Hey everyone,
It’s been a week since the release of Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 2 and we’d like to extend a huge thanks to all of you battling in the cold space of the Gothic sector!
We’ve received countless messages from loving fans and that’s the best gift the team could have received after years of work on the game - thank you!
Since launch, we have been carefully reading and compiling your feedback and suggestions, and will continue to do so. Today, we’re happy to reveal our next patch, and announce that it is available right now, to everyone, on our new beta branch.
The patch includes new features and a massive list of bug fixes, all based on your reports on our Steam community hub and official forum. Please keep in mind this is still in a beta state, so if you run into any stray issues, please let us know in the new beta branch feedback forum so we can sort it out before the full release. We’re doing our very best to make sure this patch is ready for full release as soon as possible.
To access the next patch, please follow these steps:
- In your Steam Library, right-click on Battlefleet Gothic: Armada II and go to Properties.
- Go to the BETAS tab and select this branch: beta_nextpatch
- Confirm and click on PLAY to update your game (you might need to restart Steam to see the update).
- Once the game is updated, you have access to the beta of the next_patch of Battlefleet Gothic: Armada II.
The download itself will not be huge but it will still take a lot of time for your hard drive to copy the changes, so please be patient. You can follow your hard drive progress on the download tab on Steam.
Also as this is a beta, we always recommend you to backup all your savegames before trying out the next patch. You can find your save in the following folder: C:\Users\*yourusername*\AppData\Local\BattlefleetGothic2
This first patch should fix most of the technical issues reported in the last week, as well as bring the co-op mode of the campaign into a better state. Bug fixing is always a continuous process and you can expect more patches to finalize the co-op mode. You’ll find the full patch notes at the end of this announcement.
Post-launch Plans
As we mentioned earlier, we are always listening to your feedback, and one thing we noticed was that not everyone are entirely happy with the current state of boarding. As a result, we are hard at work on a new and improved boarding system. While we can’t go into every detail, the new system will have a stacking mechanic whereby troop damage is dealt gradually over time depending on the number of “boarding stacks”. This will allow players a chance to hold back the invaders using a reimagined Call to Arms ability. We look forward to revealing more details about this in the near future.
We’ll also continue to polish the co-op mode in order to release it fully as soon as possible. This major update will be followed by the development of new ships and continuous work on balancing.
Then the focus will be on major new features. This includes a massive new game mode giving you access to skirmishes with truly humongous fleets and legendary ships (the Phalanx, Macragge's Honour, and other ships you see during the campaign). Thanks to the incredible support the game has received so far, Focus Home Interactive and Tindalos Interactive have also begun work on a new, full grand campaign. That’s all we can say for now, but we will announce specifics closer to release later this year.
“Battlegroup 2v2” Beta mode
We’ve heard players express that the scale of 2v2 battles doesn’t feel epic enough, and we agree. Therefore, we are introducing the new Battlegroup 2v2 mode which allows each player to use 1000 fleet points when preparing their fleets, resulting in bigger, even more frenetic battles! Please keep in mind that this will be in a Beta state and will not be available for ranked play. As always, we appreciate any feedback you can give us on this mode!
Campaign End Game and Massive Engagements
A similar request we heard was for bigger battles in the campaign, particularly towards the end game. As you can see below, we have increased the fleet points for the higher renown ranks significantly (1650 fleet points max now, instead of 1350). May your fleets blot out the sun!
Player Renown Rank
11 - 1350 -> 1350
12 - 1350 -> 1425
13 - 1350 -> 1500
14 - 1350 -> 1575
15 - 1350 -> 1650
16 - 1350 -> 1650
Balancing
We have plans to introduce competitive seasons and rewards in Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 2. As we’re working on that and hope for a big reveal soon, we’re perfectly aware of how crucial the balancing is in a multiplayer game with competitive seasons. We’ve always planned to closely monitor the balancing of Battlefleet Gothic: Armada 2 and to regularly update the game depending on community feedback and data.
We’ve published a first look at the overall win rates of each faction in a community update on January 18, and we’re happy to share the updated results today.
As you can see, we’re making good progress. And we’re pretty confident this patch will balance things even more. Main issue right now is that Aeldari factions, especially Drukhari and Asuryani, seem to overperform in higher rank. We therefore want to reduce the tools at their disposal to boost their range in order to give the opponent more opportunity to catch them.
Tyranids have received a slight buff in this update but they will have our full attention with the next patch to make them more competitive in higher ranks.
Imperial Navy and Adeptus Mechanicus fleets have pretty good results in almost every league but seem to suffer a bit in the last two. We’re currently working on some ideas to help them there. Necrons have very good results but still get a nice buff regarding their special maneuver because their performance drops significantly in legend rank.
Orks perform very well currently but we prefer to wait before making any changes because their win rate appears to slowly drop as the meta goes on. Current meta seems to focus on bringing a lot of light cruisers in battles and bigger ships are mostly left behind. Now, crit resistance increases as tonnage grows. We aren’t entirely sure it will be enough but it’s a clear first step in favor of bigger ships.
Keep in mind that we monitor more than the win rates with data about match-ups, as well as split by leagues. We'll make good use of them to do regular balance tweaks until we're happy on that front.
As for any potential technical issues, your feedback about the balancing of the game is welcome - please use our official forum. Also don’t forget to join our Discord to discuss with fellow players and get the latest news from the devs: https://discord.gg/fqpAG2D
See you in-game,
Tindalos Interactive & Focus Home Interactive
Patch 1 Change log Battlefleet Gothic Armada II
New feature:
- Battlegroup: 2v2 A new mode (currently in beta) that increases max fleet points from 600 to 1000 per player in 2v2 mode.
Balancing:
- (Campaign) Increased maximum requisition points from 1350 to 1650 for the highest admiral levels
- (Campaign) Autobattle results are now more predictable, removing random positive/negative percentages
- Lowered fleet power of enemy Space Marines in the Necron mission The Prize
- Lowered fleet points of the enemy in the Imperium mission Silver Dawn
- Impaler skill damage increased from 2 to 6
- Critical chance of Lances/Zap/Pulsar/Shadowlance/Bio plasma/Gauss has been doubled
- Ramming damage has been increased by 50%
- Ships are now less likely to suffer system critical hit depending on their tonnage.
- LC: remain unchanged (no critical reduction)
- CR: critical reduction chance modifier reduced from 0.9 to 0.8
- BC: critical reduction chance modifier reduced from 0.8 to 0.6
- GC: critical reduction chance modifier reduced from 0.7 to 0.4
- BS: critical reduction chance modifier reduced from 0.6 to 0.2
- Spirit stone targeting node upgrade now applies only to the admiral ship
- Drukhari ships' lock-on stance replaced by tracking sense stance
- Inertialess drive cooldown reduced from 90 to 75
- Tyranids ships’ cost slightly reduced
- Tracking sense critical hit chance modifier now properly applies a 100% modifier to critical chance instead of 20%
- Disruption bomb channel time increased from 10 to 15 seconds
- Disruption bomb cooldown increased from 60 to 90 seconds
- Improved augur array/Many-Eyed Prophet/Nicassar Prescient/Multi-Spectrum Sensor upgrades detection range increased from 4500 to 9000
- Mechadominator effect duration increased from 10 to 30 seconds
- Daemonic infestation now applies to all line ships
- Slaanesh promise duration reduced from 10 to 5 seconds
- Dark matter cannon speed reduction reduced from 50% to 25%
- Lictor brood upgrade now applies to line ships instead of light cruiser only
- Resurrection orb now gives back 3 troops instead of 1
Co-op mode:
- Stabilized flow system when going in/out of battle
- Fixed game loading that didn’t automatically load the auto-save
- Fixed end of battle screen
- Fixed the result screen that was displaying a defeat on the guest-side and a victory on the host-side
Added:
- Beta experience rating added in multiplayer score screen for sharing the player’s feedback with the dev team about the beta mode
- Scrollbar on the saves list screen
- Confirmation pop-up in the shipyard when revoking a ship
- Space Medusae now have a feedback range when exploding
Bug Fixes:
1. Campaign:
- Imperium Campaign & Prologue fixes:
- Fixed validation of the mission Preparation for the End of Time
- Fixed crash at the end of the mission The Chosen of Abaddon
- Fixed a Chaos ship that has to be boarded in the prologue. It now has defence turrets to match the dialogue/narration
- Fixed feedback of the player’s narrative choice in the mission Repentance
- Fixed the Nurgle’s FX that links monuments in the mission The Chosen of Abaddon
- Fixed inverted admiral icons on the pre-match screen in Stopping the Harvest
- Fixed dialogue that wasn’t triggering at the arrival of the Phalanx
- Fixed localisation text on the Aurent Pattern Munitions upgrade
- Fixed reinforcement fleets as reward of the mission The Invasion (Tyranid Annihilation)
- Fixed achievement “Stick with your Own Kind” (granted after the first Eldar Annihilation Ark mission).
2. Battle Fixes
- General:
- Improved AutoLaunch Scuttle AI (AI will avoid triggering scuttle with allies around and will wait a bit less before using it, anyway it will be use at some point to allow AI reinforcement to be deployed on the the battlefield)
- Improved Auto Launch skill disengage AI (AI will now try to disengage his ships)
- Updated custom fleets’ security check
- Fixed localisation error panel in the main menu
- Fixed launch bay number on the Despoiler’s prow
- Fixed Armour Piercing Ammunition/Blessing of Vaul upgrades when target is close
- Fixed Slavetaker attribute
- Fixed AI that was firing Nova Cannon on hidden ships
- Fixed Gravity Hook number on T’au ships
- Fixed Scanner skill (now available on Platform Defences)
- Fixed Cruiser Gothic’s torpedoes that had parallel trajectories
- Fixed AI that was not following flagship vessels’ rules
- Fixed 1vsAI loading screen that was displaying “Waiting player” with a timer
- Fixed Defeat text that wasn’t displayed when capitulating at the start of a game
3. Structure Fixes:
- Optimization: Dark Eldar, Necrons, Tyranids FXs
- Updated localisation for several languages
- Updated loading ship screen when going to the ship viewer
- Updated ship viewer feature: can now show/hide User Interface
- Fixed the space bar that allows you to skip game turn
- Increased visibility on checkboxes and sound option settings
- Updated credit screen opacity background