Hello, soldiers of UW(U)!
Thanks to your support, our Kickstarter campaign has been funded and we're excited to work on UW as planned.
Until recently, a part of our team has been working on patching the current v0.6.x Steam demo, while the rest has been planning and working on v0.7. After the v0.6.3 release, we'll be mostly focusing on v0.7 and beyond to deliver the next big feature updates to you asap. Further updates to v0.6.x will be limited to only the most critical bugs. Patches for minor problems and balancing issues will have to wait for v0.7.
Early plans (that are subject to change)
So what are our plans going forward? Here is a rough overview over what we have in mind for the future of UW:
Combat
The current combat system is mostly a carryover from the early days of UW. A lot of the game surrounding it changed, and it is about time it too gets updated. We’ll discuss the finer details of what combat is going to be like its own post in the future. For now, here are some of the main goals:
Cover System
- The cover system has to be more transparent to the player - Am I in cover? Am I flanked? - How effective is it?
- Positioning units has to be more intuitive - No more pixel hunting - Managing multiple units at once shouldn’t require micromanaging every unit
- There should be multiple types of cover - e.g. bushes hiding the player, but not providing protection
Enemy AI
- Enemies should be smarter and less predictable - Fighting shouldn’t get boring before the game ends - UW isn’t a short game
- They should be able to use tanks effectively - Right now they just drive at you and run into each other
- Different enemy types should behave differently
Environment
- There should be more types - Not just visual, but also affecting gameplay
- Combat environment should feel less static - Tanks running over trees - Setting foliage on fire (yes, there will be flamethrowers)
- There should be varying weather - Add variety even on the same type of map - Affect combat in big ways
Other Aspects
These are still in very early stage of planning. Please take these with a grain of salt. As we move forward with development, we’ll gradually refine these. Once their designs are sufficiently developed, they’ll get their own dedicated posts.
Character Progression/Class System
The character progression and class system needs to be worked on. The 0.6 one was merely a placeholder and felt tacked on. The primary design goal is to make choices more meaningful.
- Characters should become hyper-specialized - No class can do everything - No character is good at everything - The longer you play, the more your characters diverge from one another
- There should be more choices - Improve replay value
- Players should have to commit to their choices - No more switching classes or abilities to fit the situation - Can’t have everything at once - Make choices more meaningful
- (Maybe everything should be a sidegrade?) - Everything would come at a cost - Not sure about that one yet
Questing/Random Events
The main goal of revamping the events and quests is to give you more things to do besides the main story line.
- There should be more variety - Longer, with multiple-objectives - Quests within quests - More types of rewards & penalties
- You should be able to accept and work on multiple quests at once - Switching from the UI
- There should be side quests you can pick and choose - e.g. blackboard in towns
Misc
Besides all the aforementioned part of the game, there are also others that deserve some love.
- New UI - More intuitive - Support all aspect ratios from 5:4 to 32:9
- Upgrade 3D character models - Add cute
- Replace item code - Item management and stores are full of bugs right now
Progress on character models
We've been improving the visuals of UW gradually since the beginning, but this is probably the biggest upgrade in character models.
We are moving away from the chibi (big head & small body) style we've had up until now in favor of more realistic body proportions.
Our 3D artist SquareAnon has been working on researching and developing this style. We're very pleased with the result and excited to work the new upgraded characters into UW.
When?
In short: We don’t know yet.
The long version is that we’re going to have internal discussions regarding the release schedule very soon. We would prefer to roll out fewer, incremental updates as opposed to disappearing for months and releasing a huge update (like we did with 0.6).
We’ll let you know as soon as they're decided.
Thank you for being such an awesome community. Your ideas, feedback and bug reports are more helpful than you know. Please continue to tell us all about them and ask any questions you might have!
Sincerely,
The Unconventional Warfare Development Team