We're back at it again! This update's a bit of a hodge-podge, but the tl;dr is that we've added a new squad merging functionality, a couple new work-in-progress maps, and made some balance changes, including a change that should make light vehicles much more fragile.

• Added DH-WIP_MyshkovaRiver_Advance
  
• Added DH-WIP_Klin1941_Advance
  
• Added a new control for placing a Rally Point (default key is: “J”)
  
• Added a new splash screen

Need to consolidate a bunch of itty bitty squads? Well, we're here to help! You can now offer other squad leaders to merge their squads into yours!

• As a squad leader, right-click another squad leader on the squad menu and select “Request to Merge”
  
• The squad leader that sent the merge request will become the new squad leader

• Changes to soft vehicles (cars, trucks, halftracks):
  
  • Increased damage from small arms fire
    
  • Vehicles are now more easily disabled
    
  • Reduced engine health on cars and trucks
    
  • Halftracks now climb up slopes more effectively
• Updated DH-WIP_Cholm_Advance
  
  • Axis now have a new approach for the final objective
    
  • Second to last capture (Stronghold) can be captured from the ground level.
    
  • Added a couple weapon pickups
• Changes to several constructions:
  
  • Panzerfaust Crate:
    
    • Raised cost from 750 to 850
      
    • Lowered Panzerfaust count from 4 to 2
  • Increased cost of Grenade Crate from 300 to 400
    
  • Increased cost of Supply Cache from 250 to 500
    
  • Increased cost of Watchtower from 750 to 900
    
  • Platoon HQs can no longer be crushed by vehicles
    
  • Platoon HQs now take more damage from grenades and satchels
• All vehicles have had their reinforcement cost reduced
  
• Levels’ weapon pickups no longer respawn by default
  
• Reduced the high player count requirements for voting larger Advance levels

• Fixed a bug where most functionality was broken in the Admin mutator.

See you on the battlefield,
Darklight Games

We're back at it again! This time bringing a big quality-of-life improvement to the chat system.

While typing, you are now able to cycle through chat modes by pressing the Tab button!



Since the RO1 days, there has been three buttons for initiating chat in certain channels (team, global, vehicle). When we added the squad chat channel, we had to take up another keybind on our already crowded default key mapping. The old system is just not tenable for extensibility and is very be cumbersome to use (e.g. accidentally hitting the wrong button and needing to hit escape and try again).

Additionally, you can now simply hit your Enter key to start typing a message to your previously selected chat channel! Please note that backwards compatibility is maintained if you prefer to use the old system instead.

Here are a few more notable tweaks and additions:

• There is now a colored line drawn between the player and the squad's current order marker on the situation map (this should help highlight the orders more prominently)
  
• All anti-tank guns now must be placed at least 15 meters from each other.
  
• All anti-tank guns have had their supply cost increased (in some cases significantly) in an effort to reduce AT gun spam.
  
• Increased the "block" time penalty for spawn kills on Platoon HQs from 15 to 30 seconds in an effort to reduce repeated spawn killing.
  
• Increased the duration of the "<Team> Have Won The Battle!" message from 5 seconds to 15 seconds.
  
• Fixed a bug where players would be told to wait for 5 seconds before voting for another map before they had voted for any maps.
  
• Fixed a bug where the crescent sandbag construction could seem to disappear if it was in your peripheral view.

Thank you for continued support and feedback! We have some very big and exciting plans that will be coming to fruition in the winter months, so watch this space!

See you on the battlefield,
Darklight Games

Event This Thursday! @ 4pm EST (9pm GMT) @ Darklight Games London Server (185.38.151.35)



New London Server! Thanks to past and present Patrons, the new high-performance server has arrived! This server uses an i7-7700k processor, the best marketable CPU for single-threaded applications. This is also a dedicated server, not a virtual server, meaning the processing power is not shared. This means we can easily host multiple 64 player servers without seeing the tick rate drop!

This server is not cheap, but we also got a very good deal. While the Patrons do pay for it, I want to be as responsible as possible with that money. This means that we promote the server and try our best to see that it is actually used. However, I also want to be fair to the community and not just use my developer authority to dictate player choice.

Ultimately, it is the player's responsibility to choose which server to play on. So we have decided AGAINST doing a server white list, which would allow us to select which servers would show up on the server browser by default. However, it is our responsibility to give players accurate and useful information in making that choice. We hope to figure out a fair and accurate way to inform players of how a server performs and indicate that on the server browser. Until then, we can only inform players in announcements and ask that players choose responsibility, especially on weekends.

Though there is no noticeable incentive for players to play on better performing servers. What we can offer is the London server will be running metrics; which is statistics of kills, deaths, damage types, and other information that we plan on making public via a web tool.

Why London? DH has many European and North American players; ideally, we would have two server locations. However, until we can consistently fill multiple servers on weekends, one will have to do. That means selecting the best affordable location to make everyone happy.

Let's play on the new server tomorrow night, prime time! Come join around 4pm EST (9pm GMT) Thursday the 15th, try out the server and get an early weekend Darkest Hour fix!

See you on the battlefield,
Theel

Hey folks, we're here again with another update! This one's short and sweet, here are the highlights:

• Added La Gleize (Advance) map
  
• Squad members can now volunteer to be the squad's assistant by right-clicking on the squad leader's name on the squad menu.

• Fixed a bug where spawn points would be incorrectly positioned when the map was zoomed in.
  
• Fixed a bug where anti-tank rockets could kill Platoon HQs in one hit (it now takes 3 direct hits).

• Adjustments and improvements to Noville (Advance) map (extended boundaries etc.)
  
• Slightly increased respawn times of players spawning as non-rifleman roles.
  
• Very slightly increased the spread of the MP40 (our telemetry found it overperforming at long ranges).
  
• Change team interval increased from 2 minutes to 5 minutes.
  
• Increased cost of vehicle pool constructions from 1250 to 1750.

See you on the battlefield,
Darklight Games

First, we've released a hotfix (v8.2.5) last night to address some issues with our server self-optimizing system. I want to explain why we are spending time on this system.

Why is server performance important?
There is a direct correlation between server performance and players having a good experience. One of the elements of measuring server performance is how many times it calculates everything in a second, this is called the tick rate. Players start to notice inconsistencies when the server has a tick rate less than 20. Very low values will be very noticeable.

What is this self-optimization system?
One of the largest impacts on how a server performs is how many players are running around and shooting. By raising respawn times we can reasonably predict that there will (eventually) be less players on the battlefield at once. The self-optimization system currently increases respawn times if it detects poor server performance. If poor performance continues regardless of the increased respawn times, the server will then force a map vote.

Is there something better than increasing my respawn time?
Yes, the best thing would be to not allow anyone to respawn until the server's performance is acceptable. Keep track of how many players can be alive before the server struggles and then force that to always be present. Obviously we don't want to take this approach. There are also other ideas we are considering, but I won't go into that.

Why not just whitelist servers that can perform well for its slots?
That would be the modern approach. Squad™ and many other titles are doing just that. We have a very small community, very few servers, and there are also downsides to the server whitelist system. It disrupts freedoms of server owners, it has to be updated, and doesn't attempt to improve performance if poor performance is actually detected.

Why not just get a better server?
Well there are some issues with that. Which is money and usage. There is no point in getting a better server if by chance another server was instead seeded and is populated. Suddenly, you realize are paying a lot of money and no one is using it, this has been a major problem. There is no incentive for server owners to offer a better performing server, when players just join whatever server has players. I'd imagine this is why the server white list system is useful for more populated games.

However, we plan on getting a high performance server based in London soon. This server should not have any tick rate issues, even with 64 players on Bridgehead! When that happens please help pay for it by becoming a patron here: https://www.patreon.com/theel

We will continue as needed to create a system that gives incentive to players to play on the best performing servers.

Overall, how do you feel about the WIP maps?
The consensus shows that players support the WIP maps. Players see them as a good thing for DH and are willing to tolerate their downsides. I cannot find one player who said they hate WIP maps. I think this means we made the right choice and I'm glad we finally made it. You guys can thank Kashash "ksh" for pushing for the idea. I think the next step is to create a way for community levelers to easily submit updates to WIP levels. But I also want to work it out, so they know which WIP levels are being worked on by DLG (us developers).

How do you feel about Rhine_River_Clash? How could it be improved to be more fun? What do you feel are its biggest issues?
The consensus shows that its still very early to make any big claims about the level (a lot haven't even played it yet). But those who have, said it needs more cover, more forests, it's too large & open for infantry, river is too crossable, requires a full server, and the towns leave much to be desired.

Rank your most desired levels to be updated:
In first place, the most desired WIP level to be updated is "DH-WIP_San_Valentino_Advance"! I found this surprising because I honestly haven't a clue where I'd start. In second place, we have "DH-WIP_Maupertus_Push" which I'm not surprised about, because I've been asked to update Maupertus many times in the past. Other notable mentions include: Black_Day_July, Arad_Advance, Makhnovo_Advance, and Arnhem_Bridge

What should we do about levels that obviously harm the game because players leave consistently?
The consensus is to NOT remove them from the game, but let servers take harmful levels off rotation until they are updated/fixed. And I agree with that.

What level sizes should we focus on?
65.35% voted to focus on large levels
28.85% voted to focus on small-medium levels
5.77% voted to focus on tiny levels
Well I'm not at all surprised by this, but truthfully it might seem like we don't focus large levels. The reason being is large levels take a lot more time and effort to update, overhaul, and create.

Would you be interested in "fight yard" maps?
This turned out to be roughly 50% yes and 50% no. I think this means we need to focus our efforts on all levels and sizes and try to balance that the best we can.

Which do you prefer for a low-medium population (10-24 players) server?
60.78% said Push
19.61% said Clash
19.62% said Advance
This makes total since because the majority of Clash and Advance maps are large, too large for low population. But I think that is their nature, we can experiment with a "Squad vs Squad" smaller map, but I think in the end Push will come out best for low population.

Which do you prefer for a high population (50+ players) server?
76% said Advance
12% said Push
12% said Clash
Clash is newer and a lot of players consider many Clash maps to be "Advance" still as they are similar. For instance, Hattert, Cambes, and Nuenen are Clash maps. Therefore, I think the question was not well worded. We should probably include the Clash votes with Advance, which gives a large majority to Advance/Clash for high population. That said, we are noticing some annoyances with Clash and will be making a significant change for Clash. For more information: https://github.com/DarklightGames/DarkestHour/issues/973

What is your least favorite level?
The most voted least favorite level goes to... Kasserine_Pass this is not surprising. Other notable mentions are: DogGreen, Gorlitz, Dom-Pavlova, and Donner.
I'm surprised these levels were only mentioned once or not at all:
Simonskall (no one hardly votes for this level, so I just assume no one likes it)
BridgeTDM (my personally most hated level, had 1 vote which was mine)
Kommerscheidt (sadly this level has just never played well, had 1 vote)
I have yet to make my own Normandy Beech map, which I think one day will happen, just a matter of time.

Summary:
The purpose of this survey was to gather how players feel regarding WIP maps, what maps they want to see improved the most, and where to focus efforts. I know that players love or at the least accept WIP levels. We know which maps players want to see improved. But, where to focus our efforts was not really answered. I think realistically we just need to keep moving forward with a reasonable regard for low and high population play. Thanks to everyone who participated in the survey.

See you on the battlefield,
Theel

v8.2.4 Change Log

Here are the v8.2.4 changes! Noville gets an Advance version, changes to server self-optimization system, Patron vote rewards are now scaled to the number of players, and other minor changes. See details below!

Levels

• Added Noville Advance

Patrons

• Changed vote weight rewards to be more balanced based on the server’s population

Quality of Life

• The server self-optimization system now:
  
  • Self-optimization system is now mandatory and cannot be disabled
    
  • Persistent poor server performance will result in permanently higher respawn times until the end of the level
    
  • Critically poor server performance will force a map vote
    
  • Players will be notified of poor server performance more aggressively

Rally Points
The Rally Point is a powerful tool for squads, and we still want it to be. The last changes critically weakened its effectiveness in urban combat encounters, in that just 2 enemies within a 50 meter radius could destroy the rally point. The following changes should make rally points slightly less susceptible to destruction due to small numbers of enemies within a 50 meter radius.

• Increased minimum encroachment enemy count from 2 to 3
  
• Increased encroachment penalty block threshold from 10 to 15
  
• Increased encroachment penalty forgiveness per second from 2 to 5

Bug Fixes

• Fixed a bug where players who voted before the round ended would not appear to have their score-based voting power into account.

Other

• The message shown to players who are session banned due to team-killing now more accurately reflects that nature and duration of the administrative action (players could be confused into believing they were permanently banned).

Got a new survey for you gentlemen. Please take some time and give your answers some thought.

https://esurv.org/?u=DHLevelingQASurvey

Thanks and see you on the battlefield!

I (Theel) am starting a Patreon Campaign. Patreon is a membership based crowdfunding platform that allows creators to get paid for their work. Essentially it allows people like you to donate to projects you support. For more information you can watch the “What is Patreon?” video here.

This campaign will operate differently than our previous one. The primary difference is that I (Theel) will be the owner. The money will be for me personally to routinely work on Darkest Hour. The rest of the team has graciously agreed to support this Patreon campaign, so I would like to give special thanks to Basnett and Kashash for supporting me and Darkest Hour. This campaign will have patron tiers (lead, bronze, silver, and gold) which offer different benefits.

If you’d like to support this campaign, just head on over to this page then create a patreon user, enter payment information, and pledge an amount. A successful campaign will mean that I will invest more time into Darkest Hour and players will see more content and hopefully Darkest Hour will remain on your Steam Library for years to come. Again, I’d like to thank Basnett and Kashash and also thank the community and future patrons.

The specifics of the benefits include:

• Gain access to patron-only developer insights, news, and videos
  
• Be distinguished in game with the appropriate tier icon on the scoreboard
  
• Receive discord roles for the official DH discord server which give them access to Patron only channels
  
• Awarded additional votes (for map voting) which can bypass the 15 vote limit
  
  • Lead patrons are given 3 additional votes
    
  • Bronze patrons are given 7 additional votes
    
  • Silver patrons are given 15 additional votes
    
  • Gold patrons are given 25 additional votes

A much needed change to the vehicles has arrived. APCs (Half-tracks, Bren Carrier, etc) and unarmored vehicles will be riskier to have on the battlefield.

• Are more vulnerable to high explosives (HE rounds can one-shot transport vehicles)
  
• Are more vulnerable to AP rounds (will disable them after one-hit regardless of engine hit or not)
  
• HTs now take 5 times more damage from Artillery
  
• Unarmored vehicles now take 8 times more damage from Artillery
  
• Unarmored vehicles have much less operating HP so they now become disabled after 200-300 damage (was 1000 before)
  
• Wheel damage slows the vehicles down more
  
• Increased engine health so unarmored vehicles can take a bit more small arms fire
  
• Increased turning ability of Jeep, Kubel, and GAZ when moving at slow speeds

• Raised the cost from 200 to 250
  
• Can now be dug up anytime (no longer requires supply truck in range)
  
• Takes longer to construct
  
• Lowered the minimum damage required to harm (more things can damage them)

• Various minor map improvements and organization
  
• Raised the minimum connection setting (NetSpeed)
  
• Sergeants, Corporals, Assault, and Combat Engineers spawn with extra ammo now

• Fixed a bug where Allied artillery marks could be seen by Axis on the situation map
  
• Fixed a bug where public voice chat would still be disabled when the round is over

There has been a bug plaguing a few DH players since the spectator update a while back. The bug happens whenever that player dies; perhaps more specifically when that player dies whilst in a vehicle, manning a gun, or is gibbed by HE and thus doesn’t have a “model” to view. We have not been able to reproduce it or get our hands on a machine that has the issue. So this “bug fix” is a shot in the dark and we can only hope it fixes the issue for those few that have the issue. For more information visit the reported issue.

At long last, Darkest Hour now has a zoomable map!

• Players can now zoom in on the deployment map with the mouse scroll wheel
  
• Players can now pan on the zoomed map by holding left mouse and dragging
  
• Players can now ‘activate’ the interactive map from the pop-up situation map by hitting their jump button (default: space bar) when viewing
  
• Players can now change spawn points from the pop-up situation map in interactive mode

Darkest Hour boasts a map selection that would make the vast majority of other games blush. Typically, we go through a strong QA (quality assurance) process for every map included in the game. Our QA process ensures that the player experience is as smooth as possible (performance, optimization, visual enhancements, fixing collision problems etc.). However, the demand for more levels has always long outpaced our ability to individually QA levels for inclusion as “official” maps.

There have also been an impressive number of custom levels that have been created or ported by the community recently. Sadly, the big downside to these being custom maps is that users often must endure lengthy download times in order to play them, which can be especially harsh on those with slow internet speeds.

So, after much deliberation, we have decided to add large number of popular custom maps to DH. These custom maps will be marked as “WIP” (work in progress) so that players will know that the map is not necessarily in a finished state and there may be some issues. Doing this vastly expands the map selection, allows players to play the levels without needing to download them from the servers, and will ensure these levels will receive necessary changes needed to stay compliant with the live game as we continue to make changes and improvements to the codebase.

Here is a list of the maps added to the WIP roster:

• Arad_Advance
  
• Arnhem_Bridge_Push
  
• Benouville_Advance
  
• Berezina_Advance
  
• BridgeAssault_Cutoff
  
• Chambois_Push
  
• Champs_Advance
  
• Cholm_Advance
  
• Dom-Pavlova_Advance
  
• Kasserine_Pass_Advance
  
• Leningrad_Push
  
• Leszinow_Advance
  
• Maupertus_Push
  
• Odessa_Push
  
• Ogledow_Clash
  
• Pegasus_Bridge_Push
  
• Pointe_Du_Hoc_Push
  
• Port-En-Bessin_Push
  
• Poteau_Ambush_Advance
  
• Prussia_Push
  
• Ramelle_Push
  
• Remagen_Push
  
• San_Valentino_Advance
  
• Schijndel_Advance
  
• Smolensk_Stalemate
  
• Turqueville_Push
  
• Winter_Stalemate_Clash
  
• Donner_Stalemate
  
• Radar_Advance

• Added new objective between First Bridge and Bridge Defenses
  
• Expanded boundaries near new objective
  
• Expanded boundaries West of Fortified Hill
  
• Added Schu mines to help reduce direct assaults on Fortified Hill
  
• Added pre-placed dragon’s teeth to funnel tanks
  
• Increased Axis reinforcements

Darkest Hour now has an new map voting system which replaces the previous system. The system is similar to the score based vote system, but with a few caveats:

• Each player always gets 1 vote, regardless of their score
  
• Players are rewarded an additional vote for each additional 1000 score to a maximum of 15 (eg. 11550 score is 11 votes, 18000 score is 15 votes)

• Added a gametype “Clash” which is is the meeting engagement version of “Advance”. Advance maps that were meeting engagement style such as Hedgerow Hell have been renamed.
  
• “Advance” maps will no longer allow defenders to completely recapture the map’s objectives.
  
• Added a gametype “Stalemate” to indicate the map has all objectives open. These maps are notoriously hard to win on and thus are labeled Stalemate.

PTRD

• Ammo loadout is no longer affected by the team’s munition percentage

Gewehr 43

• Now has a faster firing animation which makes the weapon feel less “floaty”
  
• Slightly decreased accuracy
  
• Increased recoil

Fallschirmgewehr 42

• Adjusted recoil values
  
• Changed FOV on the sights so the sights are larger
  
• Can now be resupplied by friendly players

• Reduced the amount of reinforcements lost when vehicles are destroyed.
  
• Added a player threshold at which ‘all chat’ is disabled (default: 50) to cut down on noisy chatter when server has a lot of players
  
• Added ability for admin to gag specific players
  
• Removed the vote kick system, as it was completely ineffective
  
• Added 32 new victory songs
  
• Added VSync option in the display settings

• Fixed a bug where Axis Assault Roles had STG44s when they shouldn’t have
  
• Fixed a bug where players on the same server could hear different victory songs

See you on the battlefield,
Darklight Games