Hi, friends. Last time this year we gave feedback about the job done until that time. And this is the last diary, the same for this year. And some last screenshots. The year is coming to an end, you know. But the next one is coming, in which there will be new diaries, videos, occasions to flame and the release of Early Access. 2018 promises to be important and interesting in the life of our modest game company and its friendly community. (firecrackers)
Within the battle, besides the explosion of landmines, the cries of the wounded and machine-gun bursts, the roar of aircraft engines are a new arrival to the not-so-philharmonic battle orchestra. Still relying on old models and in several basic support functions, but the struggle for air superiority has already begun! How did it all start? We decided that once again we should listen to the requests of the community and make sure that the paratroopers did not fall out of of nowhere in the sky. Now after your spawn them, there will be a plane aspiring from your edge of the map to the place where brave paratroopers will hit the silk, armed to the teeth to grant delightful gifts to the enemy. But, the reconnaissance is not slumbering and at the same time the flying plane is displayed on the map, and the chat starts grumbling: ‘Beware. The enemy aircraft is approaching’. As soon as the first birds appeared in the sky, we had to give the appropriate slingshots to the units. So we gave anti-aircraft guns the air-defense mode, when enabled, the gun get a bonus to the range of aircraft detection and perceives them as priority targets. We still had to adjust the healthbars of aircraft and set some damage dependencies. So some of the paratroopers can die if the plane is fired upon and the number of the paratroopers will depend directly on the hp of the aircraft at the time of the airdrop. The battlefield with broken planes gives one hundred points on the epic scale to the usual battlefield. In general, it worth to add them, at least for the sake of entertainment. Entertainment and airdrops, yes .... and reconnaissance! No doubt, reconnaissance aircraft would be useful to you, my friend. So we added them. So they fly, they recon. They show enemy artillery, destroy the clever attack plans, and point the caches of the Third Reich with treasures. Useful, you know.
The work on the commanders continues and we added a few new ones: the commander of a heavy assault tank regiment (available only for the USSR), specializing in artillery tanks such as BT-7a and KV-2, and one commander of each class without any obvious specialization. This latter ones will be useful to those players that do not like to limit themselves in the choice of means and believe that it is better to have a modest SPG, a quiet AT-gun and a small howitzer instead of all sorts of big and loud howitzers. Almost all units within the class are available to these commanders, except top specialization units. We also added a separate slot for supportive units to artillery commanders, where only miners, engineers, doctors, etc. can be placed. Now they do not need to compete with anyone for the right to be in the pack to save and strengthen. In addition, commanders have acquired modifiers that affect the cost of units of their specialization and when creating a roster, the profile units look even more attractive now.
And here's another things we worked on:

• Players' ratings with winrate and detailed statistics on the outcome of the battle.
• The interface for metagame (all that you will see outside of the game session), which, we hope, will soon be able to show.
• A new screen for perks of the unit was prepared so we can start our work in that field and soon you can customize your soldiers.
• Changed and adjusted the accrual of points on the map to increase the chance of comeback in the second half of the game and victory by kills. Now it is more profitable to organize a deep breakthrough to the rear, and not to butt over a small but long piece along the front line, and the game of defense now makes more sense.
• Added the ability to install heavy machine guns in rifle cells of trenches, so you can proudly demonstrate ‘no pasarán’.
• Made the button "Do not stick out of the hatch without a command" at the request of the community, which prohibits curious tankmen to get hold of an anti-aircraft machine gun and die one by one from malicious snipers and even angry explosions.
• We taught bots and AI some useful tricks, among which is the correct choice of targets. When firing at a trench or house, the unit will aim at the nearest part of it to the enemy unit, and when firing with small arms they aim at cannon crew, but not the cannon itself. Now they are aware that it is much more effective.
• As always, new vehicle models were added (T-40 with large-caliber machine gun DShK, Marder 3, BT-7, etc.), animations, special effects and textures.

GIF link And we are testing the matchmaker. It’s currently in the lobby for now, but not with the auto-search (haven’t got enough players for now, and servers aren’t ready), but its appearance has become quite a blessing already. At the click of a button, the overlord of the lobby mixes teams based on the personal ranking, the chosen commander, the maximum level of units in the deck, and so on. It so happened that in the test we had a much more often winning team A. No one really likes to lose, right? So the best players tried to stay together and quickly took their places. In Team B there were those who are less worried about the victory and those who recently joined the test and did not know that the outcome of the fight is predetermined in advance. With the appearance of the matchmaker, the shadow schemes of the testers came to an end, and now at the push of a button the soulless machine gives an equal number of seasoned players and beginners to each team. Thus came the end of the games ‘on one-way street’ and the era of competitive games began. So the happiness came to the narrator's house, which often took an artillery commander and joined the B team, cause he believed that the easy way is not the best. This is all for today. You can wait for the next diary on the eleventh of January (everyone needs a small New Year break) and you can easily order a topic in the comments, since we aren’t thinking about anything specific. In the meantime, Merry Christmas, my friends. We in Best Way wish you all the best. Enjoy the snow, be happy, and most importantly healthy (we still need you in Soldiers: Arena next year). Spend some time with your family, call your mother, store your money in a jam box, what else can we wish? See you.

[ 2017-12-25 18:11:59 CET ] [ Original post ]