Posted in: Games, Video Games | Tagged: Apex Legends, Gibraltar, Respawn Entertainment, Titanfall

Gibraltar's Sticky Shield is Disappearing in Apex Legends' Next Patch

As detailed on the Apex Legends reddit, Respawn Entertainment will be deploying a number of major fixes in the game's next patch. One of the notable changes will be the removal of an exploit where players could stick objects to Gibraltar's Gun Shield. Gibraltar's shield is intended to block incoming fire when he aims down his gunsights, however, a bug allowed players to stick things like Caustic's gas canisters or Octane's jump pad to his shield and create, well, absolute chaos.

Respawn defended their decision to remove the bug saying:

Fixed the bug that allowed players to stick objects to Gibraltar's Gun Shield.

• Admittedly it's been fun to see the results of this but the behavior is not intended by design and could get out of control. Items will no longer stick to Gibraltar's Gun Shield, however, it will now deflect Arc Stars.

As PC Gamer recalls, the bug has already gotten out of hand on a few occasions, so we can't exactly blame Respawn for their decision to remove the Gibraltar Sticky Shield bug.

"Could get out of control" is putting it mildly: As Evan showed us last month, it took players very little time to combine Gibraltar, Pathfinder, and a half-dozen of Caustic's gas canisters into "an unholy Voltron of some of the game's less-useful characters." Which is actually pretty spectacular, if almost entirely useless, and sticking Octane's Jump Pad to the shield isn't much better: It grants the G-Man significant mobility at the cost of being unable to actually see where he's going.

On the upside, his Gun Shield will not deflect Arc Stars, so Gibraltar mains aren't getting completely shafted in the next patch. Gibraltar and Caustic are also getting a fix for their Fortified Passive ability so they won't take damage through shields anymore.

The rest of the updates will include a number of bug fixes, quality of life improvements, and major changes to the game's audio systems:

• AUDIO FIXES AND IMPROVEMENTS

  • One of our biggest issues to tackle was improving the audio performance to address issues reported of sounds dropping out, sounds missing for extended time, or distortion for a period of time. We have made improvements both in our code and with our content that will hopefully fix these issues for many players, and for others, at least lower the amount and length of time they encounter audio issues.

  • We have also addressed some of the other mix issues with the game, including increasing the volume of close proximity enemy footsteps and lowering the overall volume of the game from the character select screen to the end of the drop sequence. We will continue to monitor mix issues and address them as necessary. Below are the notes of improvements we've included in today's patch and we're continuing to work on future improvements.

• PERFORMANCE

  • Improved audio engine to be around 30% more CPU efficient, lessening the chance of distortion or dropouts.

  • Lowered impact on data loading through code and content changes to improve potential dropout issues.

• QUALITY OF LIFE

  • Lowered the master volume of all sounds during the character select screen through the end of the drop sequence.

  • Lowered the volume of Wraith's ambient kunai knife sound for those who are sensitive to the sound. If it is still bothersome we will remove it in a later patch.

  • Increased the volume of close proximity enemy footsteps for all Legends.

  • Increased the priority of enemy footsteps to ensure the sounds play even in heavy combat situations.

  • Slightly lowered the volume of Pathfinder footstep sounds heard from the first person view.

  • Fixed missing or quiet dryfire (out of ammo trigger click sound) and low ammo (the progressive change in sound that the gun makes as the magazine approaches empty) sounds for the R301, Hemlok, Flatline and RE45.

  • Increased the volume of the music that plays when winning a match.

  • Added more detailed audio to the Training mission.

You can check out the full patch notes here. Respawn hasn't set a date for the patch just yet, so you still have a bit of time to enjoy the absolute insanity of Gibraltar's sticky shield before it disappears.

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