The Finals - Massive Ranked Changes. Twitch Drops & Giveaways. Patch Update 2.6
The finals just got their major patch, 2.6, and we have a ton of changes coming with that mid-season update. We also have to go over the brand new Twitch drops, and we even have a brand new community stream happening. We also have to go over all the new store items as well as the new bundles, and even some additional things happening with the battle pass.
We have a ton to talk about. It's Utopia back in with another article. Today we're checking out all things finals, okay? So, as always, let's jump into the opening statements again. We do have one with the Discord and one with the online patch notes. This time they are very different from each other, so as usual, we do have a post here from Embark.
Oscar goes on to say that of course we have that new game mode, the terminal attack, but they went on to say that it has no healing, no revives, and one life. Now they do actually detail what they mean by no healing here, where they're going on to say that players can regenerate up to 100 HP. Again, this does apply to all classes.
Gadgets do not regenerate at all, so engage with caution or go with a plan. Currently, terminal attacks are limited to Sis Horizon Monaco and Las Vegas, which are played through seven rounds unless someone reaches the four-round win limit. Now we also have some major changes to private matches that I talked about in yesterday's article.
Again, they're making that private match change to only need two players to start, and they're even adding pow shift to it. We have done a lot of testing there, and that's really cool that they're going to eat that cost there and allow you to start with just two players. They've also added those two bonus pages to the battle pass, and you can see those here, which do include four new items.
Really cool and Ain to something like Fortnite does where they do add those battle pass pages at the end of the season or near the middle of the season, now they also added pow shift to the soul map, so as you see, they are heating those things up and getting these game modes to different maps and the newer ones as well.
They also went on here to say that for the first time ever, they're adding an outfit bundle to the store where you can choose to buy an individual item from the bundle and not the entire bundle at once. It is important to note that this only applies to one bundle currently, so we will see if they do eventually add it to other bundles.
It doesn't include that for the disc bundle or the disc set there, you will have to buy that full bundle there, so currently that only applies to the aggressor bundle and not the other ones. We'll have to wait and see if they do eventually put that on the other bundles. Hopefully so, and then again.
Last but not least, they did talk about the Twitch traps, which I will go over in a bit. Again, here we do have an opening statement on the patch, not the version. Most of the things are fairly the same; however, they do have two notations, one on the anti-cheet as well as one in this new article, where they do disclose and go over the entire ring system.
This is a really good read, but I will summarize it as it's a very long article. So Matt La, the designer director of the finals, actually goes over a lot of the stuff here, where he explains the need for fair matches through skill-based matchmaking but also acknowledges that the difficulty in measuring skill applies.
With season 1, they introduced a league journey system, but it did have flaws. And then in season 2, they attempted a skill point system, but they faced many issues of synchronization between skill and league rankings. They got feedback from players that favor the traditional ELO rating system, which they do plan for season 3 to reset and improve the rank system with an end-of-match summary and a reduced duration of the seasonal journey.
The biggest change here is that they reduced the size of ranked tournaments from 48 to 24 players. This is because trying to find 48 players of the same skill level within that short matchmaking time is a bit difficult for them, or at least to match everybody up. Basically, it was too broad for those close and fun matches, so they cut the number in half to kind of get that easy, along with also kind of getting that skill.
Gap closed in they hope the changes for season 2 will give better experience there and create a much easier to understand process with the rank system in season 3. Again, this is a very long article, so if you want to look at it entirely. They also had a really long note in part here about the anti-che stuff, where they go on to say they have a multi-layer.
Defense system, including EA. And additional prevention methods. Originally, they did have Nexon Antiche involved there; however, the article for that, or at least where they used to have the article, is kind of gone. I'm not exactly sure if Nexon Anti-che is still working on the finals. I hope it does, and I think it does overall; however, when I looked back in my previous article, trying to find that article for it, it was completely gone and gave me an error 404.
So that Nexon stuff has been removed from the finals page; maybe it's just moved to a different location. In the FAQ section, it is also there, at least for the antiche, but they don't disclose about the Nexon anti-che. Of course, they go on here to say that they issue bands ranging from temporary to permanent, depending on the severity of the fence, and repeat offenders will face permanent bands.
They also disclose that they do have that new article program system on Discord, which I discussed in my last article to submit evidence, which also now, by the way, if you look on the scoreboard, it actually does showcase the numbers next to the name, so do make sure when you are recording or trying to submit article evidence that you do show the scoreboard so that way they can see those player numbers and player names, and then, of course, they said that the team is actively developing new technologies to combat cheating and ensure a fair gaming experience.
Now on to the actual patch notes. The big ones here are for balance, where the barricade got an increase of 20%. So now you'll see even larger barricades. Pretty cool adjustment wise, the glitch grenade got its glitch effect updated, so now that it will pass through mes shields and dome shields, this way it doesn't bounce off when you throw them, so definitely a nice buff there.
For the glitch grenade, the stun gun increased its projectile maximum distance from 12 to 16. However, it did get Nerfs there as well, or players who are stunned can now use their specializations and gadgets while stunned; they can also now aim down sights while stunned, and they can even Crouch. There was a dev note here that said that we felt the stun gun was a little too dominant as a gadget and led to too many slow, inevitable downs.
