A big ol' server slam just finished for Arc Raiders, the upcoming multiplayer shooter from former Battlefield developers. Amid the onslaught of feedback from players, split opinion has emerged on whether the in-game enemies are too strong, leading to split votes on the necessity for nerfing.
October 17 through 20, early users could hop in and check out Arc Raiders before the full release later this month. Between stress-testing the infrastructure and having users fiddle with all the mechanics, Embark Studios has a lot of valuable data to sift through for launch.
The team may have a small conundrum brewing, as opinion is divided on whether the Rocketeers and some other adversaries are still too strong. Essentially, there are two camps: they should be nerfed again to be less lethal and more killable; and that's totally unnecessary and everyone needs to pipe down and Get Good.
First, the complaint. Drone 'Arcs' are too resource-intensive and irritating. "I put two mags into that stupid taser drone propeller and that thing didn't flinch. Any other drone would have died after the first mag let alone two. The taser Arc armor needs nerfed," reads an impassioned Reddit post.
"[90%] of your health gone in a single massive AOE shot with a two-second cooldown? How balanced! Yes, let me fight that! This was in one shot by the way," another says. These are two of over a dozen posts on the official Reddit, all coming from annoyed wannabe-raiders who consider this the major flaw of the project thus far.
Now, the counter-argument. "If you are dying to Arcs consistently, that's a 'you' issue not a game issue. You can ping them from far away to see what it is if you can't tell the difference. They are balanced around you bringing two guns in (at least early game)," a Redditor states.
"As for the big guys, Rocketeer specifically is what I see the most complaints about, and it was nerfed into the ground. It used to shoot three rockets every time it shot, you had zero chance to survive and it would almost always show up at extraction. The thing is there are many ways to deal with it."
In other words, the difficulty should be seen as a feature, not a bug. "The moment you [nerf the Arcs] is the moment this game turns into your generic extraction PvP game. The Arc is key to what makes this game so special," another Reddit post adds. "They can turn the tide of any PvP encounter. They can also dictate patterns of play for players. They're difficult enough to make players actively avoid them by altering their routes of movement."
What's actionable and what isn't ultimately sits with Embark. Whatever is decided, some players may be left unhappy, the question is really who. We'll find out come October 30 when Arc Raiders comes out properly.
