
A new Arc Raiders patch is here, nerfing the Shrouded Sky update's bountiful First Wave Caches to reduce the amount of blueprints they provide, but Embark says "you'll be getting better materials in return," instead.
Arc Raiders' Shrouded Sky update rolled out last week, introducing the new Hurricane map condition with it. Amongst other things, Hurricanes bring First Wave Caches – full of tantalizing loot just begging to be snatched up. However, Embark clearly thinks it might have been a bit too generous with the blueprint drop rates, as it now says it's "lowered the drop rate of rare blueprints slightly and raised the drop rate for high tier materials in First Wave Caches on the Hurricane map condition."
Explaining this in the patch notes, it's stated: "The main reason for this change is that the First Wave Caches have been handing out a lot of blueprints, especially given how good players have been at tracking them down and looting them. To help balance that out, we're bumping up the drop rates for higher-tier materials inside the caches." Even though folks will see less blueprints overall, though, "you'll be getting better materials in return."
The devs insist that "Caches will still be a solid way to find blueprints, just not to the point where you can reliably walk away from every session with 3–5 of them." So, they'll still be worth grabbing, just don't expect to be rolling in blueprints to the same extent.
Otherwise, a handful of other issues have been fixed, including "an exploit that allowed players to put weapons in a safe pocket without the Safekeeper Augment," as well as "an issue that allowed players to put the Snaphook into a safe pocket while in use."
Meanwhile, "a very hot fix" for the Dam Controlled Access Zone has been added, performance drops caused by certain Arc have been ironed out alongside a rare crash when browsing the Player Proximity menu, and the 'Worth your Salt' quest can now be completed successfully even if someone else has already done it in the same raid.
The Hurricane Cache change is the one everyone is talking about, though. While some players fully expected that the nerf "was coming," saying that "everyone knew it was going to happen eventually" because "the drop rates were too good to be true," others aren't happy, arguing that "there's zero reason to play hurricane now." As one succinctly puts it: "Well. Fuck."