World War 3 News

Available in the following languages: PL | RU | DE | FR

Last week we talked a bit about the damage model in our game and you seemed to like the idea of knowing more about the underpinnings of how the game works. We’ll try to produce more in-depth pieces like the last one, but this week - we’re summing up the development for last and the week before.

[h3]Live Patches[/h3]We’ve had a lot of stability work done in the last two weeks, mainly for the server. We’ve fixed a few bugs related to the new progression system which is being implemented as we speak, fixed a few other, unrelated crashes and improved how ammo counts work. We’ve also fixed a few movement-related issues.

There are still some bugs left, but the amount of crashes and disconnects has gone down vastly and it’s only going to get better from now on.

[h3]Steam Lunar Sale[/h3]Just last week the Humble Winter Sale that kicked off 2020 with a discount has ended. But just in case you had no idea about it or didn't have a way to purchase a copy of World War 3 over the course of the sale, you got another chance to do so!

The Steam Lunar Sale has started on Friday to celebrate the Chinese New Year. We've dropped the price of our game for this occasion, but the time is running short, the sale ends just a few hours after the publication of this weekly, but if you’re here early, you can still grab a copy of World War 3 with a 33% discount! If you want to do so, please visit our Steam page here: https://store.steampowered.com/app/674020/World_War_3/

[h3]Community[/h3]We’ve started to implement some changes to how we run the community and how people can interact with us. We’re trying to streamline some of the processes we’re relying on, like reporting badly behaving players and bugs, so temporarily we’ve created some forms that our players can use to speed up the process.

[h3]Bug Reporting[/h3]For bug reporting, from now on, please use this form (you can find links to them on our Discord and forums as well):
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLScz8QAY2nBgEoISCJ1p48XsfQA4ixNxrFT3-rQophqz88jknA/viewform

How this works is that we’re getting all your reports in one place and automatically formatted the way we want. This will in the future change to something more internal (and available from inside the game), but for now we’re testing how this system will work.

In theory it should shorten the time bug reports get to us and make it possible to report back to the community a lot better on which issues were fixed, declined or are still in progress.

[h3]Toxic Players[/h3]The second part is the player reporting. We’ve seen a few bad apples thinking they’re untouchable lately and we’ve decided to crack down on toxicity in the community. In the similar vein to the bug reporting form, we’ve created a form for reporting toxic behaviour and you can see it here:
https://docs.google.com/forms/d/e/1FAIpQLSeK03asHAK4utAb6Hq5zDyzgZSdiHzSh5-1rZovjCSD-EKlLQ/viewform
WARNING: THIS FORM IS NOT FOR REPORTING CHEATERS!
Since the implementation of this form a few days ago, we’ve already had a few bans, so it seems to work well.

There are a few rules that we follow, regarding the banning procedure to make it fair and consistent. In general, each concurrent count of abusive behaviour will make the ban longer and if it’s a really bad case of someone trying to disrupt the game and intentionally and knowingly make it a worse experience for everyone, we will be applying permanent bans that will show up as VAC ban on the Steam profile.

Now, it all sounds a bit scary to some, but if you’re just having a normal conversation and not behaving intentionally abusive, you’re not going to get in trouble. We’re here to have fun and every player has the same right to have fun as you do, so if you’re going to insult others, just don’t say anything.

We’re also planning on moving this form into the game, like the bug reporting one, so it will be much easier to to both.

Thanks for reporting those bugs and players and see you in the next one!

Available in the following languages: PL | RU | FR

Greetings, Soldiers!

Today we’re going to provide you with a brief insight into our damage model. We’re glad that most of you are satisfied with our current TTK (shoutout to Admiral4000 and his buddies), and at the same time we hope that showing you the inner workings of our system will be an interesting read.

Final player damage in World War 3 is a sum of a couple elements:

• Bullet caliber - each one inflicts a certain amount of base damage
  
• Barrel length - long barrel is more efficient on longer distance, while short barrel is geared towards CQC.
  
• Distance from target - the further the target, the lesser the damage
  
• Helmet/Armor class - heavier/better material = less damage
  
• Shot placement - based on hitboxes and their multipliers
  
• Bullet type - armour piercing (AP), hollow point (HP) and full metal jacket (FMJ) bullets have different damage multipliers as well
  

In this article we’ll analyse perhaps the most frequently used assault rifle caliber - the NATO 5.56mm cartridge. It’s what the M4, M416 and one of your favourites - the SA80 is chambered in.

The base damage of the 5.56mm caliber is 31, which means that killing an unarmoured (or lightly armoured) enemy takes 4 shots (3x31 = 94, + 1 shot to finish ’em off).
We can control the damage of any caliber by using a simple, table based tool - just like this one:



As you can see the damage curve goes down at 9000 Unreal Units (basically centimeters), or 90 metres from the shooter. You can check the damage curves out yourself in the customisation menu - once you choose your barrel, you immediately know at what range it’s most efficient.



What this particular curve shows you is that there’s no damage falloff until the 90 metre mark. After this mark the damage decreases to finally reach 26 at the 105 metres mark.

The performance of a long barrel is more consistent, meaning that the falloff is less steep - it goes from 29 at 0 to 90 metres down to 28 at 105 metres, making it a better choice for long range combat.

Short barrels work the other way around - they provide you with increased damage sub 90 metres (in this case: 33), but the falloff after the 90 metres mark is the steepest of all - it falls to 23.

Quite simple so far, right? It would be, if you always scored a clear hit to the guts followed by a proper splatter of blood.



This, however, is not the case because now the armours, helmets and hitboxes come into play.



At this point we’ve got 3 classes of helmets and 4 classes of armours. The general idea is that the heavier a piece of armour is, the more protection it provides. To give you an example - the lightest, HDPE armour won’t do much good against a powerful rifle cartridge, but it will slightly decrease the damage inflicted by a 9mm pistol round. You can always check the performance of a particular armour plate or helmet in the customisation menu.

We’ve performed detailed calculations for every armour and helmet class to make sure proper balance is achieved and retained. Our calculations take into consideration the caliber, bullet type, distance… Literally all the stuff needed to properly design a convincing, well-balanced damage model which - in times of need - is easy to rework or improve.



What you can see on this screenshot is how we handle hitboxes and collisions. The armour protects most of the torso, so shooting the centre of mass (as one usually does on a real battlefield) requires you to take the armour into consideration.





Here you can take a look at how we control the damage modifier for different parts of the body. These are the current values, which we’ve decided upon after lots of testing and in-house discussion.

Using these multipliers it’s easy to count that if the base damage of a 5.56mm bullet is 31, then a headshot to an unprotected head will inflict 93 damage, while a shot to the arm will result in ~21 points of damage. That’s precisely what the game does, when your character gets shot. This info is readily available to you on the killscreen each time you get fragged. The last, decisive hit is marked in red.



3x21 (shots to the left arm) = 63, 1 shot to the armour plate = 26 (the plate deflected 5 points of damage), 1 shot to an unprotected part of the body = 11. 63+26+11 = 100, meaning you just got fragged.

The last thing we’d like to mention today is the bullet type. At this point there’s three of them, each available as additional ammo within the customization menu. You’re free to take one magazine of this ammo onto the battlefield anytime.

• FMJ: full metal jacket bullets are the standard ammo used in WW3. They retain the base damage of a particular caliber, while penetrating the armour at 20% efficiency.
  
• AP: armour piercing bullets retain the base damage while their armour penetration value is increased to 40%
  
• HP: hollow point ammo penetrates the armour at only 10% efficiency, but does increase the base damage by 20%, which in the case of the 5.56mm bullet would mean it’ll do not 31 but around 37 damage to and unprotected area of the body, effectively decreasing the amount of bullets needed to kill from 4 to 3.
  

Carefully timing your shots, proper aiming and the right choice of weapon, barrel and ammo should provide you with a satisfying kill no matter the situation.

We hope you enjoyed this brief look behind the curtain of our damage model, thank you for staying by our side - good times are coming for World War 3, so we please stay with us in the future!

See you in the next Weekly Report!

Available in the following languages: PL | RU | DE | FR

Greetings, Soldiers!

Today we’re going to provide you with a brief insight into our damage model. We’re glad that most of you are satisfied with our current TTK (shoutout to Admiral4000 and his buddies), and at the same time we hope that showing you the inner workings of our system will be an interesting read.

Final player damage in World War 3 is a sum of a couple elements:

• Bullet caliber - each one inflicts a certain amount of base damage
  
• Barrel length - long barrel is more efficient on longer distance, while short barrel is geared towards CQC.
  
• Distance from target - the further the target, the lesser the damage
  
• Helmet/Armor class - heavier/better material = less damage
  
• Shot placement - based on hitboxes and their multipliers
  
• Bullet type - armour piercing (AP), hollow point (HP) and full metal jacket (FMJ) bullets have different damage multipliers as well
  

In this article we’ll analyse perhaps the most frequently used assault rifle caliber - the NATO 5.56mm cartridge. It’s what the M4, M416 and one of your favourites - the SA80 is chambered in.

The base damage of the 5.56mm caliber is 31, which means that killing an unarmoured (or lightly armoured) enemy takes 4 shots (3x31 = 94, + 1 shot to finish ’em off).
We can control the damage of any caliber by using a simple, table based tool - just like this one:



As you can see the damage curve goes down at 9000 Unreal Units (basically centimeters), or 90 metres from the shooter. You can check the damage curves out yourself in the customisation menu - once you choose your barrel, you immediately know at what range it’s most efficient.



What this particular curve shows you is that there’s no damage falloff until the 90 metre mark. After this mark the damage decreases to finally reach 26 at the 105 metres mark.

The performance of a long barrel is more consistent, meaning that the falloff is less steep - it goes from 29 at 0 to 90 metres down to 28 at 105 metres, making it a better choice for long range combat.

Short barrels work the other way around - they provide you with increased damage sub 90 metres (in this case: 33), but the falloff after the 90 metres mark is the steepest of all - it falls to 23.

Quite simple so far, right? It would be, if you always scored a clear hit to the guts followed by a proper splatter of blood.



This, however, is not the case because now the armours, helmets and hitboxes come into play.



At this point we’ve got 3 classes of helmets and 4 classes of armours. The general idea is that the heavier a piece of armour is, the more protection it provides. To give you an example - the lightest, HDPE armour won’t do much good against a powerful rifle cartridge, but it will slightly decrease the damage inflicted by a 9mm pistol round. You can always check the performance of a particular armour plate or helmet in the customisation menu.

We’ve performed detailed calculations for every armour and helmet class to make sure proper balance is achieved and retained. Our calculations take into consideration the caliber, bullet type, distance… Literally all the stuff needed to properly design a convincing, well-balanced damage model which - in times of need - is easy to rework or improve.



What you can see on this screenshot is how we handle hitboxes and collisions. The armour protects most of the torso, so shooting the centre of mass (as one usually does on a real battlefield) requires you to take the armour into consideration.





Here you can take a look at how we control the damage modifier for different parts of the body. These are the current values, which we’ve decided upon after lots of testing and in-house discussion.

Using these multipliers it’s easy to count that if the base damage of a 5.56mm bullet is 31, then a headshot to an unprotected head will inflict 93 damage, while a shot to the arm will result in ~21 points of damage. That’s precisely what the game does, when your character gets shot. This info is readily available to you on the killscreen each time you get fragged. The last, decisive hit is marked in red.



3x21 (shots to the left arm) = 63, 1 shot to the armour plate = 26 (the plate deflected 5 points of damage), 1 shot to an unprotected part of the body = 11. 63+26+11 = 100, meaning you just got fragged.

The last thing we’d like to mention today is the bullet type. At this point there’s three of them, each available as additional ammo within the customization menu. You’re free to take one magazine of this ammo onto the battlefield anytime.

• FMJ: full metal jacket bullets are the standard ammo used in WW3. They retain the base damage of a particular caliber, while penetrating the armour at 20% efficiency.
  
• AP: armour piercing bullets retain the base damage while their armour penetration value is increased to 40%
  
• HP: hollow point ammo penetrates the armour at only 10% efficiency, but does increase the base damage by 20%, which in the case of the 5.56mm bullet would mean it’ll do not 31 but around 37 damage to and unprotected area of the body, effectively decreasing the amount of bullets needed to kill from 4 to 3.
  

Carefully timing your shots, proper aiming and the right choice of weapon, barrel and ammo should provide you with a satisfying kill no matter the situation.

We hope you enjoyed this brief look behind the curtain of our damage model, thank you for staying by our side - good times are coming for World War 3, so we please stay with us in the future!

See you in the next Weekly Report!

We've been tracking down the server issues and we've got some crashes and disconnects figured out, so here's one for the weekend. There's still at least one client crash that we've found, but without proper testing we don't want to risk pushing it to Live, so expect those issues to be resolved later.

Update 0.8.5 Patch Notes

[BUGFIXES]

• Fixed deploy screen not showing up sometimes (especially on TDM),
  
• Fixed the death fade to black sometimes happening again after respawning,
  
• Fixed a crash in the challenge system,
  
• Fixed a crash in the HUD,
  
• Fixed a crash that occurred on changing cameras in vehicles,
  
• Fixed a reload widget crash that sometimes happened when reloading vehicle weapons,
  
• Fixed vehicle ammo replication bug - now the ammo count should synchronize properly,
  

[IMPROVEMENTS]

• Small improvements to hit replication on the character,
  
• Disabled lowering replication rate while dead (should remove unstable timer and low refresh of the deployment map among other things),
  

[MISCELLANEOUS]

• Removed holiday flair from the customization menu.
  

First one after the break! The biggest problem right now is the random server disconnects which should be fixed in this patch, but we can't be sure as this is a bug that isn't manifesting in internal testing. Let us know if 0.8.4 helped!

Update 0.8.4 Patch Notes

[h3][BUGFIXES][/h3]

• Possible fix for disconnects (needs further testing),
• Fixed a server crash,
  
• Fixed client vehicle ammo not reflecting the real value on the server (reload bug),
  
• Fixed F5 crashing the game,
  
• Fixed Scar-H rail not accepting attachments,
  
• Fixed other players rubber banding shortly after respawning,
  
• Fixed text messages overlapping on the Breakthrough HUD,
  
• Fixed incorrect widget position of Squad List Widget,
  
• Fixed missing vehicle HUD for 1st person on some vehicles,
  
• Temporary fix for death markers (skulls) being left on the map indefinitely,
  

[h3][IMPROVEMENTS][/h3]

• Switched drone and air vehicles to new HUD system.