XDefiant dev explains what went wrong with Spiderbots in Season 1 update

XDefiant players loaded up the new season on July 2 and found they could no longer shoot Spiderbots off their faces like they could in the preseason. The game’s executive producer has explained on social media what exactly went wrong and how Ubisoft will fix the issue.

The DeadSec Faction ability was heavily nerfed in the Season 1 update, as its cooldown was almost doubled. The ability also no longer targets enemies who have just been attacked by a Spiderbot.

However, players soon discovered that they could no longer shoot the ability off themselves, which is the easiest way to get rid of the pesky bot, following the update. Even with the nerfs to the ability, players found it almost impossible to deal with Spiderbots in their games as they seem almost invincible,

Mark Rubin, the EP for XDefiant, explained on social media on July 3 that players were not supposed to be able to shoot Spiderbots off their faces and that the mechanic was actually a bug.

“However, there was also a bug in that meleeing them was way harder than it was supposed to be. So we wanted to keep the bug of shooting them off your own face in the game until we fixed other spiderbot issues,” Rubin said.

OK now that we've gotten through the patch and Ranked is now live, I want to talk about the Spiderbots.

So when the game launched there was a bug that you could shoot down at your feet and destroy the spiderbot. This was not intended. However, there was also a bug in that…

— Mark Rubin (@PixelsofMark) July 3, 2024

He explained that the dev team accidentally shipped a fix to the bug in the Season 1 update and that the fix would be reverted in the next “non-emergency patch.”

So players will still have to deal with the annoying ability for at least a few days, as another patch is not expected to hit servers this week.

To counter the ability until then, players will either have to shoot the bot while it is still on the ground or learn the exact timing to melee it out of the air when it tries to latch on.

The XDefiant dev also promised even more changes for Spiderbots in the future as the team tries to find an “easier and clearer way to get them off your own face” other than shooting it or a well-timed melee.

The Season 1 update has brought even more changes to the Ubisoft game outside of Spiderbot issues, so check out what else has been added to the game, like the three new weapons, a new Faction, and a new map.