Developer Briefing #113 - Community Q&A!

Hey everyone,

Welcome to Dev Brief #113!

This week we're hosting another Community Q&A where we'll be answering some of the hottest questions that you've sent in to us!

On that front you sent us over 1,500 questions in a week! This totally blew away our expectations so thank you. The team went through them all and picked 25 that we think you'll appreciate having the answers too!

Before we dive into that though, Black Matter Community Manager Spono has the latest update on the VoIP situation:

A Vivox / VoIP Update from The Great Spoondini

Hi everyone,

I Just wanted to give you an update with the current in-game VOIP situation and thank you all for being so patient as we work to fix this. VIVOX have been working hard and have made several configuration changes to resolve the loss of comms some of you are experiencing.

VIVOX will be continuing to make a few tweaks over the next 24-48 hours as we lead into the weekend, but are already noticing an improvement and are seeing no mass drop events since these changes were made.

VIVOX have multiple people monitoring this and will continue to do so throughout the weekend. It would be great to let us know if in the weekend you are still experiencing loss of VOIP, or if your VOIP experience is now better.

I want to personally thank the entire community for your patience as we have worked tirelessly with Vivox to resolve this as quickly as possible. Apologies for the time this has taken, we remain cautiously optimistic but hopefully we are now on the road to recovery. We will endeavor to update you on this after the weekend, once we have heard back from our friends at VIVOX.

Thanks again
Spono

Your Questions, Our Answers!

Will Hell Let Loose be supported after you leave Early Access?

Yes. Leaving Early Access simply represents a consistent level of quality and optimisation across the game that we’d be happy to call a starting place for all the work to come. It is not a sign that we’ve “finished the game” and are going to move on. Once we leave Early Access, the team is poised to expand and continue as we always have - with the same or slightly larger flow of work as we’ve always had (too fast and it becomes hard to quality control and too slow and the game will feel stagnant!). We have to implement campaign mode, more forces, expand the ones we have, expand weapon and equipment offerings, add new mechanics (flamethrowers and mortars to name a few), add completely new map types, refine the metagame, continue to balance, support the competitive side, continue to optimise, add more vehicles and much more. Many of the most popular games on Steam are titles that have been out for more than five years!


What do you think about adding more complexity/variety to the AT weapons in the game, i.e. magnetic mines/charges, single-use rockets, AT grenades, etc.

This is ultimately where we want to go with the anti-tank capability. We feel it’ll be much more interesting to have a varied series of mechanics that can be used to take down different vehicles than just firing a ton of rockets at them. Ultimately the armour array is still quite undercooked. The current “medium” tanks in the roster will be replaced by the most populous mediums of the day (namely the Pz 4 for the Germans, the T34 for the Russians and the stock M4A3 Sherman for the US). As a result we’ll be rebalancing the AT role to encourage different styles of play.


Are defined "Front lines" the desire of the design team or are you looking at adjusting the linear nature of sectors within maps and garrison placement? - Whilst the changes in U7 (?) were to address "ninja garrisons" with fixed lines I now see garrisons and outposts seemingly dropped in near identical locations every time.

Unfortunately the sector system (the hard squares) was a legacy implementation that has been hard to move away from, as it governs so much of the metagame. Ultimately, the key design goal is to create an organic frontline (that ideally can wrap around into the first active red row) without reintroducing the spawn bombing of the ninja garrison mechanics (where players drop the attack Garrison within the enemy SP and spawn the entire team there).


Can we expect more loadouts for the Spotters (please add satchel charges for them) and Snipers (G43 with a scope and bolt action rifles without optics)?

Yes - there’s really no limit to the loadouts we’re keen to create and implement. They’re hugely flexible for us to alter, balance and expand and it’s the key way we’re able to introduce new gadgets. Expect everything you’ve suggested and much, much more as more forces enter the game.


Do you have any ideas about new abilities for commanders? Like air strike with Stuka or rocket strafing run with P47?

Definitely. The Commander array was designed to allow us to continually expand their abilities - something that’s very easy for us to do. Expect to see Stukas, rocket strafes, nebelwerfers and more. We’ll be balancing adding these to each force in future updates.


Would it be possible to implement a way to increase/decrease command channel versus squad channel voice volumes? Also a way to equalize voices? People who increase their in game mic volume end up sounding "boomy" whereas others are almost impossible to hear.

This is something we’re discussing with Vivox at the moment, as we’re limited on the outputs. We’d love to be able to treat each channel with a different SFX filter to better distinguish them, as well as allow you individual volume control. Often the question comes up as to why use Vivox at all, given the relative issues or inflexibility. The key answer here is that other titles force the game server to carry all voice traffic. Vivox takes all our voice traffic off our game server - allowing for a much higher tickrate (networking accuracy) in game - even with 100 players all in one small area.


Are more options planned for placed weapons like the current Pak-40. I was imagining one of those 20mm flak guns or an HE mortar. Side note- you guys are awesome, absolutely amazing dev team, seriously ya'll rock.

Thanks so much for the support! Our plan is to introduce a flak position as a deployable that can be upgraded to various levels, with different functions. We’re also looking at allowing you to upgrade the AT guns similarly. We’re also going to be introducing mortars and deployables too (and most likely HMGs). There’s still a lot more to come!


UE5 may be in your hands early this year. (remember the amazing demo) So what do you think UE5 can bring to the game? Destruction maybe? More dust? ect. Keep up the good work, and be proud of what you are doing. cheers Jimmi.

UE5 is still quite a Pandora’s Box of potential complexity and features, but one we’re really excited to open up. We’re going to seek to move to it depending on the benefits in order to future-proof the title. If that lets us achieve greater performance, atmospherics or even destruction then you can bet we’ll be very keen to explore if these can be brought into HLL.


Will we also see incendiary grenades and/or molotov cocktails?

Yes! We’re actually very excited to properly add fire to the game. It will most likely be later this year, but we want to bring incendiaries in with infantry and vehicle mounted flamethrowers. Molotovs, incendiary grenades - even incendiary rounds are on the table.


It seems that developing a historically accurate flamethrower would be extremely difficult to implement. How is the team doing with this upcoming weapon, is there anything we should know, what steps have you taken to ensure its accuracy, and when do you foresee it coming to fruition? Thanks!

Funnily enough a lot of the flamethrower code already exists in the game - we just need to generate some of the FX and the work around setting up the weapon from an animation perspective. We’re going for a fuel/gel mix model - allowing you to consistently throw straight lines of fire over 20-30m (we’ll be testing the ranges). The idea is that it’ll be a way of clearing buildings at range with a high risk and reward factor. Exposing yourself to concentrate the flame, but highly effective at clearing tight spaces.


Are there any plans to add more vehicles, things like Tank Destroyers, Armoured Cars etc?

Yes, these are all planned and much more!


Will there be further tweaks to the gore system, eg. bullet dmg and stuff like bloodpools forming under dead bodies?

Yes, this is something we want to continue to refine and polish. It’s still using a lot of visually imperfect elements that we want to tighten up and make much better looking.


With the inclusion of the eastern front and what I'm assuming, more subclasses. Will you try to balance the amount of classes to each faction? IE will Germany have 2 machine gunner classes while Russia and America only have 1?

Due to the way our backend works, we’re keen to keep the number of roles in the game at 14, as expanding this will cause huge continuously multiplying complexity. As a result of this, we really see the loadouts available to each role as a way of expanding functionality across a team, and weighting it in a particular way.


Are you guys looking into adding maybe a 1 to 2 minute preparation phase before a match starts? To give people a little time to plan the attack, and to figure out what roles are needed in a squad.

This will be arriving in Update 9!


Back during the backing process of HLL, adding in the Pacific was a potential goal that wasn't met. With the success of the game so far, do you think the Pacific may be added into the game sometime in the future? Thanks for everything, and keep up the great work!

Let’s just say, if things continue as they are then we’d definitely be looking at introducing it.


How do you figure out how to balance between realism and more "game-y" elements of gameplay?

It’s always a very tough balance. It usually requires us boiling down the expectation of a feature or weapon and then considering how that could be best represented on the battlefield in a way that compliments or modifies other existing mechanics. A good example is the artillery. We felt it was important to capture the total power and devastation of it on the battlefield, and to do so we needed to introduce some limiting principles - namely, the need for teamwork in both placing marks, working with a loader and minimal game-feedback that you’re being successful. We’ll always begin with what the absolute most realistic implementation would look like and then work it back to suit the gameplay. Fundamentally it has to feel fun and to perform as close to expectations as possible - paired with an appropriate learning curve and devastating side-effects. If artillery was incredibly easy to fire then we’d have to lower it’s lethality - causing grenade-style explosions. If we make it too powerful, then we’d need to complicate it to the point where it was very inaccessible to use - lowering it’s presence on the battlefield. That is always the balance we consider - “who will want to use this?”


Are there any particular development processes you use as a small development team to release such a high fidelity game? It amazes me that such a small team can produce such a high fidelity game, arguably better than what many AAA studios have released over the last few years and as a games developer myself I like to know how the small studios get ahead.

Really appreciate the kind words - they’re a huge encouragement to the team. Realistically, I think finding the right like-minded team-members has played a huge part.


What feature are you most excited about from the future roadmap?

I think Campaign mode will tie each battle together in a really meaningful way that will give greater context and reward to the efforts of each player on the battlefield. I’m also very excited about the Eastern Front and the sheer breadth of the combat that will start to roll through the game. That you could be leading a tank column across Normandy in one battle to be hacking someone to death with a shovel in the living room of a tiny Russian Izba in the next, to dropping artillery on a rocky desert outcrop in the next battle.


Do you collect stats of every player's efficiency such as kills/times killed throughout his 'career'? Would be interesting to have a look at that not just for one round but in total (all plays) to review personal progress. Thanks

We do collect stats, and we’re going to build out a stat page in a future update. We’re keen for players to be able to see where they’re improving or efficient, and we also feel that the data will help us make better informed decisions around balance and gameplay.


What is the plan for a campaign and what is it's status?

We’re designing Campaign mode to become the default system of map rotation from server to server. Within it, we’ll pit Allies against Axis across a world map, allowing you to experience the full scale of conflict as you press for global victory. Essentially, a campaign will begin on a server and the first 5 minutes will be a both teams observing a world map of different territories. We’re thinking through the exact mechanics at the moment, but want to introduce an element of risk and reward to decision-making in this screen. Will you choose to open your campaign by attacking in the “Beaches” territory (choosing between Utah or Omaha), or will you decide to begin in the far east as the Russian forces? We need the design to be flexible enough to allow us to continually add maps, as well as introduce variety and different stakes to each battle. We want resources to be fixed, so that failing to maintain a good balance in one battle will affect the next one. In addition, the choice you make over whether you choose to attack on Offensive mode, defend on Offensive mode or fight a Warfare battle will similarly change the reward for victory or defeat. We have a huge number of variables that we’re excited to introduce - we’re currently just working over the design to make sure that it’s both compelling, competitive and balanced. It also needs to be able to house all current and future content. In any case, it will be a very, very large update post-launch as it’ll be a very significant addition to the game.


During early access it's hard to decide if you want to implement new features to bring new players, or fix bugs to keep existing players interested. How do you plan on balancing those two objectives?

It’s definitely always a difficult balance. New exciting content brings in new players and allows us to keep the lights on at the studio, but at the same time we always need to make sure we’re dealing with the bugs and less fun aspects of the game that are causing issues for the community. We’re reaching a point now though where there aren’t many surprises within the course of development. We’re finalising some aspects of optimisation and technical processes that will make development much smoother when it comes to fixing bugs and performance. Eventually we hope that we’ll reach a point where all the fundamentals work seamlessly and we can spend time widening the game.


Update 8 has been great! Especially the updates to the support and engineers. What unit type do you think needs more love the most next and what additional infantry loadouts & customizations do you have planned for the future?

Really glad you’re enjoying the additions! Ultimately we’ll be rotating through the most under-cooked loadouts to add more and more to them before circling back to the start. Initially we were so busy with overhauling key parts of the game that many of the loadouts became just different mixes of existing guns. We’re going to be increasingly moving away from introducing loadouts with existing elements, and use them how they were designed - as a way of introducing entirely new functionality (be it weapons or gadgets or equipment).


Do you ever expect the game to have tanking only maps? Would be kind of cool!

We’re keen to keep the ruleset for HLL as fixed as possible, with the main variable being the maps and forces present. That said, we know that some maps are better for infantry and some are better for vehicles. While we’d never limit the players or force playstyles in a certain direction, we’re going to be introducing some famous tank battles. It’ll become obvious once you’re in the battle why armor played such an important role in open, rolling terrain!


Night combat, do you have any plan to do any current maps but with night variants? If so, would flare guns also be looked at both as illumination and anti tank/infantry variants?

Yes, we’ll be bringing in a night mode in the future. We feel it’ll need flare guns to brighten up longer ranges and give unique purpose to the night environment. We don’t want to introduce a night time mode that just encourages players to increase their gamma!


Are there any plans to introduce rifle grenades? (spigot-type grenade launcher / Schiessbecher) + thank you for your work so far! :)

Yes, we’re very keen to introduce this to the game in a future update!

Getting Up Close and Personal!

Dedicated melee weapons are on the way! We'll be sharing how they work and more in an upcoming Developer Briefing.They say keep your friends close and your enemies closer...


That wraps up this week's Dev Brief!

We hope you enjoyed our latest Community Q&A session, let us know what your favourite questions and answers were in the comments as we'd love to hear what you think!

Have a great weekend everyone.

We'll see you on the frontline.