Expedition Project

Hello all,

I am Virgil, the design director for ARC Raiders. I’d like to spend a bit of time talking about a topic that is important to many players familiar with games like ARC. This being the subject of progression wipes, or as we refer to it, the Expedition Project.

Previously, the question of how we will handle resets or wipes has come up. Until now, the answer has been that “currently we do not intend to do mandatory wipes.” These words were chosen carefully, as we don’t intend to have mandatory wipes. However, as some have guessed, we do have a voluntary reset mechanic.

Just to make it clear, we absolutely see the benefits a global wipe provides. Veteran players can experience the game fresh, the economy is reset to the baseline, and all players have about the same level of capabilities. At least for a little while.

However, one thing a mandatory wipe does not do is respect the investment of those players who do not have as much time to play overall. So, as we have done with several other mechanics, before mimicking other established mechanics, we’d like to try our own method. Ideally to the end that best suits ARC Raiders and a larger majority of its players.

Expedition Project

Which brings us to the Expedition Project. The tunnel networks connected to Speranza are vast but largely unexplored or inaccessible. Most survivors stay within their settlements, but like the Raiders who dare venture topside, there are those who dare venture even farther. Once the Rust Belt has given all it can offer, some Raiders choose to set out beyond the borders of what they know. As of now, this has always been a one-way trip.

In the full game, players will have access to a feature called “Projects”. At level 20, the first major project players will have access to is the Expedition Project. Upon completion, this project makes a character reset available. If a player completes a reset, they will be able to do so again so long as they complete another of these projects.

The Expedition Project will operate on a repeating cycle of roughly 8 weeks. During the course of these 8 weeks, players can contribute toward and make progress on their Expedition Project, which will overall be a somewhat large time investment. At the start of the 8th week, the ability to finalize the project will become available & will remain available for that entire week. If a player has fulfilled all of the necessary stages of the project, they will be able to commit to completing the Expedition during this period.

Should a player’s project not be ready during the window to complete the Expedition project, their progress will be kept, allowing them to continue working on the project until the next finalization window.

Other projects may be added over time as part of updates, holidays, and other events. These will range in scale and reward structure.

What is kept, what is lost?

So, what do you keep through an Expedition vs. what is lost?

Players will lose anything inherent to their character’s progress. Levels, skills, items/inventory, workshop, crafting capabilities, etc.

Players will keep cosmetics (earned or purchased), awards, achievements, rankings, etc. Essentially anything rooted solely in the metagame or involving real money will be preserved.

For convenience, after completing an Expedition players will be able to skip the majority of the onboarding and tutorial steps they went through as a new player. This being things like unlocking certain features, maps, etc. as they play through the early game. These will just be available from the start of a fresh reset.

Now, aside from players who like the thrill of starting fresh, why would you willingly give up all of your hard-earned progress? Incentives.

Benefits and incentives

We are still finalizing the exact benefits and rewards, but they will generally follow along these lines:

• Permanent account unlocks for each completed Expedition
• Unique cosmetic rewards for each completed Expedition
• Account “buffs” that are applied for the duration of the following Expedition cycle
  • And sequential completions of the Expedition Project increase the magnitude of these buffs, up to a limit.

One point to drive home is that we are being very careful about the nature of these benefits. Completing a reset should never give a player a power or combat advantage over anyone who has not completed a reset.

Initially, these benefits will center around cosmetics & bragging rights, quality-of-life, and smoothing out some aspects of progression for those who have gone through a reset.

What comes next?

While any and all of this is subject to change between now, launch, and post-launch, that is about the shape of it right now. We hope that by making the reset mechanic voluntary & properly incentivized we can observe two results.

1. Players who are highly engaged can experience the game fresh on a regular cadence while accruing some benefits.

2. Players who have less time to dedicate to the game don’t have their progress reset outside of their control.They are always able to keep moving forward and at their own pace if they so choose.

It’s not a silver bullet, and won’t achieve the clean break that a mandatory global reset does, but it does aim to be more equitable to all players. Wherever possible, we want to value your time spent in the game as much as you do.

Of course, this is a complex topic, so we’ll be keeping an eye on the discussion around this message and follow up as necessary.

Thank you all for your interest in and passion for ARC Raiders. I look forward to seeing you Topside.

- Virgil