Wardogs Season 2 has just begun, and yet developer Bulkhead is already talking about what’s next. While it’s certainly been a hit in terms of player counts, with daily highs reaching 300,000 active users, there have been frustrations around the speed of progression. As a result, the studio notes that the second season of the multiplayer game’s early access hasn’t delivered the “fresh start” that it had intended, and it’s therefore thinking about “significantly bringing forward” the third one.
“Season 2 was meant to be a fresh start, and for a lot of you it hasn’t felt like one,” the Wardogs developer writes. “We sped up progression deliberately and tried to balance the game better, as set out in the patch notes, but it was the wrong call. Some players are reaching end-game gear like tier-four armor and MBTs within days, so the wipe never really landed.”
Bulkhead has so far been fairly vocal in its belief that the growth of the in-game economy as the community gradually ranks up over the course of the season is fundamental to the enjoyment of Wardogs. While discussing some of the bigger Season 2 mistakes such as the decision to award XP and cash bonuses to Blue Team players, CEO Joe Brammer reflects on the discrepancy between “influencers who play all the time” and feel progression is too fast, and “normal people like dads coming home from work” struggling to reach higher unlocks.
“We can’t balance for both,” Brammer remarks. “We either have that progression curve where you balance for the people that have all the hours, or you balance it for the people that don’t have as much time,” UX Director Howard Philpott continues. Season 2 was designed to be “a little more leaning towards the people with less time,” he explains. Unfortunately, that’s rapidly restored a lot of the late-game feel that the wipe was supposed to temporarily strip back.
Bulkhead confirms it “won’t be doing a knee-jerk reset this weekend, as that would be unfair on everyone already enjoying the climb.” Additionally, it notes that it’s in the process of monitoring certain aspects for potential changes. “Some things are clearly out of balance and we’ll fix them. Others have the community split, so we want to see how those play out first.”
Once it’s got its affairs in order, however, the team is “looking at significantly bringing forward Season 3 and some of its content, so you get a proper fresh start.” It adds, “This is what early access is for. Thanks for playing and for the feedback.” In the meantime, Brammer reminds the community of the ‘limited’ or ‘primitive’ servers (name pending) that are currently planned for the mid-season update 2.5.
These servers will put a cap on the weapons, equipment, and vehicles available, limiting them to the lower ends of the progression tree. This allows you “to choose not to play with power weapons,” meaning Bulkhead isn’t required to “nerf or overtune them for the myriad different players,” Brammer explains. “Regardless, we keep going, we learn, we improve.”