One day after Season 2 of Wardows launched, Bulkhead Interactive is removing the Blue team cash and XP bonus it introduced to nudge players toward joining that side. CEO Joe Brammer said the plan “worked too well,” with the boosts skewing wins heavily in the Blue team’s favor.
According to PC Gamer, Brammer said in a new video (via RPS): “We were wrong. We fucked up.” The studio scrapped the bonuses after finding that even modest boosts—5% Lonestar cash and 2.5% XP—produced significant advantages for top-tier players, with the Blue team now winning “by far, the most.”
Bulkhead co-founder Howard Philpott said the studio expected the bonus to help somewhat but added: “I don’t think we expected it to be this much of a swing.” He also said the bonus was “impacting people joining games and starting games,” presumably because players who couldn’t join the Blue team would leave for another game.
“We’re removing the Blue XP bonus, the cash bonus. We were wrong,” Brammer said.
Brammer described the bonus as an “experiment” and did not frame its removal as a major misstep, noting that other rebalancing changes—including new spawns on the Bakurani map—have proven effective and will remain in place.
In addition to dropping the Blue team bonus, Bulkhead is addressing driver progression issues and fixing an exploit that let players access tanks too quickly. Players who were “very clearly” exploiting it—fewer than 1,000 people total, according to Brammer—will receive a 24-hour ban and have their cash and XP wiped.
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