A.V.A. Dog Tag: Interview with Red Duck

Recently, Red Duck, the developer of Alliance of Valiant Arms (A.V.A.) has reclaimed the rights to publish the title. We talked with the developer to get insights into this revitalization of the title with the new name, A.V.A. Dog Tag.

Self-publishing is not without its hurdles. What are some of the challenges you’ve faced in doing so thus far?

To be perfectly honest, our experience so far has been very positive overall. However, when we analyze user feedback from all over the world, we continue to see discrepanies in several topics related to game balancing & content addition. As an example, half of the community may want something to be changed in the game where the other half would strongly disagree with any changes at all. It’s never easy to please everyone but we believe communication is key.

With numerous competitive FPS games on the market, how do you feel A.V.A Dog Tag stands out uniquely amongst them?

Unique weapon mechanics based on recoil patterns and adjustable bloom. We also have three-class distinction; Pointman, Rifleman, and Sniper. There are class-specific pros & cons which enables strategic class setup for team matches.

Users are also able to modify and customize their weapons through various different attachments including; barrels, scopes, grips, stocks, and muzzels. Through attachment customization, users have the ability to tune their weapons to handle in a unique way of their choice.

A.V.A. is a long-standing name in the MMO FPS community. What kind of expectations do you have for yourselves to keep it alive?

A.V.A is indeed a long-standing title in the market with over 10 years of global service up-to-date. However, we consider A.V.A: Dog Tag to be its own unique game outside of the original title and we hope to offer our users a totally different experience compared to original A.V.A. Our focus with A.V.A: Dog Tag is to provide fair & competitive gameplay experience for our users through well balanced gun play, proven Esports system integration, and continuous feedback intake directly from our community members.

Being such a community driven project, what are some of your favorite suggestions from fans?

With over 8000 members in Discord already in our Beta phase, you can imagine the enormous number of ideas and feedback that come our way. My favorite suggestion so far would have to be clan/team specific cosmetic custom parts for both weapons and characters. Since we already have the foundational „parts“ system in A.V.A: Dog Tag, it might actually be possible to implement in the future.

Do you have plans for additional gameplay modes beyond TDM and Demolition?

Of course! We’ve only introduced TDM & Demolition modes thus far for testing purposes only but once we launch the game early next year, we will be introducing brand new game modes for both competitive users as well as casual.

Weapon balance can be a tricky beast to tackle: in what ways do you ensure most of your guns see equivalent usage amongst the playerbase?

This is a great question. Through Closed Alpha, Alpha 2, CBT 1, and now CBT 2, we’ve always requested our community members to fillout an exit survey on the last day of the testing. In this survey, we’ve asked variety of questions for each and every weapon available in the game including a free-written section to absorb as much feedback as possible. Thanks to our community, we have seen dramatic changes from one test to the next. Most importantly, we were able to observe our user-satisfaction continuously increasing over this period.

Loot boxes and cash shops are a sensitive issue right now. Can players earn most of the rewards without having to spend real-world currency?

We’ve already expressed our thoughts on this same topic to our community members during CBT 1. We’re not too concerned about monetization at this point in time. Our current priority is to make sure the gameplay is well-fit for various groups of users in oder to provide the best possible gaming experience we can. One of our main focus with A.V.A: Dog Tag is to make sure its competitive experience does not become tarnished by any pay-to-win elements.

Want to get in the game? Check out our beta key giveaway!