Agents,
With "Upper Echelon update expected in the coming days, we wanted to read you in on what changes are headed your way. Please keep in mind that this is a Work In Progress changelog and things are subject to change (items may also be removed or added) before the final release.
2XP - We've got something in store for you just in time for the long weekend! Play anytime from Aug. 31st to Sep.5th to take advantage and earn Double XP! (which may work great with the Echelon system below!)
Upper Echelon Patch Notes
Agents, it’s finally time to go in-depth with our next update! Upper Echelon is focused on targeted gameplay enhancements and additions to change up the meta in team based modes, expand options in what and where to loot and enhance our progression systems for high level players. There is a lot to dive into, all inspired by player feedback, so let’s get to it!
General Changes
Echelon System
We’ve received a lot of demand from the player base to expand progression in the game beyond what we currently have. Enter the Echelon system! The goal of this new system is to open up character based progression well beyond mastery 10. No gameplay unlocks will be tied to Echelons, this is really a “completionist” feature that rewards you for continuous play with your favorite agent over long periods of time.
Here’s what you will unlock by leveling up Echelon ranks:
- An evolving flair next to your name when playing as a Echelon Ranked character showcasing your progress
- You will earn 20 Bonds (our real-money currency) every Echelon Rank.
- 3 titles per character on Echelon rank 10, 50 and 100.
Do note that Echelons DO NOT reset your gameplay unlocks on a character. You can pursue
them without losing any of your hard earned unlocks. Reaching Echelon level 100 should take a sizable amount of time, we are excited to see how far you get into this new system.
Team Revive Rework
A major piece of feedback we’ve been looking at for a while now is the overwhelming presence of “body camping” in team-based modes. To remedy this and give players more options, we are adding a new way to revive your teammates while dodging a camping team.
From now on, extraction terminals will allow you to revive your entire team for the cost of 5 intel. They will respawn at the pad immediately, removing the need to make it to their bodies while being camped. This option becomes unavailable in the extraction phase to help drive the match to a conclusion.
Of course, you will still be able to revive your teammates directly at their body with no intel cost if the situation allows it. We think this change will make team matches much more dynamic and interesting and we’ve had a blast playtesting it internally.
Team Revive health thresholds
To go along with the revived rework, we are tweaking the max health thresholds after getting revived. We hope these changes will give a bit more lee-way for revived players to make a difference, while still making it undesirable to get downed early in a match.
Revive health thresholds before: 75-50-30 Max Health
Revive thresholds now: 80-60-40 Max Health
Package Restore
The player that gets the package from the vault first will now get a full restore for them and their team. This will put everyone back at full health, but also put all your teammates back at the max health threshold if they have been revived before in the match.
This will NOT resurrect teammates that are currently downed or out for good though, so make sure you get your teammates back up before capturing that package if possible.
New Gameplay element: Lost and found boxes
While we are happy with the keycard changes from Season 2, one side effect of their inclusion was to devalue staff rooms in the overall structure of matches. To remedy this while still keeping control over match pace, we are introducing a new element unique to these rooms for players to seek out: Lost and found boxes. For 5 intel, players can hack them open to find a random drop from a list of possibly high value items, including keycards and field upgrades. Be careful though: there is a small chance to loot less valuable items too. Weight the options carefully!
Three new item types will now spawn randomly across all maps. These items will reward you with “meta reward” like XP and currency to spend outside matches.
- XP Cassette: Get 200 XP right away
- Credits Purse: Get 25XP and 25 Credits
- Pile of Bonds: Get 25XP and 5 Bonds
Player Movement Update
With this patch we are rolling out a major upgrade to how we handle player movement. What this means in practice is that player movement will be updated much more frequently by the server, leading to more accurate, smoother and easier to track movement overall. This should have a major impact on the overall game feel and smoothness of combat.
We will continue looking at possible upgrades on this subject in the future.
New XP sources
To help you reach these elusive… ahem… upper echelons, we are adding two new sources of XP to the game. Intel spent on doors and Intel spent on chests (field upgrades chests or lost and found boxes). These XP events scale with how much intel you spent. We hope these will make progressing the game more rewarding, but also encourage team play by spending intel for your allies.
Content Creator Contest Calling Cards
We are happy to introduce our first content creator calling cards following our streaming context! Leaflit was the grand winner in both categories (Hours streamed and viewer hours) while Fitzy and Miss Lovely Shadow were the runners ups in both. You’ll be able to go and grab their calling cards for free in-game with this update from the calling card menu.
