Hi, friends. You asked us to tell about the development tree, about the difference between common and premium units, and how many grinds and level-ups you need to make every day to make your fighters strong, smart and with ruddy cheeks. All of these questions already have answers, because most of the mechanics are implemented. At the same time, the system is still being improved, so your wishes and comments will be welcome. The whole concept of the player's development is difficult to explain in one diary, so today we will talk mainly about the development tree, types and groups of units, commanders - the metagame in general.

Commanders and experience

At the very beginning, you can play with three starter commanders: an artilleryman, a tankman, an infantryman. Each with a small number of base units that will help you get acquainted with the game and understand which class is best for you. After playing several games with the base commanders and having completed the training, you will already have enough experience to open a couple of new units and several commanders with an explicit specialization. Commanders were created to emphasize the unique gameplay of different kinds of troops, which each have their advantages and disadvantages and their priority goals on the battlefield. For example, a sapper battalion is good at building defenses and strengthening positions, and a heavy tank commander is indispensable in breaking through this defense, while howitzer battalions will erase any fortifications to dust. The trouble is that as long as these guys will break through and erase to dust, sabotage-reconnaissance or motorized battalions will already be in their rear to destroy the artillery. This plan would be torn down of course, If only medium tank battalions were ready at hand to stop them on the approach to the front line... and so on.
link During the battle, each unit that takes part in it earns a certain amount of devtree experience. As soon as the riflemen recruits get enough, you can open snipers or sappers. It is only possible to open new troops successively. To get stormtroopers your machine gunner vets need to work hard first. Of course, the more effective the unit was in combat, and the more you used it, the more it will earn experience. All as in the proverb - ‘As the days grow longer, the Nebelwerfer comes closer’. In addition to the devtree experience, after the battle, some amount of free experience will be available to you, which can be used to open any conventional unit (the rule of successive opening is preserved). A free experience can be added to open a unit for which there is not enough devtree experience or a unit in a branch that you don’t play often. For example, you are a tankman to the core, but would like to have a pair of infantry squads for reconnaissance and assistance in breaking the front line. In that case, when running along with feeble basic infantry below your own dignity - use free experience. Also, experience will be required to open perks for squads, which we will discuss next time. In a nutshell - it's an opportunity to rearm and customize the units for your playing gaming style.

Development tree and unit types

Part of the development tree, as it is presented above, are not final or even currently in-game, but an example was created to show the available German infantry squads. The development tree is common to all commanders, but this doesn’t mean that you will be able to pick all the tanks using your sapper battalion, hoping to surprise the enemy. The inscription and the number on the bottom of the unit plate are its type and level. They must match the type of slot in which you want to put it and its maximum level so that the commander can use it. The game now features such types of units as: support, artillery, firing point, special firing point, support, basic, special and heavy infantry, independent infantry units, armored cars, light, medium and heavy tanks, SPG and AT-SPG. In addition, the units are divided into: common, premium and collector. The overwhelming majority are common units which you can open with devtree experience. Premium (yellow background), as it happens to be, opens with real money and gives the opportunity to start in a new branch not from the very beginning (as you might have noticed in the tree they have a connection with common units). Prem-units are not super cool, but represent some modified versions of usual ones and introduce variety into the gameplay. In case you are bored with Nashorn and Jagdtiger, you can try new tactics with premium Ferdinand. However, without premium you still have more than fifty units for each faction. Collector’s units are not represented in the tree at all and can not be opened. So we want to put some rare units into the game, which would be very strange to see in every fight and make their presence realistic. Among them are Luchs, Willys with a Maxim machine gun, KV-1 with a ZIS-5 gun and so on. The player will receive a reward for every fight played, in which there may be common or premium units from those not yet open, and rarely collector’s units. It is worth noting that this will not unblock the unit forever, but only grant the possibility of using it in several battles. So far this is the only way to get collector’s units, but as you remember, the system is still changing.

Early access and threatening letters

There is one more important point that we would like to dwell on. A couple of months ago we updated the information on the Steam page, but most likely many people did not pay attention to it. This is not unusual, because who will re-read the description of the game? Among other things, we indicated there that we plan to sell the Early access version. We did not abandon the f2p model and after the full release the game will be free. Early Access is aimed towards the community that is tired of only reading about Soldiers: Arena and requires the opportunity to play. In this version of the game, bugs and work-in-progress elements will be unavoidable, its development will continue at full speed. In general, it will not be for everyone. So we want to invite more people from the community to participate in the creation of the game, but to slightly limit the number of those who are not quite aware of what we have been doing all this time. In addition, we would not like to go completely to support and fixing balance and bugs, but have time to add new features, models and other content, which, with our small team and a large number of players, could become an impossible task. So Early access for us is the ability to continue to develop the game in a relatively narrow circle of ‘bro’, stopping by to receive letters from you with threats such as ‘Either you filthy scumbag release the game and let me play with my friends, or I’ll buy a train ticket and a baseball bat. And believe me, I do not aim to practice good passes and home runs.’ Seriously, guys, stop it. For you, Early Access is an opportunity to play before others and in fact to be among those who created the game. This is all for today. Write your suggestions in the comments, fill all the space under this post with your polite and respectful holy wars and we wish you all the best. And we have a pleasant surprise for connoisseurs of our games and the GEM engine.

[ 2017-11-23 20:24:52 CET ] [ Original post ]