Wardogs Season 2 sees developer Bulkhead address imbalance in the game's teams, with notorious blue loser Lonestar receiving targeted bonuses to entice players to join up as part of a "social experiment" in game balance.
The Season 2 patch notes take a swing at "faction balance," with Bulkhead acknowledging that "Wardogs is a game that isn't supposed to be always perfectly balanced." The running gag with blue team, however, bolstered by legitimate gameplay concerns, has started to materially affect many matches.
"One team had a notoriously lower win rate than the other two teams," the devs admit. "There are valid complaints around Lonestar's uniform visibility and certain spawn positions which we have been watching and addressing. However – sentiment around the blue team is the largest driving factor for players not wanting to play on that team."
Bulkhead is tackling this team imbalance the old-fashioned way: by injecting a bunch of cash into the weak team. For Season 2 only, playing as Lonestar will net you bonus cash and XP on win, as well as teamplay action cash and XP multipliers. You know a team is bad when the devs are literally paying people to support them.
Additionally, Lonestar uniforms will be "more desaturated to stick out less compared to other factions." This is the tragedy of being blue – an extraordinarily rare color in nature, rare in part because it's so bleeding obvious.
Similarly, to help offset spawn imbalances, "all faction spawns have moved on Bakurani."
If you do find yourself on the losing team – specifically, at least 40 points behind second place – you'll get access to a new 20% vendor discount. "Relevant to all teams, not just Lonestar," Bulkhead clarifies. You know a team is bad when it's the de facto loser in hypotheticals.
Simultaneously, Season 2 will introduce new team switching restrictions. "To stop late switching from deciding matches," Bulkhead says, "once a team is more than 10 points ahead" you won't be able to switch teams for 15 minutes after joining one.
"If you switch teams or join a match in progress, your map stays obscured until you reach the control zone for the first time," the patch notes add. What's more, "you cannot use the spawn vehicle until you reach the control zone for the first time."
Bulkhead may be running a social experiment and defending imbalance, but the devs still want to maintain some semblance of fairness. "These changes are intended to increase friction for team switch abusers, whilst still allowing for you to join the team of your friends if needed," the studio says.
For similar reasons, "community server hosts being seen to exploit the faction bonus" added to Lonestar "will be punished."
