Today we are pleased to announce our third major patch since launch; Vanguard 0.5.3. As with our last two updates this patch is focused around both quality-of-life issues and bug fixing rather than new content.
In this update we have focused on both optimisation and improvements to the ingame text and voice comms amoungst many minor tweaks and fixes across the game.
Optimisation
We have been working extremely hard to optimise the level loading times which we have seen is a common area of frustration for players. This update will significantly reduce level loading times for most players and in our testing we have seen reductions of 50-75%. The actual loading time improvement will vary on the hardware specification of your PC but here are a few examples from our tests on different machines.
| Test A | Test B | Test C | Test D | |
| Update 0.5.2 | 1 minute 20 seconds | 1 minute 5 seconds | 1 minute | 2 minutes 50 seconds |
| Update 0.5.3 (this update) | 20 seconds | 17 seconds | 25 seconds | 55 seconds |
| Improvement | -75% | -74% | -58% | -67% |
To achieve this we have had to re-structure the game files, which has meant this patch affects almost the entire game – hence the larger than usual for a quality-of-life update. We are always conscious of keeping patches to a minimum size but this was a significant enough issue for the community we felt it shouldn’t wait.
We aren’t stopping here though. We will continue to optimise the game throughout Early Access.
Text Chat
We have overhauled the text chat system so you can now see a history of recent messages when typing new messages and the colour of the message more clearly indicates who can read it. Blue messages are team only. Orange messages are sent to all.
Change Log
Thank you to everyone who has provided us with constructive feedback. We read all of it even if we don’t respond to all of it. If you have a crash and get prompted to submit a crash report – please submit it so we are notified and we can look into the cause.
Known Issues:
- Graphical glitches and missing weapons when joining the game for the first time
- Audio settings menu is not yet implemented
- Decals can be stubborn and cause texture glitches
- There is no audio warning before being kicked – this will be added soon
- Very rarely a player be stuck in spectator mode while in pre-game. You can workaround this issue by opening console using ` and typing [i]kill[/i] into the console and hitting enter. Close the console using
Key Changes / Highlights:
- Significantly improved loading times
- You can now lean without ironsighting
- Improved team balancing
- Enhanced text chat including message history when replying
- Updated voice chat icons so you can now see if the person talking in team voice chat is in your squad.
- Improved server stability
Changes:
- Fixed input freezing between the pre-game TDM ending and Raid gamemode starting
- Fixed loading screen over-reporting progress
- Leaning now works at any time and not just when ADS/ironsights
- Updated text chat interface to better distinguish team vs. global chat and to show recent messages when sending a new message
- Potential fix for a mass disconnection of players from a server at the same time
- Improved team balancing system and fixed bug with team balancing causing the balancing to progressively get worse with each level rotation
- Updated voice chat indicator icons. Team channel is now labelled [TEAM]
- Reduced radius from which objectives can be captured
- Fixed in-game camera rotating while navigating squad/kit interface while spectating
- Added new dialog lines for capture, post-capture, push ahead/pull back and endgame conditions
- Added more variety to existing German and British dialog lines
- Added audio triggers to idle kick warnings.
- Added more reverb zones to levels
- Added new round loss music for each nation
- Updated death music
- Improved environmental audio ambience
- Improved environmental soundscape to Merville – added conditional audio trigger to right flank of the attackers first phase
- Fixed first-person weapon audio not applying reverb in interiors
- Further backend audio tweaks
- Lion-sur-Mer
- Added lighting sources for Allied spawn during initial phase for better orientation
- Improvements to trenches
- Improvements to borders
- Improved daytime lighting
- Merville Battery
- New flanking route during initial phase which provides better cover
- New section opened from Town-area through the forest
- Improvement to borders
- Improvements to craters
- Pegasus Bridge
- Improvements to terrain texture
- Improvements to terrain