RTS Broken Arrow - Modern USA vs Russia RTT

[Taka-Haradin puolipeikko]

https://store.steampowered.com/news/app/1604270/view/6572504739693261049

Last chance to get in the closed beta
We're offering you one last chance to opt in for the closed beta before we wrap it up.
Back on November 16 we started our closed beta for Broken Arrow and it's been a real ride so far.

Many thousands of testers have tried the game, offering invaluable feedback and playing countless matches. As the holidays break approaches we're about to wrap it up, but not before one last big wave of invites.

Tomorrow afternoon (roughly at 4 pm GMT) on Friday 15 December, we will be sending our biggest wave of invites up to date. It is our intention to invite all those who have applied to the beta and haven't been able to get in yet.

Furthermore, if you haven't applied yet, you're still in time to do so: head to our website and fill our sign-up form, last chance to do it. When we send our wave of invitations make sure to check your e-mail inbox (and make sure to check both the Spam and Promotions folders, depending on your spam filters) and the My Page section of our website.

As usual, remember that if you are accepted in the closed beta you'll be under NDA and you won't be allowed to divulge information about the game, show it outside the private beta channels or stream it anywhere.

Server stress test

We want this weekend to see the high peak of activity on our servers and really put them to test. We ask the current testers and all the new ones who are going to be invited tomorrow to engage in multiplayer matches over the course of the weekend, from December 15 to December 17.

When we release the game we want to ensure everyone across all regions of the world has a smooth and lagless multiplayer experience, and making sure we reach that goal is the reason behind this stress test. If you can help us out and test the limits of the servers that would be great.

End of the closed beta... and a surprise for January

Next week on Wednesday 20 December we will be closing down the closed beta as both Slitherine and Steel Balalaika get a break for the holidays... but no worries, we'll be back in January with a big surprise for you.

In January we will be opening a public demo on Steam so that everyone will be able to play it as well as post content online and stream the game!

 

[Ol' Willy]

I think OOB does that to make it harder to build up 'doom stacks' (even though there is no stacking), its super expensive to buy back your very experienced high level units, I think they are trying to stop the rollover effect the longer campaigns can have where you just build up all 5 star units across the board by the 1st third of the game. If they slow experience point gains down too much then buying new units and losing units is too punishing and creates a scenario where losing any experienced unit can't be tolerated. So instead they made it very expensive to transfer experienced units, especially the expensive units like heavy artillery and tanks which cost a ton to transfer over. I think they are trying to force you to have to mix in some more green units etc..I understand why they did it, but yes its impossible to ever really afford your entire experienced army in carryover. At least I have never been able to do it..I have a bunch of units in every category I think I have never bought back.

Especially as this balance problem was already solved in PG3. You are just given the limited number of new equipment. Let's say 1942, you now can add Tiger to your force, but the game gives you just 1 Tiger unit. If you lose it, basta, no replacement until game rolls some more Tigers to roster - and then still, no more than 1 or 2 units.

And of course, no problem of 5 starts units as the entire experience system was remade, no longer exp adds points to your stats

 

[Parsimonious cook]

Ayo, yo, yo, yo what up niggers? Dropping in to tell you that there is a free MP beta happening right now. Technical side of things aint perfect, as I basically have to restart the game after every MP match, but the game itself is p. gud. Both US and rusniggerians are p. well balanced in the game (lol) and I find the game to be very enjoyable, though the devs better get it in proper working order before release.

Go give it a try!

 

[fizzelopeguss]

Just playing through the demo mission. Feels a bit arcadey so far which was my issue with regiments.

 

[Hace El Oso]

Just playing through the demo mission. Feels a bit arcadey so far which was my issue with regiments.

I looked up some gameplay out of curiosity and got the same impression. E.g. Troops and vehicles can suffer direct hits from ballistic missiles and just lose some health bar. Without a deeper simulation of damage it’ll be regiments all over again.

 

[Raghar]

I watched stream, and the game feels horribly dated. Where are MLRS deployed mines, where are hordes of drones, where are lancets flying from off-map positions?

 

[Parsimonious cook]

Yo, what up nigguhz. The new MP playtest is available on Steam.

EDIT: LMAO, looks like a major drama is cooking here. The Steam forum is full of threads about how it is not possible to connect to lobbies (I myself wasnt able to connect to a single lobby so far either). The net code was p. horrible even last time around, but it wasnt THIS bad. Like srsly WTF man?

 

[Raghar]

Yo, what up nigguhz. The new MP playtest is available on Steam.

EDIT: LMAO, looks like a major drama is cooking here. The Steam forum is full of threads about how it is not possible to connect to lobbies (I myself wasnt able to connect to a single lobby so far either). The net code was p. horrible even last time around, but it wasnt THIS bad. Like srsly WTF man?

You are from banned country. C'mon. You can't expect to connect to MP.

 

[Hydro]

How’s it different from say Warno?

 

[mondblut]

I thought pitting spearmen against stealth bombers went ouf of vogue after Civilization 2?

 

[Lagole Gon]

So how does it work?
Does it simulate russian army running out of fuel during early game?
Can you unlock T-34 after some time?

 

[Parsimonious cook]

Its a smaller scale Warno with modern or in case of rusniggeria sci-fi units (ie rusniggers have stuff like Armata, Barbaris, Terminator, Kurganets or Su-57 as standard issue vehicles/aircraft that actually work). The gameplay is p. decent, the problem is that the technical side is completely atrocious and right now the game paradoxically seems to be in worse technical state than it was in the previous playtest. If the devs ever get the basic functionalities like actually being able to connect to servers or exit the game without having to kill it through the task manager to work it might be p. gud.

 

[Parsimonious cook]

Alright, so the devs managed to fix their servers and it is actually possible to play MP matches now (mind you this is day 2 of the MP beta). There are still performance issues (game stutters a lot even on my high end machine, there are lots of people complaining about this), but I managed to play a few games.

The game itself is p. solid and takes the Warno/Wargame formula in some new directions due to the modern day setting. There are cruise missile vs air defence duels of the sort that is seen in Ukraine (AA needs to have radar turned on/off like in Warno, since there are lots of SEAD threats on both sides), there are drones, but only the large recon ones, painting targets with lasers is a huge mechanic (recon/SF and some other specialised units can paint targets, arty and aircraft have laser guided munitions) and I had plenty of fun sneaking with recon teams behind enemy lines to mark anemy high value targets for Excallibur/Krasnopol attacks.

Rusniggers have tactical nukes (US doesnt have them so far for some reason) and I just got nuked twice in the last game I played - nukes give huge damage in relatively small area and create a zone where infantry gets damage over time (ie radiation) for a short duration. They can be used to initiate breakthroughs, though they arent really that OP (in the last game the other team dropped two nukes on my sector which allowed them to get several tanks through the lines, but the rest of my team was able to shift pretty fast and we stopped the breakthrough without too much trouble), I guess I am OK with them.

5vs5 is the biggest format (compare to 10vs10 in Warno/Steel Division), the maps are p. large and allow for all sorts of fun shenanigans with outflanking/inflitrating. Air combat is much more detailed than in Warno (you have much more control over the aircraft, you can have them strafe ground, use laser markers, countermeassures etc).

In general, I like what I see - the problem is that the devs dont seem to be able to do the basic technical stuff too well, which might fuck this game over real bad on release. If they can make it run decently though, I can see this competing with Warno p. successfuly, the modern setting and units are cool and I bet this can draw in considerable audience.

 

[Luka-boy]

Rusniggers have tactical nukes (US doesnt have them so far for some reason)

The B-1B Lancer has a tactical nuke as a loadout option.

Anyway, this game really tickles my fancy. I was looking for a slightly smaller scale game set in the modern day and this is exactly it.

 

[Stavrophore]

Broken Arrow won't be a competitor to WARNO as they feature different level of simulation and complexity - with units having more pronounces healthbar mechanic, creating absurd scenarios like T-72 firing at AAVP and taking 40% health...but i think Broken Arrow will achieve bigger commercial success - it's faster paced, giving more feel of hectic combat, the push and pull mechanic due to unit respawn is more interesting that the "pop a mole" or chicken out games in WARNO where sometimes theres a prolonged stalemate, and then the game gets more boring and worse as you lose most of important units and just throw garbage. No one predicted that let say HOI4 would achieve such success and MP popularity, i think Broken Arrow could also create recipe for MP success. WARNO is truly micro intensive, this one actually look like it have more strategic approach rather than the quality of small scale positioning that is important in WARNO, a small mislick mean unit either has camo and cover in thin treeline and huge bonus or not - or stuff like zooming in to make sure you rotated your tank in proper way toward enemy.

 

[Parsimonious cook]

I would say that amount of micro required in Broken Arrow is in fact much higher than in WARNO, especially when it comes to managing AA units. You have actual cooldowns for shutting down radars, there are many more threats to AA than in Warno (not just SEAD planes, but also widely available cruise and balistic missiles that can be launched from various platforms) - all this means that if you leave any AA missile unit with a radar turned on without constantly paying attention to it, it likely wont be there in a minute or two. WARNO has 10 vs 10 games in which you can have people playing mostly AA and arty, so its even easier to handle this stuff, in BA everyone has to multitask due to smaller team size. Same thing with aircraft, the controls are much more complex than in WARNO as well.

In any case, I would say that BA indeed is going to do very well, though in large part due to the modern day setting alone - you simply dont have a game like this with up to date units and I think people had it with the 1980s stuff that has been done all the time ever since Wargame started this genre. The only question is if the devs can optimize the game to the point where the technical issues wont be the main topic of discussion about it.

 

[Parsimonious cook]

Hopefully the SP campaign will turn out decent as well.

 

[karoliner]