Hell Let Loose News

Hey everyone,

Welcome to Developer Briefing #94!

This week we have an explosive preview of something new coming to the game!

[h3]Satchel Charges[/h3]

For a long time we’ve known that the Engineer role (among others) was at a distinct disadvantage when it came to battlefield functionality. Whilst the Engineer will have access to a broader array of tools introduced over the coming Updates, we wanted to focus today on the Satchel Charges, as it will form the backbone of the Saboteur aspect of the Engineer role.





The Satchel Charge is a huge explosive - one of the most powerful currently in the game. To use it, simply equip the charge and then select from one of three pre-set fuse time lengths - 30 seconds, 60 seconds and 120 seconds. Once the fuse time is set, place the charge in the desired location and run for cover!



[h3]What are they used for?[/h3]

The best way to think of Satchel Charges is as an enormously powerful timed charge. It can be used to destroy vehicles - though the timed nature of the charge and relatively long placement time will make it a challenge to use in this way. It can also be used to clear buildings, strong points or fortified locations of infantry. The primary risk and reward is that only one can be carried by an Engineer at any time, as well as the longer placement time - balanced against a devastating explosion. Bear in mind that you’ll need to communicate the placement of the charge so that your team around you are aware of the imminent explosion.

In addition to it’s raw destructive power against foes on the battlefield, Engineers will be receiving an overhaul for all deployables. To this end, Satchel Charges will be a key way for Engineers to demolish enemy battlefield emplacements and defenses.

In the future, we’ll also be revising the way specific sectors are captured in Offensive mode. Part of this will be the introduction of objectives that need to be destroyed in order for the sector to be won. Satchel Charges are being introduced now to facilitate that in the future.

There are still several larger design aspects that we’re deciding on - as well as the full future functionality. We’re going to be refining the concept further up to release of Update 8.





That concludes this week's Dev Brief!

We hope this first look at some new explosive content coming to Hell Let Loose gets all of you engineers excited to you know... blow some stuff up!

Also, yes, it isn't Jonno this week. Please be gentle!

As always, have a great weekend everyone and we'll see you next week.

See you on the frontline.

Hey everyone,

Welcome to Developer Briefing #93!

This week Max has stopped by to reveal an updated mechanic coming to Hell Let Loose, including a first look at one of a set of new tools that armour and infantry units alike will be getting to grips with.

To turn up the heat on this Dev Brief, here's Max...




Hi everyone,

We’re thrilled to see that Patch 13 solved several endemic issues that were being experienced. We want to assure you that this is nowhere near the end - more that we wanted to attempt a final round of critical fixes before we move seriously towards working on Update 8.

We want to remind everyone that if you are using DX12, there are still some known issues that are likely to cause crashes such as alt-tabbing.

Update 8 may as well be called the “nuts and bolts” update, as so many seemingly peripheral areas of the game are being overhauled in a way that will allow us to lift the total quality, as well as expand functionality and the tactical thought needed to engage with each mechanic.

We’re going to start looking in depth soon at all the features, content, fixes and optimisation that we’ll be introducing in Update 8, but initially we thought we’d chat a bit about repairs!




The trusty wrench had been an ongoing mainstay in the way we communicate deploying anything into the game world within Hell Let Loose. While it’s quite a nice looking device, it doesn’t make much sense (building a supply box with a wrench anyone?).

Now that we’ve overhauled the animation system, we’re returning to some of the key utilities and refining them in ways we’d always wished to - giving each tool a specific purpose and widening and polishing each utility so it made as much sense as possible.

In Update 8, we’re decoupling the repair function from the wrench and have created a unique tool to fulfil this - the trusty field blow torches carried by the engineers of all forces. It will act much like the wrench, but allows us to be more specific in the function of the wrench (which will now act as a planning and placement tool), while also giving many more loadouts specific utility.

(Please note that these assets have been compressed to fit on Steam, so do not accurately portray the current or final visual quality of this tool)





For a long time we’ve felt that we need to give tank crews specifically the ability to repair their own vehicles. We felt eventually that it’d be interesting to enable tank crews to specify their loadout towards vehicle support, or perhaps re-arming. By creating this new tool, we can now easily assign it to specific tanker loadouts and other roles to create a wider range of utility - enabling players to also specifically tool logistics-focused smaller infantry units (perhaps to just run supplies and transport, as well as repair and re-arm frontline armor). We’re revisiting the way exp is assigned for this and are now able to make this mechanic far more robust and integrated.



As per usual, while this sounds like an easy task - we always want to make sure we make the most beautiful and authentic asset possible - including working on a nice little flame fx paired with a nice sound fx. Additionally, we also want to make sure you’re using the right blowtorch for the right force.

We especially love these assets as they catch the light beautifully and look and sound great in-game.



We also feel they may go well with a Mechanic uniform. Eventually you may even be able to use it to set the enemy on fire - but that’s for another time.

Coming soon we’ll be looking at the supplies rework, wrench functionality and hammer functionality. As always, the team is working on a whole suite of new things to polish and expand the game.




That wraps up this week's Dev Brief!

We hope this first look at some new mechanics and tools coming to Hell Let Loose gets your tactical cogs turning.

Have a great weekend everyone and we'll see you next week.

See you on the frontline.

Hey everyone,

Patch 13 is now live!

Thank you all so much for your patience and feedback whilst we worked on this, it's greatly appreciated.

Check out the patch notes below:

• PhysX Crash Fix
  
• Fix for DX12 crashes on Foy
  

For those that didn't know, the PhysX crash could occur when body parts from two different dismembered bodies collided. Not the easiest thing to spot, but thanks to feedback such as "It occurred during a bombing run." and "I threw a grenade then crashed." the team were able to narrow things down, identify the problem and fix it! Also yes, this meant we spent copious amounts of time blowing each other up with tanks, grenades and bombing runs!

We're confident that the above are fixed and shouldn't cause you any further issues, however we will be watching closely to ensure the patch is working as intended.




The response we have received for the Wilhelm submission has been astounding. The Team would like to issue a profound thank you to all those who took part. It can be a very daunting mission to record and put out your voice to be judged and we sincerely applaud everyone who has passed on their submissions regardless of the outcome.

This perfectly highlights the type of community we are grateful for, one that comes together to influence and shape the production of HLL.

The conclusion of this is still to be decided by the team as we further narrow down recent submissions from this past week. Not only have you provided us with a plethora of varied screams but you have also given us some ideas and direction to what we are really looking for in the future. Speaking of which, this may not be your last chance, despite the submission period coming to an end, based on the quality we have received so far we may run something like this again in the future.

Because of the nature of HLL with fairly long match times and the number of players in each game we will be using a fair few of your submissions to help keep the atmosphere varied. At present in game we only have a few death vocals that can become repetitive, these new additions will certainly spice things up. We will be reaching out within the next few weeks to notify everyone on the verdict of their submission, so make sure you keep those raw audio files handy.

The direction we wish to take dialogue in HLL is a more cinematic approach that fits with the gritty atmosphere. We will be looking for professional and talented voice actors in the future to voice the main bulk of the dialogue.

Once again we cannot thank you all enough for your enthusiasm over the last few weeks. We’ll wrap things up with another look at some courageous efforts submitted by members of the community.


PanZ7#5328
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Brown Sugar#3058
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

RiftyTheSwifty#9071
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

TonyTwoTap7109
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]

Stay tuned for the results,

We can’t wait to hear you on the Frontline.




That wraps up this week's patch notes! We'll see you tomorrow for Developer Briefing #93.

See you on the frontline.

Hey everyone,

Welcome to Dev Brief #92!

This week we've got some good news on the infamous 'PHYSX' crash fix, a first look at some shiny new uniforms for the Tankers among us and an update on the 'Wilhelm Scream' competition!

Before I hand over to Max and Spono who'll go into all the cool details, I just want to take the opportunity to relay the team's thanks for your patience, bug reports and understanding whilst we worked away on the crash fix. Every report we received helped us track down the root cause and, fingers crossed, address it.

So, you're probably wondering what the cause was, well... It could occur when body-parts from two different dismembered bodies collided with each other in the air, normally following an explosion.

This revelation led to a humorous take on the situation from the incredibly talented Moscatnt, who is equally impressive on both the frontline and canvas!






Hi everyone,

We’re thrilled to announce that after an enormous amount of debugging, we’ve isolated the issue in the physx code that has been causing the most common crash experienced in the game. After nearly five weeks of QA, we are very confident that we have resolved this specific crash, and as a result we’ll be rolling out Patch 13 alongside a fix for DX12 crashes on the map Foy. To make sure we don’t cause any other disruptions to gameplay, we will be limiting the patch to these two crash fixes.

We are in the process of signing off this Patch, and we will update the community on the release date as soon as it’s ready. All going well, this will likely drop on Friday next week.

We want to also note that if you are using DX12, there are still some known issues that are likely to cause crashes such as alt-tabbing.

Meanwhile we’re hard at work on all aspects of the game - content, bug fixes and optimisation. To give you a small taste - we’re working through giving all tanker roles at least two additional uniforms to unlock for both forces. Over the coming weeks we’ll start to do deep-dives on the ways we’re overhauling some underdeveloped aspects of the game, optimising, and generating new content.


















Wow, what a response we have had so far to the Wilhelm submissions! So far what we have received from you has been wonderfully harrowing to say the least and we as a team thank you greatly for the “overWilhelming” response. We are well underway in narrowing down the clips that we feel are most suitable and that would complement the atmosphere in game.

If you are reading this and still don’t know what all this means, please check out this link from Dev Brief #90 it has all the submission details.

In response to some questions of what exactly it is that we are looking for, we wanted to keep the description in the Wilhelm Dev Brief minimal to let your creative freedom flourish. We’ve had many different variations of screams, grunts, gasps, gurgles and whelps that have all been exciting and inspirational to listen to. Some members of the community have asked if we are accommodating spoken dialogue within this submission, whilst we are specifically looking for non-spoken audio lines that isn’t to say that somehow and some way we can’t filter in spoken lines, however we are primarily looking for more deathly oral sounds.

As a result of the massive response we have had, we’ve decided to extend the close off time for the submission for at least another week. So if you didn’t get the time to submit, now’s your chance! Submissions will only be accepted as a YouTube link via this FORM*

Here are just a select few clips that contain great examples of what we look for and also the quality of recording we like. These are by far not the only ones we love but we would like to give you a sneak peak at what some members have been up to.


Technical#6400
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


ScreamingMinnie#2180
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


pancake_soup#7050
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


Su5hi#1170
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


Forrest McGilvray#2210
[previewyoutube][/previewyoutube]


Thanks again to everyone who has made a submission so far, and we are super excited to listen to more.

*By submitting to this form you acknowledge and give Black Matter the permission to use your submission for purposes of in-game content, social media, marketing material and in any other manner, platform or format we may choose.




That wraps up this week's Dev Brief.

We hope you're as pleased with the crash fix news as we are and enjoyed your first look at some upcoming Tanker uniforms.

If you're on the fence about giving the 'Wilhelm Scream' competition a shout, go for it! Your dulcet tones may well become part of the frontline...

Have a fantastic weekend everyone.

See you on the frontline.

Hey everyone,

Welcome to Dev Brief #91!

This week we're pleased to be sharing with you the updated roadmap for Hell Let Loose!

For the grand reveal, as well as some extra details on what the team are working on thanks to your feedback I'll be handing over today's brief to Lead Developer Max.

Enjoy!




Hi everyone,

We’re very excited this week to share our new roadmap with you as we lead up to Update 8. We also feel like the next update will be smaller and less content-rich in size - that is until we write down all the content to come. We hope you’re as excited about what will be coming in Update 8 as we are.

Update 8 is a great opportunity for us to fix broken gameloops (the redeploy Support loop) and vastly improve existing ones - such as the way that Supplies, Ammo and Engineer abilities work. As you’ll see there are also large amounts of map overhauls as we seek to bring each map to a universally optimised standard, as well as take them to the same level of visual and gameplay quality.

As always, for each feature you see on the roadmap, we’ll be accompanying it with a developer briefing to better explain it.









Many of you will be aware that the occurrence of what we’re calling the “Physx Crash” (the key crash you’re experiencing within the game currently) has meant that we’ve delayed our roadmap release while we find a fix as soon as possible.

As a result, we’ve taken the last couple of weeks to dig deep into it (involving largely working through the physics code in a very granular way) before sitting down to discuss the contents of the next update.

The good news is that we’ve found a 100% reproduction method for the crash, and that it occurs when two limbs from separate bodies collide after being dismembered. As you can imagine, it was not a fun task to deduce this - given the very little information being output from the engine despite all our logging.

We’re now working on a fix for this crash, and will constantly communicate about an ETA on when we will deploy this.




While DX12 is not fully supported by Hell Let Loose yet, we’ve also got good news to share in that we’ve found a fix for Foy crashing for those with DX12 enabled. We’re aware of several other non-map related crashes for DX12 users, but we feel that fixing Foy will allow a much greater level of stability for the time being.




Although the roadmap serves as a public declaration of our intent around short term development goals, we’re also hard at work behind the scenes on some as-yet unannounced content - both small and large.

As a dev team, we’re really excited about the future of all the content coming to Hell Let Loose and look forward to revealing more in the near future!




That wraps up this week's Dev Brief and Max's update!

As you can see there's a lot of new content on the way with Update 8 and we're really looking forward to sharing more details with you in our upcoming Developer Briefings!

If there's anything you're really keen to know more about, or have any questions about the new roadmap then let us know in the comments and on the forums.

Have a great weekend everyone.

See you on the frontline!