Arc Raiders' latest weapon changes are a well-aimed nerf at free loadouters, and the Il Toro is thankfully next on the chopping block

If you've been to Stella Montis lately (well, ever, really), you've no doubt run into hordes of violent players using free loadouts to murder you and steal everything in your bag. After all, they've got nothing to lose, unlike you.

With Arc Raiders' latest round of patch notes in the Shrouded Sky 1.17 update, Embark is finally cracking down on this infamous strategy, acknowledging that many of us have "expressed concerns that some low-tier weapons outperform our higher-tier weapons at significantly reduced cost".

In response, Embark has taken a stab at the Stitcher and Kettle, both of which were punching well above their weight in PvP. What you might also notice is that both are also two of the weapons you're likely to get in a free loadout—alongside the Rattler, but that sucks, and the Ferro isn't exactly a PvP monster. Eat that, free loadouters, Embark is coming for you. And all you Il Toro warriors, you don't have long left either.

More specifically, the Stitcher's had its time-to-kill toned down and spread kicked up:

• Reduced headshot multiplier from 2.5 to 1.75
• Reduced base damage from 7 to 6.5
• Increased per-shot dispersion by around 50% (making it bloom faster)

While the Kettle, which was intended to be more of a mid-range option, has had its damage reduced to better encourage you to aim for the head:

• Reduced base damage from 10 to 8.5

Let's not beat around the bush; we all know these changes were coming, and they're fairly restrained, truth be told. The Stitcher was better than the purple-quality Bobcat in almost every situation, and it costs a fraction of the resources to upgrade. Now there's much more of an incentive to use the higher-rarity variant if you have it, without making the Stitcher dead weight. While I think the Kettle was actually in a good spot, it's basically just as effective as ever if you're precise, but it reduces the spam-fire playstyle it had unintentionally fallen into.

The other close-range monster, the Il Toro, managed to escape this cull unscathed. However, Embark has confirmed in the game's Discord server that "work is underway" in addressing this busted shotgun.

While it's not included in the free loadout offerings, the Il Toro is cheap to craft, relatively common to find, and even sold by Tian Wen, and it's lethal. If the Stitcher was accused of causing "situations where you're ambushed and killed before you have much time to react," then the Il Toro's in the same boat.

Of course, the Il Toro is a shotgun so it should be powerful up close, but with other close-range offerings biting the bullet in this update, the Il Toro is only looking more tempting than ever until it's eventually knocked down a peg.

But hey, maybe these indirect nerfs to free loadouts will finally make the Stella Montis cheapskate army finally risk some loot, even if it means getting blasted by a shotgun more often.

I doubt it'll move the needle much, simply because it's a legendary weapon that no one wants to risk losing, but Embark has also buffed the Aphelion. "We weren't quite happy with the previous balancing of the Aphelion," the dev note reads, explaining that this PvP-focused weapon was underperforming.

Elsewhere, the Venator has been nerfed again to increase its TTK (not reduced, like the patch notes incorrectly state), and Embark even pre-warns of potential future nerfs if it's not enough: "if that doesn't work, we might need to look into its ammo consumption and cost efficiency".