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A huge balance patch just hit with Arc Raiders Riven Tides, and you know what that means: a flurry of angry posts on the game's dedicated Reddit, Steam discussion, and Discord communities.
Huge reductions in weapon durability and a sledgehammer to the ankles of the anti-Arc photoelectric cloak have ticked some raiders right off. Between the Sweden-based devs cracking down on meta picks in a live service shooter, and the smell of petitions in the air, I can't help but think of the early days of Helldivers 2.
So, what started all this? Riven Tides rolled out blanket nerfs to weapon durability, making guns progressively break more per shot. Common (white) weapons now burn 75% more durability per shot, uncommon (green) weapons burn 50% more, and rare (blue) weapons burn 35% more.
Epic (pink) weapons actually received a buff in Riven Tides, losing 5% less durability per shot, while legendary (gold) weapons lose 10% less.
Additionally, weapons found throughout the world (excluding locked rooms) will have lower initial durability on average – down to 30 from 50.
The intent, developer Embark Studios says, is to give rarer weapons "more longevity compared to low-tier weapons." Embark also wanted to combat "a chronic state of weapon accumulation" and ensure "all players are challenged by weapon attrition."
Embark did extend two olive branches. Upgrading weapons now also repairs them by 25% of their max durability, and the more I play with this change, the more correct it feels. This is how the game should be.
On top of that, weapons dropped by defeated players now lose less durability – a reduction of 15% instead of the previous 30%. "We want heavy PVP to be a viable way to play ARC Raiders," Embark says.
There's one more bit of durability-adjacent talk worth mentioning: the photoelectric cloak gadget, which makes Arc ignore you and has become widely used after the introduction of the extremely dangerous Close Scrutiny event, now burns four times more energy – 10 per second over the previous 2.5. In other words, its duration is a quarter of what it has been since launch. Player testing shows just how quickly this thing sputters out nowadays.
Complaints came thick and fast. Hyperbole climbed the Arc Raiders subreddit feed like a spider: "We noticed an issue where players were enjoying the game. We fixed that." Another player reckons, "This weapon durability situation is by far the worst thing Embark has ever done to this game." Steam users call for the changes to be reverted or heavily tweaked. Discord users form a choir to sing a song I'm pretty sure I've heard before: "My Anvil lost 5 durability just typing this reply."
As ever, most people are not bothered or at least not posting, and just enjoying the new content. I'm largely in this camp; I had a great time rooting around the Riven Tides map last night. Rather than some objective reality, I'm more interested in understanding why many players feel this way. Because I'm not kidding when I say this situation gives me Helldivers 2 flashbacks. Balance changes often provoke this kind of response across gaming, but here, there are striking parallels in specific gameplay tweaks and player complaints.
The cloak mourners probably have the strongest argument. The nerfed photoelectric cloak can feel pointless outside extremely short escapes, which is especially disappointing since this nerf has come right on the heels of the activity that made this item more useful than ever. It was likely too good before, but immediately cutting its effectiveness by 75% seems like overkill. Simply doubling its energy use probably would've been fine. As-is, the cloak doesn't really earn a slot in your inventory when lure and smoke grenades exist, and balance changes that functionally delete options are consistently among the most unpopular ones.
The weapon durability debate feels more nuanced. Distinguishing higher-rarity weapons, encouraging players to scrap and scrounge guns more readily, and making weapon durability a more relevant stat to consider when preparing a loadout in an extraction survival game feels like a natural extension of the experience that Embark wants to create.
Frustrations with this durability nerf seem to come from a few places beyond the usual aversion to change. It seems Embark has a different vision for what counts as a high-rarity weapon, for starters. A lot of the best guns in the game are rare-grade, like the Torrente and Renegade, and they weren't enormously cheap even before this update. If common and uncommon weapons had been hit hard, but rares had skated by with a tiny durability nerf or even a tiny buff (with slightly larger buffs to epics and legendaries, maybe 10% and 15% respectively), I think the response to Riven Tides would've been very different.
This durability nerf also compounds a few longstanding pain points in the weapon economy: springs, components, and mods. Springs have been a resource bottleneck since Arc Raiders launched, essential for both modding and upgrading higher-level weapons. With weapons breaking more regularly, you'll need more springs than ever.
You also need a lot of advanced components to upgrade weapons, and thus to benefit from the free durability you get from upgrading now. As one Reddit user rightly pointed out, a previous nerf to the rate of salvaging components from large Arc materials has resurfaced with a vengeance after this durability change. I've covered Destiny 2 for over a decade, so I speak with experience when I say players hate doing more work for equal or lesser rewards.
Then there's modding, which was already a little frustrating because many higher-rarity mods (somewhat inexplicably) come with increased durability burn rate as a counterweight to their slightly stronger stat bonuses. To many players, this already made those mods unappealing when compared to cheaper-to-craft versions with no downside. With this durability nerf added on top, there's potential for players to become less interested in high-value loadouts overall, which seems to conflict with Embark's stated goals. All of this also means spending yet more time in crafting menus – another day-one complaint.
The Renegade, perhaps the best all-rounder weapon in the game, has become the poster child of durability discourse. A fast-firing, fully upgraded Renegade with a high-rarity barrel mod attached will not instantly disintegrate in your hands, but it will break a lot faster than it would two days ago. I'm a Renegade enjoyer myself, so I can at least see where players are coming from. Given its response to previous player uproar, even if the overall direction seems reasonable, I wouldn't be surprised if Embark slightly softens some of these durability changes in the weeks ahead.
The Battening Down quest in Arc Raiders is best completed in the wrong order, so don't repeat my mistake.
