Embark Studios boss Virgil Watkins has admitted that Arc Raiders players are defeating boss enemies like The Queen and Matriarch easier than the devs anticipated, as they weren’t expecting teams to work together.
Every Arc Raiders run is full of danger, including fellow raiders looking to steal your loot, but it’s the Arc that often provide the toughest tests. While Wasps and Fireballs can be taken down with little fuss, the larger enemies require patience and teamwork to defeat.
Then there are the giant bosses like The Queen or Matriarch, which are designed to be the toughest tests in the entire game, requiring the very best loot to make a dent in.
At least, that was the original idea, but Arc Raiders’ design director has conceded that players are steamrolling the biggest and baddest enemies in a way they hadn’t intended.
Arc Raiders players are beating The Queen & Matriarch with ease
In an interview with PC Gamer, Virgil Watkins revealed that the devs hadn’t anticipated entire lobbies banding together to fight the large Arc enemies, which is causing them to be much less challenging.
“Even though [Queens and Matriarchs are] huge and deadly, they’re not intended for the full server to go up against and get equally rewarded,” he explained. “It is meant to be, you know, a couple of dedicated squads, maybe working together while also dealing with other players.”
“That’s definitely on us to an extent … I think we gave players too effective abilities to take down these things too early. So they were tuned more for what I would call mid-game gear.”
This could easily be solved by simply buffing the health of both enemy types, but Watkins is hesitant because he wants to make sure that players are rewarded, no matter how they choose play.
He added, “Do we reward the people who might pick their moment well, and go get some scraps from part of the fight and then sneak away? Are you going to be the guy who capitalises at the end of the fight because everyone’s worn down and out of ammo, or are you the one who’s trying to pull everyone together and have the fight on even terms?”
In the same interview, he also mentioned that events like Locked Gate and Hidden Bunker are also suffering from problems, as some players are opting to skip the grind of unlocking the objectives and simply camping near the entrance and letting other teams do the work.
“When we built them, we had an idealised way we hoped people would engage,” he admitted. “And then, you know, as players always do, they find this sort of meta throughline.”
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