Update: Sowohl der Patch, als auch Morgan Kissano, stehen nun zum Download bereit. der Patch hat einen Umfang von rund 7 Gb.

Wie die meisten von euch, die den Season Pass von HW2 besitzen, wohl gemerkt haben, ist am Mittwoch nicht, wie von 343 angekündigt, die neue Anführerin erschienen, denn diese wurde nämlich auf die frühe nächste Woche verschoben, also wahrscheinlich dem 22. März. Passend dazu wurde auch ein ViDoc veröffentlicht, welches ihre Fähigkeiten und Einheiten in Aktion zeigt.

Zusätzlich wird dann auch in der näheren Zukunft ein richtiger Balance Patch veröffentlicht. Zudem startet nächste Woche das Finale der Halo WC und es gibt einige Anpassungen für die Req Level mancher Waffen, in Halo 5.

Hier könnt ihr das ViDoc sehen:

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Und hier seht ihr die umfangreichen Patch Notes:

Leader Powers

• Shipmaster’s Scout mines cannot be dropped on buildings anymore

Dan: Crafty players were using this ability’s massive damage against enemy buildings. This was unintended and not balanced to account for building damage.

• The Banished Cleansing Beam speed slightly reduced 

Dan: Cleansing Beam was a little too difficult to escape. We will continue to monitor this ability to get it in the goldilocks zone.

• ODSTs cost increased from 600 to 800, HP slightly decreased

Dan: ODSTs are a successful unit and were warping interactions with vehicles and counter-infantry units. They will still retain their offensive capability, but now their general cost-effectiveness is more in-line with the rest of the infantry units. 

Economy

• Adjusted the Supply income curve to give less of a bonus income on the first few Supply Pads/Warehouses, but less limiting as player’s build additional pads.

Dan: Early game Core Unit spam is quite prevalent in the current multiplayer setting. We also observed a lot of players frustrated with the penalty effect of building additional supply pads, leading to stalemates and lone Commanders with a single base able to almost match the economic power of enemy players with multiple bases stacked with Supply pads. This should reduce early game spam and increase the advantage for players who manage to build multiple bases.

Leaders

• Sgt. Forge: Removed the discount on Supply Pads and Reactors in the “Rolling Economy” leader power
• Sgt. Forge: Accelerated Assembly has switched places with Lotus Mines

Dan: Forge’s Rolling Economy power was just a bit too powerful at the start of the game. Now Forge will still get the discount and research speed increase for the resource building upgrades, but will have to initially invest the same Supply amount as other leaders, putting more pressure on his Supply income.

Forge was able to use Accelerate Assembly too early on in the tech tree, ending up with him being very strong wielding cheap and fast Scout pressure builds. Instead this has been moved back to position it more for discount and training speed increase for Grizzly tanks and Warthogs.

Rush and Counter-Infantry Units

Dan: We position our anti-building units as ‘Rush’ units. They’re designed to cause large damage to buildings, great for catching a greedy Forge player who’s built 5 resource buildings with no defenses! 

They were lacking a bit in anti-building damage, so we have increased those across both Flamers and Jet Pack Brutes, along with some general survivability increases.

The counter infantry units were also lacking in general survivability, but also survivability against their target types weaponry and special abilities. There’s nothing that’s made me more sad than watching a gaggle of Suicide Grunts die to a few Marine Grenades. Generally we’re upped the effectiveness of the counter-infantry units, so whilst Marine spam has been a problem in the past, the tables have been turned!

Jump Pack Brutes

• Increased HP
• Increased basic DPS
• Slight increase to move speed

Dan: These guys are generally in a good place from a balance perspective right now, be sure to use the stun effect from their Jump pack ability! It’s very effective against large armies grouped together.

Hellbringers

• Significant increase to HP
• Significant increase to fire damage dealt to basic infantry units
• Slight move speed increase
• Cost reduced from 80/50 to 80/40
• Reduced pre-attack and post-attack cooldown to improve responsivenes

Dan: Hellbringers were lacking speed, survivability and DPS. So we’re stepping those up to really help them functionally counter other infantry units. With Kinsano coming out, it was vital that Hellbringers were a valid unit.

Suicide Grunts (Not Blitz Suicide Grunts)

• Increased HP
• Base damage decreased
• Base AOE range increased
• Move speed slightly increased
• Charge distance increased
• Charge speed decreased
• Cost reduced from 100/25 to 100/20

Dan: Suicide grunts were very hit or miss. If they hit, you knew about it! But with their low speed, low HP and low charge distance, they were very difficult to get into attack range. With these changes, Suicide grunts should be a lot more consistent at getting into combat but because of that, it was necessary to bring down their basic damage and area of effect size. The trick will be to maximize the amount of Suicide Grunts getting into attack range with careful positioning, other units attracting fire, flanking and combo-ing with the stun effect from the Jump Pack Brutes. 

Elite Rangers

• Significantly increased HP
• Armor type changed to be more resistant to small arms fire from Marine & Grunt squads
• Faster projecticles that don't miss as often
• Cost reworked from 80/110 to 125/90
• DPS increased

Dan: With the Elite Rangers there were naturally a lot of community comparisons drawn against the UNSC sniper. With those in mind, we’ve positioned the Elite Rangers as more skirmishable than the Sniper, with the survivability to get into skirmishes and come out on top. Whilst not as specialized as the Sniper, the Rangers should help bulk out an infantry force.

Scout Units

Dan: Scout units are going to be the units players will want to build when being rushed by Flamers or Jump Pack Brutes. They’re fast enough to avoid damage from those types of units and can be built from the HQ. Whilst players have previously been using them to rush enemy bases, the damage versus buildings have been reduced to stop that. They will remain a great unit to harass enemy troops, gather supplies and even de-capture points and have had a cost reduction to help their now slightly narrower role.

• Reduced ram reflect damage, so will now take less damage when ramming
• Reduced damage versus buildings

Jackrabbit

• Cost reduced from 220/15 to 200/12

Ghost

• Cost reduced from 265/20 to 230/15

Chopper

• Cost reduced from 280/20 to 245/15

Counter Vehicle Units

Dan: Counter Vehicle units were doing too good a job. They had the effect of heavily reducing the battlefield longevity of classic Halo units like the Scorpion and Wraith tanks, moreso than other Hard Counter units vs their preferred target type. This nerf coupled with the Scorpion and Wraith buffs, should see tanks survive on the battlefield a bit longer.

Hunters

• Cost reduced from 150/200 to 160/160
• DPS reduced

Cyclops

• Cost changed from 120/150 to 120/120
• DPS reduced

Tanks

Dan: We were seeing a lot of players who reach Tech level 3 skip straight to the Uber units. This could be due to a few things including a long build time, an uneven cost, overly effective hard counters and coupled with the difficulty to generate a decent supply income to support the high supply costs.

We also observed UNSC Scorpions having a much higher overall effectiveness per population, something we have addressed with a much-needed buff to the Wraith. It’s still meant to be a slightly more fragile Tier 3 vehicle, but with a fearsome Plasma Mortar and a very effective special ability.

  Wraiths

• HP significantly increased
• Shields significantly increased
• Build time reduced
• Cost changed from 550/40 to 525/70
• Plasma Cannon DPS increased
• Plasma Mortar DPS increased
• Plasma Mortar Fire rate increased
• Y ability initial damage increased significantly
• Incoming healing reduced

Scorpion

• HP increased
• Cost changed from 650/50 to 600/90
• Machinegun DPS increased
• Cannon DPS increased
• Cannon AOE size decreased
• Canister shell DPS increased
• Canister shell AOE size increased
• Incoming healing reduced

Grizzly

• HP increased
• Machinegun DPS increased
• Missile pod DPS increased
• Cannon DPS increased
• Missile Barrage ability damage increased

Core Infantry

Dan: There’s a natural imbalance between UNSC Marine and Banished Grunt squads. Grunts are cheaper, faster to train but cost less population and supply. With the Grunt special ability being more difficult to pull off than the Marine grenade ability, Grunts were suffering in general damage output. This pass is a step to make Grunts dish out more damage with their basic small-arms, with a small reduction for Marines. The grenade nerf will make a huge difference and if UNSC players are not careful, they will find their Marine’s overwhelmed by Grunts!

Grunts

• Grunt squad build time reduced
• Overall DPS increased for basic and mine-upgrade squads
• Overall DPS increased for pack brother-upgrade squads

Marines

• Grenade DPS decreased
• Grenade large AOE size reduced
• Marine Assault rifle DPS slightly decreased

Anders' Sentinels

Dan: Anders' Sentinels were using an incorrect weapon modifier. This meant that it had a frighteningly large bonus damage modifier versus buildings, vehicles and certain types of infantry. Now that we’ve switched it up to the correct type, it should perform as expected; A decent damage dealer that’s easy to build and has a very useful utility in the vehicle disable ability. Hornets, Nightingales and Sentinels will be a very effective airforce!

The Sentinels were also moving too fast, causing tracking issues for infantry and even the hard counter-air units! Whilst still fast, they will now be more susceptible to incoming fire!

Anders’ Sentinels

• Move speed decreased
• No longer has a huge damage bonus vs. buildings
• General DPS decreased
• Lockdown Bolt damage decreased significantly

Banshees

Dan: Banshees only had one massive problem with the immense damage of their plasma torpedos. They verged too much into hard counter-air territory and just needed stepping back a little bit. Even UNSC Condors were no match!

• Banshee Plasma Torpedo damage significantly reduced

Locusts

Dan: Locusts dominated the beta and have received a couple of heartfelt nerfs since then. Whilst we’re still trying to channel the long range glass cannon soul of the unit, it’s synergizing incredibly well across both the standard mode and Blitz mode, with engineers and clifftop line of sight bonuses.

With a decrease to its basic line of sight and a reduction to the maximum range of its beam weapon, the Locust’s battlefield position will be less Blisterback artillery and more closer to the range of a Wraith.

We’re already seeing some rather naughty combos with Unbreakable and Last Stand leader powers, so the Locust is still very useful!

Locusts

• Basic DPS slightly reduced
• Line of sight range reduced
• Weapon range reduced

Base Turrets

Dan: UNSC and Banished Base turrets had a natural characteristic difference, similar to the Wraith and Scorpion. This was in the UNSC’s favour, so Banished needed a little bit of a helping hand. General basic turrets are close to where they should be, but the upgraded versions needed a decent performance return for the player’s resource investment.

• UNSC and Banished upgraded turrets DPS increased
• Banished turrets HP increased
• UNSC turrets build time reduced
• Banished turret build time reduced

Strongholds

Dan: It was a little too easy to destroy Players' main HQs, the focus in Strongholds should be about the Strongholds themselves. This is a small measure to try and alleviate the issue and we will be monitoring the effectiveness.

• UNSC and Banished HQ HP increased to a constant, high HP amount across all tech tiers

Thanks for that awesome update and insight, Dan! Halo Wars 2 players - please remember that the team is constantly monitoring game data and player feedback so expect to see ongoing tweaks and adjustments as the meta and community warrant. 

Halo Wars 2 Playlist UPDATE

In addition to the Kinsano leader DLC, and the patch fixes and balance changes noted above, next week will also see the implementation of the first season of Ranked online play in Halo Wars 2. The team passed along the following info about what you can expect with this first season's playlist update:

Halo Wars 2 Xbox One Playlists:

• Versus Ai
• Rumble
• Team Objective
• Team War
• Ranked 1v1 War
• Ranked 2v2 War
• Ranked 3v3 War
• (Blitz) Standard
• (Blitz) Brawl
• (Blitz) Ranked Standard
• (Blitz) Ranked Brawl

Halo Wars 2 Windows 10 Playlists:

• Versus Ai
• Team War
• Ranked 1v1 War
• Ranked 2v2 War
• Ranked 3v3 War
• (Blitz) Standard
• (Blitz) Brawl
• (Blitz) Ranked Brawl

 

 

Wie ihr also sehen könnt gibt es umfangreiche Anpassungen, die unter anderem die derzeit verbreiteten Rushes entgegen wirken sollen, und generell das gesamte Spiel etwas entschleunigen sollen.

Zusätzlich findet ihr im Community Update diverse Artworks zu HW2 und die Maps aus Halo 5 in der Vogelperspektive.

 

Außerdem findet nächste Woche das Finale der Halo WC statt, die wie gewohnt auf allen üblichen Kanälen von Halo genießen könnt. Die Zeiten sind die folgenden:

• Friday – Group Play – 10AM PT | 1PM ET | 6PM GMT
• Saturday – Double elimination bracket begins – 10AM PT | 1PM ET | 6PM GMT
• Championship Sunday – Final bracket matches – 10AM PT | 1PM ET | 6PM GMT

 

Desweiteren gibt es einige Anpassungen für die REQ Level in Halo 5:

• Brute Plasma Rifle changed to 2, Sorrow of Teash to 3, and Scale of Soirapt to 4
• Needlers to 2, Hailstorm to 3,and Talon of the Lost to 3
• Hydra to 4, Typhon to 5, and Echidna to 6
• Scattershot to 3, Loathsome Thing to 4, and Didact's Signet to 5
• Spartan Laser to 4, Endgame to 5, and Selene's Lance to 6
• Sentinel Beam to 3
• Plasma Turret to 1

Halo Community Update