Hello!

It is Oleksandr from Starni Games with the new Dev log entry. One month has passed since the Headquarters: World War II release, and I would like to tell you more about how it went, what feedback we got, and what our team has been focusing on since the release. Additionally, I will touch on how we plan to move forward with the project.

One month has passed since the release of Headquarters: World War II and we can finally draw our first conclusions.

First of all, most players enjoy the game overall and would like to play it more - which is very important for us as developers to understand. We would not want to develop a game that nobody likes and nobody wants. So, that is a big relief to our team that the overall reception of the game is positive and we can keep working on the project.

Secondly, we acknowledge there were numerous issues in the release version of the game that were detrimental to the players’ experience and enjoyment. We already fixed some of those issues, and we are trying our best to address the remaining problems as soon as possible. This is our top priority at the moment - to make sure the game runs as smoothly as possible.

Thirdly, we received lots of feedback and suggestions from the players on Discord, the Steam community hub, and Slitherine forums. We are looking through all the feedback very carefully, and categorizing all the issues and suggested improvements to prioritize them correctly. So, do not worry if you suggest some new feature and do not see it in the next update - chances are high it is stored for later updates.

Interesting fact: so far we get more improvement suggestions than the actual crashes and bug reports. So, there are lots of things you guys want to add, change, or improve. And it may take us some time, but we keep track of every suggestion.

Lastly, we see a lot of interest among the players towards the potential new content for the game and get a lot of questions about that. We are happy to hear that you want more content and we listen to your ideas and suggestions for it.


Step 1:
For now, our top priority is fixing all the most annoying issues and gradually adding some of the most-wanted quality-of-life improvements. We keep a good pace of 1 update per week and we want to maintain it until all most pressing problems are resolved. Then we will switch to less frequent but larger updates.

AI - We have made some improvements to the AI system since the release, but we are still getting reports of AI behaving passively in some games. We further investigate this issue and will do our best to address it as soon as we can.

Multiplayer crashes - we are gradually moving towards a crash-free multiplayer experience. So far, we are not satisfied with our results, but we are looking to improve the situation very soon.

File system issues - we had some issues if the path to the system folder with save files was in non-Latin symbols, or the game was run by a Windows user who is not an Administrator, and so on. We fixed the folder names issue in the 1.00.04 Update, and a couple more fixes are coming up in the next updates.

There are many other things, of course, but I highlighted the most problematic ones.

Step 2:
Since some updates may affect the ongoing multiplayer games, if the players have different versions of the game (all updates we released so far should be compatible, so I am talking about some future updates) - we want to implement a system that would check the game version and warn the players about the need to update their game to continue playing in multiplayer. That is when we will release a bigger update that would also include some stats rebalancing and so on. At the moment we are gathering the data and feedback, but not changing unit parameters for now.

Step 3:
Introduce the roadmap for the project to communicate to you our plans for its further development and expansion. We want to be very transparent about our future plans, and we will share our plans as soon as we finish gathering and analyzing all of your feedback and adjust our plans accordingly. Your input is most critical for our decision-making following the release.

Step 4:
Start running the multiplayer tournaments. As soon as we ensure that multiplayer is stable and solid, we will start running various tournament events and we hope that you will enjoy playing in them. For now, you have the time to get a better understanding of the game and train against other players on Discord to make sure you can show your best in the competition when the time comes.

Step 5:
Work on some additional content for the game. This could be in two forms - free extra content that comes to all players who purchased the full game at no additional cost; or a paid DLC that offers even more content and helps the team to keep working on the project in the long run - as we are speaking of years of additional development here, potentially.

I know many are skeptical of paid DLCs, but I think it greatly depends on how the developers approach them. From our perspective, it helps to produce more content and features for the game in the long run, part of which will become available for everyone to enjoy completely free.

We already got a bunch of questions as to what the next DLC would be. We have some ideas, but we also want to make something that you - the player’s community - want. So, please let us know in the comments or on Steam/Slitherine forums - what future DLC of your dreams do you anticipate the most?

Ah, and one last thing - we are now looking into the possibility of adding the Steam Workshop support, so we will keep you updated on that!

Stay tuned, and see you next time!

Hello everyone!

We keep working to process all of your feedback and ideas and use this information to plan our future updates accordingly.

Here are the key changes in the 1.00.04 update:

• The Bias setting is now working as intended. (It allows you to add a modifier to all incoming prestige in Skirmish/Multiplayer for each player. For example, a Bias of 80% would mean that this player receives 20% less Prestige from both Starting Prestige and Prestige Income. While setting Bias to 140%, would mean that the player gets 40% Prestige more than other players (if they have Bias set to 100% for them)
  
• Fix an issue that caused problems when the user had non-Latin symbols in his Windows folder names. For example path to the save files folder, etc. One example would be having some key folder names in the Chinese language.
  
• On Steam Deck the UI scale is now set to 75% not only during the first game launch but at every launch.
  
• Fixed a bug that caused Tile information to sometimes show incorrect Armor and Camouflage values.
  
• Fixed numerous UI issues when using 100% scale on resolutions higher than Full HD. (We still recommend using a higher UI scale on resolutions above Full HD)
  
• Fixed bug where new units that join your army (for example scout unit in tutorial, etc) are only displayed in the unit list after you did one more action. (Now they appear in the list immediately).
  
• Fixed a bug with the AI, that caused it to not be able to use the Clear Wreck ability on the Wrecks that were set in Editor. (It could only clear the ones that appear during the game)
  
• Fixed the problem with Overwatch symbols sometimes showing incorrectly. This issue was due to a rule that units do not overwatch if they are guaranteed to do 0 damage (for example MG vs tanks). The problem was that when displaying the Overwatch area, the armor and attack angle were not always predicted correctly, so you could move a unit thinking there would be no overwatch, but because the angle changed you would get hit and receive some damage.
  
• With this update, the Overwatch icon will be displayed over a Tile even if you are expected to take 0 damage there, so some Tiles could be shown as Overwatch tiles, and then your unit would not get Overwatched if the enemy unit sees that it would deal 0 damage with all types of hits.
  
• Now after generating and exporting a new map in the Random map generator, you will be taken back to the Skirmish/Multiplayer game creation form, instead of the Main menu.
  
• Fixed a bug when the unit could in some situations be dislocated from its tile (be shown in an incorrect tile), potentially causing the game to crash.
  
• Minor localization text fixes. (Added a few missing strings)
  
• Minor UI fixes for Multiplayer screens.
  
• Fixed some environment objects behaving incorrectly when under fire in the “Marshland Clash” skirmish map.

We have a lot more fixes and improvements in the works and will keep updating the game regularly, so stay tuned for the next updates. We are also working on a bigger update that would introduce some balanced changes based on your feedback and our observations.

Please, share your feedback and thoughts with us on Discord, the Steam community hub, and Slitherine forums!

See you soon!