Respawn Entertainment’s Titanfall 2 has received its latest free update on all platforms and it’s quite meaty. Operation Frontier Shield brings Frontier Defense, the 4 player co-op Horde mode from the first game, to Titanfall 2.
Frontier Defense will be available for five maps currently but more will be added in the future. Along with the usual sentry turrets, players can use Arc traps to fend off waves of enemies that include enemy Titans, Grunts, Stalkers, Reapers and so on. Aegis Ranks are earned for completing matches and they can lend more upgrades to one’s Titan.
The update also brings a new map Rise, remastered from the original Titanfall and also available in Frontier Defense, along with Township, a Live Fire map taking place in a residential area. You can also look forward to the usual bug fixes and changes like the Phase Shift ability now having only one charge but recharging faster. Weapons like the G2 now have reduced fire rate while medium and long damage on SMGs has been “significantly reduced”. Check out the full patch notes below for more information.
Game Improvements
- Added more out of bounds triggers to Complex.
- New stats page for maps, including tracking of Frontier Defense difficulty levels.
- Visual improvements for Weapon and Titan stats pages.
Titan Balance
General
- Ogre class Titans now have a baseline of 1 dash with a 10 second cooldown.
- Turbo Engine will now reduce cool down of Scorch and Legion’s dashes to 5 seconds. It will still behave the same as before for other Titan classes.
- Overcore now gives 20% core meter.
- Electric Smoke unlocks at 20% instead of 25%.
Ronin
- Sword Block damage reduction reduced by 5%.
Scorch
- Scorch will now have 1 dash charge with a 10 second cooldown.
- Increased Firewall’s width.
- Scorch Kits
- Wildfire Launcher now increases the direct-hit damage of the Thermite Launcher. It still increases the amount of fire spread.
- Scorched Earth’s lingering fire lasts longer.
- Tempered Plating now makes Scorch immune to crits and his own thermite damage.
- Fixed a bug with Flame Core not igniting Incendiary Traps.
Legion
- Legion will now have 1 dash charge with a 10 second cooldown.
- Hidden Compartment: Power Shot has two charges and Power Shot damage is reduced by 15%.
Monarch
- XO-16 base magazine size increased to 40 rounds.
- Reduced the strength of the slow effect of Energy Siphon.
- Slightly reduced effectiveness of Arc Rounds against Vortex Shield and Heat Shield.
- Multi-Target Missile System no longer locks onto cloaked targets.
Pilot Balance
General
- Aim Assist settings have been modified for Assault Rifles and SMGs.
- ARs and SMGs require you to be aiming closer to your target before any ADS assist takes effect.
- Reduced the overall effectiveness of ADS assist for Assault Rifles.
- Titan Hunter kit modified to be 10% extra Titan meter from damage instead of 10% Titan Meter on Titan Kill.
Phase Shift
- Now has just 1 charge, but recharges faster.
SMGs
- Medium and long damage significantly reduced.
- One of the positive changes we saw in the High TTK playlist was the increase of weapon diversity. It is our hope that between the Aim Assist nerf and this SMG nerf, we’ll see weapon diversity increased across all three platforms.
G2
- Reduced fire rate.
DMR
- Reduced fire rate: In this particular instance, we felt that the reduced fire rate simply made the gun feel better since the gun stabilizes better between shots.
Flatline
- Slightly reduced damage at medium range. It still has the best medium range damage of any Assault Rifle.
Archer
- No longer locks onto cloaked targets.
Smart Pistol
- No longer locks onto cloaked targets.
Sidearms
- High TTK playlist changes for the P2016, Wingman, Wingman Elite, and Mozambique have been brought over to bring their power level down now that all Pilots can carry a secondary weapon.
Melee
- Lunge time and melee hit frames changed to .3 seconds from .2 seconds. This will help people firing weapons, particularly automatic weapons, get extra shots in before the lunge completes.
- Melee lunge range reduced.
- Non-lunge melee attack range increased. This will help with the cases where melee looks like it should hit but doesn’t connect with the target.
Game Mode Adjustments
- Various improvements to the UI for Private Match, including increased visibility of text chat on PC.
Misc. Bug Fixes
- Fixed issues with purchasable Nose Arts not showing up correctly on Titans.
- Spectators in Marked for Death can no longer be marked for death.
- (Xbox One) Buttons and pod doors in War Games intro sequence now play at the correct volume.
- Titan Nose Arts flagged as Advocate Gift unlocks may now actually be awarded when opening Advocate Gifts.