Hey everyone,
Patch 14.4 will be going live today, and will begin rolling out across console and PC from 2pm BST!
Please read on to find the changelog for today’s patch.
Hell Let Loose At TwitchCon Vegas
October 20th - 22nd
We’ll be over at TwitchCon Vegas this weekend, where you’ll be able to head on over and play Hell Let Loose as part of a 100-player LAN, plus, we’ll be on the front page of Twitch from 5pm PDT - we hope to see you on the frontlines!
Public Testing Feedback
We want to continue to make sure that it is your feedback that helps to guide development, and in order for that to remain the case, we’re going to be looking at re-evaluating when we hold PTE sessions so that we can better populate games for you to fully try out the latest fixes and new content.
This means that future public testing sessions will no longer be held on the weekend, and instead be condensed into a shorter time frame to encourage more 100-player lobbies.
Thank you to everyone who did join the PTE and provided feedback - we’ve taken a look at your responses, and have been able to make some adjustments prior to release. However, in order to get this patch out to you this month, we haven’t been able to address all feedback from the session at this stage - but it has prompted a much larger conversation around accessibility in Hell Let Loose.
Accessibility Conversations
Head-Bobbing
We mentioned in our last developer briefing that dive to prone had been reworked, and as part of that, had worked on camera improvements to prevent camera limitations as the dive ended - which were present with the initial dive to prone implementation.
As part of that work, the system that controls head-bobbing was also rewritten to be more versatile and allow for smoother transitions between profiles, while increasing visual quality.
By reworking this code, it has also made head-bobbing more noticeable to those who are sensitive to motion. Thanks to feedback from the PTE session, we have now made tweaks to this system to reduce the level of motion. While some players will be pleased to see head-bobbing working, we also want to make sure we’re supporting as many players as possible - and so will begin scoping what is possible in terms of improving accessibility settings.
Dive to Prone
Now that this functionality has tuneable parameters, we have been able to tweak these to address your previous feedback. Your responses from the PTE showed that over half of those who submitted feedback agreed that dive to prone now feels more realistic, that players were no longer able to dolphin dive, and the slide distance now feels ‘just right.’
Nvidia Filters
As many of you have pointed out, some players will use Nvidia filters to avoid being at a disadvantage on the purposefully-designed night modes. While these filters can be customised to provide more of a competitive edge, it can also deter players who do want to experience the maps as intended.
We’ve heard your feedback around this, and will begin the process of reaching out to Nvidia to understand how these filters can be disabled while playing Hell Let Loose - evening the playing field and allowing new strategies and ways of playing to form.
Ultrawide FOV Settings
While Hell Let Loose now officially supports ultrawide monitors, we understand that some players with particularly large monitors are now experiencing discomfort while playing due to the change in FOV - including for those who are visually impaired.
We will be looking to extend the FOV slider in video settings so that players are able to adjust the settings for improved accessibility, after Patch 14.4.
Vaulting & Mantling Improvements
Locomotion changes continue to equally divide opinion! From the feedback provided during the public testing session earlier this month, some players were pleased to see improvements to the responsiveness of vaulting and mantling, however, some felt the slightly more automated movement to feel restrictive.
For this initial improvement, we wanted to focus on consistency: making sure vaulting and mantling work consistently, work in a way that’s consistent across different obstacles, and work in a way that’s consistent with our tuning values so that we’re able to reliably control and tune these mechanics and know that the values we’re setting will correctly correspond to what we see in-game. - James, Gameplay Programmer
As part of that work, and to maintain that consistency so you’re not getting stuck unable to complete an action, players will no longer be able to vault up onto an obstacle.
The short hop players see in-game actually had no specific animation, instead playing the regular vault animation while teleporting a player’s character to where it needed to be.
In Patch 14.4, vaulting will now consistently mean vaulting over something, and mantling will consistently mean climbing up onto something - values that are determined by a few factors, including:
The player will vault an obstacle if -
- The obstacle ‘thickness’ (i.e., the distance from its near edge to its far edge in the direction of the vault) is less than 50cm
- There is a suitable landing position for the vault (i.e., a player-sized space to land on the other side of the obstacle that’s at the same height the vault started from or lower.
If these values aren’t met, the player’s character will otherwise climb the obstacle.
You’ll consistently vault over anything you can vault over and climb anything you can’t - and it’s now much more obvious which will happen before you actually do it. This should all improve consistency, reliability, and quality of the actions. - James, Gameplay Programmer
Patch 14.4 Changelog
Night Map Variants
[Added] Carentan Night Map
[Added] Sainte-Mère-Église Night Map
Player Locomotion
[Added] Dive to prone feature improved and re-implemented
[Improved] Vaulting
[Improved] Mantling
General Bug Fixes
[Fix Submitted] Player deploys with incorrect loadout and cannot switch
Lovingly known by all as the ‘loadout bug’, we believe our fix to be holding strong, and may finally have eradicated this particular bug. Like many fixes, we won’t know whether it has successfully prevented all instances of the loadout bug until it hits the live game - so we’ll be keeping a close eye on your feedback as you get hands on with Patch 14.4, so make sure to use the support link to report any issues.
[Fixed] Throwing last grenade will replay 'Equip grenade' animation after throwing
A last remanent of the grenade bug - animation support has been carried out to resolve an issue whereby the animation of equipping a grenade would briefly play while throwing the last grenade in your loadout, this has now been fixed.
[Fixed] Texture binding present on vehicle explosion VFX
[Fixed] When all gamemodes matches comes to an end the game will hang for an additional 9 seconds before showing results screen
[Fixed] Kar98 reload is partly missing on PS5 pad speaker
[Fixed] Weapons can be fired without any input after quick switching to a grenade.
[Fixed] [Additional Content Hub] The user cannot rotate the character using a controller on either PC or console
[Fixed] Player model has metal decals when shot
[Fixed] Voice communications don't work as VOIP is unable to reconnect.
[Fixed] Flamethrower emits excessive lens flares when firing on night maps
New Cosmetic DLC
[Added] [Xbox] [PC] Luftwaffe Eagles
This DLC is on it’s way to PlayStation 5 players, however, it will unfortunately not be available with the initial release of Patch 14.4. PlayStation players may notice a space for this DLC in the Additional Content hub, however, will not be able to purchase it just yet. We’ll let you know as soon as it becomes available!
Luftwaffe Eagles
As part of the German Luftwaffe forces, the Fallschirmjäger were the first paratroopers to feature in large-scale airborne based operations. The Fallschirmjäger were also known as the ‘Green Devils’ thanks to their forceful fighting spirit and tactical superiority. However, following the causalities in the Battle of Crete, they were mainly used as ground-based troops.
https://store.steampowered.com/app/2623000/Hell_Let_Loose__Luftwaffe_Eagles/
This downloadable content contains:
Fallschirmjäger Uniform (Available to the German Assault, Anti-Tank, Medic, Machine Gunner, Officer, Rifleman, Automatic Rifleman, Engineer and Support roles).
Map Optimisations
With each patch, we’re striving to continue improving your experience with the existing maps, including by increasing stability through various map optimisations, such as LOD fixes and collision issues.
Some assets can be too dense in triangle complexity, meaning that the LODs set up for them are not switching effectively enough to keep the triangle complexity compared to the screen size optimal.
Mesh LOD optimisation involves ensuring that assets not only LOD in a manner that is not noticeable by the player, but are also crucial to ensuring that we minimise overdraw on complex meshes. Any amount of overdraw from complex meshes contributes to a strain on the GPU, which can affect performance and stability.
While these optimisations require time and manual attention, we are also working on capturing some of your reported issues - including LOD changes and invisible collision. You will hopefully see some improvements with each and every patch.
Foy
[Fixed] Wooden gate asset has no bullet penetration
[Fixed] [D1] A specific fence post is missing bullet and player collision
[Fixed] [D5] The player is unable to shoot through the wooden plank gaps with the tank
Utah
[Fixed] [G7] A bush at sector G7 exhibits a visible LOD change when viewed from a short distance
Remagen
[Fixed] The wooden stairs and floor of a specific building do not have bullet penetration
[Fixed] [F4] Small gap in rock cliff
Carentan
[Fixed] [B4] Misaligned wheat crops that float sideways
Hurtgen
[Fixed] Flames PFX are missing on some charred tree stumps
Sainte-Marie-du-Mont
[Fixed] Assets inside a barn have stone PFX and SFX
[Fixed] [D6] A fence presents draw distance issues from ~53m
[Fixed] [F2] A stone wall is misaligned with the ground
[Fixed] [H8] The player can get permanently stuck in a tree in the top left quadrant of H8 sector in SMDM village
Kursk
[Fixed] Two of the forward Garrisons are incorrectly placed and will be destroyed after the Attackers capture the 1st sector
[Fixed] Performance drops while looking at a heavy smoke through the binoculars