‘Evolve’ Changing After Beta, Wraith To Receive Some Nerfs

Turtle Rock Studios used the Evolve beta on the Xbox One, PlayStation 4, and PC for more than just a glorified demo or to test its servers. The developer is making certain balance changes to the four versus one shooter, specifically to the Wraith, who was playable for the first time. Some stats from the beta also show how the balance in the game has, ahem, evolved from the alpha.

There were 2.2 million matches played during the Evolve beta, with the average game lasting just a hair under 10 minutes. The Hunters came out on top, but only barely. They topped the monsters 51.5 percent to 48.5 percent.

That’s actually an improvement from the alpha, where the Hunters won 57 percent of the time. The beta also showed that changes to the Kraken paid off, as well. That monster saw its 70 percent win ratio during the alpha drop down to 52 percent during the beta.

While the Kraken did get some needed adjustments, the Wraith was introduced in a similar overpowered state for the Evolve beta, with a 71.1 percent win ratio.

“We made adjustments and now expect to launch the game with all three monsters very near the 50% mark,” Turtle Rock stated.

What did @TurtleRock learn in the #EvolveGame Open Beta? How is Wraith getting Balanced? READ: http://t.co/5LCznycg2B pic.twitter.com/ZjYUZv2I4u

— Evolve (@EvolveGame) January 28, 2015

Here are the changes coming to Evolve when it releases on the PlayStation 4, Xbox One, and PC on February 10.

General Changes

• Make the Wraith easier to track. Even good Hunters have a hard time keeping tabs on Wraith because she can move so far while cloaked.
• Make the Decoy less spammy. It doesn’t take any skill to keep punching that ability button and let the AI Decoy go to work. We want to increase the “cost” of using it so that people use it more sparingly/strategically.
• Bring Supernova down a notch. It is okay if it’s her primary damage dealer, but it felt a little on the buff side for a while internally and we saw it prove true during the Beta.
• Make Abduction a little easier to land. It’s a really fun ability to use and it was underutilized during the beta.
• Make Warp Blast a threat. This should be a straight forward damage dealer that also has some nice mobility utility.

Wraith Specific Changes

• Wraith can no longer warp while cloaked. If she does, the cloak wears off and the Decoy vanishes (just like when you melee attack). This means that when she cloaks, she normally won’t get far and it opens the door for skilled players to do smart things like break line of sight before warping away.
• Decoy takes 30% longer to cool down. This immediately makes it 30% less spammy and hopefully results in players saving it for the more opportune moments.
• Supernova damage reduced by 10%. Not a huge change, but it will make a measurable difference.
• Abduction radius increased by.5 meters (now 3.5). This will make it a little more forgiving.
• Warp Blast radius increased by.5 meters (now 8.5). Increasing the radius here has proven a great way to increase the damage output in the past as players are able to hit their targets more often.

What do you think of these changes for Evolve? Sound off in the comments below.

[Images via Evolve]