There are a few big changes in today's update that we wanted to highlight.
We are adding our new map, dow_foy, into the rotation. The map isn't finished yet so still contains some placeholder assets and lacks final detail. Foy is an attack and defend detonation style map that was designed to accommodate larger battles.
We look forward to getting your reactions and input on the map/style, and suggestions for improvements.
We will be providing an update on the map editor rollout soon and be releasing more details/previews in the coming weeks for our next map, dow_italy.
We've finished the rewrite of our weapon code, which has allowed us to make some long awaited fixes like the ability to cancel reloads and ADS animations, add a jump fire penalty, and fire while transitioning to crouch and prone. It has also fixed a bunch of legacy bugs and hitches in the gun system many of you have reported.
Overall this system is much more reliable and will be easier for us to modify and maintain going forward. We have taken the opportunity to make some changes in the weapon balance, namely in recoil and weapon spread (not damage). These include gun specific changes, and sweeping changes to how things like how iron sights handle. Overall, the gunplay should feel more fluid and responsive.
The weapon system is the first half of our planned gameplay mechanic updates, with the other half being animations and movement. The movement systems are nearly complete and will be entering internal testing soon.
Our sound designer has reworked every gun's 1p firing sounds and added some small foley like shell casing drop sounds. The new sounds are a lot beefier and make the guns feel like they have more consequence to them. The next sound update will focus on updating all the 3p sounds to match and improving spacialization.
We have moved the entire project to Unreal 4.15 because we were very excited to test the new under the hood optimizations as soon as we could. Updating engine versions often requires some significant work on our end but always comes with some unexpected improvements.
Lastly we made some updates to how servers are displayed in the browser that should solve some of the issues with servers displaying.
Please find the complete 1.0.4.4 changelog below:
Maps
• Added initial version of Foy to rotation
• Added new route to German 2nd flag in Kaysersberg
• Visibility tweaks for Kaysersberg
• Fixes to prevent boats from going off course on Omaha
• Patched up player reported exploits in all maps
Gameplay
• Implemented new weapon system to increase fluidity and reliability (rewrite of all underlying code that drives firing, reloading, switching, targeting, grenades, ammo, etc.)
• Decreased weapon recoil for all weapons
• Reduced recoil when crouching and prone
• Reduced CoF on Assault class
• Reduced randomness in Support recoil
• You can now fire while going prone and moving while prone
• Added jump accuracy penalty
Sounds
• New 1p firing sounds for all guns
• New bullet casing foley
• Added German VO for objectives
Bugs
• Fixed positioning of muzzle flashes and casing ejections
• Changed default server return values
Engine
• Updated engine to UE4.15
Status Update
Hey Everyone,
Just wanted to give a quick status update on some things we discussed in the last Dev Update, along with some new workstreams we've been firing up.
Maps
We are hard at work on Foy which should be ready in the next week or so. Though Foy is by default a Detonation map, we are also looking into a Domination variant for release soon after we will call dow_bastogne.
We will be announcing more details of additional upcoming official maps after the release of Foy
Map Editor
The editor is coming along great and we are working with EPIC to ensure we are distributing the editor properly in accordance with their policies. We are going to be rolling out the editor the second its ready meaning there may not initially be Steam Workshop support, but we feel its more important to let mappers get a headstart.
Server browser
A portion of our players have experienced issues with the server browser, either showing no servers or not displaying certain servers every time. These issues are similar to what we’ve seen with other UE4 games on Steam, but we are looking into ways to make the browser more reliable by switching to asynchronous server search and provide alternate options like connecting via IP address and the Steam server browser.
Enhanced communication
We have begun integration of a 3rd party VOIP system that offers much improved in game VOIP, along with some advanced features like positional audio. This is a brand new offering and we’re excited to be one of the first games to take advantage of it.
Stats and Progression
We’ve written the foundation for our backend systems for global stats, player profiles, progression and item inventories. This is a major effort that is a necessary prerequisite for many features on our roadmap. We will begin tracking stats soon behind the scenes to test the system and then we will provide in game menus to display the stats soon after.
Revamped weapon firing sounds
We're doing a total pass on the firing sounds and looking into a different approach for sound spacialization in third person.
Engine Updates
The latest version of UE4 released this past week with some exciting new features and substantial performance improvements in texture streaming. We will be moving to the new engine version in our next patch.
In addition to the above we will continue to make adjustments throughout Early Access to categories such as movement, weapon balance, and visibility. We've gotten a lot of great feedback and we welcome all constructive ideas and suggestions to improve gameplay.
-Driven Arts
Version 1.0.4.3
Gameplay
• Redesigned grenade and rifle grenade physics to be more performant and predictable, also added grenade bounce sound
• Reworked weapon drop physics to prevent guns from bugging out on the floor
• Implemented initial version of Round End Stats Screen
• Went back to old window collision so you can jump out of windows
• Added option to disable gun firing camera shake
Maps
• Testing new flag locations on Carentan and Kaysersberg to make full caps more frequent
• Reworked routes and sightlines on Carentan
• Added new sniper house to American side on Carentan
• Small tweak to Omaha that may give lower end PCs more FPS
AntiCheat
• Implemented additional protection layers via EAC
Version 1.0.4.2
Gameplay
• Implemented EasyAntiCheat
• Added option to rotate minimap with with player heading
• Adjusted respawn timers to prevent feeling of teleporting
• MGs now shoot through dead bodies
• Fixed accuracy on Springfield unscoped and removed ring from ironsight
Maps
• Omaha changes: boats are faster, more cover on beach, adjusted routes to alleviate bottlenecks
• Blocked areas where you could get out of maps
• Fixed bug where some textures were drawing through objects
HUD/UI
• Can now turn teammate names/icons off separately
• Fixed issue where victory screen wouldn’t show while dead
February Dev Update
Hey Everyone,
Thanks to everyone who came out to the 100 player events this past weekend. We learned a lot about where our bottlenecks are which will help us improve the game stability across the board.
Another thank you to everyone who voted on our Trello Roadmap. Since our launch we’ve been hard at work on a few things that will be coming in the next couple weeks.
Maps
We’ve hired additional environment artists, so the pace of our map releases will increase substantially in the coming months.
The next map will be the Siege of Bastogne, dow_foy. Foy will be a detonation map but we plan to support Search and Destroy in the near future as well.
We've had great support from the competitive community, and after dow_foy we will be setting our sights on a batch of competitive minded maps. We’ve been working with several veteran competitive mappers to make sure that Days of War has a respectable lineup of official competitive maps. These maps will have extra attention to visibility, and more defined 3 lane layouts.
We've received a ton of requests for the map editor and we cannot wait to see the things that come out of it. We cannot give an exact date for the map editor yet, but this is very much in development right now. We’re currently building in the interfaces both in game and in UE4 to make it easy to cook, upload and opt-in to custom maps on the server and client. Custom map distribution will initially be through the Steam Workshop but we are looking into server hosted custom content for the future.
Player Movement and Gunplay
First priority here is to increase the fluidity, and remove some of the artificial blockers that exist due to limitations in our current weapon code. This means giving the ability to cancel reloads, improving the ADS animation transitions, opening up the possibility for things like gun butting and firing during transitions.
Second priority is to improve the player animations for locomotion to be more in line for our style of FPS game. We will be changing player stance and smoothing transitions when moving and changing directions and speeds.
Final priority here is to remove some of the sluggishness when peeking corners to encourage more advancement over sitting and holding angles.
Stats
We want to get an initial version of our round end screen in to report basic match stats and MVPs. This will be the first step towards global stat tracking and progression.
AntiCheat
We will be implementing EasyAntiCheat to add an additional layer of cheat protections to make life easier for our Server Administrators, and the game more enjoyable for everyone else.
As a reminder, this isn’t a complete list of all the things we are working on but rather a list of our top priorities.
Please let us know in the comments what you think!
-Driven Arts
Version 1.0.4.1
In preparation for today's 100 player battle event, we've added some additional optimizations to the Omaha beach map.
Optimization
• Omaha optimization pass resulting in ~10fps gains
Gameplay
• Increased max player acceleration
• Increased Support recoil
100 Player Battles This Weekend!
Ready up, because the first 100 Player Battle Events kick off this weekend!
We ran a few of these before we came to Early Access and can attest they are absolute mayhem, so we encourage all to attend!
These events are meant to push the limits of the game, and we use them to collect data that helps us improve performance and stability. There will be some lag and existing bugs may be more pronounced.
The schedule for the events is below, each event lasts one hour
Friday 4pm EST (21:00 UTC)
Saturday 2pm EST (19:00 UTC)
To participate, simply set your server browser filter settings to 64+ players, and look for the official Driven Arts Servers with 100 slots!
If you can’t make it this weekend? Don’t worry, just keep an eye out here for announcements about future epic battles!
See you on the beach!
1.0.4.0.2 Hotfix
• Fixed bug where you could get stuck in respawn limbo
• Defaulted back to wave respawns, respawn timer is now an .ini setting for server admins
• Fixed bug where boats did not show on the shoreline if you joined a server in progress
Version 1.0.4.0
This first patch fixes some high priority bugs and adds some highly requested features and fixes from our opening early access weekend.
Gameplay
• Increased accuracy penalty to rifles while moving
• Added FOV setting for guns
• Added highlight to your own kills in kill log (adjustable in settings)
• Adjusted minimap scale (minimap zoom and rotation coming soon)
• Added camera bob option
• Doubled size of smoke grenade plumes
• Respawn delay now always 10 seconds
• Reduced sight zoom on Supports
• Increased shotgun spread
Bug fixes / Misc.
• Fixed bullet collision issues on windows, railings, ladders, and other invisible areas
• Added setting to turn off teammate overhead icons
• Ammo and Health packs no longer fall under the floor
• Fixed bug where smoke grenades weren’t visible on Omaha
• Fixed bug where head shot effects were playing when they shouldn’t be
Maps
• Boats no longer bounce around on the beach after landing
• Collision fixes on beach and in bunkers on Omaha
• Blocked long archway sightline on Kaysersberg
Day 2/3 Hotfixes
Maps
We've made a change in the map rotation, we're sorry to say that all versions of dow_thunder have been removed due to IP concerns with Day of Defeat.
At the start of this project dow_thunder was originally only intended to be a portfolio piece for one of our teammates who is a diehard Day of Defeat fan with aspirations of applying to work at Valve. As the project developed, we gradually crossed the line from a hobby project into a commercial one, and weren't quite sure how to handle the presence of the map.
Though we were aware Valve might take issue with the map, we had hoped they might take notice of our love letter to Day of Defeat, and potentially let us continue to pay homage to one of the games that got us to become game developers in the first place.
In hindsight this was a mistake, and we apologize to you, our players, and the developers at Valve. We understood Valve's concerns and in respect for them stripped the map. Without Valve there would be no Days of War, and we're excited to continue working with them while we bring our game to the next level.
As a result we will be prioritizing adding new official maps. There’s also a lot of untapped creativity in our player base waiting to be unlocked in the form of community maps so we will be rushing to get the editor out the door as well.
Optimization
We have already patched in some tweaks that has given players a big boost in FPS, so we encourage you to try it out (1.0.3.9.1). We still plan on adding more engine optimizations as mentioned in the previous update.
Visibility
We also updated the maps to have less fog, better lighting visibility, and removal/reduction of post process ambient occlusion on lower settings (which some have referred to as the film grain effect). Still to be addressed is improved character visibility.
Feedback
We’ve been pouring through the vast quantity of feedback we’ve received over the first few days and are building a detailed list of bug fixes, areas for polish, and gameplay improvements. Please continue to leave feedback in the forums here on Steam and at forums.playdaysofwar.com We value even the negative comments as they let us know what we need to fix and improve.
We also have a Trello Roadmap where we outline high level features and content updates.
We encourage you to log in and vote on the cards you think are the most important!
