We hold playtests with gamers, some of whom are seasoned AAA developers, to find out what areas of Field of Heroes are buggy, can be improved, or are otherwise pulling players out of the immersion of fun gameplay.

Changes Since the Last Playtest

The major changes since the last playtest are in summary:

• Weapon damage now causes a 1.5 second delay in health regeneration
• Added a new field decal that indicates you have a free line-of-sight to pass to a teammate
• Reskinned hero health bars and several UI’s
• Add a new “Overtime!” alert when a match enters overtime
• Performance improvements

Setup

Twitch Stream

Playtests are performed live on Twitch for tester coordination, for playing back clips to help resolve hard-to-duplicate bugs, and to promote the game.

Discord

All testers join a single Discord voice channel for real-time coordination and feedback. Player log files are typically uploaded to a Discord playtest channel; but for this playtest they were not needed.

Notepad++

This app is used for note taking purposes. Notes are saved in a folder corresponding to the playtest.

Testing Focus

Before a test begins, the host will tell all testers what to look out for during the playtest. In this playtest, the focus was on how easy it was for a player to see which teammate they were passing the ball to.

Testing Format

In this playtest we focused on a new feature where ball possessors see a decal when they have a clear line-of-sight to pass to a teammate. Additionally, since we are close to our demo release, each tester was asked what they thought the game was needed before the release.

After everyone was ready, we playtested for 20 minutes and then spent 15 minutes getting and recording feedback.

Playtest Results

Ball Possessor Kick Target Decal

Regarding the ball passing decal that appears when a possessor has a clear line-of-sight to kick to their teammate: Nobody saw it. The conditions for appearing were so precise and the battle so chaotic that it hardly ever appeared!

Demo Preparedness

Before the demo is released, playtesters asked for the following:

• Art polish on UI
• Art polish on characters
• Give players more time to see the post-match accolades and stats
• Juice up feedback when you get hit; make it clearer you’re losing health and how much you’re losing.
• Juice up feedback when you hit other heroes; make it clearer you’re taking their health down and by how much.

What Happens Next?

Changes will be made to address most of the feedback: The next build will have the ball-passing decal be visible in a wider variety of appropriate cases, players will have up to a full minute to review post-match stats, and incoming and outgoing damage feedback improvements such as more potent hit reacts, damage numbers, subtle screenshake, and audio cues will be made.

Additionally, improvements will be made to the FTUE (First Time User Experience) which include more hero information in hero selection screens, and match tips that appear for new players.

The goal is still to finish the demo in this Spring 2026. If all goes well, an Early Access release will follow in Summer 2026.