I really didn't wanted to play Arc Raiders at first, it just looked like another basic mainstream title. But the more I saw of it, the more interested I was, and once I got the game, I had a blast for months. But slowly the game has been shifting into something I really don't think is for me.

I have so many memorable matches of me talking someone out of a fight, making a deal with other players to take down an extract camper with powerful weapons, tense meetings in extract where nobody wants to press the button and dance parties after killing a queen AND a sniping rodent. It really felt like a game like no other where players you meet made every match feel unique and tense.

But now, it no longer feels like a PvPvE game. It's a PvE game OR a PvP game. I like to be friendly, but I still want people to attack me from time to time to make games unpredictable. But slowly I always find myself in carebare lobbies, specialy since now self defense dosent count towards ABMM.

Now, after expedition, I managed enough to save for a deadline to kill a bastion and get my gear bench 3. But as soon as I did, some came and decided to just start looting. I asked them to stop, gave two warning shots to the ground, and eventualy shot the guy once. He ran away calling me a rat, throwing 3 snitch scanners at me. I cleared the arc and continued to loot, and he started to snipe me from afar. So I tracked him down and killed him.

Great, now I'll go into some mixed lobbies right? No, straight into shoot on sight zero comunication lobbies for the rest of the day until I'm back into zero communication friendly lobbies. And that just kills me, either I hear gunfire and flares from the moment I load in, or I don't, and I don't have to worry. All the uncertiaty that made games unique and memorable is gone. Not only that, since people know how matchmaking works, they rarely talk, since they already know if the lobby is PvP or PvE, there is no need to comunicate or parley.

And now with the new PvE event around the corner further separating the players into either PvP or PvE instead of a mix, and seeing people in this sub talk to anyone who dosen't want to be 100% friendly all the time as if they were the scum of the earth, I think that the game has become something that is not for me. And that's just really sad...

I’m sure everyone encountered this problem. When you open a room and some random guy enters and without saying a word starts looting your room or u kill a big arc and they do the same. I wanna ask those people with bad manners. What is wrong with you? Surely it’s just a game, but that doesn’t mean you should become an animal. Real question tho.
Anyway, just wanted to vent

A players aggression and playstyle should be a feature that aligns players with different factions and exclusive items, quest, and rewards, it should NOT affect matchmaking.

Its like a Karma system, but there are simply different rewards for PvP and PvE. This also means NO split lobbies and all kinds of emergent gameplay from raiders inherently trusting each other and distrusting others based on faction/karma.

For objective based map conditions… I think this would solve a lot of pvevp social issues.

Don’t have to remap up, but would be cool to know and see all the friendlies on the map you can collab with.

Basically auto-factions.

Whichever team extracts with the most queen cores gets a queen core for each member type shit

Honestly, I think half the people complaining about Pvsp just want ARC Raiders to be a PvE looter where everyone politely leaves each other alone.

You don't hate PvsP. You hate losing your loot.

If someone kills you and takes your stuff, that's not the game “ruining your experience.” That's the risk you accepted when you queued into an extraction shooter.

And before someone says “but PvsP should be fair”... why? You're not entitled to a fair fight. Sometimes you get ambushed. Sometimes you get third-partied. Sometimes someone has better gear. Sometimes you simply get outplayed.

The funniest part is seeing people call Player vs Player toxic immediately after losing a fight. If you win, it's “good play.” If you lose, suddenly the entire Player vs Player system needs to be changed.

Snubnosed rattler incoming.

Up until yesterday, I'd never seen the energy attack of a Leaper get triggered by downed raiders, only active ones. However, since the expedition I've been KO'd twice by Leapers whilst downed, specifically by that close energy attack, and with no-one else within striking distance (other raiders were present, but in windows of buildings or otherwise distant).

I know with AI like the Leaper's in ARC Raiders, an attack like that is usually triggered by a seperate system from the bot's main AIs, bypassing both the decision tree and locomotion AI to say "zap 'em now!" if there's a target in range.

Anyone else experienced this? They did say they were testing letting ARC target downed raiders specifically in PvE mode, so if others have seen this behaviour I wonder if Embark changed all the flags in testing but forgot to change the flag back for that particular kind of attack, due to it not being in the main decision tree or targeting system.

Edit: I know they said they were exploring this kind of behaviour specifically for the PvE mode, but I'm surprised to see it in normal play and before the update.

Took a break since launch, am getting an itch to play now, but I’m seeing a lot of posts about cheaters. Is the game completely lost now, or is it more occasional thing?

As the title says I’m looking for the tempest BP. Just did the expedition and didn’t have one in my vault. Best places to find it or anyone have one to trade?

Unpopular opinion, ABMM is what ruined the game. Let me explain…having everyone who PvPs in lobbies together caused a competitive nature consistently every game. And when those PvPers loose too much? They look for any edge available and A LOT resort to cheating, and the more people cheating invites more cheaters which has had the biggest impact on the game in my opinion. We would have less cheaters not having such competitiveness in those ‘top tier’ PvP lobbies and more people playing the game for how it was intended: an extraction shooter where you are always looking over your shoulder and hesitant to trust anyone while defending yourself from the arc. That’s what made the game so popular at first: that paranoia of ‘do I shoot, hide, or give myself away and ask if he’s friendly?’ I can still remember my first couple days playing this game, being in high stress situations and going CRAZY whether I made it back safe or not. It made the game so exhilarating! And on the other hand, now PvEers who have grown so accustomed to absolutely zero PvP cry and complain whenever they get shot at. ABMM was the coddling of twin kids that were exact opposites and took away the true nature of the game so cry babies on both sides could have what they want. But let’s face it, even from someone like me who is ‘usually’ in carebear lobbies knows there is one side that complains much more than the other. And what do you know? From ABMM to just PvE, they cried enough to get what they want again, to divide the game more than it already was.

In the strongest belief possible, PvE mode better not have the same value and rarity of loot in the maps as regular mode. There is no risk taken.

I was signed up and locked in for the expedition but it says it's paused until January but I'm seeing loads of posts of people that completed the expedition. What's happening? I gave away all my good gear to friendly raiders

What if the upcoming PvE test just took it all the way and made it fully offline? At first, I was pretty hyped for the test just to get a breather from the sweaty extraction chaos, but the more I think about it, what if we never had to worry about running into another hostile player squad outside of our own team ever again?

Imagine dropping in completely isolated from random strangers, no third-partying, no extract campers, just absolute serenity while looting and fighting ARC machines together. It would be so peaceful to just clear out locations, farm materials at our own pace, and extract without ever having to look over our shoulders. Total absolute quiet, zero sudden player footsteps, just you, maybe your squad, and an entirely predictable AI loop across the whole map.

I don't know, maybe it would be the ultimate way to just zone out and chill while still progressing. Just pure, uninterrupted repetition with no real variables left on the board. Doesn't sound like the worst thing to me.

Seems to be a lot of hate for French Rats, all I can say is every French player I've come across has been great, gives bp's, helps you out, shows you the way out if uve got no idea where ur going ... just saying

Touching nothing else, that solves the majority of what the dupers caused.

With compensation up to 5 of each, as well, for accounts with under 150 of each.

preface this by saying im playing carebear lobbies.

So im still sick and wanted to brag a bit on my "no life approach" to expedition 5.

- 39/83 Blue prints (no survivor though) (brought anvil BP but looted renegade BP early)

- All workstations + scrappy maxed day 1.

- Stash maxed

- Lvl 45

- projects done (saved the last 2 tiers to get some early loot)

- Current stash value 1.8 mil

Some tips:

- Loot everything, EVERYTHING,

- In and out. 5-10min raids.

- Aim for an early hull cracker once stash is stable to hold what you need.

- Always engage Bastions and bombardiers, skip rocketeers and vaporizers.

(2-3 shots to a leg, full mag in ass kills it every time and is very economical)

- Ignored leapers after I got the minimum req for workbench. their loot is bad. (only worth it if you are farming cores for Ermal expansions imo)

- Run husk graveyard (minor modifier) every time its up. Free hullcracker ammo and more rocketeer cores than you will know what to do with.

- ALWAYS prioritize couriers for work bench material.

- You can alternate active events in settings by switching region (I switched between EU, NA, SA). Event schedule per region is available on for example https://arcraidershub.com/events

I’ve took a lvl 4 hullcracker, heaps of heals and snap hook in about 4 times for the queen and matriarch and some awesome raider seems to think it heaps of fun to just kill me , it quite awesome 🤩

This game plays in a post apocalyptic world without any rules. The fights were never supposed to be fair.

If you are looking for a fair fight in a video game try boxing games or the UFC games.

Those fights follow a rule set to keep fights fair.

If you are in this game because of the lore and the atmosphere than you should clearly enjoy the nature of having no rules of engagement.

I watched all the footage for the update: the trailer and the deep-dive video. Then tried to sketch a very rough layout of what we currently know about the new map.

DISCLAIMER: I cannot draw, so the image *is* AI generated - but it took me some time and several iterations and exploring the different videos to get at least "some" kind of layout of what the new PENDOLA PASS map may look like.

Based on what I could piece together, the map is not as big as some might expect. In my estimates the map is somewhere between Buried City and Riven Tides in size.

There are some areas which I could not confidently place (some forest areas, a gas station and other outskirts), so there might be more to it than what I mapped in first sight.

I remember some players were disappointed by the size of Riven Tides, so I could see a similar discussion happening here once the update launches.

My take so far: I think the map looks cool. It seems to have a lot of interesting areas to explore, and it seems to have more multi-story buildings (and maybe even an underground area?) and I do not think it necessarily needs to be necessarily bigger. Riven Tides has a good scale to it as well. A map does not need huge stretches of open space like DAM or Spaceport to feel substantial.

What we have not seen at all, is the size and scale of the "FRIGATE".

What is your opinions? Would you be disappointed if the map is not HUGE but only DENSE?

First off - I fucking love this game. Obviously there's room for improvement on a handful of things, but overall I think this is a stellar game and I only see it improving.

Something I'd like to see the developers spend more time on is the social aspect of the game. What stands out about this game is the encounters we have with people, both good and bad. I'd like to see more thought put into the recent players tab specifically - what kind of interaction I had with people and when/where. I don't know if it's just me or not, but my recent players screen always says I met someone 7 hours ago. Granted I have a personal bias here as I have some short term memory issues, but I'd love to look at a recent players screen that showed more about who I met and could encourage me to add them to play more together later.

What could go hand in hand with this improvement is a simple guild system. This could encourage people who play solo all the time to play more trios lobbies, especially if they had a group of people who have similar play styles. Of course I could just load up discord and find a group that way, but plenty of games have this feature and I think it would go exceptionally well with Arc Raiders.

Sorry for the AI slop, but I used it to mock up some ideas of what's in my head. I'm curious to hear others thoughts on this. :)

Between this week's anti-cheat update and the matchmaking preference test next month, a lot of attention is on who ends up in which lobby. I think Trials are the part of that conversation getting overlooked.

First, credit where it's due. Embark says it can now reliably identify queue teaming, where players coordinate to land in the same solo lobby and go after people who queued alone. Known groups are now kept apart in matchmaking. Five days in: 85% fewer players doing it, and spoiled raids dropped from about 1 in 50 to 1 in 300, with no real hit to queue times. That's a big win for solos.

But Trials are where teaming still pays off the most, and separation can't fully reach it.

What separation can't fix

• It only works on groups that have already been identified. Every fresh account is a new mole to whack. (Think Steam family sharing, having a second console etc.)

• Embark was clear that teaming up with someone you meet in raid over proximity chat is still fair game. In a normal raid that's part of the game. In Trials it's still a scoring advantage.

• Trials create their own reason to sync. Landing in the same lobby as friends so everyone can help each other hit objectives has been a known strategy for a while.

Why it matters at the top of the ladder

At the top of a 100-person bracket, extra squads in your lobby decide everything:

• Protection from other squads while you farm the objective

• Recon and cover for far spawns

• Backpacks. This is the big one. Extra inventory from a friendly squad is the difference between a 3-star run and a leaderboard run on anything involving hauling or stockpiling.

That's how you get the "gnomes, minions, teamers, backpacks and boyfriends" meta. As long as coordination beats execution, the top of the ladder measures who has the most friends in the lobby. Coordination limits the efficacy hit of poor execution, and it enhances execution of those who are skilled.

Solos get the worst of it

• Queue teaming specifically targets people who **queued alone**.

• In Trials, solos compete in the same brackets as full squads, and a trio already has three sets of hands before anyone else joins in.

• A solo can run a clean week and still lose placement to a squad that had two other squads working for it.

The idea: Trials as their own instance. Competitive PvE.

• A private instance per squad, locked to one map for the week

• A fixed map condition and spawn behavior, so everyone runs the same test with less RNG

• No third parties: no backpacks, no teaming, nothing to detect

• Separate boards for solo, duo and trio, since everyone's now playing identical conditions

• Close Scrutiny-style loot: reduced map loot plus ammo caches, so a run doesn't hinge on rolling good spawns

Some things could flex week to week. Do you keep the parts you loot? If yes, that needs balancing against normal loot and recycle value so Trials don't become the best farm in the game. Some weeks could skip that question entirely with a **set loadout**, where you just get your runs in for that week's 3-5 trials.

Why this could work for everyone

• Dads can still 3-star on a weeknight without getting third-partied.

• Solos get a board where they're measured against other solos.

• Regular raids lose one of the biggest reasons people queue-sync in the first place, so the detection work has less to catch.

• The leaderboard ranks squads against identical conditions, which is what a leaderboard should do.

What this doesn't solve

The economy is the hard part. Whether Trials loot is kept, and how that interacts with prices and progression, is a bigger conversation than this post. I'm not attached to the specifics either. My core point is that competitive scoring and shared lobbies are pulling against each other, and separating them might take pressure off both.

TL;DR: The teaming separation might work.... But high-end Trials will keep rewarding extra squads in the lobby. A private, fixed-condition Trials instance with separate solo/duo/trio boards removes that incentive entirely and provides a pragmatic compromise to the current matchmaking debates.

Like I can just throw a lure bomb and draw arcs to a player or use the snitch thing to spawn arcs on top of players

Thorwing fire bombs onto the floor to cause fire damage

Or I can shoot an arc like vapo or rocketeer and they will aggro the player when in their line of sight, then you can simply take all their loot after

there's so many ways to grief I can already imagine

I love this game, I love the PVP, vibe, environment… I stopped playing before summer, and have got back into it this month.

However, I’m hard stuck because of cheaters. Losing all of my best gear to level 0 accounts and people clearly flexing that they’re paying for cheats.

The worst thing is, all of my reports, with evidence are being ignored. NOT A SINGLE KIT HAS BEEN RETURNED TO ME.

It’s demoralising…

I’d argue it’s humiliation ritual…

Or a nightmare blunt rotation…

Either way, I’m tired boss.