Extraction shooters. Hardcore. Hardcore. Hardcore. Hardcore. Okay, but seriously, extraction shooters are known for being difficult. A fact that their communities are proud of. You'll get flamed to death on their Discord just because how dare you suggest adding a quality of life feature. Newer titles are learning they can't just dump crap on newer players and expect them to stick around. Plenty of games have free loadouts, but if Arc Riders wants to have that mass appeal that they're shooting for, they need to improve on everything previous titles have done, including this. Let's dive into it. Before we get started, I'd like to thank my channel supporters. These absolute legends help make this kind of content possible. Your support is truly appreciated. Extraction shooters are a special type of game. They don't sell you on the constant dopamine hits and power fantasies of a mainline shooter, but they do motivate you with greed and fear. Plenty of harshness is baked into the game design as a consequence. So, you could say there's a little bit of a learning curve. Developers have learned way too slowly, if you ask me, that if newer players aren't hanging around long enough to buy into that process, there will always be a cap on how many players you can attract. But how do you balance that? Giving new players a chance and easing them into the game sounds like a good idea, but how do you do that without stripping the game of the harshness that ultimately makes it work? Well, there are a variety of features that have been tried over the years, but one has become a standard within the genre. Free loadouts. These types of features are sometimes referred to as bottoming out features. They aren't exclusively for newer players, but are helpful for when players are spiraling with backto backto back losses. Extraction shooters have always been a niche genre, but Arc Riders is trying to change that, which means it can't just repeat what's been done. So, we're going to examine some key titles that have done this in the past, where they went wrong, and what they did right. Then, after we can truly appreciate what Arc Raiders brings to the table. [Music] The first entry is a prime example of what not to do. DMZ. You had several loadouts that could be saved and when they were lost, they were put on cool down before you could use them again. These were not random or low tier basic kits. These were saved kits that were legit good loadouts that you could get back over and over again, regardless of what you did or didn't loot. This feature alone completely undermined the scarcity and gear fear the genre relies on. And if there was an achievement for how to misunderstand the assignment, DMZ absolutely nailed it. The next example brings us back to the cycle frontier. When they introduced the free loadout system, it was very simple. It had a 15-minute cooldown timer, basic weapon, ammo, armor, meds, and a small bag. You used it, and when the next cool down was over, you got a different one. Pretty straightforward. But the lesson in this example is that no game feature exists in a vacuum. Other things within the game will affect how this feature gets used. In the cycle frontiers case, the first factor is that you had daily crates delivering gear to your stash which could be upgraded. The second thing is that you had safe pockets which also could be upgraded which gave the free loadouts a certain level of guaranteed success. And finally, basic weapons in the cycle frontier were more than capable of killing mid to high tier players and there was nothing preventing you from just using their gear for the rest of the raid afterwards. This combination of features and conditions made it so that free loadouts were mainly used as throwaway sets. You jump in, grab something, put it in your safe pocket, and full send towards the first person you can track down with no real sense of self-preservation. Because if you died, you lost nothing. In fact, you gained what was in your safe pocket, and you also had a decent chance of gaining a lot. Now, in preparation for this video, I put out a poll and I asked you all why you typically used free loadouts in the next examples we're about to discuss. Your response actually shocked me. The vast majority of you used free loadouts for economic reasons. Now, since I'm a pretty economically minded player, I'm always flush with gear. So, I always use them as ways to get into the raids faster for these titles at least. But before we get into those examples, if you're still watching and wanting to be flush with gear when Arc Raiders comes out, you should consider subscribing. I'll be putting out guides when Arc Raiders releases. And in the meantime, plenty of videos like this, including an ongoing podcast where we chat about the game and other related topics. Thank you so much for your consideration. And now, back to the video. So, Arena Breakout Infinite and Delta Force both have similar mechanics called quick kits. They are complete kits that come with various degrees of effectiveness and cannot be altered except for what you put into the safe pocket. They are limited by tickets, which are given via methods like daily missions, allowances, and such, which on face value seems fair enough, but neither of these games have wipes and have a ton of avenues for free gear and money. Much like the supply crate in the cycle frontier, combining with more free gear makes it feel a little excessive. The inventory management is also tedious. While you do have quality of life features that help you filter and select gear, you can easily find yourself putting on gear that's already being used for storage. But the biggest weakness this has is the fact that the safe pocket can be used to smuggle in high tier ammo for the weapon you're going to get for free. For those of you who don't know, the tier of ammo, not the weapon, is the largest factor on how much damage you do. Saying that smuggling in high tier ammo for this kit, would increase its effectiveness, would be a significant understatement, kind of undermining the point of the system. And then you have scav runs from Escape from Tarov or Covert Ops as they're known in Arena Breakout. These runs give you random low-level kits, insert you into an ongoing raid, and have you play as a PvE player controlled bot. Essentially, they serve as great ways to apply pressure to players in that raid in order to keep them moving and have threats come from less predictable directions. This works cleanly in these games because the PvE are other humans with the same health and limitations players normally have. This is not exactly possible in Arc Raiders, though. I am pretty sure there are many players who wouldn't mind the idea of queuing up as a random arc halfway through a match, even if it is just to have a little fun. Though, given my experience with Level Zero Extraction, I would tread lightly on these ideas. But these are all yesterday's games built for a niche audience. In order for Arc Raiders to reach the kind of success Embark wanted to, they don't need to reinvent the wheel. They just need the right grease. [Music] Applying some of the lessons learned that we talked about in this video, let's start from the setup. When you pick a free loadout, you're not given any indication of what it contains, no way of modifying or improving it, and there is no limiting factors like tickets in order to use it. The loadouts themselves are very minimal in terms of effectiveness and supplies. You can freely experience a raid over and over again, risking none of your gear while learning the game, but it also doesn't reward you for taking zero risk. The free loadouts give you less carrying capacity in every respect. smaller bag, less quick use slots, and zero safe pocket slots. Which brings me to the key factor in how this loadout plays out, the context this feature sits in. While Arc Raiders doesn't have backpacks, it has augments, which function much like them. However, there are two key distinctions. They cannot be equipped while in raid. And they also determine what armor classes you have access to. Which means even if you run across a pile of bodies all carrying highle gear, you can't just pick up high-end backpacks, slap on the highle armor, fight with it, and carry it all out. This combination of features sends a very clear message that if you risk nothing, you get nothing. And if you invest in your kit, you get a measurable payoff. Even if you were to put together the same type of low-end loadouts using your own materials, and no augments, you're granted three safe pocket slots, increased bag space, and more quick use slots. The safe pockets alone are worth the cost increase. And if you invest more into your loadout, your ability to tackle more equipped opponents and actually evac with their gear increases significantly. In addition to this, you can craft while in raid. While this is useful no matter what your loadout is, being able to craft things like medical supplies is especially valuable to someone running a free loadout starting off with minimal supplies. This helps sustain a player in a raid without overtly increasing the power of the kit. And I think this is the bottom line. The design is for new players, bottoming out players, and that's it. It balances the need for new players to learn and players down on their luck to have an avenue to come back while not undermining the investments other players have put into their kits. It is one of the many design choices Arc Raiders has that enforces the risk/reward feeling in the game. Designed to be used sparingly, but welldesigned nonetheless. Hit that like, sub, and notification button. Check out the links down below if you're curious on how to support the channel. As of the time of this recording, there are still five slots available to forever be part of the OG group, regardless of how much you donated or sustained for. Thank you so much for watching till the end, and good hunting. Heat [Music] up [Music]