Cover image of Dev Report #12

ATTENTION

We know that many of you are wondering when our next update will be and we wanted to advise everyone on our current status. Obviously, there are many questions regarding our upcoming 0.9.6 major update and several of you have already noticed there have been some changes to our current schedule. We'll provide more details about this, the plans for the public Release Candidate (RC) build, and some sneak peeks for the new update.

INTELLIGENCE

Our focus is entirely on preparations for the first major update 0.9.6. We've spent the last several weeks working on necessary aspects of this build, and as part of this process, you'll be happy to know that we are planning to publish the first Release Candidate build shortly. Players will be able to get an early look before the main release. The benefit of this system is it allows a buffer period to truly test the final build publicly. While our Release Candidate may change often, the RC build (configuration) is not 100% identical to the main branch and may contain long-term experimental features and content. It helps us to discover potential issues in the player base, complementary to our in-house testing by the various QA teams; allows mod teams and other custom content creators to prepare for changes and adapt their works if necessary; and, it stress tests the multiplayer environment. Be aware that this branch of the game may still contain issues that we will look to address during the RC period, there may be some compatibility issues with servers or mods, and other various limitations to using it. You can expect more instructions on how to enable this when it's distributed at a later date. As usual, your feedback will be important to securing a solid update release, and we appreciate your assistance considerably! However, we will need to adjust our update schedule to accommodate.

While we stated we planned to release bi-weekly, unfortunately, there will be no new updates until the 0.9.6 release. We apologize for this change, but we hope to get new content and fixes out to you as quickly as possible. These changes in our schedule may be disheartening, please know that we're doing so to provide the best quality experience for this release.

We've also been putting together and releasing frequent documentation examples for new and veteran players to explore the capabilities of the Enfusion engine. Our most recent example includes a lot of our scripting logic basics. We plan to continue putting more of these types of examples in the future.

OPERATIONS

After reading and analyzing some of your feedback recently, we thought we could provide some insight into what is happening regarding a few aspects of the game.

Modding

We saw users would welcome the possibility of running a dedicated server with local mods for testing purposes and we can confirm this function will be enabled soon.

Gameplay

Nowadays, it might look like we focus on the PvP gameplay elements only. The truth is we deem Arma Reforger open for any gameplay types. Our official game mode Conflict is being improved and the PvE element now takes a more significant part than before. Our target is to provide a balanced mix of PvE and PvP. This is achieved by the FIA faction not just being "cannon fodder." There's a constant fight for the resources the FIA doesn't want to give over. The first part of the overhaul comes with the upcoming releases (0.9.6 & 0.9.7). We're also working on the dynamic scenario called Combat Ops. This should bring lots of fun for both co-op and singleplayer experiences in the future. This will be coming with the Ground Support milestone.

The next update will bring a much-needed refresh of Conflict rules but also changes to visuals and features. There are new audio effects in combat, tweaked particle effects, and smoothed out animations. There are also new moves that players will be able to use. The hit registration has been tweaked, ragdolls are heavily improved, and network traffic is significantly optimized.

We've also listened to your feedback and improved tabs in the server browser for easier finding of community servers.

Multiplayer

We're aware of the low number of simultaneous players and the issues this is causing. While the state of the game has improved over the months, the count of the players hasn't been growing for a variety of reasons. We hope the forthcoming releases will break this deadlock. If you look at the Roadmap, there will be many incentives in further releases.

As a bit of another sneak peek at the 0.9.6 update: regarding AI units, they will now engage in melee if an enemy is close enough and they cannot fire their weapon. They will also respond to melee attacks! You can also look forward to new compositions for roads, in three different sizes, for both the US and Soviet factions.

LOGISTICS

We understand that waiting for the new update is long but we hope our major update will make up for the period of downtime. Thank you for understanding, and as always, for your feedback and support.

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