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One of the most disruptive behaviors in multiplayer battles continues to be players quitting matches prematurely, leaving their teammates at a significant disadvantage. That ends now. In the standard matchmaking mode, a system of progressive penalties is now in place: if a player quits a match and does not reconnect, they will receive a temporary ban from joining new games.
Each repeated violation increases the penalty duration — from 2 minutes for the first offense up to 3 hours for systematic deserters.
With this system, we aim to reduce the number of matches where teams are left at a disadvantage, helping to preserve balance and ensure a fairer gameplay experience for everyone.
“I have a single rule: everyone fights, no one quits!”
Gen. Bennet
Alongside this, we are introducing the option to surrender during a match. This feature helps teams avoid drawn-out battles with no chance of victory, allowing them to move on more quickly to the next game and focus on new fights. It also gives players greater control over the flow of the match and the time they spend in it. The Surrender option is available in all game modes and lets teams end a battle without additional penalties: the match is simply recorded as a loss for one side and a win for the other.
A surrender vote can be initiated after 5 minutes of gameplay. Voting lasts for 30 seconds, after which the results are calculated automatically. A clear majority of votes within the team is required for the surrender to succeed. To prevent abuse, a new vote can only be started 5 minutes after the previous one.
This new system addresses two big problems. On the one hand, it allows players to end matches where the outcome is already obvious, sparing them from spending time in hopeless battles. On the other, it provides a fair and transparent tool for concluding matches, preventing premature exits and letting teams move on to the next fight more quickly.
“There is no dishonor in retreating to fight another day son!”
Col. Demidov
We continue to improve our tools to detect cheaters and adapt to the new cheating tools which are constantly being created/updated. Every update contains new anti-cheat measures, even if we don’t talk about them in detail to avoid giving information to the cheats’ users/creators.
If you encounter a case that you believe to be a cheat please report it at: basupport@slitherine.com
Your report will be thoroughly reviewed by our support team and will result in a ban if we conclude that a player is indeed cheating.
We review such reports every day.
“Let me deal with those filthy cheaters my way.”
E. Morozova
Changelog:
Added:
The surrender feature is available in every game mode.
The team may call for surrender after spending 5 minutes in a game.
The surrender vote has a 5 minute cooldown after one vote has been rejected.
The surrender vote goes for 30 seconds. If you don’t vote it counts as a NO.
The number of votes needed to pass depends on your team size:
5 players: 4 votes;
4 players: 3 votes;
3 players: 2 votes;
2 players: 2 votes;
1 player: instant surrender.
Surrendering doesn’t incur any additional penalties, the match will be simply counted as “Defeat” for one side and “Win” for another.
Penalty for deserters only applies in the standard game mode with matchmaking.
Players will be penalized if they leave a match without using the surrender function if there are still teammates in this match.
Penalty is progressive, each additional leave will increase the punishment.
Penalty progression is reset if no match is abandoned during 24h.
Whilst penalized, players can’t play any standard multiplayer matches any more.
Penalty timers:
2 min for 1st leave
5 min for 2nd leave
15 min for 3nd leave
30 min for 4th leave
60 min for 5th leave
180 min for 6th leave and above
Note: these values can be easily changed in our servers without requiring any client side update. If we consider these values ineffective or too harsh, we will tweak them.
Other new features:
General fixes & improvements:
In parallel with the technical work of the programming team our game design team is working on gameplay improvements.
There are 3 levels of balance:
And for each level the important factors are how popular options are and how well they perform in terms of win rate.
The previous patch (1.0.9) was aimed at the second and third level and successfully managed to rebalance the level of interest of previously overplayed and underplayed battlegroups.
Another consequence, this one unintended, was a shift of balance in favor of the Russian faction.
This is the consequence of the previous patch reducing the cost efficiency of the most overperforming units on both sides but not touching the power of the Coastal spec as its potential was not yet discovered by most players.
The previous balance ratio between release and 1.0.9 was 51.2% in favor of Russia and since this patch the disparity has increased to almost 54% so we need to improve that.
However it is also important to observe that above 2000 Elo the faction balance is much better and very close to 50/50 but that only concerns the top 5%. The main reason for that is the difference of design between the two factions:
Russia is designed as a mainly ground based power with masses of universal units that are pretty straightforward to use, while USA is designed as a more air based power with very powerful but more specialized units.
All those specialists correctly used and coordinated are very powerful but if used wrongly they perform very badly.
This new balance patch aims at re-establishing a better balance between the two factions for the majority of the players while trying to maintain a good balance at high level..
To do so we improved the interoperability of the different US specializations by moving some units from one specialization to another and we changed the seating capability of some vehicles to facilitate the mixing of infantry units and transports between specializations.
While doing so we continue our efforts to balance the interest of the specializations within the factions and the units within the specializations by targeting over or under performing units or weapons specifically.
Balance Changelog:
Designers’ Note: These two missiles were able to easily overwhelm any amount of air defense, making their use a low-cost/high-reward solution.
Designers’ Note: An aim time was added to smart bombs to prevent them from sniping tanks on the move. This change proved to be efficient without requiring a very long duration. A too long duration makes the strike hard to achieve even when planning it correctly.
Designers’ Note: This will slightly increase the performance of the low range SHORAD systems and help them compete with the top tier units. Since US don’t have long range SHORAD available this will slightly improve their maximal SHORAD efficiency.
Designers’ Note: The Abrams tanks experienced significant difficulties in combat against light vehicles with ATGMs, as it required three shells to destroy them, losing in open combat. This change means that any vehicle with 16HP and 200 armor or less to be destroyed in 2 hits by those shells instead of 3.
Designers’ Note: Refunding ballistic/cruise missile launchers after shooting will now make them unavailable for twice longer than resupplying them on the field. The possibility to refund units was always thought as a way for players to change their strategy during the match, not as an alternative to resupply them on the field.
Designers’ Note: Having both Patriot PAC-3 and PAC-3 MSE in the Stryker specialization made them redundant. By splitting the long range AA capability between more US specializations we make the faction easier to play without good team coordination.
The least performant PAC-3 was given to the Armored spec in order to promote building other unit combinations
Designers’ Note: The APKWS guided rockets are mostly seen in the small 7 tube rocket pods rather than the big 19 tube pods. Following this real life observation allows us to make the choice between APKWS and Hydra options more meaningful in the game.
We have also added a few more options where possible.
Designers’ Note: The presence of the best AH-64 helicopter in the Special Forces specialization didn’t leave anything outstanding to the Airborne spec. Special forces have many good alternatives and the DAP anti-tank capability was reinforced in compensation.
Grouping 3 AH-64 in the same spec made them more redundant so we have added some unique customizations.
Designers’ Note: These new values reinforce the interoperability of specializations. For instance the blackhawk can carry a squad of Marines, the ISV and the Venom can carry a squad of Rangers or Troopers etc.
This should make US decks easier to build and to play.
Designers’ Note: This unit suffers from a redundancy with Airborne squads and other special forces units. In combination with more transport compatibility this change should make them more appealing.
Designers’ Note: These missile launchers can reload while guiding their missiles since they are not wire guided. This ability combined with a fast reload speed meant that the next missile was sometimes ready to fire before the impact of the previous. Increasing the reload time creates an opening that can be exploited to engage them with guns.
Designers’ Note: Missiles' aim time is low to compensate for the need to stop and the flight time that is higher than a shell. In their case there is no need to stop so the reduced aim time is less justified. They must still maintain a direct line of sight so the aim time remains inferior to a Javelin.
Designers’ Note: The presence of a double smoke on top of the jammer and the 400mm HEAT armor makes the BMP-3M too resilient for its price. Instead of increasing the price we have removed the double smoke.
Designers’ Note: These two units form the backbone of the Coastal troops ground dominance. The BT-3F can carry any combination of 2x 7men squads and the 400mm armor upgrade guarantees the survival to 2 tank shots.
The Morskaya Pehota is an excellent all rounder able to deal with most infantry and armored targets. A slight price nerf was required to put it in line with the other infantry options.
Designers’ Note: These models were rather old and didn’t propose much in terms of customization. The reveal of a new armor kit during this year’s Moscow victory day parade was the occasion to upgrade these models and include the new armor.
It is a welcome addition to help the small VDV squads and their light vehicles to better hold their ground. Note that the additional armor removes the airdropable ability.
Designers’ Note: These two vehicles with low resilience are rather underperforming. The Sprut will suffer from the Abrams HEAT shell buff so a second smoke will help them survive longer.
Designers’ Note: This should make it an interesting alternative to the faster RSOV.
Designers’ Note: BMP-2 are regularly observed without ATGM in reality.
In game, in comparison with BMP-1AM the BMP-2 offers a better 2A42 autocannon with a higher rate of fire but a lower troop carrying capacity.
Designers’ Note: The low damage and blast radius of the 105mm round makes it pretty bad. More accuracy can compensate for that.
Designers’ Note: Not a very popular unit, a bit more armor will not do any harm and it removes a discrepancy.
You should try it with triple grenade launchers as a fire support vehicle.
Designers’ Note: Some vehicles' laser abilities were missed last time. The idea behind the longer designation range is that vehicles cannot sneak as much as infantry so they require to be able to laze from a safe distance of anti-tank missiles. Same logic for helicopters.
Designers’ Note: When combined with Special forces the Airborne specialization only has the Brutus as an option to lay smoke. Adding this option to the Hawkeye frees the Brutus for other tasks.
Designers’ Note: Small caliber mortars are not very popular because of their low damage but are perfect to lay smoke barrages. So we have reinforced this aspect.
Designers’ Note: This will help the Airborne+Stryker combination without impacting much the other combinations.
Designers’ Note: They were configured to do not so much damage compared to machine guns but with an area of effect. This was unclear for the players and the UI was displaying the damage as “Cluster”. As a rule of thumb consider that a minigun has the power of 2 machineguns
Designers’ Note: We want the players to be more thoughtful about when they use the TOS. This is a powerful unit that can clean up an entire district from enemy infantry but this should not happen every 3 minutes.
Designers’ Note: This change should not impact much the combination of Airborne with Stryker or USMC which already possess good SEAD platforms (Prowler ; F-16CJ)
But this will help create more autonomous AB+SOF and AB+Armored battlegroups.
The weapon merging is done to better manage the overall price of the plane.
Designers’ Note: The rate of fire of planes’s missiles depends on the quantity of identical missiles carried. To ripple fire a pair of R-27ER/AIM-7 you need to select a loadout with at least 4 of these missiles otherwise the first missile has reached the target by the time the second is fired.
Designers’ Note: This option was overpriced for 10% ECM bonus on a rather cheap plane.
Designers’ Note: The option to carry more R-27ER could be usable with the recent change to the missile.
Designers’ Note: The information that they couldn’t fire on the move was not obvious and many players sent them to their death with a simple move order expecting a vehicle with a turret to be shooting on the move. We have removed this misleading exception.
Designers’ Note: The mine clearing vehicles are very situational and we don’t expect them to be used very often but this one was really underperforming compared to its American equivalents.
Designers’ Note: The launch margin angle is the angle at which the missile can be launched compared to the axis of the plane. The seeker angle is used to reacquire a new target if the original target is lost. As a result these missiles will be fired at targets located closer to the indicated strafe area.
Designers’ Note: The bombing order is used instead of the precision strike to bypass the aim time of the precision strike. The availability has been reduced as a stopgap measure until we develop a way to prevent this technique.
Designers’ Note: This helicopter has exceptional infiltration capabilities, and using it means choosing when and where to deliver the first strike. We want to keep it that way, as this is what makes it unique. However, we also want to ensure that, once the first strike has been delivered, the helicopter is spotted so that decisions to attack are made more carefully.
We continue to closely monitor statistics, your feedback, and suggestions to ensure that every improvement brings the most value to players. These changes have become possible thanks to your input and active involvement in the project’s development. We sincerely thank the community for its support and contribution to the growth of the game. There are many more updates to come, and we will keep moving forward step by step, making the game better with each new milestone
