UPDATE: Revival Event Rules and Ascended Armor are extended to Jan. 8
- After reading your feedback and looking at all available data since the patch, we’re seeing positive results (will explain in more detail), so we’re keeping all changes at least until our next patch on Jan 8. This is inclusive of: resurgence rules, ascending armor, audio pulses, and ranked point changes.
CONTEXT: Since the patch note is pretty much ‘keep the things on,’ let’s talk about the why.
First: engagement is obviously the most important thing we’re tracking (are players playing and sticking with the game), and that number has gone up, which is exciting. We also called a shot here in that we feel combat is SUPERVIVE’s best feature, so we spiked a set of changes that would get new and learning players more combat reps, which would theoretically help them see the magic of the game faster. To that point: we are seeing combat stats going up across the board for all teams which, when combined with engagement going up, seems to prove out the hypothesis. Very cool.
Second: we know these changes aren’t perfect, and there are deliberate tradeoffs we’re making to make the game much better for new and solo players (our current priority). We have plans for further iteration based on your feedback, but because we’re so close to the holidays (and candidly: very crispy), in choosing between “leave on to learn more” vs. “turn off,” we choose to leave on!
Third: speaking of, we know there’s a lot of conversation around our audio pulse changes. This is definitely the sharpest tradeoff we’re making, but philosophically we think it’s doing a lot of work for solo and newer players. Specifically: audio pulses give constant, ongoing strategic input to the whole team where before they were hidden behind UAV usage. Also, players are becoming a lot more aware of how their actions show up to enemy teams, which lets them get on that golden path to mastery faster. While we know this information is rather heavy-handed, in the same line of thinking as above, we think it’s better for the game holistically to leave on than turn off. We will iterate in the future!
Fourth and finally: we’ve heard feedback about those ranked point changes leading to stompier games at high level, as organized veteran squads teams are prioritizing team wipes faster. Honestly we’re okay with it because it means the incentives to win the game are… to clean out the lobby. Which it should be. Previously we were seeing/hearing that optimal play was to farm kills to hit the contribution cap (20 kills) before fully wiping teams, thereby creating trapped games until the lead team had farmed up. That’s weird behavior and likely speaks to large skill discrepancies between these teams in the first place.
Also, if games at the very high level are giga-stompy, we do see it as a tradeoff for walking back our team size restrictions at Master+ tier (and even then it didn’t make that much of a difference - we’d likely need to try pure solo at Master+ to make a dent, and that has other tradeoffs). Just to say it again: in a team-based game it gets very hard to find a fair match if the top 0.1% players all queue together in a single squad against a disorganized lobby. It’s why we’re giving custom game access to our top players—so they can at least try to run more balanced, organized games. This is just a larger problem to solve in the future, so for now we choose social play.
Thank you for reading this enormous wall of text - we hope even if you don’t agree with the changes, you at least understand our intent. Happy holidays everyone!
Welcome to PART 2 of the Cosmic Winter Jubilee patch notes. We've been listening to your feedback and share your feelings, so please read these patch notes with the belief that we hear you and are moving fast to improve SUPERVIVE. That is all. Thank you for staying with us, and we hope you enjoy all the new PROGRESSION updates!
[TIME LIMITED] Resurgence Revival Rules & Ascending Armor
This is a change aimed at solo and new players, as automating early-game revival rules will alleviate early death frustrations (also known as “does my teammate know what a resurrection beacon is?”) while ensuring everyone gets more combat reps (a proven delighter). We also acknowledge this is a bit of a stopgap solution and we’re making tradeoffs for it. It’s why we’re running it as a limited-time experiment rather than just yeeting it in with no brakes. I won’t color your feedback too much, but we’ve already made some pacing changes based on our veteran group playtest to ensure combat clarity stays clean in the mid to late game, and are excited to see how this pans out.
These new revival rules will run as an experiment from December 18th to the 20th - we will communicate via our official Discord and update this patch note page to let you know if the rules are turned off, partially turned off, or kept on due to overwhelmingly positive feedback :)
- For the first Day and Night, you will respawn in the air above a living ally after a delay
- You will respawn over the ally you’re currently spectating
- Respawn timer increases per respawn (increases individually)
- At the end of the first night, any player waiting to respawn will automatically respawn
- Regular respawn beacons begin ruined when these rules are active, and become regular beacons again when respawns end
- There’s a timer next to the minimap that indicates automatic respawn time remaining
Ascending Armor
When you introduce early game brawling, you’d better include some incentives!!! While the intrinsic reward of stomping your enemies is good enough for some, we felt we could pair the above change with more chase, so: introducing Ascending Armor. This is an explicit, always-on reward for those who choose violence.
• Dealing damage to enemy hunters will always progress your current armor towards upgrading to the next tier. Actions that improve your armor include:
- Dealing damage to enemy hunters
- Knocking enemy hunters
- Assisting knocks on enemy hunters
• Damage thresholds ramp heavily the higher tier the armor becomes:
- 2000 points to hit Green
- 5000 points to hit Blue
- 15000 points to hit Gold
- 20000 points to hit Red
• You do not gain any durability when you level armor up
Ranked Performance Score
We’re pulling up a change we were originally planning for our ranked update in January—both in anticipation of the new revival rules, but also because we want to reduce the ranked inflation that comes from especially bloody games.
- Previously: in addition to earning ranked points (RP) for placement, you also earn ranked points for all kills scored during the game
- Now: in addition to gaining points for placement, you will earn ranked points for “final kills” or “team eliminations”
- Final Kills: If you were the last team to kill a player before their team was eliminated, you will gain +3 RP (squads) or +4 RP (duos)
- Team Elimination: If you kill the last player on a team and knock that team out of the game permanently (thereby eliminating them), you will gain a bonus +2 RP on top of the final kill score
- To earn final kill points, your team has to outlast the other (ie. if your team kills 3 enemies on a team, your team gets eliminated, and then the enemy team is eliminated, you will not get final kill points)
Holiday Progression & Cosmetics
We made an easy reference guide over here so you know what’s up for earning over the holiday season. We’ll document the changes here for visibility:
Hunter Mastery Pass
- Running until January 8, 2025, every level of Hunter Mastery you have or earn over this time will contribute that amount of points toward the Hunter Mastery Pass (so if you have Hunter Mastery 1 for Celeste, you’ll have 1 point—if you progress to Hunter Mastery 2 for Celeste, you’ll gain 2 points, totalling 3 points)
- Get enough Hunter Mastery levels spread across any number of hunters, and you’ll unlock enough VIVE Points to unlock any legendary variant (or a bunch of goodies in the shop), as well as an exclusive Santa (?) wisp and titles!
Mastery Level 6
- We’ve added another reward to Hunter Mastery level 6, which grants 150 VP - enough to buy a rare skin! This change is permanent so don’t feel like you gotta hit 6 right now - we’re just letting you know.
Expanded Holiday Store and VIVE Points for Cosmetics
- In case you were wondering what to do with those points, we’re expanding the shop to include rare skins, gliders, wisps, and emotes that can all be purchased with your earnable VIVE Points
Hunters
The goal here is to bring a few Hunters who were a bit out of the meta, back in. Welcome back, friends.
Void
Gravity Orb (LMB)
- Bloom resets faster
- Unempowered shots no longer pierce terrain but now go 35% further (700 >>> 950)
Swap (SHIFT)
- Cooldown has been reduced from 12/9/9 >>> 10/7/7 seconds
Unstable Anomaly (Q)
- Bomb initial damage increased 10%
Ghost
MK7 Glyph Rifle (LMB)
- Unempowered damage increased 20%
Spike Grenade (RMB)
- Damage increased 20%
Arcane Railgun (Q)
- Beam now deals explosive damage (blast Oath shields with it!)
Myth
Greenwood Bow (LMB)
- Green LMB perfect shot damage increased 5%
- All Blue LMB damage increased 10%
Shiv
Continuing our work to add more exciting level 3 options.
Chain Bolas (RMB)
- Level 3 now combines Malice stacks on all targets hit
Farstep Dagger (Q)
- Level 3 now refreshes Quickflip’s cooldown on enemy impact
Felix & Brall
We’re removing some ‘boops’ on abilities that add a lot of ‘movement corrections’ where - if you have a mid-to-high ping - you’d get hit by the ability and then micro-teleported because your client predicted you’d be in one place while the server knows you’re about 2cm off the mark (and then forcibly ‘corrects’ you to that spot). I won’t go further except to say: the magical spirit of online netcode dislikes fast, tiny movement disagreements between two clients and a server, so we are remediating.
- Felix - Embry Bolt (RMB) no longer knocks back targets on hit
- Brall - Caldera, Molten Greatsword (LMB) no longers knocks back targets on hit
Game Systems
It’s time to start improving the playing-against side of Stealth. While using Stealth can feel deceptive and fun, we’re seeing (and hearing) that Stealth warnings are too subtle. By the time you realize someone’s un-stealthed, it can feel within the range of - “you’re already dead!”
Stealth Nerfs (nerfs to Stealth, not secret nerfs)
- Increased inner and outer ring detection ranges for Stealth
- Volume brought up for Enemy Stealth SFX
- More changes coming in a future patch—this is just the first step
Map Pulses for Audio
Audio scouting is obviously much harder in a top-down game than a full 3D shooter, so we’re trying to make that skill a little more accessible and equitable for all.
- Enemy combat actions and loud sounds now show up as pulses on your minimap and megamap. Footsteps do not
- These pulses get less accurate the further they are from your location
Evil Keys
These have already felt too plentiful, and more PVP will likely drive the count higher. We’re nerfing the drop rate of Evil Keys so these feel more appropriately special and rare
- Reduced the spawn rate and maximum number of chests that can spawn each match
Wisps
We like that there's some conversational play when someone is down as a Wisp (I like to whisper to my teammates as I wiggle toward them), but we also want to increase urgency and tension for teammates who are considering rescuing you.
- Wisp bleedout time reduced from 30 >>> 15 seconds
Powers
Santa’s brought some new Powers to the Breach. Good luck out there.
- Jelly Cube
- Twister Blast
- Pocket Geyser