Arc Raiders Creator Defends One of the Most Annoying Game Mechanics - It Has Its Advantages
It turns out that appearing late in a raid isn't so bad after all.
Players in Arc Raiders do not appear in the raid simultaneously; they are launched in "waves." Some users are very annoyed that they appear 10+ minutes after the start, when others have already "managed to grab all the valuable loot."
Previously, there were even calls in the community to "punish" players who use free equipment with a late launch.
However, Arc Raiders' lead designer, Virgil Watkins, sees advantages in launching into a raid late.
Recently, in a conversation with GamesRadar+, he shared his vision:
[The reaction of players to the late launch into the raid] is one of the topics we discussed a lot. This is another one of those curious cases where the data diverges from perception. We 100% acknowledge the situation when a player says: "Damn, I came in to complete the challenge, but I realize that I clearly don't have enough time, and that sucks, so I'll just leave" — or something like that. Such a moment is, of course, unpleasant.
Watkins noted that the data available to the Arc Raiders developers shows that those who enter the raid later actually benefit in terms of economics:
However, as with the perception of free kits compared to their real value, the perception of joining a raid late and what it gives turned out to be very interesting. Players think: "All the valuable loot has already been taken" or something like that. But players who come in later benefit economically much more than those who came in early. When a game session is no longer new, it gradually becomes quieter, and such players often come across traces of battles, can destroy large robots, or get to valuable zones faster than others. So it was really curious to watch this.
The Arc Raiders developer explained that this system of gradually launching into the raid helps prevent the situation of "emptying raids" 10 minutes after the start of the game session.
If the system didn't exist, a situation could arise where players were "actually running alone," which would destroy all the tension from the potential threat from other users.
