Thank you all for taking part in the second Squad Q&A where you, the players, get to ask the people who made Squad all about the game! This continues to be an experiment, so we may tweak things as we go forwards, but we’re delighted with the continued high quality of questions that we received.
As with last time we received more great questions than we could answer. Originally we said we would be answering ten (10) questions, but later we increased that to nineteen (19) to try to accommodate as many as we could. We’re also grateful that everyone who asked a question did so in the spirit of building a constructive dialogue.
If your question was not answered feel free to ask it again next time.
Thank you all for your participation, and without further preamble here are your questions and our answers!
Gameplay
- Question: Did changes to the capture speed have the intended effect on gameplay you expected?
- Asked By: joinsquadqa (note: this is a self-chosen user name not a member of the Squad team)
Yes. Our intent was to encourage teamwork within and between squads by incentivizing capturing points en masse, and to give squads a reason to stick together when back capping on initial rollout. It also improved pacing encouraging more deliberate movement from flag to flag. The changes provided more strategic options on rollout.
We started with conservative values and will ramp up with more aggressive values, which discourage rushing flags by increasing the chances of encountering a full squad on the point, rather than a lone enemy on back-cap duty along with addition of UI to help players understand. The design team will continue to monitor how squads react after the release of the next update.
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- Question: Adding factions maps, weapons and vics are cool, but they don’t change the meta of the game much. Do you guys plan anything that will “change the meta”? I heard some time ago that there was plans to add army layers, players would be able to chose tank div, armored div, infantry div, etc, at the start of the match, that really got me excited, this would change the meta and bring a lot of replayability to the game, but I never heard about it again, is this out of the plan now?
- Asked By: Kadeshi
We’re going to answer this in three parts – Meta, Variety / Replayability, and the Generic Layers / Units system.
- Meta: Changes here are ongoing. For example in v2.15 we have made Fortified FOBs more viable thanks to being resistant to artillery, having more viable firing positions, new deployables, and offering a better payoff in relation to time spent to build and supply the FOB. The goal is to make it more viable and enjoyable to dig in and defend.
- Future Plans: We are looking at addressing HAB spam / Spawn Meta, Mortar / Artillery spam, tuning the pacing, vehicle transportation incentive, and overall vehicle gameplay and balance improvements.
- Variety/Replayability: We have been increasing our rate of releases and are aiming to continue that with new content on a more regular schedule. This will include vehicles, emplacements, CO abilities, and eventually factions and maps.
- Generic Layers: We agree, this would add a tremendous amount of replayability. For the time being we are focused on Quality Of Life, new content, Amphibious, meta improvements, and bug fixes.
It’s also important to remember that we’re working on adding Amphibious vehicles with the US Marines. This will add a whole new dynamic to our existing maps and a new kind of tactical asymmetry amoung the factions. It also has the potential to revitalize old features which have fallen out of favour in the meta like building creative defensive FOBs as well as more layers using the new and improved RAAS formula first introduced on limited layers in v2.12, which makes flag layouts less predictable.
Development
- Question: As far as I am aware you guys are still using UE4.23, is there any plans to update to maybe 4.27 or 5.0 to improve the production pipeline and take use of all the new features. I know that an engine upgrade would bring bugs an issues but it might be worth it.
- Asked By: Dogzillart
It is something we are considering, but we have no announcements to make right now.
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- Question: What’s something you (the team as a whole or whoever is answering as an individual) are especially proud of?
- Asked By: Valmacka
There are definitely a lot of things that we’re proud of with Squad, particularly since for many of the team it’s our first game! While each member of the team would likely have a different answer, what we’re most proud of as a team is having made a game that so many players have enjoyed for hundreds and even thousands of hours. A game that brings together people from all around the world, with diverse backgrounds to communicate and coordinate for success. We’re proud of the amazing community that has grown up around the game, and the hours of fun that you all have had.
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- Question: When can we get official stat tracking for players (like pubg etc)?
- Asked By: max dee
It is a feature that we have discussed internally and feel that there is a place for it. However, it is not a priority for 2022.
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- Question: Some of us have been waiting for an updated After Action Report since before V1.0 launched, hoping this feature that guides how players come to understand how well they performed and helped their team win would be seen as critical towards shaping the good behavior of players in this game. fuzzhead listed this on your Trello on 8/20/2020, is it still being worked on?
- Asked By: joinsquadqa
As of now, there are no plans to work on it in 2022. It is a feature we want to develop in the future.
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- Question: Will the tutorial ever be updated and corrected? Currently, it has incorrect or misleading information in it and doesn’t cover some critical game mechanics every player should know at the very basic level.
- Asked By: joinsquadqa
As we have previously acknowledged the entire onboarding process is something that we want to review and look into improving. This is both to take some of the burden off of experienced players, as well as better introduce new players into the game. Adjustments in this area will improve the play experience for everyone. We currently do not have anything beyond that to share at this time, or likely in the near term future as our focus remains on delivering previously promised content and updates.
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- Question: Will Insurgency mode be worked on?
- Asked By: justachap
This is a goal for us, but is not slated to be worked on in 2022.
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- Question: Any plans for a DLC or some way in which current players could contribute to the further development of the game?
- Asked By: thebiglez
We have no current plans to bring in paid DLC to Squad. We have a lot of stuff in the backlog that we have already promised that we’re focused on first before we begin to think about what’s next for the game.
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- Question: I understand that you guys had a hard time with the engine, and 2021 was the year of fixing, but I gotta repeat the question, do you guys plan to go back on adding more content soon?
- Asked By: Kadeshi
Absolutely! In fact we are approaching the release of the Australian faction and will be holding a Public Playtest for them on Sunday April 3rd. That playtest brings one step closer to releasing them in the near future. Likely the next major content release after that will be the US Marine Corp. We hope to continue doing smaller updates and releases prior to that as well.
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- Question: Tencent (chinese video games company) has invested into Offworld Industries and so by extension to Squad. Chinese video games companies have a different vision about games and censorship (more cosmetic-oriented, live service and censorship…). Does the Squad development take a shift from now to accommodate some of these ideas? What will change from before regarding the future development of Squad? Will Tencent be directly involved in the development of the game?
- Asked By: Alexi-Blade
Tencent has invested in Offworld Industries. While like all major investors they will have a voice in the studio’s operations there are currently no plans to adjust Squad and how it’s developed based on their investment.
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- Question: Paraphrased: How will the new CEO change how Squad is developed, while ensuring it continues to grow?
- Asked By: Kadeshi
Our new CEO Vlad Ceraldi brings a great deal of experience to the studio and will be important in improving the team’s processes and workflow. While he will certainly be involved in future decisions around the direction of the game, the goal remains to make the best game possible and to ensure we’re releasing great updates for our players.
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- Question: How do we report bugs to OWI so they get recognized?
- Asked By: joinsquadqa
Bugs can be reported to us via our Support Team! All you need to do is open a ticket in our Support Portal and provide as many details as you can. This allows the team to reach out to you for additional information, as well as best track it – as opposed to in other channels such as Twitter. The Support Portal is here: https://offworldindustries.zendesk.com/hc/en-us
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- Question: Will Tencent’s investment on OWI impact creative freedom on Squad? Can we still expect to see the pan-asia faction released as originally planned?
- Asked By: oilpeanut
There are no changes to our plans for the Pan-Asian faction and it is still in the works.
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- Question: Any thoughts on continuing to use real, modern armies and real places and real assets? Any concerns about backlash similar to what happened to the Six Days in Fallujah game?
- Asked By: joinsquadqa
We don’t want to speak to other games and their controversies so we can only discuss Squad and our approach to it. We believe that we have a responsibility to be sensitive around real world events, particularly since those too often deal with tragedies and the loss of life by both soldiers and non-combatants. Our goal is to give players access to realistic militaries and armaments while not being based on any real world conflict.
Community
- Question: What are your plans around keeping the community involved with, and excited about, the game? Games like Post Scriptum, Hell Let Loose, and Operation: Harsh Doorstep tease features, additions, layers/maps, etc. with screenshots and, at times, videos. There’s a LOT in the works with Squad, and I think the community as a whole would benefit from these previews, not just those eligible to participate in closed play tests.
- Asked By: St-HasBeen
We are currently planning to have open playtests with our next content release, which will be the Australian faction. These playtests will, like those for v2.12, be open to all players in the community. We hope to continue with that moving forward so all major releases have at least a preview / final test with the broader community beyond our Closed Playtest Group. To that end the Australian faction will be part of an open playtest on Sunday April 3rd in preparation for its release.
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- Question: What do you wish to see more out of your community?
- Asked By: Helidof
The Squad community is excellent and already has contributed so much to the success of the game. From the players in the Community Playtest Group who are testing new aspects to the game week-in and week-out, to the modders who make excellent content for players, our Server Owners and admins who run individual Squad communities that ensure everyone gets the play, to individual players who make playing the game alongside them enjoyable. You’re all already doing so much that it’s hard to ask for anything more!
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- Question: I donated to the Kickstarter back in 2015, I bought a Squad Leader package. In the contents of it, it stated that a founder tag would be available in the forums. Is this still a thing?
- Asked By: AggFather
We are working on an overhaul of our website and forums, and are looking into this. We have nothing to announce at this point however.
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- Question: We have seen a lot of positive progress concerning the way you talk more to the community, do more small patch notes and announcements. Will you continue this way? Are you satisfied with the way things are going now? Are there any other things you would like to do in addition to this that you haven’t had the time or resources to do yet?
- Asked By: Alexi_Blade
The plan is to continue to grow our interactions with the community, though we agree that we’ve been taking steps to improve them in recent months. We’ll continue with what works, and when things don’t work if they can’t be adjusted we’ll try something else. We are still looking for a Squad Community Manager which is an important part of the team and will allow us to tackle a few areas that we know have been lacking such as our work with content creators and Squad Partners, as well as our internal streaming efforts.
Offworld out.
