Game Update 1.5.2 (103)

Here are the patch notes to the latest version 1.5.2 (103) update hot off the press.

New Feature: District Recommendation
Added a new feature to check a player’s skill rating and automatically recommend a district containing players of a similar skill rating.
This allows low and high tier players to go into districts with players of a similar skill rating, dramatically improving their chances of getting good matchups on opposed missions.
Players can use this feature by choosing either of the two action district buttons on the main District Select screen.
Players can still use the ‘Instances’ tab on the District Select screen to manually choose a district as before.

Matchmaking
The matchmaking system has been redesigned to integrate better with the new skill rating system.
The biggest improvement will be the matchmaking system taking into account how confident the skill rating system is about a player’s skill level. This should result in improved matches, especially for new players.

New Feature: Team Alliance
Added a new feature to automatically team up individual ready players and small groups into larger teams to take part in missions together.
This increases the chances of players getting matchups as well as the chances of participating in missions with more players per side (i.e. bigger missions).
On completing the mission, players are presented with a popup dialog, asking if they want to group up. Players saying ‘yes’ will then be put into a group together.
Players who don’t wish to take part in Team Alliance can opt out on the ‘Groups and Friends’ menu.

Animation/Action System Improvements
Changed the order of action importance (I.e. which actions may be interrupted by other actions).
This means that shooting now outranks every other action, including sprinting. This does not allow firing while sprinting, but it does mean that holding both sprint and fire at the same time will now fire instead of sprint.
There is a known issue where players can occasionally perform the sprint animation in a direction other than the one they are travelling in. We will have a fix for this issue as soon as possible.
Other changes include allowing players to switch weapons again while already in the process of switching weapons, and allowing weapon switching while sprinting. Players can now also go directly to the crouching position when sprinting.

Missions
Updates to over 60 missions, primarily changing their final stage(s) to be opposed objectives (both teams have something to do, not just attack/defend).
In some cases, we have completely disabled missions that require a total reworking.
Also adjusted the timings of several missions to better balance them (this primarily affects VIP missions).

Mods
Rifling: Fixed this as it wasn’t correctly increasing the effective range of the weapon in previous builds.
Happy Landings: Decreased the distance a player can fall without entering the heavy landing animation (not exactly a nerf here, at level 3 the distance is the same as it was in 1.5.1).

Weapons
Fixed mods not being removed and recovered when they are on an unequipped weapon that has expired.
Fixed the weapon stats for shotguns only showing the per-pellet damage as opposed to the full shot damage.
Fixed the ALIG 762 R&D III having the wrong name in the Armas Marketplace.
Added a kill icon for the ALIG 762.

General
Increased the jump height slightly to improve the flow of moving through blocks in districts.
Increased the distance the player can fall without entering the heavy landing animation.
Increased the chat box size by one line.
Fixed a couple of low-frequency server crashes.
Fixed a couple of low-frequency client crashes.
Fixed Michael Simeone sending a blank email.
Fixed the ‘Backup’ UI message naming the player you are already opposed to instead of the player joining the match.
Fixed Threat icons not updating in the Group UI element, if the player is in a vehicle.
Fixed Threat icons not updating on the ‘Groups and Friends’ UI menu.
Fixed the UI ceremony message showing the Threat Training icon when a player is Bronze 1.
Fixed the Clan tab on the ‘Groups and Friends’ menu only ever showing the ‘In Training’ Threat icon for a player’s threat level.
Adjusted cash income from Missions, Activities and Contact Levelling.
Reduced all cash from completing Contact levels.
Removed the increased cash amount for non-premium players on higher tier missions. Premium players now receive 125% extra cash from missions across the board, compared to non-premium players.
Reduced the cash gains for non-premium players on all activities (Open World, Kill/Arrest/Task Completion).
Adjusted increased standing amount for Premium players:
30% over non-premium players at Tier 0 contacts.
Additional 15% increase for each level over Tier 0 (45% at Tier 1, 60% at Tier 2, 75% at Tier 3, 90% at Tier 4).
Added a Vehicle Spawn machine outside the Karnak Casino in the Financial District.
Fixed a client crash when applying a blank or empty symbol as player graffiti.
Fixed a bug where the game would not first look for opposed missions when all group members are ready (putting them on an unopposed mission instead, with the possibility of opposition later), if the group leader has already been ready for over 30 seconds.
Screenshots are now saved as compressed PNGs, rather than bitmaps.