Greetings Admirals,
It’s been just under 3 months since we posted our development roadmap for Battlefleet Gothic: Armada, so we thought it time to update you on our progress and all the cool stuff still to come!
Before we get into the future of BFG, we’d first like to summarize the features and changes that have already been added since launch:
- Space Marines Fleet
- Online Custom Games against Friends
- Improved Regional Matchmaking
- Russian Language Version
- Chat Improvements
- Co-op versus AI Mode
- Elite System
- Pre-Set Behaviors
- In-Game Newsfeed
- Subsystems Temporary Critical Damage
- Major Balance Changes
- New Upgrades
Many of these changes and features were added to the game directly based on your feedback, and we look forward to hearing more from everyone as we continue into BFG’s future!
Here’s the main features that are still to come:
- Ranked Matches
- Global Leaderboard
- Tau Fleet (Forge World) Fleet DLC
- Custom Online Leagues
- (Even more) new Skills
- Fleet Color Customization
- Profiles and Heroic Deeds
- …and more to be announced!
For further details on what these additions mean, refer to the development roadmap.
The next major feature for implementation will be the Ranked Matches and Leaderboards - we're happy to announce that they'll be making their way to Battlefleet Gothic: Armada next week!
To keep you sated until next week, here’s a sneak preview of what you can expect in ranked play:
Ranked Matches
All Ranked Matches will take the form of a 1v1 Best of Three (BO3) format.
Each player is given an equal number of points (8000 Renown) to create whatever fleet they want. All Ship Slots are unlocked at the creation of a Ranked profile, and every ship added to a Ranked fleet will automatically be set to the maximum level. This fleet can be rearranged before a battle, and any Skills, Upgrades or Favours are refunded in their entirety if players wish to change their fleet composition.
Fleet persistency (ship damage, destroyed ships, lost in warp, etc.) is applied during each BO3, but NOT between BO3s. Matches can be won, lost, or abandoned (which will result in an automatic loss).
The BO3 format will take place over the following steps:
- First Battle: Player A chooses the mission (eg. Space Station Assault, Convoy, Data Recovery, etc).
After the first map is played, all ships destroyed will not be able to be selected for the next matches and those that are heavily damaged will not be available for the second battle. - Second Battle: Player B chooses the mission.
Again, any ships destroyed or heavily damaged in the second map will not be selectable in the third map. - Third Battle: If players are tied 1:1, a Cruiser Clash game will decide the winner.
The first player to win two matches gains ELO for their ranked admiral!
Based on this format, players will need to be very careful not to lose their best ships during the first match!
Ranking System and Leaderboard
The ranks of Admirals will be divided by leagues – separate for each Admiral of a player. Each league will be composed of a certain percentage slice of the current total ranked Admirals.
Your ELO ranking will determine which percentage and league your Admiral will fall into.
There are six leagues:
- Bronze – Players fall within top 100% to 50% ELO ranking
- Silver – Players fall within top 50% to 30% ELO ranking
- Gold – Players fall within top 30% to 15% ELO ranking
- Adamantium – Players fall within top 15% to 5% ELO ranking
- Epic – Players fall within top 5% to 1% ELO ranking
- Legend – Players fall within top 1% to 0% ELO ranking
A leaderboard will also be implemented in-game. This displays the best Battlefleet Gothic: Armada players, detailing information such as their Admiral Name, Player Name, Rank, Faction, League and ELO number.
The leaderboard can be filtered to display only specific factions and leagues.
Here’s how it looks in-game right now (note that this is taken from the debug version and subject to change):
The patch is coming next week, and will include Ranked Matches, Leagues and the Leaderboard.
Next week’s patch will also allow more fleet points in 2v2 matches – something that has been commonly requested by the community. The total fleet points in Cruiser Clash have been raised from 700 to 800 under the following modes:
- Custom Game 1v1
- Custom Game 2v2
- Multiplayer 2v2
We’ve also been busy squashing bugs – a full list of dead bugs will be listed in the patch notes next week!
See you in the Gothic Sector,
Velociraptom