Outriders, the in-development co-op RPG-shooter from People Can Fly, has received a very impressive reception for its recently released demo. Both the demo and pre-purchases for the full game are already climbing the Steam charts for concurrent players and revenue. People Can Fly isn't wasting any time, either. It's already detailing planned changes for Outriders' launch on April 1, as well as a demo patch for early next week. One of the focuses of that patch will be addressing progression-breaking farming.
Like many looter shooters, progression in Outriders is heavily dependent on the player earning gear. That's a mechanic that's well-represented in Outeriders' demo, too. It shouldn't be unsurprising then that some Outeriders demo players are already hard at work farming gear, even in ways that the developers hadn't intended. People Can Fly wants to address some of the issues contributing to these farming runs, but at the same time doesn't plan to dismantle these opportunities entirely.
To clarify its philosophy on the matter, People Can Fly says the following. It believes that exploits do not fit within the spirit of the game and thus must be fixed. However, if players want to grind out content, with the full awareness that progress carries over to the full game, then People Can Fly supports it. As such, it will fix the exploits and "redirect" players toward intended gear grinds rather than remove farming opportunities entirely.
The key exploits that People Can Fly says that it will be fixing within the demo, for a patch released before launch, will be addressed in three different ways. Those changes are focused on Epic-tier items appearing in shops and vendors, chests dropping Legendary-tier items, and side quests dropping low-quality gear. People Can Fly will be "redirecting" players away from chests and shops for high-end gear and toward side-quests.
Suffice to say, farming for gear will take longer if players are doing side-quests as opposed to grinding for chests in order to get Legendary-tier gear. But that's how People Can Fly wants Outriders to be played. That is to say that it wants players to play the game, rather than farm exploits like it's some kind of Destiny loot cave.
Otherwise, People Can Fly says it's going to leave the game as-is. Drop rates for enemies won't be changing, at least for the time being. And the changes planned will tentatively go through launch, too. If players are happy with the loot situation in Outriders for now, then they'll likely stay happy with the full game.
Outriders releases on April 1 on PC, PS4, PS5, Stadia, Xbox One, and Xbox Series X/S.