Early Access Patch V0.18 | Predecessor

Early Access Patch V0.18

Everything you need to know about V0.18p!

Patch Notes 2024年5月20日

Hotfixes

V0.18.1 (24/05/2024)

Introduction

Greetings Champions!

V0.18 is finally upon us, unquestionably the biggest game update Predecessor has ever seen.

We’ve got an entirely new gamemode, a beloved new Hero, improvements and overhauls to our audio system, oodles of brand new items, a complete overhaul of nearly every other existing item, Hero and stat in the entire game as well as some completely original new skins for some of your favourite Heroes.

So grab your best biscuits and settle in, it’s time to overhaul Predecessor!

A New Hero Appears

Put your enemies on ice, with Aurora!

The undisputed crystalline queen of the cold, Aurora, is making her icy Predecessor debut!

Abilities:

Frozen Simulacrum [Passive]:

Effect: Damaging an Enemy Hero or Monster 4 times will summon a Frost Storm around Aurora for 3s, refreshing on additional damage dealt. The Storm deals 5 (+30% Magical Power) + 1% (+0.06% per level) Enemy Max Health magical damage per second. Additionally if Aurora jumps whilst already airborne she will leap in the direction she is moving, leaving behind a frozen replica of herself!

Frozen Sword [Basic Attack]:

BAT: 1.1 Effect: Melee basic attack dealing 62 (+80% Bonus Physical Power) physical damage.

Glacial Charge [Primary]:

CD: 26/24/22/20/18 Cost: 80 Effect: Aurora dashes forward, leaving behind a trail of ice that other Heroes can walk on for the next 5s. Allied Heroes gain 20/25/30/35/40% increased movement speed when walking on the ice.

Hoarfrost [Secondary]:

CD: 14/13/12/11/10 Cost: 50 Effect: Aurora creates a ring of frost on the ground around her. Enemies that touch the ring take 100/125/150/175/200 (+70% Magical Power) magical damage and are Rooted for 1.25s. The ring remains in the world for 2.5s.

Boreal Sweep [Alternate]:

CD: 12/11/10/9/8 Cost: 40/45/50/55/60 Effect: Aurora summons a wave of frost in a cone dealing 45/60/75/90/105 (+25% Magical Power) magical damage and Slowing enemy targets hit by 35% for 1s. After 1s the wave erupts, dealing an additional 75/110/145/180/215 (+60% Magical Power) magical damage and reapplying the Slow.

Cryoseism [Ultimate]:

CD: 120/110/100 Cost: 100 Effect: Aurora freezes an area, applying a 50% Slow to all enemies for 1.5s. After 1.5s, the ice freezes, Stunning the target for 1s. After the Stun the target explodes, dealing 130/250/370 (+50% Magical Power) magical damage to them and all nearby enemies. Enemies damaged by Cryoseism will be Slowed by 50% for 0.5s before exploding, dealing 65/125/185 (+25% Magical Power) magical damage to them and nearby enemies. Targets can only be slowed this way once per Cryoseism.

Store News

New Skins

Quantum Lt. Belica

Take your tech to the top with the all-new [Legendary] Quantum Lt. Belica skin!

Odyssey Howitzer

One small step for man is actually many small steps for Howitzer when he’s out of his mech. Explore the stars with his all-new [Epic] Odyssey skin!

Ascended Zarus

Carry the blessings of the God of the Senezani and fulfil your divine potential at long last with the ruthless [Common] Ascended Zarus skin!

Glacial Empress Aurora

Plunge your foes into a bitter cold snap, with Aurora’s [Epic] Glacial Empress skin!

New Bundles

Quantum Lt. Belica Bundle

Make a quantum leap with the Quantum Lt. Belica bundle, including multiple variants of her new legendary skin as well as brand-new recall and jump pad visual effects!

Bundle Contents:

Quantum VFX Bundle

Power up all of your Heroes and dazzle your foes with the Quantum VFX Bundle, letting you put these unique effects on any of your Heroes!

Bundle Contents:

Odyssey Howitzer Bundle

Pick up Howitzer, his new Odyssey skin and a bunch of astral goodies in the Odyssey Howitzer Bundle!

Bundle Contents:

Ascension Bundle

With enough ascended Heroes to fill a small pantheon, this bundle is ideal for anyone who wasn’t able to play during the Road To Ascension season last year!

This is the only way to get the Ascended skins for The Fey, Sparrow and Narbash right now, so pick up this bundle while you can!

Bundle Contents:

Glacial Empress Aurora Bundle

Subvert your foes with sleek and sublime sub-zero sleet, snow and storms in Aurora’s very own Glacial Empress bundle, complete with a collection of cool cosmetics and bundled with her premium Affinity Pass unlocked and ready to take on!

Bundle Contents:

Brawl Mode

Predecessor’s first new game mode, Brawl, is finally here!

It’s casual, it’s crazy, and it’s sure to stir things up. You can check out everything you need to know about it in the video below, or keep reading for the full breakdown of how it works!

Overview

Brawl Mode is a brand-new, quickfire game mode coming to Predecessor on May 21st, where two teams of 5 battle it out in an action-packed skirmish featuring faster gold and more XP, all on a brand new, single lane map.

The aim of the game is simple, take all of your enemies points by any means necessary, before they take yours.

Points

Each team starts the game with 400 points. Killing enemy minions and taking down opposing Heroes takes points from the other team. Each minion killed is worth one point, each Hero slain is worth five points. But securing takedowns is just one way to build your lead.

At each end of the map, both teams have a portal to defend from enemy minions and… other monsters… Your portal is located just in front of your spawn point. If an enemy minion reaches it, your team will lose one point. So if a whole wave of minions comes crashing down your lane, consider playing defensively and intercept them before you start losing too many points.

Once your team has killed five enemy Heroes you’ll gain the aid of a mighty Fangtooth! This destructive dinosaur will rampage down the lane on your behalf, devastating minions and Heroes alike as it charges towards the enemy portal! Escort your Fangtooth successfully to the enemy portal, and they’ll lose a massive 15 points.

The best part? There’s no limit to the number of Fangteeth you or your opponents can spawn during a game. Successfully escorted a Fangtooth? Simply wrack up another five kills and watch the slaughter start all over again!

Takedowns, defense and wave management are the keys to success in Brawl Mode!

Objectives

While the central lane will see most of the action, flanking your enemies and exploring the sides of the map will reveal a number of monsters that will grant you various buffs. Here you’ll find the Orange buff for more damage and increased jump height, the purple buff providing extra health and tenacity, and the River buffs, all spawning on a timer throughout the match to provide a range of effects for players to take advantage of. Killing these monsters won’t reduce your enemy’s points, but it could give you the boost you need to turn the battle in your favor.

Likewise, you may notice health packs dotted around the map too. When collected these heal you and any allies within a short radius. You can use them to instantly recover your health during a fight, or maybe you’ll be grabbing them to deny heals for your opponents!

Later on in the match Orb Prime will spawn in the middle of the map for either team to try and take advantage of. This is a huge objective that neither team will want to give up easily, as it grants the team who secures the takedown a buff to their minions as well as health and mana regen, while also deducting a huge 50 points from the enemy team.

Victory

The game ends when one team is reduced to zero points, leaving the other side victorious and the losers as food for Fangtooth!

Find Brawl Mode in the Game Modes menu and strap in for more carnage than ever before!

Audio Improvements

V0.18 also sees a complete redesign of Predecessor’s sound system!

The new announcer is primed and ready to commentate your battles, highlighting every epic multikill with clearer audio and a richer presence. As the battle begins you’ll be able to pick up on more audible details than ever before.

As the match heats up and you let loose your epic abilities don’t be surprised to hear many new voice lines coming from your favorite Heroes! We’ve upped the chattiness of every character in the game, so expect to hear your Hero react more dynamically to the match around them with more personality than ever before!

Beyond these new additions we’ve overhauled the entire audio system, rebalancing everything you hear in game and rebuilding our audio implementation from the ground up. Predecessor should feel fresh, exciting and alive, and we’re excited to hear your thoughts on these improvements.

Performance Improvements

Not only will Predecessor sound better than ever, but it’ll now run more smoothly than ever before too!

We’ve identified and fixed several memory leaks and performance issues, such as the leading cause of performance troughs and spikes during gameplay and in the main menus. Median FPS remains roughly the same, but if you experienced random slowdowns before this update you should now find that they’re mostly fixed or improved.

On top of this we’ve also reduced Predecessor’s overall memory consumption, improving performance on lower-end machines and making it easier for everyone to run the game while other intensive programs run in the background.

Console Localisation

We’ve been hard at work expanding and improving our in game translations, ever-dedicated to our mission of making Predecessor more accessible to more people.

We’re almost ready to release the localisation options that PC users have been enjoying recently on console, but this V0.18 update being the original target has been delayed until a future update.

Matchmaking

We've identified an edge case with our Matchmaking Rating (MMR) calculations affecting players frequently partying up with friends that are naturally a much higher or lower MMR. Our system previously did not account well for players in matches with an average rating well above or below their own MMR. This "squeeze" towards the middle and increased rating volatility might result in some more variable matchmaking for a short while so please bear with us as the system rebalances, but we expect players to settle back towards their natural skill point relatively quickly.

Gameplay Balance Changes

Without further ado, let’s finally get into the bulk of the V0.18 update.

Six Items

As requested by many in the Community we’re pleased to finally introduce the highly-anticipated 6th Item Slot, allowing for more creativity and unique builds than ever before!

Mass Game Re-Balance

The addition of the sixth item slot brings with it several balance requirements to ensure that things run smoothly with damage output and Hero durability all remaining relative to the new baseline we’ve created.

While things should feel largely the same, everything from the amount of Gold and Experience you earn in a match, to Heroes, Items, Minions and Monsters have all received comprehensive balance adjustments to ensure that the overall pace and feel of Predecessor remains intact.

Summary of overall balance changes

Faster Gold Gain

More Item Slots means a more expensive full build!

Rather than aggressively compressing Stats and Gold Costs, we’ve opted to increase the passive Gold Drip and the Gold gained from Minions & Monsters. As a result we have re-balanced all Heroes and items with this new Gold Pacing in mind. As mentioned, Gold gain is now roughly 15% faster across the board.

Faster XP

Along with these Gold changes the amount of XP required to level up has been decreased, and XP values from their respective sources have been changed.

Matchmaking

We've identified an edge case with our Matchmaking Rating (MMR) calculations affecting players frequently partying up with friends that are much higher or lower MMR.

Item Rebalance

Under the new pacing and stat baseline, practically all items have received a complete re-balance, be that stat changes or more generally buffs and nerfs.

New Items

Alongside the other item changes we’ve also introduced 22 brand new items in their place!