Titanfall’s “biggest update ever” is big

Respawn has outlined the changes coming to Titanfall update #8 and there’s a lot of them.

Today was the day Respawn revealed all the changes coming in the next game update and this not only includes the usual bug fixes and PC tweaks but also a new game more.

Called Frontier Defense, this co-op game mode will see a team of three take on waves of AI which will include Grunts and Spectres, stealthy Sniper Spectres and Cloak Drones, explosive Suicide Spectres and Nuclear Titans, ranged Mortar Titans, and melee-resistant Arc Titans. Loadout crates near objectives will enable players to switch weapons, players will be dropped back into the battle when they die via a dropship, and all maps will feature this new mode.

Other notable changes are sudden death in DTF in the event of a tie, a full screen mini map, and more burn cards. For all the details check the changes below before they arrive tomorrow.

Brand new cooperative game mode – Frontier Defense
Join forces with up to three other players in this cooperative game mode to defend a vital objective from increasingly intense waves of AI combatants.

– You and your team will face down familiar foes as well as the IMC’s newest combat units: hordes of Grunts and Spectres, stealthy Sniper Spectres and Cloak Drones, explosive Suicide Spectres and Nuclear Titans, ranged Mortar Titans, and even melee-resistant Arc Titans!

– Supplement your firepower by earning and deploying stationary turrets around the battlefield.

– Leverage your full arsenal against the IMC without skipping a beat by using the new Loadout Crates near the objective to switch loadouts at will, while refilling ammo and ordnance.

– Pilots who fall in battle are flown back into the fray in a dropship that circles above the action before touchdown. Experienced Pilots always maximize their impact on the struggle below by firing from the side window of the dropship on approach.

– Seasoned players can challenge themselves to beat their best score. Try to earn 3 Map Stars on each map!

– Play in every corner of the Frontier, including the maps introduced in IMC Rising and every previous Titanfall expansion!

Ranked Play
Test yourself! Ranked play will enable you to work your way through an increasingly challenging set of Tiers by out-performing other Pilots in battle. This is not an exclusive mode or playlist and it works in all standard competitive matches.

In order to obtain the metrics we need to finalize the details, this feature will be launching in beta form.

The beta will last at least through October. After the beta, it will be open to all players level 32 or higher. A new season of Ranked Play will begin on the 1st of each month.

Looking for a beta invite? All Gen 10 players will receive beta access, in appreciation of their skill and determination. Gen 10 players may also invite other players to join in the fun. Gen 10 players are given 5 invites to Ranked Play, and 3 more invites per day. We may also expand beta access during this period.

Sudden Death in CTF
In Capture the Flag if the timer runs out and the scores are tied, the match will go into Sudden Death. Respawning is disabled, the first team to capture the enemy’s flag will win.

Map Stars
For an additional challenge while playing the game, we’ve added 3 stars to obtain in each primary game mode of each map. The stars you earn persist forever and you only have to earn each star once. To earn the star just play a match and reach the indicated score requirement. There are a potential of 504 stars to earn, and new Titan Insignias to unlock for earning a total of 30 stars combined for a game mode. You can view the progress of all Map Stars, and their requirements, in the “Levels” menu under “Personal Stats”.

Full Screen Minimap
To improve coordination among teammates, we’ve added the ability to bring up a full map by pressing Right D-Pad or “M” on the keyboard.

New Titan Insignias
7 new Titan Insignias have been added. 2 for Frontier Defense, 5 for Map Stars completion.

Private Match Burn Card Sets
Instead of using your regular Burn Cards in Private Match, you now specify a set of Burn Cards for the lobby. Each player has access to a copy of this set and may make whatever selections they see fit.
• Fair and Balanced—Set designed for competitive play.
• All Cards—One of every Burn Card.
• No Rares—Every Burn Card, excluding rare cards.
• Ghost Match—Collection of cloak-related cards.
• High Velocity—Collection of stim-related cards.
• Machine War—Spectres…fighting Spectres…with armies of Spectres.
• Fightin’ Titans—Collection of amped Titan weapons, anti-Titan weapons, etc.
• Amped Up—All amped weapons, all the time.
• CTF Competitive—Set designed for competitive Capture the Flag.
• LTS Competitive—Set designed for competitive Last Titan Standing.
• None—No Burn Cards.

Black Market Additions

New Titan OS Voices
This update introduces new Titan OS Voices to buy in the Black Market. Sid is aggressive and dominating, while Vanessa is warm and inviting. In addition, you can purchase Black Market versions of the Betty Titan OS in multiple languages.

Black Market—Forged Certifications
Completing challenges can be hard, but on the Black Market, cheaters always win. This update lets you buy “Forged Certifications” which allow you to skip all five tiers of a challenge. You won’t receive any of the rewards for those challenges. Be careful, though—there is a new Xbox Live Achievement, “Too Legit To Quit” (0 points), to reach Gen 10 the old fashioned way—without skipping any regen challenges! Players who are already Gen 10 will also receive the challenge retroactively. Skipping a challenge that is not a regen requirement will not affect the achievement.

More Featured Game Modes coming!

Deadly Ground
The floor is covered in deadly electrified fog! Play a variety of maps in Hardpoint, Capture the Flag and Marked For Death while staying off the ground. Deadly Ground is scheduled to launch as the new featured game mode on November 5th.

Marked for Death Pro
Do you like Marked for Death but pine for classic round-based intensity? Look no further than Marked for Death Pro, poised to launch on November 26th.

New Features (X1)

17 new Achievements
Gotta pop ’em all! Are you a bad enough dude or dudette to get all 2000 cheevo points?

New Features (PC)

New graphics quality settings: TXAA and HBAO
Got the GPU horsepower to take your game to the next level? Switch on HBAO for increased realism and shadows, and if you’re rocking a supported NVIDIA GPU you can also enable TXAA (2X or 4X) for increased fidelity.

Improvements and Optimizations

Load times are now significantly faster.

Specifically the time it takes to get from the main menu to a private lobby has been greatly reduced as well as the time to get from the game back into the lobby at the end of a match.

The load screen now displays the correct map name and game mode as early as possible. We managed to remove the delay before the next level showed up, and fixed bugs where the previous map and gamemode showed up in the load screen instead of the correct values.

Decal rendering optimizations were applied.

UI Improvements
The daily challenge menu now has a countdown telling you when new daily challenges will be available.

When abandoning a daily challenge, the selection will no longer return to the top of the list.

General
Changed the music that plays on the last round of LTS.

Gameplay Changes

Black Market Prices
Some item prices have been adjusted to align better with the rate at which people earn Credits.

Marked For Death
During the countdown, the player who will be marked is highlighted to his friendly teammates by an in-world icon and a minimap icon.

When you become the marked player, you now gain full minimap vision. (Previously, it gave you minimap vision of all players, but not AI). We’ve added a visual callout for this in the form of a bonus Burn Card indicator.

Rematch Burn Card
This is now disabled for use in Last Titan Standing.
Decreased the amount of time between using the card and respawning.

Weapon Burn Card Cancelled
The “Burn Card Cancelled” message has been modified to indicate if the killed player was actively wielding an amped weapon at the time of their death.

Burn Card Overflow Protection
You will no longer earn Burn Cards from kills if your total deck size has fewer than 16 free slots. You will still earn Burn Cards for all other activities such as completing challenges or successfully evacuating. This is to protect against excessive Burn Card overflow.

Voice Over
Toned down frequency of VO that tells you if the score lead has increased or decreased.

Minimap Alert
Shots fired without silencers will now make you appear on the minimap of all enemy players. Previously this was only up to a distance of 4000 units.

Bug Fixes (All Platforms)

Fixed artifacts due to interactions between Titan shields and particles.
Made challenge descriptions easier to read in the challenges menu.
Fixed some missing or incorrect data in the last game summary menu after playing in a private match

Gameplay:
Fix unsilenced Smart Pistols never showing up on the minimap.
Fixed a bug where the Extra Dash Burn Card could remove the Big Punch mod from Titans.
Fixed a bug where Gen10 players using Roll the Dice with a full Burn Card deck could overflow their available space.
Fixed minor variance in Titan shield regeneration time.
Fixed a bug where you could change your Titan’s loadout in the middle of its life, if your Pilot had just respawned.
Fixed a few cases where Titans could fly further than expected.
Fix view pop when rodeo-ing a Titan that then gets embarked.
Fixed a rare case where a neck snap might not neck snap.
Fixed getting under the map in Nexus due to nuclear eject.
Fixed rodeo animations getting cancelled suddenly due to a player embarking into his Titan.
Fixed Titan warnings for incoming hostile Titanfall and getting rodeoed not playing sometimes.
Fixed timer-to-next-Titan sometimes not displaying after respawning.
Fixed cases of missing attacker kill credit. When a Pilot suicides, if enemy player damaged them recently, that player now gets kill credit.

UI:
Fixed refractive effects in VDU.
Fixed menu navigation issues when level 50 in the challenges menu
The next map images in lobbies will properly clear when going in between menus.
Fixed a bug where your loadouts would look unchanged after editing a custom loadout.

Performance:
Frame hitch when Pilot connects or disconnects.

Bug Fixes (X1)
Fixed hitch when connecting to server.
Fixed hitch when other players connect or disconnect.

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