“Titanfall” Releases Patch Featuring Private Mode and Weapon Balance Changes
Complete Patch Notes Inside
Respawn Entertainment's "Titanfall" released the first significant patch to their latest FPS.
The update includes many tweaks to weapon functionality, but the big change comes with the addition of a new Private Match mode. This new mode allows for players to privately annihilate each other with up to 12 friends. The private matches offer further customization than what's available in public matches, allowing the lobby leader to select the map and game mode. It's worth noting that there are no XP gains, challenge progression, or achievement unlocks through Private Match.
Private Match details from their press release are as follows:
Private Match (beta) - This is the first public test of our new Private Match mode. This gives you a way to organize matches with and against your friends, for casual or tournament play. Some features are unfinished or not yet implemented, and we welcome your feedback. A few highlights:
• Private Match supports 2 to 12 players, with 1 to 6 players on each team.
• You can start a new Private Match lobby by choosing it on the main selection screen (alongside Campaign, MP, and Training). Invite your friends in or have them join you at any time.
• Choose any of the game's maps or modes (CTF, Pilot Hunter, etc.) to play in.
• Choose which team you're on.
• There is no XP gain, challenge progress, or achievement unlocking while in a Private Match. For this beta, the Last Game Summary screen will display what you would have earned in normal play outside of Private Match, but be aware that this progress will not be recorded to your lifetime total.
• For this beta, there is no concept of a "lobby leader"; any player can change game options in the lobby or start/stop the match countdown.
• All Private Match games are still played on dedicated servers via Xbox Live Cloud Compute, just like normal matches.
• New options like round time, score limits, and much more will come in future updates.
Additionally, Respawn's release outlined the changes made to weaponry in attempt to address game balance:
40mm magazine capacity for default and Extended Mag – The default magazine size was making the 40mm too powerful. It is intended to be the only weapon that can take a Titan down without reloading, if used skillfully. However, 20 rounds per magazine were proving to be too high and overly tolerant of indiscriminate fire. We’ve reduced it to 12 rounds per magazine, which still allows players to take a Titan down without reloading, but helps balance it out against other Titan weapons. The extended mag has also been dropped from 25 to 16, with the same design principles applying to this change.
Titan Quad Rocket mag size change – During development, there was a time when the Quad Rocket was too powerful. We made a lot of changes to pull it back before shipping (lessened the screen shake impact, lessened the duration of the first person impact FX, lowered the magazine size, pulled the damage back, etc.) It currently can struggle against other Titan weapons and going back to the 5/6 (default/extended mag) magazine sizes helps balance the weapon and allows players to miss a few shots and still be effective. It was 4/5, now its 5/6.
Titan Quad Rocket damage vs Titan shields – It was taking too long to drop a Titans shields with the Quad Rocket (5 shots). This meant you had to reload before you could even drop an enemy Titan’s shields. This was the only Titan weapon that had this issue. We’ve now upped the damage against Titan shields so that it can drop a shield with 4 shots. Combined with the increased mag size, this damage increase effectively gives you one more volley in the mag to deal serious direct hull damage.
Titan Quad Rocket 'Rapid Fire' Mod's mag size change – We upped the magazine size for the Quad Rocket's Rapid Fire Mod to help it compete with the changes made to the extended magazine (from 5 to 6). The Rapid Fire Mod’s magazine size is going up from 16 to 18.
Amped Kraber Titan damage change – We upped the damage that the Amped Kraber Burn Card does to Titans. It is now the only significantly effective “small arms” weapon against Titans. Note that this only applies to the Amped version of the Kraber. The damage goes up from 100 to 800. We added this to give the Kraber Burn Card a little bit more character, as well as to give you something to shoot if you have a hard time hitting those little Pilots with the Kraber. So snipe away at those Titans…before they kill you!
A full list of game changes, bug fixes, and future plans can be found online here.
Titanfall
Release: 4/8/2014 [NA]
Publisher: Electronic Arts
Platforms: Xbox 360, Xbox One, PC
Purchase: Amazon
