XDefiant patch notes nerf Spiderbots, tune weapons, and more

A fresh set of XDefiant patch notes have arrived to improve gameplay, factions, balance weapons, and so much more.

As well as the updates made in this patch, a server change recently rolled out with the aim of reducing the number of times you matchmake with a region that is not the one you are in. This should mean that ping will no longer be an issue when tearing up the battlefield.

XDefiant patch notes (July 17)

Here are all the adjustments made as part of today’s update.

Gameplay

Fixed a delay in reloading, swapping weapons, or deploying devices caused by players rapidly tapping the Fire and Ability buttons.
Players who took advantage of a speed hack will now find themselves locked in place, which is the opposite of what they were going for.

Factions

After coming to an agreement with pharmaceutical company GSK, the Team Rainbow faction will hereafter be known as GS-Kommando. Feel free to continue calling them Grenzschutzkommando as a handy time saver.
Fixed an issue where DedSec’s Spiderbots were ignoring victims previously targeted by the deploying player. Now they’ll spiderhug faces new and old with equal enthusiasm.
Players can once again shoot DedSec Spiderbots off their own faces. Not sure why; everybody loves Spiderbots.
Tuned the functionality of Echelon’s Intel Suit. Now it pulses every four seconds instead of every three. Enemies remain highlighted for 1 second instead of 2.7 seconds, so everybody pay attention.
Some abilities such as Firebomb, the Digital Ghillie Suit, and BioVida Boost weren’t always activating or occasionally stopped working. That’s fixed.

Maps

Fixed a weird issue letting players exit a Times Square spawn zone early by jumping off a picture frame.

Game Modes

Updated the Playlist screen to show all the available game modes.
Added menu text clarifying that the Bronze rank unlocks at the first victory.
Fixed an issue that was displaying the little padlock icon on Ranked Rewards despite players earning them fair and square.

Weapons

Tuned various weapons for gameplay balance. Here are the spec changes for your records:
- M4A1 short-range damage increased from 17 to 18.
- MDR short-range damage increased from 17 to 19.
- MP5A2 medium-range damage increased from 13 to 14. Its headshot-damage multiplier increased from 1.35x to 1.4x.
- The MP5A2’s short range increased from 16m to 18m. Its medium range increased from 25m to 27m.
- MDR ADS speed improved from 300ms to 250ms.
- M44 Sprint Out Time (sprint-to-shoot time) increased from 350ms to 400ms.
- TAC-50 Sprint Out Time increased from 600ms to 625ms.
- L115 sprint-shoot time increased from 550ms to 575ms.
- The sniper rifles (M44, TAC-50, and L115) got a small increase in spread when shooting from the hip (as opposed to aiming via the optics).
Improved the visual presentation of tracer fire and ammo-case ejection so both depart more accurately from their respective weapon.
Adjusted how the aiming system detects player input so that recoil recovery returns to center rather than being thrown off by unintended player jitters in the heat of combat.
Fixed a glitch that allowed players to fire automatically upon respawning if they jammed on the Fire and Sprint buttons while dying.

Audio

Graphical and audio fixes, various.

Miscellaneous

Corrected the Killscreen HP value (from one to zero) of players who killed other players post-mortem (via a well-placed proximity mine, incendiary rounds, or similarly persistent offensive strategies).
Previously, players with pings greater than 150ms were kept waiting an un-fun amount of time in matchmaking. We’ve improved the matchmaking parameters so their ping is assessed more frequently, which should greatly reduce matchmaking wait times. Also, players of any ping quality can now instantly jump into the Practice Zone, where they can take out their ping frustrations in a healthy and constructive way.
Crash fixes, various.