My "Important Bits" Summary From The Dropped Frames Podcast

The thing that caught my attention the most: The quantity of feedback going up doesn't seem to have had an impact on them "sticking to their vision" . While talking about a lot of feedback, they heavily implied that a lot of the players providing the feedback are missing the point of what makes the game so fun to so many people, without saying that out loud.

If you don't want to read through the whole thing, skim-reading by focusing the bolded parts should give you a good TLDR version.

The vision: The game will remain "non-competitive"

The directors think Wardogs works because it appeals to everyone rather than just hardcore shooter fans . Early into development, they were struck by how much fun people from every department, more "non-gaming" departments like HR included, were having with it, and they have since been developing the game with that in mind as a big strength.

They openly said that sitting in a bush collecting zone points is a valid way to play, as is staying out of squads entirely ; they don't want to push anyone into one style. Phantasy the ex CoD 4 pro who is now a game director for Wardogs said that it's fine that some people want a competitive game, but that's just not what the base game is for. Community servers exist for the communities that will inevitably want a more competitive experience. The base game strictly won't cater to that.

Inter-Squad Voice Comms

Team-wide voice chat is a hard no. Community servers should handle it, and they think it would pull the game away from the casual feel they're after.

Squad leaders talking to each other hasn't been given much thought either; if it ever happened it'd be opt-in, but they don't see themselves adding it. The way Howard responded to the question made it seem like he went from "Maaybee?" to "Actually heck no" over the span of 30 seconds, so it seems very unlikely that this will get added either .

They confirmed that they are building a way for squads to publicly advertise their goal instead , so you can open a menu and see "this squad is focusing on Building so I should join them!"

Wipes and progression

Wipes will clear both money and XP , spaced far enough apart that nobody feels robbed. They want players to feel like "OK I've been leveled for long enough, I want the game to wipe now" before they get hit by a wipe.

Longer term , they want deeper persistent progression (player skills being the example) and more dimensions to money : A black market you can invest in, or a betting mechanic where you wager on your own performance and say "I bet this much money that I will get X kills" , for example, losing all the money you bet if you don't make it. They hope to be wipe-free by 1.0, but Howard said that he wouldn't commit to that idea yet; they'll judge it as progression deepens and they watch how players actually interact with the game.

So, in practice, the game might or might not be wipe-free by 1.0.

Balance and nerfs

Despite the feedback they're not convinced tanks are overpowered , and if it turns out to be OP, their response will be to add counterplay tools rather than nerf.

On the idea of one rich player spawning 33 tanks , Howard's take was basically "why not?" He accepts the first 20 minutes might be miserable while the other team works out what to do, but also thinks it will be an epic memory for everyone involved.

An interviewer brought up a memory where a guy who spawned six artillery tanks, a great moment for them even though the team had no clue how to use them and consequently they were useless. The directors agreed that should stay possible ; if it ever becomes a reliably winning strategy they might step in, but occasional lopsided matches are a fair price for memorable moments .

Phantasy added that money won't pile up like this forever, since there'll be far more to spend it on later. Those sinks just aren't in the game yet.

"The tutorial being bad"

Mechanics like tower pulling were obfuscated on purpose so players work them out and build shared knowledge. They're nostalgic for learning games through guides you couldn't fully trust, and they argued that modern games lose something by making everything too easy. They credit some of Wardogs' success to that feeling of discovery . The new player experience will get an overhaul by 1.0 since there'll be "more game" to explain. No forced onboarding and no funnelling people into squads to teach them - If someone doesn't ever want to join a squad, they think that is a valid way to play the game and therefore shouldn't be part of the tutorial.

Shadows and potato settings

They accept low settings give a small edge and implied they'll monitor it, but their read is that the playerbase might be overstating the potato advantage : the game apparently boosts player visibility past a certain range already, and very few players actually used potato settings in the playtest. Not said outright, but they seem to think lighting is the only questionable setting. On potato, distant bushes apparently turn fully opaque, which is a disadvantage.

Weather and map variants

Fog was tried and dropped for looking washed out. Map variants are coming , the creative director is pushing night mode, and rain is being experimented with and looks good. No date, but they clearly want these weather variants in the game eventually. Live day-to-night on one map looks off the table for performance reasons. Howard's caveat: Weather has to change how the game plays or the novelty dies fast, his example being tanks sliding around on ice and therefore being fun.

50v50v50 matches and Matchmaking

A Higher player count is not happening. Getting 100 players working was a huge technical challenge, especially since Wardogs packs them into a small area rather than spreading them out like a battle royale. The technical difficulty scales exponentially as you go higher, and they were able to get the game running with 80 players much easier than they were 85.

Matchmaking: (automatically putting you into a server) They had it in Battalion, and it went very badly. That seems to be why Wardogs ships with an old-school server browser. It's a back-of-mind QoL addition, not a priority.