The Final’s second live patch is its biggest so far and with it comes a variety of buffs, nerfs, and changes worth exploring. So, with that said, here are some of the highlights we can look forward to in patch 1.4.0 of The Finals.
Abilities
Right off the bat are the balance changes around Abilities, specifically the Heavy’s Mesh Shield health being reduced by 150hp to 1100. In my eyes, this only makes the Heavy’s other Abilities like Charge and Slam even more enticing with how purely defensive the directional Mesh Shield is. You may be better off rolling with the Dome Shield and using the Charge or Goo Gun.
Meanwhile, the Medium’s Recon Sense’s activation cost was halved from 2 to 1 which ultimately is a substantial buff. Mostly because the activation cost being half of what it was allows you to use it more often in short bursts thanks to using less of the resource it needs to activate and run.
Gadgets
Patch 1.3.0 had some nice quality of life fixes, but Patch 1.4.0 brought with it a lot of changes to quite a few of the game’s secondary gadgets. Here are the highlights and how they may affect things going forward.
The Heavy’s C4 was heavily nerfed. It now does 30 less damage, has its radius reduced from 2.4m to 1.6, and had its self-damage multiplier increased by 30%. What this means for Heavy’s is that it can still 1-shot a Light and heavily damage a Medium, but it may be harder and riskier to do so. Additionally, the Heavy’s Dome Shield’s health was reduced by 50hp to 300 in total and I think that’s a fair change with how useful it is from moment to moment.
The next biggest change is a huge one. All of the Mines available to the Medium and Heavy classes each now have a 1.6 second timer that activates upon landing. This is opposed to before when the mine was technically active the moment it left your hands. This change will likely alter the way some aggressive players use them going forward.
Even more interesting are the changes to the regular Explosive Mine because on top of the new arming method, the explosive damage of the mine has been reduced from 160 to 140 and its explosive radius has shrunken by .5 meters to 3.5. Light players can breathe a sigh of relief with this change since it’s no longer an instant death if you trip one.
Said Light players will also enjoy the extra two meters added to the range of their Stun Gun too. After being shocked 10 times in the last 5 matches, I would say that statement is accurate.
Finally, the RPG-7, the pride and joy of many Heavies has been hit with a few nerfs all at once with this patch. Not only was the damage radius and max damage radius reduced by .25 meters and 1 meter respectively, but the max player damage was reduced from 165 to 150 and the minimum damage was reduced by 10 to 80.
These changes shouldn’t result in a wildly different experience compared to before. However, don’t expect your rockets to snag quite as many kills before unless you are even more accurate with your aim. That said, Heavies will still all likely use rockets. Their range and explosive yield are just too useful for both damage and destruction.
Maps
The changes here are minor and don’t amount more to small changes to the Alien Invasion event. Meanwhile, the Las Vegas map received some updates to the destruction strain which should give better destructive results in the walls and buildings during gameplay. Additionally, the Deathmatch gameshow event won’t be showing up anymore in the Bankit game mode. For those not in the know, the Deathmatch gameshow grants money on kills, so the devs removing that from Bankit seems like a good idea for the sake of balance. The devs also fixed an issue where cashout stations would become invisible before players would finish a transfer.
If anything, I’m particularly excited about any improvements to the already stellar visual and mechanical destruction that the game exhibits. That is The Finals’ biggest strength so it’s good they are finding ways to improve it, even if sporadically.
Weapons
There weren’t a ton of balance changes here this time, but we’ll cover the ones that are important. In terms of fixes, there was an issue where melee hits didn’t always connect to enemy players. That has now been fixed and will hopefully make melee attacks feel more consistent and reliable with aggressive play as opposed to turning defensive and running away to reload.
The real meat and potatoes here are the fire rate and damage changes to a few weapons. The Heavy’s Flamethrower’s firerate increased from 160 to 170, though I doubt that’s going to sway many people to switch from the LMGs, Sledgehammer, or Shotgun. Speaking of, the SA1216 shotgun received a huge nerf where the damage of its pellets went from 8 to 7.
That’s a 12.5% decrease in damage that puts a full body shot at 91 instead of 104. The pellet dispersion was also slightly increased but it’s the damage that will make players feel like the gun isn’t performing nearly as well as it was. Meaning we may end up seeing more LMG or Grenade Launcher use more often than before. Aside from that big nerf though, Light players found themselves with some gun buffs.
The LH1 semi-auto rifle saw a damage increase per body shot from 45 to 47 which means headshots now do 94 instead of 90. A someone who likes the LH1, this pleases me greatly and will only serve to diversify the Light player sandbox going forward. The same can be said for the M11 machine pistol, a gun I wrote off not too long ago that I thought was outclassed by the XP Submachine gun.
However, now the M11 body shot damage is now 16 instead of 15. Which, with its high firerate, makes it a bit better. Still, when it comes to close range damage, the Light’s shotgun has yet to be usurped.
Movement
The final section of the patch notes had some fixes for vaulting where instances where you would climb on something outside of your FOV was reduced, alongside a now fixed issue where players could get stuck without being able to do anything. Changes like these are small but are important in shooters like this where movement is smooth without bugs or issues.
Meanwhile, for Mediums who use Ziplines, they can no longer place ziplines on pickupables like throwable tanks or barrels. This should reduce instances of unintended plays where players would abuse the physics of a throwable that they can ride because their zipline is attached.
Ultimately, this is a really good patch that seems to only improve the game’s stability and balance. Can’t wait to see what Embark Studios brings out for their eventual first content patch!
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