. To better understand the second change made to Dodge, we can first offer a quick explanation of one of Rocket Arena’s core combat mechanics, Hit Stun.
When a player is impulsed up into the air by an opponent’s attack, they are temporarily placed in Hit Stun. While in Hit Stun, the player cannot move or jump. The duration of Hit Stun depends on the strength of the attack, and how damaged the player was when they got hit. When Hit Stun ends, the player is given full movement control back and is placed in a reduced gravity state. This post-Hit Stun reduced gravity state gives the player enough hang time to drift back towards safe ground, follow up with a shot of their own, etc. The reduced gravity state ends whenever the player lands on the ground, or when they perform what we call a “recovery action”. Up until now, recovery actions included jumping and using any movement ability (typically a Special Ability). Performing a recovery action instantly puts the player back into their normal gravity state and allows them to fall quickly to the ground. With this new update, we’ve made Dodge a recovery action. Dodging out of Hit Stun will now allow players to get to the ground faster, giving them one more tool in their combat arsenal.
Decreased Dodge low gravity duration from 0.65 to 0.6 seconds
Dodging out of Hit Stun now resets your gravity to normal, allowing you to fall quicker to the ground after Dodge ends
Competitors
The balance changes for this update are focused on enhancing the gameplay viability of three of the least picked Competitors in the game (Flux, Jayto, and Mysteen). The ultimate goal is to provide our community with a roster full of options. So whenever possible, we prefer to raise less played Competitors up, rather than simply nerfing the popular ones into oblivion. While Flux’s changes are relatively small improvements this time around, the updates to Jayto and Mysteen are intended to bring them into more prominence in the current meta.
Flux
The Flux tweaks this time around are all quality of life improvements (for her and her team). Expect even more Flux tuning updates in Season 2 now that we’ve had more of a chance to see her out in the wild.
Increased Rockats rocket jump radius from 400.0 to 500.0
Black Hole Cat is no longer affected by Rocket Magnets
Black Hole Cat no longer affects a friendly Plink's Skedaddle Ball
Jayto
Mathematically speaking, Jayto’s damage output and KO potential are already amongst the best in the game. However, Jayto still finds himself lagging behind the rest of the roster in terms of pick rate. So why is this? In the current meta, Jayto must compete for a slot in any team composition with some of the most agile Competitors in the game. His lack of a true movement ability can make him seem like a more risky pick than others. The good news is, Jayto already has several fantastic movement options at his disposal. The changes for this update are focused specifically on improving the accessibility of these mobility tools.
Jayto is Mr. Rocket. Everything about him is rocket-based and this includes his best mobility tool, his powerful rocket jumps. When used correctly by experienced players, Jayto is already capable of pretty spectacular directional rocket jumping and rocket climbing. However, the previous tuning required high-level knowledge of Rocket Arena’s mobility mechanics to maximize Jayto’s potential. To make Jayto’s mobility options more obvious and obtainable, we started by significantly increasing the rocket jump strength of his Primary rocket (default and triple shot). The increased rocket jump strength per rocket also means he’ll have to spend less of his ammo on average to navigate around the map. We also increased the max rocket jump velocity threshold to allow Jayto to more easily use rocket jumps to cover ground quickly. Lastly, we’ve gotten feedback that the utility of Jayto’s Special Ability (Thruster Suit) is underwhelming to some players when compared to other Competitors in the roster. Part of this feedback comes from players’ expectations that Thruster Suit should increase Jayto’s mobility more than it does. Great idea, community! Jayto now gets a noticeable speed increase while Thruster Suit is active.
Increased default Skypiercer Rockets' rocket jump strength from 1200.0 to 1500.0
Increased triple shot Skypiercer Rockets' rocket jump strength from 1500.0 to 1875.0
Increased Jayto's max rocket jump velocity threshold from 3000.0 to 3375.0
Increased Thruster Suit movement speed buff from 250.0 to 600.0
Mysteen
While internally considered one of the strongest in the game, Mysteen continues to be one of the least played Competitors. We know that her popularity is currently taking a hit simply because one of her best abilities, Levitation, is not messaged anywhere in the game’s UI - leaving it to be discovered organically by players (sorry about that, we’re working to improve this soon). Levitation, for those who don’t know, is Mysteen’s powerful movement ability that she activates by holding the Jump input. Doing so allows her to HOVER STRAFE IN THE AIR, and she can do so after each of her three jumps! What?!?! Spread the word, people! When Mysteen utilizes Levitation regularly, she can be one of the most mobile and graceful Competitors in the game. Ok, I digress, back to actual balance updates!
Outside of spreading awareness of Mysteen’s hidden potential, we saw a few other opportunities to improve Mysteen’s overall standing in the current meta. First, her projectile collision radius was increased to boost her overall consistency in combat. We also wanted to improve her ability to finish off weakened opponents, so her projectile AoE damage was increased to give her more options to KO an opponent in Megablast Danger. Mysteen’s Phantasm also got a bit of a damage buff to increase its effectiveness in a fight. Activating Mysteen’s Special Ability (Phantasm) now gives her a brief invulnerability window while she and the Phantasm split apart. This change is intended to enhance the viability of spawning the Phantasm in the middle of a fight. Finally, activating the Special Ability now refreshes Mysteen’s Levitation (Jump Ability) count along with her air jump count. Prior to this change, Mysteen’s air jumps were reset but not her ability to Levitate (she instead had to land first). Now Mysteen will be even more nimble mid-air when using Levitation. Just imagine jumping three times, Levitating after each jump, then activating your Special Ability mid-air to reset your air jumps and give yourself two more chances to Levitate mid-air before having to land. Crazy right? It’s awesome. So, moral of the story - use Levitation!
Increased Card Rocket projectile collision radius from 120.0 to 125.0
Increased default Card Rocket AoE damage from 15.0 to 20.0
Increased triple burst Card Rocket AoE damage from 11.0 to 15.0
Increased Phantasm's default Card Rocket AoE damage from 6.0 to 8.0
Increased Phantasm's triple burst Card Rocket direct hit damage from 6.0 to 8.0
Increased Phantasm's triple burst Card Rocket AoE damage from 4.0 to 8.0
Activating Mysteen's Special Ability (Phantasm) now resets her Levitation (Jump Ability) count along with her air jump count
Mysteen is now briefly invulnerable to damage during the initial activation of her Special Ability (Phantasm)
Competitor Bug Fixes
Fixed an issue that caused Topnotch's Primary to fail to fire on some players' controllers
Fixed issue where Jayto's Guardian Phoenix wings made aiming difficult for players by adjusting animations
Fixed a bug that caused Mysteen's Levitation (Jump Ability) to occasionally fail to activate with high ping
Some competitors have had their run animations tweaked slightly
Game Modes
Rocketball
The round transition after goals is very important to the balance of Rocketball. However, the current transition is a little long, jarring, and not the most interesting. So, we decided to overhaul the current round transition to be less abrupt, faster, and to showcase the player who scored.
New post-goal round transition sequence, which includes displaying the scoring player and removing the 3-2-1 countdown at the start of a new round
Rocketbot Attack
Rocketbot Attack may now progress Wins and other Trophy/Achievement related stats
Items
Increased Speed Boost duration from 5.0 to 6.0 seconds
UI
Added loading screen gameplay tips
Added daily challenges into the Home and Pre-Game Menus
Changed console FOV to 91 and added FOV Slider
Added UI prompt to turn on Crossplay
Misc
Added new Right Stick Jumper controller layout
COMING SEPTEMBER 9 - SEPTEMBER 22, 2020!
Runaway Megadon Limited Time Event Modes
The following modes will be available during the Runaway Megadon event
New Map!Kayo Kanyonpermanently added to the game and to existing playlists
Thanks for being part of our community and we’ll see you in Crater!
We hope you are doing very well !We wanted to take a few minutes to let you know about some of the things that the FSG team are hard at work on!
Matchmaking Focus
We’ve heard from many fans that you’d like to see matchmaking improved, to do this we are going to temporarily remove the Social Knockout playlist. We will bring back more social playlists with the Runaway Megadon Event as we have Duel, Splat, and MegaMuzzle game modes coming. We’re doing this to get a stronger balance of low matchmaking times and stronger skill balance in matches.
Overall matchmaking performance, consistency, and quality remains the highest priority - please feel free to reach out to PrestonFSG on Discord if you have any feedback on the experience.
The removal of Social Knockout will being to rollout at 9pm (PDT)
Matchmaking Region Tuning for Ping
We know that Rocket Arena is best played on servers with a lower ping. To this end, we’ve started to do region-specific matchmaking tuning. We know a lot of players have requested a server selection option, fortunately, it’s on our list of features to build.
If you are playing in a party, please note that the matchmaker uses the ping of the party leader so if you party with someone in another region, it will use their ping to data-centers to connect to servers closest to them.
Friendly Crossplay Reminder
We see that only about 17% of players have turned on crossplay, please note that it’s a great way to find matches faster!
Match Rejoin [Live!]
Another feature we added in 1.2 is Match Rejoin - if you get disconnected from a match, you can rejoin it!
Runaway Megadon Free Login Rewards [Coming Soon]
There’s a full set of Login rewards for Runaway Megadon coming. Keep an eye out for them and the details coming soon. Another note is that this event and the disappearance of Boomer the Megadon is the start of a Rocket Arena Storyline, we hope to add to this storyline in future updates!
Play vs. AI Mode [Coming in 2.0.0]
This is a very common community request and something we are building for the next patch [2.0.0]. This mode will allow you to play several game modes against AI characters. For the initial release you can play against AI Jayto, AI Blastbeard, AI Izell, and AI Amphora. We’re also making sure you can play this mode Solo if you like, with AI joining your team as well.
Free For All Mode [In Development]
Free For All has been a much requested feature from the community, and we want to let you know we're working on it! We've had an internal playtest of the mode and think you guys will really enjoy it. The mode is still a few months away, but stay tuned!
We know that Rocket Arena is really fun to play with friends and as a squad. To make this easier we’re adding a post-game squad assist feature to the game with the Season 2 patch to make it easier to get into parties after each game.
Meta Changes [Coming in 2.0.0]
Also, keep an eye out for details on the new character and 3 new artifacts coming in Season 2!
1.2 Patch Notes
The 1.2 build is live now, If you have not checked it out yet, please take a look at the1.2 Patch Notes.
Welcome to Season 2! This Season brings with it some major updates. There’s Competitor and combat updates, a new map, several event game modes, and more!
GLOBAL COMBAT
Ever since Rocket Arena launched, the Combat Team has tried to absorb as much of our Community’s feedback as possible. Feedback on individual Competitors is something we can typically act on quickly, however we try to take a bit more of a calculated approach to significant global combat adjustments. Before making any such change, we want to ensure we’re actually going to improve and/or deepen the gameplay experience for our players. With that said, over the last few months two key pieces of consistent feedback emerged that we wanted to tackle head on for the start of Season 2:
Players want a way to get back to the ground quicker. The lack of an “on command” option to do so contributes greatly to the feeling of being too “floaty” at times.
First time impressions of the Dodge ability are mixed. Many new users struggle to understand its utility, and the movement behavior fails to match their expectations of how a dodge mechanic should feel. Other players (even experienced ones), express a desire for Dodge to have more varied applications and opportunities for skillful execution.
After first considering numerous separate solutions for these two points, we eventually realized there was a promising shared solution that could help address both simultaneously. The answer? Revamp the Dodge ability to support omnidirectional movement.
Old Dodge (Movement Input)
The previous version of Dodge was already useful at avoiding damage, and could even be used in specific situations to safely reach an objective or recover back to solid ground. However, its movement capabilities were restricted to a single horizontal plane. The player could only go left, right, forward, or back. It also barely displaced the player from their previous position, which often left players in the same precarious situation they were in before they Dodged.
New Dodge (Movement Input + Aim Direction)
The new version of Dodge is in many ways a natural evolution of the previous implementation, building off everything it already did well. All elements of Dodge remain the same as before, except for the way the Dodge launch direction and launch strength are handled. Now, instead of simply launching the player in the direction of their movement input (Old Dodge), we also factor in the player’s aim direction! This change introduces a new layer of verticality to the Dodge movement, allowing players to Dodge upwards or downwards in addition to the standard cardinal directions of the Old Dodge. We tried to design this to feel as intuitive as possible, so the way you interact with the new mechanic is fairly straightforward:
The more forwards or backwards you’re moving, the more the Dodge launch direction is influenced by your aim direction.
The more left or right you’re moving, the less the Dodge launch direction is influenced by your aim direction.
General movement input examples:
Moving forwards, you Dodge in the direction you're aiming.
Moving backwards, you Dodge in the opposite direction you’re aiming.
Moving left or right, you simply Dodge left or right (nearly identical to the Old Dodge).
No movement input still allows you to Dodge in-place.
To go along with this new directionality, we’ve also increased the base launch strength of Dodge so you’ll be able to travel more distance than before. The goal is to give players more opportunities to use Dodge in the clutch as an additional movement option. The New Dodge has one more trick up its sleeve too - the more downwards your launch direction is, the stronger your launch strength becomes. In other words, you can now utilize this New Dodge to fast fall back to the ground. Simply look towards the ground, hold forwards, and Dodge!
The possible applications of the New Dodge are immense, and we’re sure our Community will soon discover even more than we’ve thought of already. Here are a few examples though to get your imaginations a head start:
Floating high in the air above an enemy Mega Rocket zone that’s about to be captured. Dodge downwards to propel yourself out of the sky and into the zone to prevent the score!
A teammate passes you the Rocketball from across the map, but the ball’s going to fly right over your head. Dodge upwards at an angle to catch the ball mid-air!
Trying to recover back onto the map, but you’re out of jumps and already below the nearest platform. Dodge upwards to fling yourself above the platform and land safely.
Lastly, we understand that this new mechanic may take some getting used to for those who were proficient with the previous Dodge. We’re hopeful though that all of you will ultimately love the new gameplay opportunities this mechanic presents you in Rocket Arena. As always, please keep sending us your feedback. It’s greatly appreciated, and we’re absolutely listening.
TLDR: Dodge now has omnidirectional control that lets you Dodge towards (or away from) your aim direction when moving forwards (or backwards). The base Dodge launch strength is also increased, and the strength is amplified the more downwards your launch direction is.
COMPETITORS
Leef Joins the Tour!
A mysterious competitor from the far reaches of Crater (we think). Leef gleefully flings spiraling Arcane Rockets from his ancient wooden staff. Hitting opponents with these projectiles powers up Leef’s Charged Beam -- a devastating attack that can pass through multiple enemies at once, repeatedly damaging anyone caught in its trail. The Charged Beam is especially effective on opponents snared mid-air by Flitt, Leef’s energetic insect-like companion. Leef is also one of the more elusive competitors in the arena thanks to his omnidirectional Warp Dash that lets him bend around cover or zip through enemies, damaging them along the way. Leef’s frenetic, glass cannon playstyle is ideal for players who like combo-centric gameplay, with an emphasis on cleverly outmaneuvering their opponents.
Flux
The current state of Flux is somewhat of a paradox. Statistically, we know that Flux is both underperforming and underpicked compared to other Competitors. However, elements of her kit can also often cause significant frustration for opposing players due to a perceived power imbalance and lack of counterplay opportunities. So with all this in mind, we need to simultaneously buff Flux to make her more competitive, and also make adjustments to her kit to reduce opposing player frustrations. For this update, the Black Hole Cat got a majority of the focus.
The Black Hole Cat perfectly embodies both sides of the Flux paradox. It’s an incredibly hard-hitting attack that can feel overpowered when it connects, but it does so too inconsistently for Flux players to truly rely on it in direct combat. To address the former, we’ve implemented damage falloff on the Black Hole Cat’s explosion. Previously, getting hit by any part of the Black Hole Cat’s explosion would result in the maximum damage being dealt. Now, the damage output decreases the farther from the Black Hole Cat’s center the opposing player gets. At the outermost edge of the Black Hole Cat’s AoE, the damage output is only 40% of what it is at the center. The goal is to promote counterplay by rewarding players for taking action to escape the attack.
Next, we addressed how inconsistent this attack was for our Flux players. To do this, we made several improvements to the Black Hole Cat’s auto-homing logic to make it more reliable and better align with the Flux player’s intent. First, we significantly increased the homing acceleration the Black Hole Cat has towards its enemy target. Instead of the sluggish, meandering turns it previously took, the Black Hole Cat will now aggressively pursue its target. We’ve also completely overhauled the target acquisition and tracking logic of the Black Hole Cat to make its homing behavior more consistent and reliable. While scanning for homing targets, the Black Hole Cat’s logic now scores all potential targets based on their distance (closer targets getting a higher score), and prioritizes targets closer to the path of its current direction. This change means that the Black Hole Cat will more frequently target the player Flux intended. Additionally, the Black Hole Cat’s homing target detection radius now scales proportionally as the Black Hole Cat’s size increases. Before now, the detection radius was a fixed size, which made predicting its movement and homing capabilities very challenging for Flux players. This also led to the perception that the Black Hole Cat became more oblivious to enemies the larger it got. To ensure all of these improvements to the auto-homing lead to balanced interactions with opposing players, the Black Hole Cat now has a maximum turn threshold it can deviate from its original course (i.e. the direction it was moving before it acquired a homing target). If the Black Hole Cat turns beyond this threshold, the auto-homing immediately ends. So in other words - the Black Hole Cat’s homing is now reliable enough to make it a consistent threat, and opposing players who take action to avoid it can be rewarded for their efforts by making it miss them.
Finally, as Flux players well know, her Primary ammo count is much lower than your average Rocket Arena Competitor. This is actually crucial to her balance (trust me, an entire map filled with bouncing Rockats is the stuff of rainbow-fueled nightmares), but it can absolutely make navigating the arena with rocket jumps a frustrating and laborious task for Flux. To reduce the necessity of rocket jumping for even the smallest of obstacles, we’ve increased Flux’s ground and air jump strengths. We’ve also reduced her reload time slightly to make her more frequent reloads less tedious, and to help her in scenarios that require multiple consecutive rocket jumps.
Black Hole Cat explosion now has damage falloff
Black Hole Cat now has a maximum homing turn threshold
Increased Black Hole Cat homing acceleration from 2000.0 to 5500.0
Improved Black Hole Cat homing targeting logic (combined target distance and angle weighting score)
Black Hole Cat homing target detection radius scales with the projectile’s increasing size
Leef's Charge Beam can detonate the Black Hole Cat if shot through the center
Increased ground jump strength from 1700.0 to 1900.0
Increased air jump strength from 1600.0 to 1800.0
Reduced reload duration from 1.1 to 0.9 sec
Jayto
For Season 2, Jayto gets a couple small buffs to help improve his consistency in combat. Specifically, we’ve slightly increased the collision radiuses of his single Skypiercer Rocket (Tri-Rockets remain unchanged) and his Rocket Swarm projectiles. The first of these tweaks brings the overall accuracy of his Skypiercer Rocket up to a more competitive level with the rest of the roster, and better aligns the collision of the rocket to its visuals. The adjustment made to the Rocket Swarm projectile collision makes this a more reliable attack, and improves the viability of fanning the Rocket Swarm across a larger area to keep damage on opponents. In truth, both of these changes almost went live in the last update, but we needed just a bit more playtesting time with them to be sure we were on the right path. So thanks for your patience, Jayto players! With these improvements, combined with the larger buffs he received in the previous update, Jayto should hopefully be in a great position for the foreseeable future.
Increased Skypiercer Rocket projectile collision radius from 130.0 to 140.0
Increased Rocket Swarm projectile collision radius from 100.0 to 110.0
Mysteen
The previous buffs to Mysteen greatly increased her viability and pick rate. This was awesome to see, and exactly what we hoped for! Unfortunately though, with more eyes on Mysteen than ever, we quickly discovered a pretty gnarly bug with her Mirror Shield that was giving her an unfair, unintended advantage in several gameplay scenarios. Basically, due to an underlying collision issue, we found that the Shield was capable of blocking projectiles from hitting Mysteen’s back (i.e. the vulnerable spot it’s not intended to protect). Even worse, the bug wasn’t consistent! Some projectiles could never damage her, others were more of a roll of the dice. This was obviously a balance issue since the entire counterplay against the Shield revolves around being able to damage Mysteen from her unprotected backside. With this bug, Mysteen and her Phantasm could effectively get 360° of protection while their Shields were active. So, suffice it to say, we’ve fixed this issue entirely. Shooting Mysteen in the back while her Shield is active will now reliably damage and impulse her.
The other change worth noting is that Mysteen’s Phantasm now receives all of the Artifact modifiers that Mysteen has currently equipped. One of the main purposes of the Phantasm is to serve as a convincing enough double to the real Mysteen. The Phantasm is tuned precisely for this goal. For example, with zero Artifacts equipped, the Phantasm matches Mysteen’s core movement traits perfectly. However, with movement modifying Artifacts equipped, players could start seeing unintended differences emerge between Mysteen and her Phantasm in areas like their movement speed or jump heights. This change to grant the Phantasm Mysteen’s current Artifact modifiers keeps the desired consistency between Mysteen and her Phantasm, and also better aligns the gameplay with player expectations. In practice, this is a relatively minor change. The real benefits of Artifacts come from how players cleverly utilize the modifiers to gain gameplay advantages. Rest assured, this level of creativity lies far outside the Phantasm’s personal skill set!
Fixed a bug that prevented enemy projectiles from reliably damaging Mysteen from the back while she was Shielding
Phantasm now gets all of the gameplay modifiers from Mysteen's currently equipped Artifacts
Mysteen can no longer accidentally launch herself out of the arena when jump-Levitating onto air lifts
Miscellaneous Competitor Fixes
Blastbeard: Fixed Blastbeard's Shockwave not being visible when activated far away
Boone: Fixed issue causing Vortex spawn effects to be rotated incorrectly on other clients
Plink: Fixed Boomerang exploding instead of bouncing or rocket jumping when shooting at certain downwards angles
Topnotch: Fixed issue causing Primary grenade explosion effects to be incorrect in certain scenarios
Play vs AI
Players can now matchmake solo in the new Play vs AI playlist! This unblocks low population regions for all progression tracks; achievements, challenges, character progression, and just being able to play the game with no wait times. Players in the Play vs AI playlist can now select the same character as teammates as well, allowing for duplicates. The Play vs AI playlist has new bot types like Jayto, Blastbeard, Amphora, and Izell that backfill solo players. They are dynamically buffed or debuffed as human allies drop out or rejoin a match so that its resistant to quitting and a solo player where all teammates quits can still win their match.
New Bot Types!
Bot versions ofJayto, Blastbeard, Amphora, and Izell have been added to the game
New PvE Mode! Bot Knockout
Battle the new Competitor bots in the Knockout game mode
New Playlist! Play vs AI
Consists ofRocketbot Attackand the newBot Knockout mode, and replaces the current Rocketbot Attack playlist
Play vs. AI Playlist
Players can now choose the same Competitor in this playlist
We know there are times when players just want to play a certain Competitor, be it for achievements, challenges, or even just because they love them. With this change, players will have a playlist where they can do any or all of those things.
Bots will now be debuffed (deal less and take more damage, etc.) if a player leaves the match. The debuff increases for each player who leaves. If a player rejoins the match, the debuff will decrease.
We're always trying to find ways to give players a better experience when another player leaves a match. Debuffing the bots will give the remaining players a better chance of winning and hopefully reduce some of the frustrations when a teammate leaves.
Competitor bots will now be added as teammates if players fail to matchmake with other players
No more going it alone!
Artifacts
With each new season, our goal is to continue to evolve Rocket Arena's combat and give players new ways to express themselves. For Season 2, in addition to regular balance tweaks, we're introducing 3 new artifacts!
Boost Capacitor
Fixed an issue where the Social level 3 was giving more of an increase than intended
NEW ARTIFACTS!
Desolation Rounds
Deal (8/9/10)% increased damage while Dodge is not on cooldown; Dodge cooldown is increased by 2 sec
Bottomless Box
KOs have a (50/75/100)% chance to award a random Item
Spare Fuel Tank
Take Stun Breaks grant (20/25/30)% damage resistance for 3 sec
GAME MODES
Treasure Hunt
Players will now gain a 30% speed boost for 1.5 sec after collecting a coin
Gotta Go... you know the rest! Everyone knows collecting coins is better when moving faster. It's science. We feel this gives the Coin Round a fun chase feeling as you try to keep your speed up, while also helping players pickup spaced out coins faster, especially on the ground.
General Mode Changes
Replaced the Recoveries stat with Assists in the post game report for all modes
You like Assists more than Recoveries? We do, too.
FRONT END UI
Post Game Squad Assist: New UI in the Play menu shows teammates from the last match and enables players to easily party up and make new friends
More challenges and XP per day: Rocket Arena has now increased from 2 to 3 daily challenges and has moved up from 1 to 2 weekly challenges
Post Game Friend/Party drop-down: When in the Post Game Stats menu, players can now select the drop down tab on a player's name and send a friend request or a party request for ease of access
ITEMS
Trip Mines can no longer be used to let other trip mine lasers clip through geo
Fixed Mega Gift sometimes not working when fired at moving shutters in Apogee Acres
Fixed Rocket Magnet not being visible when activated far away
NEW OUTFITS IN THE LOCKER
These new outfits are now available ongoing in the character locker, purchasable for both Rocket Parts and Rocket Fuel.
Epic
Tangerine Princess Kayi
Forest Protector Leef
Rare
Bubbling Brook Leef
Uncommon
Avocado Leef
Plum Leef
Blue Hokkaido Leef
Blue Daisy Leef
Honeynut Leef
Vitis Leef
Yellowjacket Rev
Jocular Rev
Sahara Rev
As always, we value your feedback and if you’d like to leave us some now, or in the future, hit us up on theRocket Arena Discord,Reddit,Twitter, Twitch Streams, DMs, etc. - we read as much as we can!
Thanks for being part of our community and we’ll see you in Crater! #LETSROCKET
The 2.1.0 patch brings with it some new limited time modes and items, a player profile with stats, and some quality of life updates as well.
INTRODUCING: RUINED CITY!
Battle across theRuined City, a long-lost ancient temple that provides plenty of fast paced action. Keep your eye in the sky for great views of a few familiar Crater locales.
During the All Crater’s Eve event, limited time items will be making an appearance as well; thePumpkin Bomband theSpiderweb Magnet. Be sure to drop in and enjoy the festivities and new content taking place in the Rocket Championship Tour!
NEW FEATURE: PROFILE & STATS
Players can now view their gameplay stats in the Front End UI by selecting their player portrait or tabbing to theProfilemenu in theFriends/Partyscreen. There are a lot of interesting stats added including; Total Games Completed, Total Damage Dealt, Highest KO Streak, Total Knockouts, and more. Share high scores for the top Rocket Championship Tour bragging rights!
Competitor Edits and Bug Fixes
Leef: Flitt now bounces off (or around) Mysteen's Mirror Shield
Leef: Flitt is no longer affected by the Rocket Magnet
Fixed Flitt remaining visible for simulated clients after Leef's secondary ability activated
Fixed Topnotch's primary ability playing cook release SFX when firing uncooked shots
Fixed Flux & Plink item fetching temporarily breaking if actively fetching while knocked out
Fixed Rev secondary mine glitching out if stuck to Megarocket and then Megarocket goes away
Fixed Kayi double secondary ability FX when playing at higher net latency
Fixed some Leef and Plink getting stuck in geometry issues
Fix characters returning to arena blocking Topnotch's Zephyr Strike rocket
LIMITED TIME MODES
Mega Rocket Mayhem
Battle your opponents over Mega Rockets, but with a twist...everyone deals increased impulse and takes reduced damage! You can stay in the Arena much longer in this mode, so get ready for an epic tug-of-war! IT’S MAYHEM!
Blast Ball
In Blast Ball, the Rocketball literally explodes! Keep your eyes and ears on the timer, because once it fills up, an explosion will damage friends and foes alike, and Megablast whoever is unlucky enough to be holding the Blas…
GAME MODE CHANGES
Rocketbot Attack
Removed AoE attack from Rocketbots
Reduced Rocketbot fire rate
2v2 Knockout
Reduced the score limit from 20 to 12
Reduced time limit from 7 min to 5 min
ITEMS
Limited Time event items added!
Spider Magnet
Use theSpider Magnetto deploy a sticky web wall that will severely slow down any opponent or their rockets that get caught in it. Beware, opponent rockets can still punch through the web if they make it through!
Pumpkin Bomb
Throw thePumpkin Bombfor an explosion that’s larger than life! With its increased size, it’s easier than ever to hit with rockets and change its direction. Watch out, this goes for alliesandopponents!
UI
Crossplay can now be set to PC-Only or Console-Only
Onboarding videos now work on Xbox
Misc
Performance improvements to increase console gameplay quality
Adjusting camera shake to be less aggressive when taking damage from certain abilities
As always, we value your feedback and if you’d like to leave us some now, or in the future, hit us up on the Rocket Arena Discord, Reddit, Twitter, Twitch Streams, DMs, etc. - we read as much as we can!
Thanks for being part of our community and we’ll see you in Crater!
The 2.3.0 patch brings with it controller optimization tuning, competitor and combat updates, AI improvements, and lots of new quality of life features such as Region/Server Select and new performance based XP rewards in the Post Game sequence!
Major Controller Update
One of the main goals of this patch was to improve the controller experience of Rocket Arena. We wanted to make sure the game not only plays and feels awesome, but to help close the gap between controller and mouse and keyboard users. To do so, we’ve completely overhauled aim assist systems, added several more features under the hood, and updated our tuning values to improve overall responsiveness. Players may choose between Normal (new default) and Legacy (previous tuning) in the Controller Settings Menu.
Aim Assist Rework
We’ve reworked our entire Aim Assist system to be more intelligent and consistent. Rocket Arena is a high skill floor projectile shooter that can be difficult to play at times, especially with your thumbs. So, we’ve updated Aim Assist (and our overall balance, as you’ll see below) to really help players track and hit their targets much easier than ever before.
Region Select
Players can now switch regions if they’d like to matchmake using servers in a different location. Access the Region Select in the Settings Menu in the Front End UI.
Performance Based XP Progression
We heard your feedback about XP, so we added more! We also reworked the system to focus on rewarding players for participating and taking part of the action. Now after completing a match, players get additional XP for their personal damage, assists, and KO’s. Player’s also get combined teamwork XP for match objectives such as Mega Rockets captured. The more you and your team play, the more XP you receive. You also get match complete XP and a match win bonus.
Competitor Balance and Tuning Changes
Amphora
Charge Torpedo (Primary)
Uncharged
Projectile collision radius is now a constant 120
Previously scaled between 75 - 180 based on charge percentage
Reduced impulse from 1500 to 1100
Increased fire rate 0.5s to 0.425s
Fully Charged
Reduced impact damage from 40 to 35
Reduced impulse from 2800 to 2000
Increased projectile visual scale
Uncharged and Fully Charged
Increased projectile speed from 17000 to 17500
Increased Rocket Jump radius from 500 to 700
Improved controller force feedback
Hydro Form (Special)
Hydro Form now cancels when picking up the Rocketball or Treasure Chest instead of activating the water cyclone
Blastbeard
Rocket Cannonball (Primary)
Increased speed from 11000 to 12000
Increased arc distance from 4000 to 5000
Charged Anchor (Secondary)
Reworked functionality
Removed automatically firing after charge completed
Secondary input must now be held down until fully charged and then released to fire
Ability now cancels if:
Secondary input is released before max charge
The player uses Rocket Cannonball (Primary) or Shockwave (Special)
Ability will now start charging again after being canceled if the input is still held after 0.35s
Updated crosshair UI to make it easier to understand how the ability functions
Boone
Blunderblast (Primary)
Increased Rocket Jump radius from 500 to 700
Improved controller force feedback
Megadon Scope (Secondary)
Reduced controller sensitivity modifier from 0.6x to 0.5x (ie. input will not be slowed as much)
Improved controller force feedback
Using Zik's Vortex (Special) now also resets Boone's ability to hover during his next mid-air Megadon Scope use
Izell
Spear Rockets (Primary)
Increased speed from 15000 to 16500
Increased collision radius from 120 to 130
Increased Rocket Jump radius from 400 to 600
Improved camera animation and controller force feedback
Reduced scale of primary projectile trail
Jaaqua Charge (Special)
Reduced the distance Izell travels when Jaaqua Charge is used to pick up the Rocketball or Treasure Chest
Flux
Rockats (Primary)
Increased Rocket Jump radius from 500 to 650
Removed Flux gamepad look sensitivity modifier
Improved camera animation
Black Hold Cat (Secondary)
Reduced Black Hole Cat's maximum scale by 25%
Using Fluxverse now cancels Black Hole Cat's cast and will block it from firing again immediately. If the Secondary input is still held down after 1 sec, the Black Hole Cat will try to cast again.
Jayto
Skypiercer Rockets (Primary)
Increased collision radius from 140 to 145
Reduced impulse from 1500 to 1300
Improved controller force feedback
Reduced scale and emissive strength of the default skinned projectile VFX
Rocket Swarm (Secondary)
Removed controller sensitivity modifier
Thruster Suit (Special)
Increased Triple Skypiercer Rockets speed from 16500 to 17000
This matches the normal Skypiercer Rockets speed
Reduced Triple Skypiercer Rockets impulse from 2750 to 1750
Kayi
Charged Bolt (Primary)
Uncharged
Projectile speed is now a constant 16000
Previously scaled between 12000 - 20000 based on charge percentage
Projectile gravity is now a constant 1.5
Previously scaled between was 2.5 and 0.2 based on charged percentage
Increased collision radius from 130 to 140
Fixed fully charged VFX playing on uncharged shots
Fully Charged
Both
Improved Charged Bolt camera animation and force feedback
Leef
Charged Beam (Primary laser after hitting four shots)
Fixed issues where the damage would be blocked inconsistently by Mysteen’s Mirror Shield
Mysteen
Rocket Cards (Primary)
Decreased speed reduced from 22500 to 20000
Increased Rocket Jump radius from 400 to 700
Improved camera animation
Increased visual scale from 13.5 to 14.0 (does not affect gameplay)
Mirror Shield (Secondary)
Fixed issues where Leef’s Charged Beam (Primary laser) would be blocked inconsistently, letting damage through
Levitate (Jump)
Improved functionality while underwater on Shimmering Depths and Star of Crater
Plink
Scrap Rockets (Primary)
Increased homing distance from 3500 to 4000
Improved camera animation and controller force feedback
Boomerang (Secondary)
Increased Boomerang Rocket Jump radius from 256 to 650
Rev
Double Whammy (Primary)
Increased collision radius from 100 to 120
Reduced horizontal spread from 0.65 to 0.2
This reduces the space between her left and right barrel projectiles, making the projectiles not have as much variance and fire closer to the reticle
Reduced reticle scale by 10% to account for Double Whammy spread reduction
Improved camera animation and controller force feedback
Fixed reload animation not matching the duration
Fixed VFX from disappearing early or being delay
Added logic to help prevent Double Whammy from not firing after being attacked or using an Ability if the player is still holding the Primary input
Mag Mines (Secondary)
Hiding Mag Mines in world UI if it attaches to a player, which was the intended design
Attempt at a fix to stop players from getting knocked back really hard when a Mag Mine attaches to them
DEV REQUEST! - If you are still seeing this happen, please get a video if you can and let us know!
Topnotch
Bouncing Beauty (Primary)
Increased speed from 15000 to 16000
Increased minimum hold time required for manual detonation from 0.19s to 0.225s on controller
This helps instances of players accidentally triggering manual detonation when they didn’t mean to
Increased Rocket Jump radius from 500 to 700
Improved camera animation
Tuned visual scale curve for better visibility
Reduced conditions that could block or cancel reloading
This reduces the time it takes to consume a full fuel tank from 2s to 1.88s
Decreased Jetpack gravity multiplier from -0.4x to -0.35x
This makes gravity affect Topnotch more
Add blinking flare VFX feedback when near the KO ceiling Jetpack shutoff
Game Modes
AI
Bots can now play Mega Rocket, Rocketball, and Treasure Hunt game modes
Mega Rocket
Reduced the strength of the impulse when the zone spawns by 25%
Fixed issues where players could capture a Mega Rocket while underneath the zone
Misc.
Mysteen's Phantasm will no longer display the game mode overhead UI (Treasure Chest, Rocketball Variants, etc.)
Playlists and Matchmaking
Bots in Matchmaking
Bots will now fill in for players in all standard playlists if not enough players are found during matchmaking (both PvE and PvP)
New Scaling Bot Difficulties
Bot difficulties are Easy, Normal, Hard, and Extreme
Difficulty in PvP (Competitive Arena, Knockout, etc.)
In Matchmaking, bots will scale in difficulty based on the average skill of the players
Difficulty in PvE (Co-op Arena, etc.)
In Co-op, unlike PvP, each player will have a Bot Difficulty Level independent of their skill
Players increase their Bot Difficulty Level by winning 5 games in a row
If a player loses 3 games in a row, their Bot Difficulty Level will decrease
In Matchmaking, a bot will be added for each player’s Bot Difficulty Level
For example, if Player A has Extreme difficulty, B has Hard, and C has Easy, then there will be an Extreme, Hard, and Easy bot added to the game
If less than 3 players match into the game, the remaining bot’s difficulties will be that of the player with the lowest Bot Difficulty Level (for both the friendly and enemy team)
Play vs AI
Playlist renamedCo-op Arena
Contains Rocketbot Attack and Bot versions of Knockout, Mega Rocket, Rocketball, and Treasure Hunt
Social Arena
Playlist renamedCompetitive Arena
Knockout
The Knockout playlist returns to the Tour!
Items
Trip Mine
Impulse decreased
Maps
Shimmering Depths
Reduced the strength of the geyser
Reduced the movement penalties while in the water outside of the dome
Removed the yellow submarines
Star of Crater
Reduced the movement penalties while in the water outside of the dome
Removed the yellow submarines
Megadon Junction
The train will now impulse the Rocketball and Treasure Chest
Misc
Totems can now be rotated in the Totem Menu
Fixed issues where some controllers would not register maximum joystick input even if the user were fully pushing it in a direction, thus causing players to not move at full speed
As always, we value your feedback and if you’d like to leave us some now, or in the future, hit us up on theRocket Arena Discord,Reddit,Twitter, Twitch Streams, DMs, etc. - we read as much as we can!
Thanks for being part of our community and we’ll see you in Crater! #LETSROCKET
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