Wartide Retired - Temporary Changes

We've heard your feedback on the Wartide gamemode - we fully understand the mode's potential and what must be done to reinvent the gamemode, as we've hinted at before. We will be returning this summer with Wartide 2 which uses 'a form of currency'. In the meantime we've temporarily changed how Wartide works whilst we remaster the mode.
Our goals and reasoning for the temporary change is to try and balance the weapons perfectly by giving players the ability to pick almost whatever they want

The largest issue with the gamemode was that making a comeback was extremely difficult, even with the power of the default class in the right hands.

As a temporary measure, we're making all weapon classes (bar the most powerful SMG & Sniper classes) unlimited. This is to keep the losing side in the game & allow more player choice. As a side benefit - unlimiting weapon classes also helps us study every classes perceived value to players - which will help us decide on classes worth within the future revamped Wartide gamemode.

The grenade pool has also been removed in favour of grenades being tied to classes.

Temporary Weapon Class & Nade Breakdown:

Rifleman - 1 Smoke, 0 Grenade, Unlimited.
Pathfinder - 0 Smoke, 0 Grenade, 3 cards per team.
Heavy - 0 Smokes, 1 Grenade, Unlimited.
Marksman - 0 Smokes, 0 Grenade, 3 cards per team.
Operator - 1 smoke, 0 Grenade, Unlimited
Utility (Default) - 1 Smoke, 1 Grenade, Unlimited

Please remember that these changes are only temporary whilst we completely overhaul the actual wartide gamemode over the next coming months.

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NEW MAP - Invasion
(Used for both Competitive & Arcade)

This new map is, you guessed it, located on a Normandy beach and it will consist of the Allies attacking the Axis through their defensive bunkers and buildings to achieve victory! This map contains a balance of long routes which will be great for sniper duels intertwined with smaller spaces that promote close quarters combat. You'll have to manage your utility usage as a team as well as manage your full arsenal to exploit the advantages and weaknesses of both bomb sites.

As with all maps during Early Access - this is Invasion's first iteration ready for testing. We're not afraid to change maps based on your feedback at all and we have been looking at all posts and opinions regarding changes.

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Map Changes

Liberation:

New & improved lighting.
Opened the broken barn & windows inside of Bombsite B.
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Manorhouse v2:

New & improved lighting.
New "A long" area to allow for more tactical nades.
Opened barn door by A site which looks into A long.
Shortened axis main road into an L shape that leads to mid.
Closed route by crashed plane.
Reworked main entrance to A from mid.
Closed mid connector barn.
Re-opened mid trench by adding a new 'drop' into the trench.
Widened mid trench & added cover.
Added new skill jump out of mid trench into mid.
Reworked B long.
Closed the broken wall angle from trench/wooden to B long.
Opened & reworked the apple gardens area behind B house.
Moved fountain into apple gardens.
Reworked B bombsite layout to be less claustrophobic.

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Battery

Battery has received a lot of TLC this update as the most unloved map from both a player and developer standpoint. This map was never aimed to be a competitive map - hence the lack of love given to it compared to some of our other maps. But this is something we've begun to act on internally, starting with improving casual maps. More to come on our casual progress in future updates.

Battery's upgrades have improved player movement and added other possibilities within the map. This has been achieved by removing a lot of the annoying "Invisible Walls" that players would often feel when playing on it. With these new changes hopefully the sections of the map that are still untraversable will be better telegraphed to the player. This should feel much more liberating and give players much more freedom to be creative during firefights.

General gameplay improvements have also been made to the map adding a sense of verticality in places, with more objects and interesting areas to play around. We've also opened up new routes and made new and improved sites for TDM/CTF/DOM and of course Wartide if that's what you want to play!
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Updated Mini Maps:

Remember the CS:GO simple radar inspired minimaps from Battalion's Alpha?

We have made those even better. These mini maps take a long time to develop - and as our map layouts have become a little more concrete, we've been confident to be able to remaster the mini-maps for you guys. These will make key areas highly visible and remove the clutter from the maps to allow you to figure out player positions and map layouts easier.
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Gameplay Changes:

Thompson & MP40 Changes:

Maximum bullets to kill at furthest range reduced from 11 to 10.
2 shot kill range is now significantly shorter.

XP/Reward Amount Changes

We've changed the way XP is rewarded so that you'll be rewarded more for playing the game adding the ability to level up faster and gain free War Chests more regularly. Players will now reach level 10 (competitive minimum rank) much quicker! In some cases players will now earn 4 times the original amount of XP.

The new XP reward amounts are as follows:

Competitive -
GameWinScore = 1500xp
GameDrawScore = 900xp
GameLossScore = 500xp

Unranked -
GameWinScore = 1200xp
GameDrawScore = 700xp
GameLossScore = 450xp

Arcade -
- Domination
GameWinScore = 600xp
GameDrawScore = 350xp
GameLossScore = 200xp

- CTF
GameWinScore = 600xp
GameDrawScore = 350xp
GameLossScore = 200xp

- TDM
GameWinScore = 600xp
GameDrawScore = 350xp
GameLossScore = 200xp

Servers/Netcode

Check out Battle(non)Sense's video on Battalion 1944's Netcode:

Whilst his review of our netcode is positive - we've taken steps towards improving on his feedback and this is the first step towards improving Battalion 1944's netcode even further.

Improved interpolation netcode to reduce the effect of peekers advantage of high ping players.
Network alteration to movement replication.
Added hidden functionality for client UI network icons (icons coming soon).
Added SEA servers.
Merged NA servers into one location (Chicago - Temporary during Early Access).
Removed South American servers due to low player counts.
Removed hidden ELO score from unranked/arcade games.
Competitive Matchmaking will find other players faster in populated regions.


We're fully aware that matchmaking is not in an ideal state right now - we have plans to improve all players' experience both during Early Access and for full release. We have some huge information to share in our next big news update about a partnership deal that will be great for Battalion 1944's future. Thanks for sticking with us as we move through this temporary period. Many of you may have seen us alluding to working with 'Faceit'. We'd like to inform you that it is much more than that!

Spectator

Smoke grenades now have the same particle effect trail as grenades in spectator.
Spectators will now always hear round win music at the end of a round.
Spectator player colours on the minimap now follow xray / status bar colours (blue/red).
Spectators should now see +5 +10 kill rewards when spectating players.
When using autocam - we've inflated a player action score if they are the last person left on their team. It's most likely that this person is the most exciting player to watch for clutches with the odds stacked against them.
Small fix for spectators in dedicated comp games seeing everyone on the minimap as their unique colours instead of nation colours.
Weapon animations are more synced with spectator. Specifically weapon reloads & grenades.
Fix for spectator auto camera causing FOV iron sight issues.
Auto camera now plays death cam on dying spectated players instead of instantly switching to the killer.


Misc Additions

Added AFK/Idle auto-kick.
Added profanity filter.
Added Manorhouse V1 loading screen.
Added player setting to adjust minimap zoom level.
Improved VOIP stability.
Added brightness/gamma settings.


Fixes

Fixed some code inconsistencies which would cause certain clients to crash.
Fixed div0 error causing 3D weapons to not show on the inventory screen.
If a warchest fails to open - error message has changed from "Please contact support." to "The War Chest has not been taken. Please try again." when failing to grant a skin.
Fixed spectator memory leak causing client to crash (sorry Blitzkrieg!)
Fixed the social voting menu always disappearing after death/between rounds.
Fixed up certain redirectors and removed corrupted assets (in preparation for modding).
Fixed a possible crash on bomb defusal.
Fixed bomb defuse/plant getting locked out if a player moves outside of the bombsite bounds while attempting either action.
Fixed the ability to view a players steam profile from the social menu.
Fixed minimap markers being upside down when the setting 'Fixed Map Rotation' is enabled.
Fixed second bomb spawning when planting or defusing in bomb mode.
Fix for killfeed incorrectly making players other than yourself white.
Potential fix to third person automatic weapons occasionally not making sound.
VOIP - No longer receive UI notifications from players who are muted.
Training is now disabled if you are in a party (this caused matchmaking issues).
Only enabled texture streaming off by default if VRAM > 3GB.
Fixed surrender votes occasionally failing after round 12.

Note: If you're continuing to experience hard crashes please post a bug report in the
Bug Reporting section[forums.battaliongame.com] of our official forums detailing exactly what happened alongside your PC specs and as much potentially useful information as possible. If you work with us and provide us with as much detail as you possibly can to help us figure out the root cause of the issues then we can better tackle and solve these problems in future updates.


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