Respec Order
2026.04.15
In Update 10.3, we’ll introduce an experimental World Tour Event designed to help us test out some potential changes to the game. To prepare you for the event and for the feedback we’d like you to provide, Matt Lowe, Design Director for THE FINALS has prepared a blog to tell you more about the event, what it’s testing, and why we’re keen to get your input!
Check it out below and make sure to scroll to the bottom for an additional announcement on how you can more actively engage with Matt around this event!
RESPEC ORDER | EXPLAINED BY MATT LOWE, DESIGN DIRECTOR
Hey folks,
Our World Tour stop for Update 10.3, Respec Order, is a little different to some of our previous World Tour events. This time, it’s more of an experiment.
For those of you who were with us in Season 3, you’ll know that during that time we used World Tour as a testing ground for various changes to Cashout mode. These experiments gave us a chance to see how different things played ‘in the wild’ and to gather player feedback. Respec Order is an event very much in that fashion and here's what we're testing and why.
In Respec Order, we’re adjusting both the health values and the base movement speeds of the Heavy and the Light archetypes in Cashout mode for one week, the changes will be as follows:
Heavy
Health decreased from 350 to 325
Base movement speeds (run and sprint) increased by approximately 10%
Light
Health increased from 150 to 175
Base movement speeds (run and sprint) decreased by approximately 10%
There are two main reasons for why we would like to test this change:
Movement Speed
First and foremost, THE FINALS is a game about teamplay and over time we've come to feel that one of the bigger hindrances to teamplay is how different the base move speeds are for the various body types.
Each time a team with a Heavy, Medium and Light (HML) composition wipes and has to run back to an objective, the speed differences between the body types means the Light often arrives at the next team fight around 5-10s sooner than the Heavy, which is frequently enough time for them to die in a 1v3 encounter and immediately bring an imbalance to the fight. Many players are able to adapt to this by holding back to make sure they arrive as a team, but for teams made up of solo players, or new players trying THE FINALS for the first time, this is not a skill they've mastered and the variable movement speeds work against tight team cohesion.
This is not a unique problem to THE FINALS. Many hero shooters have the majority of their hero rosters moving at the same base speed for this very reason, using only custom animations and abilities to differentiate their speed instead. In our case, much of the Light's mobility in engagements comes from Specializations like Evasive Dash and the Grappling Hook, so we feel that reducing their speed doesn't necessarily damage their core style of play, while benefitting them with greater and easier team proximity.
The goal is to keep teams closer together, which should ultimately result in more engaging team fights.
Health Scales
The second change, to the highest and lowest health values, is also trying to address a classic FPS problem that can have a negative impact on how we balance THE FINALS at present.
Generally, when making a weapon system for an FPS game, the higher the difference between the biggest and smallest health values, the harder it is to make weapons feel good at both ends of that system.
As an exaggerated example: if a gun does 10 damage per shot and a Light has 10 health, the person taking the shot will feel like they're in a realism shooter, needing just one bullet to kill their target. If that same player shoots at a 200 health Heavy, they're going to need at least 20 shots to kill (assuming 100% accuracy), the gun is going to feel useless, and the Heavy will feel like a bullet sponge.
To address this, many FPS games solve the problem one of two ways.
The first is to keep the health difference between the highest and lowest archetypes within a tight range, allowing designers to more easily make guns feel good at both ends of the spectrum. A scale of around 150 health difference generally still allows for good combat feel across all health values.
The second is to specifically design the rest of the core game loop around the big health disparities with additional systems. For example, Shields or Armor that provide bonus health with custom regeneration rules, support roles and healing as a key part of the gameplay loop, and maps and game modes designed around narrow frontlines that support frequent healing. With these extra systems combat becomes more attritional, at which point the health scale matters a little less to how combat feels overall.
In the case of THE FINALS, our current health scale, from 150 on Light to 350 on Heavy, is probably a little too wide. We've often found that this scale can be quite a limiting factor when it comes to balancing, where if we want to make a gun feel better against one body type we're going to have to make it feel worse against another.
Respec Order
With this event primarily focusing on movement speeds and team cohesion, it’s also a good opportunity to adjust health values based on the loss or gain of mobility for Lights and Heavys, to account for them getting hit more or less than before. This experiment will allow us to test a tighter health scale that could lead to making balancing easier in the future.
When it comes to shots to kill, these health changes actually have very little impact on the game. For most weapons, the extra or missing health affects the gap between damage breakpoints, and as a result will likely be felt mostly in prolonged team encounters rather than clean 1v1 fights where both players start with full health.
What’s next?
As part of this event, we'll survey players in-game to ask how they feel about the changes. We’ll also be collecting feedback on our Official Discord - there will be a dedicated feedback channel for this once the event is live. Based on that feedback, we'll discuss whether these changes are something we should add to the game longer term.
I want to stress that if this test goes well and a change like this becomes something we strongly believe should be part of the core game, it would come with a full balance pass of all Weapons, Specializations and Gadgets based on the new core health and speed values. A proper execution of a change like this requires much more balancing, but as a first test a smaller set of changes makes the most sense for practical reasons.
So, thanks to all of you who choose to jump in and try this event, and thanks for helping us shape the game going forwards! :)
//Matt
AMA | SEND US YOUR QUESTIONS!
We’re teaming up with the amazing moderators over at the fan-run r/thefinals subreddit to collect any questions you might have for Matt. Next Thursday, when the Respec Order event has ended, Matt will join Oscar for the first part of his weekly community stream to talk about the event, to tell you a bit more about the experiment, and to answer some of the top questions from the community.
We’ll be focusing on questions about the Respec Order event, but will also accept some questions that are about game design in general. Oscar will ask the top burning questions that are relevant to Matt live on stream, and you’ll get to know a bit more about how we approach Game Design and balance here at THE FINALS!
Play Respec Order in Update 10.3, releasing on Thursday, April 16
Ask your questions on Reddit in the coming week.
Tune in for Oscar’s stream on Thursday, April 23rd and join to watch Matt’s Q&A!
