Line War News

We hope that you all have had a great summer! Last week we returned from our vacation, and now we're back in full development mode, primarily focusing on two major features:

• Basic AI (an AI opponent to practice against)
  
• Teams (2v2, 3v3, 1v2, FFA/free-for-all)
  

The Basic AI is an interim implementation that we have prioritized based on feedback and reviews. It’s important to know that this is not the full single-player implementation, but you can see it as an offline sparring partner where you can practice as much as you want without worrying about rank or feeling uncomfortable about anyone watching. The Basic AI will be non-cheating, and it’ll look at the battlefield and draw commands only using the knowledge that it can see in the clearings of the fog of war. Creating an intelligent AI opponent is complicated, so this first implementation will be used to satisfy the basic practice needs of players and provide us, developers, with knowledge for the future large scale implementation of an advanced AI.



Team modes are being worked on in parallel according to the road map. We are looking forward to implementing modes such as 2 vs. 2, 3 vs. 3. We're also aiming to include asymmetric matchups such as 1 vs. 2, where a single higher-skill player can play against two lower-skill players simultaneously and free-for-all (FFA).

Implementing teams is a major undertaking. It may not appear that way, but there are many challenges, including picking phase, matchmaking, networking, UI, Fog of War, bandwidth, replays, testing, and scaling so units and UI can support many different team configurations and colors.

We don’t have an ETA on the release of Basic AI and Teams just yet, but Basic AI should come first during September, followed by Teams.



We've recently also released some minor patches to the current version. Some were well-needed balance changes, and some were bug fixes. The most important bug fix that we published today should eliminate the state that matchmaking could end up for a few hours where no matchups could be made. We had a few instances of that happening during the summer, but we've reproduced and fixed that bug now.



While we are working hard on this behind the scenes, we hope that you play and enjoy Line War as much as possible. We are aware that the player count has reduced following the release, this is normal for nearly every single game, and we want to focus our efforts on continuing to develop Line War rather than allocating time and funds to marketing.

We’ve seen feedback that the release of Line War was premature, but for us two developers, it was essential that the release took place so we could fund the continued development and gather feedback on whether or not the game-play was appealing enough to continue. Nearly all the negative feedback revolves around the lack of players, AI, and additional features, and through the release, we’ve secured the funds to continue development to implement exactly that and then perform a bigger marketing drive when the time is right. The strategic gameplay and command system is receiving excellent reviews, which is exactly why we are super encouraged to continue development and evolving Line War.

Don’t worry; Line War is not dead. We have a community of hard-core players (that are now beating us, developers, in matches big time), and development continues behind the scenes.

Bug fixes

• Timeout error message displayed upon successful matchmaking: Timeout occurred when waiting for the lobby owner to assign a game server.
  

BUG FIXES

• Air units flying non-stop in circles
  
• Unplaceable eco-sites
  
• Infantry animated as running even when not Hasting
  

GAME BALANCE

• Hellfire and Maverick damage vs Riflemen -20% ⇒ -15%
  
• Air units energy consumption (in terms of production cost) 10% ⇒ 9%
  
• Infantry/Commandos capping efficiency reduced by 5%
  
• Tank production cost 52 ⇒ 50
  

Finally!

Here comes the long awaited balance patch that tries to address the issue with "artillery blobs" being too powerful. There has been some debate in the beta testers group over the nature of the various remedies and how far they should go. Several beta matches have now been played using most of these changes, with good results.

Entrenched units 15% extra armor vs Grenade
Defending units (whether it's Artillery or any other land unit type) will hold out from incoming Grenade attacks (Artillery/Destroyer/Missile Ship/Cruiser) for much longer. Static, digged-in coastal Artillery defense will pose a serious threshold to enemy Cruisers. Artillery/SAM-blobs will advance slower against prepared defenders.

Entrenched units weapon range buff +0.2 (absolute)
Increases the chance of neighbouring comrades being within range of an enemy. Increases the probability of multiple entrenched Artillery being within range of free-moving, engaging enemy Artillery.

Infantry speed buff 3.7 ==> 3.9 (5.4%)
It's hard to see any drawbacks with a faster moving Infantry: More agile anti-Tank/anti-Commando response, faster territory cap, general feel of the game speed as being faster, higher chance of outpacing kiting SAMs, and last but not least, higher survivability when assaulting Artillery/SAM blobs.

Hellfire and Maverick damage nerf vs Riflemen -20%
The Hellfire (Helicopter) and Maverick (Striker) weapons gets a target-exclusive nerf vs Riflemen. Takes away some of the Strikers and Helicopter squadrons capability to act as a "cleanup party" vs stray Riflemen without SAM protection. Indirectly buffs the Bomber. Also note: Heli/Striker Cannon performance vs Riflemen is NOT modified but stays the same.

SAM/MissileShip Missile range buff 8.0 ==> 9.0 (12.5%)
Increases the survivability of SAM "staying in the back". Remember the Missile only fires every 4th second, so it's the "weak" weapon that gets the buff, not the Cannon.

Artillery Grenade VS Land nerf 3.6 ==> 3.4 (-5.5%)
The simple solution to nerfing the blob, as it affects all artillery units participating in the blob.

Helicopter HP buff 120 ==> 125
Compensation for 5 above.

Air units energy consumption nerf 8,3% ==> 10% of production cost
Air units in general have been too energy efficient in relation to their great speed. They now consume 10% more energy per minute (in terms of production cost) as compared to 8.3% for all other energy consuming units.

Interceptor airbase taxiing speed buff 0.6 ==> 1.2 (100%)
Faster response time for Interceptor take-offs.

Interceptor Cannon VS Surface damage buff 9 ==> 10
Improving versatility.

Time flies when you're having fun and the summer is already here. In Sweden, we're about to celebrate Midsummer this week and we two developers are beginning our summer vacation with our families today. We've been working on Line War for the past three years straight, and we are very excited to continue with the work and everything Line War has in store for the future. But first, we'll need to recharge our batteries and spend some time with our very patient families. We hope that you also have a nice summer to spend with friends and family, and also playing Line War which will be up and running :)



We will drop into the Discord and monitor the servers during this period. The two of us will be back working full-time on Line War on 22 August.

[h2]Recap[/h2]
[h3]The Unity and Network Library Upgrade[/h3]
Most recently, we managed to do the "dreaded" Unity and UnityTransport network upgrade which was essential to get us back to a supported Unity version with the newly released (but dare we say scarily undocumented) network library. It was not an easy task, but very important for the future of Line War. We believe it is eliminating some of the problems people have been experiencing losing their connection to an ongoing game and our data shows that such disconnects are less frequent now.

With this engine upgrade, we also see a performance boost for many GPUs. We still have plenty of optimization to do in the future but for now, the increase in FPS is a nice bonus.

[h3]First Line War Tournament - 22Q2[/h3]
We also just hosted the first quarterly Line War tournament this past weekend. A total of 126 matches have been played over two days in Line War 22Q2. You can watch the tournament stream archives on our YouTube channel:

• Line War 22Q2 Tournament Group Stage Stream Part 1 (YouTube)
• Line War 22Q2 Tournament Group Stage Stream Part 2 (YouTube)
• Line War 22Q2 Tournament - Finals Stages Part 1 (YouTube)
• Line War 22Q2 Tournament - Losers Bracket Final Round (YouTube)
• Line War 22Q2 Tournament - FINAL (YouTube)

[h3]New Replay System[/h3]
A new cloud-based replay system was recently implemented in time for the tournament. The replays are now automatically saved after each match and you can easily access them, download multiple replays at the same time, and share them as a simple text-string.


[h2]Going Forward[/h2]
The roadmap (see the Line War website) is still unchanged, and additionally, we are also working on a basic AI to practice against. Unfortunately, bugs in the network code prevented us from releasing the basic AI before the summer break, but it is a priority.

We hear and understand the feedback about the AI, both in comments and reviews, so it is a priority to get it implemented, but it will likely be implemented in September. Meanwhile, we hope that those of you who prefer an AI to practice against will wait to buy Line War until it has been implemented.

Although we have a vacation, we will likely both sneak in some development work during this period when our families are asleep.

Basantos will be working on the Teams and FFA implementation according to the roadmap. Smaller balance changes are also on the table and may get introduced through this period.

Imphenzia will be working on implementing the basic AI to practice against as a result of feedback in comments and reviews. Initial tests are looking promising and the AI in development is able to pick strong starting locations and expand. A knowledge library is being built for the AI so it can prioritize decisions when it comes to expanding, defending, attacking, and constructing. The AI will not be cheating and it will play by the same input rules as any human player. The release date is not set yet and be aware that it'll be a basic opponent to practice against (without pressure and ranking concerns) but it will not substitute the skill of a human player in the early stages.



Join the Line War Discord - here you'll find friendly people to play against, discuss strategies, and share your favorite map seeds!

May we also suggest a personal challenge to climb up the Line War Leaderboard?

For the curious: A total of 84601 matches have been played and combined people have spent 73208 hours in Line War. The player with the most play-time has played a total of 864 matches winning 87% of those.

Thanks to EVERYONE who is buying and playing Line War! We are thrilled to have an active core community and we look forward to continuing the development and growth of Line War for years to come!

Wishing you all an amazing summer.

/ Imphenzia & Basantos