It doesn’t matter how much bunny hopping and fancy gunplay you do in XDefiant, because weapon XP is still a grueling experience at the best of times. We all want to unlock those sweet Mastery rewards, or those slick attachments, and Ubisoft knows you’re keen to get ahead fast. With new tweaks coming to XDefiant weapon XP soon, executive producer Mark Rubin teases what PS5 and Xbox players can expect in the future.
In a recent social media thread, Rubin explains the rationale behind XDefiant’s XP systems, especially when it comes to crafting the best XDefiant loadouts in the arena. “People were unlocking attachments slower than we estimated. The faster leveling is in response to that,” Rubin explains. To keep the XDefiant meta in Ubisoft’s hit FPS game balanced, Rubin reiterates that “Weapon Mastery on the other hand does not affect gameplay and is supposed to be something special that shows off your dedication to a weapon. And so the re-balance of levels was in response to that.”
Similar to other multiplayer games like Embark Studios’ The Finals, Mastery rewards are purely cosmetic, and don’t provide players with any statistical benefit on the battlefield. However, equipping your preferred XDefiant classes with spec’d up weaponry has been somewhat of a painful ordeal since the game launched.
Unless you’re absolutely dominating lobbies in XDefiant for hours on end, getting access to some of the more beneficial scopes, grips, and magazines isn’t a quick process. Of course, we’re not expecting Ubisoft to give us everything at once, but a sense of progression is worth its weight in gold for any decent shooter.
It will be a steady path toward a complete overhaul, though, as Rubin says that “this whole system is being redone to be more engaging for everyone. It will be a couple of seasons before we see this, but we will be looking at feedback now to improve our future implementation.”
In a follow-up response to the XDefiant playerbase on PS5 and Xbox, Rubin adds that “I don’t disagree that there needs to be more progression. Prestige is coming”, alongside “other forms of progression” in the future.
With a Prestige system coming to the game, it is likely that players will get an entirely different line of dailies and or weekly quests to complete. If they all yield some worthwhile rewards, then it may reinforce the sense of leveling up that XDefiant drastically needs right now.
In related XDefiant news, get your first taste of XDefiant Season 1’s new faction already, and here’s what you need to know about recent nerfs to snipers in Ubisoft’s shooter.