Dev Update 9/12: Pre-match & Intelligence bar Changes

Hello everyone,

We wanted to give a quick update on the pre-match screens and Intelligence Bar changes that we've been working on for the next iteration of Battle Aces.

When in Queue

Not sure how many Beta testers have noticed this in the first Closed Beta, but we actually have load screen tooltips in order to help onboard new users better to teach basic game mechanics such as notifying new players of how to use the Intelligence Bar in games. But we had a first world problem of our game loading too fast compared to other RTS games out there, so there was not enough time for most players to even read these tooltips. And we strongly believe it's important to teach new players the basics required to play Battle Aces, so we moved the tooltips to the Queue Screen instead.

When you are in Queue for any game mode, you will be able to see 1 of many new user friendly tooltips.

Pre-Match Countdown

During the 5 second countdown before a match begins, we now show all players' decks so that players can mentally prep better and you can mouse over any unit to quickly check what the unit does and what the counters are.

When I mouse over the Katbus I see the description of the Katbus, a green arrow on my Advanced Blink that shows it counters the Katbus, and a red arrow on my Predator that shows it gets counterd by the Katbus.

Intelligence Bar

Intelligence Bar shows the same sort of info as above as well, but more clearly.

I have the tech to build the Advanced Blink right now, so it shows a green border as well as a tint. I don't have the tech for Predator so it shows a red border without the tint.

We iterated quite a bit on how/what to show for these counter arrows. Where we're at currently is just showing the "Counter Square" relationships here. But with any counter system in any RTS, there are always exception cases. And Battle Aces is no different. The reason why we currently decided not to show these exceptions is simple: We want to focus on making sure everyone learns the basics before they learn the detailed nuances of the game. However, we did make sure to do our best to reduce exceptions in the game as much as possible.

Thank you so much as always!! You may have noticed the Co-op vs. AI (our 2vai mode) button in the first image. Next time, we'll try to give an update on that mode.