Today Ubisoft graced us with the new updates that have been made to GRO. I will try to go through everthing here and let you know my thoughts on some of this here. The Closed Beta starts again on Monday June 18th and my guns are loaded and I am ready to roll.

 

 

General updates to GRO include a new Starter Kit, Death Log, Voice Comm updates, HUD Changes, several player changes, customizations, achievement updates, and graphics changes.

 

Starter Kit

* New players will now receive both primary weapons and a pistol for each of their characters

* Starting Requisition Points have been adjusted to result in a round number after completion of the tutorial

 

For new players coming to the game this is one of the best updates a player could ask for. In the past beta phases new players had to make a choice of one primary gun, and you were not given a secondary weapon (pistol). It was up to the new player to make enough RP (requisition Points) to purchase the side arm for their character. In addition if you chose the wrong primary weapon you were immediatley put off by the game as you could not change it without having enought RP to buy the other weapon.

 

 

Voice Comms updates:

* Voice Comms icons were added on top of players head and on the tactical map when they speak

* The name of users speaking through Voice Comms is now displayed on the left side of the HUD

* Implemented several audio design improvements to class devices

 

Communication was a big issue in prior beta phases, and it looks like we will see some improvement to the system. VOIP did not qork correctly part of the time and when it did we had no idea who was talking making it harder to know how to help a squadmate. With the new visual enhancements to knowing who is talking and where that player is this should help to improve the teamwork involved in capturing or defending points.

 

 

Player Updates:

* When a player dies, he will be shown the "Death log" with more information on damage taken.

* The health of a squad mate will now be shown when the user is pointing at him

* Kills/death in the scoreboard were moved to lower part of the screen to focus on teamplay

* Grenades you are throwing don't bounce against your Blitz Shield anymore

* Players will now retain their stance (stand, crouch, prone) after performing a jump over or on top of an obstacle

* Grenades will now Auto-stack in the inventory

 

There has been several updates to the player. I am curious what the new "Death Log" will look like and what information it holds in it. Being able to see a squad mates health is nice to have and would come in handy to the squad mate that has the extra health regeneration team ability on, if they can get to you without getting shot and killed in the process. 

 

Shifting more items around on the HUD to improve the view is a great little update and with the grenade throwing feature updated you are less likely to kill yourself in the process. Grenade stacking will be a welcome feature helping to preserve the room in the limited storage area.

 

 

Weapons:

All weapon categories have undergone some changes. The LMG, SMG, Sniper, Handgun, and even the Shotgun. Changes to the weapons iron sights and circle reticule in 3rd person mode, improvements to the starting player weapons, rebalancing of the handguns. There have been a number of updates that increase or reduce damage, rate of fite, accuracy, and magazine size. Time delay has been improved when tapping shots for certain weapons as well.

 

For a full list of updates coming in the newest Closed Beta check out the Ubisoft GRO forums by clicking here.