Santa Claws Update content

[EUG_PapaYankee]

Hello everyone,

Following the "Santa Claws" open beta, we have compiled the survey's results, as well as your feedback in the forums, social channels, reddit, etc. Again, big warm thanks to everyone. Most of the comments were highly instructive and helped us to make decisions about what feature will and won't be in this update, available on December 21st alongside the Christmas event and the ranked leaderboard's reboot.



About the survey
The survey was completed by 148 people, 69.9% declaring Steel Division: Normandy 44 was their favorite game against 21.2% for Wargame: Red Dragon. When filtering results by fanbase, it appeared that the comments and ratings were basically the same.

The global feedback is that the changes offer more tactical opportunities, more freedom, and make the game generally more dynamic. Some features received an overwhelmingly positive response (critical hit repair is your #1), others concepts (like the AT in the buildings and the hedgerow/forest's crossing) were appreciated but need more work, and only one feature, the unfortunate AA improvement, was -very slightly- considered as worst than before.

Note: We only have removed 3 answers from the original 148, 2 of them were sent 2 minutes after the release of the beta (and declared having played the beta more than 10 hours...), and the last one was basically trolling on... I don't know... my mom? Can't remember.

So, here's what we'll do:

What will be included in "Santa Claws"
Gameplay updates:
(with slight adjustments compared to the beta)

• Vehicles' critical damage repair by supply units.
• Remastered damage & critical hit system.
• Increased Short/Mid range precision.
• Adjusted vehicle offroad speed: this change will affect about 80% of the vehicles in the game (and NOT the Hellcat!).

Other features:

• Active Pause, the game will now be pausable with the "P" key in Single Player (campaign, skirmish...), while still allowing you to give orders.
• Private "Breakthrough" game.
• Moddable DLC content for DLC owners.

The update will also feature some minor fixes.

What is currently being tested / adjusted
These features are being reworked at the moment, and might be included in a future update's open beta (so yes: that will mean another survey, yay!).

• Light AT (up to 57mm) being able to enter the buildings: while generally appreciated (gives more tactical possibilities, makes light units more important...), this needs some work, especially to avoid hopping and breaking the LoS.
• Vehicles can now go through forests & hedgerows: again, the feature itself was pretty much appreciated (allowing more tactical freedom, flanking, making the game more dynamic), but we need to work on restrictions and to adjust the way our AI & pathfinding work with this new feature to make it fully enjoyable.

What's being completely removed

• Decreased plane resistance/Increased AA efficiency: this change has been reverted. AA is perceived as strong enough right now. The only adjustments made in the future will be for individual balance purposes.

Stay tuned, next week's gonna be exciting!

 

[Gilmund]

• Remastered damage & critical hit system.
  
• Increased Short/Mid range precision.

I hope this will even more improve the "one shot one kill" flavour! A good move should always be rewarded.

• Vehicles can now go through forests & hedgerows: again, the feature itself was pretty much appreciated (allowing more tactical freedom, flanking, making the game more dynamic), but we need to work on restrictions and to adjust the way our AI & pathfinding work with this new feature to make it fully enjoyable.

I guess it means the retreating units will not go into forests and treelines with Santa Claws. It's probly the thing i was expecting the most, i hope we'll see it soon enough!

 

[Alex646]

Will be there detailed changelog? We don't know anything how 'Remastered damage & critical hit system' and 'Increased Short/Mid range precision' were changed.

 

[facmanpob]

Great feedback to the community, thanks. Good to see that the survey was constructive and that the outcome will improve the game. Merry Christmas!

 

[Fade2Gray]

Pretty nifty to see EUGEN so active with keeping this game going. Hopefully it pays off in the long run.

 

[HerrBaron]

Excellent; thank you @Eugen, for listening to your community! The very best of the Holiday season to the Eugen team!

 

[Jeff_Ahl]

Tanks in forest? Well, not a common sight IRL and for good reasons - but of course some times the most unexpected and "stupid" choice is a good tactic to surprise the enemy.

I can agree that some heavier tanks should be able to break parts of hedgerows, but tanks in forest have to be very well balanced to be realistic. Many trees IRL would be to thick for the tank to knock down and the most of the trees would slow down the speed, the speed and maneuverability is dramaticly lowered if even possible to maneuver in some types of forest at all. So if you are about to let the tanks into the infantry-salad there have to be severe penalties. To turn the turret against a threat is hard in a forest, trees will often block the possibilities to turn the turret in the wanted direction. To turn the tanks front against a threat is not always possible, in many cases the tank has no possibility to knock down trees when turning the hull - the trees often has to be knocked down with the front or rear of the tank to get enough power and weight that is needed. A tank in a forest will often be spotted long before they even are in LOS because they will bump in to trees and be forced to knock down some trees, in the game it should be possible to notice that tanks has entered a forrest long before they are in line of sight. How Eugen will manage to incorporate penalties into the game will be interesting, but I am glad that Eugen will try it in another beta and think of it twice before apply it into the game.

The rest of the fixes are fine I suppose. But in the name of realism I really hope Eugen acknowledge the many and severe limits there is when tanks maneuver and fighting in a forest.

 

[Jeff_Ahl]

Please Eugen, increased repair time for planes? I agree that the balance between AA vs planes are god now, but repair time is still to short in my opinion. That would be a compromise instead of doing nothing about the fact that Flak 38 and other light AA is not filling its AA-role at this moment. If I knew that the Flak 38 is not going to shot down the plane but it at least will make it stay away from the battlefield for a longer time, I would be satisfied.

 

[Alex646]

Please Eugen, increased repair time for planes? I agree that the balance between AA vs planes are god now, but repair time is still to short in my opinion. That would be a compromise instead of doing nothing about the fact that Flak 38 and other light AA is not filling its AA-role at this moment. If I knew that the Flak 38 is not going to shot down the plane but it at least will make it stay away from the battlefield for a longer time, I would be satisfied.

Some divisions rely on planes heavily. This change would hurt them very bad.

 

[Gilmund]

Please Eugen, increased repair time for planes? I agree that the balance between AA vs planes are god now, but repair time is still to short in my opinion. That would be a compromise instead of doing nothing about the fact that Flak 38 and other light AA is not filling its AA-role at this moment. If I knew that the Flak 38 is not going to shot down the plane but it at least will make it stay away from the battlefield for a longer time, I would be satisfied.

Repair time is fine overall for the cost of these planes. It's even a bit long sometimes (typhoon AT i think about you). And we should not forget there is a repair time + a resupply time.
One piece of flak 38 cost 40 points with a 20mm gun, one plane always cost around 150 and more for bombers. Get proper AA and get figthers to finish the job.

 

[VulcanHDGaming]

I really appreciate the beta and the community interaction, it's great! Of course, thanks for the update too.

One thing I'm a little worried about, moving into this update, is the survivability of tanks as one shots seem a lot less common (or at least did in the beta) and it led to mass tank pushes being frustrating to play against. The idea of more criticals is cool, but it shouldn't lower the overall lethality in my opinion.

Either way, looking forward to getting my hands on the update in a couple days to see how it shakes things up.

 

[DrFonk]

This will be good Great Work !!

 

[johnyoga]

NICELY DONE PATCH!

At least from the US Airborne Division perspective & general gameplay: The game appears to be nicely balanced:

1. Arty does damage as it should.
2. Arty cool-down seems fair.
3. Aircraft of all types appear to be working properly, whether dogfights, dropping bombs, picking off infantry, and/or taking down, or being properly damaged by AA.
4. INF fights appear more balanced.
5. Game "hardness" levels have a much more mild slope, and don't punish the novice anywhere near as much as when the game was initiated.
6. AT guns appear fair in their one-hit damage and their ranges
7. Maps are varied

The game is simply a joy to play now...Very nicely done Paradox and Eugen Systems! I have played all Wargames in the series, and you nailed it on this one!

There are two wishes I have:

1. Allow for speed control in MP/Coop
2. Have VP/Flag maps available (that's the one feature I/friends miss from the COH series)


Regards,

Marc