Vanguard: Normandy 1944 News

Today we are pleased to announce our third major patch since launch; Vanguard 0.5.3. As with our last two updates this patch is focused around both quality-of-life issues and bug fixing rather than new content. Don't forget to join our the community Discord to discuss the update and new squadmates.

In this update we have focused on both optimisation and improvements to the ingame text and voice comms amoungst many minor tweaks and fixes across the game.



We have been working extremely hard to optimise the level loading times which we have seen is a common area of frustration for players. This update will significantly reduce level loading times for most players and in our testing we have seen reductions of 50-75%. The actual loading time improvement will vary on the hardware specification of your PC but here are a few examples from our tests on different machines.

Computer A:

• 0.5.2 - 1 minute 20 seconds
  
• 0.5.3 - 20 seconds (-75%)
  

Computer B:

• 0.5.2 - 1 minute 5 seconds
  
• 0.5.3 - 17 seconds (-74%)
  

Computer C:

• 0.5.2 - 1 minute
  
• 0.5.3 - 25 seconds (-58%)
  

Computer D:

• 0.5.2 - 2 minute 50 seconds
  
• 0.5.3 - 55 seconds (-67%)
  

To achieve this we have had to re-structure the game files, which has meant this patch affects almost the entire game – hence the larger than usual for a quality-of-life update. We are always conscious of keeping patches to a minimum size but this was a significant enough issue for the community we felt it shouldn’t wait.

We aren’t stopping here though. We will continue to optimise the game throughout Early Access.


We have overhauled the text chat system so you can now see a history of recent messages when typing new messages and the colour of the message more clearly indicates who can read it. Blue messages are team only. Orange messages are sent to all.

Thank you to everyone who has provided us with constructive feedback. We read all of it even if we don’t respond to all of it. If you have a crash and get prompted to submit a crash report – please submit it so we are notified and we can look into the cause.

Known Issues

• Graphical glitches and missing weapons when joining the game for the first time
• Audio settings menu is not yet implemented
• Decals can be stubborn and cause texture glitches
• There is no audio warning before being kicked – this will be added soon
• Very rarely a player be stuck in spectator mode while in pre-game. You can workaround this issue by opening console using ` and typing kill into the console and hitting enter. Close the console using

Key Changes / Highlights:

• Significantly improved loading times
• Improved team balancing
• Enhanced text chat including message history when replying
• Updated voice chat icons so you can now see if the person talking in team voice chat is in your squad.
• Improved server stability

Changes:

• Fixed input freezing between the pre-game TDM ending and Raid gamemode starting
• Fixed loading screen over-reporting progress
• Updated text chat interface to better distinguish team vs. global chat and to show recent messages when sending a new message
• Potential fix for a mass disconnection of players from a server at the same time
• Improved team balancing system and fixed bug with team balancing causing the balancing to progressively get worse with each level rotation
• Updated voice chat indicator icons. Team channel is now labelled [TEAM]
• Reduced radius from which objectives can be captured
• Fixed in-game camera rotating while navigating squad/kit interface while spectating
• Added new dialog lines for capture, post-capture, push ahead/pull back and endgame conditions
• Added more variety to existing German and British dialog lines
• Added audio triggers to idle kick warnings.
• Added more reverb zones to levels
• Added new round loss music for each nation
• Updated death music
• Improved environmental audio ambience
• Improved environmental soundscape to Merville – added conditional audio trigger to right flank of the attackers first phase
• Fixed first-person weapon audio not applying reverb in interiors
• Further backend audio tweaks
• Lion-sur-Mer
  • Added lighting sources for Allied spawn during initial phase for better orientation
  • Improvements to trenches
  • Improvements to borders
  • Improved daytime lighting
• Merville Battery
  • New flanking route during initial phase which provides better cover
  • New section opened from Town-area through the forest
  • Improvement to borders
  • Improvements to craters
• Pegasus Bridge
  • Improvements to terrain texture
  • Improvements to terrain

Today we have launched version 0.5.2 of Vanguard, which contains both fixes and some new quality-of-life changes in response to feedback we have received. As we discussed in our dev update earlier in the week we are focusing our energy at the moment on fixing bugs and improving the player experience before we move onto new features and content in a few weeks time. We are also spending a lot of time focused on promoting the game.

The key changes include:

• New team deathmatch pre-game while awaiting players. You will now spawn immediately and respawn infinitely until the minimum player count is reached.
  
• New floating marker indicates the rough position of the British spawn to help orientate new players
  
• Melee animations have been added to all weapons
  
• Idle kicking no longer applies if there are less than 5 people on the server
  
• Server browser enhancements
  

This weekend we will be continuing our now regular community event from 7PM BST / 8PM CEST / 11AM PDT / 2PM EDT until late on Friday, Saturday & Sunday. So get your squad together and join our community and the devs on the battlefield!



Thank you to everyone who has provided us with constructive feedback. We read all of it even if we don’t respond to all of it. If you have a crash and get prompted to submit a crash report – please submit it so we are notified and we can look into the cause.

• Server sometimes unexpectedly disconnects all connected clients from the game
  
• Graphical glitches and missing weapons when joining the game for the first time
  
• Level loading time can be very long on slow hard drives - we are working on optimising this
  
• Audio settings menu is not yet implemented
  
• Decals can be stubborn and cause texture glitches
  
• There is no audio warning before being kicked - this will be added soon
  
• Very rarely a player be stuck in spectator mode while in pre-game. You can workaround this issue by opening console using ` and typing kill into the console and hitting enter. Close the console using `.
  

• New team deathmatch pre-game while awaiting players
  
• Directional markers now indicate the rough direction of the British spawn for the defenders
  
• Added minimum player information to server browser
  
• Added melee animations
  
• Idle kicking no longer applies if there are less than 6 players on the server
  

• Added day or night state of the current map into server browser
  
• Added minimum number of players to start into server browser
  
• Added marker (parachute icon) in the rough location of the British spawn to help defenders orientate themselves
  
• Added TDM mode which runs until number of players meets server set minimum threshold
  
• Added placeholder melee animation for Sten Mk.II
  
• Added placeholder melee animation for Bren Mk.II
  
• Added placeholder melee animation for Enfield No.4
  
• Added placeholder melee animation for Kar98k
  
• Added placeholder melee animation for MG34
  
• Added description to audio settings to highlight that microphones must be the default recording device to be usable for voice chat
  
• Disabled kicking of idle players if less than 6 players are on the server
  
• Added feedback form to main menu
  
• Replaced reinforcement icon with dynamic replacement which displays custom keybinding
  
• Updated interact element to dynamically display custom keybinding
  
• Added missing German gunner voip icon
  
• Fixed typo in French localisation
  
• Fixed rare server crash related to objective capture
  
• Cleaned up console output for spectating players
  
• Fixed bug where Raid UI did not update if player changed team while dead
  
• Removed TSAA anti-aliasing option due to reported issues with ghosting. Players who currently have TSAA enabled will fall back to SMAA High next time they change their settings
  
• Fixed setting change confirmation dialog disappearing prematurely
  
• Added missing localisation from updated 0.5.1
  
• Fixed crash caused by using quotes in text chat
  

• Reduced MP40 recoil
  

Pegasus Bridge

• Added approximate location markers of British spawn for each phase.
  

Merville Battery

• Redesigned right-hand side of phase 1 (from the British perspective) to make flanking on this side both a lot prettier and slightly more risky
  
• Redesigned and extended right-hand boundary of phase 2 (from British perspective)
  
• Added approximate location markers of British spawn for each phase.
  

Lion-sur-Mer

• Added approximate location markers of British spawn for each phase.
  
• Reworked boundaries so that they appear natural.
  
• Moved Allied spawn further back to balance the 1st. phase.
  
• Quality-of-life enhancement to the trenches to fix obvious seams, tearings and misplaced pieces.
  

One part of development we have yet to talk about in much detail is where we want to take the game. We want to show our players what our plans are in the short and the longer term, and also what we plan to implement into the game further into the future. The roadmap is intended to give the community a flavour of what is to come in the coming weeks and months. It is not a complete to-do list, because that would be huge!

Into the fire – Image credit: [EASY]Garysanderson96 via the community Discord

Our short-term focus in is still on bugfixing and improving the player experience. This means that over the next few weeks we will be releasing weekly updates to the game focusing on quality-of-life improvements that will tidy up some of the existing elements and features.

In the intermediate future we will begin working on new features and content. These will take slightly longer to implement, test and deploy, as they will be of greater complexity. Updates on these will roll out every 2 weeks to allow us more time to work on the new features.

After that comes long term, which is what we want to add to the game in the future. There are no set timescales for these features, but they are things we would love to see in the game so we are investigating the work required.

Below is a selection of improvements we are currently working on. We are a small yet flexible team, so some of these issues may switch around depending on what is most important at the time.

• Bug fixes
  
• Improvements to new player experience
  
• Level balancing and tweaks from feedback
  
• Initial audio options
  
• Enhancements to server browser
  
• Optimisation and improvements to level loading times
  
• Text chat improvements
  
• Fix melee animations
  
• Improvements for NCOs
  
• + many, many more
  

• Animation improvements
  
• Improve level audio ambience
  
• Tweaks to weapon audio
  
• Continued balancing to maps and weapons
  
• Reworked scoring system
  
• Further optimisation of level loading times and time ingame vs.loading
  
• Rework of SMGs & MGs handling & experience
  
• Completed audio options
  
• Ambient audio improvements
  
• Weapon audio tweaks
  
• Additional dialog lines
  

• Deployable Weapons
  
• Prone
  
• New Levels
  
• New Weapons
  
• Reworked squad creation experience to make playing with friends/clanmates easier
  
• Persistent Stats
  

This weekend we will once again be hosting several game sessions each evening from 7PM BST / 8PM CEST / 11AM PDT / 2PM EDT until late. So get your squad together and join our community and the devs on the battlefield!

Today we have launched an update to Vanguard which fixes several issues from the first week.

• Custom key bindings
  
• Ability to switch teams
  
• Rebalanced raid when there’s 8 or less players on a server
  
• Idle players who are alive (not spectating) are now kicked in 60 seconds
  

The full patch notes can be seen at the bottom of this post.

This weekend we will be hosting several game sessions each evening from 7PM BST / 8PM CEST / 11AM PDT / 2PM EDT until late. So get your squad together and join our community and the devs on the battlefield!



There will also be a live-stream of the game this Saturday when TeamApex take to the battlefield, featuring BigfryTV, Shermanator, Karmakut, FriendlyNikolai, KILLSTREAKNET, & LordQuode. Join us in-game on or tune in to the stream on https://www.twitch.tv/bigfrytv at Noon EDT / 9AM PDT / 5PM BST / 6PM CEST.

• BigfryTV - https://www.youtube.com/bigfrytv
  
• Shermanator - https://www.youtube.com/TheGameGuards
  
• Karmakut - https://www.youtube.com/karmakut
  
• FriendlyNikolai - https://www.youtube.com/FriendlyNikolai
  
• KILLSTREAKNET - https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCHqM5QCGLpnr_qFkb8KuyPQ
  
• LordQuode - https://www.twitch.tv/lordquode
  

Thank you to everyone who has provided us with constructive feedback. We read all of it even if we don’t respond to all of it. If you have a crash and get prompted to submit a crash report - please submit it so we are notified and we can look into the cause.

Known Issues:

• Server sometimes unexpectedly disconnects all connected clients from the game
  
• Graphical glitches and missing weapons when joining the game for the first time
  
• Level loading time can be very long on slow hard drives - we are working on optimising this
  
• Audio settings menu is not yet implemented
  
• Decals can be stubborn and cause texture glitches
  
• There is no audio warning before being kicked - this will be added soon
  
• Localisation of some of the new features is incomplete. We’d appreciate any help from the community to get these translated.
  

Highlights:

• Custom key bindings
  
• Ability to switch teams from spawn menu
  
• Rebalanced raid when there are 8 or less players on a server
  
• Idle players who are alive (not spectating) are now kicked in 60s
  
• Player markers for team mates are now visible at any range
  

Game:

• Added ability to set custom keybindings in Options > Controls
  
• Raid gamemode now features only one objective per phase if there are 8 or fewer players on the server. All objectives will appear at the beginning of the next phase if 9 or more players are in the server or just one if the number of players drops back down below 9.
  
• AFK Kicking: Alive players are now kicked from the server after 60 seconds if no input activity is recorded. A discrete text warning is given after 20 seconds inactive & large visual warning and countdown after 40 seconds inactive. Doesn’t apply to dead/spectating players.
  
• Player markers over the head of team mates are now visible at infinite range
  
• Fixed bug which stopped players from being killed automatically after 3s when attempting to swim across the river on Pegasus as designed
  
• Added additional logging of connections to help identify connection issues reported we cannot reproduce
  
• Improved reporting from crash reporter
  
• Added support for additional resolutions (please let us know if yours is not already supported)
  
• Fixed glitched 'name in the game’ Kickstarter backer rewards
  
• Fixed collision issues around the staircase and preventing players from getting into the first floor rear rooms in damaged enterable house
  
• Fixed missing objective capture dialog line for the German team.
  
• Removed flags from server browser
  
• Added developer message area to main menu & beneath scoreboard for breaking news/events
  
• Added localisation for new afk notifications
  
• Updated server browser to hide obsolete server versions. Recently outdated servers will continue to show
  
• Fixed disconnecting players from being returned to an outdated server browser
  
• Optimised scoreboard to reduce performance impact on opening
  
• Added “network error” popup when connection fails due to a network issue
  
• Increased confirmation time when changing settings from 15 seconds to 30 seconds
  
• Fixed game start countdown displaying “waiting for 63 players” briefly at the start of rounds
  
• Updated layout of settings menu to reduce confusion on location of toggle settings
  
• Fixed an issue where the scoreboard was not instantly updated when a player disconnected
  

Balancing:

• Fixed hits to arms not causing enough damage
  
• MG34 bullet spread reduced by 20%
  
• MG34 ‘draw speed’ reduced by 20%
  
• Bren Mk.II bullet spread reduced by 20%
  
• Bren Mk.II ‘draw speed’ reduced by 20%
  

Levels: Pegasus Bridge

• Blocking off certain areas that were accessible when it shouldn't have been
  
• Fixed glitched backer-names in the level
  
• Numerous floating objects fixed
  
• Numerous terrain fixes
  
• Numerous texture fixes
  
• Numerous vegetation fixes
  
• Visual enhancements to the café-area
  

Merville Battery

• Blocking off certain areas that were accessible when it shouldn't have been
  
• Removed invisible wall in the field on the attackers right flank when assaulting the Chateau objective
  
• Fixed glitched backer-names in the level
  
• Numerous floating objects fixed
  
• Numerous terrain fixes
  
• Numerous texture fixes
  
• Numerous vegetation fixes
  
• Scaled enterable house with blown-out piece so player may pass
  
• Visual enhancements to the Merville and Town-area
  

Lion-sur-Mer

• Blocking off certain areas that were admissible when it shouldn't have been
  
• Fixed wrong Tobruk model near beachside
  
• Fixed glitched backer-names in the level
  
• Numerous floating objects fixed
  
• Numerous terrain fixes
  
• Numerous texture fixes
  
• Numerous vegetation fixes
  
• Scaled enterable house with blown-out piece so player may pass
  
• Visual enhancements to the surrounding areas along the borders and main play area towards third phase
  

This past weekend saw the launch of Vanguard: Normandy 1944 onto Early Access. There were some close games, some tight rounds, and a lot of thoughtful discussions. We’ve really enjoyed watching people playing and discussing the game so far, and we are very pleased to have made it to this stage! We’ve read hundreds of comments and suggestions and, even if we haven’t replied to each one, we are taking them all on board.

Image taken by user BALLZ from #screenshots-and-clips channel on our official Discord

You may have noticed from playing that the Early Access release is a little rough around the edges, with some features missing and some nasty bugs present. We’re using this process to develop on the foundations that we have now based on feedback from the community and players. It is very much a community focused process, so please do let us know what you think the game needs and what you’d like to see.



Right now we are focused on bugfixing. We noticed a lot of issues over the weekend which frustratingly could only be caught by launching the game. Some have already been patched, and some need a little more investigation. The server-related issues right now are a priority, including server-side lighting errors and players getting returned to the menu mid-round. We want to encourage greater teamplay, the start of which requires making it easier to play with your friends. We’re also working on ways of scaling Raid to different player counts, creating a new dynamic in how the game plays. Below is a quick snapshot of what we are immediately focused on which we plan to include in the next patch.

• Manual team selection – To allow players to play on the same team as their friends / clanmates
  
• Player orientation – Adding spawn location hint markers for the defenders to have an idea where the enemies are originating from.
  
• Weapon tweaks – Balancing and speed adjustments to the MGs.
  
• Custom keybinding support
  
• Raid scalability – making the gamemode more fun while waiting for more players to join
  
• Map tweaks – Removal of some invisible walls and trap spots that have been reported.
  
• Audio tweaks – Fix for missing capture notification line on the defending team
  

There are other small changes we have made and are continuing to add in. We’ll release patch notes of each update so you can see what is included. We have additional content planned as well, but want to polish the current player experience first.


Join us next weekend when many community members and developers will be playing the game! Keep an eye on the website, Discord and our social media sites for timings which will be confirmed this Wednesday.



Join us next weekend when many community members and developers will be playing the game! Keep an eye on the website, Discord and our social media sites for timings which will be confirmed this Wednesday.


We currently support 6 languages in game but are keen to get as many more implemented as possible!

If we haven’t localised the game into your language yet and you are interested in helping out with the translations, please get in touch via Discord!


We’ve loved seeing in-game screenshots from our players over this weekend, and we’d like to turn it into a regular feature!

Starting tomorrow we’ll be posting our favourite screenshot onto social media – with player credit of course! Keep the screenshots coming by uploading here in the Steam Group or posting to our Screenshots and Clips channel in our Discord server.