Arc Raiders' Good Loot Is Actually Bad Loot, and That Needs To Change

The 250 hours I've logged successful extraction shooter Arc Raiders archer you I'm hooked, but past week I work a remark connected the game's subreddit that perfectly encapsulated 1 of its fewer flaws.

"If the crippled is astir getting bully loot, but the bully loot is really bad, what are we doing?"

When you're searching a container, a uncommon augment – the devices astatine the bosom of your loadout — oregon epic weapon reveals itself successful a burst of purple, a catchy jingle, and a large boost to the worth of your stash, the spot wherever you hoard and organise your items. But really using these weapons and augments is acold little satisfying.

The rarest guns successful Arc Raiders should consciousness similar a glorious reward for each that clip you spent hunting blueprints, oregon for that risky combat you picked with a chap raider. But the epic weapons are hardly amended than communal ones – and successful definite situations, they're really worse.

There's precise small to choose, for example, betwixt the ultra-rare Vulcano shotgun and the Il Toro, which you tin find each the clip crossed Arc Raiders' maps. Yes, the Vulcano kills quicker erstwhile you spam the trigger. But the Il Toro deals much harm per shot, truthful erstwhile you're dancing connected the borderline of cover, peeking retired and firing earlier slithering backmost again, it shines.

There are plentifulness much examples. The Bobcat, the epic SMG, shreds up close. But truthful does the Stitcher, which you tin get arsenic portion of a no-risk escaped loadout oregon trade for next-to-nothing successful your workshop. The Sticher's "effective DPS", taking into relationship reload time, is really higher than the Bobcat's, and against definite shields the Stitcher tin termination successful 1 mag wherever the Bobcat can't.

And don't adjacent get maine started connected the Bettina, a limb endlessly memed the community. Yes, I get that it's for sidesplitting Arc, but you request to instrumentality eight stacks of ammo for it to beryllium worthy equipping. Give maine an Anvil oregon Trailblazer grenade instead.

If these epic guns were 10% much lethal, 15% little expensive, and wore retired 20% slower, they'd consciousness truthful overmuch better.“

In a caller interrogation with GamesRadar+, pb decorator Virgil Watkins said that "any fixed limb successful susceptible hands should beryllium susceptible of winning a combat if you're playing smartly". That makes sense. Newer oregon much casual players shouldn't suffer conscionable due to the fact that they're carrying a worse gun. But this besides isn't a team-based shooter that requires cleanable balance. When you find thing rare, it'd amended consciousness peculiar to use.

It doesn't assistance that maintaining these weapons is truthful expensive. Despite being the astir polished guns successful this apocalyptic world, their durability burns fastest, and repairing them munches done ultra-rare crafting parts. So alternatively than leveling the playing field, the existent presumption quo really does the opposite: the lone players that tin spend the hazard of utilizing and losing these weapons are radical who, similar me, person spent acold excessively overmuch clip topside, person recovered the blueprints of these guns, and person a upland stash of uncommon crafting parts acceptable to go.

In the aforesaid interview, Watkins did accidental "we're decidedly a spot disconnected connected immoderate of the outgo to payment ratios." It's promising to spot him recognise that, and I really don't deliberation it needs a monolithic accommodation to fix. If these epic guns were 10% much lethal, 15% little expensive, and wore retired 20% slower, they'd consciousness truthful overmuch better.

The rarest augments airs a antithetic problem, though. Before Tuesday's Headwinds update arrived, lone 2 retired of the six epic augments were beardown – the Looting Mk 3 subsister tin halt you bleeding retired truthful that you person the accidental of crawling to an extraction constituent with your loot, and the Tactical Mk 3 antiaircraft has a built-in shield recharger for PvP runs.

The different 4 aren't worthy the crafting components erstwhile you yet find their blueprints. I've equipped them erstwhile I've recovered them, but ne'er felt compelled to really marque one. The alleged "aggressive" combat augment, for example, regenerates a specified 2 wellness each 5 seconds. On apical of that, it pauses for 30 seconds erstwhile you instrumentality damage, rendering it virtually useless for its 1 purpose, assertive combat.

Unlike the weapons, augments don't request a rebalance. They request a full rethink. Top-tier augments should person a defining property that enables caller playstyles, and Embark knows this: the workplace added 2 caller epic augments arsenic portion of the Headwinds update, including 1 that lets you instrumentality a weapon successful your harmless pocket. That's a start, but I deliberation the useless ones request to beryllium culled and replaced by much imaginative ideas. I emotion the information that the much communal tactical augment deploys a fume erstwhile your shield breaks, and that the level-two looting augment makes you immune to face-hugging ticks. More of that, please.

Clearly, I find Arc Raiders compelling contempt this occupation with uncommon loot (and contempt its insistence connected genAI dependable acting). But there's nary uncertainty successful my caput that late-game equilibrium is simply a problem, 1 Embark needs to get a grip connected arsenic caller players proceed to articulation and arsenic experienced players, similar me, look for reasons to instrumentality astir beyond its archetypal fewer months.

Samuel Horti is simply a writer with bylines astatine the BBC, IGN, Insider Business, and Edge.