Are more options planned for placed weapons like the current Pak-40. I was imagining one of those 20mm flak guns or an HE mortar. Side note- you guys are awesome, absolutely amazing dev team, seriously ya'll rock.
Thanks so much for the support! Our plan is to introduce a flak position as a deployable that can be upgraded to various levels, with different functions. We’re also looking at allowing you to upgrade the AT guns similarly. We’re also going to be introducing mortars and deployables too (and most likely HMGs). There’s still a lot more to come!
UE5 may be in your hands early this year. (remember the amazing demo) So what do you think UE5 can bring to the game? Destruction maybe? More dust? ect. Keep up the good work, and be proud of what you are doing. cheers Jimmi.
UE5 is still quite a Pandora’s Box of potential complexity and features, but one we’re really excited to open up. We’re going to seek to move to it depending on the benefits in order to future-proof the title. If that lets us achieve greater performance, atmospherics or even destruction then you can bet we’ll be very keen to explore if these can be brought into HLL.
Will we also see incendiary grenades and/or molotov cocktails?
Yes! We’re actually very excited to properly add fire to the game. It will most likely be later this year, but we want to bring incendiaries in with infantry and vehicle mounted flamethrowers. Molotovs, incendiary grenades - even incendiary rounds are on the table.
It seems that developing a historically accurate flamethrower would be extremely difficult to implement. How is the team doing with this upcoming weapon, is there anything we should know, what steps have you taken to ensure its accuracy, and when do you foresee it coming to fruition? Thanks!
Funnily enough a lot of the flamethrower code already exists in the game - we just need to generate some of the FX and the work around setting up the weapon from an animation perspective. We’re going for a fuel/gel mix model - allowing you to consistently throw straight lines of fire over 20-30m (we’ll be testing the ranges). The idea is that it’ll be a way of clearing buildings at range with a high risk and reward factor. Exposing yourself to concentrate the flame, but highly effective at clearing tight spaces.
Are there any plans to add more vehicles, things like Tank Destroyers, Armoured Cars etc?
Yes, these are all planned and much more!
Will there be further tweaks to the gore system, eg. bullet dmg and stuff like bloodpools forming under dead bodies?
Yes, this is something we want to continue to refine and polish. It’s still using a lot of visually imperfect elements that we want to tighten up and make much better looking.
With the inclusion of the eastern front and what I'm assuming, more subclasses. Will you try to balance the amount of classes to each faction? IE will Germany have 2 machine gunner classes while Russia and America only have 1?
Due to the way our backend works, we’re keen to keep the number of roles in the game at 14, as expanding this will cause huge continuously multiplying complexity. As a result of this, we really see the loadouts available to each role as a way of expanding functionality across a team, and weighting it in a particular way.
Are you guys looking into adding maybe a 1 to 2 minute preparation phase before a match starts? To give people a little time to plan the attack, and to figure out what roles are needed in a squad.
This will be arriving in Update 9!
Back during the backing process of HLL, adding in the Pacific was a potential goal that wasn't met. With the success of the game so far, do you think the Pacific may be added into the game sometime in the future? Thanks for everything, and keep up the great work!
Let’s just say, if things continue as they are then we’d definitely be looking at introducing it.
How do you figure out how to balance between realism and more "game-y" elements of gameplay?
It’s always a very tough balance. It usually requires us boiling down the expectation of a feature or weapon and then considering how that could be best represented on the battlefield in a way that compliments or modifies other existing mechanics. A good example is the artillery. We felt it was important to capture the total power and devastation of it on the battlefield, and to do so we needed to introduce some limiting principles - namely, the need for teamwork in both placing marks, working with a loader and minimal game-feedback that you’re being successful. We’ll always begin with what the absolute most realistic implementation would look like and then work it back to suit the gameplay. Fundamentally it has to feel fun and to perform as close to expectations as possible - paired with an appropriate learning curve and devastating side-effects. If artillery was incredibly easy to fire then we’d have to lower it’s lethality - causing grenade-style explosions. If we make it too powerful, then we’d need to complicate it to the point where it was very inaccessible to use - lowering it’s presence on the battlefield. That is always the balance we consider - “who will want to use this?”
Are there any particular development processes you use as a small development team to release such a high fidelity game? It amazes me that such a small team can produce such a high fidelity game, arguably better than what many AAA studios have released over the last few years and as a games developer myself I like to know how the small studios get ahead.
Really appreciate the kind words - they’re a huge encouragement to the team. Realistically, I think finding the right like-minded team-members has played a huge part.
What feature are you most excited about from the future roadmap?
I think Campaign mode will tie each battle together in a really meaningful way that will give greater context and reward to the efforts of each player on the battlefield. I’m also very excited about the Eastern Front and the sheer breadth of the combat that will start to roll through the game. That you could be leading a tank column across Normandy in one battle to be hacking someone to death with a shovel in the living room of a tiny Russian Izba in the next, to dropping artillery on a rocky desert outcrop in the next battle.
Do you collect stats of every player's efficiency such as kills/times killed throughout his 'career'? Would be interesting to have a look at that not just for one round but in total (all plays) to review personal progress. Thanks
We do collect stats, and we’re going to build out a stat page in a future update. We’re keen for players to be able to see where they’re improving or efficient, and we also feel that the data will help us make better informed decisions around balance and gameplay.
What is the plan for a campaign and what is it's status?
We’re designing Campaign mode to become the default system of map rotation from server to server. Within it, we’ll pit Allies against Axis across a world map, allowing you to experience the full scale of conflict as you press for global victory. Essentially, a campaign will begin on a server and the first 5 minutes will be a both teams observing a world map of different territories. We’re thinking through the exact mechanics at the moment, but want to introduce an element of risk and reward to decision-making in this screen. Will you choose to open your campaign by attacking in the “Beaches” territory (choosing between Utah or Omaha), or will you decide to begin in the far east as the Russian forces? We need the design to be flexible enough to allow us to continually add maps, as well as introduce variety and different stakes to each battle. We want resources to be fixed, so that failing to maintain a good balance in one battle will affect the next one. In addition, the choice you make over whether you choose to attack on Offensive mode, defend on Offensive mode or fight a Warfare battle will similarly change the reward for victory or defeat. We have a huge number of variables that we’re excited to introduce - we’re currently just working over the design to make sure that it’s both compelling, competitive and balanced. It also needs to be able to house all current and future content. In any case, it will be a very, very large update post-launch as it’ll be a very significant addition to the game.
During early access it's hard to decide if you want to implement new features to bring new players, or fix bugs to keep existing players interested. How do you plan on balancing those two objectives?
It’s definitely always a difficult balance. New exciting content brings in new players and allows us to keep the lights on at the studio, but at the same time we always need to make sure we’re dealing with the bugs and less fun aspects of the game that are causing issues for the community. We’re reaching a point now though where there aren’t many surprises within the course of development. We’re finalising some aspects of optimisation and technical processes that will make development much smoother when it comes to fixing bugs and performance. Eventually we hope that we’ll reach a point where all the fundamentals work seamlessly and we can spend time widening the game.
Update 8 has been great! Especially the updates to the support and engineers. What unit type do you think needs more love the most next and what additional infantry loadouts & customizations do you have planned for the future?
Really glad you’re enjoying the additions! Ultimately we’ll be rotating through the most under-cooked loadouts to add more and more to them before circling back to the start. Initially we were so busy with overhauling key parts of the game that many of the loadouts became just different mixes of existing guns. We’re going to be increasingly moving away from introducing loadouts with existing elements, and use them how they were designed - as a way of introducing entirely new functionality (be it weapons or gadgets or equipment).
