The news drip from ARC Raiders is speeding up as we march towards the October 30th launch date. Today, there’s an update about how ARC Raiders will handle character wipes. The system is called Projects and is optional. It offers players who want to wipe their character and start over fresh the chance to do so—gaining some bragging rights and cosmetic rewards in the process. I think this is an interesting take on the topic.
Many online action games with player progression systems have implemented the concept of “wipes” with the intent to reset everything back to even on a set cadence. The goal is to keep the game fresh for veteran players and ensure that newer players can enjoy the game without staring at a mountain of progress to get on equal footing with the veterans. This makes sense for dedicated veterans and new players alike but misses what is likely the biggest player group: what I call the “core gamer.”
These core gamers, like myself, can’t put massive hours per week into a game, and thus, games with wipes become less attractive because the destination never feels reachable. We are always stuck in the progression step, and while progression is an attractive feature in the games we play, it’s the persistence of that progression that’s the main draw in the first place. Restarting after a mandatory wipe just feels bad. My friend and I quit Once Human, a game we both were enjoying, after the first wipe we were subjected to. We found ourselves logging in the next day irritated at the prospect of cutting down a hundred trees and breaking up a hundred rocks again to set out on the same journey we had just felt we’d reached an established point in.
ARC Raiders smartly acknowledges that players like me are a core audience for their game, and the Projects concept seems like a good middle ground for all player groups—veterans, newbies, and the core alike. I really like how they’ve framed their decision here:
"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."
The main concept of the Projects is that their initiation is player-controlled. If I have time in my upcoming gaming schedule, I can opt to start the project, and that will reset my character; my efforts will then go into the project. If I want to play the game more casually, without dedicated time in the schedule, then I don't have to start the project; I just keep on with my persistent progression.
There are still details to understand about how players on Projects interact with those that are not. I assume they will be mixed into matches to avoid creating a queue issue where players are waiting for matches to start. This would be ideal in my book, as it would mix players pursuing different goals into the same matches—and if there is anything ARC Raiders excels at, it’s player-versus-player confrontation.
Also, it will be key to enabling friends to play together that those on a Project can still play with those that are not. There are likely some considerations to avoid abuse—where, if a project (as featured in the article) requires certain items, those items can't just be given to a player by another player dropping them in a match. But the death knell for this type of system and game would be creating a barrier to friends playing together, so I can't imagine they'd block players based on Project status.
The one area I expect to be a hot topic is rewards. As noted in the post, the intent is for Projects to have a non–game-impacting reward structure. So, no combat bonuses just because you finished a project and another player did not. For some players, that may be a reason to question why they would even participate in a project if the reward is only intangible stuff like cosmetics or bragging rights. But just like the element of how wipes don’t respect the time of many players, giving those that complete Projects an advantage would also be a problem for those same players. I suspect that player group is larger than those that want an advantage for completing a Project. Lots of us “core gamers” love our cosmetics and bragging rights when we have the time to work on them and aren’t forced into them.
Overall, I like what I see here. There are lots of details to be felt out, and there will be questions about how fast and effectively new projects can be brought in. Even though the core gamers don’t want wipes, they do want fresh and new content—and a subset of us will be starting every project that comes down the pipeline. Veterans will sweat out every one of them, and new players will jump in and join us on the same journey!
