Hey everyone,

As part of Update 9 we have added our initial implementation of controller / gamepad support for Hell Let Loose.

This is the first phase of the feature's implementation and as such it's very much a work in progress. Because of this we wanted to give you a quick low-down on how it works, known issues and workarounds.

For the controller players out there we'd love your feedback too, so let us know any potential improvements that'd benefit you as well as any bugs you encounter - Thanks!

Please Note: Using a controller does not add any sort of auto aim feature or targeting support when compared to using a mouse and keyboard. This is intentional.

Right, lets get into the details shall we...



Movement

• Left-analog stick to move player
  
• L3/LS and forward/forward-diagonal to sprint
  
• Right-analog stick to control player camera/direction
  
• Y/Triangle to cycle through equipment
  
• A/X to jump/climb/vault
  
• Hold LB/L1 and RB/R1 to lean
  
• R3/RS to melee
  
• View/Touchpad button (Tap) to open/close scoreboard
  
• View/Touchpad button (Hold) to toggle HUD
  
• B (Tap) to crouch/stand up
  
• B (Hold) to prone/stand up
  
• Left D-Pad to open/close map
  - Right-analog stick to control cursor displayed (commander only currently)
  - LB/L1 and RB/R1 to zoom out/in respectively based on cursor location
  - RT/R2 to select where current cursor is (currently used for commander abilities, liable to change)
  - R3 to expand the key
  - LT/L2 to place marker
  
• Hold X to swap to bandage when injured
  
• Hold LT/L2, followed by holding R3/RS to bring up marker radial menu (ADS must be used to do this)
  
• Left-analog stick to select marker
  
• Let go of R3 to place highlighted marker
  
• LB/L1 (tap) swap to 2nd piece of equipment in list
  
• RB/R1 (tap) swap to 3rd piece of equipment in list

Weapons

• RT/R2 to shoot
  
• LT/L2 to ADS
  
• X/Square to reload

Grenades

• RT/R2 to throw grenade (hold for cook)
  
• LT/L2 to underarm throw grenade (hold for cook)

Melee weapon

• RT/R2 or R3/RS to melee

Bandage

• X/Square (hold) to heal self
  
• RT/R2 (hold) to heal friendly player

Single Purpose equipment (morphine, hammer, torch etc), variable

• X/Square hold
  
• RT/R2 Hold

Building equipment (watch/wrench)

• LT/L2 to view list of items that can be built
  
• D-pad (up and down) to navigate list
  
• RT/R2 to build selected item

Vehicles (applies to artillery and AT gun)

• X/Square hold to enter/exit vehicle
  
• A/X hold to start/stop engine
  
• Left-analog stick (up and down) to accelerate and reverse (automatic vehicles only)
  
• Right-analog stick (left and right) to turn vehicle
  
• Left-analog stick (left and right) to free look/adjust aim
  
• Right-analog stick (up and down) to free look/adjust aim
  
• LB/L1 and RB/R1 (hold) to move down/up respectively in available seating
  
• D-Pad (up and down) to change gears (driver seat) or to adjust turret zoom (other seats)
  
• RT/R2 to fire secondary weapon (normally machine gun, supplies for truck)
  
• LT/L2 to fire Primary weapon (cannon)
  
• Y/Triangle to swap ammo type (if available)
  
• X/Square to reload
  
• L3/LS to beep horn (Trucks)

VOIP

• D-Pad right (tap) to toggle on/off currently selected channel
  
• D-Pad right (hold) to bring up VOIP radial menu
  
• Right-analog stick to select VOIP channel from radial

Steam controller configurations

There has not yet been a developer-approved configuration for gamepad controls on Steam for HeLL, however the version that will work best at this time is the default “Gamepad” template that Steam provides. In order to do this, the player will need to ensure a few things are done in Steam settings.

General Steam Controller settings: To ensure the controller you’re using will work, access Steam>Settings>Controller>General Controller Settings. From here ensure the controller type (PlayStation, Xbox, generic gamepad etc.) is ticked based on what you’re using.





Game-specific Steam controller configuration: What actions are mapped to the gamepad buttons will be determined by which Steam controller configuration is set for the game. There is currently no default config by developers, and the community created configs (for previous updates) will not be compatible with the layout now.

The best recommendation is to set the controller config for HeLL to the generic “Gamepad” template as provided by Steam. To do this the player will need to: Launch game>Open Steam Overlay>Select “Controller Configuration” in the top right>Navigate to list of controller configs>Select “Templates”>Select “Gamepad”.



HeLL config files

The player may find after ensuring the above is sorted that the controls are present but not quite fully functional. This can be identified if holding the VOIP button does not bring up the radial menu to select which channel to use, or if the scoreboard is mapped to the left d-pad button, instead of the View/Touchpad button. This would indicate an issue with config files for the game, and can be fixed by deleting the current one after ensuring the game is closed, and launching again so it generates a new one which should then provide the correct controls bound to the gamepad. The HeLL config file can be found in this location:-

C:\Users\<user name>\AppData\Local\HLL\Saved

Please be aware however, that doing this will reset all Options (gameplay, audio, keybindings, controls) back to their default values, and any adjustments made prior to this will have to be applied again.

Commander Controls

Commander controls on gamepad have not yet been finalised. They are usable, but if you are having problems, you may need to switch back to keyboard and mouse controls when using commander abilities.


Controlling the frontline!

That wraps up the quick 'how to' for our partial controller support introduction! We'll continue working on this feature so it becomes fully functional and fleshed out for those who choose to game with a controller.

We look forward to your feedback, thanks everyone!

We'll see you on the frontline.

Hey everyone,

We're excited to announce that Update 9: Blood and Steel is live now!

To give you an update on what the team are working on, as well as go through the full Changelog I'll be handing you over to Lead Developer Max!



Hi everyone,

This year is a very busy one for the whole team and we’re very excited to release Update 9 - which brings with it a ton of long-requested features that we’ve been keen to bring into the game - melee, the MG34, Utah Offensive modes, the admin camera and much more.

We try to list every single significant change, and never mean to omit anything. When this happens, it’s usually a result of human-error in reconciling our in-game bug tracking with the compilation of the notes. We’re striving to provide as much context and information as possible about every line in the changelog.

Like always, we’ll be monitoring all feedback from the Update and integrating it into our development plans. We’re particularly interested to see how the changes to Garrison behaviour affect the metagame and feel that the Admin camera will be a great way for us to better observe in-game behaviour.

Thanks so much for your support and patience over the course of our development. We’re very excited to show you what we’ve got cooking up in the future as we move towards leaving Early Access and fighting on the Eastern Front!

Find out more about some of Update 9's new additions below:

Melee

Utah Offensive

Barbed Wire

MG 34

Admin Cam



Armour

We’ve done a deep-dive back into our armour code around both the weapon systems and physics systems, and felt that this required a more concerted effort to rewrite and polish both sets of code. As a result of this, we’re separating out balance with deeper system rewrites. In addition to this, we’re currently working to fill out the proper medium armour slots for all forces, as we know that the heavy armour skew in game has been causing issues for an unacceptably long period of time.

Due to the time needed to fix many of these deeper issues, we’re releasing as many beneficial changes as we can, as fast as we can.

• Reduced AT-Mine damage to Tanks. Mines no longer instantly destroy the following tanks: Tiger, Panther, Sherman 76mm, Sherman 75mm
  
  
• Tank MG belt has been increased from 100 to 200 rounds (this is coupled with the fixed zeroing of the MGs)
  
  
• Improved non-penetrating shell FX on Tanks
  
  
• Bombing runs and Artillery no longer deals proximity damage to Tanks (only direct hits)
  
  
• Adjusted the Luchs & Stuart gear speed ratio to be more linear and smooth
  
  
• Improvements made to damage occlusion (Added multi-point damage occlusion). This affects all heavy weapons (rockets, grenades, mines, tank rounds etc.)
  
  
• Improved Tanks MG hit detection. Please note, we’re aware of a persisting key issue with regard to the hit detection resulting in specific angles of both the target and the MG resulting in the target taking no damage from what appear to be obvious hits. We have a fix coming for this.

Meta Changes

• Disabled building Garrisons in neutral sectors
  
  
• Capturing a Strong Point on Offensive maps now takes 60 seconds (Was 120 seconds)
  
  
• Attacker Garrisons placed in enemy Active sectors on Offensive now takes 5 seconds to dismantle for the Defending forces (Was 30 seconds)
  
  
• Disabled the HQ spawn if enemy is capturing that HQ sector on Offensive
  
  
• Garrisons can now be placed in the first row/column of enemy sectors for 100 supplies (Unless locked). These are called Forward Garrisons.
  
  
• Forward Garrisons are disabled if enemy are within 100m (But not dismantled)
  
  
• Garrisons placed in friendly sectors still cost 50 supplies and an enemy needs to be within 15m of the garrison to disable it.
  
  
• Removed the 20 second cooldown for disabling Garrisons and Airheads (How long it takes to change from disabled > enemy near)
  
  
• Airheads now remain for 3 minutes allowing for 6 spawn waves (Was 2 minutes).
  
  
• If a sector is lost, friendly nodes in the lost sector are destroyed
  
  
• The engineer can build max 12 nodes per team (4 of each node per team)
  
  
• Engineers can no longer build the same nodes within 50 meters of another node

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Bug Reporting

We've decided to remove the in-game bug reporting menu in an effort to consolidate the bug reports we’re receiving. Players should instead report any bugs they experience in the game’s Support page on Steam or via the Team17 support page below.

Contact Team17 Support Here

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Gameplay/Features

• Added the MG 34 to German forces
  
  
• Added Utah Offensive US/GER
  
  
• Handheld weapons and tank MGs are now zeroed correctly by default
  
  
• Added a 2 minute staging period to the start of Warfare matches.
  
  
• Added an Admin/Spectate camera for server admins
  
  
• Increased max player level to 500
  
  
• Add new rank icons to scoreboard for levels 200-500
  
  
• Bullets no longer fire with perfect accuracy when leaving the sprint animation. Instead bullets will travel in the direction that your gun is facing
  
  
• Reduced the AT-gun cost from 100 to 50 supplies
  
  
• Made barbed wire functional. Due to the implementation, we are aware of specific locations in the game and per gamemode where this is not the case and will be fixing it.
  
  
• Added a VOIP reconnect option to Audio settings. We’ve worked a lot directly with Vivox around the implementation of the voip systems and it should be far more stable now, but we felt this would be a good thing to have just in case.
  
  
• Added a new anti-aliasing option called ‘Community TAA’ based on community feedback. We’ve added the most popular mixture of settings to the AA as we can no longer allow manual tweaks via .ini - which was used to remove grass and other objects from the game.
  
  
• Changing foliage settings no longer causes bushes to disappear
  
  
• Locked the ability to edit the engine.ini to prevent users disabling Grass/Foliage/Landscape
  
  
• Blueprints will be despawned after 3 minutes if they are not built
  
  
• Reduced dismantle timer for friendly blueprints to 2 seconds
  
  
• Medics now bandage twice as fast as regular infantry
  
  
• Shortened the Germans OP antenna to be more on par with the size of the US OP. We will be most likely remaking the models for both these and the Garrisons to be more optimised, higher quality and similar in size across all forces for balancing sake.
  
  
• Increased pistol damage at range (to be a 2 shot kill at extended range)
  
  
• Bombing runs and Artillery can now do radial damage to enemy trucks
  
  
• Tracers on weapons are now a fixed 1-in-4 ratio, instead of the "25% chance to spawn" system as before
  
  
• Vehicle wrecks now despawn when damaged by an explosion or after 5 minutes
  
  
• Vehicle wrecks will not despawn after 5 minutes if a player is within 100m or is within 250m and is looking in the direction of the wreck
  
  
• Vote-kicks now ban the player for 1 hour instead of 2 hours
  
  
• Improved performance on the Enlist screen (Server browser)
  
  
• Improvements made to damage occlusion (Added multi-point damage occlusion). This affects all heavy weapons (rockets, grenades, mines, tank rounds etc.)
  
  
• Tanks and all explosives can now destroy both enemy and friendly mines
  
  
• We’ve implemented a customised threshold on each reload animation, so that if it’s interrupted beyond a certain point the weapon will still be reloaded.

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EXP

• Players now receive the EXP reward after a deployable has been built, not when placing the blueprint
  
  
• Engineers gain 10 Support, Role and Career XP every time a resource node that they placed generates resources (Every 60 seconds)
  
  
• Passenger seats of the Supply and Transport Trucks now give bonus support score to the driver (+1 Support score every 60 seconds)
  
  
• Engineers earn 10 Support Score for every 30 seconds the Repair Station they built is used
  
  
• [Fixed] Inconsistency with the Support Score awarded between the Medic and the player that was revived
  
  
• [Fixed] Destroying a tank using the Bombing Run commander ability does not increase the Vehicle Kills score

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Animation

• [Fixed] Loaded round is not ejected when performing a partial reload with the M1 Garand
  
  
• [Fixed] Weapons don't leave firing state properly and keep playing muzzle effects
  
  
• [Fixed] [TPP] The player will remain in their throw animation after throwing their last smoke grenade
  
  
• [Fixed] [FPP] Character's arms are above their head when looking up and crawling on a sloped surface
  
  
• [Fixed] [TPP] Players in the driver seat of any truck have no idle animation
  
  
• [Fixed] [TPP] The 1st seat player of the Pak 40 AT gun has no idle animation

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HUD/UI

• Added a spawn list to the deploy screen that displays a list of available spawn locations
  
  
• The game now remembers which units the player has expanded and collapsed when the scoreboard is closed and reopened
  
  
• When using the Recon Plane ability, trucks now show as a hollow diamond, while armed vehicles show as a filled diamond.
  
  
• Mousing over supplies on the tactical map now displays how many supplies are remaining
  
  
• Added a ‘Add Friend’ button to the scoreboard allowing players to add others on Steam
  
  
• The Ping marker will now show on the edge of the screen if it’s out of view
  
  
• Commander abilities on the map show as white to teammates making them more visible
  
  
• Added a ‘Spectate unit’ designation icon to unit the bar. This icon will appear when someone in that unit is in the Admin Cam
  
  
• Officers of units now always appear at the top of their unit list and scoreboard
  
  
• Placed Satchel Charges icon has been changed from white to red
  
  
• Artillery HUD markers now cull at 200M not 500M
  
  
• Added a prompt to tell the player they need a bandage when they're wounded even if they don't have one in their inventory
  
  
• Servers running Offensive game modes show which team is attacking under the 'Game Mode' section on the Server Browser
  
  
• Added VIP slots and server queue information for servers to the server browser
  
  
• [Fixed] Players are unable to see occupants of other friendly vehicles when looking from inside a vehicle
  
  
• [Fixed] Player icons in-game scale down and become invisible at 200m regardless of view distance settings
  
  
• [Fixed] The Commander's name remain's visible in the In-Game HUD if they join a Unit without first Resigning as the Commander
  
  
• [Fixed] The player does not join a squad when pressing "Apply" on the Change Role screen after changing an appearance/loadout setting

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Loadouts

Sniper

• Added a second sniper loadout with AP mines.

Tank Commander

• Added a second loadout (Mechanic with a blowtorch) to both forces.

Machinegunner

• Changed the default German Machinegunner MG loadout to contain the MG34 as primary weapon. The MG42 has been moved back to role level 3.
  
  
• The US Machinegunner now has access to the BAR as a second unlockable loadout to provide a moving base of fire.

NOTE: We will be swapping items in loadouts in future updates as we introduce new equipment and weapons.

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Server/RCON

Added the following server options:

• Set Vote Kick Enabled
  
• Set Vote kick Threshold
  
• Reset Vote Kick Threshold
  
  
• Added enable/disable vote-kick server option
  
  
• Fixed a number of instances that would cause the server to crash
  
  
• [Fixed] A player banned by using their Steam ID is not removed from the server when it occurs
  
  
• [Fixed] Player will not see the server message in-game if they do not deploy within 10 seconds of joining the server

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SFX

• Added community VO 'death sound effects'.
  
  
• Added new BAR firing sfx.
  
  
• Overhauled all footsteps sound in the game.
  
  
• Adjusted the ‘Mic Volume’ setting to reduce chances of distorted player voices
  
  
• Added a sound effect for de-spawning vehicle wrecks
  
  
• Added a sound effect for dismantling an Airhead, Repair station and Supply crate
  
  
• [Fixed] Tank Hull/Coaxial Machine Gun firing SFX does not correctly play if [LMB] is not pressed long enough.
  
  
• [Fixed] The foot step audio while crouch running was inconsistent between FPP and TPP
  
  
• [Fixed] No bullet ejection audio when reloading an empty bolt action rifle
  
  
• [Fixed] Inconsistent SFX when shooting AP or AT mines

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Visual Improvements

• Extended the HLOD Transition Distance to a more acceptable distance. This is a bit of a balance between performance and “melted ice cream houses”.
  
  
• Updated BAR, Garand, K98k, MG42, Browning M1919, G43, Colt 1911, Luger, P38, STG44 Thompson, Springfield to use the new smart material system. We also cleaned up a lot of the geometry and sights (removed jagged geometry or poorly scaled front sight posts)
  
  
• Added particle effect for de-spawning vehicle wrecks
  
  
• Added particle effect for dismantling an Airhead, Repair station and Supply crate
  
  
• Bandaging wounds now adds blood to players hands
  
  
• Increased the cull distance for AT-Guns. They should now be visible at longer distances such as Omaha cliffs
  
  
• [Fixed] Scope becomes fuzzy when using sniper rifles
  
  
• [Fixed] Changing foliage settings causes grass/shrubs to disappear.
  
  
• [Fixed] Trees outlines visible on a fire/smoke VFX when having Low/Medium/High video preset selected
  
  
• [Fixed] Inconsistent VFX when shooting AP or AT mines
  
  
• [Fixed] The Torch flame will pulse when the game is on a lower FX quality
  
  
• [Fixed] The smoke resulting from firing shells from the tank appears distorted on Low, Medium or High FX Quality

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Trucks

• Improved Trucks collision model to prevent getting stuck on objects

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Bug Fixes

• [Fixed] Players deploying the LMG do not update for other players that are further than 500m away and become invincible
  
  
• [Fixed] The Engineer role's Barbed Wire blocks bazooka/panzerschreck shots, anti-tank/tank shells, grenades and explosions
  
  
• [Fixed] The airhead can be dropped in areas that will display the "Turn Back" message on player spawn
  
  
• [Fixed] Inconsistencies between certain tanks applying suppression to nearby friendly Players
  
  
• [Fixed] The Support and AT's wrench construction animation stops after about 2 seconds
  
  
• [Fixed] Offensive maps let defender vehicles pass the HQ of attackers
  
  
• [Fixed] Player may be invulnerable to ballistic damage during vaulting and/or climbing
  
  
• [Fixed] Starting to capture a sector instantly after the previous one has been caught results in the new sector not becoming enlarged on the player's HUD
  
  
• [Fixed] Text for Truck seat key bindings can overlap key bind graphic
  
  
• [Fixed] Satchel charge and impact marks appear to rotate on German Medium tank after undergoing collision
  
  
• [Fixed] Player will receive 65535 smoke grenades under unstable network conditions
  
  
• [Fixed] Opening the map while reloading a bolt action weapon will cancel the reload
  
  
• [Fixed] Multiple collision issues with the AT Gun ghost
  
  
• [Fixed] Missing progress bar for the 'You Shall Not Pass' and 'Labor of Love' achievements
  
  
• [Fixed] Map markers do not fade in when the player toggles the HUD on
  
  
• [Fixed] Selected customisations on Character model may appear incorrect on the front-end menu after exiting a server
  
  
• [Fixed] Several of the sliders within the game settings produce SFX when being dragged beyond their limit
  
  
• [Fixed] The "Dead Bodies Despawn Delay" setting does not change as intended, and is always 1 change behind
  
  
• [Fixed] The "Where's an Engineer?!" achievement is tracking the wrong number of repair stations
  
  
• [Fixed] The 'Strong Point' hint appears when the player enters an inactive Strong Point
  
  
• [Fixed] The achievements that involve the destruction of vehicles give more points of progress than intended
  
  
• [Fixed] The compass sometimes remains pointing towards the neutral sector even after that sector had been captured
  
  
• [Fixed] The format of the match timer is inconsistent between the HUD and scoreboard
  
  
• [Fixed] The health of a truck doesn't match up when compared between its HUD and Torch values
  
  
• [Fixed] The Map Marker List is cutoff on multiple resolutions
  
  
• [Fixed] The player is unable to dismantle the Barbed Wire constructible
  
  
• [Fixed] The player will receive the 'Capturing Sector' hint when they spawn as an attacker on an Offensive map
  
  
• [Fixed] The player will receive the 'You killed a friendly!' warning if they down an enemy and deploy on the enemy's team before the downed enemy has 'Let go'
  
  
• [Fixed] The reload of a deployed Machine Gun can be interrupted when it appears to be completed
  
  
• [Fixed] The user does not receive a warning if they opt to reset their settings or hints
  
  
• [Fixed] The ‘Enemy Near’ tooltip does not correctly update while it is visible to the Player
  
  
• [Fixed] User is unable to change appearance if the DLC is disabled via Steam whilst it is equipped to the character
  
  
• [Fixed] Visible issues when leaving a Unit.
  
  
• [Fixed] Watch build animation will partially loop if an enemy Player enters the build radius
  
  
• [Fixed] When in proximity of the enemy ghost nodes, the player will see the nodes' HUD icons
  
  
• [Fixed] The Commander's 'Reinforce' ability can be placed within locked sectors
  
  
• [Fixed] Captured sectors will go into 'Sector Cooldown' on the in-game map while playing the Offensive game mode
  
  
• [Fixed] On the Deployment Screen, the selected Spawn Point becomes visually deselected after redeploying
  
  
• [Fixed] The building animation will continue to play if the player goes into prone while constructing the supplies
  
  
• [Fixed] With pistol equipped, TPP Character ADS animation reverts to Hip when stop animation is played
  
  
• [Fixed] [TPP] The Ammo boxes, Ordnance boxes, Medical supplies boxes and Satchel charges are misaligned from the player's hand
  
  
• [Fixed] [TPP] The off-hand remains the same orientation when leaning with a one-handed piece of equipment
  
  
• [Fixed] Incorrect role equipment for the US ‘Support’ role when wearing the ‘Airborne M1942’ uniform
  
  
• [Fixed] Noticeable LOD issue on the Backpack as an US Anti-tank role
  
  
• [Fixed] The back of the neck of dead players may sometimes clip through Airborne M1942 Uniform
  
  
• [Fixed] [FPP] Player's hand is clipping with the Marsh Fallschirmjager Smock uniform when holding the Karabiner 98K rifle
  
  
• [Fixed] Accepting a Steam invite to a server with password will display the Wrong Password prompt
  
  
• [Fixed] Changing resolution while in 'Fullscreen' can briefly show the confirmation message before reverting back to its initial configuration
  
  
• [Fixed] Climbing on certain bushes can cause the player to levitate
  
  
• [Fixed] Disable the engine's shortcut that makes F11 toggle fullscreen
  
  
• [Fixed] The Vehicle engine start/stop sequence is cancelled if the Player attempts to open the map at the same time
  
  
• [Fixed] Players are able to immediately fire and with perfect accuracy by pressing the aim and fire buttons simultaneously while running
  
  
• [Fixed] Players kicked from squad sometimes remain in squad VOIP
  
  
• [Fixed] Server queue notifications are displayed to non-VIP members when all server slots are set for VIPs only
  
  
• [Fixed] Servers VIP slots only update after a user joins/leaves the server or the map changes
  
  
• [Fixed] The player is observed to crash while being "ALT+Tabbed" out of the game.
  
  
• [Fixed] Player crashed after leaving server and returning to enlist screen
  
  
• [Fixed] The cursor will be temporarily removed if the player is about to be deployed while navigating a game menu
  
  
• [Fixed] The Enlist Screen's server queue only updates after a map change or when a user joins/leaves the server
  
  
• [Fixed] The game will show as "Unreal Test!" on the Steam server list
  
  
• [Fixed] The player can become a rifleman when joining a locked recon unit.
  
  
• [Fixed] The player may experience a brief FPS drop upon first selecting a deploy location
  
  
• [Fixed] The player receives the "Already a member" message when trying to rejoin the same unit he got kicked out of
  
  
• [Fixed] Turret cannon HUD not updating whilst driving Recon Vehicles
  
  
• [Fixed] VIP Players are able to join a server during the post-match screen instead of being placed in the server queue
  
  
• [Fixed] [TPP] Player can perform certain animations with incorrect equipment.
  
  
• [Fixed] "THAT DEPLOY LOCATION HAS BEEN OVERRUN" shown, but the player is deployed anyway.
  
  
• [Fixed] Bullets do not penetrate window frames
  
  
• [Fixed] The Mausbach Approach capture point name is overlapped by the capture point icon from the HUD
  
  
• [Fixed] [TPP] The watch is misaligned in the player's hand
  
  
• [Fixed] Multiple issues observed with German revive animation
  
  
• [Fixed] If an action is performed while the player simultaneously opens up the scoreboard, the action will continue to completion
  
  
• [Fixed] Garrison icons will stay enlarged after being selected using the ‘Dismantle Garrison’ Commander ability
  
  
• [Fixed] Certain structures are counted twice in the "View Personal Stats" menu when placed
  
  
• [Fixed] Artillery Gun Icons on the HUD turn blue when a Unit member is in them
  
  
• [Fixed] Bullet Casing Ejects FX play at world origin when player hasn't moved for a while
  
  
• [Fixed] Key-bindings on the In-game map and Hints do not update if the key-bindings are changed via the in-game options menu
  
  
• [Fixed] All weapons can penetrate the "WaterDeep" material and the damage is not reduced after penetrating
  
  
• [Fixed] After a map transition, the background and player model of the customisation menu can disappear if the player quickly clicks 'Change Role'
  
  
• [Fixed] A defunct Unit may be created if another Player swaps team and creates a Unit while the Player is in the ‘Change Role’ menu.
  
  
• [Fixed] "Supplies Here!" achievement is not tracking the progress made when using Supply Drop as Commander.
  
  
• [Fixed] "Take Cover" achievement is not tracking the progress made
  
  
• [Fixed] Backface culling visible on drainpipe.
  
  
• [Fixed] Inconsistency with support score awarded when placing level 0 constructible ghosts
  
  
• [Fixed] US Trucks get stuck often under Supply Stations.
  
  
• [Fixed] A LoD transition issue with the German Munitions node at a short distance
  
  
• [Fixed] Collision issues with Barns
  
  
• [Fixed] Invisible collision present on factory asset across multiple maps
  
  
• [Fixed] Noticeable LOD issue observed on the ‘German Light Tank’

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UTAH

• Fixed the German side missing various vehicle spawns
  
  
• Reduced the extended load time seen on Utah vs other maps
  
  
• Fixed a number of assets without working bullet penetration
  
  
• Added missing repair stations to the Warfare game mode
  
  
• Improved vehicle and player collision on a number of assets across the map
  
  
• Fixed a number of misaligned textures and terrain

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HILL 400

• Fixed a number of misaligned textures and terrain

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FOY

• The Southern Edge strong point is now more central in the sector than its previous location
  
  
• Fixed a number of misaligned textures and terrain
  
  
• Road missing collision on Foy map
  
  
• Improved MG deployment at certain locations
  
  
• Fixed multiple inconsistencies between the map and the in game areas
  
  
• Fixed tank & gun shots not penetrating wire fences

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OMAHA

• [Omaha] Players cannot go in crouch position inside the small stone bunkers if they are in the prone position
  
  
• Improved many LOD issues related to buildings and terrain across the map
  
  
• Fixed multiple inconsistencies between the map and the in game areas
  
  
• Fixed a number of misaligned textures and terrain

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CARENTAN

• Train track asset is now consistent with the tracks on Hurtgen and Hill 400
  
  
• Improved vehicle and player collision on a number of assets across the map
  
  
• Prevented players from getting to certain locations they shouldn’t eg. on top of roofs or inside empty buildings
  
  
• Fixed inconstant vehicle collision on some stonewall assets across the map
  
  
• Increased the clearance on the railway bridge located in [J6/J7] so all vehicles can fit
  
  
• Improved LoD transitions on a number of assets
  
  
• Fixed a number of misaligned textures and terrain

----------------------------------------------------------

Hurtgen Forest

• Fixed a number of assets without working bullet penetration
  
  
• Fixed the German and US sides missing various vehicle spawns
  
  
• Fixed a number of misaligned textures and terrain

----------------------------------------------------------

Sainte Mere Eglise

• Fixed the placement of 2 preplaced Garrisons so they are not floating or clipping in the Offensive gamemode
  
  
• Fixed the US HQs having a German and US Repair Station model clipping on top of each other
  
  
• Improved vehicle collision on a number of assets across the map
  
  
• Fixed a number of misaligned textures and terrain

----------------------------------------------------------

Purple Heart Lane

• Fixed a number of misaligned textures and terrain

That wraps up today's Changelog / Patch Notes!

We look forward to hearing what you think of the new additions, tweaks and changes that you're diving into with Update 9.

As always your feedback is integral to us here on the team, so let us know what you like, what you don't and everything in-between!

Oh and keep an eye and ear out for us in battle, we'll be jumping in to enjoy Blood and Steel alongside you all.

We'll see you on the frontline.

Hey everyone,

Just a quick message to let you know the good news that the release date of Update 9: Blood and Steel has been moved forward!

It's now releasing tomorrow, March 23rd, at approximately 11am GMT - Which is also when you can expect the full patch notes to drop too.

We'll see you on the frontline!

Hey everyone,

Welcome to Dev Brief #119!

This week we've been busy prepping for Update 9's imminent arrival so today's Brief is a bit shorter than usual.

Hopefully today's news on Update 9 will more than make up for it...



We’re excited to announce that Update 9: Blood and Steel, will be dropping on the 25th of March. The team has been very hard at work on final bug fixes for the update - including actioning community feedback from the PTEs.

Update 9: Blood and Steel will include the following:

• Melee combat
  
• Server Admin Camera
  
• Implement correct weapon zeroing for all firearms
  
• Part one of the armour system rework
  
• Meta / Garrison Placement Changes
  
• Community Voice Overs
  
• Steam Achievements
  
• Barbed Wire functionality
  
• Added and refined localization
  
• MG34
  
• Additional loadouts
  
• Continued Bug & Crash fixes
  
• Warmup Staging Period for Warfare Mode
  
• XP level increase
  
• Sound Improvements across the board (BAR to footsteps to death)
  
• UI Changes
  
• Max level Increase
  
• Improved optimisation
  
• Grass and Foliage spawning improvements
  
• Utah Beach Offensive mode for both German and US forces including beach landings
  
• Weapon visual quality overhaul
  
• Improved Damage Occlusion System

On the day we'll be aiming to put Update 9 live at roughly 11am GMT / 12pm CEST, but this may shift slightly. Once the patch is live we'll also be sharing the full patch notes for your reading pleasure!



Today we’re keen to give you the first look at the Soviet Crewman. While we don’t want to confirm the total number or type of vehicles just yet, you can expect to see a robust line-up of iconic and numerous tanks populating the Soviet lines, which we’ll reveal over the coming months.





We recently announced some big news around the future of Hell Let Loose as a title. You can find out more and it and discuss it with the team over on our official subreddit r/HellLetLoose.



That wraps up today's brief!

We've got an exciting week ahead of us and can't wait to welcome you to Update 9: Blood and Steel, so grab your shovels and sharpen your blades, it's almost time to get up close and personal.

Have a great weekend, we'll see you on the frontline.

Hey everyone,

Welcome to Dev Brief #118!

This week we're going to touch base on what we're up to on the map making front. We're also sharing the details on Utah Beach's upcoming addition of Offensive Mode for both American and German forces in Update 9!

So, I'm going to hand straight over to Max now as he's got all the juicy info, including plenty of pictures as we take you through what you'll find when you land at Utah Beach in the near future...



Hi everyone,

We have a large number of maps cooking in the oven currently - from the SMDM rework, to several Eastern Front maps - to an unannounced Western Front map. As such, we’re taking this time to go back to our current map rotation and flesh out Offensive mode varieties alongside optimising and reworking trouble-spots on specific maps. Ultimately, we’ll introduce Offensive mode for every map in the game, and have standardised the practice of implementing Offensive mode alongside all new maps.

In addition, Update 9 will see some under-the-hood changes to the Offensive mode that we’re making in a move to make the gamemode equal in time length to Warfare, as we realise that the sheer time it takes to finish an Offensive battle can be off putting to many players and cause the game to drag on in an unintended way.

Ultimately, Offensive and Warfare modes will be determined by the selection made by teams during Campaign mode, so we’re keen to make sure that they’re equally succinct and as satisfying as we can possibly make them.

Utah Beach Offensive Modes

While many of you will have played Utah Beach many times before, we’re excited to add Offensive modes for both the US and German forces. Each brings its own weather and lighting to add to the totally new way you’ll experience this map. Like Omaha, the US will also land in Offensive mode via boat - providing an intense new beach landing experience.



















You’ll also notice that we’ve worked on the hedgerow assets, as well as extended the cover range of grass as much as we can before negatively affecting the performance in the map.

Upgrading and improving the visuals and performance cost of each asset - especially foliage - will be a continuing process over the course of development.














Optimisations

We’re continuing our work in optimising the entire game, and Utah Beach has benefited from this, with increased FPS on all machines profiled.

Due to the way we’re reusing and batching assets, we’re confident in our ability to continually improve performance across the game, as we’re aware that this is one of the key technical barriers to people being able to enjoy the game.


Watch the Hell Let Loose Winter Seasonal Finals this Saturday!

Today we're excited to share with you that the finals of the epic community organised and led tournament, the Winter Seasonal, are being broadcast live on Twitch tomorrow.

From 16 teams of 50 players down to two, this final is going to be a battle like no other!

To share the details we spoke to tournament organiser and all round community bastion, Heidegger:

This Saturday will conclude the Winter Seasonal and crown the champion for this season.

After a fierce competition between 16 fully fledged teams of 50 players (and their reserves, registering upwards of 1600 players), only 2 teams remain in this 2 months tournament : WTH and EXD will battle on the fields of Sainte-Marie-du-Mont, Saturday 13 March at 7PM UTC.

Luckily, the match of the titans will be broadcast by multiple point of views, from both teams, accompanied by a live commentary.

Watch live here: https://www.twitch.tv/dasaltberg



Onwards to the weekend!

That wraps up this week's Dev Brief!

Let us know what you think of the changes and addition to Utah Beach, it'd be great to hear your thoughts on it!

Also if you're looking for something to do, check out the Winter Seasonal finals and get immersed in the competitive side of Hell Let Loose - it'll definitely be one hell of a show!

Have a great weekend everyone.

We'll see you on the frontline.

Hey everyone,

Welcome to Dev Brief #117!

This week we're sharing with you the details on our upcoming melee combat mechanic!

To take you through all the details, as well as when you'll be getting to grips with your new melee weapons, I'll be passing you over to Lead Developer Max -



Hi everyone!

In Update 9 we’ll be introducing melee for the first time to Hell Let Loose.

Melee in World War Two was a far more common occurrence than most people think and often took place in brutal room to room fighting - perhaps most poignantly depicted in a tragic scene in Saving Private Ryan.

How to Melee

We wanted to emulate the ability to immediately draw your melee weapon and plunge it into the enemy. To do this, we’ve enabled the B key as a quick melee attack. It’ll go for the immediate stab on the target by checking your inventory, seeing which melee weapon you possess and then actioning the attack.

For those who enjoy a more deliberate rampage, you can simply equip your melee weapon in your inventory before going for the kill.



In terms of parameters, we’re going to be testing relative reach and speed of a stab in order to give each melee weapon its own benefits. As a result of this, we’re then able to add different melee weapons to different loadouts later - with different speeds and ranges (including bayonets).



We thought a lot about how we’d introduce melee into such a fast and hardcore game like Hell Let Loose. If we made melee require multiple hits on the target, then it’s very likely that melee would almost never be used - as any attempt to do so would get you killed before being able to administer the killing blow. Similarly, we thought about potentially adding the ability for a blocking or parry system, but realised that this would also be entirely unused as it’s highly unlikely your target will resort to melee in the circumstance.

We felt that melee would most frequently be used when successfully flanking the enemy - moving your way through a trench or building brutally dispatching the enemy as quickly and efficiently as possible. As a result of this design, meleeing in Hell Let Loose kills the enemy instantly, covering your weapon and hands in blood.


Development Update

The team is incredibly busy right now working through issues that arose during the previous PTEs. Thank you everyone for the very useful feedback. We’re excited to action all of it in order to ensure a smooth release of Update 9.


Onwards to the weekend!

That wraps up this week's Dev Brief!

It's slightly shorter than usual, but we wanted to get... Straight to the point and share the core mechanics of how this new combat feature will work.

Let us know what you think too! What melee weapons would you like to see in the future?

Have a great weekend everyone.

We'll see you on the frontline.

Hey everyone,

Welcome to Developer Briefing #116!

This week's one is slightly earlier than usual as we've just put our new PTE app live!

Please note whilst the app is a permanent addition to Hell Let Loose, it will only be 'active' during certain times windows which we'll advertise here on Steam, Discord and our social media channels.

I'll pass you over now to Spono who'll explain all:



Today we're launching our Hell Let Loose Public testing app. This is a separate application in your Steam library that you’ll need to download in order to participate in the PTE. Servers will be made available during testing periods only. We’ll announce these times in the HLL official Discord.

The PTE on the EU servers will commence at approximately 11AM GMT Thursday 25th of February, and will run until approximately 8PM GMT (we’ll do an announcement when servers go online). We’ll then switch over and continue the PTE on US servers, where testing will continue from approximately 3PM till 11PM, Eastern Time USA.

Feedback Form

Please use THIS FORM for feedback during and specific to the PTE -

What we are testing:

• The stability and utility of this new public testing app
  
• Weapon zeroing
  
• Melee (animations are WIP and are yet to be updated and finalised)
  
• Changes to the Garrison placement meta (red zone Garrisons)
  
• Partial reload (ability to discontinue a reload beyond a critical points and still be functionally reloaded)
  
• UI changes
  
• VOIP stability fixes, including a reconnect button in the Options menu
  
• Weapon material overhaul
  
• Weapon sight picture overhaul (cleaned up and standardised a lot of the sizing and sight cleanliness, geometry and colours).
  
• Grass optimization, longer cull distances and quicker loading times
  
• MG34 (animations are WIP and are yet to be updated and finalised)
  
• New sniper rifle non-blurry optics
  
• Utah Beach US and German Offensive modes
  
• Barbed wire functionality
  
• Gamepad and controller support
  
• General increased game optimization
  
• New loadouts for the MG, Commander, Tank Commander and Sniper roles
  
• Vehicle gameplay experience, including weapon effectiveness, traction and vehicle handling

Please note: this is not the full changelist for U9, it is what we are keen to focus community attention on.

Maps in the PTE roster

• Utah Beach Offensive US
  
• Utah Beach Offensive Germany
  
• Foy Warfare
  
• Hurtgen Warfare
  
• Carentan Warfare

VOIP

We are continuing to improve the in game VIVOX/VOIP experience. If you do have VOIP issues during the PTE, try the reconnect function in the game menu under Audio and let us know in the PTE feedback form. With your feedback we ask that you please provide as much information as possible, including which server, which map, time and date. Also include if you noticed other people also being affected by the same issue as you, and if you used the reconnect option, if it worked or not.

Sound

Lots of general sound improvements to test, but particular things to listen out for are:

• Community Voice over acting - Wilhelm scream
  
• Footsteps and movement
  
• New BAR sound

Servers

We will be testing and observing server stability and performance during the test. If you notice any server issues such as rubber banding and or loss of connection, please let us know in the PTE Feedback form.


Game UI

We have made some significant changes to our UI and HUD as we look to future proof the layout and fix scaling issues for more unorthodox resolutions. Upcoming features and QOL improvements are all part of this. This means there may be bugs related to the UI. We have tried to address as many as we can so it’s playable for the PTE, but please report any UI issues you see.


Player XP

For this PTE all XP levels will be reset as if you are a new player. This does not mean you lose your XP for the Public build of the game, this is just a chance for us to see if any issues are present for new players. In future PTEs we will likely max out the XP level so all loadouts and cosmetics are unlocked and testable. This also means that initially there will be no Commanders, as it requires level 10.


Public Testing vs LIVE Game user settings

There is an issue where launching the PTE will override your .ini files for the base game. This means any selections you’ve made in the Barracks will be reverted to the defaults.
This does not reset any of your progression - only what you have selected.

To prevent your .ini files from being overridden whenever you launch the PTE, we recommend setting a new .ini directory for the PTE build.

STEPS

• Right click Hell Let Loose (Public Testing) in your Steam Library
  
• Click Properties
  
• Under Launch Options add “-UserDir=<PATH>”

Note: Exclude the quotation marks and replace <PATH> with a suitable directory. The image below provides an example directory of using the user’s AppData folder. Please do not use this example without first replacing the username.



Please note

• Extra drive space will be required (approximately 23 gb)
  
• Access to the servers will be on a first come first served basis and will be limited to 3 servers / 300 players at a time.
  
• XP will not be saved during the PTE.
  
• Achievements will not be able to be obtained.

A Reminder

This PTE build is taken from our live development environment for Update 9, so may include significant bugs or issues that are being currently worked on. We ask you to please report any and all bugs and other issues you may encounter.


Is there an NDA?

While we’re not forcing a strict NDA, we’d greatly appreciate it if you would help us build up to the release by not streaming or broadly sharing content from the test app.

This app has been designed and distributed to assist us in testing and to get your direct and specific feedback about the coming Update. It has not been designed as a marketing tool, and as you can imagine we’d much prefer not to broadly distribute media of content that is a work in progress.


That wraps this week's Dev Brief!

For those of you who take part in today's PTE test - We look forward to reading through your thoughts and feedback.

See you on the frontline

Hey everyone,

Welcome to Dev Brief #115!

This week we’re pulling back the curtain on our first iteration of the Admin camera!

While this will primarily be thought of as an admin tool, we’ve thought a lot about it’s usage as a way for the community to create engaging content by capturing cinematics and screenshots. We’ll go into a bit of the technical detail today on how it’s used.

To demonstrate this we'll have the usual text based goodness, but we felt that the best way to show you what you can expect with this feature is with a short video. Coming in just shy of 4 minutes you'll see what to expect both as a player and a camera driver.

Then as a cherry on the cake we've got another new image from the Eastern Front and an update on how we're continually working to maintain game integrity and keep Hell Let Loose cheat free.

Now I'll hand you over to Max and Spono for all the info:



Admin / Spectator / Content Camera

We’ll be rolling out the admin/spectate camera in Update 9. This will allow the user to better follow the events of the battle - from watching infantry units, to spectating vehicles and capturing intense firefights.



This will have limited availability; with permissions given out by the server owner. They will be able to assign this using Steam IDs, which means this ability will be limited to those individuals only. Admins with those permissions will also have the ability to Kick and Ban within the camera itself. Spectators will have only the camera functionality.


Camera Keybindings

Here is a breakdown of the default keybindings and their purpose.

[End] Enter/Exit Camera: Allows those with server permissions to enter/exit camera
[T] Lock/Unlock to target : This will lock/unlock the camera to the highlighted target
[Y] Lock/Unlock rotation: This will lock/unlock the ability to rotate camera
[H] Highlight Mode:
Target Only - Highlights your target only
All - Highlights all enemy and friendly players
All Enemies - Highlights all enemy players
All Friendlies - Highlights all friendly players
OFF - No highlighting

[K] Toggle Clip on/off - Will allow camera to clip through objects (Is handy for cinematic tracking)
[Home] Toggle UI mode: This will toggle the camera UI elements on/off
[Enter] Toggle Search: Will toggle player search window on/off
Search window options
Search: Player name search
Kick/Ban: Admin ability to Kick/Ban players
Snap to player: Will immediately snap to the selected player’s location
Clear selection: Clear/Unselect the selected player
Copy player name
Copy STEAM 64ID


Camera Server Logging

Entering and exiting of the camera will be captured in the server logs and accessible to server owners. It will show the timestamp of camera entry and exit, player name, and STEAM user ID.


Camera Permissions

Permissions will be set by the server owner. Nobody will have access to the camera unless permission is granted.


Camera Admin / Spectator Slot

The use of the camera will take up one player slot on the server. Which means that the admin/spectator will need to be on a team and deployed.


Server Owners

If you are an old or new server owner and are currently not in the HLL server owner & admin Discord, please DM @_Spono in the official HLL Discord, with your server IP & details.


Server Stability

We are working with server providers to ensure the best possible HLL experience for server owners, the admins and their communities. We are currently investigating what we believe to be sporadic network related issues. If you are a server owner and are having stability issues, you can contact @Corex or @_Spono via DM in the official HLL Discord.



We currently have three server providers for Hell Let Loose. If you wish to setup and run your own HLL server and community, checkout the game server provider links below:

https://www.gtxgaming.co.uk/hell-let-loose-server-hosting

NITRADO

GPORTAL


Привет из Курска

A view from a German-held hamlet towards the Russian lines south of Prokhorovka.




Cheating

We’re always in constant communication with our partners at EAC - our anti-cheat provider.

Occasionally, videos are flagged of cheating behaviour or that are designed as promotional material for new cheats. We immediately flag these with EAC and they work hard to ban anyone using these. Like most development studios, we don’t often address this publicly, as granular information about cheats benefits those making or distributing them.

You can also help us by directly reporting a cheat HERE.


New Issue Status

You can find a granular status update on several issues (grass spawning, Garrison meta etc.) in last weeks Roadmap Dev Brief:

Dev Brief #114 - Update Early Access Roadmap 2021



That wraps up this week's Dev Brief!

What do you think of our first iteration Admin Cam? Let us know in the comments!

Have a fantastic weekend everyone, we'll see you on the frontline.

Hey everyone,

Welcome to Dev Brief #114!

This week we're pleased to be sharing with you our updated Early Access Roadmap for 2021!

We'll also be sharing with you the key parts of Update 9 today! On top of that we're letting you know how you can test out these new additions and changes ahead of Update 9's launch to give us your thoughts and feedback before they go live.

We'd seen from various parts of the community that you'd like to get more involved in changes to the game ahead of their implementation and we're looking forward to further embracing that mantra with you.

Now I'm going to pass the Dev Brief over to Lead Developer Max to show you what's next for Hell Let Loose -



Hi everyone,

We are excited to share the first roadmap update of 2021! This will show what’s coming up in Update 9 and what is still to come this year and beyond. We also want to give you more info about some of the changes well in advance of Update 9 itself, in order to keep new and veteran players better informed and to provoke conversation before we open testing up in the PTE.


Hell Let Loose PTE Application

Within the next few weeks we will begin testing U9. This is to make sure we have stable servers and clients before the update gets pushed live. We will have a focus on specific things we want the community to test and give feedback on, and will let you know what these are closer to the test date. We are happy to tell you it will now have a separate Steam application dedicated to testing.

While this was a large amount of work to set up for previous playtests, it had always been our desire to provide you with a separate app for quick access. We were able to take the time shortly after the launch of U8 to establish this new system.





Update 09: Q1 2021

• Melee
  
• Server Admin Camera
  
• Implement correct weapon zeroing for all firearms
  
• Beginning the armor system rework
  
• Community Voice Overs
  
• Steam Achievements
  
• Barbed Wire functionality
  
• Added and refined localization
  
• MG34
  
• Additional loadouts
  
• Continued Bug & Crash fixes
  
• Warmup Staging Period for Warfare Mode
  
• XP level increase
  
• Sound Improvements across the board (BAR to footsteps to death)
  
• UI Changes
  
• Max level Increase
  
• Improve optimisation
  
• Grass and Foliage spawning improvements
  
• Utah Beach Offensive mode for both German and US forces
  
• Weapon visual quality overhaul
  
• Improved Damage Occlusion System

And many more changes!

Medium Term Still To Come:

• Continued improvements to armor systems
  
• Campaign Mode
  
• SMDM Overhaul
  
• Russian Forces
  
• Russian Weapons
  
• Russian Vehicles
  
• Flamethrowers
  
• Kursk
  
• Unannounced Eastern Front Map currently in development
  
• 2 Unannounced Western Front Maps currently in development
  
• Continued in-game FX overhaul
  
• Continued in-game SFX overhaul
  
• Continued implementation and expansion of RCON features

Beyond this Roadmap

We want to assure you that there’s tons to come beyond this roadmap, we simply can’t fit it all on here and feel it’s more important to communicate short and medium term goals on this image.



One of our toughest challenges has been how we tackle the armor bugs and inconsistencies, and get it to a place where it is fun, satisfying and consistent.

Update 9 contains many changes to armor. Some large ones are:

• Increased the MG belt size to 200.
  
• Fixed zeroing on the MGs resulting in far less drop off.
  
• Reworked several associated sounds.
  
• Created new FX to better designate non-penetrating hits.
  
• Reworked HE shell damage tracing to make them ignore smaller occluding collision (ie. a fence won’t protect you from the damage). Includes all radial damage on explosions.
  
• Buffed HE shell damage radius on all vehicles.
  
• Began reworking smart materials and geometry on all vehicles and vehicle viewports to increase visual fidelity and lower vram requirements.
  
• Altered Fuel costs
  
• Hitbox adjustments
  
• Collision adjustments
  
• Penetration values & angles
  
• Armour values
  
• Tank handling and stability

We will continue work on the many different aspects of the armor system in response to community feedback, taking into consideration but not limited to the following:

• Main gun alignment
  
• Coaxial gun alignment
  
• Vehicle PhysX
  
• Handheld AT Damage
  
• AT Gun Damage and distribution
  
• Mine Damage
  
• Tank Speed
  
• 
  
• Turret speed
  
• Switching seat speed
  
• Expansion and balancing of vehicle rosters
  
• Reconsideration of vehicle componentry
  
• Repairing
  
• Rearming
  
• Tank commander loadouts
  
• Crewman loadouts
  
• Introduction of new vehicles
  
• Ongoing hitbox adjustments
  
• Ongoing collision adjustments
  
• Ongoing penetration values & angles
  
• Ongoing maintenance and balancing of armor values

We want to acknowledge that the current tank play can be very frustrating, and we are 100% dedicated to improving the overall armour and vehicle experience based on the community's feedback. This will not come all at once, as it requires rigorous testing and significant development time, but we want to reaffirm this is a top priority. The reason we’re unable to achieve this in a single update is due to the intense complexity behind the scenes as to how the vehicle physics model works. Often, adjusting one aspect of the vehicles will cause unintended other issues.

For example, while we can easily alter some aspects of penetration or armour values, we feel that there are endemic issues in the way the physics model works that will require a bigger relook.

We still have a lot to do, and are far from happy with it’s current implementation. We will be continuing to make significant changes, and will be asking the community for feedback when we have more focused PTEs post Update 9.

We are aware of some current optic and gun offsets that can arise during gameplay. We understand why this is happening and are currently troubleshooting the best approach, however this is likely a significant rework and will require a lot of development and QA time.

There are some immediate collision and hitbox issues that we will be looking to resolve for U9, but will require additional work to make this more consistent and intentional. We will do our best to eliminate as many armour bugs we can for U9, and we appreciate the patience as we work to fix this for the community, especially for those who main tanks.


.INI File & AA Settings

We have made the decision to lock the .ini file to avoid exploits and game-breaking alterations. As we’ve had to lock this, we’ve collated a huge number of community-specific AA settings and have included these as an AA setting (this can be accessed in the Options menu under “Community”).


VIVOX / VOIP

We have seen some significant improvements to the in-game voip since last week due to changes made by Vivox. We are going to continue to troubleshoot with them and we will continually provide updates as we work to resolve these issues.

We have also included in U9 the ability to re-connect to the VIVOX server via the game options menu, this may resolve your VOIP bug, depending on the issue you are experiencing.


Grass & Foliage

We’ve rewritten the way we spawn grass so it is now near-instant. This will provide a significant upgrade to the cover and concealment within the game - especially near spawns. We have also worked through all maps to make sure that grass and bushes are not affected by setting scaling. This means that low foliage quality settings will no longer remove concealing bushes.


Loadouts

We are looking at ways to balance loadouts as we look to introduce the Russian forces and therefore more weapons into the game. The current loadouts are by no means final and will be something that will be constantly tweaked for gameplay and balance throughout ongoing development.

Also we will be introducing some new loadouts specifically to those roles that lack a second loadout.

• Commander
  
• Machine Gunner
  
• Sniper
  
• Tank Commander

Warfare Forward Garrison Meta

The Warfare Garrison meta has been updated and the rules around their placement have been adjusted to encourage offset placement, but to discourage ninja-garrison spawn bombing.

• Garrisons can now be placed in the first row/column of the red zone.
  
• Garrisons placed in the red zone cost 100 supplies.
  
• Garrisons placed in the red zone are disabled if enemies are within 100m of them. This is to encourage conservative placement.

NOTE: We will be testing this during the PTE and specifically observing the placement and effectiveness of these in opening up a more circular frontline.


Achievements

As mentioned when we released achievements, we want to reiterate that many will not be available to unlock until we make client and server side changes in Update 9.


UI Changes

We’ve reworked the deployment screen format and main menu to better include explanatory descriptions and format the text better to multiple resolution scales. This also includes adding an available spawn point list in the deployment menu.


Weapon Zeroing

We’ve fixed the zeroing across all firearms. Effectively, this means your sights are adjusted to compensate for bullet drop, meaning you’ll need to aim a smaller amount above your target's head to correct for bullet drop.


Max Level Increase

We have increased the max level from 200 to 500. For those who are already at level 200 you can expect to see your level jump to your new level, based on your existing experience points


A Note on Dev Briefs

We’ve noticed that the content of dev briefings tends to be angled towards one of two parts of the community: one side is keen to hear about future content or to look behind-the-scenes at the development process, while the other is interested in granular updates on specific technical issues.

While in the past we’ve tried to balance the briefings between addressing hot button issues and future content or things we’re working on, we’re now going to do our best to include running status updates on hot button issues - even if we’ve addressed them in previous dev briefings. We will include these at the end of the dev briefing to try to keep you as up to date as possible.



That wraps up this week's Developer Briefing!

We're really excited to be sharing more on the future of Hell Let Loose with you, we'll be delving more into Update 9 and its contents over the coming Dev Briefs too so watch this space!

As always we love to hear what you think, so feel free to share your thoughts on the Roadmap, Update 9 and PTE changes in the comment section.

If you're yet to join us in battle Hell Let Loose is currently 25% off until Feb 15th
https://store.steampowered.com/app/686810/Hell_Let_Loose/


Have a great weekend everyone!

We'll see you on the frontline.

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:


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




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!



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.