Rethinking the Skill Tree in Arc Raiders
When it comes to the raider skill tree in Arc Raiders, let’s just say some skills shine brighter than others. To get real about it—during a recent chat with design lead Virgil Watkins, I expressed that player testing has shown many skills leave much to be desired. Thankfully, Watkins assured me that Embark is “not deaf” to these misfit skills, and buffs are “100% on our radar.” (Check out our picks for the best skills in Arc Raiders.)
“I think even internally, we know. There’s certain skills I don’t choose. So yeah, 100%. I’m not going to pretend there aren’t some on there that need some work. That’ll be something that changes again. I won’t say when or in what nature, but we’re not deaf to the state of it.”
— Virgil Watkins
Here’s the twist: Embark faces a balancing act. Making all skills top-tier would clash with how Expeditions operate. Completing an Expedition and soft-wiping your character can reward you with up to five additional skill points for future runs—at least for the time being, until this point reward eventually has to cap out. This creates a progression system with compounding benefits, which might give seasoned Expedition runners an increasing edge over newer players.
Players have expressed mixed feelings since Embark nerfed a popular perk. However, there’s talk of a potential skill reset feature on the horizon, which could shake things up. The concern lies in not having level 75 players steamroll beginners—which is why skills enhancing max health or gun damage are off the table. They want to keep things fair; perhaps the only exception being extra stamina, which seems like a bonus everyone should access.
“That is the danger there, and that’s why skill points come right up to that line of, ‘Do I have a clear advantage over another player?’ So we’d have to be quite deliberate. The current intent is skill points will not be the reward forever with Expeditions, it will cap out at some point to whatever kind of makes sense.”
— Virgil Watkins
Watkins further elaborated that the goal is for players, after completing enough Expeditions, to gain a couple of quality-of-life perks—not to completely max out two branches of the skill tree. “You might find a tad more stamina, allowing you to pull off some quiet moves in Security Breach, but that should be the extent of it.”
Curiously, I probed Watkins about particular skills on Embark’s radar for potential tweaks. My thoughts went directly to the movement skills that feel almost negligible in terms of speed or stamina impact, and those melee skills that seem all but useless unless you’re swinging a hammer—something you’re less likely to do in a game where many enemies either float by or fry you instantly if you get too close. It turns out, he shares some of those sentiments.
“Speaking for myself, maybe someone out there will disagree, but the ones that are centered around melee hits on certain things, like taking [Arc] out in one shot and stuff like that. If I recall, back when we were starting to build a skill tree, the way the melee system was then and the way certain things would play out, that was a little more practical. But then once you see how people are actually engaging with the game, and the distances at which they prefer to take on stuff, those kind of fell by the wayside a little bit.”
— Virgil Watkins
There are other skills that, even with the full investment of five skill points, don’t noticeably impact gameplay. “Yeah, we can see about what we do with those,” Watkins wrapped up.
Initially, Arc Raiders had an auction house-inspired trade system but removed it due to issues with loot managing: “It turned the game into just being about coins.”