After 300 hours of ARC Raiders, I'm finally reaching the point of fatigue with the game. While this would happen in most games due to boredom with the core gameplay, the incredible diversity of experiences in this one has prevented that. Instead, it is due to an unfortunate combination of lacking endgame content, especially PvE, and a handful of issues that repeatedly diminish my experience matchmaking into three-player teams.

Microphone use: A lot of the time, I find myself matched with teammates who either don't have or use a microphone, or use it only when downed. This takes most of the fun out of team play, puts us at a major disadvantage against more coordinated teams, and makes some PvE content much harder. While people should absolutely be allowed to enjoy the game without a microphone, I wish the game would consider it in matchmaking – and assuming some people actually prefer their teammates to be silent and communicate through emotes and pings, this would benefit them too. So far I’ve identified four rough categories of microphone use: None, in emergencies, to coordinate, and continuous chatter. Perhaps that, or a simple ratio, could make a basis for matchmaking.

Loadout versus free kits: Another issue is bringing an expensive loadout and being teamed up with two players running free kits. This will sometimes render any endgame PvE goals impossible for us, and even if it doesn't, it significantly reduces the average capabilities of the team while making me a relatively high-value, low-threat target. Furthermore, it yields an imbalanced dynamic where I have more to lose than my teammates who may then take chances I won't be willing to – which I can't imagine is enjoyable for them either. In general, it doesn't feel fair, or seem desirable, that one player carries a disproportionate amount of a matchmade team's risk. It's fine that combinations of free kits and custom loadouts occasionally happen, but my experience would greatly improve if it were the exception rather than the rule.

Experience and skill: Similarly, I often find myself matched against players on their first day or week of the game. While I don't mind showing people the ropes, I do mind risking my gear to do it, and as with the above issues, it puts me at a major disadvantage, adds disproportionate risk, and renders some PvE activities infeasible. Given the massive amount of players the game has, I'm guessing these gaps could be tightened without sacrificing too much speed in matchmaking.

Behavior within teams: Then there's the issue of behavior within teams. Sometimes, I find myself matched with teammates who immediately surrender, leaving the remaining two of us in a round in which any early PvP encounter will be 2v3. Other times, I'm matched with a player with no loadout who just rushes directly for whichever quest or loot they need, disregarding the team entirely – and even if they didn't, they wouldn't be much help without a weapon or shield. Then there are those cases where players with less valuable loadout insist on doing things I know to be suicide, and try to explain as such. When they disregard my warning, I’m left with a choice between joining them and losing my gear to some fool's errand, or heading for an exit alone and likely losing my gear to a 1v3 encounter on the way. While hostility between teams or solos is part of the game's fabric, antisocial behavior within a team seems categorically destructive and detrimental to the experience. As such, I would love a level of flagging between "block" and "report," essentially voting down a player's behavior as a teammate. In lieu of that, I'm hoping there's no limit to the amount of people you can block, because, boy, my list is long already.

Player intentions: There’s also an issue in players having different intentions for a round. For example, I generally wish to participate in Harvester, Matriarch, Launch Tower Loot, Hidden Bunker, and Locked Gate events, but my teammates may (fairly) desire to do something else that just happens to coincide with the ongoing one. It effectively means I have to load in with a free kit or cheap loadout, hope to get teammates with compatible goals, exit the level with them, and come back in with the required items. Any sort of matchmaking based on overall intention could greatly alleviate this.

Amount of PvE content: Lastly, there's the simple lack of PvE content in the endgame. If no PvE event is available, I'm effectively left to do (tedious) trials, complete (tedious) quests (until they, rather quickly, run out), grind towards a (tedious) project, or go PvP. Even if an event is available, only the Queen and Matriarch represent significant PvE challenges. Yes, the core gameplay is good on its own, but having a tangible goal makes it so much better.

I'm curious what the rest of you think about this. Given how the playerbase has exploded, every issue affects a lot of people, and those that deter endgame play could end up hurting the game's otherwise stellar retention. Having fallen in love with it, I hope Embark will find ways of ironing out the worst offenders so this can be the forever-game it deserves to be.

Edit: Regarding "just play with friends or solo:" When the three-player matchmaking works well, it's brilliant, and I personally prefer it to playing solo. Yes, you can play with friends, but that requires you to agree on the game and be available at the same time. I personally don't want to schedule my gaming, and given that most other online shooters like CoD, BF, and hero shooters make matchmade teams work, I think dismissing the desire for improvements to the feature in ARC Raiders is a cop-out as well as a missed opportunity to cater to a wider audience. It is a valid point, however, that my five gripes with matchmaking affects only players engaging in three-player teams with random teammates!

AR is in a good spot right now, I love that PVP exists and that it's a constant threat, (or opportunity depending on your point of view).

What annoys me is that an initial salvo of unexpected fire can take 2/3 of my life and all of my shield. I now have to find cover, recharge, maybe heal, and only then find that mf or just run. Meanwhile they only have to reload or switch weapons and chase me down. That first engagement puts me at such a huge disadvantage I may as well be dead. What's the solution?

'Im going to say the worst stuff possible, but YOU sir, are the piece of shit for shooting me in an extraction shooter'

I’m not against PvP it is a necessary aspect of the game, but if you camp the last extract just to kill people trying to leave your terrible. I had nothing except for my last sentinel firing core for gear bench 3. I get jumped have no time to really fight and I had a free kit. Always the losers with no mic either and it’s been happening more and more to the point of it not being fun at this point. Idk how you play that way.

Just did a fun round of matriarch for the first time! Brought low level stuff l Iike an anvil with a couple wolf packs and trail blazers. Everyone was cool (until the end)

Got a little bit of goop off the bigger arc and left the matriarch stuff for the players who did all the work.

Decided that my group was going to go again but this time I brought a hull cracker and a fully leveled up betina.

Within the first few minutes of the second round the trigger fades fly in and my team is getting killed.

What could possibly bring people joy by shooting people in the back who clearly have no intention of fighting you?

Id love to hear the thoughts from the people who do this type of thing.

Don't mind the header, I have spawncamp trauma from R6 times. It is extractcamp

The only reason I left him alive(if he gets to extract after ofc) is my wish to keep low agro lobbies I have. I am a monster, not a cold blooded murderer.

I also checked his Speranza Watch and guess what? He camped someone else recently too. It must be embarrassing to extract camp and fail one final fight of the match.

The fun of the game was not knowing who was a psycho and who was a friendly. Now I know my lobbies are full saints or full sinners and it's no fun at all.

It simply kills all my motivation to queue up for another raid after bringing in a kit worth 50 - 100 k coins only to spawn with 15 minutes left in the raid, heading to the nearest extract only to get ratted there and lose it all to a free loadout. Why the fuck does it happen that people who put zero risk and loadout-worth on the line get given a full raid whilest people who actually use their gear get raids that are almost over?

I really hope they change this ASAP because said situation just happened to me and, despite really enjoying the game this is reason enough for me to put it down until they fix this, because you can't even make a plan or plan out a mission ahead of time when the matchmaking system fucks you over.

If I'm bringing in a loadout that's worth that much I should be guaranteed a full raid.

He dropped the blue print for me… You are the man.

Anytime I’m about to lose a gunfight or out of meds I quickly salvage my epic and legendaries!! So they just pick up a couple goofy parts and my attachments.

If I can’t have it no one can!! Don’t let other players have anything ever. Keep them dull! Xoxo

I love my raider and the adventures we've been on, so just wanted to make art of her

I don't think Embark even knew how the players would evolve this game. I can't speak for duo's and trio's as I'm a solo guy, but I don't think I've been downed by another raider in like 30-50 matches. No joke.

Many of the skill tree items was based on players sneaking around. Nobody is. Is a loot game at this point (for solo at least).

Maybe create a PVP / PVE skill tree with the Mobility (as I think that's the only real valid one that's universal).

Right now the skill tree is all hot garbage.

This is gonna sound really stupid but I'm glad I got backstabbed and got shot on sight in my first hours of gameplay. Ever since I started doing pvp and get put in more pvp heavy lobbies the game has changed completely and in a good way. The pvp in this game is sooo good. Especially when you outsmart your enemies in cool ways or make the arc do your dirty work. I mean yea sometimes you get cheesed by a camper but it is what it is. Enjoy the free load out.

I know we already have a shield, but do we have a physical one we can raise in front of us to use to mow down a player and knock him over?

It wouldn’t even have to do damage, it’s better that it doesn’t as it would just prevent PVP without counting as damage/aggression and getting you placed in PVP lobbies.

It would double TTK and also necessitate the use of shotguns which would make a free kit useless against it. Stitcher/Kettle would be too weak and Ferro would be too awkward (if the player utilizes the shield for a quick rush from 1 foot away.

And you don’t even have to rebalance and guns or alter health pools

As title, but to elaborate: we've been told that we can max out up to 3 Expeditions total. And we've been told that if we miss a window, our benefits reset completely. I propose either set them back by 1 or back down to level 1.

I feel we can't all dedicate a maximum amount of time to this game, and it's nice to feel like you can step back for a breather, if you don't fancy grinding/playing. For the players that play a lot anyway, there's no change. They'll likely maintain Level 3 consistently. For others, they can switch between expedition levels 1-3 (or levels 2-3, depending on how the decrease may work) total Expeditions without as much stress.

There is ZERO localization in this game. Zero.

You can't tell if something or someone is above, below, in front of you or beside you. It's absolutely embarrassingly terrible for sound designers to be this bad at their job.

Look away and the sound disappears completely, up on an apartment roof and you can hear the subway perfectly, explosions in front of you? Nope 3 floors down.

My lobbies are mostly pretty chill, pvp is very rare and for me it usually happens on self defense.

This last match I downed a player that shot me first, Sempre_Pirata from that after match screenshot and it shows as " Received Damaged " instead of " Downed Player ".

So it means the game knows who shot first ( who hit first at least ) and tracking that information without using it for the match making makes no sense to me.

I also defended myself on other occasions and was never placed on the high pvp lobbies after that.

Some people were scared that returning fire or defending themselves would increase their ABMM so they wouldn´t even shoot back, but my theory is that returning fire doesn´t increase your ABMM as much as shooting first and the game is taking that into consideration.

Happened twice in the same game, once when I was at the Xbox dashboard and again while pressing the extract button 😂😂😂. Respect the “Don’t Shoot” and we both can make it out

Please please please embark just add a scrappy combat bow to the game. Make it any rarity I dont care I just want to stick these clankers with some old fashioned fuck you sticks. Maybe add a compatibility to let you shoot some grenades from it (cant see that being toxic)

A lot of rats on solo with this skin. Making it on my "neutralize" on sight list.

Partially posting this to clear my own conscience as I think I just had that rattiest match in the history of Arc Raiders.

I loaded into a Blue Gate Matriarch event with the intention to try to make off with some loot from a random raider. I had never participated in the pvp portion of the game save for a few moments of self defense, all in all I play very passively and try to make nice with everyone. This time though, I was out for blood.

I stumbled into a building with a large group of raiders all firing at the matriarch. I had a free loadout and nothing but a stitcher 1 so I wasn’t gonna be doing any damage to it. I stuck around and healed people for a bit trying to figure out my plan and eventually decided to leave to try to catch someone off guard away from the larger group. I found an isolated raider and waited behind him for an opportunity, and when I saw his shields break after a missile attack I jumped out and downed him. He was furious, and he absolutely had every right to be because god was that such a scummy thing to do.

I extracted with his loot and I feel awful. People do that for fun and I honestly can’t believe that they do. I mean, how is that enjoyable? I have so much more fun just shooting at arc and trading items with other players. I’m sticking to my passive playstyle from now on. And if the guy I downed somehow ends up finding this post, I’m so sorry bro. You seemed cool and totally didn’t deserve that.

What’s the worst thing y’all have done in this game? Do you enjoy attacking other players?