Welcome to Dev Brief #98!
Today we're going to be talking about some more cool new features coming in Update 8, some of which are a direct result of you sharing your thoughts on teamwork and team composition with us.
Unit Designation
We’ve received brilliant feedback from the community about the need to allow Officers to broadcast to the team what the function of their unit is. Currently in Hell Let Loose, the only information available is the unit name (which we keep consistent to allow for each inter-unit identification) and the type of unit it is (Infantry, Armored or Recon).
The design of Hell Let Loose has always been a constant tension between keeping things functionally as simple as possible while allowing players to specialize into all manner of roles - both individually and as a unit. The community has often asked for specific unit types (artillery, logistics etc.) While we totally agree with the principle of this, we’ve been very reticent to introduce more and more unit types, as the ruleset and architecture behind each is very specific and is delineated to make the code side of things as simple as possible.
That said, we’ve long recognized the need to allow Officers to let the rest of the team know that they’re focused on a particular task - especially so that the Commander is able to get a sense of the resources at their disposal.
Therefore, in Update 8 we’re implementing the ability to mark your unit in the deployment menu with several key designations to better quickly let your team know what your intended role on the battlefield is.
You can now select two different options:
1. By toggling this, you will be indicating to the players who join the unit that you are a VOIP only unit and they are expected to use a microphone.
2. Unit designation. This can be set at different points in the battle by your Officer. Clicking the little arrow will open up a choice of four different designations - Offensive, Defensive, Logistics and Artillery.
Coming Soon
Update 8 is set to be another huge update. In the coming weeks we’ll be diving into significate changes to the game, including:
Specific rework of resource nodes functions and not just something to hide!
Explosion SFX and FX overhaul.
Adjusted bullet hit damage to body extremities while preserving weapon balance and TTK.
New Engineer deployable hammer with the ability to upgrade fortifications. We’ll also be addressing how these fortification are destroyable.
Transport and Supply truck functionality.
Hurtgen Forest overhaul - We’ve kept the topography of Hurtgen Forest while adding more cover and clearer sight lines.
Large scale optimizations.
New customization options.
An expanded level cap and ways we’ll acknowledge your level in-game.
Hurtgen Forest Overhaul - New Images
Those of you who paid close attention to the 'Coming Soon' bullet points will have noticed some more content reveals, we'll be talking about all of those in our upcoming Dev Briefs