Hey everyone!
First of all, thank you to everyone who played during Last Flag’s open beta last month, and a special thanks to those that took the time to send us feedback. This goes doubly for those who have been on this journey with us even longer and have helped shape Last Flag into the game it is today.
Throughout the beta we kept up with your discussions, read through feedback posts and forum threads, watched your videos and live streams, and investigated your bug reports. As you can imagine, our release build will have a lot of updates, tweaks, adjustments, and bug fixes. Many of these changes are a result of everything you shared with us.
Today, we’d like to share a few insights with you about what we’re addressing before showtime on April 14. Some of the improvements mentioned below could still change before launch, and the patch notes at launch will have the finalized list, but we couldn’t wait to highlight a few of them for you ahead of time.
Contestants and Balance
Coming in at number one, and surprising no one, we received a lot of feedback on the contestants, their abilities, and balance in general. We’ve made quite a few adjustments to contestant tuning as a result.
Before we get to that, there are a few general changes that are worth mentioning:
Shared Adjustments
Finishing Moves
We reworked our finishing moves so that you now get a small amount of healing at the start and then a big dose at the end, instead of receiving the entire heal at the beginning.
This makes doing a finishing move in the middle of a fight a bit trickier, which is how it’s intended to be.
Cashbots and Melee Contestants
We’ve given our melee characters a damage boost when attacking cashbots.
It was a bit hard for Knives and Lumberjack to deal with our wily mechanical friends, and this evens things out a bit. Despite cries from some voices of the community, we did not arm Cashbots to “make it a fair fight.”
Launchpads
Players who are down but not out can now use launchpads.
It’s fun and it might save your life!
Radar Tower Reveal Rate
Radar towers now reveal minimap squares a bit faster.
It takes about 2 seconds less for a square to be revealed, which might not seem like a lot but makes a difference over the course of a match. The intention here is to more rapidly narrow the search area and get to a flag find faster. We felt that a smidge too many games went to overtime during beta. When teams are able to locate one or both flags more quickly, it creates a little more room for back-and-forth flag thefts before overtime kicks in.
Knockback Damage
We’ve removed several instances of the secondary knockback damage that you received when you were thrown into something.
Did you know that getting knocked into an object or a wall could deal extra damage to you? This added a second layer of damage to certain abilities, which made them a bit tricky to balance. Tango’s mine is a good example: In certain locations, you could take a lot of damage very quickly because you’d been bounced against a wall. We didn’t remove all instances of knockback damage since it feels reasonable to keep for certain abilities, such as Lumberjack’s Grand Slam.
Beyond those general adjustments, here’s some changes more specific to each of the contestants:
Contestant Adjustments
Knives
A lot of people have thoughts about our South Korean stealth menace! We received feedback that Knives was a bit punishing in the beta, and we agree. We’ve reigned in her main weapon damage to bring down her overall damage output. We’ve also toned back her alt-fire damage, while making it a little easier to land.
Daggers (Main Weapon)
Attack damage reduced from 50 to 40.
Attack range reduced from 3 meters to 2 meters.
Dagger Throw (Alt-Fire)
Damage reduced from 13 per dagger to 10.
Dagger Throw now has a flatter arc and faster movement speed to hit targets more easily.
For the moment, we think that her Stealth is in a good place. Yes, you can perform a variety of actions while stealthed. But that does alert other players to the fact that a stealth contestant is nearby. We think that’s a fun nut to crack for everyone involved.
We’ll keep monitoring and listening to feedback, especially after seeing how the changes to her attacks land with the community.
Lumberjack
Lumberjack is one of our harder contestants to play. He is a big target, and when you’re out in the open you can take a lot of damage. In the right hands he can be devastating, but we still felt he needed a bit of a buff.
Axes (Main Weapon)
Damage increased from 40 to 45.
Attack range increased to 2 meters.
Lumberjack’s abilities are no longer locked during melee attacks.
For that last point about ability-locking, there was a window where you couldn’t use one of your abilities immediately after a melee attack, which doesn’t feel good. Fixing this will let you chain a melee hit into a Grand Slam and then Dive Roll right into your target, which is more dynamic.
Internally, we’ve also done quite a bit of experimenting with how Lumberjack's Axe Throw moves targets. We weighed how it feels for the Lumberjack player and his targets, and ultimately decided to leave it as-is. This powerful move repositions targets into your melee range. It is a cornerstone of his kit that we believe empowers him to compete effectively in the right hands.
Dive Roll (Q)
Swapped the order of the upgrades on Dive Roll.
Some in the community told us they would like Dive Roll’s movement to work differently, but after giving these suggestions consideration we’ve decided not to change how it functions. Whenever we add a movement ability to a contestant, we try to make them different from what other contestants already have. We also strive to match the needs of the contestant.
In the case of Dive Roll, it is meant as an attack move to close the distance with enemies. It only goes in one direction, but it’s quick. Once fully upgraded, it covers a large distance while interrupting the target on impact. We did swap the order of the upgrades so that the range increase comes first, which will allow you to close distance quickly with a smaller investment.
Grand Slam (E)
Can now hit targets who are up to 3 meters away.
Forest Wrath (Ultimate)
Increased damage reduction while in ultimate form, from 5% base and 15% upgraded to 15% base and 25% upgraded.
Bounty Hunter
Bounty Hunter is interesting, because he didn’t get as much play during the Beta as some of our other contestants, yet we saw mixed feedback on his overall power level. Some felt he was far too strong, while others believed he might be underpowered. As a result, we took an approach to buff certain aspects while nerfing a few others.
Shotguns (Main Weapon)
Reworked Shotgun damage to make it more consistent from one shot to the next.
Ammo reduced from 8 to 4.
Damage reduced from 8 per pellet to 6 per pellet (a single shot is made of several pellets.)
We reworked how Julius' weapon delivered its damage because its output was very inconsistent. We have bumped up his minimum damage and reduced his maximum, so his potential for damage output with his main attack is much more controlled and predictable..
Julius is still quite powerful and has a lot of tools at his disposal, but now he deals a bit less attack damage and has to reload a lot sooner. Keep in mind he also has the Killer Buff passive, which gives him a temporary 15% damage buff after downing an enemy.
Unload (Alt-Fire)
Increased the max number of Unload charges from 2 to 3.
Can now be used to cancel reloading.
Jail Time (E)
Capture radius increased from 3 meters to 4 meters.
When the Jail Cell is destroyed, it now knocks the target straight back rather than in a random direction.
Upgrade 1: Increased the damage over time from 10 damage per tick to 20 per tick.
Scout
Generally, Scout is in a good place, so we gave him fewer adjustments. However, we did agree with feedback that his ultimate ability, Metal Storm, could use a bit of a boost and made some changes there to help it feel more impactful. We also wanted to front-load the damage buff upgrade for Falcon Eye, because it’s always nice to do a bit more damage a bit sooner into a match.
Falcon Eye (Q)
Swapped the order of Falcon Eye’s upgrades.
Metal Storm (Ultimate)
Damage increased from 90 to 110.
Swapped the order of Metal Storm’s upgrades.
Upgrade 1: Now slows enemies in the ability’s area of effect, in addition to the existing damage over time effect it applies.
Arsenal
Like Scout, we generally consider Arsenal to be in a pretty solid spot. Despite receiving lots of play time from folks who dove into the open beta, we didn’t receive much feedback for her in one direction or the other. So we largely left her alone, though we have made her turrets a little less tanky.
Tesla Turret (Q)
Lowered turret health from 190 to 140.
Banshee
Banshee already received quite a few tweaks at the start of the beta, and a few more partway through. Overall, we think she was in a pretty good place, but agreed with some community feedback that one more round of fine-tuning could really make her sing. We’ve made a few careful adjustments to her as a result.
Yumi Bow (Main Weapon)
Time to full draw reduced from 0.85 seconds to 0.6 seconds.
Full draw damage reduced from 72 to 60.
Half draw damage increased from 40 to 42.
Headshot damage modifier increased from 1.4x to 1.5x
Going forward, landing body shots will result in dealing a little less max damage, but you will get to your full draw damage much faster and have an increased damage modifier for headshots, which should help Banshee feel snappier than she did in the beta.
Roadie
Roadie was kind of showing his age in the beta. After a vigorous talking to from Masako, some calisthenics with Peter, and Camila taking a look at his gear, he’s come out of “training” in a much better place.
Grenade Launcher (Primary Weapon)
Direct hit damage reduced from 40 to 35.
Reload time reduced from 2 seconds to 1.4 seconds.
Magnet Grenade (Q)
The pull from Magnet Grenade now cancels an enemy Roadie’s Shield, and it can pull Skyfire off his jetpack during Rocket Joyride.
Shield (E)
Roadie now moves at normal speed while Shield is active.
Shield health increased from 200 to 280.
Activating Shield no longer interrupts reloading, and sprinting now cancels Shield.
The change to movement speed during Shield is a big one for Roadie, because you’re now much more mobile while it’s deployed. We’ve had a lot of fun playtesting these changes internally, and we hope you do too the next time you’re able to take Roadie for a test drive.
Skyfire
Our high-flying showman is the perfect choice for players who want to rain destruction from the skies. As our newest contestant, the beta provided a lot of great insights into areas where he could use a little tweaking to ensure he’s on par with the rest of the cast, and to make him feel even more fun to pilot.
Flamethrower (Primary Weapon)
Increased the time it takes for the Flamethrower to begin venting heat from 0.75 seconds to 1.4 seconds.
Adjusted the Flamethrower’s flame effects so that they more closely align with Skyfire’s reticle, and the visual now becomes more intense as your heat and damage levels rise.
Molten Splash (Alt-Fire)
Damage reduced from 40 direct and 25 splash damage to 35 direct and 20 splash damage.
Increased the heat generated by Molten Splash from 25% to 30% per shot.
Molten Splash was very strong and needed to be brought back into line. It remains powerful but hopefully more manageable. We also fixed a bug where the damage from the fire left behind by Molten Splash would stack, which really hurt.
Chain Anchor (Q)
No longer interrupts the target’s current action.
Now chains targets more quickly to prevent occasional instances where a contestant could incorrectly escape its area of effect.
Launch (E)
Now knocks back nearby enemies.
Skyfire can now move horizontally in the air during Launch.
Tango
Everyone loves Tango a bit too much, and the other contestants have been talking. They’re frankly a tad jealous, so we had to make some adjustments.
Assault Rifle (Main Weapon)
Damage reduced from 22 to 20 per shot.
Magazine capacity reduced from 25 to 18.
Adjusted the Assault Rifle’s damage falloff so that it’s less deadly at long range.
Recoil adjusted so that the kickback is slightly smoother and more forgiving.
Tango is taking a pretty significant change to the effective range of his base weapon. This does not change your effectiveness in your core range, but gives you a space where you're not as effective, a range that should be more in Scout’s domain.
Electrified Bolas (Q)
Stun duration reduced from 1.0 second to 0.5 seconds.
Proximity Mine (E)
Upgrade order swapped so that you can start dishing out more mines, earlier on.
Enemies that are knocked into a wall no longer take additional impact damage.
Bunker Buster Bazooka (Ultimate)
Direct hit damage reduced from 310 to 225 at base level, and 388 to 350 when upgraded.
Splash damage reduced from 157 to 90 at base level, and 192 to 140 when upgraded.
We want Tango’s Bazooka to feel powerful and exciting when you land a perfectly placed rocket at the enemy team’s feet. However, it was downing too many contestants in a single shot, and so we’ve decided to bring in its damage a bit.
Additional Feature Improvements
Alright, that was a look at what’s in store for the contestants, but players shared feedback with us on a wide variety of other topics, too. So let’s do a lightning round!
Matchmaking
Several different factors are taken into account when we matchmake players, including their matchmaking ratings (MMR). We biased a bit toward faster matchmaking during the demo, which meant that some games weren’t as balanced as they should be. Also, the demo helped us uncover bugs that could cause players to be placed into a match with a bad ping. We’ve addressed both areas so that we can provide a better matchmaking experience next time you queue up.
Combat Clarity
Some of you brought up concerns with combat clarity, and understanding what was happening in the middle of the action. We agree, and we’re hard at work to improve this. We have updated the visual hit impacts across all the contestants, we are in the middle of a big mixing pass of all our sounds, and we have completely reworked the directional hit indicator that appears when you take damage. We hope that will help address some of these issues and continue to look for other ways to improve things.
Bot Updates
In the release build, we’ve got lots of changes coming to our bots which will make them more enjoyable to play with and against. This includes lots of bug fixes, lots of tuning changes (generally to make them less deadly in a variety of ways), and lots of improvements on their behaviour. We’ve even added a separate mode for people who want to play against bots to get a better feel for the game or just because they feel it’s less pressure than playing against human opponents. You’ll still level up and earn cosmetics here just as if you were playing quick match!
More Maps
In addition to Copper Falls, we are adding the Snowfield map to the game at launch. We have two more maps in active development, one of which will come very soon after release. That third map will be a bit different, and we expect it will change things up. In general, we want to be delivering new battlegrounds for you to fight in and environments for you to explore as regularly and quickly as we can without compromising on their fun.
Easter Eggs
Some players mentioned finding squirrels on the map and were curious about their meaning. Fex Television would like to clarify that there are no squirrels. We do not speak of the squirrels.
Contestant Voice Lines
We’ve added a whole bunch of voice lines! All the contestants now have new voice lines they play and we are excited to add even more over time. For example, we want to add voice lines to pings to make them more effective.
Sprint Settings
We’ve added a setting to the gameplay options menu for sprinting that you can use to decide whether you would like to sprint when holding down the hotkey, or by pressing the button to toggle sprint on and off.
Player Reporting
Player reporting will be in the release build. If you encounter someone who is intentionally or repeatedly ruining the experience for other players, you will be able to let us know about them using in-game tools.
Thank you!
We hope you enjoyed this little peek behind the scenes at some of the changes we’re bringing to the game based on thoughts you shared during open beta. We can hardly believe launch is just weeks away, and we’re excited to get the Last Flag into your hands once and for all on April 14!
All the best,
- The Last Flag team.