WARDOGS Season 1 changelog: the launch rebalance in full — XP bands, prices, unlocks, vehicles, voice and crash fixes

'Looking at the data we have decided to slow levels down around 10 to 20, and flatten the curve from 35 onward. This means our median players, at 20 to 25 hours, will be around level 20, and those wanting the big ticket items, the top 5%, will need to grind. Artillery moves to Career 90 and Heavy Tank to Driver 35. Driver has also been rejigged to give a satisfying escalation through attack vehicles. Forward Operating Base and Large Hammer vendor prices have gone up to make them more of a choice.'

On the XP bands specifically: 'Previously our balancing was designed specifically for weekend long beta tests. Now they will be in-line with where we believe they should be. Each season we will have a different XP curve with different item orders.'

A word on what 'Season 1' means here. The changelog is titled for the season, and BULKHEAD says the XP curve and item order will differ 'each season', but no season length, end date or reset policy is published. Patch 0.11 three days later refers to Season 2 content in development. So 'Season 1' is the launch configuration of the economy, with a successor already being built, and this page will be superseded when the Season 2 changelog is posted.

Twenty to twenty-five hours to level 20 for the median player, and the top 5% needing to grind for the big items. Both come from the same paragraph, and both are design targets rather than measurements — BULKHEAD says 'will be', not 'is'. They matter because they set the scale for everything below: 250,000 XP is what the studio thinks twenty-odd hours of typical play produces, so any XP event value can be read against that. A 250-XP air-vehicle kill is a thousandth of level 20; a 1-XP crate sale is nothing, which is the intent.

Below level 6 is unchanged. Percentages are BULKHEAD's.

Two XP events changed: 'Player kill using an air vehicle: 300 XP to 250 XP' and 'Supply crate item sold under $75: 25 XP to 1 XP.' The second pairs with an economy line: 'Rescaled the supply crate purchase curve from 25 to 250 down to 1 to 200, so low value items are priced sensibly and cannot be abused.' Together they close the loop where selling many cheap items levelled a track. The role-track curve was also rebalanced 'from level 6 upward… with a larger increase at level 10.'

'Every price change in one place. Level moves stay with their track.'

Listed by track as in the changelog. Career: Sports Parachute 36→35; Large Backpack 56→55; 7.62×54mm AP 83→82; 5.56mm AP 85→83; Deagle 90→85; Artillery Tank 55→90. Medic: PP-19 50-round drum magazine 33→29. Support: Large Hammer 7→8. Driver: URAL 4→3; Kodiak Assault 8→6; Dune Buggy 10→8; Kodiak Flatbed 2→10; Large Supply Crate 20→16; URAL Covered 30→18; Music Tape H moves from Pilot 28 to Driver 23; URAL Attack 40→25; Humvee with minigun 35→30; Heavy Tank moves from Career 35 to Driver 35.

Most Career and Driver items got easier by a level or several; the two exceptions — Artillery Tank up 35 levels and Kodiak Flatbed up eight — are the 'big ticket' rationing and the flatbed's promotion from a starter truck to a mid-tier logistics vehicle.

'Z20 Lakota balance pass, and a fix for sluggish pitch. Helicopter input damping now applies to every input device. Vehicle turrets now have a maximum operator rotation speed. 155mm, 122mm and flare deployables now take up more room in your loadout. Fixed a DPI issue affecting tank aiming. Brought the Z20 Lakota chase camera rotation rattle down by 6 dB.'

And one exploit: 'Fixed an exploit that let players reach an unintended position on the church roof.'

Career (account-wide, by its contents): six unlocks moved, five of them earlier — Sports Parachute, Large Backpack, both AP ammunition types and the Deagle — and one much later, the Artillery Tank at 90. Medic: the PP-19 50-round drum magazine came down from 33 to 29. Support: the Large Hammer went up one level to 8. Driver: ten items rearranged into the 'escalation through attack vehicles' — URAL 3, Kodiak Assault 6, Dune Buggy 8, Kodiak Flatbed 10, Large Supply Crate 16, URAL Covered 18, Music Tape H 23, URAL Attack 25, Humvee with minigun 30, Heavy Tank 35. Recon and Pilot had price changes only (scopes up; armed Little Bird up, Lakota down, small crate up), no level changes listed.

The Music Tape H is the oddity: it moved tracks, from Pilot 28 to Driver 23, and halved in price to $2,500. It is a vehicle music item, and the only cosmetic-type entry in a changelog otherwise about firepower and logistics.

Reporting and moderation: 'Added a new report tracking system. Reports are now weighted so that repeat and bad faith reporters carry less influence. Cheater bans are now announced in server when match termination is turned off. The kicked from server message now only appears if you were actually banned.' Server browser and front end: 'Reworked server browser filtering. Fixed community server images scaling incorrectly. The Host a server button now links straight to the hosting page.' (Patch 0.11 reworked the browser again three days later.) Voice chat: 'Fixed voice cutting out permanently after a failed join. Stale channel rejoins, push to talk targeting and re-login all recover properly now. Improved voice reliability under load, and added a visible communication status.'

Ten things to re-learn, each from a line above.

'DLSS Frame Generation can now be turned off without restarting, and the render target pool is configurable. Reduced shadow cache refreshes, which cuts hitching when you take control of a character. Fixed two crash paths in the frame generation pipeline. GPU crash reports now carry more detail, so we can act on them faster. Removed a legacy graphics dependency. Shadow quality is now clamped to Low on high benchmark scores rather than being switched off entirely. Fixed a crash caused by network calls scheduled off the game thread. Fixed a crash when closing a chatbox entry tooltip. Fixed a crash involving buildables. Fixed a crash when firing a weapon whose owner had left. Dropped items no longer affect navigation, which claws back a little performance. Improved startup reliability, with clearer messages when something fails early and a route to recovery.'

The settings guide explains what the DLSS and shadow lines mean in practice; the crashing page tracks which crash classes were fixed here and which came later in patch 0.11 ('More GPU crashes addressed').

PCGamesN's same-day summary: levels 10 to 20 'will take a little over twice as long as before'; 'slightly less experience from air vehicle kills, and almost nothing from selling supply crate items valued at less than $75'; Artillery from Career 55 to 90; Heavy Tank to Driver 35. Its report adds two facts not in the changelog: the launch roster of '37 weapons, 27 vehicles, and three maps', and the price plan — $39.99 at launch, 'gradually increase the price to $49.99 and eventually $59.99 by the time version 1.0 releases.'