It’s been posted many times about how to improve custom games. This is my take on it.
Custom games and mod support has been severely lacking for a very long time. While they got a update for it this year, it was very insubstantial not a lot was going for it. So I think custom game/editor updates more often would go a long way twords helping the longevity of player made content.
Editor:
We still have a severe lack of documentation, people like Bazsi and a few others have had to tinker a fair amount just to find out what they could tell the community about how it works. I think this could be rectified easily by releasing some documentation on the terminology used within the editor. So we would know what something is called, what it does and how to use it. Anything coming from the developer is better documentation than what we have now. I’m not saying that those individuals haven’t put in the time and effort to understand it and help others, But it’s also not their job.
Even if it was something basic it would be a big help. This would also run in parallel to more information on when the editor updates come out. Sometimes things are just randomly updated and nobody knows until they try something in the editor.
Custom games:
There’s been a considerable amount of suggestions on this topic. These are some of the most crucial things among others that should be prioritized for addition.
- Text chat/voice chat within pregame lobby
Many players would like to be able to communicate before the match to coordinate if it’s supposed to be historic, what the main idea of the custom match is, etc.
Even if it’s just basic preset chat options that’s better than nothing, such as:
- No Vehicle spawns
- tier x only (x= BR of match)
- etc.
- Ability to change out squads in pregame lobby
- something this basic would be a major game changer to custom games. It would allow people to swap a squad in or out. Say you don’t want that sniper Squad, you could change them out for an assaulter squad, or a tanker. If needed you could take it a step further and allow swapping of individual equipment.
- Ability to blacklist Equipment/vehicles
- This is a big one and it would satisfy the historical accuracy buffs. Don’t want tiger IIs in Moscow/Stalingrad? Not a problem here.
This could be taken even farther by blacklisting certain tiers entirely, say if somebody only wants tier II and below equipment they could choose it. The same could be done in reverse Tier IV or above, tier III+, etc.
- Ability to gain XP
- This is already in custom games but it’s severely limited. I propose a cap of 50k XP per day in custom games before it defaults to the usual. That’s the middle ground to keep players from only playing custom games, Even though it would be preferable that you have full XP at all times within customs.
Another workaround to this would be only allowing squad mates to level up, but earning research points at the same amount as it currently is, and not allowing squads to earn new points to spec into upgrades. While this is not preferable, it’s better than we’re currently getting.
- Showing mixed teams within the scoreboard
- say you want German and Japanese fighting side by side, you should be able to see what squad is what faction within the ongoing game.
This could be something as simple as the Soviet star for the Russians, The German cross, The Allied Star, etc. This would be placed next to the player name and class. Another option would be color coding between 2 or more different colors within in the scoreboard.
- bots mixed and factions
- This is an extension of the above point targeting bots, if there are two or more factions capable of being on the same team Bots should randomly choose a faction out of the available ones for Team A and Team B. This would add a greater variety to the choices the player has for the custom games.
- Improving bots ability to flank
- This would also help outside of custom games, too many times have I seen whole squad of bots run right by me without even blinking and trying to shoot me only to get gunned down by me while they’re dashing towards the objective. Teaching them the ability to flank when appropriate towards an objective or at a player shooting at them would go a long way to improving bots, This way not all the bots would pile in the objective zones. They would stay in areas by the objective where a player could potentially be based on the already established systems they use such as gunfire location, and sound making them more capable of flanking near an objective. I say this because many people don’t want to join custom games with one or two people because they’re mostly bot Squads within the game.
The bots wouldn’t have to wander off, they could stay within 25 - 50 m of the outer perimeter of the objective taking cover so they can fire at those advancing.
- Ability to host previously downloaded Mods on console
- No matter which way a custom game is played through a mod it has to be downloaded. Even with PlayStation who has taken anti-mod stance unless it is content directly from the games files. Using mods on console is possible, so adding the ability to use previously downloaded mods and hosting them would be a great quality of life change. Currently only PC has this option, it could easily come to Xbox and PlayStation as well thanks to downloading the files within custom games. This would of course only work for custom games utilizing original assets from the base game. But this would be a way for console players to be able to host things such as previous April fool’s events without needing a PC since it has those files already within the game.
These are just some of the things There’s many other suggestions the community has made, But the first few points on this are an absolute must.
Better documentation on the editor, pregame chat, ability to change squads/equipment pregame, and Blacklisting certain things are the biggest points.
Feel free to chime in if you would make changes to this or have anything to add.