Hello everyone,

Two devblogs so close together is quite rare in our case, but that's because it's a special occasion - black friday - and so, we are running a special sale!

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/15824/Call_to_Arms_Gates_of_Hell__Ostfront/
https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/15829/Call_to_Arms__Complete/

Besides the sale we have a fair number of changes to tell you about.

Black friday update

Along with the sale, as is tradition, we will be releasing a game update. This one focuses on balancing and quality of life changes for the entire game, in preparation for the next content update for the winter season.

In this blog, we’ll highlight a couple of things from the update; it would be way too much to detail all the changes. As usual, we will publish a full change log when that happens, so you can find out every detail then.
For now, let’s go with the highlights!


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Vision system

We have overhauled the vision system to make it easier to understand. There were many cases where people thought the game was bugged, because some unit could see you but you could not see it, and this was the result of a complex vision model that took details into account like the size of the hatches in vehicles, or the stance of the soldiers plus whether they were in cover (and many other factors).
Whilst this system is very complex and adds a lot of potential depth to the game, it is hard to understand and leads to frustrating situations in the battlefield - especially for our newer players.
With the overhaul, the laws for spotting are much more intuitive. It can also be more rewarding, if you use the right units.
Besides re-assessing it from scratch, we used the opportunity to improve the spotting of armoured cars and to give them more of a role on the battlefield. Additionally, we made it so that the engine noise of vehicles in motion reveals them up to 50 metres beyond the visor distance of your units, which makes the engine-toggle feature in the game much more important to conceal your troops.
We plan further key improvements to the vision system in the future.


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Artillery and tactics

We have redesigned the artillery (indirect fire weapon) gameplay. We moved away from the RNG model which represented the inaccuracies of real life weapons at range, but this also made them unpredictable and more of a gamble.
Although the artillery will feel more reliable, their approximate position will now be hinted at on the minimap when they fire. Since artillery requires several zeroing shots to score reliable hits, the opposing team can now apply proper anti-artillery tactics based on what they can see on the minimap.
What’s more, we have made artillery more realistic by reducing their ammo capacity, which was always carried externally to the cannon in real life. Now, you will have to invest into an ammo vehicle to keep your artillery stocked.


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AI, bots and more

We will also introduce multiple upgrades to the AI and bots. The bots have learnt how to use cannons in battle and will make use of them in PvE and conquest. The targeting for bots was further improved, and the tanks under AI control received more realistic traverse movement logic similar to the direct control model. We will continue to work on the AI progressively.

You will also find many other changes related to planes, conquest, infantry combat, netcode bug fixing, interface & game readability, and so much more. But, as we all know, a picture is worth more than 1000 words. You’ll be able to experience this enhanced quality of life when we push the update, which will happen as soon as possible.


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Meanwhile, a lot of work is going on behind the scenes and we are very excited for the times ahead. The next faction is taking shape very nicely already and we’ve got our heads down to maintain the momentum.

Did you know?

• Of the above updates, several were suggested by our community
• Suggestions are welcome, the best place for those is our Discord server
• Our Discord server features German channels as well

That’s it for now; enjoy the update and see you on the battlefield!