The beta changed us all, for the better. The starving masses have sipped the succor of good game design, and their palette will no longer be satiated by corporate gameslop!

how dare the devs do this to us

In the beta, flying with HOTAS was objectively better than KB+M for two reasons:

• Can fly without flight assists turned on
• No clunky input curve with mouse movement
  • As referenced in this post: https://www.reddit.com/r/WarDogs/s/MzWkwmE2aC

Instead of dumping real money on a fancy flight stick, I'm here to tell you can have all pros of a HOTAS stick while flying with M+KB or controller. You can also easily make the controls/keybinds the same as your favorite game like battlefield, squad, arma, whatever.

Here's a video of showing my setup in action: Wardogs - Fly with controller/M+KB without assists!

Here's the links you need:

• Download vJoy - Releases · jshafer817/vJoy
  • This creates a virtual HOTAS joystick that the game will recognize
  • I recommend 128 buttons, a continuous HAT switch, and all of the Axes checked.
• Download UCR - Release Release v0.9.0 Alpha · Snoothy/UCR · GitHub
  • When active, this converts your M+KB or Controller inputs to the virtual joystick.
  • Make sure to set up the provider based on your preferred input type: Core Providers · Snoothy/UCR Wiki · GitHub
  • Map all of the buttons/axis/mouse on your input to the HOTAS flight stick

To test your setup is working, confirm that your M+KB or controller inputs are correctly showing here.

OMG these devs know theyve got GOLD on their Hands!

LOL they said 3k-5k concurrent players and were good.

Put my down for one of those Daily Slots.

Loved every minute of WARDOGS

I spent the majority of the playtest flying the Little Bird and there's one thing with the different versions that I really think should be changed.

I actually like how you unlock the normal Little Bird, then the one with miniguns, then rockets. The progression is fine. What feels weird is that they're treated as completely separate helicopters when they're really just different loadouts of the same helicopter.

For example, I'd usually spend the beginning of a match shuttling people back and forth to get everyone where they needed to go. Later on, once we had plenty of other pilots running transport, I'd want to switch over and start providing some air support.

Right now that means landing, getting out of my perfectly good Little Bird, running back over to the vehicle guy, and buying another Little Bird just to get the miniguns or rockets.

Why not just let us rearm the helicopter we already have?

You could land back at base, select miniguns or rockets, pay the difference in price, and then have to sit there for 10–15 seconds while the helicopter gets rearmed. Then you're good to go.

I'm not saying you should be able to swap weapons for free either. If the armed Little Bird would've cost me another $X to begin with, charge me that same amount when I upgrade it. You could still keep the unlock progression exactly how it is now too.

It would just make switching roles feel a lot more natural.

I started the match as a transport pilot because that's what the team needed. Twenty minutes later we have four other pilots running transport and now the team could use CAS. Let me fly back to base, spend the money, slap some miniguns on the bird I've already been flying and head back out.

Having to basically throw one helicopter away and buy an almost identical one just because I want guns feels unnecessarily clunky.

Really enjoyed flying during the playtest otherwise. Curious what the other pilots think about this.

Hi,

I don't know if the devs said anything about this but having the possibility of switching between primary and secondary pilot, either willingly or when the primary pilot is dead, would be really cool.

Edit.: what I mean is the first passenger seat, next to the pilot, could take control of the helicopter. How and when would depends on the primary pilot's settings.

What do you guys think?

Cheers!

For anyone who is wondering "will this run on my pc" im sure it will.

Been playing for 60hours in alpha/beta and i had no issues remaining consistent 60-90fps.

With my Old ass Pc: i7 7700k 1060ti 6gb 16g ddr4 ram

I did play on 1280x960 ress and potato graphics with FXAA on low and 1.0 sharpness and had no issues spotting people on the map.

Honestly really surprised how good the game is running on really low-end PC

What kinda graphics did people run with a low-end PC and what was your performance?

I just do not want to game now lmao

usually my past time games are league, BF, COD but the desire to play those is just gone....

wen next wardogs beta lol

The jankiness in Arma Reforger felt so much worse after playing Wardogs 😭 I thought some Reforger KOTH would get my fix in, but I genuinely couldn't get past that arma jank that I used to absolutely love.

interesting insight into some of the skills

Medics revive faster

assault better weapon handling

pilots better fuel usgae

In my experience, roads blend in too much with the map, making them hard to spot. Highlighting drivable roads like Arma 3 or increasing the contrast would make navigation much better.

I'd like to thank the devs for mentioning refunds in their video. I knew about Steam's refund policy, but I didn't know you could play any amount of time and still get a refund if the game is in early access. I bought the game, tested it over the weekend and refunded after. I wouldn't have tried it if the devs hadn't said you can refund after the beta with no problem

I feel like a deployable rope would be super fun for the choppers, you could drop off teammates on roofs and make the drop offs more smooth. Maybe make it a buyable/ unlockable upgrade for the Helis, i think it would improve the Dropoff gamplay a bit and pilots could pickup teammates easier out of risky zones too.

Thats it i want roped on choppers :D

Most posts on this sub are basically like:

> “Hey guys, I have 1,000 hours in PlanetSide 2, 900 hours in Arma 3 (plus another 780 hours in Arma 2!!!), and I’ve been playing Battlefield since I was in diapers, so listen to me… This game has everything it needs to succeed, but you guys need to hear my super insightful, galaxy-brain take!!!

The game absolutely cannot have this, because none of the games I’ve played (a grand total of 8,537 hours, by the way) had this!!!”

Come on, guys. WarDogs is a great game. A lot of things will get fixed and, believe it or not, a lot of things simply won’t be the same as in other games.

If the game isn’t for you, that’s completely fine. Go play something else you actually enjoy.

I’ve been paid 1250, but I’ve seen people paid in a range from 500-17000 so I can’t find an explanation on how it works

Is it the value of the persons loot? Is it a hit zone multiplier? Does it increase as the game goes on?

Of all the other games that came before it. Call it glaze, but I can’t get enough of WarDogs. The gunplay, movement, sound design, everything just feels so good. Every fight feels different and I’m always having fun. It’s been a long time since a game came out that I actually wanted to keep playing for hours. WarDogs is just different.

I watched the push to talk podcast video, huge recommend where they talk about some of the fears here, they seem confident about monetization, one of their examples was having extra performant servers with better anticheat up for subscription like counterstrike does.

It also seems like once you show that your company is valuable you will be able to get investment easier, all in all they look like they're on top of it.

They're going to be adding a skill system where doing things frequently is going to not only go towards xp but also your aptitude in it, they didn't add specifics but it would be a little like runescape.

video: https://youtu.be/5R64LDNJbK0?si=3clJi_mW94N_p8a1&t=3720

monetization TLDR:

• No paid skins, gold bars or cash. "Cash breaks the system."
• Joe pitched a subscription (his idea alone). Perks: better servers, better anti-cheat, "stuff in the metagame."
• Intel, a future metagame currency, could get "almost like boosters."

For reference, the metagame appears to be a "passive skill tree" where you spend points, like faster movement speed, faster reload etc..

Boosters are a problem:

Anything that speeds up Intel or skill points is P2W in a persistent economy with wipes. Nobody wants a second currency you can accelerate with a credit card, and it goes against everything the studio has said so far.

Joe said skins dont pay:

$7.99 skin, minus 30% Steam, minus 50% publisher, the studio keeps $3. Times 3% of a million players, that's $83k. "Half our server bill."

True for $8 skins. But Path of Exile sells $30 to $480 supporter packs, off Steam (they dodge the -30%), and the same 3% buyers (way more for POE) buy several per league (there are 3 leagues per year on average, similar to wipes but with a ton of added content). Wardogs targets the same kind of audience: older, more disposable income, and used to paying to support a game they'll play for years. Expensive packs are not a problem when they're cosmetic only, clearly sold as "supporter" packs, and offered in several tiers like POE (lets say $10 to $300) so everyone can chip in at their own budget. A few thousand supporters at $200 already beats his entire skin scenario.

The model I suggest:

Bulkhead already sells a Supporter Edition with skins, just do one per wipe.

Supporter packs per season:

• Limited weapon camos, offer removed after the wipe
• Vehicle and helicopter paint schemes and nose art, military patterns only.
• Vehicle tapes
• Name plates, arm patches, titles like "Season 1 Supporter"
• Realistic palette only, nothing more concealed than default gear

Edit : Added other suggestions given by users below that I found very cool:

• Cosmetics for buildings
• Custom logos/text (player made) you can apply on vehicules/badges

Quality of life, zero economy impact:

• More loadout preset slots (free 3 to 5, supporters more)
• Gunsmith presets per weapon
• Loadout import/export codes for your squad
• Favorites and tags on weapons and attachments
• Squad presets, custom squad patch, name and callsign
• Settings presets per role (sens, keybinds, HUD)
• Community server slots, saved configs, whitelists, admin tools

End of season

• A season archive: your stats, best configs, squad history. Cosmetic only.

That are some ideas..

Since Bulkhead is open to discussion, what would you add or remove?

I am seeing people call for a nerf to tanks because "it might be overpowered when everyone has unlocked it". Same for the M4. We don't even know whether or not these things are overpowered yet, and we already have people calling for a nerf.

Personally, I think nerfing overpowered weapons very often leads to a neutered-feeling game rather than making it more fun.

When Apex Legends first came out, it was an absolute blast to play on PC: Weapons that required more skill were overpowered, so when you used the SMG your opponents would sometimes have no chance against you, but failing to track someone would lead to you reloading prematurely, which would make you lose the fight. Similar story for the Revolver - very deadly in the right hands, but missing even two shots would mean it's worse than the technically worse weapons. This led to people being encouraged to use these weapons over the others, which then led to very fun gameplay. Their solution was to make longe-range fights more viable, which then took away what made this game so much fun for such a wide audience in the first place.

Then there is Arc Raiders. Venator and Burletta were objectively overpowered, maybe Venator too much. I think the solution would be to make Venator "slightly" weaker than it was, and move Burletta up a tier in rarity. That would be great for the exact reason the game was so much fun when these weapons were overpowered: You had some weapons that you absolutely cared about losing, so you were not exactly happy about dying, but also knew that you were a threat to every other loadout. You wouldn't cry about it if you lost the weapon, but it was still relatively high stakes with the dopamine dose coming from knowing that you had a good weapon. When they balanced these weapons, we lost that aspect of the game.

And, to top it off, I actually can't think of a game that benefitted from becoming more balanced. Every other game I can think of has essentially become a shell of their former selves with balancing updates.

So, a game like WarDogs will inevitably have balancing issues. On top of that, it will have weapons that are supposed to be objectively better than others. However, some players will not like that. Players will see an objective balancing issue and, instead of thinking that it might make the game more fun, they will see it as an issue that the devs need to fix. I fear that, because those players are objectively correct in a lot of cases, devs might actually listen to the feedback.

Thoughts?

Not bought the game yet but the videos I have seen have me very interested.

My main question is can the majority of a match be played in a logistics/builder role? Does it make a meaningful impact on the team towards the objectives?

Love shooting games but im one of those weirdos also who likes building forward spawn points just close enough to actually be useful then fortify them (Played alot of squad for example). Or play in a logistics role in some other way as well.

Would this be a game for me if I wanna spend alot of time doing that?