War Dogs PvPvP 100 Person Tactical Shooter

Several gay rounds with harassment by mg humvee etc in first seconds, building various bunkers at edges of zone and getting zapped by retarded people no where near anything. Finally got a game we lost handedly, they never build real fob. But I got ciws up, zapped 2 havoks, we had one briefly, ended up making 100k or so undoing my previous 2-3 game tilt. 1.5 levels from maaws I wanted to push and try. Just leveling support is so painful. Ended up w/ mortar and getting a few kills but its rough as the front line moves, even with it spotted apc was hard to nail down on the move.

BrotherWu said:

I will never understand the psychology of cheating. I guess it is just a shortcut to a sense of power?

You guys who have tanks and Havocs, WTF did you do to grind those? Looking at my own rate of progress, it looks like it would take some serious poopsocking logistics to get the high end stuff as fast as people did. Personally, I can't hit shit with the minigun littlebird.

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I've told this story before, but I'll repeat cause its relevant.

I played a horribly grinding Asian MMO with a guy from Singapore back in the day (Blade and Soul) and he played both the EN and the CN servers and he explained in CN, cheating and whaling were considered favorably. In the West be view pay to power, buying levels etc as not earning it, cheating essentially. They view it with a bit of pride, dunking on the poors. You are rich enough you can afford to spend money and it also has the added statement of "I am important enough that my time saved to skip ahead is worth more than the money I spent to get ahead." You are worth more per hour than cost to skip the grind. It was broader and more nuanced than that, but whaling was considered smart and savvy.

This also extends to cheating. Cheating is accepted, and even expected in the culture. Everyone else is expected to be cheating at some level, and only an idiot wouldn't cheat as well. You'd be playing at a disadvantage if you didn't cheat, so cheat to keep up. Also, we view skill in game as the best expression of competence. To them, it goes a step outside of that. Skill at cheating is also skill at the game. Its more meta, but being good and cheating just means you are better at the 'meta of the game' (which includes the cheating) than all the others who are out there cheating and losing too you and the poor fools not smart enough to cheat, or cheat and get caught. Cheating isn't bad culturally so much as getting caught is.

Anyway, that is how he's explained it to me and some of my overseas travels for work etc have indicated this is, broadly speaking, true. In business for example in the West, we start with the assumption we're trying to make a mostly good faith deal where both sides profit. The assumption in a lot of overseas and Asian countries is we're both trying to screw each other from the outset and trust is only gained over time of good faith interactions.

Then you have the simple griefers etc, but those are usually a lil more blatant in their cheating. I've gathered as I've gotten older, that the whole 'Earning it in game through your own skill' is falling out of favor with some of the younger generations and my guess its the exposure to playing against other countries were cheating is more prevalent, combined with games not having a 'community' where your reputation matters, like a lot of the older games where you knew by reputation a lot of the people on your server.

Anyway, thanks for coming to my brief cultural awareness symposium

In pure Wardogs stuff, cheating is getting pretty questionable. I've seen a number of people who I had a total drop on do insta turns to gib me. Tagging and the thermals always leave the question of being spotted on the table, but if I was spotted they wouldn't have walked past me so casually before I stepped out to shoot them. Also, last game we had a guy meshed into the environment shooting people. Bug or hack? Who knows, but the game is having a lot of buggyness lately with netcode and positioning.

This also leads into the gear unlock system and how just broken some of the armor is. Hitting the same guy in the head with the Mosin's 7.62FMJ three times and him not dying is... questionable. I generally avoid playing milsim games cause having deployed many times the 'unrealism' just pisses me off. But taking three hits to the cranium. Even if you had armor thick enough to stop it the kinetic force would have that guy living in fucking Lala land and not running around like nothing happened.

Is there a game out there where getting hit with a round staggers someone, even if they live? The kinetic force of getting hit, you're going to stagger and stumble as it snaps your head around or throws you off balance while you are running. Anyway...

Mao said:

Is there a game out there where getting hit with a round staggers someone, even if they live? The kinetic force of getting hit, you're going to stagger and stumble as it snaps your head around or throws you off balance while you are running. Anyway...

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Bouncing a headshot in Tarkov can give you a concussion but the in-game effect of it is fairly insignificant compared to how it used to be. I don't think ABI does anything for headshots (which is funny because they do have stun grenades that give you temporary tinnitus). Don't think Arma has anything for head trauma either.

BrotherWu said:

The FPS gameplay, gunnery, customization, models, audio, etc. of Tarkov are superior in pretty much every way. I hope they take it more that direction in terms of realism (but with the extended gameplay elements).

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I have never played Tarkov. The reputation was just way too sweaty. I've always wanted some sweet spot between ARMA (Which, I like the idea of, but having done shit in RL it almost seems ARMA is more complicated and difficult) and BF. The old BF Bad Company and 2142 (the first, not the remake) were good. I can see a lot of potential in the idea of Wardogs, but the implementation really leaves a lot to be desired imo.

The paper pitch for the game is great. Skill based, 3 way KotH mil sim with persistent elements. However, the gameplay incentive structures are not aligned with what they claim to be the game objectives. Winning is a bonus, nice but purely optional. Instead incentives are more towards unlocks and grinding cash. Its why we're now seeing Blue Team be a dumping ground and people who go there are dad casuals, or people just grinding solo XP. Half the people on most teams aren't contributing meaningfully to winning. Just learning what is the best XP and money grind for their desired unlock and just doing that. Not only does it disincentivize teamwork, the other problem with it is the grind to unlock system ruins the skill base gameplay claims. Again, when I hit a dude with a Mosin in the head 3 times and he lives... whats the skill there? Dude sucked and got shot three times in the head by a bolt action, but his grinded (or gifted) t4 helmet just lets him vault any skill gap there. Had it earlier. Two guys camped Blue logi for a couple minutes. Both in T4 armor with jumper cables. People were hitting them, they were dying, but just a shot from the Defibs and their up again. Wardogs is a lil too CoD for me to take seriously. Oh, and going back to skill base. Multiple times I have been close in on a guy in cover, scoped and shot him in the face or neck cause he had a helmet. Game doesn't take into account gaps in armor. So... well placed shots don't matter as much. Shoot the legs I guess.

That being said, I have decent fun with friends and I grind the game without them just to unlock more stuff for us to use when we play together. I think the game has a real chance to have legs if the community servers get a lot of tools to refine aspects of the game and allow for more organized play instead of the haphazard teams and gear dependencies, or god forbid the devs actually do some serious balance and design work, but I don't expect the latter. Seems they are leaning into the grind more than flattening it.

Fuck it, I'm rolling, why stop. Revives need to be limited. I know this is a personal opinion, prolly very unpopular and not going to fit in with the Wardogs design philosophy and I really should prolly just hang it up and go try Tarkov or devote more time to ARMA and its sisters, but the magic hands, anyone revives massage needs to go. I'd also like to see limited healing unless you have a dedicated healing item. I want the game to be more lethal overall. I can assume this is wildly unpopular since no one seems interested in Hardcore servers, but 'milsim' games shouldn't feel like Destiny space magic damage sponges. I know this is a me problem, but people don't just soak bullets. That one robbery in LA being the exception, and thats because the cops all had service pistols that were pop guns, not battle rifles.

BrotherWu said:

The FPS gameplay, gunnery, customization, models, audio, etc. of Tarkov are superior in pretty much every way. I hope they take it more that direction in terms of realism (but with the extended gameplay elements).

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Maybe clarify this a bit because Tarkov's audio is notoriously terrible. Unless you just mean their overall sound design in which case yeah it's pretty good.

Their ambient and directional sound, just about the single most important thing in the entire game, is fucking garbage and has always been garbage.