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There was a bit of confusion and whiplash with the runup and reveal for Arc Raiders' first Expedition, which ended up locking the soft-reset's maximum bonus skill point payout behind a requirement of 5 million coins in stash value. Players weren't sure what all they needed to do for a while, and then all of the sudden they had a big check to cash if they wanted to make the most of the Expedition. Design lead Virgil Watkins says Expedition rewards and requirements are still fairly malleable, with limits and changes in discussion for future wipes. (Our Arc Raiders Expedition guide has a more detailed breakdown on rewards and requirements.)
Speaking with GamesRadar+, Watkins says roughly 1 million players finished the first Expedition, and around 40 to 45% of those players did so with at least 5 million coins in the stash. The percentage of players completing the Expedition and soft-resetting their account is "an important metric," he says, as the whole thing is an "an experiment" in allowing players to choose if and when to wipe their raiders and control their own progression track.
"Do we see these players continuing to engage with it?" he wonders, considering how to best measure the success of the Expedition system. "Are they starting over and going through the game again as we intend?"
Watkins admits "we probably came out a bit late with the 5 million coin requirement," but says "we were deliberately holding back so we could measure that value against where players' actual economies were at. So we did pin it around the average player's current wealth, earn rate, things like that, and with the intent for the full five skill points to be aspirational."
Embark has not overlooked concerns around the pressure applied by the 5 million coin requirement. "I think there was a perception that players felt compelled to [do it]," Watkins says, "like they needed to do it, which I think invited a lot of, 'Oh, I'm only gonna use my worst guns or free run.' So I think it created a bit of a dark pattern for some players, feeling like they shouldn't play as intended."
"This system will change," he adds. "We're not precious about it. We'll keep adjusting to make sure it is properly incentivizing players. We still have to be very careful about the rewards and the mechanics involved, not giving you a very direct advantage over someone who's just starting the game or hasn't done as many as you. So that's the space we still want to stay in."
I asked Watkins if the 5 million coin count is being reevaluated, or if Embark may use a different metric altogether for future Expeditions. "We're actively looking at that now," he says. "In fact, the reason we chose that mechanic is it's what we had time to do up to launch. So, looking at different things to hook into that system, or different criteria for that part, is something we're actively evaluating. And we'll probably talk about that a little later once we have our ducks in a row."
He adds that "the current intent is skill points will not be the reward forever with Expeditions. It will cap out at some point to whatever makes sense. And then the intent is, if you've done enough Expeditions to have the full amount of extra skill points available to you, you've got maybe a couple of slight quality-of-life changes."
