Following the recent kick-off of WARDOGS’ second season, players have been asking for the addition of more quality-of-life features like loadouts. Studio boss Joe Brammer has taken to Reddit to discuss the potential addition of loadouts, and in a lengthy post, has explained that the team also wants players to continue experimenting with a variety of weapons rather than sticking to just a few that they can add to their loadouts.
Interestingly, Brammer has revealed that even members of the development team have been asking for loadouts to be added in the game. However, the decision to hold off on the feature was made because the game would have changed into players automatically gravitating towards their favorite setups.
“Loadouts are one of the most requested features from players, and funnily enough our own developers have been asking for them for years too. They are coming, but there’s a reason we’ve held off, so bear with me.
“Internally, we deliberately never gave the team loadouts. If we had, everyone would have gravitated to their favourite setup and only ever tested with that. Withholding them forced the team to play with everything, which meant far more of the game got properly tested. The same thinking applies to players right now.”
As for the eventual addition of loadouts, Brammer has said that WARDOGS will take a unique approach to the system rather than making it available for all players by default. “They’ll be something you unlock with in-game cash through the meta game, a way to spend what you’ve earned on a smoother experience. Buy as many as you like, or none at all.” This is because “it’s really important for us that players keep trying different weapons rather than settling on one setup, just as we needed our own team to, because otherwise it would heavily skew the balance data we rely on.”
Brammer brought up how the Rebuy option was changed during pre-alpha testing, since playtesters would keep using the button and would then complain about how the starter weapons were bad. This feedback led the studio to eventually make the Rebuy button less prominent.
“I know I’m partly blending two topics here, but from our side they overlap a lot. Loadouts are coming, and like almost everything else in WARDOGS, they’ll be tied into the economy.”
Bulkhead Studios wanting to get its hands on as much weapon use data as possible should come as no surprise, since the studio has continued to add new weapons to the game. Earlier this week, four new weapons were added to WARDOGS, and the studio has kept an eye on players to see if these new additions to the arsenal have required further tweaking.
WARDOGS is available on PC as an Early Access title and has garnered an incredible level of success. Reports have indicated that the multiplayer shooter has already generated almost $100 million in revenue since its release. For more details about WARDOGS, check out our review. And if you’ve been waiting until WARDOGS exits Early Access to buy it, be aware that its price is going to rise, and that in a couple of years, it will be priced at $59.99.
