patch 4.0

Holy updates, (non trademarked) batperson! The time between patch notes seems to fly by, but when we look back at everything we’ve accomplished in that period of time, it’s quite a list! This go-round is a double-whammy with the updates for Season 4 and a bunch of bug fixes. As always, for anything related to lag or server issues, or if you need support on a particular issue, please visit support.knockoutcity.com and include as many details as you can. Keep those reports coming!

New and Improved Features

Patch 4.0 introduces Season 4: Alien Invasion, which comes with a host of new additions! Here’s a short list of what you have to look forward to:

• New Map: Alien Smash Site has been added to all new and existing Playlists in Street Play, League Play and Private Matches
• New Training: Training 9 introduces the various aspects of the new map, as well as new training contracts to complete (and free Holobux to score!)
• New Cosmetics and Bundles in the Brawl Shop, which will rotate in throughout the Season. (Dev note: My personal favorites are the new voices!)
• New UFO Crew Vehicles! You can earn them from Crew Contracts or purchase them from the Brawl Shop throughout the Season.
• New Energy Drink, the Pom-Passer, which rewards 15 XP for hits by teammates using balls that you passed to them.

We’ve added three new music tracks from The Listeners for you to bop around to while you play!

• Dev note: Technically, this is part of what Season 4 has to offer, but it’s so exciting, it deserves its own bullet point. If you’ve been following along, Knockout City features several different bands, played by the DJ on the moon. Looks like he’s discovered a whole new band with a new sound, just in time for this Season. You'll hear these brand new songs right away on the Title Screen, and in the match music. They’ll also be permanently added to the game!

Several major improvements to League Play:

• Team KO is back as the focus of League Play in Season 4. You can learn more about our decision to return to Team KO here.
• Team Elimination will return to the Daily Playlist rotation, and has picked up some new polish and balancing improvements to the Danger Zone and ball/player spawning behavior. These improvements have also been propagated to all modes that use the Danger Zone. As always, let us know what you think about these changes!
• At Diamond Rank, Skill Rating (SR) ties are now decided by Win Spread, which is your total number of wins at Diamond minus your total number of losses at Diamond.
• ALL players now start at Skill Rating 0 when they first reach Diamond, putting everyone at even footing when they first arrive.
• The amount of bonus SR players receive (or lose) based on their MMR value has been significantly reduced, further reducing any unfair advantages while still subtly rewarding players with better win/loss records in ranked play.
• Exclusive new Season 4 cosmetics are available to earn for each Rank Tier in League Play, including bonus Player Icons and Holobux for brawlers that place in the top 1000/500/100/50/10/5/4/3/2/1 places on the Leaderboard. 
• Dev note: We want your League Play experience to be the best it can be, so as always, please let us know what you think about these changes. You can leave us feedback by using the #tell-us channel in our Discord.

Look-up angle increase. Players can now look up at a much sharper angle, decreasing the advantage opponents have when they are high up in the air.

• Dev note: This was added to help players react strategically to players who would fly high above them, have a teammate toss them a ball and beam it onto an unsuspecting player below (affectionately known as the AC-130 strat).

Contracts:

• The difficulty and quantity of some Contracts have been decreased a bit to make them more easily attainable and fun. They still require skill and time investment in different amounts, but some of the more unreasonable requirements with low completion rates have been improved.

• Improved free-throw indicator. When charging an untargeted ball, the preview hologram for where the ball will target now animates and changes states depending on whether the target location will hit geometry or a point in space.

• Dev note: This was added as part of the Conflict Escalation playlist, but realized this was useful across all game modes, especially for knowing where you're going to throw an opponent you happened to catch in ballform. So this has been added as a permanent improvement to the game.

Introducing: Auto Sprint! A new option for the Sprint Button setting, Auto, lets the player automatically sprint when moving forward unless they are actively charging a ball.

• To help us dive deeper into player lag and connection issues, we’ve implemented the Report Server button, which allows you to report your experience on a server, once per game. Please use this function if you’re experiencing lag, lag spikes, or poor connection issues.
• To help you remember exactly where you landed at the end of the Season, the League Play Season rewards sequence will now include a message about your final Leaderboard placement when notifying you of rewards, to help you remember exactly where you landed.
• One nice thing about virtual stores: you don’t need to lease extra space to offer more inventory. You’ll now find two additional items for sale in the Brawl Shop every day of the week.
• The Social Menu, Match Results, and Next Match screens will now display group indicators for all players in a match that are in a group together. Each group will be color-coded for the team that group is in. So, in a 4v4 match, if there are 2 groups of 2 people, each group will be represented by a different color.
• When spectating other players in KO Royale, the camera is now smoother.

Bug fixes

PC

• Fixed audio issues on PC if the game application was put in the background or minimized.

PS5

• Fixed a possible crash for PS5 players who suspend the game while restarting.
• Fixed an issue that caused some players to see a black screen when progressing past the Title Screen on PS5 in Performance Mode due to changing refresh rates and/or screen resolutions.

Switch

• Fixed an issue on Switch with Soda Ball sound effects playing twice after the ball explodes.

Gameplay

• We fixed an exploit that allowed players to catch a pass and fake throw repeatedly to keep the ball charged. You may have heard this one referred to as “traveling.”

Voice Chat and Text To Speech

• Fixed some problems with voice chat that would cause it to stop working for some players.
• Fixed various issues where text-to-speech would stop working.

Bots

• Sometimes, new player training bots would not show the correct name or Player Icon in menus. They should now always have a unique name and a Player Icon of the first letter of their name.

Social Menu

• In the Recent Players list, the most recent players now sort to the top of the list.
• On all platforms, fixed some issues that could cause players' current status information both in and out of game (e.g. on friends lists) to be out of date.

Audio / Visual

• Fixed some visual issues with lighting in Enhanced Lighting Quality mode.
• Adjusted the lighting in the maintenance room in Lockdown Throwdown during Midnight Madness to not be so red.
• Made the Z3R0 Voice the proper volume.

Matchmaking

• Fixed an issue that could cause the Matchmaking indicator to incorrectly display “Joining Match in Progress” if a match was found when the reward sequence was playing.

Spectating

• Spectators could spectate a KO’d brawler in some game modes; they will now skip over KO’d players when switching.
• Spectating brawlers playing with controllers will no longer feel controller vibration for the spectated brawler’s actions.

Maps

• Fixed an issue where the player could stand on an invisible box in Jukebox Junction and be KO’d as soon as a train started moving.
• Fixed some issues where brawlers could be thrown through the ceiling in some places.

Contracts

• Sometimes, Contracts would not show your progress while waiting for a match to start before updating to the proper amount.". This has been corrected, and you’ll see the correct amount of progress immediately.
• Crew Contracts that require the completion of other Crew Contracts now give their rewards immediately after being completed instead of after the next match completed.
• Fixed some issues that prevented a Daily Login Bonus from being awarded.
• Fixed an issue that would cause settings, new item indicators, and tracked contracts to be reset.

UI

• Fixed missing player and crew names in the Next Match or Match Results screen.
• Fixed many issues in the rewards sequence with contracts progression not animating properly.
• Fixed an issue in the Contracts list where trying to view rewards would result in a permanent loading icon until the player scrolled the list in specific ways.
• Paging through the user Leaderboard should now correctly center around your player.