Unfortunately at this time, we're hitting the rollback button. Live should now be back up and running as it was. The beta may be down still, but give us just a little time to sort that out. I'm going to have it back in the meantime until we're ready to try a live rollout again. W
Unfortunately at this time, we're hitting the rollback button.
Live should now be back up and running as it was. The beta may be down still, but give us just a little time to sort that out. I'm going to have it back in the meantime until we're ready to try a live rollout again.
Where we got to
Migration was successful in terms of the actual data being brought over.
We found an issue with EAC on the PC builds where a server would kick clients after it had completed a match and cycled to a new match.
We found an issue with the console ingestion where the correct account data was not being found and applied on login.
We spent some time seeing if this was a backend-only kind of change that we needed, but it became apparent that we'd likely need new console builds to rectify the issue. Console builds aren't too quick to turnaround and get properly tested, so we need to take some time with this one.
Next Steps
We've already identified a fix for the EAC issue and that'll get verified over the course of this week.
We will need a bit of time to sort out our issues on the console side.
We will identify a new rollout date/time for likely middle of next week, provided that we get confidence fixes in this week. At that point I'll also be back personally to oversee the new rollout attempt.
Thank you all for the patience through this immense downtime.
Hi everyone! We will be doing a pretty large downtime to LIVE. This will be to migrate our current backend to the new private servers backend as well as deploy those builds to all platforms. I don't currently have an estimate for this downtime, as we want to take our time with it
Hi everyone!
We will be doing a pretty large downtime to LIVE.
This will be to migrate our current backend to the new private servers backend as well as deploy those builds to all platforms.
I don't currently have an estimate for this downtime, as we want to take our time with it and make sure we check everything in our power. I would expect it to be at minimum a few hours.
Late post! We have completed Beta maintenance and the beta is available again. Patch 1.12.02.72378: Some localization integrations for the Server Browser UI (as well as some space savings for longer server names. Should be up to 22 characters now) Proper integration of currently-
Late post! We have completed Beta maintenance and the beta is available again.
Patch 1.12.02.72378:
Some localization integrations for the Server Browser UI (as well as some space savings for longer server names. Should be up to 22 characters now)
Proper integration of currently-live balance values as the default balance configuration. You will need to replace your current balance json with the default.json in the Templates folder to update values.
A few miscellaneous backend changes related to the development side and general hardening.
You may need to restart Steam or verify your install files to grab the update!
We will be entering downtime shortly for the Private Servers beta in order to deploy a patch to it. This patch will look to do the following: Some localization integrations for the Server Browser UI (as well as some space savings for longer server names. Should be up to 22 charac
We will be entering downtime shortly for the Private Servers beta in order to deploy a patch to it. This patch will look to do the following:
Some localization integrations for the Server Browser UI (as well as some space savings for longer server names. Should be up to 22 characters now)
Proper integration of currently-live balance values as the default balance configuration.
A few miscellaneous backend changes related to the development side and general hardening.
Update note: This maintenance has now been completed and the beta is available again. You may need to restart Steam or verify your install files to grab the update!
Dedicated Servers Beta Maintenance has completed. The server and client have both been updated to 1.12.01.72372. Make sure to either restart Steam or verify your files to make sure you catch the update! Important note: If you start up a server and notice that your account is not
Dedicated Servers Beta Maintenance has completed. The server and client have both been updated to 1.12.01.72372.
Make sure to either restart Steam or verify your files to make sure you catch the update!
Important note:
If you start up a server and notice that your account is not gaining exp or other stats, please fully close your server and go to: \\steamapps\\common\\Deceive Inc. Dedicated Server\\DeceiveInc\\Saved
and delete the GameServerCredentials.json file.
This update contains the following fixes:
Localized map names showing improper text when viewed by another client.
Issue where account progress was not properly replicated from the August 22nd database snapshot.
In order to fix the database issue cleanly, we reapplied the snapshot from August 22nd. As such, if you played in the Beta and got stats accrual there, you will see your stats go back to from when the Beta opened.
Thank you for the patience and happy spying!
Update Follow-up:
We've identified that our new database copy did not take properly. As such, users who were already affected by this issue did not get corrected.
We'll be doing another brief downtime Aug 28th, 9:00am EDT to reapply the snapshot.
This maintenance has now been completed. If you were affected by the database issue in the beta please delete the following folder before you launch: \\SteamLibrary\\steamapps\\common\\DeceiveInc\\DeceiveInc\\Saved
Hi all, We'll be bringing down login access to the Dedicated Servers Beta shortly in order to facilitate a small patch. We saw reports of players not having their live progress transfer to the beta appropriately and will be doing a recopy of our database snapshot to address this
Hi all,
We'll be bringing down login access to the Dedicated Servers Beta shortly in order to facilitate a small patch.
We saw reports of players not having their live progress transfer to the beta appropriately and will be doing a recopy of our database snapshot to address this issue alongside a fix for the cause.
We expect this downtime for the beta to be about 1 hour, but it may go on a bit longer.
This downtime only affects the Dedicated Servers beta, Live will continue to operate as normal.
Hey Agents! We’re happy to announce that we’re ready to open up beta testing for the community servers update to the broader public! I want to kick this off with a very important notice: While you are on the beta, do not buy Bonds The beta is our new backend we’re moving to and w
Hey Agents!
We’re happy to announce that we’re ready to open up beta testing for the community servers update to the broader public!
I want to kick this off with a very important notice:
While you are on the beta, do not buy Bonds
The beta is our new backend we’re moving to and when we do a final migration from live, the data/progression accrued there will be overwritten during that last data transfer.
On the topic of account data, please note that our beta snapshot is from August 22nd. So if you've played live very recently, you may notice a small delta in your account stats or any unlocks you did in that time.
So with that out of the way, let’s get down to the details of the beta and associated update!
Starting and Managing Your Server
At the time of this posting, the Deceive Inc. Dedicated Server Tools app should already be in your Steam library now. Searching for Deceive in the library search bar should find it, or you can use the Games and Software dropdown and checkbox “Tools.”
Note: You may need to restart your Steam Client if you haven't done so lately.
Additionally, you’ll need to opt into the beta build for the game client itself. You can do this by right clicking Deceive in your Steam Library, selecting “Properties,”going over to the “Game Versions and Betas” tab, and opting into the dedicatedserverpreview beta.
When you first open your server, you’ll be greeted with the main configuration options. Here, you can select things like your mode, player count, map selection, set a password, and so on.
The keen-eyed among you may also see a special button called “Open Balancing” that we’ll get to a bit later!
Once you’re done editing your settings, you’ll hit Save and be brought to the general server status window. If you’ve changed settings, be sure to hit the “Restart” button so they take effect!
From there, you’re good to start the main game client and get connected to your server.
Linux Servers
They exist! If you open up Steam on a Linux machine, you should be able to grab the Linux version of the server from there. Please note that Deceive was primarily created to run on the Windows servers and we don’t have a reliable way to test Linux in-depth. Thankfully, the closed testers have been able to verify that things are in general working order with them.
If you run into any issues with them, we strongly recommend you join the Discord and field issues or questions there.
Common Connection Issues
Most common connection issues, be it someone connecting to your server or getting connected to someone else’s, tend to stem from improper port forwarding, OS firewall settings, or other router settings/firewalls.
By default, we use UDP 7777 and 7778, but the config will accept a custom port. Usually a misconfigured port will result in a server that appears to have 9999 ping in the server browser.
Known Issues
There are some known issues I need to be upfront about, namely around Bots.
For all intents and purposes, revival will not work with Bots in Duos or Trios. There are ways to revive them, but after revival they will break and cease to function for the remainder of the match.
Bots will not attempt to revive players or fellow Bots on their team.
Post-defeat spectating of other teams will not function if a bot was on your team.
These issues stem from the fact that Bots were never intended to be used outside of Solos. Nonetheless, we wanted to provide the option to use them in Duos/Trios for those who just wanted to generally fill out those game modes.
Community Balance Configuration
This is something I think a lot of you will love!
In the original announcement, we committed to helping open up configurations and doors to modding as best we could. To that end, we’re providing a system that will let users alter many of the Agent, gadgets, and general gameplay settings in Deceive.
Within \\DeceiveInc\\ of your server installation folder, you’ll find a CommunityBalanceProfile JSON file. This contains editable values for a variety of overrides. Want Agents to have a higher health pool? Go for it. Red should have 70 ammo clip machine-shotgun? You got it.
These values will sync to any player connecting to your server, allowing you to create servers with your own balance in mind.
Now, I do need to mention a few caveats and quirks about the system.
For full transparency, this system was adapted from what the Sweet Bandits would use to do live balance updates. There are likely a good handful of overrides that are mislabeled, attached to mechanics/features that were cut or redesigned, or just simply don’t work.
We do have to provide this system and the adjustable overrides as-is.
I want to take a moment to highlight one of our community members, Riclamin, who put together a beautiful tool that presents the JSON into a much more readily readable and editable format.
Additionally, Riclamin, our closed testers, and the community over at Spire Scrims have graciously put a lot of time and effort into verifying many of these overrides ahead of time.
I really hope you all enjoy tinkering with Deceive at this level and can use this system -even with its quirks- to create fresh experiences for you and your friends.
So What’s Next?
While you all get familiar with the Beta and send back any issues with the new systems that we missed, we have a few last things to wrap up before we’re fully ready to transition the live version of the game to these new systems.
Once we’re confident that we haven’t let any major issues through and those last bits are sorted, we’ll announce a date and time for the proper update to live. In order to safely migrate data to the new backend, we will need to take Deceive offline for a bit on the day of the update.
Also, we will likely not have the "official" servers up for this beta test, as we're organizing some hardware needs there. Come full launch, we will upkeep some official Tripwire servers, as promised.
I want to reiterate that the development bandwidth for this update is still very restricted. Absolutely report issues and feedback here on Steam or in our Discord; we look at and consider it all. Having said that, we have to be extremely picky about what we go after fixing and need to focus on critical issues with the new systems themselves.
Closing Thoughts
The support and love shown on the original announcement was truly awe-inspiring. The immense love for the Sweet Bandits and Deceive Inc. was felt and resounded with all of us.
I know that this update may not address every loose end and it likely has some blemishes where we bent existing systems to fit this new structure, but we strongly believe that this is the right approach to take so that you all can keep enjoying Deceive whenever you want to.
Thank you all for the continued support and patience as we work on all these changes!
With much love,
[TW] DVa and the rest of the Tripwire Presents team
It's a frustrating thing to watch good games disappear. We've seen it happen time and time and time again: studios spend years on a cool multiplayer thing, bank on it being popular enough to become a live-service hit, then toss the entire project into the trash when that doesn't
It's a frustrating thing to watch good games disappear. We've seen it happen time and time and time again: studios spend years on a cool multiplayer thing, bank on it being popular enough to become a live-service hit, then toss the entire project into the trash when that doesn't happen... Read more.
In a rare reversal of live service demise, a beloved but "dead" live service FPS will not shut down, but instead receive custom server support that ensures it'll be playable forever. Long live Deceive Inc... Read more.
In a rare reversal of live service demise, a beloved but "dead" live service FPS will not shut down, but instead receive custom server support that ensures it'll be playable forever. Long live Deceive Inc... Read more.
Hello Agents! When Sweet Bandits created Deceive Inc., they built a game that brought together an incredible community. From fan art (more Octo abs, thank you!) to weekly custom matches, you all have continued to show that there is still a community enjoying this game. We'd like
Hello Agents!
When Sweet Bandits created Deceive Inc., they built a game that brought together an incredible community. From fan art (more Octo abs, thank you!) to weekly custom matches, you all have continued to show that there is still a community enjoying this game.
We'd like to share what we've been working on to keep Deceive Inc. playable long into the future.
Although Sweet Bandits had to close their doors, we don't believe Deceive Inc. should quietly disappear because the services behind it aren’t sustainable forever.
We're actively rebuilding Deceive Inc.’s backend to be sustainable indefinitely and support community-hosted dedicated servers.
When this work is complete, you'll be able to host your own servers using a dedicated server application, browse community servers directly from within the game, and join community-hosted matches just as you do today.
What does this actually mean?
Replacing the backend for a live multiplayer game means rebuilding much of the technology that players never normally see. This touches nearly every part of how players find matches, join servers, manage progression, unlock content, and more.
Our goal is that when everything is finished, all of your account progress, unlocks, and stats are maintained—even though much of what's happening behind the scenes has changed.
Before this update goes live, we'll be opening a public Steam beta so the community can help us test everything and make sure we've gotten it right.
As we get closer to beta, we’ll begin sharing progress along the way, including early looks at the new server browser and dedicated server tools as they become ready.
These changes are planned for every platform.
Console players won't be able to host servers directly, but they'll still be able to join community-hosted servers through crossplay.
We'll also continue operating a small number of official servers—including console-only servers where required—to ensure everyone always has somewhere to play.
Setting expectations
We’re sure this announcement is going to come with plenty of ideas and feature requests. Right now, our priority is completing this migration successfully.
Because of that, we have very little room to incorporate extra feedback or requests while this work is underway.
We absolutely still want to hear your feedback on this work when the beta is available as well as thoughts about the future of Deceive Inc.
What's next?
We've already reached the point where the basic infrastructure is functioning internally, and we're actively testing early builds of both the game and the dedicated server.
We expect it'll be at least another month before we're ready to begin public Steam beta testing.
Since this touches so many parts of the game, we want to be transparent that timelines may shift as we work through the remaining challenges.
What about modding?
One question we expect to come out of this announcement is what all of this means for modding.
Over the years, we've seen plenty of discussion around how players would tweak Deceive Inc.—whether that's balance changes, new rulesets, experimental mechanics, or entirely different ways to play.
While we aren't able to provide a dedicated modding toolkit as part of this work, one of our goals is to remove as many technical barriers to modding as we reasonably can as a part of this work.
Where the community takes it from there is something we're genuinely excited to see.
This work is ultimately about one thing: making sure the future of Deceive Inc. is in the hands of the community that continues to play it.
We'll have more to share as we get closer to beta, but we want to again thank you for continuing to show your support and love for Deceive Inc.!
Agents, I come today with heartbreaking news that we must share with the entirety of the Deceive Inc. community. There is no easy way to say this: The Sweet Bandits team is no more. After a long and difficult road of trying to get Deceive inc. in a state where it could thrive, we
Agents,
I come today with heartbreaking news that we must share with the entirety of the Deceive Inc. community. There is no easy way to say this: The Sweet Bandits team is no more. After a long and difficult road of trying to get Deceive inc. in a state where it could thrive, we have reached the breaking point for the studio, unable to continue this adventure with you.
While this is a moment of great sadness for us, we are happy to have been given the chance to create this universe and share it with you all. We were amazed by the passion of this community and this has been a driving force for us all along, pushing us to try and make this project reach the potential it has. We’ve put our heart and soul into this game and nothing makes us happier than seeing it resonate with other people across the world.
The path ahead is currently being charted by our partners at Tripwire Interactive. We are considering options, with the goal of maintaining the game that we all love. We will share news with everyone once we have more details. In the meantime, servers and game access will continue as they have been.
To close things off, I want to thank you all personally, not as Sweet Bandits, but as myself. I am so grateful for everything this community has done and I am deeply saddened that this is how it ends. Please keep the flame going, make Deceive Inc. yours, continue to share your art and stories. This is your universe now and forever.
With much love and a heavy heart,
Baribandit
*Servers and matching will remain up for the foreseeable future, and we are exploring how to keep the game available to its fans long term, but have no announcements to make on that today.
Scoundrels & Sentinels Hotpatch 2 Agents, we are rolling a very small hotpatch to address a variety of issues as well as deploying an all-new skin bundle for Squire. New Content: Rigid Raccoon Bundle It’s time to deploy into the field with the all-new Rigid Raccoon bundle inc
Scoundrels & Sentinels Hotpatch 2 Agents, we are rolling a very small hotpatch to address a variety of issues as well as deploying an all-new skin bundle for Squire.
New Content: Rigid Raccoon Bundle It’s time to deploy into the field with the all-new Rigid Raccoon bundle including a legendary skin, a unique intro pose, a title and an avatar!
The bundle is now available in the shop for 2000 bonds.
General
Fix for a server crash issue
Fixed Red’s “you have my bow” intro pose (For real this time!)
Fix for cross-platform friends/parties issues.
Fix for text getting cut off in some ability descriptions. (We are aware of some text going outside the box, but this is preferable to cut text for now.)
Deceive Inc. is an extraction shooter that foregoes the usual gritty shooter thematics in favor of spies, gadgets and colourful locales. In our review , Russel Adderson described it as "a creative blend of sneaking and shooting that will have squads coming back for more." It's we
Deceive Inc. is an extraction shooter that foregoes the usual gritty shooter thematics in favor of spies, gadgets and colourful locales. In our review, Russel Adderson described it as "a creative blend of sneaking and shooting that will have squads coming back for more." It's well worth trying, and there's no reason not to, because it's currently free on the Epic Games Store... Read more.
Agents! We have two new exciting promotions starting today for Deceive Inc. share! Twitch Drops for Deceive Inc are back with a campaign for the Scoundrels & Sentines season! Twitch drops will be live Thu, Nov 7, 10:00 AM - Fri, Nov 29, 9:59 PM CST. Drops are available for al
Agents!
We have two new exciting promotions starting today for Deceive Inc. share! Twitch Drops for Deceive Inc are back with a campaign for the Scoundrels & Sentines season! Twitch drops will be live Thu, Nov 7, 10:00 AM - Fri, Nov 29, 9:59 PM CST. Drops are available for all Platform versions. All players need to do is link their Deceive Inc. account to Twitch to enable drops.
Scoundrels & Sentinels Hotpatch Agents, like we discussed last week, are rolling out a hotpatch addressing a variety of issues that have been affecting the game. We are also still working on resolving back-end issues and wanted to give a bit more info on where we currently st
Scoundrels & Sentinels Hotpatch Agents, like we discussed last week, are rolling out a hotpatch addressing a variety of issues that have been affecting the game. We are also still working on resolving back-end issues and wanted to give a bit more info on where we currently stand.
Server Issues While these back-end issues are not part of the hotpatch itself, we wanted to give a bit of an update on where we are with them. Please note that since this is server side, we will continue deploying fixes outside of this patch without any download needed on your side.
Party Issues: We have resolved issues with players being stuck out of matchmaking after being kicked out or disbanded from a party.
Server Disconnect Issues: We have identified the problem and we are going to deploy a potential fix tomorrow. We are keeping a close eye on this one to make sure things improve.
Mid-Game Join: We are aware and have identified the issue, but we do not have a full fix yet. We have a low probability that our fix for server disconnect tomorrow improves this too, but we need to keep monitoring the situation to make sure it gets resolved.
Latency Issues: We are following reports closely on abnormal latency issues. We do not have a definite fix at this time.
Bug Fixes General
Fixed performance issues on some spies that would result in frame drops when blowing cover.
Fixed a situation where players charmed with the right timing while melee-ing would instantly heartbreak themselves.
Fixed the timer display on the retinal scanner not reflecting the correct amount of time.
Fixed the “You have my bow” Red intro pose not having the correct placement.
Fixed the stretched icon in the intro pose menu in the store.
Fixed a missing collison on a pre-game lobby wall.
Agents Cavalière.
Fixed an issue where Cavalière’s “it’s a setup” zone would highlight used objects instead of unused ones (ammo, keycards)
Octo
Fixed a bug with Octo’s base expertise that made his field of view value off from the intended value, leading to a lower angle than desired.
Sasori
Fixed an issue that caused expertise 3 to linger much longer than the visual suggested.
Levels Sound Eclipse
Fixed an issue where a guard room could spawn two keycards in the same room.
Fragrant Shore
Fixed an issue where players could get revived under the map at the central extraction pad.
Agents, We are back with a fantastical catalog and a massive update that aims to shake up the meta in a myriad of ways. From ability reworks, to new gadgets and expanded capabilities for existing gadgets, there is something for every build in this patch! Here’s what you can expec
We are back with a fantastical catalog and a massive update that aims to shake up the meta in a myriad of ways. From ability reworks, to new gadgets and expanded capabilities for existing gadgets, there is something for every build in this patch! Here’s what you can expect to see:
A new Fantasy Adventure catalog with 50 levels of unlocks
Reworked abilities for Ace, Chavez, and Yu-Mi
Two new gadgets
The introduction of map Variants
A yacht-full of balance changes that aim to shift the meta in interesting new directions.
An increased level cap to 700 with a unique ink to acquire to go along with it!
Let’s dive into it!
Major Additions New Catalog Scoundrels & Sentinels
Assemble your party and roll for initiative in our all-new catalog: SCOUNDRELS & SENTINELS. We are thrilled to reveal our new fantasy-themed catalog bringing you into a world of brave knights and devious rogues. With 50 levels of unlock and our most ambitious skins and our first animated calling cards, we hope you enjoy the journey into the tales from bardkeep!
Level Cap Raise Level cap has been raised to 700. Reaching the new cap will reward you with the all-new Opal Ink to showcase your dedication.
New Gadgets The Bait Box - Deception Gadget
Cooldown : 45 seconds Gadget HP: 5 HP
Our first new gadget is here and ready to make some noise. The bait box is a new deception gadget based around creating fake sounds to bait your opponents into traps, away from fights or simply drive them mad in pursuit of an illusory keycard.
The Bait Box is a deployable gadget that can play the selected soundtrack (you can change tracks with right click) to bamboozle foes. There are four tracks to play:
Gunshots: Play an assortment of gunshots in quick succession to simulate an ongoing fight. Ideal to bait aggressive players into a fake fight or drive them away from where you are going.
Character Alerted: Play an alerted voice line from a npc to sell the illusion that an out of cover spy is nearby.
Keycard Jingle: Play the iconic sound telling players that a keycard is nearby, driving them to madness and sadness like no other gadget can.
Keycard Printer: Plant chaos into the infiltration phase by faking that a gold keycard is currently being printed!
The Bait Box has been added to regular account progression and is unlocked at account level 22.
The D-Eye - Recon Gadget Cooldown: 45 seconds Gadget HP: 1 HP
We’ve wanted to add more elements that reinforce the spy fantasy for a long time and our second new gadget, the D-eye, is a step in that direction. You will be able to shoot cameras from a handheld pen launcher to create your very own surveillance network. The cameras can stick on surfaces, but also on people, allowing you to spectate a bugged npc (or player!) from afar.
Of course, breaking or changing cover will immediately break the camera on a bugged spy. While the D-eye is a potent visual tool, its feed provides no audio, leaving you without crucial information if you stay watching for too long. With the possibility of setting two remote cameras, the D-eye can be used in a wide variety of creative ways and we can’t wait to see you all use it on the field.
The D-Eye has been added to regular account progression and is unlocked at account level 25.
Character Kit Reworks It’s been a long time coming, but we’ve finally taken the jump and decided to give ourselves the time necessary to change existing abilities entirely. We have a list of abilities we want to revisit and they could not all fit within this update to reach the level of polish and usability we wanted. We have chosen a selection of abilities that we feel are both boring and very strong to start things off.
New Chavez Expertise 2: ALL-STAR Immovable object becomes an unstoppable force. Cooldown: 40s It has become a bit of a meme how passive Chavez is as a character. The entirety of his toolkit is built with a very defensive approach which leaves very little lee-way to create a different build for him. His expertise 2 is the biggest offender in that regard. The resistant status effect has always been a contentious subject and having a playstyle that rewards you for simply standing in a circle while shooting was not very interesting.
Enter ALL-STAR, a new expertise replacing unshakable fortresses starting now.
ALL-STAR puts Chavez into a stance where he gains amped up, but cannot shoot for 5 seconds. During that stance, he can shove any npc he enters in contact with. When colliding with a spy, Chavez deals 15 damage and breaks both his and their cover while shoving them away with FORCE.
Additionally, Chavez can open doors immediately by ramming them in this stance if he either has the intel/keycard to open it or if it’s already unlocked. The intel will still be consumed when opening a door in this way, but it won’t stop your charge, allowing for very decisive actions.
New Ace Expertise 2: Heat Vision Hunt troublemakers like never before. Cooldown: 35s
Adding more damage on top of Ace’s base output has been a problem for a while. Having an expertise that hinges entirely on adding DPS is a very difficult act to balance. Nerf it too much and it becomes irrelevant, make it too strong and it becomes a must have to make the character viable.
With this new iteration of Ace’s expertise 2, we are moving away from damage entirely and digging deeper into Ace’s tracker identity.
Heat Vision is a new expertise that puts Ace into a state where she can detect players that have accumulated heat. This will create a heat zone, a large area that highlights everyone in it, npc and spies alike. The more heat the player has, the tighter the zone, making finding who is the perpetrator easier for Ace.
Heat Vision will start tracking players with half a heat level
Heat Vision lasts 25 seconds and has a range of 90 meters.
The precision of heat zones is influenced by how much heat the rival has, the more heat, the tighter and less noisy it is.
We want this new expertise to fill a different niche between her base tracking and big blind, giving a dynamic way to track players that have gotten in over their heads.
Yu-Mi Bubbles Rework Yu-Mi expertises are getting a rework of this update, changing how they function to both make them better zoning tools, but also add counter play to how rivals deal with them.
Core Changes Yu-Mi now shoots a central pellet that is visible and present at the point of impact that created the bubble. This pellet can be shot by rivals, shutting down the bubble instantly and kicking off Yu-Mi’s cooldown immediately. This adds a whole new angle on how to place bubbles for a Yu-Mi player and gives us much more room to expand their functionality from a design perspective. Let’s dig into the buffs that go along with this.
Expertise 1: EMP Blast Range and duration has been extended for the base bubble, allowing denials of large corridors and overall a much more potent zoning tool than before. In addition to this, the base bubble now deals a small damage over time (1 damage per second) component, making rivals respect Yu-Mi’s space more than before.
Expertise 2: Healing Bubble Bubble size has been increased to allow play around the placed destructible core and duration has been expanded like the base bubble.
Healing ticks happen more often. Every .75s instead of 1 second.
To compensate for the range being bigger and ticks being faster, we reduce health per tick from 10 to 5. The overall healing from a single bubble is now 25% higher than before, but in a 20 second period instead of 10 seconds making it less efficient at quick fill up but better in prolonged engagement (provided no one destroys your bubble core!)
Expertise 3: Nano Fields Range has been increased across the board. Duration is now longer when NOT stuck to a character to give a use zoning use case when used on the environment. As you can see we also changed the name of the ability to clarify its functional difference vs the EMP bubble.
Nano Field Radius: 2.5m => 3.3m Duration when not stuck: 7.5s =>20s Duration when stuck is the same as before (7.5s)
Passive 3: Booby Traps Booby traps bubble got the same overall treatment as others: Bigger size, longer duration, but a destroyable core that allows the player to get rid of them immediately at the cost of shooting. They also feature the small damage over time from the base version, giving a bigger deterrent for rivals to enter their range.
A note on further character changes: We are well aware that many more elements in the game could benefit from the treatment we are giving to abilities in this update.Yu-Mi’s passive options have always been problematic, Larcin’s Expertise 2 is something we’ve long wanted to change and Hans’s kit is something we are looking to change in a more engaging direction, just to name a few candidates.
We will be sharing more changes incoming for more characters in the future, but we need to keep the list relatively tight to be able to deliver these changes in a polished fashion. We want to be very clear that we don't consider these picks to be the only abilities that need changing.
General Changes Map Variants To increase match variety, we are introducing the concept of map variants with two maps to start things off. Variants will allow us to change time of day and even some gameplay elements in the future. To start with, these two maps are: Fragrant Shore by Night and Hard Sell Morning.
Both maps will feature an additional VIP (Luana visiting Hard Sell and Garcia visiting Fragrant Shore) to give them a bit of a unique flavor.
Hard Sell Morning
Fragrant Shore Night
Map Update The Yacht has arrived in Fragrant Shore, ready to replace the security truck as the host of vault terminal C. We have transformed the truck into a staff room, giving a better spread of staff areas for the map. While the rework of Fragrant C is the big attraction in the update, we have tweaked a lot of areas including giving more cover in Hard Sell’s vault and adding a bit of visual occlusion on Silver Reef’s balconies with the addition of doors.
Keycard Printer Changes Expanded possible spawn position and added a new system that ensures that no two printers are too close together, making a better spread inside the vault with more variance.
Extraction phase tweaks We’ve made two changes to how the extraction phase plays out based on player feedback.
First of all, the phase will now get extended by 30 seconds each time the package changes hands. This is a new initiative to limit games where a long chase ends up in a draw because nobody has time to turn in the briefcase in the end.
In addition to this, we are making turning in the briefcase at the extraction much faster if you are the last spy/ team standing. This will allow you to end things more quickly and get ready to queue up again in a faster fashion.
First Package Capture XP Event We have added a new source of XP rewarding the player (or team) that captured the package first. This is an additional 500 XP which means that grabbing the package first is worth it even if you don’t manage to extract in the end.
Guards behavior Tweaks We have modified how guards react to danger events a bit more this update. We have made the bullet impacts location less likely to attract guards by making them occluded by the environment in a more aggressive way. In practice, this means you will get much less situations where a stray bullet from a fight attracts a guard from far away, leaving the danger events around you to be the most important part of aggro.
Elite Guards Social Interacts Update Elite guards can now also use normal guards' social interaction spots, greatly expanding their blending abilities.
Beginner Queue Update We have made important changes to the beginner queue:
Added Feedback and opt out feature We have added a clear feedback that you are currently in the beginner queue and will thus encounter bots in your matches. This can now be opted out of at any time in general settings. You can return to the beginner queue as long as you are within the allowed levels at any time if leaving it proves to be too much!
ADS Setting A new “toggle ADS” setting has been added in the option menu.
Balance Full ability reworks are listed at the top with major features, we will not describe them here and will focus on smaller balancing changes.
Suspicion We have added a lot of features to suspicion in the last update that made it less of a factor in a lot of situations. While these changes have overall been quite positive, we want to turn back some knobs to keep suspicion relevant in situations where it should be while deepening its overall interactions.
Upped NPC vision distance, increasing from where suspicion is gained 20m => 25m
Blowing cover no longer flush all suspicion, it regens at the normal rate while out of cover instead. This will limit the value of cover regen vs suspicion (while still keeping intact the value of recovering itself).
We added “scolding” as part of the feedback displayed on your portrait. This now also ties into suspicion, allowing you to run after wrongly covered players to scold them without building suspicion.
Retinal Scanner The retinal scanner was introduced during an event where VIPs were abundant, making the likelihood of seeing it being used higher than outside of events. We feel we’ve put too many guard rails to prevent its use, limiting how it can change matches in a meaningful way. As such, we are lowering one of these guard rails by reducing the minimum before which players can start interacting with the scanner.
Time before scanner can be used 7 minutes => 5:30 minutes
Reducing starting intel amount from 40 to 30.
Intel Reduction per terminal reduced from 10 to 5 (40-30-20=> 30-25-20)
We don’t think this will change the use of retinal scanners in a major way, we will be looking at future developments to make them a more viable option, but we felt reducing requirements in the meantime would be the right move.
Agents Ace The Jack of Diamond has been in a rough spot against other alternatives in Ace’s arsenal. We are trying to give it a more distinct advantage in the fire rate department.
Weapons Weapon 2: Jack of Diamond
Passive Charge time .3s => .27s
Charge delay after shot .65s => .55s
Fire rate 1.35 => 1.65 shot per second
Visual indicator added to clearly show when the mark is ready.
Cavalière For Cavalière, we are looking at expanding the utility of her expertise 2 in a more significant way in the future, but we wanted to increase its range a bit for now to make it more reliable. We are also looking into a more in depth rework of expertise 3 to give it a clearer use case vs her base option.
Expertise Expertise 2: It’s a Setup
Significantly expanded investigation zone size to make it easier to use in big rooms.
Madame Xiu Xiu’s expertise 2 is the clear winner for her kit giving her unparalleled mobility and a lot of options to get out of a fight. We want to put it more in line with her other expertises and make it more of a decision to decide when to use it rather than always having it as an emergency.
Expertise Expertise 2 Serpent’s Bluff
Reduced time to recall from 20s to 12s.
Decreased cooldown refund when expiring to prevent players from always applying it preventively. 80% refund => 50% refund.
A note about passive 3: We are aware that xiu’s passive 3 is currently performing too well and we are testing solutions internally for this. We hope to deploy a change to this passive soon to even the odds with other choices in xiu’s arsenal.
Octo Our focus around Octo is to make his base expertise feel smoother and more useful to use. We are also adjusting his expertise 3 cooldown a bit to better fit how strong it can be in fights.
Expertise Expertise 1 Cashing Out
Expanded max distance 20m => 25m
Expanded max angle 110 => 120
Expertise 3 Make’Em Fold
Cooldown 40s => 50s
Red Weapon Weapon 2 : Jack of hearts
Reduced Red Dot size in ADS to help with precise shots at long range.
Vigil Vigil is getting a variety of small touch ups with the goal of making her more comfortable to play overall. Her base weapon has become quite dependent on landing ALL your shots with our past nerfs, so we want to bring back some leeway in using it without going back to its dominant original version.
Weapon Weapon 1 : Caliburn
Shots before overheating raised 17 => 20
Base ammo and ammo per box raised 35 => 38
Expertise Expertise 1: Smoke Launcher
Smoke projectile travel speed is now twice as fast to allow long distance shots more easily.
Passive Passive 3 EMF Jammer
The jammer now prevents NPCs from opening doors, not just spies.
The jammer no longer prevents you and your allies from getting intel.
Yu-Mi Yu-Mi has gotten a lot of changes on the expertise front, but her passive is another beast entirely. We want to look into the passive in a deeper way to make them more interesting and more fair, but the workload needed to do so was not realistic for this update. In the meantime, we are adjusting the quick fix reduction to a lower value that is less disruptive to the overall game.
With gadgets having longer cooldown overall than at launch, a cooldown reduction has gotten more valuable over time.
Passive Passive 1 Quick Fix
Gadget cooldown reduction 65% => 50%
Gadgets With the addition of new gadgets to the roster, we also wanted to overhaul some under-powered picks in the roster by giving them added utility. We are also making some much needed adjustment to the deployed shield to make it less of a standout vs the rest of the gadget options.
Mimic
Reduced “exit sound” range significantly to make the mimic more subtle unless someone is very close to you. 25m => 10m.
Remote Turret
The remote turret will now attack rivals' gadget as their lowest priority target, allowing it to be used to destroy rival setup without risking your own cover.
Scrambler
No longer jams intel for you and your team when active. Only rivals!
The scrambler now pauses vault printers that are currently printing.
Handheld scrambling range is now the same as the dropped version. 6m => 15m
Restored the possibility of having the keep its “on” status when stashed.
Tripwire
Tripwires can now stick to walls and ceilings, opening up a whole new world of devious plays!
Umbrella Shield
Dismantle time for rival players reduced 1.5s => .8s
Deployed shield HP reduced 100 HP => 75HP
Deployed shield lifetime 20s => 12s
Bug Fixes General
Reduction of npc “jittering” when controlled by a player.
Fixed issues with IRIS using the wrong voice line during extract.
Scared NPC will no longer accidentally crouch on a down NPC, reviving them instantly in the middle of a fight.
Fixed an issue where downing a player exactly 100 to 109 levels above you would yield no XP.
Fixed an issue with simulated impulses to prevent a desync between a player position and their npc disguise.
Fixed an issue with NPC door avoidance, leading to npcs getting stuck in doorways.
Fixed an issue that led to players gaining their expertise immediately during early match cooldown if they looted an expertise cooldown powerup.
Fixed some security scanners not sounding the alarm on staff disguises.
Fixed an issue that led to items dropped by a spy when downed to not be lootable for a period of time.
Fixed an issue where IRIS and dialogue subtitles would overlap.
Echelon ranks for friends in party now display correctly in the main menu.
Agents Ace
Fixed an issue where Ace would apply her base expertise on the wrong character after shooting someone because of the camera movement from recoil.
Cavalière
Fixed an issue where Cavalière’s passive status effect would sometimes not apply.
Fixed an issue where melee animations would not play correctly in 3P.
Fixed an issue where printers that were currently printing were blocked because the interaction is locked.
Hans
Fixed an issue where expertises for hans would not play their animations in third person.
Larcin
Fixed an issue where the “souffre-douleur” passive would not make a spy drop an item from a tripwire cover blow unless Larcin hit them earlier in the match.
Madame Xiu
Fixed an issue where NPCs previously used by Xiu would keep their allied outline in teams.
Fixed clipping for the starfish collection skin in the endgame screen.
Octo
Fixed an issue where Octo would be considered “Full Ammo” at max intel instead of full ammo.
Sasori
Fixed an issue where players could bypass delays on charging kunais by swapping to an umbrella shield.
Squire
Fixed an issue where having two sources of amped up (from passive and expertise) would lead to situations where they cancel each other out.
Vigil
Vigil will now go back to ads once the overheat on her base weapon is done if the input is still held.
Yu-Mi
Fixed an issue: Yu-Mi status effects could stay stuck if two bubbles from two different Yu-Mi overlapped together.
Map All Maps
Upgraded light bake quality in all maps leading to higher quality static shadows and detail.
Diamond Spire
Tweaks to audio occlusion between floors, preventing sounds from the rooftop from being heard on the lowest floors in certain spots.
Fragrant Shore
Fixed an issue where players could spawn under stairs in rare conditions.
Fixed an issue where two keycards could spawn inside the same guard room inside the clock tower.
Hard Sell
Fixed some lab door frames that allowed Octo’s Nautilo to cause damage through them.
Silver Reef
Fixed an issue that led to the retinal scanner costing less intel than intended in Silver Reef when vault terminals were disabled.
Fixed multiple instances of duplicate food in the map, allowing players to eat twice.
Fixed multiple overlapping interacts that could lead to npc stacking together in areas.
Sound Eclipse
Fixed a spot where players could clip into a wall in a blue room and still be able to shoot.
Gadgets Drone
The drone boost speed was lowered in an unintended side effect. It’s now back to its original boost speed.
Turret
Fixed issues melee-ing the turret because of a mismatch between the state on client vs server.
Agents, We are back for another look into new elements coming with season 5. This time, let’s take a look at what’s new in the maps department with the introduction of map variants ! We want to increase variety when you queue into a match, adding new elements that make matches mo
Agents,
We are back for another look into new elements coming with season 5. This time, let’s take a look at what’s new in the maps department with the introduction of map variants!
We want to increase variety when you queue into a match, adding new elements that make matches more different from each other. The map variant system was built with that in mind, allowing us to spin off an existing map in a new version with its own unique element without doubling the work required for the team. These map variants can then be added in the matchmaking pool with the original version of the map to expand match variety.
To inaugurate the concept, we have created two map variants that will present a whole new vibe for Fragrant Shore and Hard Sell!
In addition to featuring a new time of day with bespoke lighting conditions, these maps will both feature Luana and Garcia as dual VIPS, raising the chances of using a retinal scanner to open the vault and creating different gameplay situations from the base maps.
Here’s a visual sneak peak of what you can expect with a bonus look at a whole new area for fragrant shore.
Agents, Player feedback and participation were helpful during yesterday’s testing period. To ensure the update provides the best player experience possible upon final release, the test will be extended to run today. Additionally, during this PC test, bots will be added to the mix
Agents,
Player feedback and participation were helpful during yesterday’s testing period. To ensure the update provides the best player experience possible upon final release, the test will be extended to run today. Additionally, during this PC test, bots will be added to the mix to help with the effect of not having access to crossplay. Please keep in mind that this is a temporary adjustment specifically for the duration of this backend change test only and will be reverted once the testing is complete. Double XP will continue. The team will monitor for player feedback, and any reports of oddities will be beneficial. As always, we appreciate your continued support.
Agents, Deceive Inc. will undergo a backend update today at 11:00 AM EDT. This rollout will start with PC players on both Epic and Steam. During the first 24 hours of this update PC players will be isolated from console players and the ability for crossplay between PC and console
Agents,
Deceive Inc. will undergo a backend update today at 11:00 AM EDT. This rollout will start with PC players on both Epic and Steam. During the first 24 hours of this update PC players will be isolated from console players and the ability for crossplay between PC and console will be temporarily unavailable. The development team will be monitoring the update during this time. We ask that any PC players who experience any oddities or issues please report them as soon as possible so we may address any complications as quickly as possible. The backend update will then roll out to the console platforms, barring any issues. We thank you for your patience during these necessary steps and will provide double XP during the initial 24 hours of the update.
