Embark Studios has announced a drastic change to the way the Expedition Project process works in ARC Raiders. From the next Expedition, set to open on April 28, stash value is no longer the way extra skill points are accrued. Instead, users must rack up damage dealt in a small window to acquire more skill points.
This does away with a system that has existed since the first Expedition Project took place last year, for better or worse. Since the news dropped, fans have been debating how much they approve of the new system, and not everyone (understandably) is happy.
Expedition Project Now Relies on Combat
Many have argued that the latest Expedition Project changes in ARC Raiders promote divisive circumstances for a few reasons.
Basically, you’ll have a five-day window to accrue as much damage as possible across ARC Raiders, against both ARC and human opponents, to get those five bonus skill points from your Expedition. This effectively eradicates the old system that required a large stash value, racked up over a two-month window.
That’s where the first issue comes up.
Instead of having two months to store items to contribute to the ‘wipe’, players now have just five days to get the damage needed to secure their bonus skill points. This represents a dramatic slash in the availability window, locking out some players.
But how does it lock players out?
Well, the window runs from Tuesday to Sunday in the week of the Expedition Project, which means the more casual players who might only be able to get online during the weekend might be left out in the cold entirely. Having just a couple of days to amass the damage needed to get all five bonus skill points might not be feasible.
And while I’m on the topic, another issue has surfaced that the community isn’t enthused about.
Encouraging players to deal as much damage as possible to soak up as many benefits as they can when the Expedition hits will undoubtedly bring around more PvP than ever before. This is a sore subject with ARC Raiders fans, as the community is still split down the middle over the PvE vs. PvP debate.
With players needing to get as much score as possible in the damage department, nothing will be off limits, and they’ll be gunning down everything that moves, even if ARC provides the larger damage returns over human enemies.
Embark Studios explained in a blog post that these changes are to encourage users to have more freedom and variety in how they approach their Expedition Project. They hope this will stop players from hoarding their best equipment all season and relying on just free kits, simply because they want to put the good stuff towards their Expedition bundle.
That also means you’ll be way more likely to come up against other players wielding the best weapons in the game, now that they don’t care about putting them towards their expensive Expedition Project.
What do you think about these ARC Raiders changes? Let us know your thoughts on the Insider Gaming Discord server.
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Grant has been gaming for 30+ years and in the industry for 10+. You'll probably find him playing a post-apocalyptic game or an extraction shooter somewhere.
More from Grant Taylor-Hill
The recent changes have me going from playing 5 hours or so on work days, and over 10 on days off. To now it’s an hour to try hurricane for the canto. About 1k hours spent, and this is so frustrating I am not certain I’ll be playing by the expedition at all.
If this is there way to get people to use equipment it’s an odd one – could easily just have it keep track of what you’ve gathered during the whole expedition as often people who go in with their best weapons might lost them right away.
Only benefits the loud minority of players, I love the game but won’t be doing the expedition and will play very little during the window, unless a pve only mode with heavy arc presence is available and to keep certain blueprints
Arc Raiders is the only. The ONLY multiplayer game i have ever played in my life centred around armed PvPvE combat that has a significant chunk of the playerbase try to avoid damaging other players at all costs. That said, the issue here isnt even the aversion to conflict its that Embark in their infinite wisdom decided a good solution that would appease the more laid back players was to now give them only 5 days to shred through the game and reach a damage cap.
Play how you want, obviously- But if Embark is also trying to find a balance in how they support different playstyles why in gods name have they pushed non-aggressive players to be the opposite on an even stricter time limit?
Its clear theyre trying to carefully nurture a healthy game with updates but Ive stopped playing because they seem to be more focused on failing to force player engagement since the matchmaking paranoia debacle and its growing more apparent.
I completely agree. Once the announcement was made about the expedition change, my friends and I stopped playing altogether. Since we do not shoot players first, we have no interest in being the game’s cannon fodder. It was a good game while it lasted, I guess.
Embark saw what Bungie did with Marathon’s PVP and wanted a taste… thing is, Marathon has different ways of getting people to engage in PVP, like a faction that actively rewards you for it, putting multiple objectives at a POI and letting you see their shield level when you ping them. A lot of us who also play Marathon know when we enter we will be shot on sight.
Either way, Pandora’s box has now been opened… I now expect a flood of people who played ARC to try to change Marathon, and Ill be honest, I actually like the way Marathon is right now.