This week we bring another quality of life update with bug fixes and improved AFK handling while we continue our work on more major updates to come. Don't forget to join our the community Discord to find squadmates and discuss this update.
As announced last week this will be last of our weekly updates. We have now released 6 updates in 6 weeks and the game is significantly better for those updates and more importantly your feedback. Whilst we have enjoyed sharing weekly updates to the game with the community our focus has shifted towards new content and features which require far more testing than a week permits.
The next update 0.5.7 will bring some new features and more bug fixes next month but we are also working on the first major content update to the game which will be coming in 0.6.0.
AFK Handling
One area where we have received a lot of feedback is regarding how we handle idle players. In the first version of AFK handling we brought in a very strict 60 second idle limit after which a player was kicked from the server. Whilst this solved the problem with idle players spoiling the fun for active players it was harsh and didn’t allow time for players to quickly nip away from their keyboard.
In this new version we now kick players first into spectator mode before we kick them from the server after a longer wait. We have also increased the initial idle time from 60 seconds to 90 seconds.
Now after 90 idle seconds a player is killed and switched to spectator mode. They will be kicked after a further 210 seconds if no input is detected. Players won’t be respawned while idle.
BETA 239
Version 0.5.6
Thank you to everyone who has provided us with constructive feedback. We read all of it even if we don’t respond to all of it. If you have a crash and get prompted to submit a crash report – please submit it so we are notified and we can look into the cause.
Known Issues:
Key Changes / Highlights:
Changes:
Game Update – 0.5.5
This week we bring the fifth quality of life update to the game since launch. As we discussed in our feature roadmap article we have been focused on short term bug fixes and responding to feedback over the last few weeks. Don't forget to join our the community Discord to find squadmates and discuss this update.
We are nearing completion of the short-term features on the roadmap and so will be switching to a longer patch cycle after the release of 0.5.6 next week. The following update, 0.5.7 is expected 3-4 weeks later which will include some new features which require more exhaustive testing than a single week allows.
We are also at work on 0.6.0 behind the scenes but we will talk more about what that brings in the future.
BETA 238
Version 0.5.5 Change Log
Thank you to everyone who has provided us with constructive feedback. We read all of it even if we don’t respond to all of it. If you have a crash and get prompted to submit a crash report – please submit it so we are notified and we can look into the cause.
Known Issues:
Key Changes / Highlights:
Changes:
Game Update – 0.5.4
This week we bring another update which fixes a number of important connection, spectator and user interface issues as well as introducing ingame dev badges so you spot us more easily. Do say hello when you see us! Don't forget to join our the community Discord to discuss the update and new squadmates.
Behind the scenes we are working on many more fixes and improvements which are not quite ready for the live game and we look forward to including some of these in the next update.
The ruins of Lion-sur-Mer by Hrafnkarl on our Steam Community
Change Log
Thank you to everyone who has provided us with constructive feedback. We read all of it even if we don’t always respond. If you have a crash and get prompted to submit a crash report – please submit it so we are notified and we can look into the cause.
Known Issues:
Key Changes / Highlights:
Changes:
Game Update – 0.5.3
Today we are pleased to announce our third major patch since launch; Vanguard 0.5.3. As with our last two updates this patch is focused around both quality-of-life issues and bug fixing rather than new content. Don't forget to join our the community Discord to discuss the update and new squadmates.
In this update we have focused on both optimisation and improvements to the ingame text and voice comms amoungst many minor tweaks and fixes across the game.
Optimisation
We have been working extremely hard to optimise the level loading times which we have seen is a common area of frustration for players. This update will significantly reduce level loading times for most players and in our testing we have seen reductions of 50-75%. The actual loading time improvement will vary on the hardware specification of your PC but here are a few examples from our tests on different machines.
Computer A:
Game Update - 0.5.2
Today we have launched version 0.5.2 of Vanguard, which contains both fixes and some new quality-of-life changes in response to feedback we have received. As we discussed in our dev update earlier in the week we are focusing our energy at the moment on fixing bugs and improving the player experience before we move onto new features and content in a few weeks time. We are also spending a lot of time focused on promoting the game.
The key changes include:
New team deathmatch pre-game while awaiting players. You will now spawn immediately and respawn infinitely until the minimum player count is reached.
New floating marker indicates the rough position of the British spawn to help orientate new players
Melee animations have been added to all weapons
Idle kicking no longer applies if there are less than 5 people on the server
Server browser enhancements
This weekend we will be continuing our now regular community event from 7PM BST / 8PM CEST / 11AM PDT / 2PM EDT until late on Friday, Saturday & Sunday. So get your squad together and join our community and the devs on the battlefield!
Change Log - 0.5.2
Thank you to everyone who has provided us with constructive feedback. We read all of it even if we don’t respond to all of it. If you have a crash and get prompted to submit a crash report – please submit it so we are notified and we can look into the cause.
Known Issues:
Server sometimes unexpectedly disconnects all connected clients from the game
Graphical glitches and missing weapons when joining the game for the first time
Level loading time can be very long on slow hard drives - we are working on optimising this
Audio settings menu is not yet implemented
Decals can be stubborn and cause texture glitches
There is no audio warning before being kicked - this will be added soon
Very rarely a player be stuck in spectator mode while in pre-game. You can workaround this issue by opening console using ` and typing kill into the console and hitting enter. Close the console using `.
Highlights:
New team deathmatch pre-game while awaiting players
Directional markers now indicate the rough direction of the British spawn for the defenders
Added minimum player information to server browser
Added melee animations
Idle kicking no longer applies if there are less than 6 players on the server
Game:
Added day or night state of the current map into server browser
Added minimum number of players to start into server browser
Added marker (parachute icon) in the rough location of the British spawn to help defenders orientate themselves
Added TDM mode which runs until number of players meets server set minimum threshold
Added placeholder melee animation for Sten Mk.II
Added placeholder melee animation for Bren Mk.II
Added placeholder melee animation for Enfield No.4
Added placeholder melee animation for Kar98k
Added placeholder melee animation for MG34
Added description to audio settings to highlight that microphones must be the default recording device to be usable for voice chat
Disabled kicking of idle players if less than 6 players are on the server
Added feedback form to main menu
Replaced reinforcement icon with dynamic replacement which displays custom keybinding
Updated interact element to dynamically display custom keybinding
Added missing German gunner voip icon
Fixed typo in French localisation
Fixed rare server crash related to objective capture
Cleaned up console output for spectating players
Fixed bug where Raid UI did not update if player changed team while dead
Removed TSAA anti-aliasing option due to reported issues with ghosting. Players who currently have TSAA enabled will fall back to SMAA High next time they change their settings
Added approximate location markers of British spawn for each phase.
Merville Battery
Redesigned right-hand side of phase 1 (from the British perspective) to make flanking on this side both a lot prettier and slightly more risky
Redesigned and extended right-hand boundary of phase 2 (from British perspective)
Added approximate location markers of British spawn for each phase.
Lion-sur-Mer
Added approximate location markers of British spawn for each phase.
Reworked boundaries so that they appear natural.
Moved Allied spawn further back to balance the 1st. phase.
Quality-of-life enhancement to the trenches to fix obvious seams, tearings and misplaced pieces.
Dev Update – Feature Roadmap
One part of development we have yet to talk about in much detail is where we want to take the game. We want to show our players what our plans are in the short and the longer term, and also what we plan to implement into the game further into the future. The roadmap is intended to give the community a flavour of what is to come in the coming weeks and months. It is not a complete to-do list, because that would be huge!
Our short-term focus in is still on bugfixing and improving the player experience. This means that over the next few weeks we will be releasing weekly updates to the game focusing on quality-of-life improvements that will tidy up some of the existing elements and features.
In the intermediate future we will begin working on new features and content. These will take slightly longer to implement, test and deploy, as they will be of greater complexity. Updates on these will roll out every 2 weeks to allow us more time to work on the new features.
After that comes long term, which is what we want to add to the game in the future. There are no set timescales for these features, but they are things we would love to see in the game so we are investigating the work required.
Below is a selection of improvements we are currently working on. We are a small yet flexible team, so some of these issues may switch around depending on what is most important at the time.
Short-term (1-2 weeks)
Bug fixes
Improvements to new player experience
Level balancing and tweaks from feedback
Initial audio options
Enhancements to server browser
Optimisation and improvements to level loading times
Text chat improvements
Fix melee animations
Improvements for NCOs
+ many, many more
Intermediate (~1 month)
Animation improvements
Improve level audio ambience
Tweaks to weapon audio
Continued balancing to maps and weapons
Reworked scoring system
Further optimisation of level loading times and time ingame vs.loading
Rework of SMGs & MGs handling & experience
Completed audio options
Ambient audio improvements
Weapon audio tweaks
Additional dialog lines
Long term (future updates)
Deployable Weapons
Prone
New Levels
New Weapons
Reworked squad creation experience to make playing with friends/clanmates easier
Persistent Stats
This weekend we will once again be hosting several game sessions each evening from 7PM BST / 8PM CEST / 11AM PDT / 2PM EDT until late. So get your squad together and join our community and the devs on the battlefield!
Game Update 0.5.1
Today we have launched an update to Vanguard which fixes several issues from the first week.
The highlights include:
Custom key bindings
Ability to switch teams
Rebalanced raid when there’s 8 or less players on a server
Idle players who are alive (not spectating) are now kicked in 60 seconds
The full patch notes can be seen at the bottom of this post.
This weekend we will be hosting several game sessions each evening from 7PM BST / 8PM CEST / 11AM PDT / 2PM EDT until late. So get your squad together and join our community and the devs on the battlefield!
There will also be a live-stream of the game this Saturday when TeamApex take to the battlefield, featuring BigfryTV, Shermanator, Karmakut, FriendlyNikolai, KILLSTREAKNET, & LordQuode. Join us in-game on or tune in to the stream on https://www.twitch.tv/bigfrytv at Noon EDT / 9AM PDT / 5PM BST / 6PM CEST.
Thank you to everyone who has provided us with constructive feedback. We read all of it even if we don’t respond to all of it. If you have a crash and get prompted to submit a crash report - please submit it so we are notified and we can look into the cause.
Known Issues:
Server sometimes unexpectedly disconnects all connected clients from the game
Graphical glitches and missing weapons when joining the game for the first time
Level loading time can be very long on slow hard drives - we are working on optimising this
Audio settings menu is not yet implemented
Decals can be stubborn and cause texture glitches
There is no audio warning before being kicked - this will be added soon
Localisation of some of the new features is incomplete. We’d appreciate any help from the community to get these translated.
Highlights:
Custom key bindings
Ability to switch teams from spawn menu
Rebalanced raid when there are 8 or less players on a server
Idle players who are alive (not spectating) are now kicked in 60s
Player markers for team mates are now visible at any range
Game:
Added ability to set custom keybindings in Options > Controls
Raid gamemode now features only one objective per phase if there are 8 or fewer players on the server. All objectives will appear at the beginning of the next phase if 9 or more players are in the server or just one if the number of players drops back down below 9.
AFK Kicking: Alive players are now kicked from the server after 60 seconds if no input activity is recorded. A discrete text warning is given after 20 seconds inactive & large visual warning and countdown after 40 seconds inactive. Doesn’t apply to dead/spectating players.
Player markers over the head of team mates are now visible at infinite range
Fixed bug which stopped players from being killed automatically after 3s when attempting to swim across the river on Pegasus as designed
Added additional logging of connections to help identify connection issues reported we cannot reproduce
Improved reporting from crash reporter
Added support for additional resolutions (please let us know if yours is not already supported)
Fixed glitched 'name in the game’ Kickstarter backer rewards
Fixed collision issues around the staircase and preventing players from getting into the first floor rear rooms in damaged enterable house
Fixed missing objective capture dialog line for the German team.
Removed flags from server browser
Added developer message area to main menu & beneath scoreboard for breaking news/events
Added localisation for new afk notifications
Updated server browser to hide obsolete server versions. Recently outdated servers will continue to show
Fixed disconnecting players from being returned to an outdated server browser
Optimised scoreboard to reduce performance impact on opening
Added “network error” popup when connection fails due to a network issue
Increased confirmation time when changing settings from 15 seconds to 30 seconds
Fixed game start countdown displaying “waiting for 63 players” briefly at the start of rounds
Updated layout of settings menu to reduce confusion on location of toggle settings
Fixed an issue where the scoreboard was not instantly updated when a player disconnected
Balancing:
Fixed hits to arms not causing enough damage
MG34 bullet spread reduced by 20%
MG34 ‘draw speed’ reduced by 20%
Bren Mk.II bullet spread reduced by 20%
Bren Mk.II ‘draw speed’ reduced by 20%
Levels: Pegasus Bridge
Blocking off certain areas that were accessible when it shouldn't have been
Fixed glitched backer-names in the level
Numerous floating objects fixed
Numerous terrain fixes
Numerous texture fixes
Numerous vegetation fixes
Visual enhancements to the café-area
Merville Battery
Blocking off certain areas that were accessible when it shouldn't have been
Removed invisible wall in the field on the attackers right flank when assaulting the Chateau objective
Fixed glitched backer-names in the level
Numerous floating objects fixed
Numerous terrain fixes
Numerous texture fixes
Numerous vegetation fixes
Scaled enterable house with blown-out piece so player may pass
Visual enhancements to the Merville and Town-area
Lion-sur-Mer
Blocking off certain areas that were admissible when it shouldn't have been
Fixed wrong Tobruk model near beachside
Fixed glitched backer-names in the level
Numerous floating objects fixed
Numerous terrain fixes
Numerous texture fixes
Numerous vegetation fixes
Scaled enterable house with blown-out piece so player may pass
Visual enhancements to the surrounding areas along the borders and main play area towards third phase
Launch Weekend
This past weekend saw the launch of Vanguard: Normandy 1944 onto Early Access. There were some close games, some tight rounds, and a lot of thoughtful discussions. We’ve really enjoyed watching people playing and discussing the game so far, and we are very pleased to have made it to this stage! We’ve read hundreds of comments and suggestions and, even if we haven’t replied to each one, we are taking them all on board.
You may have noticed from playing that the Early Access release is a little rough around the edges, with some features missing and some nasty bugs present. We’re using this process to develop on the foundations that we have now based on feedback from the community and players. It is very much a community focused process, so please do let us know what you think the game needs and what you’d like to see.
What’s next in development?
Right now we are focused on bugfixing. We noticed a lot of issues over the weekend which frustratingly could only be caught by launching the game. Some have already been patched, and some need a little more investigation. The server-related issues right now are a priority, including server-side lighting errors and players getting returned to the menu mid-round. We want to encourage greater teamplay, the start of which requires making it easier to play with your friends. We’re also working on ways of scaling Raid to different player counts, creating a new dynamic in how the game plays. Below is a quick snapshot of what we are immediately focused on which we plan to include in the next patch.
Immediate Priority:
Manual team selection – To allow players to play on the same team as their friends / clanmates
Player orientation – Adding spawn location hint markers for the defenders to have an idea where the enemies are originating from.
Weapon tweaks – Balancing and speed adjustments to the MGs.
Custom keybinding support
Raid scalability – making the gamemode more fun while waiting for more players to join
Map tweaks – Removal of some invisible walls and trap spots that have been reported.
Audio tweaks – Fix for missing capture notification line on the defending team
There are other small changes we have made and are continuing to add in. We’ll release patch notes of each update so you can see what is included. We have additional content planned as well, but want to polish the current player experience first.
Game Nights
Join us next weekend when many community members and developers will be playing the game! Keep an eye on the website, Discord and our social media sites for timings which will be confirmed this Wednesday.
Join us next weekend when many community members and developers will be playing the game! Keep an eye on the website, Discord and our social media sites for timings which will be confirmed this Wednesday.
Localisation
We currently support 6 languages in game but are keen to get as many more implemented as possible!
If we haven’t localised the game into your language yet and you are interested in helping out with the translations, please get in touch via Discord!
Screenshots
We’ve loved seeing in-game screenshots from our players over this weekend, and we’d like to turn it into a regular feature!
Following our successful Kickstarter campaign late in 2018, we have been hard at work play-testing and fine-tuning the game ready for this release. We are excited to see people playing the game!
We’ll release a roadmap for our plans over the coming weeks, but in the first patch we are aiming to add in:
Keybinding
In-game audio tweaks
Audio settings menu
Animation tweaks
Bugfixing
Balance tweaks
We’re also looking into more server regions, new maps, new weapons and an enhanced friend system. We already have servers online in EU, USA, Australia, Russia, Asia & Brazil!
Steam keys were sent out yesterday to all our eligible backers. We haven’t forgotten the other rewards, we will be sending those out as soon as we can.
We appreciate all of your feedback, so please tell us what you think of the game on the Steam forums or Discord server.
We look forward to seeing you on the battlefields!
Live Stream: Tomorrow @ 8:15 PM UTC
Introduction
First of all, we really appreciate your understanding of our decision to postpone the launch of Vanguard. The few additional weeks this grants us has proved very fruitful in fine-tuning and polishing the game, which will definitely pay off when we hit Early Access.
It would not be an Early Access launch if the game was finished at this stage so there are things that will not be present in Early Access at launch. We detail a few examples of these below. We will also run down what changes we have been making in development right now.
Live Stream: Tomorrow at 8:15 PM UTC (Saturday 23rd March)
We will be live streaming our next beta test on our YouTube channel.
Subscribe and tune in for the first live look at the game.
Development Continues
The big feature that has proven to be a sticky one in terms of getting it working has been VOIP. This is an ongoing development focus and has improved greatly in recent weeks. We are hoping to include this as part of our closed beta testing sessions soon and look forward to making in-game comms much easier and accessible to players of the game.
A lot of attention is being paid to launch servers and how they will operate once the launch comes. This is a purely backend issue, but a vital one that impacts the launch for every player! It is important the servers can look after themselves once we go live, auto-applying updates and minimising downtime so we can update the game regularly. Providing servers was a key reason for the Kickstarter campaign in the first place and is certainly not being overlooked as we approach the launch.
Raid is continually being improved and we have recently been on a heavy bug-fixing marathon. Bug-fixing is a big part of any software development, and more bugs are inevitably introduced every time a new feature is added or tweaked. Recently we have fixed lots of small bugs relating to level optimisation or backend code, for example; bugs relating to user interaction such as issues with the spectator cam and UI interaction.
We have also made further enhancements to floating squad markers, which now show your squad mates’ roles (e.g. rifleman). Different versions of each icon are used in the day and night maps to make them less intrusive at night but still readable during the day.
Launch Details
We have touched before on what the Early Access launch will feature, but what about what is not going to be in the game initially? While we are pushing for the most feature-complete version possible, it would not be early access without a few sharp edges, for example:
Animations: First of all you will notice that some of the animations are not as smooth as we would like them to be. Animation systems are notoriously complicated to get right, and a few glitches or awkward movements will be present.
Lobbies/Friend system: We will be overhauling the way in which players join servers by introducing lobbies and gamemode tweaks after launch. We will also make it easier to play with your Steam friends and form squads.
Customisation: At the moment you cannot change the default keybindings. We will be adding in support for remapping the keys to your preferred configuration.
Audio: Dialog and weapon audio will be the focus of changes during EA, so expect a lot more character shouting later on.
Steam Achievements
Don't forget to add the game to your Steam Wishlist. We will be back with more news on the game but in the meantime you can find us on YouTube, Facebook, Twitter as we countdown the final 2 weeks until Early Access Launch!
