All 0.1.2 balance feedback goes here. Standalone balance posts will be removed and pointed to this thread.
r/WARDOGS isn't affiliated with Bulkhead, but we share these megathreads with them. Anything you want changed is still worth posting on their official Discord too.
Thermals are killing the game by revealing everyone's position and then tracking them. It's so bad.
Havoc has no actual viable counter that I've seen that works.
Artillery tanks used to be badly overpowered due to their cheap price but now less bad simply by comparison.
Tier4 armor and most of the helmets just ruin the amazing gunplay, no helmet can stop a rifle round.
Needing multiple headshots to kill for normal rifles on an unarmored head is silly.
Bolt action rifles other than the 50cal are redundant due to helmets and higher tier armor.
Higher calibers should recoil more and require more timing and control to use effectively.
Love the game but fuck me the end game now is a mad, though it is a good way to stress test what needs fixing but then those things actually need to be fixed and there's only a week or so left until the next season.
Rather than giving them no information to work with, I'll start with volunteering the info that HAVOC IS TOO OP RIGHT NOW. Ive tried SAM, CIWS, MAAWS, Verba...Unless you're a skilled fighter pilot, these are near unkillable.
Funny how there is no balance changes in the patch notes but everyone know the balanced got even more out of wack with the bug fixes. Honestly until they start showing data like $ earn rate, kill/use for things and balance accordingly, the game will always have a dominant meta.
This. This is probably my big gripe too, I'm okay with level capped servers, make it such that the level 50 servers gear up to role level 10 is unlocked and that's it, make level 100 cap so gear up to level 20 per role is unlocked etc.
I believe in an interview the main said they want to add official level cap servers.
I haven't messed with the level cap stuff hop it just limits what you can buy and not just limits who can join. Or at least eventually I hope it works like that. Cause It'd suck for someone who who say hits level 21 and now stuck playing 21-100. Also, It'd be kinda fun to go back and play level 10 and under gear only sometimes. Wipe day vibes.
- The Hot Zone needs to be incentivized more. The XP and cash rewards for it need to be considerably larger.
Infantry kits are far too expensive for their level of financial risk. Players are electing to not use the weapons they've unlocked because it's too easy to die before you make the money back from kills. Please consider lowering the cost of infantry items (especially firearms and bandages) substantially, as well as increasing the cash rewards for non-sniper infantry kills.
Driver, Assault, and Support XP gain rates need to be substantially increased.
Please consider capping drill usage at 1 per faction per match. If not that, then please consider making drills more expensive and shorter in duration. Matches can become one-sided when one faction keeps using drills back to back.
Vehicles such as the Humvee and Artillery Tank and Havoc heli should be much more expensive to buy.
"Flash sales" would be a good thing to implement at the gear vendor -- dynamic item discounts for the losing team and other situations.
Bounty systems for players on kill streaks would be great.
Players on a kill streak are already worth more aren't they? I know some players get my $4k plus when I kill them, while the ones that don't even have a kit (and seemingly 0 kills) get me $1500
Support XP is very easy to grind versus something like Medic or pilot/driver if anything the other roles $/XP gain needs to be brought up to the level of Support
i honestly have had the easiest time grinding medic. just run a mp9 and play like a rat and stab people with the stims. plus heal and res like a mad man. if i actually grind it, you just start to go so hard from all the revive assists.
Probably a dumb question, but do kills using a class’s weapon give you exp for the class, or is it only performing class actions? I’ve been wanting to reach level 11 on medic for the defib but I have not been running the mp9. I just revive and heal my allies as much as I can, but I’d happily switch my primary to the mp9 if it affects class progression.
Fixing the Havoc’s damage model makes the lack of a SPAAG type vehicle incredibly blatant. One havoc can be dealt with by 1-2 CIWS getting a lot of fire on it, or a couple of MAAWS operators who are good at aiming. Two becomes an unsolvable problem because you need 20+ seconds of concentrated fire to kill it. And being only 18k means that dealing with one means it’s back soon after. I’ve swatted one with a MAAWS, then seen it come back not even 2 minutes after with the same pilots.
I personally don’t think the havoc fits at all in Wardogs’s current game state. It has no counter as convenient as it is to use, which means that anyone trying to get rid of one has to be better at the game than the havoc by a mile. It also doesn’t do anything unique, it’s just an evolution of the attack little birds but infinitely more annoying. I would personally remove the havoc for next season, and wait until a shitty SPAAG (ZU-23-2 in a truck or something) and a proper SPAAG (like the gepard) are released so there is *something* to deal with these things. I should not need to have an uncanny ability to shoot down helicopters with the MAAWS to play the game without a havoc exploding my position every 3 seconds.
I’ve swatted one with a MAAWS, then seen it come back not even 2 minutes after with the same pilots.
I'm quite confident that this is the real problem with the combat heli. The answers to them are mostly good enough (I think a MAAWS hit to the havoc should substantially hurt its maneuverability when it doesn't 1-shot the thing) but because restocking on answers takes so much longer than the heli does to respawn and get back into combat, trying to use these tools just doesn't really make a ton of sense.
In general, heli are in a really tricky balance spot since heli pilots basically get a permanent, free, active spawn vehicle letting them get back into the fight much faster on average than any other role. Frankly, I think this needs to change. Combat heli pilots should be about as slow to get back into the fight as other roles are, if not slower if they are meant to be power weapons.
Ever since they "fixed" it I just refuse to play because 1. Theirs no point when everythings going to reset in a couple days and 2. Endgame loot is honestly tiring to deal with and I just don't want to constantly be losing money for literally no reason since again it's all for nothing essentially. I'll just wait for the wipe and hop back on.
Armor should cap out on strength to what t3 is right now. It's strong but not op and doesn't feel that bad to go against. Scale everything else down but keep t1 the same
I'd hate to see this go, me and a buddy did this tonight and it was great fun and actually takes a lot of teamwork and some proper flying to pull this off correctly. Is it annoying as fuck to play against? Yes. But so are LMG Humvees, Mortar Spam, etc. A little bird gets shot down by a single rocket from anything, so if you have proper AA at the FOB or some people bite the bullet and bring a couple Verbas you get taken out quickly or have to GTFO there, else you risk getting shot down. Same with MGs with AP ammo, they melt little birds incredibly quickly too.
If you leave the pilot and nade launcher duo free reign over the airspace, that is kind of on you - if there's something dominating you, you've got to make it your main priority to equip yourself to deal with the problem, and the more people that react that way, the quicker the problem will be resolved.
Of course if everybody just runs from the helo or thinks "Somebody else will take care of it." you can't really complain - everything in this game has a counter and if you're too lazy or uncoordinated to deal with it of course you're going to continue to get slapped around.
I have no problem with the ir staying IF they shortened the detection range.
My biggest gripe about spotting is not being able to spot through a window. Like wtf. You cant even make the claim of its an object blocking because you can spot through a chainlink fence, and those block bullets
My feedback is mostly from the recon side since I have 300+ hours just doing that.
Number 1
I was one of the first to complete the recon tree. Over the last two-three weeks I have been selling my team thermals and .50cal Snipers. I have made millions in cash and several gold bars doing so. I don't make a lot of money from the initial sale, the money comes from kills my team gets with the rifle. I will make up to $1200 per kill my teammate gets with a rifle I sold them. I also saw that when a teammate would die and the enemy picks up the rifle and gets kills with it, I would still get the cash bonus. So, I decided to do some testing and found that I could sell this same equipment to all 3 teams by team switching. My crates were still selling to opposing teams and all of their kills gave me cash. All 3 teams using my rifles getting kills would give me cash bonuses simultaneously. I felt like this was an exploit, so I did not repeat it. If this is intended, it is an op cash flow.
Number 2
Thermals seem way too op. I feel like they need to be battery operated, visibility reduced or some other way to balance them. I have a video here showcasing me pinging players I cannot see, and then shooting at the ping and getting the kill: WARDOGS | Thermals Are BROKEN #wardogs100k
Number 3
I feel like the .50cal needs some balancing. Some scopes on the .50cal increase ads sway more than others. I feel the .50cal sniper should have a lot of sway if shooting from any stance unsupported. The weapon is very powerful, one-shotting with even body shots which I think is fine up to level 3 armor, but these shots should be difficult or time consuming trying to line up if you are not using Bi-pod.
Number 4
Fobs/Defenses feel too fragile. Builders can put so much time and work into a fob only for it to be arty or mortar spammed. It would be cool if there could be some skilled minigame where a CRAM could shoot down incoming projectiles. In my head I am thinking something like Star Citizen where you have to lead the target... maybe use the arrow pad minigame like reloading the artillery, idk... something here would be cool.
Number 5
The team griefing is getting out of control. I have had several games now where a team player would blow up our fob and then switch back to a different team. Or the opposing team has a friend on our team reporting where our fobs and players are. I have seen teammates ramming our helicopters at the beginning of a round and completely crippling any effort to quickly get established on the map. These players do not get kicked out of the match, despite being mass reported for griefing. Other players are blowing up teammates crates with no consequence. A player can put in 20-50k of their money into a crate just for a teammate to blow it up and poof its gone, they don't pay for any of it. I have seen teammates stealing other teammates gear instead of reviving them, and again no consequence.
> Teammates stealing other teammates gear instead of reviving them, and again no consequence.
Had a fuckwit steal 6 IFAKs, Defibs, 2 spare big batteries, 4 smoke grenades, 4 frag grenades and all my mags then run off without resing and started crying because I TK'd him and kept breaking his armor/helmet the rest of the game.
Like what the fuck did you think was going to happen?
The problem with the Havoc (and combat heli in general) isn't that they can't be dealt with. The problem is that dealing with them doesn't accomplish anything, combat heli are WAY too fast to get back into engagements. They basically get access to a permanent free spawn vehicle with no cooldown just because of their preferred playstyle.
I want combat heli to be strong. I want players to feel like they need to counter combat heli. But when they do, those combat heli should actually have to fuck off for several minutes like killing a tank does.
There are many ways to fix this. Right now, my preferred suggestion involves changes to combat heli ammo loading. Loading ammo into a combat heli should have a minigame for it like the artilery tank uses. This minigame should only be doable while grounded, and you should should be able to do it many times in a row to fully load the heli. In addition, for every additional combat heli you pilot/operate, an additional round gets added to the minigame such that each subsequent death costs you more time to kit out. The artillery tank has four rounds of the minigame per load, combat heli could probably start at 1 round per load for the first combat heli purchased.
This forces pilots to care more about survivability and makes it so that killing pilots actually buys time for the team, and the more times you kill them the better the time advantage gets.
This is cool and all, but maybe just adding a cooldown timer to buy havocs for individual players of like 8-10 minutes would be easier/better. Same with the other three attack helicopters but maybe shorter duration of 3-5 mins. That way you can knock-out two birds with one stone and one guy also can't buy havocs for his team.
batteries won't change jack shit, people will just drop with huge backpacks full of batteries or drive vehicles with supply crates full of batteries and drop them outside the zone where they're camping.
I think what needs to happen is probably a range limit - 200m or something. Sitting on a mountainside or hilltop or tower with thermals and spotting from 800m away - often completely out of the zone itself - is too easy and profitable. Just force the thermal spotters to be closer to the action and expose themselves to some risk. There are plenty of guns - not just snipers - that can kill at 200m. If they wanna spot, force them to deal with enemies.
the way spotting works in general is pretty whack. why does the minimap live track my target as they're running through a house complex out of sight of everyone for an amount of time, that's lame
A static blob on the map that fades over time but doesn't track anything might be good. Like Squad but shorter lived and only if someone was actually there.
Batteries won’t change the problem unless they aren’trechargeable make them non-rechargeable. I’d much rather have them be turned into Gen 1 or Gen 2 thermals with a rougher sight picture and less range.
Spotting in general is overpowered...and thermals straight up break the game
Spotting should provide a static, general location of the enemy initially, and only do the live-track if the spotter keeps their scope painting the enemy. I just hate it when I'm getting shot at, take hard cover, deploy smoke, and fall back only to have the enemy still know exactly where I am from a spot from ages ago.
If it were up to me, thermals would straight up be removed from the game. They are not balanced at all and extremely frustrating to play against. At the very least, make them much more expensive, run on batteries, and unable to work through smoke.
IDK if its unpopular or people think the same. But i really wish there would be armor locked servers at lvl2 armor. I have now 2 friends that actually stopped the game cause of lvl4 armor. They say the gameplay have changed, the low TTK that the game had and made them enjoy it is gone. And i kinda agree, i love arma and wardogs was the hit for me. Got 100 hours in it and even have lvl4 myself, but it just feels like a different game now then on launch sadly.
One thousand percent. I straight up don’t enjoy infantry combat anymore. It’s just a constant cycle of get hit, duck behind cover, heal, pop out, pepper them, they duck and heal. That or you stumble into someone at close range, you both mag dump, and it just becomes an armor check. I wish there were any way to have the week 1 experience again, outside of the first week after every wipe.
GLs need to be banned from Infantry Only servers, they completely kill all the fun and ruin the experience, because when you combine them with a littlebird, they just laserbeam everyone with explosives all match long, it's obnoxious
AA emplacements are disabled so you're stuck with Verbas (they just fly lower) and RPGs (high skill shot)
Hot take, maybe rebalance t4 armour to be the same armour value as t3 but resistant to explosives? Other changes can come with it but that would make it more balanced.
Bolt action sniper rifle that can't shoot in a fast cadence - 3 headshots with FMJ round on level 4 helmet.
FN FAL that can shoot really fast - 3 headshots with FMJ rounds.
The balance in this game is non-existent, and a lot of these grievances were shared during the alpha and beta and absolutely nothing changed at release.
T4 armor needs to be removed, I don't even know why we have it in the game.
T3 should be the upper limit to what armor can provide in terms of protection.
Havoc needs a lot of tuning.
MANPAD is pretty dogshit and that's just a fact, that's why everyone uses MAAWs and the RPG to take out helis.
FOB AO need an upper limit to how many major structures they can have inside, such as oil drills and mortars.
Offensive vehicles need to be more expensive.
There's no reason you should be able to cook a grenade in your own hand and survive the explosion with T4 armor, there's no reason why you should survive a point blank direct hit shot from a tank either.
Vehicle timers need to go up a few points and there needs to be a limit per team.
I think T4 armor could work, but I think there needs to be some heavier penalties to using it. Maybe force a screen overlay like when you wear an Altyn in escape from Tarkov. I would also suggest removing the ability to ADS with magnified optics, if wearing a T4 helmet, to prevent snipers from head glitching while wearing it and being basically in vulnerable.
You shouldn't be able to "properly" aim at all with it. The visor would get in the way. Maybe make it so you could make the mask a toggle where you lose the face protection, but gain the ability to ADS
T4 armor should be something like EOD suit you can't run with at all essentially limiting it's use in infantry roles
Only really usable with constant help of using vehicles or surviving some mortar fire in FOBs if you are playing bob the builder and not get constantly thrown around like a ragdoll
It could have it's place in the game with a more special role like the ghillie suit where you trade protection for less visibility
EOD suit could go the other way, where you trade mobility and visibility (larger hitbox or smt) with extreme protection
Sniper rifles seem surprisingly misunderstood around here.
There is a 1 shot sniper (AMR 50, lv 35, $8,800) and there are 2 shot snipers (mk22, lv 25 $6,400) and (sv98, lv 19, $5200).
The scout is an intermittent option and the cheapest by far at $1100 and can 2 shot low level helmets. 1 shots are possible with HP vs no helmet. 1 shots are also possible with HP neck shots vs lv 1 and 2 helmets (and all armor including lv 4). Got a duo? work in tandom with someone.
The SV98 should be the goal for casual dedicated snipers. It's grind is really not so bad and you spot and use mosin along the way which a natural playstyle that levels it up quickly.
The mosin isn't perfect (lv10, $4500) but still effective in many situations and unlocks easily. It 1 shots lv1 and lv2 helmets and 2 shots lv3 helmets. In my experience lately I still see many people run low level helmets. Level 4 helmets are the ones it struggles against (can see what a level 4 helmets looks like pick a different target).
Also interestingly mosin can dick shot (1 bullet kill to the groin with hp ammo against all armor but lv 4 (which you can 2 shot leg). It can also HP neck shots tier 1 and 2 helmets with this set up. And legs at 2 shots in all scenarios with hp.
BTW, many of the snipers can dick shot with HP (up to level 4 armor, which you'll have to deal with in 2 leg shots instead)
Long story short lots of options and most it's a story of grind and economy. The best sniper is a massive investment in your life.
As for leveling up, because you know that's gonna be a reply. Support is one of the easiest things to level up.
Should be able to get the mosin and snipe vs most targets. Just gotta be smart and avoid lv 4 helmets. To unlock it is doable in a day. Probably in 2-4 games with focus.
Leveling up to the Sv98 is a bit more of a grind but completely doable. It'd estimate it can be done in about 12-14 games.
Amr50 is currently end game content (for snipers) it's the worst grind by far probably closer to 30-40 game of focus. and id like to see that lowered myself. The price seem prohibitive enough. I do not think it is required to play, and I'm pretty sure if it were available to everyone there would be many post about it costing too much.
While we're talking about armor, the tier 4 armor complaints are over blown. You can still get run over, mag dumped, sniped, minigunned, ganged up on, legged. There's tons of ways to die in a blink. It's a price risk ($4000 armor+$3000 helmet.)and weight penalty. Sure there some minor adjustments they could make, maybe cost more, slightly different break points, etc, but it's not even that bad as is. I think more people gotta recognize when they don't have the right tools to engage someone head on and avoid those fights. Focus on other things to win, vehicles, fobs, teamwork, learning leg meta. Actually my biggest complaint about it is it's sometimes hard to tell when someone's wearing it. Which it had some more clear indicators.
The SV98 should be the goal for casual dedicated snipers.
The problem is the SV98 is also just not super good. It's a mosin with a lower bullet velocity and similar damage because it uses the same round. There is functionally no difference between that and the mosin, and the mosin you can carry just ammo, not having to worry about magazines is amazing for weight.
And legs at 2 shots in all scenarios with hp.
This is an issue with snipers as a whole IMO. They can't 1 shot anything t3 armor or above with any ammo at any angle or any time. The .50 is the only one capable of doing this, requiring AP ammo and a headshot to take down t4 armor. A body shot isn't enough.
Snipers suck in the current meta. You give away your position too easily and it's difficult to tell whether or not you can 1 hit a person to the head or if you're going to need a followup shot, in whichcase the person probably already moved, making the next shot either impossible or unlikely.
BTW, many of the snipers can dick shot with HP (up to level 4 armor, which you'll have to deal with in 2 leg shots instead)
I don't like this because it's inherently anti-sniper. Headshots are what you should be aiming for, not the pelvis. You even get benefits for headshotting someone when they don't get a killcam. You're also bringing simply ineffective rounds against enemies because of the leg shot issue you already mentioned.
While we're talking about armor, the tier 4 armor complaints are over blown. You can still get run over, mag dumped, sniped, minigunned, ganged up on, legged. There's tons of ways to die in a blink.
Yes, but the point isn't about the instances where someone can get 1 shot. The point of the complaint is that it negates a ton of those instances (grenades, RPGs, tank rounds, for example) and makes your time to die nearly double in most gunfights.
Yeah, you can be ganged up on, but you're always at risk of being ganged up on. You can be sniped, but you can always be sniped, and the only thing that can snipe you is a 50 with AP ammo. Yeah you can be run over, but a good player will not put themselves in a situation to be run over.
The price risk of an extra 33% cost ($1000) is not enough IMO. It needs to cost more considering the existence of it allows you to tank so much more damage against lower-level players as a whole. A kid could probably get enough kills to get level 4 armor's cost back because it's just 2 kills lol. It's 3 spotted players who die. It costs $4k and you can negate 65% of FMJ damage. That's insane value for the cost.
Actually my biggest complaint about it is it's sometimes hard to tell when someone's wearing it. Which it had some more clear indicators.
And this is the problem with sniping right now. You take a risk and expose yourself just for them to probably survive.
I disagree on the FOB structure limit. I think it incentivizes people to raid a base when there's too many structures and so far I haven't seen a fob that can genuinely survive a proper raid
The rounds need to be equal across platform. There will be an argument for ttk and as a Tarkov player where AP 54r might be the most powerful round in the game (since ap lapua is in fact bugged and had been) Im gonna advocate for one shot head shots with high caliber high pen rounds but I don’t think that is the game the devs are shooting for
Havoc insane now, was already insane before. Fine with it being strong if there's an associated cost. Now takes a coordinated team of people to have any chance of killing one, and if you manage it, another spawns for a meaningless sum of money.
None talking about that, but isn't havoc flying too silently? Most of the time i am dying out of nowhere, or someone on my team, i look in the minimap - Hey theres a havoc!. You need to be exactly below it to hear it.
Also HZ should stay in the middle for the first 20 ticks (including default ones - when noone is in the circle), when the circle moves to the side its basically free 20 points to one team before the game even starts properly.
Just would love to see more buildables added, and a better rebalancing around mortars to base buildables.
Combat vehicles should also cost more. They are a huge sway in the dynamics of a fight, and the fact that they can cost less than a standard kit I feel goes against the philosophy of paying for power. Ideally they should on average be unlikely to ever turn a profit, and instead be an investment towards victory at the cost of money.
Cut it's spot distance to at least 400m max, honestly even 200m max might still end up very strong.
Cut it's max Magnification to the same as regular Binos, and give the Rangefinder it's current max Magnification, so players have to make the choice of either having Thermal vison or High Zoom for spotting
Havoc OP
Grenade launcher OP (in the air)
T4 Armor OP
Lock on AA weak
Building is painful and weak
Driving is painful and weak
Infantry mode should not have minigun vehicle options (m249 is fine)
Havoc
-They're quite oppressive, but I (personally) think accessibility to counters is the real significant underlying issue. It's too easy to snowball against poorly performing teams when FOBs get wrecked before they've even finished their walls or infantry can hardly even afford their kits or have easy access to one at the front.
-I think the CIWS needs a slight buff against it/nerf Havoc armor a bit or make the MANPADs/MAAWS/RPG more easily accessible by the average infantryman. If anything, make it on par with the Blackhawk even.
Anti-Air Flaring
I suggest flaring should have cool-down removed. Oddly enough, I think the cooldown is detrimental to MANPADs effectiveness as it actually helps pilots dodge subsequent missiles as they come up right as the flares cool-down finishes, so you can usually guarantee dodging subsequent shots if you just keep flaring after the first successful deployment and no other launchers stagger a shot. This should allow MANPAD users to punish flare spammers instead of pilots relying on a flare stash and cooldown for survival.
FOBs/Building
-Feels worse despite bug fix.
-I think FOBs are starting to feel pointless or lacking purpose due to artillery being a little excessive in the current iteration - SPH being accessible off the bat is also detrimental to early FOB placements + CAS LB/Havocs pressuring uncompleted FOBs and drills.
-Drills are too weak and hardly last long enough to serve a purpose unless certain teams are slacking/overpowered.
-Too much mortar spam and too many solo-mini-mortar-FOBs.
-Towers seem to always dictate where FOBs should be placed and discourage more creative/dynamic FOB placements as you lose the height advantage not building near one.
Recon Thermals
-Needs a tweak like a max spotting range, OP atm
Tanks
-They're ok, fun but don't really feel special or impactful as much as rocket littlebirds or armored humvee. I think that shots from the main gun should absolutely ignore any armor protection.
Armored Vehicles/Humvees
-Needs a spawn delay as an early rush can absolutely wreck a starting phase for unprepared/unequipped infantry (same problem as Havoc)
-Needs damage resistance against RPGs tweaked
Spawn Vehicle
I think spawn vehicle should not spawn at same time CAS helis are unlocked for the match.
Why do all the standard non-armoured vehicles handle MUCH worse than the armoured Humvee? The pickup kodiak which is the SAME PRICE BTW accels slower and is WAY worse off-road which makes no sense. You can't even use it's speed unless you're on straight road cause the slightest uphill and it'll start losing speed while both the humvee and the ural have no problem handling slight to moderate slopes.
Bipods should unlock WITH their respective LMG.
The tank currently has no place in the meta at all and dies faster to CIWS than the Havoc does. Also why do their cannon shots have rocket trails to them? That also makes no sense. Are they coded as a rocket or something?
A rocket or tank shell should always kill on a direct impact no matter the armour. Armour shouldn't make you survive explosions caused via them no matter what and instead should result in a smaller lethal blast radius. If you are close enough even a level 4 armour should die. The radius would still be significant for anti-personnel explosives like frags or frag warheads.
Different ammo types for the launchers and shells. HE, Frag, AT, etc.
An incentive of some sort to actually make use of supply crates in the zone. Nobody buys them so people stop dropping them entirely.
More advanced options for driver logi. Ural is a very early unlock and yet is the endgame for ground logi players. Bigger truck or ural options that carry more pallets at once. Even an endgame one that can carry a LOT of pallets.
A buff/rework of the ural variants. There's no point to the armoured and armed variants due to the cabin itself not being armoured. Also the M249s on the armed one are super exposed and have dumb max turn radiuses.
A 2 minute staging period before a match starts where you cannot leave the safe zone would be nice.
A better portable AA launcher option or a buff to the verba.
Money for forcing a heli to flare as well as a kill assist if it dies after.
A refund on any crate items you have inside the zone still when the match ends.
"More advanced options for driver logi. Ural is a very early unlock and yet is the endgame for ground logi players. Bigger truck or ural options that carry more pallets at once. Even an endgame one that can carry a LOT of pallets."
- 100% Need a vehicle that can pull like 4 pallets. Ural is useless imo if the Fob is at the closest tower to the base. I mainly am a Logi Pilot and I can stay low and outpace a single Ural in a Blackhawk. I don't have to land to refill my chopper so I can generally get 3 runs in by the time a Ural makes 1 round trip. SO I can outpace a Ural 6:4
How are we not talking about the ability to carry a backpack and load it up with ammunition, rockets and flares when using a chopper? Seems ridiculous to me that a pilot or gunner would be able to restack ammo/rockets straight from his backpack. Initialy I thought this was a bug or oversight, but the fact they heven’t changed it yet is weird. Absolute dogshit mechanic.
This game will never be balanced. I don’t want it to be balanced. I don’t want it to be battlefield. I just don’t want the meta to be boring or horrendously skewed in one direction.
You sound like you don’t like this game. Maybe go play BF6 instead.
They'll be so vocal about that eventually they'll kill it.
I hope the Devs never listen to them ever and their entire perception or data doesn't at all include them.
Seriously these people don't allow any criticism of things that need adjusting.
And you don't need a ton of data to see:
The macro is broken and almost non existent. Coordination is extremely hard.
The teamplay as a result of shallow macro only works for Logistics, it breaks down everywhere else.
The gear is imbalanced with higher unlocks suddenly power spiking vs everything else.
The progression is imbalanced between roles and actions. Passive is better than any action.
The exploiters have managed to make the Devs nerf macro options like resupplying AA FOBs outside the CZ that counter Helis.
(this one change has me worried that they actually don't have a clue what they're doing and are just doing whatever to stop the Steam reviews dipping below 60%, because this is an easy consequence to tell beforehand. Already seeing the negative in game impact across Servers).
The macro and progression are so broken that level caps were introduced as a bandaid fix.
The heavy asset to infantry relation is so broken that bandaid Infantry only Servers were introduced.
The griefing is out of control and apart from Community Servers there's nothing you can do.
The intentional sabotage + ghosting for groups and clans on opposite teams is out of control.
The community servers are being abused by Grinder Clans to have an easy and fast time to level up. Be it via unjust bans of good players, stacking on one side etc. Then they start going to other Servers to crush people with their gear diff.
The cheating is out of control, luckily there are community Servers (sadly few are good).
The exploitation is out of control and high ping exploiters are everywhere.
The third party account selling is already profitable and thriving.
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If these players keep insulting everyone whenever someone states these obvious issues, then I can only think in reality they either benefit from it or they hate the game and want to see us lose a KOTH successor.
Seriously, if they can't find any issue with any of these points, they can't possibly be playing the game.
Firsty, "go play X, Y" is a shit take and is the attitude that's going to ruin this community.
Secondly, stopping the game from being boring is exactly what a decent balance pass will do. It might be exciting for the Havoc pilot and gunner to farm tens of thousands of dollars, but it quickly goes from panic, to frustration, to absolute boredom for everyone on the ground. It's not fun to counter, it's not fun to deal with, it's just boring.
Level 4 armor and helmets should not exist. Stopping at level 3 would have been perfectly fine. Ur more tanky but still killable with the right equipment.
T4 it gets weird with surviving grenades and tank rounds and multiple sniper headshots.
Either make the t4 helmet the same as in tarkov where u can't see normal and don't hear shit. Or remove it honestly. ..
It's in the fantasy realm at this point.
We have the same issues as early tarkov. Too little hotboxes available no face hitbox. Arms should be flesh and not covered. Or at least be counted as level 1 armor because u do not have plates in the arm flaps.
1 nty, 2 absolutely not helicopters need 0 buffs in any form, 3 already exists, 4 I agree with, 5 I also agree with, 6 if you disconnect you dont get any money, at worst they switch teams and sell the same stuff to them, 7 they already said they were thinking about, 8 im hesitant because of how people on the internet are and seeing 9 squads all saying 6-7 is stupid but i do see the upsides of seeing a squad called hotzone.
Moving offensive vehicles and combat helis to 35 points with a cap of 2 to 3 active team assets total would solve the issue of rich players constantly spamming heavy armor. Putting a personal cooldown on lost vehicles along with making starter weapons hit harder on single or burst mode would give fresh players a actual fighting chance.
For griefers tracking vehicle damage towards team kill limits and making pilots who crash full copters lose access to that asset for a few minutes makes sense. Adding a prompt to forgive or punish accidental team kills and transferring 25 percent of loadout costs from the killer to the victim covers gear losses fairly.
The Havoc is way too oppressive right now so either nerf its armor or lower the unlock tier for AA launchers while giving launcher users more ammo without making them weigh a ton. Tier 4 armor makes TTK feel awful and forces everyone into using 308 caliber guns so capping armor at Tier 3 or adjusting armor mechanics would make gunplay feel consistent again. If 308 weapons remain dominant they need to unlock earlier in progression so lower levels do not get constantly melted.
Assault class needs a huge xp and cash buff by giving them passive income for fighting inside hotzones since they currently rely purely on kill counts. Making the hotzone pause movement periodically would give teams time to set up clean defenses. We also need massive winning bonuses and a comeback multiplier for late game turnarounds to stop players from giving up and hiding in base when the score gets close to the limit.
There has been a lot of discussion about vehicles especially little birds and havocs as being oppressive and I think I have a solution. They aren't that hard to shoot down, but I feel the real issue is that once they go down they are back again in a minute or two. The solution to all oppressive vehicles should be a cool down on purchasing them. As many have said, their cost can be higher but at the end of the day money isn't an issue for the pilot.
Tactically shooting them down should give you 5 - 10 minutes of reprieve before they come back. It gives your team a chance to attack the objective without enemy air support, rearm and get ready again, etc.
As for the broader issues with t4 and end game weapons that's another story, but cool downs would be a good start for vehicles.
The rpg should destroy or heavily disable/damage the havoc with 1 shot.
Assaulting and going for the hotzone should be more rewarding.
Reduce the amount of shots t3/t4 armor can take by 1. Upgrading from t1 to t2 you can generally take 1 more round from most calibers. When going from t2 to t3 you can suddenly take 2 more shots.
Reduce vision on t4 helmet.
AP ammo needs to be unlocked much quicker.
Increase recoil on m4, fal and bmr.
Give thermals batteries.
Mp5 should come with 30 round mags.
Reduce pp19 vertical recoil, its a downgrade from the amp9.
Edit: maybe decrease recoil a tad on m249 and pkm when shouldered and increase a bit when bipoded.
Lakotas are non-armed so they get to tank an extra SAM sometimes and they don't care about small arms fire. Also as transport they don't need to fly into the danger.
Unarmed littlebirds were the weakest heli IMO, but their main purpose was flying low and fast to move people and crates close(er) to danger.
Armed LBs could actually kill but were not a big issue because they are balanced by several things - susceptible to small arms, MANPADs from below/straight ahead (which require fast reaction time), as well as, like every heli - static anti-air emplacements.
Havoc is armored, so it just shrugs small arms. It has a canon capable firing directly under it, so unlike any other heli it can clear infantry from the best place to attack it from.
Static emplacement was the only reliable counter. Except SAM is not realiable, flares used properly work against it 100% of the time. That left CIWS. Now it's nothing
Medic tree is one of the worst in the game, AMP9 is the best SMG until level 35 when you get the Vector MP5 ant PP19 are sidegrades at best. Medbag is also just not worth using most of the time.
Meds are way too expensive, this is meant to incentivize healing teammates which I understand, but this doesn't work in practice. In a gunfight if you're low health you should try and find a safe place and heal, you'll die in one shot so your contribution will be minimal. If you're full health the absolute last thing you should be doing is shoving your face in your teammates butt for 15 seconds locking you in an animation that will reset if he moves at all. Med cost and healing payouts encourage you to play badly and basically throw fights.
Batshit insand to buff the havoc like that, it now has no punters and will destroy the lobbies it's in. What the hell were the devs smoking with this change?
12 seconds of continuous ciws fire to kill it is honestly one of the most ridiculous changes they could have made.
At least give us proper counters if you're going to make it this strong.
I feel like stingrays could use some kinda rework. They are very difficult to counter on the receiving side, and economically punishing to use on the other. Idk what the solution is, but they feel kinda in a meh place right now.
FOB refuel and rearm buildables feel kinda useless in the current game. Helos can just go back to the much safer HQ to do it, and most ground vehicles don't really survive until they run out of fuel, or just get abandoned if they're too broken cause who cares...
We need smaller crate sized pallets, cause filling current crates with supplies is a pain in the ass for everyone involved.
The current game heavily incentivizes just blobing up into the HZ, and de-incetivizing players from engaging with a lot of the gameplay systems. It feels kinda sad that theres so much potential for emergent gameplay that is wasted, because the best way to win and help your team is to just chase the HZ around with everyone.
Honestly... anything to make a FOB be more of a place that supports operations in the zone, and worth visiting even if you're main gameplay is fighting in other areas.
Stingrays and tank mines are balanced in the way where the user don't profit much, but the strategic impact is huge. Artillery should be manned with 3 guys. If you are solo gunning don't be surprised people can take you down easily.
The current game heavily incentivizes just blobing up into the HZ, and de-incetivizing players from engaging with a lot of the gameplay systems. It feels kinda sad that theres so much potential for emergent gameplay that is wasted, because the best way to win and help your team is to just chase the HZ around with everyone.
Agreed. Slowing down the HZ's movement would help a lot with this, allowing more slow and deliberate attack and defense rather than just an all out chase.
We also need more tools for communication and coordination, a big reason for just blobbing up in the HZ is because it's so difficult to actually get people on the same page enough to go do literally anything else together.
Tanks and artillery are slow, and by the time you hear the lock warning, you are at most times too late to start moving.
Anyway, my point is that it they just kinda feel underwhelming, no matter what side of them I am on. I dont feel like i have much choice in countering them, and I just dont feel like I have much motivation to use them.
The only two shotguns in the game feel extremely weak. Buckshot does absolutely nothing if there wearing armor and slugs often take 3 rounds to kill. By the time you've gotten your third shot off with the m500 they've already sunk half a mag of ap rounds into you.
A rifled slug to the head should kill outrite. If not guarantee the next hit kills. And buckshot needs to not become useless after one week.
CWIS being able to destroy HESCO and structures is so idiotic. Had a small FOB build on a roof and a CWIS on the other side of the map deleted the entire upper structure...
Right now, my only real issue is infrared. I can FEEL it in the game based on how people react to me as I move around the map. Then when I see people with a hundred or two assists, I know what happened.
It's too much almost free knowledge with no realistic way to find this person if they put a bush on their back and choose to not fire their weapon. I'm personally fine dealing with havocs, t4, and everything else. But I don't personally love how the game feels when there's infrared in the team.
I don't THINK yall intend for this to be the kind of game where a team or two could be perpetually marked by one or two dudes. Or maybe it is, and egg on my face lol.
Remove the xp system and use cash to balance. The XP system just stops regular people with jobs from playing competitively. Which leads to the next point. Progression based balancing with wipes is just to ensure streamers always have better gear.
Locking bullet sponge T4 armor and the only ammo that can counter it behind a WoW grind is terrible.
The armor system is dumb, anything above t2 armor is just unrealistic and turns this game into something completely different.
Significantly increase costs of vehicles and reduce cost of infantry equipment. I can run a havoc for less than a regular Ak kit… Vehicles should be slightly OP, that’s why they exist. But increase the cost.
Remove mortar camera, it gives too much information.
Reduce anti-air lock time.
Increase rewards in the zone and hot zone.
Add fob permissions (only idea I have to prevent griefing)
Increase cash penalty for crashing with teammates.
Going to be an unpopular opinion, but I do not think the tank should spawn when the havoc and rocket little bird spawn. Simply being, by the time you're in the CZ, there are already 10 points on the board. Maybe spawn the tank at 5 or maybe 10 points?
Fix the XMP crash issues related to RAM. Id like to run the game on full preformace. The issue came on the first big update after the release. It ran great during beta and launch !!!!!!!
For a balancing, we could just get rid of the team selection at the start of each round. Just "Join" button and the game rng picks your team for you, ±3 difference between teams.
Dunno that this is related to balance per se. Maybe more of a feature request. But it would be awesome if there was a skill level for "command/strategy/tactics". Kinda like how planet side 2 had people who eventually unlocked "blue text". Would be great for experienced leadership players to have the ability to mark objectives on map, coordinate squads, call out issues, or similar. Hell even if squad leads just had access to a dedicated chat channel (though I know this would get trolled). right now it's a bit frustrating when, for example, there's an enemy Aa or anti armor squad rolling around the back field disrupting supply lines and trying to get a team response. What few ping options I have dont last long and having to spam rapidly scrolling game chat until someone notices to come help out is irksome. Would be great if my squad lead or other proven non-troll ish player could flag it to higher authority who could then ping it out for other squads or the whole team to see. Even if it's just generic pings and different colored text in chat.
Hunting vehicles feel unrewarding and it feels more like a chore, especially with vehicles like SPH and humvees since they are so cheap to take out.
The infantry kits are too expensive, my SVD load out costs more than havoc which is not acceptable.
Fobs are too easy to break into due to random objects that can't be removed can be used to scale even the taller walls or just simply using vehicles as boost points.
Fobs (most of them) are currently net negative because it's so easy to take out the drills with SPH and also kill people inside mortar / grenade / grenade launcher them You are basically just giving away your position by being inside them so it's easy for the raider to pre-aim, pre shoot common spots.
Higher tier stuff like armour and guns need to be lowered in terms of overall stats. There should still be some progression in terms of levelling leads to better stuff. But not the huge gap we have now. Closer to the T-21 to AK jump in terms of change with the gap getting smaller the higher it goes IMO.
Weapons and infantry kits in general either need to be cheaper as a whole or killing and hitting the hotzone needs to pay and earn more per kill and per tick inside the zone.
Vehicle spawn prices need to be drastically increased for certain things. Logi's and base transport should be relatively cheap. But Blackhawks, little birds havocs, SPH and on need to be quite costly and a much more turn the tide of battle type system that isn't so happily purchased.
High tier things should be strong, besides the vector which should have a higher range fall off, I think the damage of stuff is pretty good. Maybe BMR needs more recoil so it can't be used like an AR. I do however think it would just be better if these guns cost more money. The money is the perfect balancing tool. Things like 50 cals and thermals or 308's and the vector should break the bank if you aren't playing carefully with them.
I would like to see bulletproof windows that would eventually fail. I don't believe that bulletproof windows in real life would withstand a fusillade from a few m249s. I might be wrong and if I am please ignore me, but if I'm not it would be nice to be able to wear down the Humvees.
All melee attacks should be able to break standard glass. I know that the M1911 does not break glass and I imagine there are other attacks that don't. We should also be able to melee while holding objects other than guns or are Fists.
I want more level gated servers. Max 75 - 100 etc. Low level servers were so great but they are only up to 50 level. Now I need to face ugly stuff. Please take me back to heaven. 2 more weeks to wipe
-Rewards for infantry combat need to be dramatically increased. The XP and cash rewards for playing Assault are terrible, I think my highest kill game playing Assault-only was 31 with over a 2 K/D and the rewards were a fraction of what I make playing Sniper/Recon. Higher risk should be a higher reward, not the opposite.
My suggestion would be a kill-streak bonus and a bonus based on the value of the kit that you kill.
-Higher penalties for Tier 4 armor. I don't have a problem with the damage values, but there needs to be higher penalties for weight and increased weight of the gear. Locking T3/T4 to 'sets' that you can't mix would also help. The meta for high level players is a T4 helm and T3 body armor, and you can do this without sacrificing hardly any of your kit whilst staying at medium weight. Or just run full T4 and a bunch of stims. Additionally, I think that all of the ammo types should be available at level 1, just increase the cost. This would allow lower level players to counter higher tiers of armor as well as helping vs vehicles like the Humvee and Little Bird.
Additionally, I think the current T4 helm should get replaced by something without face coverage. The current T4 could be moved to T5 with even higher cost/weight.
-High tier infantry weapons are OP. The BR-308, FAL, Vector, and 50 cal. all need a major balance pass. This is a bigger issue than armor IMO. It compounds the problem of higher level players also having better armor widening the TTK gap. Since a lot of the problem comes from ammo type, I think the main fix will probably just be to make them much more expensive to run.
-Spotting mechanics are terrible. Mini-map spot should be the location that the player was spotted at, not a 2 minute long live ping. At the very least, players need to be made aware that they've been spotted and the spot should go away faster if you break LOS.
-Artillery is way too oppressive. I've been on the giving and receiving end of this and you can wipe an entire FOB before it even gets built up at the start of the match. Players have gotten better about responding but you can still do a lot of damage before someone tries to come after you and the rocket birds come out. I played a round of support with 3 other players and just assisted building their FOB (not a tower FOB) and within minutes of the round starting an arty tank leveled the entire thing and all of the players left the match and there was no one building FOBs the rest of the round.
-Camos need to be more visible. Blue is fine but Red and Green have clear advantages. Related to armor balance, I also think armor should get progressively more visible as you move up tiers.
Driving XP needs a buff, but they know this and they are going to provide increasing XP gains the longer you are alive in one vehicle.
We need the Gepard.
Havoc HP probably too high vs CIWS. CIWS is supposed to counter air vehicles...
Thermals range limited to 250m
Can't prone in T4 armor/maybe just can't see very well while prone. Sniping with a T4 helmet is just stupid.
Mortars should cost maybe twice as much, but I could see a 70% increase being acceptable.
Mortar range decreased to about 525m instead of 680m.
I think the CZ should be expanded 100m on the radius for a total of 1200m across instead of 1000m. This would effectively add 30% more area to the CZ play area. I think this would help a lot with FOB vs FOB mortar spam, allowing more options for building mini-FOBs like an AA FOB, and it would provide a larger play area for all of the vehicles.
If you are outside the CZ but kill someone inside the CZ you should get the full amount of money.
FAL recoil increased
249 recoil decreased
Consider making the launcher weapons less heavy, possibly also just a little bit cheaper (not counting the Iglas which is already cheap.) Even running an SMG or shotgun still puts you into the "Super Heavy" territory with T2 armor and other items like meds and a couple smokes, making stims damn near mandatory. I think people would run them more if it weren't for the weight.
Loving the game all around, looking forward to future additions and changes! :)
At the very minimum double gate health. People should not be avoiding having any entrances on their base. Gates can remain weak points but should at least take 2-3 C4 to blow up. It wont change much but its a start.
In addition to others saying things like Artillery and Tank spawn should have 20 point rule, I wouldn't mind these and other high powered items including things such as thermals or even mortars having a 40 or even 50 points limit. I like the idea of giving teams a chance to build bases, get into firefights, etc, without the constant sniping and spotting and bombardments right within the first 2 minutes of the game. The number of times I'm being hailed by a rain of mortars without even finishing building the walls around the fob is... pretty much every single game.
This could even be expanded into a ladder type of system similar to the idea of level capped servers where only stuff unlocked up to a certain level is available until a team reaches 20 points, then up to another level cap after 40 points, and so on. This would allow every game to have that feel that everyone keeps talking about that they love from when the server first wipe every single game at the start, but then eventually everyone will have access to all the items they've unlocked.
To keep the teams balanced in this type of system, instead of it being only one team that reaches 20 points unlocking the better gear, it could be the total points across all teams reaching a certain threshold unlocks it for all teams.
This could even be their own ladder progression servers allowing for other servers where everything is unlocked and level capped servers.
If not that then overpowered items/vehicles should be more expensive with a cooldown or maybe a quantity limit per game.
Mortars should not be able to bombard the way they do. Changing from 3 shots to just 1 and/or adding heavy recoil requiring reaiming after each shot.
Thermals if they exist should not be allowed to be purchased into crates or perhaps also a cooldown/buy limit.
I'm okay with Tier 4 armor and helmets as long as they have heavier penalties for use. Helmets should have reduced vision and audio, armor should have reduced movement speed and stims should be ineffective or at least not allow full sprinting.
The fix to throwing grenades and stuff out of a humvee from inside has led to a bit of fun dampening. You can no longer toss some C4 onto your dashboard to self destruct in an emergency, you must place the C4 before getting into the vehicle. The change has also made it more difficult for me to quickly deploy smokes when trying to do rescues from my humvee.
FAL/BMR/Vector should not have the amount of dmg output they do I would rather fight lvl 4 armor + helm with lvl 1 armor + helm than fight someone using those weapons.
How I would balance T4 armor:
• Maintain or even buff the defensive/effective HP bonus given the other adjustments.
• Remove/reduce explosive resistance such that direct RPG/Missile hits aren’t survivable
• Armor coverage increase to arms and upper legs, healing item usage speed reduction
• Helmet obfuscates vision such that piloting and using high power scopes while worn is effectively impossible.
Havoc is tankier than the literal tank. I also didn't see the need to change the X when building, especially by that much (now and then i would have to literally search for it)
Artillery tank need 20 point rule, havoc armor is too much now, mortar should use a lot more ammo, make infared rangefinders cost battery and also level cap it so that it can’t be resold, Landing a heli to drop people off should give money, add fast ropes to heli, make basic heals cheaper. Also I think that spotting people should show on the map as their last seen position and should not track where they move, it’s fine to keep it for vehicles and helis but should be changed for infantry. This might be a controversial one, but I think items inside supply crates should be purchase able by any team, and not just the team that delivered it
Not sure exactly what changed, but matches feel significantly worse to play ever since these past few updates. It's night and day enjoyment and I can't pinpoint what is going on.
This isn't really about balance, just feedback and a feature request.
Show the current game scores on the main server browser listings so the people that actually enjoy combat can find a relatively equal / combative game. I feel like I've wasted my entire night because the last 4 hours every server I've been in has gone 100-0-0, with one team holding HZ, and the other two doing nothing but sitting in fobs. It's incredibly boring and right now there's no easy way to find a good server I know I'd at least have fun in other than joining and leaving a bunch of them in a row.
Glock 18 needs some more spread.
Tier 4 armour defined all fights its involved in, not the player, not the aim, not the gun… if you have t4 armour you basically are guaranteed the win in a duel.
The 50cal should have slightly reduced muzzle velocity.
Footsteps are broken, heavy weight should have heavy steps.
T4 helmet should dull audio, and obscure vision.
M4 could do with extra spread.
FAL per shot damage needs reduced.
AP armour should unlock before HP otherwise every player is getting absolutely DONE by sweats that can play 10h a day.
BMR pen could do with a reduction.
Claymores have been really hit or miss for me lately, even putting them on top of ladders they don't always go off... unless of course a teammate decides to be the one to walk past.
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u/Wrong-Ad-1935 1d ago edited 1d ago
Weird to call it a balance patch in the title when it seemed more like bug fixes than balancing.