Arc Raiders' Riven Tides update is here, and some fans are calling it "probably the best patch since the game came out," although certain changes to weapon durability have others concerned.
As well as Riven Tides' new beachside map and Arc Turbine to take on, Embark's latest patch notes have detailed a whole bunch of other changes the devs are making to balance the shooter out, with some alterations coming in the future.
One of those future changes is to Augments. A new Tactical Augment – Tactical Mk.3 (Smoke) – has just been added, but Embark says "it is worth stating that we are aware that some Augments, particularly the Combat Augments, are not performing as well in their roles as we would like." The Arc Raiders devs are "working on a general balancing pass for Augments to buff some of those that are underperforming, most especially the Combat Mk. 3 (Flanking) Augment, which has yet to find its place to shine." What's more, Embark is aiming to eventually "develop the full roster of Augments to ensure that all categories are well represented."
As for what's been changed already, Embark is attempting to "reduce Trigger 'Nade spam" by stopping you from throwing a new grenade "at the same time as triggering a previously thrown one," while the Photoelectric Cloak – which has been "quite aggressively over-performing" – has had its weight increased, and has "increased Power use rate from 2.5/s to 10/s" to " add more intentionality between uses."
What's more, to the delight of Bettina fans everywhere, the assault rifle has been buffed, with base damage and Arc armor damage increased "to get more value out of each bullet" – a change offset by a reduced fire-rate. "The dispersion has been adjusted to support firing the weapon in longer bursts before losing accuracy, and the stack size of heavy ammo has also been increased to make it less punishing to bring the ammo you need," Embark says.
Then come the changes to the weapon economy and the many alterations to weapon durability. Embark says the economy has "increasingly started looking more and more unbalanced, where players engaging in heavy PVP have to make a lot of difficult decisions around their weapons while the most friendly players have ended up in a chronic state of weapon accumulation." As such, the devs are aiming to make sure "all players are challenged by weapon attrition", as well as "introducing new ways to combat it."
One new feature that's already going down well is the change to weapon upgrading. Noting that upgrades can be "very expensive when you feel like you have to repair the weapon beforehand," Embark has changed things so that upgrades now repair 25% of a weapon's maximum durability. "Fucking FINALLY," one player responds.
This, however, is being off-set by other changes, and not all of them are popular. For a start, Embark is also "increasing the range of durability a weapon can spawn with, as well as reducing the average outside of locked rooms," with the average durability decreasing from 50 to 30, while in an effort to make "heavy PVP" a "viable way" to play, the devs are "reducing durability loss on weapons when a player is knocked out" from 30% to 15%.
The doozy, though, comes with Embark's attempt to address frustrations that high-tier weapons are super expensive to maintain, by "adjusting durability loss on shot." While legendary weapons now lose 10% less on shot, and epic ones are down by 5%, common weapons now lose a whopping 75% more, with uncommon seeing a 50% increase and rare seeing a 35% increase.
As one player on Reddit writes, "reducing relative frustration by increasing frustration in other areas" is "certainly a choice." Another more bluntly calls it "fucking stupid," and they're clearly not alone in thinking that.
It's a bit of an odd one. Generally speaking, most of the changes are going down very well – many think it's an "incredible" patch and a "holy fucking W update," and are particularly "liking the Bettina buff and larger heavy ammo stack size." As another puts it, "this is all amazing shit." With that said, the durability nerfs are definitely putting a damper on things for others, with one saying that they've "completely killed my enthusiasm." It's still very early days for the changes, of course, so we'll have to wait and see if they end up being further adjusted.
