Commanders!
Not so long ago, we launched Mechanized Infantry in the form of a limited test release, aimed at gathering your feedback regarding this feature, which we have promised to act upon. Today, we’d like to tell you more about the testing results and the changes we are planning to implement.
First and foremost, we are happy to announce that the Mechanized Infantry feedback has been mostly positive. The addition was well-received by many of you, which confirmed our opinion that the Mechanized Infantry feature was fundamentally a good idea. It will, therefore, be introduced to Armored Warfare on permanent basis.
However, with that being said, there were some obvious issues that were brought up by many. In order to address these problems, we have decided to temporarily disable Mechanized Infantry until we correct them. It should take us two or three weeks, as some of them are not simple fixes, but also new feature additions. Let’s take a closer look at what are we going to do.
First and foremost, there’s the issue of Mortar Squad. During its deployment, this type of infantry turned out to be by far the most contested one, even though much less than, for example, the re-introduction of SPGs to PvP would have been. Indeed, it turned out that mortars were overperforming somewhat.
Additionally, their range was too high and they were able to threaten practically the entire map without the fear of being discovered. In order to remedy these issues, we will be making the following changes to the mortar troopers:
- Their range will be reduced from 750m to 500m
- The flight velocity of their shells will be reduced, giving you more time to evade incoming fire
- Whenever they acquire a new target, they will spend roughly 3 seconds aiming before taking another two seconds to load and fire (if the target disappears during this phase and a new one is acquired instead, the process will start from the beginning)
These changes will make mortars very difficult to use against mobile targets and their limited range will ensure that just dropping them off immediately after the start of a battle and leaving them at the edge of the map will no longer be an option. We are currently also considering limiting this infantry class to non-PvP modes, but that is not what we are ultimately aiming at.
Secondly, there’s the matter of our beautiful but deadly Sniper. This infantry class was neither the most popular during the test, nor was it the best performer, which is why we want to improve its utility. For starters, snipers will receive a spotting buff, allowing them to see better through and around obstacles.
But, perhaps more importantly, snipers will receive a new ability – they’ll be able to designate targets (the same way as AFVs do) once per 60 seconds for 10 seconds or so. Designated targets will be (just like with the AFV version) unable to hide behind smoke or obstacles and will always receive maximum damage.
And last but not least, there’s the Anti-Tank Squad. Of all three infantry classes, this is currently the best balanced one and is performing pretty well. It only needs some partial tweaks, which will include:
- Higher penetration values on high Tiers (Tier 7 to 10 improved to 700mm and 850mm respectively)
- Somewhat higher shell flight velocity
- Somewhat higher accuracy
There will, of course, also be improvements that apply to all three classes:
- Improved pathfinding will ensure that the troopers don’t get stuck anywhere and are able to better evade incoming vehicles trying to run them over
- We’ll fix the voiceover spam in situations when your infantry acquires different targets over a short period of time
- We’ll fix the problem of unspotted infantry appearing on minimaps
- We’ve heard your complaints about “friendly” players killing your troopers, which is why we’ll disable friendly fire against infantry
There’s also the matter of one of the most frequently asked questions – what of coaxial machineguns that would help kill infantry?
We are investigating that feature for MBTs first but, as you can imagine, it’s not an easy thing to do to make sure it works correctly for all several hundred vehicles in the game. Additionally, they are not critically needed – the testing has shown that if an infantry squad is spotted, it is very easy to destroy and does not survive for long.
As such, it turns out that this feature is not an essential one. We will attempt to introduce it but cannot currently confirm any deadline.
We hope that you will enjoy the release version of Mechanized Infantry that is coming soon along with the changes we are making. Let us know what you think on Discord and, as always:
See you on the battlefield!
