It's Expedition month in Arc Raiders, with just over three weeks left before dedicated players send their characters off for a soft reset. Although many are ready and waiting for the opportunity to unlock the special equipment and extra skill points, they're getting a little antsy, because Embark's been mute on the specific pricing this time around.
See, unlocking an Expedition requires a considerable amount of resources. You need all sorts of materials to fulfil the different stages of building your caravan, including hundreds of thousands of coins worth of weapons, shields, provisions and other items. Then, by the metrics of the first Expedition, you need a combined cash and stash value of five million coins to get the maximum amount of added skill points (valued at one per million coins).
I specify the first instance, because newer pricing hasn't been revealed by Embark yet, nor is there clear confirmation of a rollover from the studio. A lot of fans are frustrated by this, because it feels like they have to grind aimlessly, hoping what they've accrued will be enough to cross any and all hurdles.
"Kinda cemented my decision to skip doing Expedition. I don't have that kind of time, nor do I wanna play the same game every night," says one commenter on Reddit. "Embark, the expedition ends in less than 23 days. Please tell us what we need to do," says another. The last phase of qualification for Expedition starts on February 17 and ends on February 24, creating an ever-shrinking window.
"I just don't understand why this game has an endless number of community managers when communication simply doesn't exist," adds a third commenter. "Why do I have to keep all these upgraded and juiced weapons, worrying that I will have to use them to get bonuses from the Expedition? The same goes for cash, I spend almost nothing at merchants for the same reason."
Therein lies the annoyance: players have to speculatively hoard wealth because they don't have information otherwise, limiting how they can engage with the extraction shooter. This compounds other problems, such as the limited timetable of events like Bird City, making it harder to rack up the necessary funds.
"Doesn't it seem pretty likely and reasonable that the five million will be the requirement again this Expedition, and then we'll get a timely announcement for the requirements of next Expedition?" another Redditor asks. While this may be correct, Embark's got a gap in its communications strategy that it might be worth addressing soon.
