Dear Soldiers, War Stained 1.2 is getting close to completion, and with everything that's coming, we feel it's the right time to tell you about what's to come with this update and announce a few in-house changes!

So we recently pushed out a silent update around 10mb's in size, you may or may not have seen this. In this tiny little update, we added MMR to players, as a way of testing our Ranked mode's SBMM and make sure everything is working as it should be. Players cannot see their MMR, but if you join the discord I'm sure one of the lovely admins can have a look and tell you :)

SBMM (Skill Based Match-Making) or MMR (Match-Making Rating) Will not be in any part of War Stained except Ranked, and we really want to stress that this has only been a testing pre-caution whilst we focus on other aspects of Ranked and version 1.2

So, you've heard a lot about it, but what is Ranked mode in War Stained? Well. Quite simply put it's a more competitive-based mode with SBMM, MMR, and a rank that'll reset every 2-3 months.

Ranked will be played in 5v5 in a bomb game mode (Which we may add to casual War Stained at a later date) in which a team defends two sites, and the opposing team is given a bomb to plant at one of the sites, matches will be first to 15 rounds won. The player with the most MMR at the end of a season will have their Twitch placed on the main menu for the first half of the next season (It may be full season, this hasn't been finalized yet), and for those who aren't streamers, we can plug one of your socials. Or give you a skin/charm in-game of your design (This will be unique to you if you are a part of a team/stack, we will give you all a skin/charm of your design. Within the regular laws and stuffs)
Upon Ranked mode's release, there will be 2-3 maps for you to play on (This number will increase over time)

We will be adding penalties for those who abandon their team mid-game unless we can see it was for a legitimate reason. As we'll be able to see things like game chat, reason of disconnect etc.
When you abandon a ranked game, multiple things happen:

1. The Match will count as a loss for you regardless of the result, and you will lose MMR as if you had lost the match
2. We will put a temporary ban of around 30 minutes on your account (This is whilst we investigate)
3. We assess the game and figure out if the abandonment was intentional or not
4. If the abandonment was intentional then we apply an extra 30-minute ban on your queuing for Ranked as well as make no changes to your MMR, your teammates will receive some compensation MMR as you would have lost (Because you left your team stranded)
5. If it was not intentional but something out of our control (Internet dropped, PC crashed etc) Then we will return your MMR to what it was PRE-ABANDON. As if the game never happened (This doesn't affect other players, only you)
6. If it was not intentional and something that was in our control (Game bug, server crash etc) And your team was winning and or won, you will get the MMR as if you won the match. (Other players won't be affected unless they too abandoned)
7. If you come across a cheater in Ranked, and you're certain they are cheating. Try to stay in the game, but if you do abandon due to a cheater then report the player through our reporting system which will be added with version 1.2, if the player was cheating and is on your team, your MMR will be reset to where it was pre-match. And if the player on the enemy team was cheating, your MMR will be changed to represent a win.
8. To follow on from 7, if you're against a cheater and you win, when they get banned you will gain MMR, all players who were on the enemy team to a cheater and lost will gain a random share of the cheaters MMR. As an attempt to balance out games affected by cheaters. So far we haven't had any cheaters to deal with, but. With implementing a competitive mode we feel like it's best to have practises in place ready for that one person who needs to win a video game (That badly)

There will be more posted about War Stained Ranked over the next few weeks as we get closer to release.

Alongside Ranked mode, the base game is getting a slight overhaul in mechanics and maps to flesh out more consistently with the rest of our products.

And the super big announcement!
COVID Royal is finally coming! In version 1.2 there will be a hidden button (Somewhere) on the main menu that will take you to COVID Royal. where you will be fully able to play and enjoy COVID Royal in its Alpha state (This is only for War Stained owners) nothing in these versions of COVID Royal is final and everything is subject to change. I would like to take this moment to say I'm super proud of the COVID team and what they have done with such little time! (I myself work on War Stained alone, but there is a full team working on COVID as working on three games by myself felt like a bit too much work, so expect COVID Royal to have more regular updates and stuff)
For those of you who don't know COVID Royal is our Free to Play satirical Battle Royale game based on and around the coronavirus pandemic. There will be a much bigger announcement to follow when we are a little closer to release, but. It's been around in the public for a little while and getting closer to completion.

Also, Dectre Games recently hired a new game Director to work solely on COVID Royal and help myself and the team take COVID Royal to the place we want it to be, so everyone welcome Sarah to the Dectre team!

We expect Version 1.2 to drop around the 9th of August 2021. With myself and the COVID team in full crunch mode ready to get this out to you in the best quality, we can, expect much more from myself and the team in Discord and across our social media's over the next week or so. I'm so excited to share more of War Stained's future with you all and I can't wait to see you on the battlefield - Or Bomb site ;)

Love to all as always,
Dekki and the Dectre team <3