Jatimania Hotfix
Agents, we are back with a hotfix patch to address some of the bigger issues reported for the Jatimania update.

We are also rolling very focused balancing changes in this hotfix to appease some frustrating aspects around Ace and Octo. We will continue to monitor the balance and discourse around the update to target our next bigger round of balancing tweaks in the near future. For now, let’s have a look.

Player Count Update
We have recently ran an experiment on player count for Solo and Duo and we turned the mic to you to give us your thoughts through a poll on the subject. The results we got were as follows:

Solo lobbies at 8 players

• 65.5% of responses were positive (score of 4 and 5)
  
• 20.7% of responses were neutral (score of 3)
  
• 13.8% of responses were negative (score of 1 and 2)

Duo lobbies at 10 players (5 teams)

• 61.7% of responses were positive (score of 4 and 5)
  
• 24.7% of responses were neutral (score of 3)
  
• 13.6% of responses were negative (score of 1 and 2)

In light of this clearly positive movement towards the change, we will be changing the player counts of both modes with the drop of the hotfix.

What’s next?
With this decision taken, we can now leverage this new player count to better tweak spawn points and make sure the early game is a more pleasing experience in all maps. Having to juggle with less maximum factions enables us to curate things to a better degree than what is currently live, so expect some live balancing of spawn points that will not require an update on your side in the coming days.


General Changes
Audio Occlusion Polish
We have brought some more work we have done on audio occlusion which includes making sure gadgets have appropriate sound range. We are continuing to refine this aspect of the game and looking at outliers to fix in the sound department.

Keycard Printer Icon Visibility
We have added a bit of verticality to the range at which you can see the icon telling you a Keycard printer is close to you. This should help with a variety of positions where a printer could be very hard to find because of differences in elevation.

Melee Targeting Tweaks
We have upped the range for melee target detection to help with hitting targets on the move. Additionally, we have reduced how wide the detection radius is around the reticule to reduce instances of hitting a target that is on the side of your screen versus one that is at the center.

We are looking for other long term upgrades to the melee attack, but we hope this makes things feel better in the meantime.

Balancing
Ace
The amount of time Ace is able to keep pressure on a victim has been rightfully highlighted as extremely oppressive in the current meta. To address this, we are reducing both the window in which she can apply her status effect after damage and the duration of the status itself.

Base Expertise: Queen’s Gaze

• Trace duration 25s =>15s
  
• Last Target duration 30s => 20s

Expertise Mod 1: Stacked Odds

• Vulnerable duration 15s =>10s
  
• Last Target duration 30s => 20s

Octo
The lingering effect when leaving Octo’s field of vision with the “Make’em Fold” ability has been highlighted as feeling bad on the receiving end, giving a feeling of lag.

This change should also make the effect more reliable when a target leaves the field of vision and comes back to re-apply it immediately.

Expertise Mod 2: Make’em Fold

• Removed the lingering effect after a player left Octo’s field of view. The effect will now disappear instantly when outside.

Bug Fixes
General

• Fixed an issue with the aim-assist strength setting that would make it also lower input strength. This setting should now behave correctly.
  
• Fixed multiple spawn points where keycards could appear invisible because of clipping.
  
• Fixed the extraction car clipping in the snack bar in Fragrant Shore when landing.

Agents
Larcin

• Larcin throwing his weapon will now break his cover.
  
• Fixed an issue where Larcin could throw his weapon while immaterial in the grande finale zone.

Madame Xiu

• Fixed an issue where Madame Xiu could start her expertise when already considered dead on the server side.
  
• Fixed an issue where Madame Xiu could be stuck in her expertise stance when revived in teams.

Octo

• Fixed an issue that would cause Octo’s projectile with the Nautilo to deal the wrong value if charging another shot.

Red

• Fixed an issue that allowed Red to use lovebomb infinitely by meleeing at the right time.

Sasori

• Sasori will no longer get stuck in a no weapon state if he tries to melee while using Noxious Gas.
  
• Coated weaponry sound impacts will now occlude correctly.

Gadgets
Umbrella Shield

• The handheld shield will no longer protect in directions the player is not looking at while undercover.
  
• The shield will no longer trigger the heartbroken status effect in many situations when charmed by Red.

JATIMANIA Patch notes
Agents, can you feel it? It’s in the air, on the walls, even Deceive Inc HQ could not avoid it. Jatimania is here, a whole new live event with free rewards to earn featuring everyone's favorite (?!) VIP.

But that’s not all! Jatimania also brings several requested improvements to the game as we continue our initiative to overhaul the title with a special focus on stealth, sound and npc behavior. Let’s dive in!

Live Experiment
Solo and Duo Player Count
Back at the launch of catalog 3, we ran several player count experiments for solo lobby team sizes. While we got some valuable feedback from the experiment, the fact we were deep reworking core systems for operation overhaul and the wide array of player counts we tried meant that it was pretty hard to measure how positive the impact was on the experience.

We feel we are in a much better spot to gate the impact of this now so we would like to run a new experiment affecting two modes. For the launch weekend solo and duo will get the following tests:

• Solo lobbies will be changed to 8 players per lobby.
  
• Duo lobbies will be changed to 5 teams per lobby (10 players).

With a single value per mode, we will be better able to gauge how positive this is on the experience for the community and see if this is a desirable result going forward.

General Changes
Jatimania Live Event
In a devious bid for world domination, Jati Bin Teh unleashed a new line of collectible items using cutting edge hypnotic technology to compel the general public to buy them in mass. Your mission is simple: Find these collectibles, requisition them and bring them back home for analysis. DI’s research team is working around the clock to find a way to reverse the effect and end ...THE JATIMANIA.

Jati World Tour
To promote his new line of collectibles, Jati is headed to every location as an additional VIP. From Garcia’s mansion to outer space, nothing stops this man from self-promoting.

What about Diamond Spire you might ask? There are now TWO JATI in Diamond Spire. Don’t ask how he pulled it off.

Free Rewards
Collect posters and bobbleheads to gain event points and unlock 10 levels of Jati themed goodness including avatars, titles, inks and a skin for EVERY agent.

It's time to invest in yourself, to become a Dreampreneur.

NPC behavior overhaul
There is quite a bit of new on how NPC operate this update, so let’s go through the new systems:

Item Awareness
You probably had a moment in the past where a NPC would stop near an intel and looked very suspicious. Are they hacking? Is it a player? These moments are fun, but they used to happen purely by random, a NPC deciding to walk there with no rhyme or reason.

This is no longer the case. NPC can now know where we spawn items and NPC with a high internal “Suspicious” rating will hang around them within interacting distance to better approximate a player’s behavior and blur the line further.

Running Ratio based on gameflow
How much NPC run overall will now be affected by the current state of the game. Running will be more rare in the early game and much more present in the extract for example, scaling as the action ramps up to fit the pace of the game.

Reaction to danger zones
The fear effect on NPC is dictated by what we call danger zones. A danger zone is generated around the shooter and where the shot lands. In the past, these zones were both the same side and would not account for occlusion by walls or floors. This could lead to afraid npc giving away a fight from very far, causing more third parties.

Now, we support different danger zone sizes and we can occlude the danger using the same flag we use for sound occlusion, making the aggro of npc more predictable and closer to what you can hear. This should limit weird situations where NPCs two floors above a fight are afraid if a bullet lands near the top of a wall below for instance.

Map Updates
We are continuing our work to update maps this time with a focus on Hard Sell, Fragrant Shore and Diamond Spire.

Hardsell:
New rotation points added in staff rooms around the maps and an extended terrace network on the rooftops should help make the map feel more fluid than ever. Inside the vault, new visual cover and intel setups on the upper floors will make for more engaging combat and stealth.

Fragrant Shore:
A new staff room on the waterfront, a balcony to flank inside the clock tower and a bunch of new visual cover both inside and in front of the capitol helps make Fragrant feel more fresh. There is also a whole new path to reach the central room of the vault if you enter from the waterfront, giving more leeway to dodge rivals in this crucial part of the level.
Diamond Spire:
Tinted glass in restricted areas now offer much more options for stealth oriented players. Staff rooms have been expanded to make them more vast and interesting to play in and a bunch of rather empty areas have received visual cover and intel locations.

UI Refresh
Updates to UI across the game from menus to in-game hud to make things cleaner and more stylish. Work has also been put into making the HUD a bit less intrusive overall while keeping things clear, especially when it comes to current equipment at the right of the screen.

Aim-Assist Settings
We are rolling some new aim-assist settings for controllers. You will now be able to disable aim-assist on hostile guards to keep it only on guards and adjust the strength for hipfire vs ADS.

Here’s a rundown of what they do in practice:

• All targets: Spies, NPCs, gadgets. Everyone basically will get aim-assist.
  
• Hostiles only : Guards, Out of cover spies and gadgets will get aim-assist.
  
• Spies only: Out of cover spy only will have aim-assist applied.

Reusable Vault Printer
Can now be re-used to reduce camping in the infiltration phase. Additionally, we moved some locations that were a bit too close for comfort, making it easy to camp two printers at once. We hope these changes will make the infiltration phase feel more dynamic.

Extraction Phase feedback tweaks
We have adjusted the overall colors of the navmode when scanning with the briefcase to better see the contrast between rival players and the environment.

Additionally, we have tweaked the size of the UI indicator showing the location of the last briefcase ping and extended the time this ping is visible substantially.

Share XP sources in team modes
As it currently stands, team modes often lead to much less XP being gained for players compared to solo matches for a wide variety of reasons. One step we are taking to alleviate this is now making sure that XP from unlocking doors and field upgrade chests will be shared to the entire team, no matter who spent it. XP cassettes, piles of bonds and purses of credits will also award their XP amount to the entire team when looted now (the credits and bonds amount will still only go to the looter though).

Additionally, we have raised the amount of XP for reviving a teammate to 100 up from 50.

We know this probably won’t entirely solve the issue, but we hope it’s a positive first step in making team matches more worth your time when looking for that sweet XP.

Balance

Expertise Match Cooldown
We are reducing the amount of time players have to wait before using their expertise on match start. We hope this reduces the gap between very expertise dependent characters and less dependent ones while still keeping some form of guard rails against very quick rushes using some expertises.

• Expertise charge on match start 0% => 50%

Agent hitbox tweaks
We have adjusted hitboxes on some agents that were outliers in their sizes. This pass mostly targets Hans, Red (who had bigger hitboxes than needed) and Octo (who had a tighter hitbox than needed). These changes should make them more in line with the rest of the cast.

Movement Update
Tweaks to movement rules with the goal of making overall controls feel more fluid.

• Delay to be able to run after firing a weapon has been reduced from .75 to .25 seconds.
  
• Maximum turn rate while running has been increased by 20 degrees, allowing controller users to run without having to keep a strict angle on their controllers.

Agents
Ace
We are adjusting the jack of diamond to fall within the “high caliber” profile of damage falloff , making it more potent from a distance.

Weapons
Mod 1 : Jack of Diamond

• Damage Falloff start at 20m => 25m
  
• Max damage at full falloff 60% => 70%

Chavez
We are adjusting the behavior of pickable gadgets to fall in line with other non-interactable objects when Chavez is invulnerable.

Expertise
Base: Hard Boiled

• Can no longer pick up gadgets while invulnerable

Mod 2: Return to Sender

• Can no longer pick up gadgets while invulnerable

Larcin
Our focus on Larcin this update is around his grande finale ability. We are making several adjustments to unwanted behaviors as well as tweaking the size to make it more of a tactical consideration in combat. Additionally, we are giving a little boost to Silence's fire rate to make it a more competitive choice with a clearer personality vs Larcin’s other options.

Weapons
Base Weapon: Silence

• Fire rate 4.25 => 5.25 shots per second

Expertise
All

• Can no longer pick up gadgets while immaterial.

Mod 1 : Grande Finale

• Zone size has been reduced by about 55% to reduce mobility while inside
  
• Can no longer use social interacts inside the zone

Octo
Octo is getting a slew of adjustments to make him a more competitive pick. We have touched every weapon to make them more convenient to use as well as more reliable in a wide range of possible combat situations. We hope this makes using Octo more fun and increases his presence in matches!

Weapons
Base Weapon : Pulpo

• Hip Fire damage 10 => 15 per shot
  
• ADS intel shot damage 20 => 23 per shot
  
• Magazine size 5 => 6

Weapon Mod 1 :Nautilo

• Charge time has been normalized: First charge takes .5s and every subsequent charge level now takes .65 seconds
  
• Damage per charge level change from 10-15-20-40-60 => 10-20-30-40-50

Weapon Mod 2 :Calamari

• Intel shot cost 3 => 2 intel
  
• Reduced recoil in scope

Passive
Passive Mod 2 : Jackpot

Special note: This change was actually already live but not noted in previous patch notes. It was introduced with our live balancing system around the launch of operation overhaul. We are listing it here in the spirit of transparency.

• % Refund per intel spent or gained 2.5% => 1%
  
• % chance of full refund per intel 5% => 3.5%

Madame Xiu
Xiu’s Longshen was singled out as an outlier after our recoil tone down pass in Operation Overhaul. We are tweaking the animation and the recoil curve to make it less of a hindrance in combat.

Weapon Mod 1: Longshen

• Reduced Recoil

Red
Just like Ace, Red’s jack of heart is getting a change of damage falloff profile to give a more long range identity. We are also upping heartbreaker’s damage a bit to make it more reliable in all scenarios and to ensure it’s a bit deadlier when getting the drop on a heartbroken opponent.

Weapons
Base : Heartbreaker

• Damage 8 => 9
  
• Headshot damage 11 => 12

Mod 1 : Jack of Heart

• Damage Falloff start at 20m => 25m
  
• Max damage at full falloff 60% => 70%

Sasori
Sasori is getting both a much requested quality of life change and some adjustments to his kit to make him less oppressive. You will now be able to aim his sword better with the addition of a reticle when preparing a strike. On the poison front, duration has been reduced to diminish instances where poison lasts for a long time post fight. We are also toning down give and take’s bonus damage to make it less of a clear standout in Sasori’s options.

Weapons
All

• Reticle is now visible when aiming a sword attack.

Expertise
All

• Base Poison Duration 12s => 10s

Passive
Mod 1: Give and take

• Bonus sword damage on poison 30% => 15%

Mod 2: Down with the sickness

• Poison duration 24s => 18s

Gadget
Drone

• Scaled up the drone to be 15% bigger than previously, with appropriate tweaks to hitbox to make it easier to hit when on the move.

Goopod

Goo Pods were hit by proxy when we nerfed slowly across the board last update. We have split their value from the base slow effect for now to allow a different balancing. Since they require more setup and are more easily avoided than other slow sources, we feel their higher slow value is warranted. We’ll keep an eye on this change to make sure this does not throw off the current balance on slow.

• Slow rate 30% => 40%

Scrambler
Using the scrambler will no longer pinpoint your location with a visual effect while in handheld version. Enemies will still get alerted they are within scrambler range.

Umbrella Shield
The shield is still an extremely competitive pick and we are focusing our attention this time on situations where players hold it open forever while in cover in anticipation of an attack. From now on, the shield’s health will drain continuously when open in handheld mode at a rate of 2.5HP per second. This means that opening your shield when needed and gauging how long you should keep it up is now an important consideration.

• Shield health will now drain slowly when open (2.5 HP per second) in handheld mode and regenerate when closed.
  
• Tweaked visual effects to make the current damage state clearer.
  
• Delay to shoot after opening shield now applies to charge weapons correctly.
  
• Slight expansion of the weak point hitbox in deployed mode to help shoot it in less than ideal placements.

Bug Fixes
General

• Fixed an issue where guards would internally consider you heat level 1 when you were not, causing more aggression than intended.
  
• Extended spy cache loot range to fix issues grabbing it when a lot of items are present.
  
• Fixed a crash that could happen once a game is found before getting to agent select.
  
• Defeat screen will no longer pop immediately when dying.
  
• Fixed an issue where projectile weapons could shoot behind walls and other obstacles when close enough to them.
  
• Fixed an issue where guards would actively try to enter a purple room when they should not be able to.
  
• Fixed an issue that would lead to navmode overlay being stuck after getting eliminated.
  
• Fixed Navmode overlay stuck on death.

Agents
Ace

• Fixed an issue that caused Ace’s expertise to miss when trying to apply on a NPC.
  
• Fixed an issue that would lead to the big blind ability not highlighting out of cover spies inside.

Cavalière

• Fixed an issue that prevented Cavalière from investigating field upgrade chests and lost and found boxes.

Larcin

• NPC no longer look at you when invisible.
  
• Fixed clipping issues in result screens featuring Larcin.

Octo

• Fixed an issue with Nautilo’s audio making it audible from much too far away.
  
• Fixed an issue where Octo could store a charge shot with the Nautilo.
  
• Toned down Nautilo effect on the victim’s camera to limit the “flash” effect.

Madame Xiu

• Xiu’s VIP clones can no longer open orange doors.

Sasori

• Fixed an issue where getting revived inside Sasori’s bubble would leave the tooltip stuck.
  
• Fixed an issue where Sasori would get cooldown reduction twice with his darts using down with the sickness.
  
• Fixed an issue where kunai would not spawn if the shot was not charged.
  
• Fixed an issue where Sasori’s poison would prevent the use of shortcuts.

Yu-Mi

• Fixed Yu-Mi’s EMP destroying the umbrella shield in another player’s inventory even when not out.

Levels
All Levels

• Fixed multiple chairs and benches across all levels to make them sittable.
  
• Fixed multiple instances of invisible keycards clipping in meshes.
  
• Fixed an issue where both purple and blue keycards could spawn in the same room inside the vault.
  
• Fixed NPC stuck spots across multiple maps

Silver Reef

• Fixed a spot where players could leave the map using two bounce mats.

Sound Eclipse

• Fixed some spots that would not count as part of purple rooms outside the vault.

Gadgets

• Deploying the umbrella shield will no longer stop you from sprinting.
  
• Fixed UI issue with hacktrap when placing traps in pregame lobby before the game starts.
  
• Fixed an issue that would cause tripwire UI to persist forever when getting eliminated inside of it.
  
• Fixed an issue where mimic could break spectator cam with many different objects.
  
• Fixed an issue that made it difficult to place gadgets while in social interactions.

April Update Patch notes
Just before we get ready for a release, we wanted to give you a final look at the April update.

A slew of changes are coming your way including sound occlusion, NPC behavior, aim-assist settings, map updates and more.

To top it all, we have a special surprise included in this patch that we can't wait for you to discover very soon.

In the meantime, let's dive into the patch notes!

Live Experiment
Solo and Duo Player Count
Back at the launch of catalog 3, we ran several player count experiments for solo lobby team sizes. While we got some valuable feedback from the experiment, the fact we were deep reworking core systems for operation overhaul and the wide array of player counts we tried meant that it was pretty hard to measure how positive the impact was on the experience.

We feel we are in a much better spot to gate the impact of this now so we would like to run a new experiment affecting two modes. For the launch weekend solo and duo will get the following tests:

• Solo lobbies will be changed to 8 players per lobby.
  
• Duo lobbies will be changed to 5 teams per lobby (10 players).

With a single value per mode, we will be better able to gauge how positive this is on the experience for the community and see if this is a desirable result going forward.

General Changes
REDACTED

NPC behavior overhaul
There is quite a bit of new on how NPC operate this update, so let’s go through the new systems:

Item Awareness
You probably had a moment in the past where a NPC would stop near an intel and looked very suspicious. Are they hacking? Is it a player? These moments are fun, but they used to happen purely by random, a NPC deciding to walk there with no rhyme or reason.

This is no longer the case. NPC can now know where we spawn items and NPC with a high internal “Suspicious” rating will hang around them within interacting distance to better approximate a player’s behavior and blur the line further.

Running Ratio based on gameflow
How much NPC run overall will now be affected by the current state of the game. Running will be more rare in the early game and much more present in the extract for example, scaling as the action ramps up to fit the pace of the game.

Reaction to danger zones
The fear effect on NPC is dictated by what we call danger zones. A danger zone is generated around the shooter and where the shot lands. In the past, these zones were both the same side and would not account for occlusion by walls or floors. This could lead to afraid npc giving away a fight from very far, causing more third parties.

Now, we support different danger zone sizes and we can occlude the danger using the same flag we use for sound occlusion, making the aggro of npc more predictable and closer to what you can hear. This should limit weird situations where NPCs two floors above a fight are afraid if a bullet lands near the top of a wall below for instance.

Map Updates
We are continuing our work to update maps this time with a focus on Hard Sell, Fragrant Shore and Diamond Spire.

Hardsell:
New rotation points added in staff rooms around the maps and an extended terrace network on the rooftops should help make the map feel more fluid than ever. Inside the vault, new visual cover and intel setups on the upper floors will make for more engaging combat and stealth.

Fragrant Shore:
A new staff room on the waterfront, a balcony to flank inside the clock tower and a bunch of new visual cover both inside and in front of the capitol helps make Fragrant feel more fresh. There is also a whole new path to reach the central room of the vault if you enter from the waterfront, giving more leeway to dodge rivals in this crucial part of the level.
Diamond Spire:
Tinted glass in restricted areas now offer much more options for stealth oriented players. Staff rooms have been expanded to make them more vast and interesting to play in and a bunch of rather empty areas have received visual cover and intel locations.

UI Refresh
Updates to UI across the game from menus to in-game hud to make things cleaner and more stylish. Work has also been put into making the HUD a bit less intrusive overall while keeping things clear, especially when it comes to current equipment at the right of the screen.

Aim-Assist Settings
We are rolling some new aim-assist settings for controllers. You will now be able to disable aim-assist on hostile guards to keep it only on guards and adjust the strength for hipfire vs ADS.

Here’s a rundown of what they do in practice:

• All targets: Spies, NPCs, gadgets. Everyone basically will get aim-assist.
  
• Hostiles only : Guards, Out of cover spies and gadgets will get aim-assist.
  
• Spies only: Out of cover spy only will have aim-assist applied.

Reusable Vault Printer
Can now be re-used to reduce camping in the infiltration phase. Additionally, we moved some locations that were a bit too close for comfort, making it easy to camp two printers at once. We hope these changes will make the infiltration phase feel more dynamic.

Extraction Phase feedback tweaks
We have adjusted the overall colors of the navmode when scanning with the briefcase to better see the contrast between rival players and the environment.

Additionally, we have tweaked the size of the UI indicator showing the location of the last briefcase ping and extended the time this ping is visible substantially.

Share XP sources in team modes
As it currently stands, team modes often lead to much less XP being gained for players compared to solo matches for a wide variety of reasons. One step we are taking to alleviate this is now making sure that XP from unlocking doors and field upgrade chests will be shared to the entire team, no matter who spent it. XP cassettes, piles of bonds and purses of credits will also award their XP amount to the entire team when looted now (the credits and bonds amount will still only go to the looter though).

Additionally, we have raised the amount of XP for reviving a teammate to 100 up from 50.

We know this probably won’t entirely solve the issue, but we hope it’s a positive first step in making team matches more worth your time when looking for that sweet XP.

Balance

Expertise Match Cooldown
We are reducing the amount of time players have to wait before using their expertise on match start. We hope this reduces the gap between very expertise dependent characters and less dependent ones while still keeping some form of guard rails against very quick rushes using some expertises.

• Expertise charge on match start 0% => 50%

Agent hitbox tweaks
We have adjusted hitboxes on some agents that were outliers in their sizes. This pass mostly targets Hans, Red (who had bigger hitboxes than needed) and Octo (who had a tighter hitbox than needed). These changes should make them more in line with the rest of the cast.

Movement Update
Tweaks to movement rules with the goal of making overall controls feel more fluid.

• Delay to be able to run after firing a weapon has been reduced from .75 to .25 seconds.
  
• Maximum turn rate while running has been increased by 20 degrees, allowing controller users to run without having to keep a strict angle on their controllers.

Agents
Ace
We are adjusting the jack of diamond to fall within the “high caliber” profile of damage falloff , making it more potent from a distance.

Weapons
Mod 1 : Jack of Diamond

• Damage Falloff start at 20m => 25m
  
• Max damage at full falloff 60% => 70%

Chavez
We are adjusting the behavior of pickable gadgets to fall in line with other non-interactable objects when Chavez is invulnerable.

Expertise
Base: Hard Boiled

• Can no longer pick up gadgets while invulnerable

Mod 2: Return to Sender

• Can no longer pick up gadgets while invulnerable

Larcin
Our focus on Larcin this update is around his grande finale ability. We are making several adjustments to unwanted behaviors as well as tweaking the size to make it more of a tactical consideration in combat. Additionally, we are giving a little boost to Silence's fire rate to make it a more competitive choice with a clearer personality vs Larcin’s other options.

Weapons
Base Weapon: Silence

• Fire rate 4.25 => 5.25 shots per second

Expertise
All

• Can no longer pick up gadgets while immaterial.

Mod 1 : Grande Finale

• Zone size has been reduced by about 55% to reduce mobility while inside
  
• Can no longer use social interacts inside the zone

Octo
Octo is getting a slew of adjustments to make him a more competitive pick. We have touched every weapon to make them more convenient to use as well as more reliable in a wide range of possible combat situations. We hope this makes using Octo more fun and increases his presence in matches!

Weapons
Base Weapon : Pulpo

• Hip Fire damage 10 => 15 per shot
  
• ADS intel shot damage 20 => 23 per shot
  
• Magazine size 5 => 6

Weapon Mod 1 :Nautilo

• Charge time has been normalized: First charge takes .5s and every subsequent charge level now takes .65 seconds
  
• Damage per charge level change from 10-15-20-40-60 => 10-20-30-40-50

Weapon Mod 2 :Calamari

• Intel shot cost 3 => 2 intel
  
• Reduced recoil in scope

Passive
Passive Mod 2 : Jackpot

Special note: This change was actually already live but not noted in previous patch notes. It was introduced with our live balancing system around the launch of operation overhaul. We are listing it here in the spirit of transparency.

• % Refund per intel spent or gained 2.5% => 1%
  
• % chance of full refund per intel 5% => 3.5%

Madame Xiu
Xiu’s Longshen was singled out as an outlier after our recoil tone down pass in Operation Overhaul. We are tweaking the animation and the recoil curve to make it less of a hindrance in combat.

Weapon Mod 1: Longshen

• Reduced Recoil

Red
Just like Ace, Red’s jack of heart is getting a change of damage falloff profile to give a more long range identity. We are also upping heartbreaker’s damage a bit to make it more reliable in all scenarios and to ensure it’s a bit deadlier when getting the drop on a heartbroken opponent.

Weapons
Base : Heartbreaker

• Damage 8 => 9
  
• Headshot damage 11 => 12

Mod 1 : Jack of Heart

• Damage Falloff start at 20m => 25m
  
• Max damage at full falloff 60% => 70%

Sasori
Sasori is getting both a much requested quality of life change and some adjustments to his kit to make him less oppressive. You will now be able to aim his sword better with the addition of a reticle when preparing a strike. On the poison front, duration has been reduced to diminish instances where poison lasts for a long time post fight. We are also toning down give and take’s bonus damage to make it less of a clear standout in Sasori’s options.

Weapons
All

• Reticle is now visible when aiming a sword attack.

Expertise
All

• Base Poison Duration 12s => 10s

Passive
Mod 1: Give and take

• Bonus sword damage on poison 30% => 15%

Mod 2: Down with the sickness

• Poison duration 24s => 18s

Gadget
Drone

• Scaled up the drone to be 15% bigger than previously, with appropriate tweaks to hitbox to make it easier to hit when on the move.

Goopod

Goo Pods were hit by proxy when we nerfed slowly across the board last update. We have split their value from the base slow effect for now to allow a different balancing. Since they require more setup and are more easily avoided than other slow sources, we feel their higher slow value is warranted. We’ll keep an eye on this change to make sure this does not throw off the current balance on slow.

• Slow rate 30% => 40%

Scrambler
Using the scrambler will no longer pinpoint your location with a visual effect while in handheld version. Enemies will still get alerted they are within scrambler range.

Umbrella Shield
The shield is still an extremely competitive pick and we are focusing our attention this time on situations where players hold it open forever while in cover in anticipation of an attack. From now on, the shield’s health will drain continuously when open in handheld mode at a rate of 2.5HP per second. This means that opening your shield when needed and gauging how long you should keep it up is now an important consideration.

• Shield health will now drain slowly when open (2.5 HP per second) in handheld mode and regenerate when closed.
  
• Tweaked visual effects to make the current damage state clearer.
  
• Delay to shoot after opening shield now applies to charge weapons correctly.
  
• Slight expansion of the weak point hitbox in deployed mode to help shoot it in less than ideal placements.

Bug Fixes
General

• Fixed an issue where guards would internally consider you heat level 1 when you were not, causing more aggression than intended.
  
• Extended spy cache loot range to fix issues grabbing it when a lot of items are present.
  
• Fixed a crash that could happen once a game is found before getting to agent select.
  
• Defeat screen will no longer pop immediately when dying.
  
• Fixed an issue where projectile weapons could shoot behind walls and other obstacles when close enough to them.
  
• Fixed an issue where guards would actively try to enter a purple room when they should not be able to.
  
• Fixed an issue that would lead to navmode overlay being stuck after getting eliminated.
  
• Fixed Navmode overlay stuck on death.

Agents
Ace

• Fixed an issue that caused Ace’s expertise to miss when trying to apply on a NPC.
  
• Fixed an issue that would lead to the big blind ability not highlighting out of cover spies inside.

Cavalière

• Fixed an issue that prevented Cavalière from investigating field upgrade chests and lost and found boxes.

Larcin

• NPC no longer look at you when invisible.
  
• Fixed clipping issues in result screens featuring Larcin.

Octo

• Fixed an issue with Nautilo’s audio making it audible from much too far away.
  
• Fixed an issue where Octo could store a charge shot with the Nautilo.
  
• Toned down Nautilo effect on the victim’s camera to limit the “flash” effect.

Madame Xiu

• Xiu’s VIP clones can no longer open orange doors.

Sasori

• Fixed an issue where getting revived inside Sasori’s bubble would leave the tooltip stuck.
  
• Fixed an issue where Sasori would get cooldown reduction twice with his darts using down with the sickness.
  
• Fixed an issue where kunai would not spawn if the shot was not charged.
  
• Fixed an issue where Sasori’s poison would prevent the use of shortcuts.

Yu-Mi

• Fixed Yu-Mi’s EMP destroying the umbrella shield in another player’s inventory even when not out.

Levels
All Levels

• Fixed multiple chairs and benches across all levels to make them sittable.
  
• Fixed multiple instances of invisible keycards clipping in meshes.
  
• Fixed an issue where both purple and blue keycards could spawn in the same room inside the vault.
  
• Fixed NPC stuck spots across multiple maps

Silver Reef

• Fixed a spot where players could leave the map using two bounce mats.

Sound Eclipse

• Fixed some spots that would not count as part of purple rooms outside the vault.

Gadgets

• Deploying the umbrella shield will no longer stop you from sprinting.
  
• Fixed UI issue with hacktrap when placing traps in pregame lobby before the game starts.
  
• Fixed an issue that would cause tripwire UI to persist forever when getting eliminated inside of it.
  
• Fixed an issue where mimic could break spectator cam with many different objects.
  
• Fixed an issue that made it difficult to place gadgets while in social interactions.

Agents, we are moving forward with more refresh of existing operations to bring them to a higher standard. Our focus this update has been on Hardsell, Fragrant Shore and Diamond Spire with a slew of new additions, new flank routes and expanded visual cover for more exciting engagements. We are very eager to show you what we have been working on so let’s get to it!

Hardsell:
New rotation points added in staff rooms around the maps and an extended terrace network on the rooftops should help make the map feel more fluid than ever. Inside the vault, new visual cover and intel setups on the upper floors will make for more engaging combat and stealth.

Fragrant Shore:
A new staff room on the waterfront, a balcony to flank inside the clock tower and a boatload of new visual cover both inside and in front of the capitol helps make Fragrant feel more fresh. There is also a whole new path to reach the central room of the vault if you enter from the waterfront, giving more leeway to dodge rivals in this crucial part of the level.

Diamond Spire:
Tinted glass in restricted areas now offer much more options for stealth oriented players. Staff rooms have been expanded to make them more vast and interesting to play in and a bunch of rather empty areas have received visual cover and intel locations.

We hope you enjoy these new additions as much as we have enjoyed working on them and we are excited to have you jump in to give us your feedback to help us prioritize the next round of map updates. See you on the field agents!

April Update Preview
Agents, before we head into the weekend and close out the month, we wanted to give you a little sneak peek into upcoming changes that will drop with our next update in April. We’ll dive into two subjects that are pretty massive in how they affect the game: Sound Occlusion and NPC Behavior.

Sound Occlusion Rework
A massive rework of how we handle audio is dropping with the april update, enabling occlusion on a wide array of gameplay affecting sounds.

This affects everything from field upgrade chests being open to weapons being fired or gadgets being placed to differing degrees. For instance, you can expect to hear weapons better through walls than a chest being opened.

From a developer perspective, we now have full control on what we want to flag as “occluding” and what should not be, meaning a table in the center of the room won’t occlude a gunshot for instance, but a structural wall will.

This is something we’ll keep a close eye (and ear) on through the patch cycle to gather feedback and see how we iterate on it moving forward, but we are excited to roll this change and see how it affects your experience.

NPC behavior overhaul

There is quite a bit of new on how NPC operate this update, so let’s go through the new systems:

Item Awareness
You probably had a moment in the past where a NPC would stop near an intel and looked very suspicious. Are they hacking? Is it a player? These moments are fun, but they used to happen purely by random chance, a NPC deciding to walk there with no rhyme or reason.

This is no longer the case. NPC can now know where they spawn items and NPC with a high internal “Suspicious” rating will hang around them within interacting distance to better approximate a player’s behavior and blur the line further between players and NPC.

Running Ratio based on gameflow
How much NPC run overall will now be affected by the current state of the game. Running will be more rare in the early game and much more present in the extract for example, scaling as the action ramps up to fit the pace of the game.

Reaction to danger zones
The fear effect on NPC is dictated by what we call danger zones. A danger zone is generated around the shooter and where the shot lands. In the past, these zones were both the same side and would not account for occlusion by walls or floors. This could lead to afraid npc giving away a fight from very far, causing more third parties.

Now, we support different danger zone sizes and we can occlude the danger using the same flag we use for sound occlusion, making the aggro of npc more predictable and closer to what you can hear. This should limit weird situations where NPCs two floors above a fight are afraid if a bullet lands near the top of a wall below for instance.

We will be unveiling more changes and additions you can expect in April very soon, including more map changes, gameplay tweaks, bug fixes and a few other surprises.

Operation Overhaul Live Balance Update
Agents, we are dropping our first live balance update for Operation Overhaul effective immediately. This requires no download from your part and will automatically take effect in-game.

Our current mindset with this update is to keep the most oppressive and unpleasant elements targeted by feedback in check while we continue parsing through feedback for larger overarching changes in the future.

With all this said, let’s have a look:

Damage Falloff
Damage Falloff is one of the biggest changes to DI’s sandbox this update and as such, we are monitoring feedback, analyzing numbers and taking a deeper look at where it should go next. While we are having a larger look at the mechanic, we still wanted to make full-auto weapons more lenient in the meantime as this was highlighted by the community as the most difficult aspect of this new reality.

• Changed start distance on falloff for full-auto weapons 10m => 15m

Guards Behavior
We are aware of player’s frustration around the amount of guards that can quickly crowd around a duel when guards are in melee only mode. We are reducing the amount of guards actively attacking you when you have no heat to one. This should help reduce the chaos when you add this up to all participants in a fight by cutting the aggro-ed guards by half.

• Max amount of actively aggro-ed guard without a heat level 2 => 1

Agents
Ace
Ace received a slew of changes around her passive and we noted a large amount of feedback that the charge now feels clunky because of when it starts when shooting your weapon. We’ll be looking at this in a more in-depth manner in the near future, but we wanted to give Ace players a bit more charge speed to offset this in the short term.

Weapon
Queen of Diamond

• Charge time shortened 1s => .65s

Jack of Diamond

• Charge time shortened .45s => .3s

King of Diamond

• Charge time shortened 1.3s => 1s

Chavez
We received some good feedback on the fact that a tight ammo economy is not a fun gameplay lever, we are moving away from this on two weapons this update, including Chavez’s Duke by giving him a full clip per box.

Weapon
Mod 2: Duke

• Ammo amount gained per box raised 2 => 4

Larcin
In the same spirit as Chavez’s change, we are giving a more lenient ammo economy to Larcin’s Violence to allow it to shine more as a unique option in his arsenal.

Weapon
Mod 2: Violence

• Ammo amount gained per box raised 4 => 8

Expertise
Grande Finale continues to be a very strong tool for Larcin and his team. We are making its cooldown longer than his other options for now to make its use a bit more of a commitment in a fight, but we are looking at fixing a few issues around its potential interactions that makes it stronger than intended in the near future.

Mod 1: Grande Finale

• Cooldown extended 60s => 75s

Red

The oppressiveness and strength of Red’s charm and heartbreak has been a hot topic of discussion recently. We are taking steps to make the ability less annoying to play against while making sure it’s still a useful tool in Red’s arsenal. We are also toning down the Lovebite shotgun which has been highlighted as the most destructive tool in Red’s arsenal in its current state.

Weapon
Mod 2: Lovebite

• Damage 40 => 37
  
• Fire Rate 1.15 => 1.05 shots per second

Charm

• Reduced Charmed duration 8s => 5s

Heartbreak

• Heartbreak Duration 8s => 6s
  
• Heartbreak additional damage now in line with vulnerable status effect 35% => 25%

Squire
Squire’s javelin is in a special position with the release of Operation Overhaul. While it’s one of the weapons that is most affected by recoil in the current state of the game, it’s performing extremely strongly for anyone that can control it. We will look into making the weapon less unwieldy in the future since this is beyond the scope of a live update, but we need to calm down the speed at which it melts opponents in the meantime to level the playing field

Weapon.
Mod 1: Trident

• Damage 11 => 10 per bullet
  
• Burst fire rate 10 => 9 shot per second
  
• Headshot Damage 15 => 14
  
• Reload Speed 2s => 2.2s

Maps
Hard Sell

• Fixed a close player spawn on top of the Auction Hall

Fragrant Shore

• Buffed ‘drawers spawn pools’ to have items more consistently.
  
• Fixed a keycard spawning behind a bed.

Sound Eclipse

• Buffed ‘drawers spawn pools’ to have items more consistently.
  
• Tweaked some close spawn points in the habitation section.

Agents, a double XP weekend is starting NOW!

This will last until Monday, March 11th at 11:00 AM EST (-5 GMT)

Operation Overhaul Hotfix 1
Agents, as discussed in our messaging last week, we are pushing a hotpatch for a myriad of issues we have spotted in the wild since the launch of Operation Overhaul Phase 1. Our focus with these tweaks is mostly to get the game in a better state before looking at more gameplay tweaks in the future. Let’s dive in!

General Changes
Vault Printers Audio
Vault printers will now make use of audio occlusion for the printing sound, reducing instances where you can hear a print while being out of the UI indicator range. This should make printing more easily defendable from third parties that are out of sight.

Tap Input Tweak
We have extended the window of time of what is considered a “Tap input” to make it register more consistently. This was a bigger problem with vials being a tap by default input, making it so that sometimes a tap that was too long would not heal you.

Bugfixes
Maps

• Added a missing vial dispenser in the Diamond Spire 4TH floor staff room.
  
• Fixed a collision on top of a glass dome in Silver Reef that could allow players to leave the map.
  
• Fixed a spawn point underneath a staircase in Silver Reef.
  
• Moved the “Royal Orca” mimic in Silver Reef to clear the way a bit more and prevent players bumping in it while leaving the shortcut.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused the “Change Agent” prompt to no longer show in the training range.

Characters

• Fixed an issue where Yu-Mi’s EMP flock visual effect would stay stuck after the pre-game lobby.
  
• Fixed an issue where Yu-Mi’S EMP flock sound would stack.
  
• Fixed an issue with Marquis Larcin’s skin breaking some 1P animations.
  
• Fixed an issue that caused Yu-Mi’s EMP flock to inflict a small slow effect.
  
• Madame Xiu’s “decoy NPC” left behind after an expert can no longer open the doors to the objective room, allowing a printer skip.

Controls

• Fixed an issue where aim-assist would apply to bodies on the ground, throwing off your aim.

Misc

• Can no longer use a healing vial while charging a weapon (Yumi’s Slingshot for instance).
  
• Vault Printers, Vault doors and terminals UI widget will no longer be visible during the result screen.

In addition to the hotfix, we are currently sifting through the top balance concerns to put together the first live balance update of this patch cycle which we hope to release next week. Stay tuned for more news on its content and when in the near future!

Operation Overhaul Short Term Focus
Agents, we are delighted to see you all jump in Deceive Inc. for the free weekend and we are beyond thrilled to finally have the first phase of Operation Overhaul out in the wild. Things are still quite fresh with the update dropping yesterday, but we wanted to keep you in the loop on what we are looking at in the short term. Let’s have a look!

Hotpatch and fixes
Our first order of business is to deliver a hotpatch in the coming week to address a variety of issues as well as some quality tweaks to keep things tidy. This will include tweaks to occlusion for sound on vault printers, a fix for aim-assist sticking on dead bodies and toning down sound effects for victims of Yumi’s new EMP flocks amongst other items. We’ll keep you updated on what we will make in this initial release and will assess further fixes as needed in the following weeks.

Feedback and balance
We are keeping our ears close to the ground and gathering feedback around the update. We want to let things simmer a bit to choose our next steps, but we expect to make a few balancing tweaks to start things off around the hotpatch. We are currently mostly looking at updating some characters that did not get as much changes in the weapon department like Octo who’s been left in the dust for a little bit given his newer status.

Please continue giving your feedback on the forums[forums.tripwireinteractive.com] and discord[discord.com] to let us know your highest priority items. We will communicate upcoming changes.

Thank you once again for all returning and new players jumping in Operation overhaul. We are grateful for your support and we are excited to forge the future of Deceive Inc. together with you as we continue to work towards Operation Overhaul Phase 2 and its goal of making stealth and trickery more viable. Spy on!