Paladins tends to get a lot of stuff wrong when a patch releases. The fanbase, however, will always let the developers know when there's something they disagree with:
- OB64 is the single most infamous update in Paladins' history, introducing Cards Unbound, a system that changed the game's loadout system to instead be tied to rolling duplicates in chests, increasing the game's grind to painful levels, and straight into pay-to-win territory. Though the developers welcomed feedback prior to the update launch, the system was still implemented, despite complaints. When the update went live, players left in disgust at seeing what had been done to the game, many vowing never to return again, even if the system was removed. After a mass protest on the subreddit with intentionally crappy fanart, OB67 rolled around, and removed the system entirely, restoring the original system, and making all cards free for everyone; players were also given gold and VIP points in exchange for how many chests they owned / opened. This update was praised for the change, with some of the players that had left the game coming back now that it had been restored.
- Originally, character voice packs weren't included with the actual champions, needing to be purchased separately if one wanted to use their unique voices in VGS, leaving most players with the default announcer pack. Unless one had purchased the game's Founder's Pack, players would have to buy and roll chests to get them. While this was partially solved through in the Street Style update to purchase them with 200 crystals or 60,000 gold, it didn't really help satiate the complaints. The developers just eventually gave up on trying to monetize them, as in the A Tigron's Tale update, all voice packs were made free, removing the default announcer, and actually letting characters get matching voice lines. While players were unfortunately not compensated if they had already purchased any voice packs prior, this change greatly improved clarity between players using VGS commands.
- When Furia was revealed, there were complaints about her Leotard of Power clashing with her personality as an angelic knight set on protecting the innocent. The day after her reveal, her design was changed to include pants
, making it much more fitting and drawing less attention to her thigh-groin area, especially since concept art showed off less-revealing attire that still fitted Furia's design motif. This caused a divide between those who preferred the pants and those who didn't, but as a compromise, the alternate recolor skin remained pantless so both sides were satisfied. This also started the trend of the developers making minor model changes to recolors of future champions. - The weapon used by Lian's Merrymaker skin originally included a scope, despite that fact that none of Lian's abilities involve her doing anything that would require one. This caused a debate on various sites about whether or not to remove it; some argued the scope was completely pointless and took up too much screen space, while others argued that without the scope, her weapon looked like a reskin of the default rifle. The developers ended up adding a second variant that lacked the scope in order to satisfy both sides.
- Originally, vehicle mounts such as the Alpha and 8-Bit Speeder lacked animations, instead just having champions sit stiffly in a single pose while riding. The Eternal Pyre fixed this though, adding actual animations to the mounts and giving the champions a bit of life as they ride into battle.
- The gen:LOCK updated addressed multiple past complaints:
- A long requested feature was the ability to use the UI in order to see players which had disconnected. This update added icons for this exact purpose, allowing players to easily identify AFK teammates, those with poor internet, or people that chose to throw the game, rather than watch the player and make assumptions.
- A common complaint was that if one were to crash or otherwise be temporarily kicked from a match, the bot that replaced them would buy items in their place, most often unhelpful if not completely useless items, putting the player at a disadvantage once they returned. The update changed bots so they were unable to purchase items if they replaced an actual player.
- After many complaints following the introduction of a new VGS system, the developers finally implemented the option to toggle between the new and old versions, allowing players to use the old keybinds and the numerous voice lines that had been removed from the new version.
- Having not received a new skin for a while, many players were frustrated to learn that Evie's new Sweet Shop skin would be exclusive to Ranked, which naturally led to complaints. This update introduced Toothache Evie, a recolor of the Sweet Shop skin available in the Bounty Store for those who weren't fond of Ranked. This practice even continued with future Ranked skins receiving recolors in the Bounty Store.
- Veteran, formerly derided as the single worst item in the game, was reworked to instead increase the maximum base health of a champion, making it an infinitely more useful item to purchase.
- Atlas' Unstable Fissure talent, long considered one of the worst talents in the game, was reworked with a completely new effect: rewinding enemies near Atlas when he uses Second Chance, instead of creating an easily avoidable explosion.
- Wall-jump boosting gained an extra direction; forward, as well as the usual sideways and reverse.
- A long requested feature was the ability to use the UI in order to see players which had disconnected. This update added icons for this exact purpose
- The Bounty Store itself came back with a vengeance in the gen:LOCK update as well:
- One of the main complaints was that coins were needlessly difficult to get, with the coins only being earnable by completing quests. This patch added new avenues to obtain coins to alleviate this somewhat; one could still do quests as before, but one could also earn them by watching ads, as well as linking one's account to Twitch and watching Paladins streams. Coins eventually became obtainable in Event Passes as well, which helped make the process of earning the coins less monotonous.
- The store itself was changed to include three rotating skin slots, rather than just one. This helped the issue of skins selling out mere hours after release.
- Players had their previous amount of coins set to somewhere between 100 - 1,000, as the original store had numerous exploits which allowed players to obtain mountains of them with ease. This helped level the playing field and for many, saw an increase in coins, rather than a decrease.
- When the gen:LOCK update went live, the "Toothache" skin cost about 27,000 coins in the Bounty Store, which players soon realized was outright impossible to ever afford with the rate of Bounty Coins at the time. This was changed five days later so nine times as many coins would drop (from 9 to 48), while the price for the skin was made more reasonable as well.
- The Trickshot update reintroduced the Bounty Marketplace on September 29th, 2021. This was a system that allowed players to buy and sell skins purchased in the store, and this new version had some significant upgrades:
- Champion skins are now listed by champion name in alphabetical order, then the skin for that champion in alphabetical order, rather than the original setup of skins being placed randomly on the dropdown menu when new skins were added to the marketplace. This change made it significantly less annoying to navigate for skins you were looking for.
- The site was changed to update in real time, showing newly added skins and removed those that had been purchased, saving the need to constantly refresh the page.
- The site's design now looked sleeker than before, while various site optimizations were also made in the website's back-end, with mobile browser support being added.
- The Absolution update added quite a few adjustments:
- At the end of a match, a button was added that let you see any active trials, as well as a button that takes you to the Trials of the Realm page itself.
- Pop-ups were also introduced at the end of matches to show players any progress they made on active trials.
- Bounty Coins were changed to now be given out in larger quantities, such as 1,000 or 1,300 (the former in trials, the latter in Event Pass tracks).
- The Monstercat update had some changes of its own:
- This patch added a proper way to check what level of anti-heal was being applied in a match via an indicator on the scoreboard that updates in real time (something the previous patch failed to do).
- A few days into the patch going live, it was noticed that exclusive Bounty Store skins (such as Sigma Vivian, Barebones Dredge, Toothache Evie, Biting Wind VII, Salt Io, and Crash King 48 Bomb King) were unavailable on the marketplace. A content creator mentioned something about this and soon after, the skins were made available.
- The RWBY update:
- The long-requested feature of more options for custom servers, such as low gravity and increased cooldowns, was finally added.
- Mid-air inaccuracy was removed from every weapon in the game, a very annoying issue when playing any character with throwables, such as Grover.
- The Dawnforge update added the ability to make Event Pass levels purchasable with gold (originally just 70 crystals) was in response to the complaints about the gold economy still being too unbalanced and really easy to rack up; this system has finally given gold a worthwhile use, while the price (70,000 gold; 10,000 more than a newly released champion costs) generally isn't high enough to leave new players feeling left out.
- The "Emergence" update revamped the entire store and inventory User Interface to be more consistent and better laid out. While there was some push back on the changes before release, the complaints about the UI died down as quickly as they started.
- The "Emergence Community" update, as the name suggests, added community suggestions into the game:
- It added custom loading screens to the game, reusing the splash art that was once used in the loading frames, and lets players who liked the splash art to now see it in-game when loading back into a lobby.
- The update re-added Rise of Furia as a weekend LTM, an event game mode that players have wanted for ages to re-run, and the developers removed all loadout and character restrictions too for the mode.
- Abyssal Lord Drogoz, a skin that was previously incredibly rare to obtain (as in, was a charity reward outside of its initial release in Rise of Furia), was also made purchasable again for this patch due to the above LTM being active. While this did cause some complaining by players who had already gotten it years prior, the community at large welcomed the change, and many hoped this would make other Limited skins (such as Soul Eater Jenos) be made available again in a similar manner.
- About thirty different skins were made direct purchase, the great majority being from previous event passes or otherwise stuck in chests.
- Payload also returned, and the maps were fixed up so they would work across consoles, something players were annoyed got broken.
- For the five year anniversary, the developers made several community requested changed:
- Maeve (arguably the most popular character in Paladins) is now free, while other champions got their prices adjusted.
- The bounty coin and skin compensation scheme was enacted in this update, now properly rewarding those who participated in the system.
- A request by players from Emergence was to let more "Limited" tier skins be available to buy. While this specific setup hasn't been fulfilled, this update did allow any player who plays 15 matches during the update to get one "Limited"-tier skin that was initially released from the now-defunct battle pass system, as a celebration of the games' anniversary.
- Brightmarsh now has all the flowers and props that were pruned or removed, as the Nintendo Switch port has now been removed. Players from the switch can still transfer progress, however, to Xbox or PC.
- 2024 started off with a bang:
- Much like Cauterize before it, Illuminate was removed from the game and put into everyone's base kit, so it's no longer mandatory to specifically counter Skye, and deal with other stealthed champions.
- After a long absence, Trials of the Realm returned, and not only was the UI improved, but the much maligned tickets system was gotten rid of. Similarly, you are able to gain rewards from any trial once the hub opens up, so you don't need to pick and choose what you want as you'll gain rewards more passively.
