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Hi, friends.
Here is the continuation of our constant rubric DevFeedback. How is the development going and how new features are tested, how many iterations of the seven circles of hell you need to go through in search of balance and what are we doing when we are not busy with making healthbars for household utensils and water lilies on a swamp - let's read today's diary
Conceal yourself.
We recently wrote a diary about
concealment. Almost always new mechanics change the gameplay and in order to maintain balance you have to revise and adjust some existing ones. Once we gave the camouflage ability to tanks and artillery, the life of infantry, which was never a pleasant one, became even more difficult. In order to compensate unnecessary pain, we proportionally increased the working range of viewports for each infantry type. In order to maintain the normal rate of AT-grenades and bazooka shells in the air - we reduced the circular viewports range of the most of SPG-s and tanks, and the driver's viewport width was cut from 90 to 60 degrees. The life of an infantryman did not become a beach resort, but the chances of their survival increased. Tanks firing from invisibility were still a serious problem, so we increased their concealment time so they take twice as much time to become green compared with cannons. The distortions began to level off, but in order to stabilize the situation it was necessary to revise the noise mechanics. Sometimes there were situations when several conditions stacked together (long range from the front line, small enemy presence, concealment, etc.), and the gun could fire without complacency and remain invisible to the enemy. Constant invisibility isn’t good, you know? Concealed units have become a moderately dangerous targets now, as it was intended.
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Balance. Settings. Stuff.
- Made a tracking firing mode for the guns with plunged fire trajectory. After the aiming crew of the mortars, regimental guns and howitzers keep their eyes on the enemy and correct the fire, if it starts moving. If the target disappears in the fog - shooting will be conducted at the place where the enemy unit was last seen.
- The rebalance of the submachine guns characteristics according to their real features was carried out. For example, the PPSh is less accurate at long distances than the MP40, and the M3 has faster recharge speed than Thompson and so on.
- Added fragmentary shells for armored vehicles with 20 mm autocannons. The life of infantry and artillery became a bit sadder, and light tanks became more popular.
- Adjusted the chassis and the armor of some more vehicles and worked on the path search for them. Now each tank is manned by a special crew member who is able to pave the way using the cosmic constellation so getting stuck on complex routes and stopping in front of the ravine have ceased to be a problem.
- Modified the AI. Now he's clever enough to keep artillery away from the front line, entrench himself, conceal his positions and arrange tank retreat, but not smart enough to send Iron Arnie back to the past.
- Experimented with the optimal average session time, maps with hilly terrains and dense buildings from previous games. Adjusted the camera, so that at the maximum approach the picture was cinematic.
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I've seen things you people wouldn't believe. ©
Fought with bugs, among which were, as always, funny, strange and even touching ones. For example, a number of problems with the behavior of infantry existed in trenches. Sometimes the infantryman, being in the trench, became possessed, stood like a salt pillar after taking a grenade in his hands, firing only with single shots from the machine gun (just to annoy the player, we suppose) and simply refused to dig further, apparently having decided that his mother had brought him to this world for something more than gymnastics with a shovel. At the same time over the heads of the immovable infantry in the trench, airplanes were colliding in the sky due to problems with navigation and uncoordinated routes. But the first place in the past couple of months’ bug ranking goes undoubtedly to a bug with a chicken-silencer. It so happened that the hens, which run all over the place on the Village map, were perceived as a conflicting party by the game. Hearing the sound of the first shot, the hen perceived it, processed it and ... silenced it, not letting it be heard by others. Because of this, some guns did not make the noise and did not come out of the invisibility. If only the chickens could talk, maybe they would tell how C–beams glitter in the darkness at Tannhauser Gate.
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After reading your comments under the last diary, we regretfully understand that players these days are too painful to perceive the fps drawdowns and the lack of optimization in games even at the stage of closed alpha. And it's not very important whether we did or didn’t promise high fps, next gen graphics or the best special effects ever. So we decided to postpone the start of the Early Access for a few months to complete a number of important works that were originally planned for later stages. This will shift the release date to the second quarter of this year, but we all get Soldiers: Arena more stable, optimized and with more content than we could have. And that’s all for today. Wish you all the best, guys.
[ 2018-03-01 19:01:27 CET ] [ Original post ]