Arc Raiders' expeditions reward 'gear fear' — and that's a mistake

The first major misstep from Embark Studios

"Gear fear" is a very real thing in video games where you have a permanent loot stash, especially extraction shooters, such as Arc Raiders and Escape From Tarkov. Essentially, it refers to players who have successfully acquired rare items — either through lucky loot finds, grinding for resources, or by killing other players or tough PvE enemies — but have become too afraid of losing their hard-earned equipment. So it sits in their inventories, unused and unloved, acting as a private trophy.

Problem is, that's quite boring. Using rare weapons and gear is fun. These things are rare for a reason, which means they’re usually extremely powerful, so while you could be caught unawares by someone with a free loadout solely looking for PvP fights, you're going to have the upper hand in the majority of fights if you play cautiously. Unfortunately, now that we know more about how expeditions work in Arc Raiders, it turns out players are being rewarded more for hoarding their loot and not using it. That feels antithetical to the spirit of the game, and poorly rationalized by Embark Studios.

To keep players on a level playing field, extraction shooters often perform server wipes, where every player loses all their gear and has to start from scratch. These aren't frequent, but they are regular. The downside is they're mandatory, and it can feel a little rubbish to lose all your belongings through no fault of your own.

Arc Raiders approaches this problem in a different way, with the expeditions system. This is opt-in, which means players don't need to partake, but those who are in the endgame — max level characters, lots of rare loot, all quests complete, etc. — find it appealing because while you must invest a lot of resources to depart on this expedition, you receive some permanent upgrades as a result, along with temporary bonuses that persist as long as you embark on each subsequent expedition.

One of these permanent upgrades is up to five bonus skill points. The current level cap is 75, and you earn one skill point per level. But there are over double that number of perks and buffs to invest skill points in, so this is an appealing prospect for hardcore players. However, to earn all five, you must depart on your expedition — which only has a six-day-long window — with at least five million coins' worth of gear in your stash.

This means players are effectively rewarded for getting the rarest equipment possible, then hanging onto it for dear life and never going topside with it. And when some of the best weapons in the game include the energy round-firing Aphelion, experimental beam rifle Equalizer, and high-velocity sniper rifle Jupiter, all of which are classed as legendary tier and therefore worth a shedload of coins, being incentivized to let them gather dust is a crying shame.

This feels like the first major misstep in the Arc Raiders trajectory, and while some players are avoiding the expedition because they don't like the cosmetic rewards, others are refusing to partake because they don't want to reward that 'gear fear' incentive. There are more reasons not to partake, such as the fact you'll lose all of your blueprints, the rarest type of loot in the game, but we've always known that would be the case.

Reddit user Darth_Onaga argues that the problem isn't just the five-million coin incentive, it's that we've only just found out about it. With more notice, players could prepare accordingly, essentially by playing the game in a more hostile manner to accumulate more loot, when Arc Raiders is often a friendly game, despite the always-on PvP.

What does a solution look like? It's too late to amend things for this expedition window, but Embark can put things right by implementing changes ahead of the next one. Reddit user dancovich reckons it should be based on the total loot you've brought back to Speranza, so it doesn't matter how much you've then subsequently lost topside.

Meanwhile, redditor B4kab4ka has thought of a different "lifetime" suggestion, that is based on the things you've accomplished during your raider's tenure, with one skill point awarded for each of the following:

• Completing all quests
• Reaching max level
• Having one million coins' worth in your stash
• Killing the Queen or Matriarch
• Completing the expedition project

It's not a perfect solution — the requirement to kill a Queen or Matriarch would need tweaking to potentially deal a specific amount of damage to them, as kills could be stolen at the last minute — but the theory is sound.

The problem isn't with expeditions themselves. It's a great system, but as many players as possible need to be encouraged to partake for it to be worth it. If too many raiders go into the next phase of the game with high-tier loot, the experience is going to be rough for those who either did depart, or were late arriving on the Arc Raiders hype train. When we've completed the expedition project, and we're simply waiting to depart though? Make us use our fun, exciting weapons, without consequence, even if we die with them. After all, loot in an extraction shooter is never truly yours: it's just your turn with it.