Hey Squaddies,
As always, thanks for jumping into Squad and for everything you bring to this community. It's what makes working on this game so rewarding, even when the topic at hand is a contentious one like weapon suppression.
Suppression has been a recurring point of feedback for a while, and has sparked some good debate, both among players and within the design team. Any changes we make will change how the moment-to-moment combat feels and affect how players communicate and coordinate during a match. We didn't want to rush this, so we ran several internal playtests and then invited groups of players to share their reactions. Based on their feedback, we iterated and playtested again and iterated some more until both the design team and our playtesters felt suppression was in a better place.
We're not calling this "done" in the sense that we'll never touch it again. We'll keep iterating as needed, the same way we always have. But we're excited to finally get this into your hands, because we believe it's a real improvement, and we want to hear what all of you think.
Overall Design Goals
We set out to rework suppression to address the pain points raised by players, make being suppressed feel more fair. We also worked to re-balance the system to work better with the refined gunplay introduced in v10.4, while ensuring suppression continues to support Squad’s combat pillars. In Update 10.5.2 which is coming tomorrow you will see these new changes to suppression.
Gameplay Effects:
The following changes should make suppression a less dominant factor in close-quarters combat, while keeping it effective at range when it's used with intent and coordination.
Faster suppression decay - If you're not actively being shot at, you should feel like you’re spending less time being suppressed.
Smaller suppression radius, smarter triggering - The logic around what actually counts as a suppressing shot has been tightened up. Errant rounds that weren't really a threat to you shouldn't suppress you anymore.
Suppression re-balanced by weapon type - A lone rifleman now isn’t very effective at suppressing on their own, but a fireteam working together can still be very effective. Also, squads will rely more on machine guns and automatic rifles to pin down the enemy, giving these roles a more defined niche.
How Suppression Actually Works Now:
Instead of debuffing your ability to gather information about the fight around you, suppression now primarily affects your ability to shoot back with accuracy. It's meant to feel like pressure on your aim in the moment, not a fog over your senses.
New suppression effects - The old fullscreen blur has been replaced with a vignette effect that gives you tunnel vision and clear gameplay feedback without obscuring the center of the screen or degrading the game's visual quality. Explosives also get their own distinct visual treatment when suppressing.
Some added weapon sway - While you're suppressed, sway will be a bit more noticeable.
Hold breath ineffective while suppressed - Hold breath can no longer be used to cancel out sway while you are suppressed, but to balance things out, we've made Focus Zoom usable indefinitely while aiming down sights. Hold Breath will still time out eventually, but you will remain zoomed for as long as you hold the input.
Supersonic crack and snap audio - Bullet snap and crack sound effects have been updated to provide audio feedback when a shot is close enough to apply suppression and to elevate the intensity of the combat experience.
Added some new depth by optimizing certain weapons for either area suppression or point suppression - These weapons should now feel closer to their real-life roles and tactics:
MGs and heavy weapons - Now have a wider suppression radius, letting them saturate large areas more effectively than before.
Marksman rifles, sniper rifles, battle rifles, and light support weapons (like the RPK) - Now deal exponentially more suppression on near misses. This change expands their battlefield role by enabling them to serve as effective point-suppression weapons.
We think this version of suppression is less punishing and rewards squads for good coordination and teamwork. It also adds a bit more depth to some weapons and roles. However, we are always interested in hearing what you think. Our goal is to continue to gather feedback and make further updates as we lead into our 10.6 Update in September.
Please continue to share your feedback.