“Communications inbound. Ready to receive!”
Thanks Squaddies for taking part in the latest Squad Q&A, where you, the players, get to ask the developers who made Squad all about the game! We were extremely excited with the number of responses to our call for questions. We have taken the time to select ten (10) questions to answer. This will be a slightly shorter Q&A document in comparison to the last one, as we have quite a few topics we are not ready to discuss, but will in the near future!
Aiding in answering the questions are three members of our development team
- CANNON - Senior Producer - Squad
- Ceeg - Community Manager
- BaronVonBoyce - Lead Game Designer - Squad
If your question was not answered this time around please feel free to ask it again next time.
With that we want to thank all of our Squaddies for their participation. To not delay any further let's get into these questions!
Gameplay
Question: How long does OWI intend to develop Squad? UE4 is starting to show it's age, what are the plans for continued development? Will this ever be upgraded to UE5 or another engine?
Answer: There is no end in sight for Squads development, we have lots planned and we’re excited to keep the game going with new features, content and gamemodes for as long as we can. Regarding Unreal 5, we currently have a small team dedicated to looking into this shiny new tech. They are looking at what impact it will have on the current game, what improvements or setbacks we might see and how long it might take to upgrade.
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Question: Would you consider hiring a workshop mod developer contract to reach your achievements?
Answer: We are currently in contact with a few modding teams and individual modders to help us with various areas of development. This can include anything from creating new content, to helping us set up or improve existing content. Historically we have always been open to working with modding teams, and we do not see that changing!
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Question: What is an area of the game you're looking to address next, what problem with the game flow is looking to be solved, if anything?
Answer: We’re looking at addressing pain points for new players, including closing the game loop off with more detailed feedback for players. This will allow them to see how the overall team did as a whole, where ticket losses and gains were, as well as onboarding newer players more easily into the experience. We plan on working on it iteratively over the next year, with each update hopefully including something pushing us closer to this goal.
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Question: When will thermal sights and laser rangefinders be added for MBTs and IFVs?
Answer: Thermal optics are something that we would like to add in the future, however we can’t commit to timelines due to limitations with resources and technology. We would wish for a Thermal system to not only look and feel authentic, but to work realistically, rather than be a post process effect. Laser rangefinders are already present in some IFVs and all tanks.
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Question: Can we see more tutorials in the future? I'm thinking of a basic SL guide on how to make FOBs and call command strikes, basic vehicle gunnery tutorial, dedicated AT tutorial.
Answer: Yes, we plan on completely reworking our tutorial into a set of shorter tutorials that cover a wide variety of topics, beginning with the basics and moving into more advanced areas and topics. We also plan to add more tools for players to have better visibility on information that is currently hidden or considered tribal knowledge. Our goal with this is to have players be able to search for this information more easily from within the game.
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Question: Does the Dev team have plans for any kind of player progression?
Answer: We have no plans at this time for a traditional progression system, but we do plan on adding a socially-driven progression system that allows players to recognize each other for their contributions. More on this in upcoming communications!
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Question: Any plans to bring in new commander assets?
Answer: We are in the process of adding new commander assets, and in the future, we plan to completely rework the current commander system up to a higher standard, that also leans into the asymmetric design of different factions and units within those factions.
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Question: How far along the pipeline is the TOW-launcher rework
Answer: We are in the process of reworking our missile system in-game to be more authentic, as well as more flexible with the intent to enable us to add more types of missile systems in the future. We will have more to share on this topic in the coming months.
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Question: Are you going to balancing the factions with the upcoming voting system so it doesn't become too one sided
Answer: Yes, faction balancing will be an ongoing and iterative process using data points from analytics, as well as feedback and observations. We want to make sure every faction feels fun to play, and no one gets left behind with the Voting system!
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That’s all for this month's Q&A! Thank you all for your participation. While we may not host a Q&A like this every month, expect to see some other forms of communication that you are sure to enjoy. If you missed your chance to ask a question this time around, Keep a close watch on X and Facebook, where we always announce our latest rounds of Q&A and other Blog posts!