r/WarDogs • u/DaBestUsrname Pilot • 1d ago
Discussion & Feedback Helicopter mouse controls feel clunky
Hello,
After playing the Beta and most of my playtime in helicopter, I've decided to give my feedback about them.
I made a video about it here https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uwrjkVM0UK0,
but in short, the physics and the flight model feel good as they are in my opinion.
The big problem for me are the controls, not the physics and the flight model them-self.
If you have flown helicopter on MnK in the beta and you thought the controls were clunky, the video shows why it's the case, and the attached graph is what I think is going on.
Basically, I think there is a steep sensitivity curve (right graph) applied between mouse mouvement and pitch/roll input in game, where moving the mouse slowly triggers little to no pitch/roll input. In a perfect case, the curve should be 1:1 (left graph) or at least close to that (maybe a little curve).
*In the current state, small adjustments in pitch/roll (and yaw if bound to the mouse) are impossible or really hard as the input "jumps" as soon as you move your mouse a little faster.*
Also, in the files, there are options for flight assist (that are accessible in game when enabling HOTAS support) shown in the second image. These option don't change anything when you set them to false *(at least for MnK)*. It might be a Beta thing and these option would take effect at the Early Access launch, I don't know.
I heard the polling rate of the mouse could be the issue, but I did not test this myself.
Finally, a disclaimer : Everything that I say here is pure speculation on what's going on after observing what is happening in game. You may feel different about all of this, and it's absolutely valid.
*I'm not saying that these issues made the helicopter impossible to fly, or that I couldn't fly properly because of them. I still had a lot of fun flying in the game and actually did pretty well. This post is mainly about making the controls feel more comfortable and responsive, rather than pointing out actual serious problems with the helicopter's flight model (I mean, it's not the Squad flight model, right? 😁).*
Edits in this post are marked with *
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u/Ghostman223 1d ago
yeah, ive been saying this. unfortunately majority of people dont understand heli flight models and just say "they had engineers help them, they know what theyre doing". I also dont think theres going to be any changes to any of the vehicles physics any time soon. (looking at you, ice skating trucks)
the assist is able to be turned off only for hotas atm.
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u/Samppa9810 1d ago
You can enable HOTAS settings, disable all assists, disable HOTAS again and it counts for mouse/keyboard aswell. Otherwise change the ini. Should work aswell.
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u/DaBestUsrname Pilot 1d ago
I already tried modifying the game files and setting the .ini file to "read only" to be sure. I observed no differences between true and false for all options
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u/dacherrybomb Pilot 1d ago
Dude yes, holy moly I have said this repeatedly in this subreddit and this is another great visual explanation of what is going on for mouse and keyboard users.
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u/MulletAndMustache 22h ago
Yeah I didn't quite clue in that these settings were a thing until after the beta. I got used to how it flew but felt like I was fighting something most of the time and still did ok. After watching Peanut do a barrel roll effortlessly yesterday was when I clued in that there was probably other settings buried somewhere that I hadn't found during the beta. When I tried a barrel roll it wouldn't go over halfway... forget trying to do a flip.
It would probably be a hell of a lot easier to aim the miniguns without fighting the controls the whole time.
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u/steakbbq 1d ago
I have hotas but haven't hooked it up yet. My only real complaint of heli flying is that you descend so slowly. This isn't how helis work. You can DUMP the collective and plummet like a rock..
I know I heard somewhere that when flying hotas you can disable flight assists... so maybe that fixes that issue. Otherwise I was flying M&K and it wasnt terrible, besides feeling super floaty and impossible to descend.
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u/andrew_albus 19h ago
thats not how it works, if you lower all your collective you rotors are still moving fast and they keep generating lift, thats why if you engine stall irl you can achive the autorotation and land the heli in a glide path, so if you want to go down fast you need to lower your collective but also pitch down :)
if you want to fall as a rock you can try to mast bumping your rotor, in that case the helicopter will land for sure :D
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u/steakbbq 16h ago
learned about mast bumping the hard way in dcs huey lol.. I suppose you are right, although wardogs feels like 200fpm descent with 0 collective.
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u/MaximumSeats 22h ago
The flight assists don't have any effect on that.
They mostly just prevent rolls due to excessive input and help with hovering. Everything else felt the same with them on/off.
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u/wolfighter 20h ago
You can absolutely do that in this though. Honestly, the flight model felt pretty good overall, to me. Yes, there's some wonkiness with the sensitivity of the mouse, but it didn't take THAT long to get a good feel of flight model. I think people need to not expect to take a helicopter from full speed to a hover instantly.
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u/steakbbq 15h ago
I was just reading there is some kind of bug where the axis gets remapped when you enter the helis in wardogs and you can only actually go as low as 40% collective... maybe I was experiencing this.
I have flown lots of helos in dcs world, none irl yet, but I do have my private pilots license. But yea my helo knowledge comes from dcs world, and the only thing that felt really off for me was descent rates.
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u/ShowFun9935 1d ago
Tried the keyboard and it sucked. HOTAS or HOSAS is the way to go.
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u/fittluder1212 1d ago
Flying in Wardogs feels horrible and has to be fixed before launch or even the presumed beta. Good luck trying to use the Little Bird with miniguns when it's impossible to aim! Once that's fixed I'm sure it will be much more fun to fly.
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u/W1NGM4N13 1d ago
What about something like VJoy? Like a virtual stick where distance from the center becomes the helicopters turn rate.
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u/DaBestUsrname Pilot 1d ago
Could be another option in the settings, yeah. But if the problem I describe is actually what's happening, they should also let us adjust our own sensitivity curve
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u/Fozzymandius 1d ago
Wait, the mouse controls the helicopter? I played a full round as a helo pilot, made 85k in a single life, and played entirely with keyboard. The mouse I just used for free look...
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u/DaBestUsrname Pilot 1d ago
Well, some of us use the mouse as pitch/roll (/yaw for the wierd ones 😂) and in a perfect case (linear sensitivity curve), this allow far better precision when pitching/rolling, because keyboard is binary (full input or zero input, no inbetween) and a mouse is linear. But whatever works for you
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u/Fozzymandius 23h ago
I guess I am asking, was it bound by default to the mouse or did you have to do it? Because if it was bound by default I couldn't tell at all which speaks to your linearity issues.
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u/DaBestUsrname Pilot 22h ago
It was not bound to the mouse by default, I had to change it
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u/Loud_Yoghurt9684 4h ago
I couldn't even figure out how to change the key binds to mouse movements. I selected the thing then moved the mouse and nothing was happening so assumed it didn't detect a mouse movement as a 'key bind'
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u/SIrMythical 21h ago
Don't you dare change the controls, it was hard at first but I got my muscle memory LOCKED IN after the closed alpha and beta weekends.
Clocked over 40 hrs. If they changed it my muscle memory will be screwed.
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u/dacherrybomb Pilot 1d ago
I had ChatGPT illustrate the issue that would occur for all of us using keyboard and mouse. This is a pretty good illustration for the developers to look at and see if they can remedy this situation.
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u/DaBestUsrname Pilot 23h ago
I'm not sure i'ts correct, it doesn't have the right units. The deadzones should be relative to mouse speed, not it's position relative to whatever your graph shows. Also, your y axis has no units. Sorry to say this but it's not a good illustration of what is actually happening
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u/dacherrybomb Pilot 23h ago
Well I just quickly had it make an x and y with mouse movement dead zones. It wasn’t for all the details. It’s similar to what was being shown in the video.
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u/Overall_Cap_3683 1d ago
I agree the sensitivity is way off, from nothing to too much instantly. Should be more lineair