Introduction
Welcome to the final patch of Early Access Season 3 Champions!
The mad mage Argus emerges from the depths, harnessing the full force of the Soul Storm and ready to wreak havoc on the battlefield with his devastating blend of magic and machinery!
Argus isn’t all we have for you this week however! V0.15 is sending out Season 3 with a bang, literally!
New Explosive Flowers have sprouted up across the map, which combined with some major improvements to Jungle AI and pathfinding means the battlefield is more dangerous than ever before!
This patch also sees the introduction of Amber, a brand new currency that’s replacing our previous method of Hero Acquisition, and the implementation of an entirely rebuilt backend alongside initial improvements to matchmaking.
That’s still not all! Alongside the usual sweep of balance changes, we’ve also overhauled item descriptions to make them easier than ever to understand, along with a few more changes that we hope you’ll enjoy!
V0.15 is no small patch and we’ve got a lot to get through, so let’s jump to it!
A New Hero Appears!
Harness the Soul Storm, with Argus!
The mad mage of Rowark is ready to show his might!
[previewyoutube=HPDXb0GtN4c;full][/previewyoutube]
An arcane engineer hell-bent on technological progress by mechanising magic, Argus is a deadly Midlaner who dominates the battlefield with slaughterous spells.
Abilities:
Disintegrate [Passive]:
Effect: Argus’s abilities apply a stack of Disintegration for 3s, causing subsequent instances of ability damage to deal 2 (+1.5% Magical Power) bonus magical damage.
Each stack of Disintegration deals 40% more damage, stacking infinitely (capped at 12 against Jungle Minions).
Flux Bolt [Basic Attack]:
BAT: 1.4
Effect: Ranged basic attack dealing 54 (+60% Bonus Physical Power) physical damage.
Dread Nova [Primary]:
CD: 16/15/14/13/12
Cost: 60/65/70/75/80
Effect: Argus lobs an unstable orb of arcane energy.
Upon landing it explodes, dealing 85/110/135/160/185 (+60% Magical Power) magical damage to all targets hit and stunning them for 1.25s.
Ether Crystal [Secondary]:
CD: 14
Cost: 60/65/70/75/80
Effect: Argus summons an Ether Crystal at the target location for 2s.
The Crystal will produce a storm that deals 20/30/40/50/60 (+18% Magical Power) magical damage every 0.5s to nearby Enemies and Slow them by 40% for 0.5s. After the duration the Crystal will implode, pulling all nearby Enemies within to the centre.
Particle Shredder [Alternate]:
CD: 6/5/4/3/2
Cost: 8/11/14/17/20
Effect: Argus fires projectiles from his Abyssal Staff for up to 3.5s. Each projectile consumes mana and deals 18/26/34/42/50 (+10% Magical Power) per blast.
At maximum rank, Particle Shredder may be fired indefinitely (provided you have the mana to spare).
Synaptic Obliterator [Ultimate]:
CD: 120/100/80
Cost: 100
Effect: After a short delay, Argus channels energy for up to 8s as he deploys his ultimate weapon and fires up to 3 powerful terrain-piercing energy beams that can travel up to 5000 units of distance.
Each beam deals 90/130/170 (+30% Magical Power) magical damage (increased by up to 2.25x based on the Target's missing health) and Slows Enemies hit by 60% for 0.5s.
New Soft Currency - Amber
Last week we announced a brand new currency coming to Predecessor.
Amber is an earnable soft currency that replaces our existing Hero Acquisition process. You can earn Amber as season rewards, by levelling up or by completing PVP matches, and at the time of release it will only be usable for unlocking new Heroes.
Unlocking Argus
If you unlocked Argus before the V0.15 update using the old XP system you'll have him fully unlocked and ready to play once the update is live.
If you were part-way through unlocking him your progress will be converted into Amber along with other part-unlocked Heroes. This converted Amber will be added to your account as soon as V0.15 is live, and you can then use this currency to purchase new Heroes as you see fit!
Learn more about this important new addition and the conversion process in our recent soft currency blog post.
Store Update
Dreadlord Argus Bundle
To celebrate Argus’s eruptive entrance into Predecessor we’ve put together a very special limited-time bundle!
Purchasing the mighty Dreadlord Argus Bundle instantly unlocks the new Hero ready to play, as well as his new Dreadlord skin and a collection of sinister decorations for you to show off your might!
Bundle Contents:
- New Hero: Argus
- Dreadlord Argus Skin
- Dreadlord Icon
- Dreadlord Banner
- Dreadlord Spray
Argus | Dreadlord
Show those airsick cloud sniffers the true meaning of power with the mighty Argus Dreadlord skin [Rare]!
Crunch | Corporate Enforcer
Call rank with glistering authority, with Crunch’s new Corporate Enforcer skin [Common]!
TwinBlast | Double Agent
No one suspects the double cross! Keep your enemies guessing with TwinBlast’s new Double Agent skin [Rare]!
Explosive Flowers
“The Fey has been hard at work furthering the goals of the Amyyrn, spreading a new form of Explosive Flower across the realm. This dangerous and resilient flora has taken root and infested the lands, able to regrow even after being destroyed!”
Explosive Flowers have been added to the map.
These new environmental hazards explode shortly after being damaged by a basic attack. They don’t deal any direct damage to Heroes, but anyone caught in the blast radius will be catapulted back or up into the air.
This new mechanic brings even more verticality to Predecessor, providing new and unique opportunities for Heroes to navigate their way around the map, surprising their foes in creative new ways!
- Initial Spawn time: 4m.
- Respawn Time: 2m 30s.
- Spawn Locations:
- Both Red Jungles (2).
- Both Blue Jungles (2).
- Duo-lane Alcove (1).
- Solo-lane Alcove (1).
Jungle AI Improvements
We're excited to share some significant improvements we've made to the AI in the Jungle!
Our team has been hard at work on a number of improvements, designed to make your jungling experience smoother, more strategic, and ultimately, more rewarding!
Clearer aggro, fewer frustrations
One of the biggest frustrations for Junglers, especially newer ones, was the unforgiving nature of minion aggro. Previously, minions would instantly de-aggro the moment they left their camp radius. This often led to situations where you felt punished for trying to maximise the speed of your clear times by luring them to the edge of their camp.
No more! We've implemented a new "Aggression Bar" displayed beneath the health bar of Jungle minions. This bar depletes as the minion moves further away from its camp, giving you a clear visual indicator of how much leash you have before it loses aggro. This allows for more strategic minion manipulation, opening up new possibilities for optimising your Jungle clears.
Smarter pathfinding, more outplays
We've spruced up the pathfinding of our Jungle minions. They're now better at tracking Champions and navigating the varied terrain of the Jungle, getting snagged on ledges and structures much less frequently. Better still, they can now even drop down ledges to pursue their prey, adding yet another layer of strategic depth!
Knowing when to strike
To further empower your Jungling prowess, we've added a handy QoL indicator in the Jungle Minion health bars. This indicator will let you know when your Jungle Item Active (Hunt) is strong enough to finish off a Jungle minion. Less guesswork, more strategic decision-making!
Raising the skill Cap, lowering the barrier to entry
These changes are designed to achieve a two-fold goal:
1. To increase the skill cap of the Jungle role by introducing new strategic possibilities.
2. To make the Jungle more accessible to new players by providing clearer information and reducing the punishment for minor mistakes.
We believe these improvements will make Jungling not only more enjoyable but also more rewarding for players of all skill levels. As with all things we’ll be iterating on these changes based on your feedback, so hop in game, explore the new changes, and unleash your inner Jungle master!
Item Description Improvements
Item descriptions have received an overhaul!
In keeping with our previous improvements to Hero Ability Description, item descriptions now sport a much more digestible bullet-point format.
Not only does this make our item descriptions easier than ever to read and understand at a glance,but these changes have also improved our own automations, making the likelihood of mismatched and inaccurate description values from our side much, much lower!
Matchmaking and Backend Improvements
V0.15 also comes with the unveiling of our brand new, fully custom-built backend!
Ever since Predecessor was first released into Early Access, we’ve been working with a backend provider to handle all of our game services, server scaling, and of course, matchmaking. While this was absolutely crucial for getting Predecessor out to players around the world initially, we ultimately found ourselves repeatedly running into limitations when trying to match our own specific development goals to the provider’s more generalised offerings.
In the pursuit of independence and autonomy, and with an eye towards future sustainability and development, our team has been hard at work for many months now rebuilding the entire backend of Predecessor from the ground up, giving us complete ownership and control over all of our services and backend codebase.
This was a monumental task undertaken by our engineering team, but the value it brings cannot be overstated. This change fully unlocks the flexibility to make backend changes and improvements without reliance on the approval and development pace of a third-party provider. This means faster backend development for new features, a more consistent and reliable service, and better visibility into opportunities to continuously raise our own standards for the Predecessor experience.
Most significantly for many players however, is that this also means it’s finally time for a brand new matchmaker.
The first iteration of our custom matchmaker rolls out alongside the new backend in V0.15, and it should make for a moderate step up in speed and quality when compared to the old system. Most importantly however, we'll be able to optimise and adjust what we want, when we want.
We expect the new matchmaker to be an upgrade across the board, but we also know there may be some teething issues as we transition to this new codebase. Please reach out to us with any questions, quirks, or issues you might have encountered and we’ll work with your feedback to further improve what we hope represents a big step forwards for Predecessor.
Additionally we’ll aim to release a deeper dive into this new backend in an upcoming blog, so stay tuned!
Seasonal Rewards, Controller Updates, Balance Changes and more!
All of this, plus LOTS more! Check out the full notes over our website.
