Call to Arms - Gates of Hell: Ostfront News

As the year draws to an end, we look back on the great experience we've had releasing Call to Arms: Gates of Hell. If you agree that our genre is being overlooked, and that Call to Arms: Gates of Hell is a good representative for it; or if you'd like to share our passion and enthusiasm for our project's past, present and future, please consider writing us a review and voting for us on the GOTY awards.

Take this oportunity to buy the game if you haven't already, as the sale nears its end.

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


Bright days ahead, check our coming roadmap:


Screenshot compositions in this post made by the talented RUSSTG44

The Autumn Summer Sale is going to end in a few days, so it's your last opportunity to save big on our titles. Have a nice Sunday!


https://store.steampowered.com/app/400750/Call_to_Arms__Gates_of_Hell_Ostfront/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/302670/Call_to_Arms/


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


https://store.steampowered.com/app/244450/Men_of_War_Assault_Squad_2/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/64000/Men_of_War_Assault_Squad/

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/12027/Men_of_War_Assault_Squad_2__Complete_Your_Set/


Follow our developer website to stay updated on future sales, new games and updates. You may also want to join our official Discord to stay in touch with us more closely!

Hello everyone,

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

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

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


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

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

HD link


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

HD link


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

HD link


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

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

HD link

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

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

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

The Autumn Summer Sale has launched and all of our games are on sale!


https://store.steampowered.com/app/400750/Call_to_Arms__Gates_of_Hell_Ostfront/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/302670/Call_to_Arms/


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


https://store.steampowered.com/app/244450/Men_of_War_Assault_Squad_2/

https://store.steampowered.com/app/64000/Men_of_War_Assault_Squad/

https://store.steampowered.com/bundle/12027/Men_of_War_Assault_Squad_2__Complete_Your_Set/


Follow our developer website to stay updated on future sales, new games and updates. You may also want to join our official Discord to stay in touch with us more closely!

Header based on a Community screenshot by RUSSTG44

Community members! It is time to talk about our mod competition.
We will start the competition today! The aim is to celebrate the best achievements in the Call to Arms - Gates of Hell community, brought to you by mod makers from all over the world.


In the development of Call to Arms - Gates of Hell we always wanted to make sure that modding would be as easy as we could possibly make it.
The result of our design choices is a moddable game, which is more extensive and refined in terms of mechanics than its predecessors. These refinements raise the bar slightly for mod creators, however with 300 mods available in the workshop right now, we think there is ample proof that it’s not really a problem for our modding community.
Last but not least, we decided long ago that we will provide for a modding SDK which makes modding more accessible and, importantly, easier. We have no date set for this to be ready, but it’s on our list and will let you know the timeframe as soon as we can.

Community screenshot by @Hamster


With this competition, we aim to put a spotlight on the work that is being done in the community. This is very important work, because - as we all know - there is no such thing as “too much content” for a game.
It’s time to put a spotlight on the best mods out there; this is about the rules and about how we plan to run the competition.


Mods in the workshop already should comply with certain rules. On top of that we have our own requirements for this competition.
Mods can be anything from custom maps, custom missions, custom mechanics, new units, skins or sounds, to bigger modifications combining one or more aspects.
We think it would be unfair to choose from November entries only; the competition is open for all mods that were made for GoH so far.
The prize for the mod, which is picked as a winner by Barbedwire Studios, is a key with early access to the next faction. On top, that one wins 2 keys of the next faction to give away to friends after release! If you made your mod with a team, the team can get the sum of 3 early access keys.
The winner will be picked by us, and the community winner (who gets a mention in dispatches) will be picked by you!
Both winners also get the “Master Modder” tag on Discord.

These are the requirements:

• Must be historically oriented (any historical era)
  
• Must be publically available in Steam workshop for the community
  
• Content must be original from the creator, or have permission from other authors to use their work and be properly credited. Using content from other games is only allowed for games made by Barbedwire Studios or Digitalmindsoft.
  
• Contains no nazi symbols or anything associated with war crimes

HD Link


First we need candidates for the title, for which we will use our website. When submissions are closed, the judging can start. The formal winner is elected by our panel of judges, which consists of developers, publishers and contributors.
The community winner will be elected by the community. This is the process:

• A competition page is opened on the Barbedwire Studios website
  
• Mod creators submit their candidate mod for review on our website
  
• A panel of experts reviews the entries and puts the best ones on a shortlist
  
• The same panel elects the best mod of the month from that list
  
• The shortlist is opened for public voting, which runs for 7 days
  
• The Master Modders are announced on Discord
  
• Both get increased bragging rights
  
• The Studio- appointed winner receives the winner’s keys
  
• Submissions close November 30, 2021, at 23:59 PST

We can imagine that people will start lobbying for their favourite mod now; that’s perfectly okay of course. However, when you visit the workshop, don’t forget to rate that mod you’ve been using for all those hours! It’s time to give something back to the people that have widened the scope of this game, because that’s what it’s all about.
In the meantime, you could join our Discord to make sure you don’t miss any of it.

Community screenshot by @Shadowstorm59

• We have added German spoken & moderated channels to our Discord server
• On Discord we will soon start publishing short developer briefs on saturdays
  
• The channel for the briefs is called “developer telegraph” and it will start ticking before 2021 is over
  

That’s it for the moment, thanks for stopping by & see you on the battlefield!