Arc Raiders’ weapon durability changes are mystifying—especially when repairing guns is one of the least enjoyable parts of the game

Let’s be real for a second: repairing weapons in games is not a fun activity. In fact, the only time I remember ever enjoying upkeeping my shooters was in Red Dead Redemption 2, when I got to lather them with gun oil and make them all nice and shiny. Is repairing weapons in Arc Raiders enjoyable? No, of course not—it’s effectively admin.

It’s ultimately just a number that goes up and down, but as our very own Evan Lahti argued to me, a necessary part of expending the resources we accumulate in a loot-centric game.

(Image credit: Embark Studios)

Well, Embark obviously felt that we weren’t expending enough, because in the most recent Riven Tides update, it massively nerfed weapon durability with the following statement:

“The weapon economy has increasingly started looking more and more unbalanced, where players engaging in heavy PVP have to make a lot of difficult decisions around their weapons while the most friendly players have ended up in a chronic state of weapon accumulation. We want to balance this out so that all players are challenged by weapon attrition, as well as introducing new ways to combat it.”

The key changes from the patch notes are:

Common, Uncommon, and Rare weapons have increased durability loss per shotDurability on weapons you find outside locked rooms is reduced

There are positives, too, such as the fact that we now regain 25% weapon durability on upgrading one (something I’ve long wanted), and durability loss on weapons acquired from downed raiders is reduced.

It’s not a bad idea in principle. Arc Raiders is a game about scrappy daredevils cobbling together guns from trash they find out in the world—it makes sense they would break quickly, but for me, the problem with these changes is threefold.

First off, is a “chronic state of weapon accumulation” really an issue? At this stage people have hundreds and hundreds of hours in the game (200 for me), but I feel like Embark abdicated any right to worry about what people hoard in their stashes when it made resets optional. Usually in a game like this, a forced reset would level the playing field, emptying those vaults, but it’s way too late in the day to suddenly decide you want to make a half-hearted attempt to clear out said vaults.

If someone wants to keep 100 Bobcats in their stash, more power to them. Weren’t we all just arguing last year about white weapons being way too powerful and people with great gear constantly getting ratted by Kettle and Stitcher-wielding PvPers? Rarer weapons have rarely felt worth it in the past, and it’ll definitely put a damper on getting lucky and finding one when its durability on spawn is likely decreased now.

(Image credit: Embark)

I’m also not really sure what the patch notes mean when they say “introducing new ways to combat it”. What new ways? Upgrading a gun to repair it isn’t any less resource-intensive than just repairing it. As far as I can see, we’ve been given no tools to mitigate durability loss.

If the concept is “crappy guns break faster”, why not reduce durability loss on upgraded guns but make those upgrades cost a little more? That would be a sensible balance of investment and risk, and would incentivise players to upgrade their weapons versus using the basics. This would also lead to more valuable loot in the PvP pool. Why not add attachments that reduce durability burn rate as well, seeing as we have attachments that increase it and these will be a no-go for most players after these changes.

Why not make weapon durability provide interesting consequences, too? When you’re on low durability, say, maybe your weapon can potentially jam, Far Cry 2 style? I genuinely think Embark has gone about these tweaks in such a confusing way that seems to incentivise PvP more than anything else. But ultimately, when I’m repairing my Anvil after every single outing, I’m not thinking “Yay, this is so much fun,” I’m thinking, “Okay, so I have to pay a toll every run now”.