SQUAD DEVELOPER Q&A JULY, 2022
OWI_Wedge
Posts: 40 Admin
Hello Squaddies,
Welcome to the latest Squad Forums Developer Q&A where you, the players, get to ask the people who made Squad all about the game! We hope this will continue to be a great channel of communication between us at Offworld Industries and our players.
A few rules for this Questions thread:
- Post your questions as a reply to this post, in this specific thread
- Please do your best to keep the questions short and to the point, it’s too easy to misunderstand a question if it’s contained in several paragraphs of notes.
- Any debate surrounding the questions should be done elsewhere in the forums and not in this thread.
- We will not be answering every question, but depending on the volume we may save some questions for future weeks. There also may be questions we just don’t answer.
- Make sure that you ask a question, this isn’t a time to debate a design decision with the team. If you want to ask about the reasoning behind something in Squad that’s fine, but don’t use your question to tell us why you’d have done it differently.
- Keep the questions polite and constructive. We will be deleting any questions that we feel are in bad faith or are obviously trolling. Word your questions right and they’re more likely to get addressed.
- Good: “Why did the team do X?”
- Bad: “Why did you idiots do X and ruin the game?”
- Anything that is not a question may be removed to keep this thread easily readable. If you have a comment about someone else’s question please take that outside of this thread.
Thank you for taking the time to submit your questions, and we look forward to answering them!
- Offworld Industries
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Comments
Why don't we have more invasion layers? Is this a technical issue?
I really want to see a USMC v RUS Skorpo layer or a UK v MEA Kohat, is there something about Irregular factions that make them easier on the engine than conventional ones?
Any word on the insurgency mode rework? :)
Hi, France gonna be playable without mod one day ? For more servers and more faction ! Thx
Could we get more realistic penetration mechanics with HEAT warheads that would make it‘s usage against infantry more justified?
i.e shooting an ATGM or AT rocket at a group of infantry or someone hiding behind a brickwall?
Last year you guys showed of a PiP scope feature in a development stream.
Is that feature still being optimized, and will it be included in the game one day, or has it been canned for performance reasons?
(short clip of the stream in question / can't post links so: streamable DOT com/0d4bzo)
This Unreal Engine crash that's happening, can you tell if it's something in the game or with the players' machines? UE4: SquadGame
Hi Offworld Industries,
Thank you for partaking with the community and giving us an opportunity to ask various questions.
The first few questions I have which I assume many will ask are related to content. These include:
The remaining questions are miscellaneous.
Thank you!
Hi, I just want to start off by saying thank you to the developers for putting in the amazing work for v3.0. Black Coast is already top 3 for me in terms of the maps offered to play, as is the Marines when it comes to factions.
Speaking of factions, is there any plans to add anything new to the Militia faction? Me and many others in the community have felt that it's severely lacking, be it in weapon or gameplay variety offered in comparison to the Insurgents, the only other unconventional force in the game.
Thank you guys again, I cannot wait to see what's in store for the game's future.
Are there any plans for some form of regular devblog/update/newsletter/etc.? Currently news about the game is pretty inconsistent, usually leading to only hearing about something shortly before a release.
Would you be willing to better explain why certain legacy issues are still around? Not just saying, "these issues are difficult" but actually explaining in depth?
What happened to the roadmap that was supposed to be eventually reworked?
What is OWI's stance on the players who are no longer able to play the game due to performance decreases introduced by the 2.12 update? Optimizations are surely coming but, if further optimization is unable to return to pre 2.12 levels, are these players just out of luck?
What happen to the former plans to include things like an infantry combat re-work like different damage values or Picture-In-Picture Optics similar to games like Escape from Tarkov? This was demonstrated on MoiDawg's channel several months ago but we haven't heard of any updates.
Why? Or is this no longer a priority?
Second, is there going to be anything done with factions like Militia that are underpowered?
Hello! Thanks for the QnA time finally. I am a 3800 hours play time player of this loving game.
Here are a 10 things our Korean community is curious about. I would appreciate it that you could pick and answer, if not all.
1.
Are you planning an overhaul for the MIL faction? This faction is the paramilitary faction with the least difference from the insurgent faction. They need a love. If you have a plan, can you guys tell the a little bit example?
2.
I remember testing the RMR mount on a V2 UAT and demo version of 3D scope(PIP scope). Will these be added? I remember using the RMR mount in PR as well.
3.
We are curious about additional support for the CMD role. Can you reorganize the commander assets and add more? (UAV's thermal, UAV's Laser guided missile, MLRS support etc. << I saw a small image of MLRS and UAV missile strike in sdk.)
4.
Do you have any plans to change the interior of the building for a dynamic CQB environment like a black coast about the old maps?
5.
There is news about attack helicopters, and I know that a gunship version of the UH-1Y was recently found in the sdk. I remember earlier that rocketed versions existed on the MI-8 and UH-60 as well. Do you have the will to develop mid-to-large air assets like Apache and fighter jet? I saw a image of SAM site emplacement mark in sdk.
6.
I wonder when we'll be able to meet the infantry's Breacher role and new new vehicles. In fact, in the case of the BMP-2M or T-90A, I think there will be no problem even if it is added to the current version unless it is a special event. Is there any particular reason for the delay?
7.
I have seen in the previous public roadmap that overhauls for Insurgency Mode and TC Mode were planned during the layer overhaul. What is the current progress on this, what issues have the developers identified and how do they aim to evolve?
8.
Do you have any plans to overhaul existing maps like the examples of Gorodok and Yehorivka? An example would be the northern island of the Skorpo map. The modmap for the MEE mod based on Al basrah is also a great example.
9.
Are there any plans to update Unreal Engine to version 4.26 or higher, if not UE5, to be able to use DLSS features for optimization? This is another challenge, but I think it's an important key to solving many of the current squad's problems. In version 4.23, I think there are many limitations to what you can do right now.
10.
I remember that the FGM-148 was found in a screenshot from the previous USMC facttion. Currently USMC doesn't have it, what is stopping the FGM-148 from being released? I know that the FGM-148 itself has been planned since 2016 or 2017.
Thanks,
From. Alex.
In terms of factions, once "PanAsia" (or whatever you plan to call it) gets released, what do you have in store for the future?
Speaking of which, is it possible to give us a general time frame as to when "PanAsia" will get released? (IE end of the year, beginning of next year, etc)
Keep up the great work guys!
1.Why do scopes typically reduce recoil compared to ironsights? (recoil camera offset interp speed of 3.0 over 5.0 being the only difference, higher means more actual recoil that is noticeable and verifiable when aiming)
And why don't some follow that convention(G3, C7/C8)?
2.Why do m4/m16/ef88...etc. have unrealistic rate of fire at ~830rpm when in real life they're 750rpm at best(around 720 or so during MK18 cqbr trials according to NSWC official powerpoint) without suppressor? Why do in-game m249 exceed maximum rate of fire(850rpm, in-game it's 858rpm actual) according to real life training manuals?
3.Why does M16 have lower recoil than AK-74M, despite having better everything else(accuracy, rate of fire, damage, damage falloff, optics, rifleman also gets vertical foregrip for even lower recoil)?
And for some reason crouched ads recoil is better than prone recoil...
Also funny how AKM and G3 have the same standing ads recoil, while AKMS for some reason actually has lower recoil.
4.Why do blatantly imbalanced layers like this:
exist?
CAF gets better spawn(no deep water leading out of main so far less likelihood of main being minecamped) plus better armor(coyote is like aslav, it's still better than BTR-82A, coyote not-existing would be barely plausible for balance, even though Russian armor takes more people to operate and caf already has better infantry weapons in general).
Also m240 coax variants fire way too quickly(seems to be stuck at "3" for dirt/fouling gas setting that is discouraged in training manuals for causing higher wear in regular usage)
Whose idea of "balance"(because there is no real balance) is this?
Why did Australian M1A1 get unhistorical stabilizers for commander sight?
It didn't have it on the model and it didn't have it in real life.
As can be seen here on official powerpoint slides - the SCWS(the one with stabilizers) was a FY2012 thing, well past the time frame where Australia got their M1A1 delivered(2007 or earlier).
And Australia's new ones haven't even arrived: https://www.janes.com/defence-news/news-detail/australia-orders-new-tanks-and-engineering-vehicles
It can't be for balance because Russians already have inferior armor when there is no BMP-2(and there often isn't bmp-2), even before aus m1a1 got stabilized commander turret.
Thank you for taking the time to engage in QAs with the community. As a whole communication has been better this year. Hopefully the high player count results in more experienced players over the coming months and a better community/games as a whole.
Hello, are you guys considering giving armor (mainly IFVs/Tanks) thermals if they have them irl? Thanks.
Hello,
I wonder if the Layers Overhaul is still a thing ? It's was really promising for all the things it was supposed to bring.
We didn't hear back about the Replay System. This features is really exciting, but it's was dropped half baked in live version. Did you plan to work on this in a short future ?
Can we expect a dedicated insurgent suicide bomb vehicle in the future?
Any plans to enable some Bluefor vs Bluefor factions map layers?
How come a shotgun was not added for the Australian faction engineer?
This Unreal Engine crash that's happening, can you tell if it's something in the game or with the players' machines? UE4: SquadGame
When I search for "Squad Roadmap" the first 2 links are:
The Roadmap at the very top of joinsquad.com/roadmap/ which was last updated on "Revision: [Feb 8th, 2021]"
And this blog post (joinsquad.com/2022/01/21/an-update-on-squads-roadmap/) made by OWI "posted on January 21, 2022" "There are essentially two main things we need to finalize before we’re able to present you with a new Roadmap."
What is going on with the Roadmap, can you clarify as your statements are confusing and contradictory regarding this topic?
If you are going to update the Roadmap as you promised in January 2022, what's been taking so long the last 6 months? Has "Create a new visual format" and "Confirm what we can first share as part of the new roadmap" just taken much longer than expected?
If you aren't going to provide a Roadmap, why haven't you removed the Roadmap from your site?
Reposting this same question from March's Q&A as it was not answered...
One of the recent patches created a "ghosting" effect that many of us can not get rid of. Could you provide a resolution for this? The issue and the number of people reporting the issue can be found here: www.reddit.com/r/joinsquad/comments/tfsplm/any_ideas_what_is_causing_this_visual_bug/
Will the tutorial ever be updated and corrected? Currently, it has incorrect or misleading information in it and doesn't cover some critical game mechanics every player should know at the very basic level.
Replays are currently not allowed on any server because people might access them during the game and see where the enemy is. Is there any work on improving the replay system?
How might I be able to play the Track Attack gamemode released in v1.0 almost 2 years ago?
What are your thoughts and plans for the Track Attack gamemode?
Is there anywhere we can view a list of bugs OWI knows about so we don't have to feel we need to report them and they will eventually be addressed? It's impossible to know if you're even aware of these issues.
The Fog bug is back, but now it's white instead of black. Is any work being done on fixing this game breaking bug?
At least a few of us are reporting terrible frames on certain parts of certain maps, like Goose Bay. I will go from having 100+ FPS to 15 FPS on some parts of that map. When I leave the area, my FPS goes back up. This is a new issue since v3.0 as far as I'm aware.
What is OWI's philosophy around educating the player base? It really feels like you intentionally omit or obfuscate information in the game to sort of limit a players ability to learn aspects of this game... is that intentional and if so what's the driving purpose behind doing that?
For instance, the After Action Report only tells a partial story of how a player, a squad or even the team positively or negatively contributed to the win condition for that gamemode. Was the decision to leave out ALL ticket losses and gains (only leaving in k/d) intentional or an oversight you're planning to correct? Would you create different kinds of AAR for the different gamemodes that have different win conditions (i.e. Insurgency/Destruction is the only gamemode where you can win and not have that win based on tickets, but based on if an SL was able to blow up caches... will information like that ever be present in a future AAR after an Insurgency game so we can see who actually threw those nades for the win or will the AAR be standard across all gamemodes regardless of the fact their rules are very different? TC's AAR has similar issues.)
Or how the Tutorial is missing huge chunks of important information while providing misinformation to players and doesn't seem to have been updated since it was originally introduced in Alpha v15 almost 3 years ago now even when major game mechanics have been changed or introduced since then which one would expect to be covered in a tutorial.