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The Preseason for XDefiant launched on May 21. At the time of writing this article, the game has been out for less than 24 hours. XDefiant devs have been working on the game for a long time and the fans were happy to learn that it is F2P. After a minor challenge related to the matchmaking, things have been running smoothly. The first reviews are in. Between the glowing ones and extremely negative ones, an issue seems to stand out.
F2P or P2W, That is the Question
A Reddit user, JDivine911 noticed: “The Weapon Progression System is too slow”. They explained: “I’m seeing that even though I’m racking up a good amount of kills, I haven’t even unlocked a sight yet for my weapon. 100XP per kill isn’t enough to even make a dent in weapon unlocks”. In addition to that, they said: “It’s not fair to either have to spend money on buying boosters, or muddle through the slow weapon unlock system while getting beamed people that seemed to have their weapons unlocked to their liking”.
Soermen agreed: “Slow progression and the option to buy boosters in the shop is straight up P2W. If you are F2P with average skill and playtime you will be at a huge disadvantage very soon because everyone who has either time or money or both will have way better weapons than you”. Others had a similar issue with the game, saying how it was balanced around players who were spending money on the game, making the game very slow for the rest of the fans.
One of the fans, slayer-x, thought of a way to even out things. They said: “Weapon leveling is definitely too slow. If they can do double XP events often, it won’t be as bad”. PhDExtreme reiterated: “It’s a free-to-play game. Why would they make it faster-paced if they want people to keep playing”?
Some XDefiant Players Don’t Mind the Grind
Unsurprisingly, many players reported a completely opposite experience. One of them, gurken555, shared: “No, it’s not slow, m44 done under 3 hours. It’s too fast”. BlueBloodedTance contributed: “I played 2 hours today and have several attachments for the M4, switched to the AK, and have up to the heavy grip for the AK”.
Another player, Errorfull, agreed. They said: “I don’t get it, I have 1 hour of game time and my M4 is level 6 already. Granted it’s the only thing I’ve used, but it feels perfectly fine to me”. Beautiful-Context-45 explained that the problem might be in the OP’s skill level. With a kill rate of about 35 per match, anyone will progress quite well.
Our favorite observation came from BapLoggTheGod. They simply stated: “I don’t think it’s slow at all, played for around 10 hours and got the ACR to 53”. A true dedication. Other Redditors were left in complete awe.
Truth be told, we don’t mind the old-fashioned grind. Actually putting in the hours to accomplish something feels liberating. And, of course, the developers need to keep in mind that you can’t please everyone. If it were easier to progress, some other people would be complaining about how they’d already maxed out their weapons. This being the Preseason means that you can still expect a lot of changes. We look forward to seeing what else they have in store for us!