Hello, friends. When you compare the state of the game mechanics in their first mention in the Diaries with how they currently are, you realize how much time and effort has been invested in the game and how far Soldiers: Arena has advanced. Just remember the trenches. We could write a medium-sized epos about how they were created and how many times they have changed. But we are not tired and we are not going to stop. And today we will tell you about a new type of infantry squad, on which we recently started to work. It’s Difficult and promising. Just as we love it.

What are these squads?

As it was written earlier, in Soldiers: Arena we want to strengthen the role-playing component and make the gameplay unique for each army type. But whoever you play, you can not forget about the infantry. Tanks need intelligence, and artillery constantly needs defense from saboteurs and everybody needs someone to capture and hold their rightful territory. Your team is unlikely to go into battle without an infantry commander, but the allies help those who help themselves. Friends may not have time to help, may not have have free troops or they might simply be engaged in something they deem more important than protecting your positions. If you don’t want to be helpless in a game, it's worthwhile to take not only big guns, but also a couple of infantry squads to cover positions, conduct reconnaissance or assault relatively safe sectors of the front. Tank and artillery gameplay is very different from the infantry one and have different focuses of attention, goals, requirements for micro-control and the game tempo. The player constantly has to switch focus of interest, which makes the gameplay uneven and complicates the immersion and playing the role. In addition, in Soldiers: Arena the skirmishes go all along the entire front line and often the player needs to be present simultaneously in several places, placing his infantry to protect one sector of the front and attacking in the other, while still using direct control sometimes. So we developed the independent infantry units that can partially relieve you of the hectic affairs and allow you to settle your sight on your centre of interest. The squad leader will command the soldiers and direct their attack, leading the bitter fighting that will relieve the player of constant attention gaps in the front.

What do I need them for?

Independent platoons, companies are used to perform special tasks and do not directly obey the command of the military unit in which they operate. So in the game you can take them to the "deck", spawn in battle, and give the basic order. How to complete the orders is better for the squad leader to consider. Such detachments are more numerous and cheaper than the usual ones, but they have some limitations. You will not be able to select a specific target for them to attack, only a general direction. Such a squad can not be divided or controlled with DC. They carry out only basic orders. Now they are ‘Attack’, ‘Retreat’ and ‘Charge’. For example, receiving the order ‘Attack’, the squad will advance in the given direction until it meets serious resistance of the enemy and begins to incur losses. In this case, the advance will stop, and may turn into a retreat if the losses are too big. If you give the Charge order, then it will advance in spite of the losses, until it completes the task, or falls entirely. In the future, we plan to add orders like Capture the territory / building / trench and Strengthen, according to which the infantry will begin to dig trenches and prepare for the defense. Independent infantry units consist of the same units as the regular ones (recruits, regular army soldiers and vets) and will be both homogeneous (submachine gunners, riflemen) and combined. The inability to fully control them can be both their strength and weakness, depending on your micro-control skills. If you do not have time to be on all sectors of the front at the same time, call such a squad and switch your attention to something else. Yes, most likely they will not capture the Reichstag by themselves, but it will try from all its artificially intelligent capabilities!

How will they help me dominate?

For the first time we tried this mechanics on the orders of sappers and engineers. The player only gives them an order to place mines or dig trenches (put hedgehogs, barricades from bags and so on) and indicate the place, after which the squad spawns, executes the order and fall back all by itself. In the case of independent infantry units, we had to refine the logic of their behavior and prescribe a lot of dependencies on the situation on the battlefield, but we are sure that it's worth it. After all, now you can balance your battalion based on your own capabilities, wishes and chosen tactics even more precisely. And there are enough options for using them in combat. For example, you can give an order to attack and switch to direct control with your tank. Did you see your squad stopped moving? Help them kill the enemy and move on. Do you like to crush with quantity? Send a few independent infantry units forward and, hiding high-level infantry among them, you will get a chance for the direct assault even on well-fortified positions. Do you want to concentrate on the game with artillery, but you are afraid of saboteurs? Summon a pair of such squads and give orders to strengthen your positions. Of course, it is not necessary to use independent infantry units, and if you have enough time for everything and can skip on them - that’s great. However, you still can’t fill all slots with such units, because the number of them will be limited. There is no chance to sin in Soldiers: Arena while watching it with popcorn. This is all for today. We are grateful for your activity in the comments and we hope that this will continue. What do you think about the new infantry squads? Do you have any questions? We are ready to respond.

[ 2017-09-07 18:33:55 CET ] [ Original post ]