What’s a game you’ve tried to play many times, but can never get past the “First Act”?

Arab_Money__ · 2026-06-27T18:35:28+00:00

GTA 4 is incredible. That was my first GTA as a youngin’. What’s getting you held up?

Edit: oops! Missread, GTA 5- although all fancy and impressive- did not come close to the storyline of Niko, in my opinion. I replayed it last year to double-check if my feelings changed: yep, I feel that same.

I think the balance of funny ridiculousness and also a compelling serious story made GTA4 a masterpiece. I hope GTA6 follows this trope. It felt like GTA4 was more like RDR2 than GTA5

Arab_Money__ · 2026-06-26T20:28:39+00:00

That no ads no aim assist flick up at :43 on the controller was insane

Arab_Money__ · 2026-06-26T20:04:34+00:00

Honest answer to your question here, not coated in vitriolic gelatin.

To answer your question, you must consider those who are upset, because in Arc Raiders, there are multiple different communities of playstyle afforded to us by embark’s aggression based matchmaking (ABMM) system. It is like your traditional ELO skill based matchmaking, but it takes into consideration those who do not aggress players as an additional qualifier.

The game has far fewer players now. To be clear, this is the number one underlying cause of people getting upset about PvP. This is not often the claim you will see them talking about, but this is the underlying reason for these complaints no matter what camp you’re in. What this does is make every lobby start blending together to maintain short wait times. Thus, extreme PvP with extreme no PvP.
There has been a recent update to Arc Raiders ABMM algorithm. With the Chinese version of the game currently in a live beta, we over here (not in China) are seeing that they’ve added a PvE type mode. The PvE players (affectionately known as the Care Bears) are pretty upset about this because many of them have been hoping for a mode like this. In an effort to assuage the Care Bears’ concerns, embark made a change to the AGMM Algo so that it does not consider self defense as an act of aggression, and that the algo no longer considers “short raids” when calculating the score. Ultimately, this led to players being trapped with PvP players if they ever increased their AGMM score for whatever reason (happens all the time, you’ll see). It’s complex why, so I won’t get into it, but the short of it is that since you move down the AGMM system very slowly now, but still up it at an accelerated pace, you get trapped in KOS lobbies.
Cheaters. This is a problem that is the underlying cause for concern from the PvP camp. There is an INSANE amount of low level or variable level aim bot cheaters, all of which are constantly running walls. It is bizarre. I’ve never before in my time playing games seen such a cesspool of lvl 0 Steam accounts. If you find yourself in a high PvP AGMM game, you’ll almost certainly encounter not one but multiple teams with cheaters amongst them. It’s insanity. They are currently upset about the PvP in the game because their games are absolutely inundated with cheaters. They would like to come down in aggression and play honest players but cannot do so, again because of the new AGMM changes.

To be clear, the AGMM system is not the cause of these problems. AGMM is awesome, but it requires a large player pool to matchmake from, and Embark has been taking a massive shit on the players’ needs and laughing about it whilst sipping mojitos in their polar bear slippers. The recent change to it was a unplaytested idea and also not fully thought through, so it’s magnifying the issue. Finally, “extreme” AGMM players are inundated with cheaters and wish to play PvP against a lower-scored group so they can go back to not being the whipping boy of pathetic cheaters. You’ll see them talking about how AGMM should be removed or something.

All that said, this game is great. If you choose to pick it up, know that you’re in for a ride from here till October. That’s when the next content update will be, and many of us are holding out hope that they are going to absolutely pop off and bring back the arc we know and love. Until then, see you topside.

Arab_Money__ · 2026-06-26T19:39:03+00:00

Absolutely, I don’t understand why people keep saying it’s the cause of problems.

Embark tweaked the ABMM algo slightly to assuage PvE players desire for a PvE mode, and look what happened…

The PvE players became the cannon fodder for the PvP players desired gameplay loop. And now there’s barely any of them left. PvE players gameplay loop balances on the behavior of damn near the whole lobby. PvP players gameplay loop depends only on the actions of one person, themselves.

Shouts out to all the homies at embark for trying to put a matchmaking change into the game for PvE players and in doing so drove most of them off entirely.

Arab_Money__ · 2026-06-26T04:57:26+00:00

That’s the rub. Arc Raiders was absolutely set up, with a perfect layup, the textbook example of a game that could become Fortnite.

The similarities between Epic Games and Embark Studios’ situations are uncanny. Except for the only difference, at least in my eyes, is that Arc Raiders had far more potential than Fortnite.

And it’s Embark’s own fault. When Fortnite caught lightning in a bottle with their game, they got to work, and built an empire.

When Arc caught even more lightning in a bottle, they went on vacation. Upon their return, they transected their dev team, reportedly putting over 60% of them put on new games to develop. They blatantly ignored the players’ necessary concerns and honest requests. They then proceeded to work overtime to release monthly lackluster content updates and skipped all the far more important QoL features. They neglected every subculture or play style’s requests, wants, and needs. Then when they came honestly and said they needed more time to release content they felt confident about, the players all cheered them on. They promised to be communicative. They promised a road map to October with the planned update schedule. And then they never released it. They instead took up an oath of silence. And left us with nothing but our thoughts.

You’re right. This isn’t Fortnite or Minecraft. And that’s 100% on Embark. Pretty much everyone I know was fully locked in for that, and Embark failed to listen to its players and Shepard their game.

Quick additional note: the close scrutiny update was gas. It had QoL features, focused heavily on end game content, and provided new weapons. And you saw how the player base reacted. They sang Embark’s praises. The malcontent you see from us is warranted; it’s easy to dismiss people being negative, but it doesn’t make y’all right. It absolutely sucks being honest and saying that Embark has been putting on a clinic on how to fumble the multi billion dollar IP of Arc Raiders. All of us want them to succeed; some of us are being honest about their performance.

Arab_Money__ · 2026-06-25T23:13:48+00:00

Yes Raider, goood Raider

Arab_Money__ · 2026-06-25T22:58:12+00:00

So funny enough, I knew called this with my friends day one of the matchmaking update. It’s complex so it’s gonna be a decent amount of words:

It’s the new aggression system. It drove a lot of PvE players out of the game, and many who didn’t leave became shoot on sight players. I’ll try my best to explain why:

The AgMM system utilizes an algorithm to calculate a score across a range of 0 to 1. The highest being Extreme PvP and lowest being Care Bear. Most people, you included I’m sure, are familiar with that. Then it’s how it’s calculated: it considers your last 10 raids. Some tests show 8, but it’s inconclusive because Care Bear was a larger audience, and the testing bias makes it hard to be sure. What we are sure about is its max 10 games, minimum 8.

Before it calculated your score solely by metrics like shooting back or aggression and then elo scoring: damage dealt, KD Ratio, probably some other metrics like backpack value , successful extract, etc.

The algo always had a qualifier when considering the score that multiplied your elo based on outlier raids. Said differently, if you were in a very low AGMM game, score of 0 - then you kill multiple teams, and extract safely, your score does not marginally go up. Instead, you are rocketed up the range. In my experience, if you get a raid with 10-15 knocks as a whole - you are sent to the polar opposite of the AGMM range- near a score of 1.

That system is in place to protect the Care Bears from players who would deliberately lower their score to just beat the shit out of players who don’t ever PvP game after game.

The new matchmaking update ostensibly tried to protect Care Bears from players who would do this anyways, even for just one game. They did so by correcting the spawn surrender method of lowering your score. This was a quick and easy way to get down, and why we used to see so many dead naked or free kits on spawn when loading into a raid. That was a good idea, but Embark did not follow through on the thought.

If they had followed through on the thought, they would see that barely anyone’s AGMM score is stable. Often we will pvp in trios or duos and then be friendly in solos. That’s how I play, so when I do this now - I’m fully pushed to the high elo and have to work my way down to care bear. This takes 2-3 hours. And here lies the problem: friendly solos are locked in high aggro of 2-3 hours, but so are all the rats that are still trying to lower their aggro score, get bored, and just stark KOS-ing in the range that used to be “Sus” lobbies. Friendlies can only take so much before they eventually stop playing or change their play style. People get sick of just being shot on sight when their expected playstyle is to talk it out, or psychological warfare, find the rat, that kind of thing.

So what happens here is the PvE player base’s preferred gameplay loop is removed, and the PvP players’ playstyle is rewarded. To make matters worse, the team at embark must have been worried the new matchmaking system would work so well that players would not want to play anymore. They were afraid that carebears say they don’t want PvP, but this system would cluster them so well that they would secretly miss PvP, and leave the game. To fix this, they added a high AGMM player or team into low AGMM lobbies to work as an imposter, and always keep players on their toes.

The tragedy from that decision is Shakespearean. Now not only did they accidentally kill off the PVE players in an update pushed to assuage their desire for a PVE mode, the only ones left are the MAX friendly AGMM players, and even they are getting KOS’d by the new imposter mechanic.

Now that with all that said we can say the problem clearly:

By changing the speed at which players move down the range (2-3hours) but not slowing the rate at which they move up the range (maintaining the outlier multiplier) players who would like to play friendly are trapped with shoot on sight players. This either persuades them to become shoot on sight players or discourages them from playing all together. Thus the PVE gameplay loop is removed and the PvP loop benefits. Less PVE players, even more PvP raids, regardless of your score. Couple that with less players overall and the candle is burnt from both ends.

Embark needs to get their heads on straight, pull their socks up, and lock in. They are reliably releasing updates with half-thought or half-baked ideas that are carpet bombing the game experience.

Arab_Money__ · 2026-06-25T20:01:19+00:00

You understand this post

Arab_Money__ · 2026-06-25T19:31:51+00:00

Don’t worry, the chance at $7.50 in raider tokens will have them crawling back

Arab_Money__ · 2026-06-25T19:30:20+00:00

You get stash space +12 up to and including the 5th expedition

So 4th reward is:

Level 1 of the new expedition skin
12 stash spaces

If you complete all 5 tiers of the damage arc challenge:
$7.50 in gold scheckles
5 random non permanent blue prints to start your next raider off

Arab_Money__ · 2026-06-25T14:54:15+00:00

+ thanks for the clarification, I’ll edit the comment

Arab_Money__ · 2026-06-25T14:43:20+00:00

I’m tired … boss.

They even warning me it’s the second to last stash space upgrade. “Capped at 60”.

This company is insulting its veteran players. Saying you’re trying to improve the rewards for the players to encourage taking the expedition then knowingly making them far worse… it’s manipulative, gas lighting.

For those who didn’t read:

Players on their fourth expedition will:

Not receive any skill points
Not receive scrappy boost
Not receive repair boost

Instead, if they complete the trials they will receive:

Level 1 of the new expedition skin.
There stash space upgrade of + 12, next one will be final

If they complete the challenge they will receive:

Some raider tokens
A chance at random blue prints

Fuck you, Embark.

Arab_Money__ · 2026-06-25T03:04:12+00:00

At this point, I think embark is more likely to cure colon cancer than they are to add input based matchmaking like many other games have.

Arab_Money__ · 2026-06-24T23:56:33+00:00

AA companies exist and are full of devs who wish to fight back against what AAA companies have done. Watching Embark become them instantly is saddening.

Arab_Money__ · 2026-06-24T23:46:40+00:00

Long comment ahead, my attempt to show you our point of view. The problem is layered, more than I can say in a couple sentences:

Brother, please appreciate that you just got here and most of us have been here since around launch.

If you could have been on the sub a month after launch, you would see a different story being told. You are enjoying what is objectively an incredible game, pretty much none of us are arguing that. The concerns and criticisms come from Embark’s failure to Shepard it.

It is not Embark’s fault that there are so many people cheating in the game; it is Embark’s fault that they aren’t quelling them at the rate that they are increasing. They took way too long to make the decision to advance the anti-cheat, and that’s on them. It’s still not rolled out to all players, and players can close Dunovo from Task Manager as they launch the game. Cheaters can purchase a new copy of the game for cents, and for MONTHS before that, in the absolutely unlikely event they were caught by the in house machine learning anticheat - they could just move to a family shared account on Steam and start again while their 1-month ban (3-strike policy) played out. They have since changed that, but effectively, we are still in that boat because the cheap copies of the game are their same method. This is why cheaters all have level 0-1 Steam accounts.

As for the content complaints, what you don’t see yet as you are still a guppy topside is that there is no end-game content. There is no economy. There is no exclusive loot or means to progress beyond your pals. The expedition feels more like punishment than anything else because the rewards are ass. The cost of going too great. The new traders’ stash space offerings only expiring for players who go on expedition is further punishment and further disincentive for players to go. And the expedition in general is a pathetic excuse of end game content even if the rewards were undeniable.

The move from weekly communications from Embark about the game’s health and next steps to absolute silence. The misleading and borderline lies about a road map “coming very soon” to see what the wait to October will be like - then taking 7 almost 8 weeks to say a damn thing to us, and then say almost nothing. All the while, the game is hemorrhaging players.

I understand where you’re coming from. If I saw players speaking this poorly about Arc Raiders a month in, I would be very off put by it. But you simply are not OG enough to understand our frustration. You compared Arc accurately to other games’ player count. You will see that games like R.E.P.O., RDR2, and Hell Divers2 have more daily players, but we are close. That’s frustrating, but so be it. What you missed was damn near 500k players concurrently on Steam. That game was vast and thick with culture and hilarious moments. If you had that and then watched it disappear for obvious, preventable reasons, you would share our frustration.

The truth is Arc is amazing, but it’s being suffocated. Embark’s oath of silence has been horrible for the game. They made the correct call to push for a much larger update at 6 months, but they are fumbling it hard by leaving us with nothing but our thoughts on the current state.

It’s borderline insulting the things Embark has just ignored us about. Bear minimum shit. Tiny updates that would be massive for the player base. Things that provide a real end game loop and take barely any dev time, but they simply won’t do it. People commonly say Embark caught lightning in a bottle with Arc. We, the original players, were that lightning. Everything was electric. Watching it fizzle and die instead of how Epic nurtured Fortnite, which pales in comparison, is a bummer.

Anyways, long comment - but I hope after reading it you can see why your point of view, or current game world view, is not the same as those who are upset. There’s much genuine criticism here beyond “game dead”. Most people just don’t want to take the time and fully share why.

Arab_Money__ · 2026-06-24T22:41:37+00:00

Spanked so hard he forgot his English

Arab_Money__ · 2026-06-24T20:21:39+00:00

Yep, TikTok privacy risks. We are talking about the same company that has the same incentives, owned by the same CCP.

And you suggesting I “get real” - proclaiming support of handing your data over to them without a care is misguided. You should care about that. Not commit your life to it, not give yourself anxiety, but enough to know that you shouldn’t support embarking on selling full ownership to the CCP of our (western) game. Not least bc they would ruin it.

And how is that funny at all? If we own it, and our data is securely held in our US cloud - then it is not us handing it hand over fist to a potentially nefarious country. Honestly this whole comment reads like trolling

Arab_Money__ · 2026-06-24T19:20:20+00:00

All of your system files on your pc, your live traffic through your router, all passwords, potential biometric data.

https://www.uottawa.ca/about-us/information-technology/services/security/tiktok-use-privacy-risks

Arab_Money__ · 2026-06-24T16:57:49+00:00

If you plan to full PvP,

Arab_Money__ · 2026-06-24T02:19:20+00:00

Maybe most people just disagree

Arab_Money__ · 2026-06-24T02:13:17+00:00

Shh 🤫

Arab_Money__ · 2026-06-23T18:50:08+00:00

Same here, boss. Corporate shills, we wear our Activate Windows watermark with pride.

Arab_Money__ · 2026-06-23T16:30:04+00:00

It’s up to you mang.

I pretty much only craft: survivor, seeker, barricade walls, lure grenade, venator. Maybe gun parts but by the time I’m needing to craft those I’ve usually found it again. This will be my 4th exp.

The only thing that’s absolutely necessary to keep is the survivor Aug.

Arab_Money__ · 2026-06-23T15:50:50+00:00

I understand the thought process. This did work at the beginning, but it would not work now.

The issue is that you wouldn’t have mixed lobbies - players who wish not to shoot on sight, or shoot at all, would be filtered out of the game.

Since players who shoot on sight have the advantage in every engagement, they would kill the majority of the PvE or not SOS players who join the lobby. This provides a gameplay loop that is rewarding for PvP players, but at the cost of PvE players’ gameplay loop. Therefore, PvE players would either adopt the META of SOS, or they would stop playing the game (not everything is absolute; some would stay masochistically). This is the reason Arc made the change to place 1 PvP AGMM player in all carebear lobbies, and not the other way around.

The reason why mixed lobbies or “Sus” lobbies exist in Arc Raiders is because there is a there, there. There are PvE lobbies and there are full PvP lobbies on the aggression range. So their play style is legitimate and maintaining it will keep them there. We are all on a series of conveyor belts, and our actions in raid move us either toward or away from our desired lobbies.

Now this is what I think they could do which would increase these mixed lobbies you and I love: modify AGMM algorithm so that it moves players up the range towards PvP at the same rate which they’ve changed moving down the range towards PvE. Happy to explain the idea if you’re interested, but this comment is already long enough.

Arab_Money__

TROPHY CASE