Soldiers and commanders, rejoice as we've just pushed a beta update (0.86) with a lot of improvements on the strategic and briefing screens. Commanders can now draw multiple orders for each players, weapon distribution has been revamped for better accessibility, and everyone can now move their soldiers in the strategic view!
More explanations below:
Multiple orders
Commander can now deliver multiple orders to each player. They can also select multiple players (by holding the ctrl key) and give orders to a group of players. We have also added a small label to indicate which player is associated with which order.
Enemy orders
Commander can also draw red arrows to indicate what might be the enemy's battle plan.
Suggesting orders
Subordinates can suggest one order themselves, that the commander can either accept with one click, or override with new orders.
Requesting weapons
Subordinates can also request weapons simply by clicking on the weapon name on the left screen.
Changing maps
For now, the highest ranking player can still change maps, but a voting system is coming.
Changing game mode (start another room)
We've removed the ability to change game modes in rooms in order to make game modes more clearly separated.
Changes to how to start a game (pregame and briefing timers)
Pre-game lobby: Players ready up by chosing a team, or spectator. Game starts after 2 minutes of each having at least one players or right away when ~80% of the players in the room have made a choice (team or spectator)
Briefing: Players ready up by pressing the ready button. Game starts when everybody is ready or when the timer reaches 0.
Beta room reminder
These changes are only available in the beta rooms. To access them, you need to start a new room, and set the "type" to Beta (v0.86-beta).
LMG and SMG update, now available in Beta!
Continuing gameplay improvements on the beta branch, we have added a few big changes in the last update, buffing the suppressing power of the LMG, turning the SMG into the true king of close encounters and making sure that spotting enemies is more realistic.
This is the last big gameplay update in which we made all the weapons feel more useful and very different than the others.
Please give us feedback about the beta on the chat or on our Discord server. Your feedback is super useful for us to improve the game.
LMG
The LMG will now need to be deployed in order to be used. Meaning, you will need to have your soldier crouch behind cover or go prone in order to make the LMG usable. But now, the LMG has a lot more suppressing power: you will be able to pin down enemies with just a few bursts. We have also added a suppression sweep mode for the LMG: you will be able to suppress all enemies in a designated area.
SMG
The big change for the SMG was adding a new variation of the good old Assault mode from Call of Combat. The new twist is that your SMG soldier will be able to continue moving while aiming and firing, making him the true king of close encounters and indoor combat.
Spotting
We have made spotting more realistic in respect with peripheral vision. We added several levels of recognition on enemies. First you will only see a question mark, which might be either friendly or enemy, then you will see the actual soldier but no name. It's only when you are close enough, that you will be able to know which player that soldier belongs to.
This way, we want to make spotting feel a lot more organic and gradual than it was before.
These are the three levels for being spotted: fully spotted with player name, partially spotted showing frienedly or foe, and barely spotted with minimal information (could be friend or foe)
Tournament System
After several rounds of testing, we can officially announce that the tournament system is now ready for public use. Which means that anyone can schedule, organize, manage and stream their own tournaments with ease thanks to the following feature:
- Schedule your tournament
- Subscribe from website or from the game lobby
- Make teams and select players
- Automatic team set up in-game
- Spectator mode for the tournament organizer (for streaming)
Stay tuned for future updates and the upcoming official release!
Gunfight improvements
A couple of weeks ago, we created a new beta system that is super easy to use. You simply have to start a new room and select the game version from there. We had introduced a new suppression system, and added a new grenade mechanic.
Today we have pushed a new way to use firearms and we have greatly improved the usability of the sniper. See full change log here or read details below.
Sniper rework
You can now play with the reworked sniper which has a completely reworked interaction, it will have three modes:
- unscoped: crap accuracy, decent aiming time
- scoped: high accuracy, slow aiming
- Scout mode: you will be able to define a sweeping angle that the sniper will cover automatically (press F4 to enable, and draw an arc with the mouse)
For this update, we will include one sniper per player in the beta branch so that you can play with it.
We will next revamp the SMG and LMG, meanwhile their modes will have only one option.
New firearm interaction
We're also adding two new ways to use firearms:
- Timed shot: hold the mouse down on the target to prevent your soldier from shooting when his aim is ready (great for timing shots when waiting for an enemy to go out of cover)
- Emergency shot: double click on enemy to shoot instantly with an hit chance penalty (great for overcoming traps in corners)
Ah, and we've also finally added a button to reload your gun manually!
Stay tuned for the rest of the weapons updates coming in a couple of weeks!
Gameplay Improvements (feedback needed)
Grenade Adjustments and New Suppression System in beta
We have just set up a new beta system where you have the option to start either regular rooms, or beta rooms where you can try out changes we’re working on to provide feedback. Ten days ago we released a new suppression system where soldiers can get pinned down if their stress levels get too high, and last Friday we added new grenade mechanics where you can throw further if you hold the mouse button. These mechanics will interact, since suppression can also affect the angle and accuracy of grenade throws.
Suppression can also affect range and accuracy of grenade throws.
Please give it a try, and give us know your feedback in the game chat or our Discord server.
Coming up are weapon revamps, an improved hit chance calculation and a new spotting system.
Tutorial
We have also added an initial test version of the tutorial which can be accessed from the menu of the main lobby (cog button at the bottom). Let us know if you manage to reach the end!
Tournament
There is also a new tournament starting this weekend:subscribe here.
In 2017, let's stand united
Soldiers!
New update
Just before the new year we are releasing a small update in which we have revamped the entire animation system. This gives us a lot more flexibility in the future, when we want to add special animations for different weapons for example. For now you will already notice changes to facing and proper ragdolls on death. There might still be some odd animation transitions in this release, but they'll quickly be ironed out in future updates.
We have also made the map loading sequence a bit more robust and should therefore have fewer occurrences of disconnection on room load. Some stability and performance improvements have also been added to the latest version of the lobby.
Divided We Fall in 2016
To put it mildly, this has been an interesting year for Divided We Fall. A lot has certainly happened.
- The new name of Call of Combat "Divided We Fall" was made official
- The game was accepted and released as an Early Access game on Steam
- Our lobby was rebuilt to be up to 2016+ standards.
- New interface. New gamemode. More weapons. Expanded regiments.
- A map editor has been built and is still continuously improved on
- Improved the performance over 9000x (seriously, the game runs well on ancient hardware)
- KAVA moved offices, was burgled and lost its mac :(
The Early Access was a major milestone for the project. It was a big moment of truth and we passed it successfully. Maintaining a high level of activity 24/7 can be tricky for a multiplayer game in Early Access and the same was true for us. But the reach and amount of attention was a lot bigger than during the Kickstarter and that was a really good sign for the future. Lots of lessons were learned to prepare the game for official release.
Divided We Fall in 2017
So we have a heavy schedule for 2017. Here are some of the things that are coming next year in Divided We Fall:
Tutorial In order to make the experience smoother for new players, we are building a full fledged tutorial to give the best possible introduction to the core of the tactics of Divided. It's a big endeavor, it's like building a completely different game with single player in mind.
Gameplay We've been talking about it, there is a lot to do about gameplay, especially make the SMG's (close quarter king) and MG's (death delivery service) work as intended. Along with that we will improve how suppression works and turn it into a real tactical tool. We will also improve how you set weapon modes and fire stances to make weapons more distinctive. After that we will start adding new weapons and equipment like deployable machine guns, smoke grenades and possible firearms and melee weapons.
Progression We also want to review progression and reward system. Some members of the community are currently helping us in shaping a more rewarding system. This will include tweaks to the ranks, and the addition of medals, ribbons and badges as part of your commendations. There is also the tournament system coming which will facilitate the life of whoever wants to organize tournaments. It will include a subscription form, it will send reminders, and the game will automatically create the proper rooms for the tournament participants at the right moment.
Polish and quality of life improvements Last but not least, there is a lot of polish we will add to the game prior to the official release. The new animation system was one of the items there. We will make the game more stable, make the interface look and feel nicer with little animation effects for better readability. We will add a ready button for pregame screens and for the briefing. We are also working on a replay feature where you can record games and then watch and share them afterwards. We will also work on improving music and sound effects.
Extras We've always wanted to have more theaters of war and nations, and it is still the idea. The next soldier nations we will add will probably be the British and the Russians. After release, we will want to have updates with other nations and other conflicts (early war, Balkans, Pacific, etc...).
Another big thing is that we are investigating is building an AI for certain type of game modes. It would be a very complicated endeavor given the peculiar nature of the gameplay of Divided We Fall, but it is an exciting one. We have thought of a co-operative humans vs AI mode, and of a 1v1 where the two players are the dedicated commander of large AI armies who obey their orders.
In the meantime, enjoy the Holidays and prepare for 2017 as more is to be expected in Divided We Fall!!
Cheers,
Antoine, Florian and the rest of the KAVA team!
November wrap-up!
Tomorrow Thanksgiving will be celebrated in the United States. All though we might be Dutch and French ourselves, our community has shown great diversity in nationalities and we are thankful at any point in time for all the support we are receiving.
https://youtu.be/t_0Ppwv0xRA
With your support, Divided We Fall has seen some great progression these past weeks. We listed the most newsworthy ones for you;
A new game mode where players can get right into action without having to wait
A minimap that highlights the orders that your commanders have assigned you
Huge performance optimization which has an 100% framerate improvement
Addition of the highly anticipated map editor
New fancy lobby
More details on the updates can be read in the changelog.
Huge performance optimization and first version of the map editor
Up to 100% framerate improvement
In the latest update we have managed to achieve spectacular optimization by getting rid of the latest remnants of our old interface system. On some lower end systems, we've had reports of framerate going up by more than a double.
The map editor has been made public
Your own custom made map can now be uploaded to the Steam Workshop and shared with other players. You can find more detail here.
Thanks to the community we received great feedback, bug reports and suggestions. A lot of suggestions were to make the game more accessible to new players. Here is what we did:
- We implemented a new gamemode where everyone can get right into the action without having to wait for a previous game to finish
- We made servers that are reserved for new players
The community has been incredibly helpful: one of the veteran players happens to be a developer, he built a new lobby for the game which looks a lot better.
We've also added a mini-map which highlights the orders that your commander has assigned to you. It's now available in all game modes and is very helpful to keep track of the game status without having to go back to the strategic view.
Thanks to the loads of hours played after the release, we received enough bug reports to track down and fix all the biggest issues and crashes of the game.
We are now focusing on the way forward, our next big updates will include;
- a single player tutorial
- smoother gameplay
- medals, ribbons and other achievement commendations
- tournament system
- improved animations
- a fully integrated map editor for an infinite number of new maps!
So stay tuned.. :)
Play it now in Early Access
The day is finally here... Divided We fall just released in Early Access!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx7B1NMsA44
To celebrate this great news we made sure to give away a few keys via Twitter and Facebook. Make sure to keep an eye on channels.
More about the team and game can be read in our Steam hub.
The place where we also hope to hear more about your thoughts on the game.
Upcoming Friday (September 9) we also have a Twitch stream planned at 3PM EDT / 9PM CEST on https://www.twitch.tv/kavagamestudio. Meet the team, learn about the game and win a free Steam key for Divided We Fall!
Hope to see you all on the battlefield, enjoy!!
Cheers,
The KAVA Team
Play it now in Early Access
The day is finally here... Divided We fall just released in Early Access!
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Qx7B1NMsA44
To celebrate this great news we made sure to give away a few keys via Twitter and Facebook. Make sure to have a look.
More about the team and game can be read in our Steam hub. The place where we also hope to hear more about your thoughts on the game.
Upcoming Friday (September 9) we also have a Twitch stream planned at 3PM EDT / 9PM CEST on https://www.twitch.tv/kavagamestudio. Meet the team, learn about the game and win a free Steam key for Divided We Fall!
