Ranked Season 2 Update

You know that competition breeds success.

With Ranked Season 2 kicking off tomorrow and running until the 1st of June, it's time to jump back into the mode Dirty Bomb was built for - Hardcore 5v5 matches with friendly fire and team collision enabled.

This time around, you'll find even more rewards than skilling up and proving your worth...

## **Exclusive Ranked Cases**

Get new, Limited Edition Loadout Cards by playing in Ranked Season 2.

Each Season 2 Ranked Case contains one random Loadout Card with an exclusive skin for a Merc and their weapons, available only during this season.

Want to strike fear into the hearts of the unwashed masses in pubs? They're not easy to get, but these skins are all about prestige.

## **Ranked Points**

Earn Ranked Points to buy Ranked Season 2 Cases for 1000 points each.

You can get your hands on Ranked points in three ways:

## **Log in Now**

To celebrate the beginning of the season, log in within the next two weeks for 500 bonus Ranked Points to get you on your way!

**GIVEAWAY DURATION!**

* **London (GMT, UTC):** 14:00 Wednesday, March 1 - 14:00 Wednesday, March 15
* **Los Angeles (PST, UTC-8):** 6:00 AM Wednesday, March 1 - 7:00 AM Wednesday, March 15
* **Sydney (AEST+1, UTC+11):** 1:00 AM Thursday, March 2 - 1:00 AM Thursday, March 16

## **Playing Ranked Matches**

Earn points for every match you play. The better your team does, the more points you'll earn as you work through the season.

Team Results

* Win: 50
* Draw: 30
* Loss: 10

## **Placement**

When Season 2 ends, you'll earn points for the highest Rank you've achieved through the Season.

These range from 100 points for Bronze Recruit, to 4500 for Elite Operative. All possible rewards can be found in the 'Ranked' tab in your Profile.

When the Season ends, you'll have a week to spend any remaining points on Ranked Season 2 Cases. After that, any points you have left will carry over into the next season.

## **Ranked Case Drops**

Finally, luck could shine upon you. Every time a case drops at the end of a Ranked match, there's a 2% chance it could be a Ranked Case.

## **Why Ranked?**

Competitive play is at the heart of Dirty Bomb.

The satisfaction of improving your twitch skills and tactics, let alone working your team into a finely-tuned killing machine, is tangible.

On top of that, Ranked games are matchmade and give you the opportunity to group up with a friend or four for a full team. Add in new, exclusive content, and this is the perfect time to get your hands dirty.

## **Where Do I Sign Up?**

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To get a head start on the Season, hit 'Ranked Match' in the Play menu. Remember, you have to be at Level 7 or higher to get stuck in.

When you enter the new Season, you'll battle through ten placement matches to determine your starting Rank.

Your placement is affected by where you ended up in Season 1, but if you're fresh to Ranked these ten games will be the proverbial sorting hat for your starting position.

## **What Do I Get?**

As well as earning Ranked Points for exclusive Cases, you'll get a 50% Credit Bonus that's applied to your Credit total at the end of every match.

On top of that, you'll be rewarded an exclusive Season 2 Trinket for the highest Rank you attain during the Season when it wraps up. Moving down a Rank won't cost you the higher Rank Trinket, so don't be afraid to fight your way back to the top!

## **What Else Has Changed?**

A lot went wrong during Ranked Season 1.

Merging parts of our work-in-progress Casual Matchmaking system with Ranked caused a number of critical issues that took us time to resolve.

We've learned a lot from Season 1, and with this new Season we'll be doing our best to make Ranked Mode the perfect playground for competitive types. Along with fixing these issues, we've made some key changes:

* **Region Based Search Times/Limits** - We're introducing more relaxed searching rules in the lower population regions to help them find games more quickly. These values have been tuned based on Season 1 data and will be monitored and tweaked going forward.
* **Faster Rank Changes** - We'll be speeding up how quickly you Rank up/down in Season 2 by approximately 20-50%, depending on Win/Loss Ratios.

Factoring in Personal Performance - While your team winning or losing will always determine whether you gain or lose Ranks, we will be factoring in personal performance when we calculate how much you gain or lose after each match.

* **Reduced Credit Rate** - Because of the Ranked-exclusive rewards now in the mode, we've reduced the Credit earning bonus to 1.5x the base rate (from 2.0x)

Alright, time to prove your mettle - Get in there and start raising your Rank!

## **Other Changes**

**Gameplay**

* Added a 'Crosshair Dot When Sighted' option which keeps the static 'dot' portion of the crosshair visible when ironsighted or scoped
* Updated existing Crosshairs to always be an even number of pixels tall/wide, perfectly centering them on screen at all times
	+ A future update will be expanding Crosshair options further

**Audio**

* Added completely new audio for the DE .50 pistol (for details check out this dev update)

**User Interface**

* Added a Steam Review popup, to occasionally guide experienced players towards the Steam review section if they decide to
	+ Steam reviews really help us to promote Dirty Bomb. As we work towards publishing the game ourselves and scaling up the development team, every review helps us to reach a wider audience!
* Updated the Feedback prompt on Exit so it will only ask for feedback once a week at most

## **Notable Bug Fixes**

* Fixed bug where the indirect flash effect from Concussion Grenades persisted for too long
* Fixed bug where the indirect flash effect from Concussion Grenades wasn't always blocked by geometry
* Fixed bug where the firing or changing weapon keys could become temporarily unresponsive after using abilities
* Fixed bug where players would accidentally fire when switching back to their weapon after manually selecting and placing a deployable
* Fixed bug where keys for Selecting Mercs 1 and 2 could unbind automatically
* Fixed bug where XP earned during a Ranked match was sometimes not applied to Missions
* Fixed bug where a player could be locked into firing after interacting with objectives
* Fixed bug where the "Change Team" option was visible in Ranked mode
* Fixed bug where incorrect Commander audio could play at half time in Stopwatch matches
* Fixed bug where a player's own third person blood effects could appear when hit, obscuring visibility
* Fixed bug where the tracer fire from the first MG nest on Trainyard didn't reflect the true angle of fire
* Fixed bug where it was possible to leave the map around the entrance to the GH Building on Bridge
* Fixed bug where more players were required to successfully Vote Kick than was stated in-game
* Fixed bug where it was possible to change Loadout Cards in the Lobby after the timer had run out
* Fixed bug where a Healing Station's visual effect wouldn't reactivate when out of range of Phantom's EMP radius
* Fixed bug where a player's name would appear as [unknown] in the drop-down menu when right-clicking them in the Lobby
* Fixed bug where some weapons had a maximum ammo capacity higher than intended, due to a rounding error
* Reduced MoA's maximum capacity to 27 (from 30)
* Reduced Remburg's maximum capacity to 22 (from 23)
* Reduced Smjüth & Whetsman .40's maximum capacity to 30 (from 36)