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