News

Battleborn – Winter update is now live, unlocks all 25 core characters

14 Comments

Gearbox has released the Winter update for Battleborn. This update unlocks all 25 core characters for all players, introduces quests and two new training modes, comes with a number of improvements for the game’s Story mode, features a Draft mode and overhauls the game’s User Interface.

This patch also increases Command Rank and Character Rank, updates the in-game Economy, and improves performance.

The Winter update for Battleborn is 15GB in size and will be auto-downloaded from Steam.

You can read more about its content here. Below you can find a part of its huge changelog (full changelog can be found here).

General:

  • Command Rank maximum has been increased to 150, with additional rewards for each rank after rank 100.
    • Core Packs awarded for most Command Ranks
    • Legendary Packs awarded every 10 Command Ranks
    • New Titles awarded every 10 Command Ranks
    • “Battleborn” achievement still awarded at rank 100
  • Character Rank maximum for all characters has been increased to 20, with additional rewards for ranks 16-20.
    • Earn a Faction Pack for the associated character faction for each for ranks 16-20.
    • Earn new Character-specific titles at rank 17 and rank 20.
    • Character Mastery rewards are still granted at rank 15.
    • “First Among Heroes” achievement still awarded at rank 15.

Performance:

  • Numerous performance improvements to maps and FX content
  • Improved Command UI performance
  • Bandwidth improvements to reduce amount of data needed when replicating shield, health, experience, and stat data
  • Fixed a bug with map driven player alerts allowing them to be re-implemented using much less bandwidth
  • Optimized client and server processing of player profile data
  • Optimized purchase item functionality in Command UI
  • Optimized friends list functionality on the frontend

Training:

  • Added a Versus tutorial, featuring concepts from the Incursion game mode
    • Players will initially be able to access a single-player Incursion tutorial to learn the basics of the game mode
    • After completing the tutorial, players will be able to access a training experience that matches 3 players against 3 bots
  • Added a single-player Dojo training map

Capture:

  • Players now start at Level 3
  • Players now start with 500 Shards
  • Reduced the amount of time required to capture or neutralize a point from 8 seconds to 6 seconds
  • Increased Experience bonuses for capturing, occupying, and neutralizing capture points
  • Varelsi Scouts no longer drop Helix pickups when killed
  • Varelsi Scouts now drop 150 Shards when killed
  • Varelsi Scouts now provide the entire killing team with significant Experience
  • Varelsi Scouts no longer gain brief invulnerability while turning
  • Reduced the respawn time of small and medium Shard clusters from 30 seconds to 15 seconds

Interface:

  • The Command Menu has received a visual makeover!
    • New layout for the Information page
    • Stats page has received a major update
      • The “Objective” statistic has been replaced by a game mode-specific statistic in each Versus mode
      • Added Character Statistics for Best Damage Dealt, Best Healing Given, and Best Damage Taken
  • Added a new Gameplay option for Damage Number Styles
    • Show Combined Damage Numbers: Multiple instances of damage or healing will show a single combined number
    • Show Individual Damage Numbers: Multiple instances of damage or healing will show individual numbers for each instance
  • The default team colors have been changed to blue for allies and orange for enemies
  • Combined the “Extras” and “Options” menus.
  • Added attention-grabbing animation to Sentry health HUD bar when being attacked

Broadcaster Mode:

  • Added a first-person camera view (Go into the normal third-person follow-cam and then zoom in (mousewheel/LT-up) until the mode changes to first-person; go back to third-person again by zooming out.
  • Set first-person spectating preferences in the Options Menu (first-person only, third-person only, prefer-current and prefer-third)
  • Broadcasters now see skill targeting indicators in the third-person camera view
  • Broadcasters now see teleport timers when in both first-person and third-person camera views
  • When the killer of a spectated player taunts, the camera will automatically jump to spectate the taunting player.

FX:

  • Numerous FX adjustments have been made to reduce visual noise and improve performance
  • Improved the buildable cooldown timer bar
  • Added third person FX when a player respawns

 

John Papadopoulos

John is the founder and Editor in Chief at DSOGaming. He is a PC gaming fan and highly supports the modding and indie communities.Before creating DSOGaming, John worked on numerous gaming websites. While he is a die-hard PC gamer, his gaming roots can be found on consoles. John loved - and still does - the 16-bit consoles, and considers SNES to be one of the best consoles. Still, the PC platform won him over consoles. That was mainly due to 3DFX and its iconic dedicated 3D accelerator graphics card, Voodoo 2. John has also written a higher degree thesis on the "The Evolution of PC graphics cards." Contact: Email