In this latest edition of Designer's Notes, we'll go into detail about the balancing changes that'll come with the Y8S2.3 Update and give you some insight into the reasons behind them.

BALANCING MATRIX AND TOP OPERATOR BANS

WIN DELTA VS. PRESENCE

Please note that we are using presence to gauge the popularity of an Operator. This notion had to be introduced to reflect the implementation of the pick & ban.

Presence definition: pick rate of an Operator when not banned. Win Delta: The Win Delta is aggregated from Operator's Win Deltas per Bomb Site.

OPERATOR BAN RATE

OPERATOR BALANCING

THORN

UZK50GI

• Sights: Added 1.5x.
  

Thorn is currently one of the least picked trappers on defender lineups, we've decided to boost her loadout by adding a 1.5x sight to the UZK50GI, this should increase her popularity within the trapper ecosystem.

NØKK

HEL Presence Reduction

• Remove silent steps while the ability is active.
  
• Increase duration of the ability to 20s (from 12)
  
• Update glitching reasons
  

Deception is always a controversial topic and Nøkk's ability is conceived around it. She can become invisible to observation tools and at the same time mute her footsteps. She is leading some of the main frustration for defenders and we would like to tackle this. In a quiet environment everyone should be able to hear someone else approaching, and Nøkk's ability to move silently breaks this rule. We've decided to remove the silent facet of the ability in exchange for increased ability duration.

VIGIL

ERC-7

• On observation tools Vigil will share the same glitching effect as Nøkk.
  
• The ability won't deactivate while performing certain actions, like shooting, and will instead trigger the glitch effect on observation tools.
  
• Vigil won't be immune to Lion's EE-ONE-D or Grim's Kawan Hive. Both gadgets will detect him, but he can prevent being pinged down by activating the ERC-7.
  

Nøkk and Vigil share a similar ability, and in the pursuit of consistency, we've decided to extend Nøkk's cloaking rules to Vigil. With this change Vigil will glitch on observation tools while performing actions like shooting, deploying a gadget or sprinting. These new interactions will reward players that proceed more carefully while using the ERC-7 and will punish those who act more careless.

ORYX

Hatch Climb

• Reduced hatch climb interaction time by 30%.
  

Our game data shows that Oryx does not profit much from his ability to climb hatches. We would like to make this interaction smoother by reducing its recovery time, now it should feel less dangerous to perform.


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