Champions,
Pacific League is sending another Champion to the Circus. Welcome Kenny Zhu on **November 20** at 10:00 AM CEST / 04:00 AM EDT / 01:00 AM PDT. **

Estimated downtime for the update: up to 4 hours

Please see details below for more information

UPDATE 0.8

Features:

• New Champion: Kenny Zhu 2x T1 skin (plus one color variation) 1x T2 skin (plus one color variation)
• Champion rebalancing to 5-star system (see explanation below)
• Tackle & dodge now consume stamina together with sprint (see explanation below)
• Dodge redesign to pure movement ability, no longer has tackle immunity frames (see explanation below)
• Ball now bounces off stunned champions instead of moving through them (see explanation below)
• Introducing Stamina pick-ups
• Player Avatars
• Player Like feature - vote for your favorite player after each match
• Pixel Avatar DLC pack
• Ellika Wrestler skin purple & Steampunk skin blue purchasable
• Gameplay & general bug fixes

Improvements:

• Added additional visual feedback for ball carrying champions
• Added skill VFX for Galena’s vortex
• Releasing the emote/spray tag/quickmatch button will now spawn the emote for kbm controls instead of clicking it
• Pick-ups and skill cooldowns will be reset at Overtime
• New Stamina bar behavior above player. The bar has three color states now: Yellow: Enough stamina, Orange: Sprint only, Red blinking: Out of Stamina

Bug Fixes:

• Galena's Discontinuity now correctly cancels Lochlan's Warsong.
• Acrid's "no mask" skin works again.
• Ellika’s shield cannot be dodged anymore.
• Acrid does now correctly bounce the ball away (to the front/side) when just starting Rampage when he’d otherwise catch the ball.
• No champion can sprint anymore with their skill previews on display. It’s the same for all now.
• Fixed a specific matchmaking issue keeping some players from queueing up
• Fix for matchmaking issues on Asian servers

Please let us know what you think. Feedback is - as usual - highly appreciated and welcome

DETAILS:

New Champion: Kenny Zhu

Kenny is a 21-year-old good looking daredevil who likes nothing more than competition and risk-taking. His skills allow him to perform rapid positional changes making him especially dangerous for counter plays.

Afterburner
Kenny activates his engines to propel himself forward while leaving a fiery trail behind. Opponents touching the flames take damage.

Air Strike
Kenny takes off like a rocket flying up high in the air, to strike down anywhere on the playfield shortly after. Opponents near the impact are pushed back.

Gameplay Changes

We are introducing a few changes to the overall balance of the champions as well as the core gameplay of SC. Before there are any specifics a few words about the reasoning and motivation behind those changes:

We always envisioned SC as a game focused on teamplay positioning and movement, we also wanted it to be a fast-paced game with constant tactical decision making. There are a few features we were never truly happy with for various reasons. Over the last weeks took a few steps back to come up with an improvement to the following features, sprinting, stamina management as well as tackle & dodge. Additionally, we looked at all champions, rebalanced them completely resulting in more noticeable differences in playstyle. Additionally, we fixed a ton of skill bugs and tweaked interactions between skills.

As always the final step after such changes is to release it to you for feedback. Please try to keep an open mind and let us know what you think, like and dislike. Be aware that it will take a few matches until you get used to the changes.

Champion 5 Star Rating
All champion attributes are now balanced around 5 stars instead of 3. This also means that the difference between a 1-star attribute and a 5-star attribute is bigger than it was between 1 and 3-star attributes.
*New attribute Stamina, which is the energy required to sprint as it used to be, but now also required to perform tackles and dodges, more on that later. Stamina pools have gotten bigger and replenishment slower.
*Sprint now means an actual difference in sprint speed
*Acceleration and deceleration for both base movement speed and sprint speed is no longer different per champion
*Overall the speed difference between sprinting and base movement has been brought closer together slightly

Tackle & Dodge
*Tackle and dodge have now a very short cooldown, so short you are no longer restricted by it. However, both abilities cost stamina. This change makes stamina management a crucial aspect of the game putting more emphasis on tactical decision making rather than using skills when they are available not being on cooldown.
*Another big issue that I am sure all of you hate is the impact of latency when it comes to resolving tackles and dodges. No matter how much we'd optimize there would always be situations where you feel that you dodged correctly but you still got tackled and lost the ball. In those situations, you feel cheated and frustrated. To solve this issue we decided to make a radical change. Dodge no longer makes you tackle immune for a few frames, you can still move through opponents like you used to. Further, speed and distance of dodge has been increased.

Stamina Pickups
*New type of pickup on a rather short cooldown rate which replenishes only a small amount of stamina.
*Three of the 6 arenas have stamina pickups, we are still debating if all arenas should get stamina pickups or not, as always your feedback is highly appreciated.

Ball Collision
The ball no longer passes through champions who are in a state where they can not pick up the ball, instead is collides and bounces off. States, where champions can not pick up the ball, are: being pushed, stunned and also Cap's turret mode.

Steel Circus team