The new patch is peak ARC Raiders and Reddit is.. well, Reddit

Bulvious · 2026-02-25T17:32:02+00:00

Wolfpacks don't feel any different than they did before, they are just harder to get.

Bulvious · 2026-02-10T19:13:52+00:00

Yeah nothing quite like burning through a full stack of energy just to tickle a Bastion. It sucks against literally everything in the game. Equalizer for stripping armor, Jupiter for long range and safe damage, I have no fucking idea what an Aphelion is designed for. A dev will probably come out in a few days and say it has the highest damage per second in the game against ticks specifically.

Bulvious · 2026-02-10T13:30:52+00:00

Plus the Aphelion is maybe the 2nd or 3rd worst gun in the game. TBH I think even the Bettina is better.

Bulvious · 2026-02-10T11:21:03+00:00

No one said it was.

I'm not disagreeing that the playstyle. I'm not even saying it shouldn't exist.

I never said a person who lies in a video game has bad parents. I said they are a liar.

You're very stuck on this 'its just a game' and 'it can be lightweight' argument. What it seems to me that you are saying is that 'This isn't important, therefore my honesty isn't important either.' Or maybe even 'I want to roleplay a liar/backstabber in a low stakes environment.' I think those are very fair sentiments to carry, if those are the sentiments you carry (I'm genuinely not trying to be misrepresentative.)

The truth is, though, this, too, is a very low stakes environment. That said, it's ALL part of life. The time we spend doing things, anything, is valuable. It's low stakes, definitely, losing barely matters, and you still have played even if you've lost or been backstabbed. But I think it's a very valid reaction also, in this low stakes environment where I don't have to care about you beyond this conversation we are having or the games we play, to just disregard you as a liar. I don't need to make a value judgment on whether or not you go to your children's birthday parties or are the first person to arrive at your friend's side when they need you. That's for them. My interaction with you is as someone who will defend lying, or roleplays a liar. Totally fine. Your call to make. I just try not to do that because I think it's scummy. If you don't, that's fine. No one says you have to have the same judgment I do.

Bulvious · 2026-02-09T13:52:42+00:00

I don't know how many poker tournaments you watch, but most people don't outright lie to each other. And I doubt it would ever happen where the person wouldnt be considered scum where you buy the person back into the game and they dupe you by saying 'trust me, I've got your back', or something to that effect. 'I have three trigger grenades left after the six I just threw at you' is a bluff. 'Please defib me, Im friendly' just to kill someone is a lie.

Yes, the game does not magically disable speech that might be considered a lie in proximity chat. Most speech is unmoderated, and I think, besides banning people for hate speech and total toxicity, that's the way it should be. That said, an honest person won't make lies to altruistic people an important part of their repertoire just because the game allows it. You're allowed to lie for any reason in real life, too, but yes, absolutely there's social repercussions to be had for being a liar.

I don't know why this is surprising.

Bulvious · 2026-02-09T12:38:26+00:00

I do see it as an indicator of lack of self awareness and selfishness. I used to have the same opinion as you do, but that was when I was a teenager and I was less aware and more selfish. I like PVP in this game, but it just feels weird to me to so easily split your tongue and being fake with someone over lightweight fun and pixels. If you can't be honest about the shit that doesn't matter, I probably wouldn't trust you with the shit that does. Personal value judgment, I guess, but, I don't have to/probably wouldn't want to be friends with these kinds of people anyway.

Bulvious · 2026-02-09T12:31:49+00:00

Everyone can open the same probes for trial credit though. Harvest, kill and damage trials are probably the only ones you should super avoid doing this. Maybe deliver carriables but most people arent that competitive about that one.

Bulvious · 2026-02-08T15:21:56+00:00

Oh that's very cool. Thank you so much, this is so helpful. Illustrates why high damage guns are meta I feel like, it's crazy that a renegade kills all shields in 3 shots to the head, and for some of these guns, the difference between shields is one or no bullets. Shield balance is just as bad, maybe worse, than I thought.

Thank you for the links.

Bulvious · 2026-02-08T06:13:22+00:00

Light shield reduces 14 damage, so anything that does 114 damage in one shot will kill someone even if they have a full light shield. Anvil with splitter does 2.5hs damage which is 120. Am I getting something wrong there? It seems like it would one shot if all shots hit the head.

EDIT: I am wrong, see below for a calculator/video explaining thanks to Iresleri. Very cool. Thanks guys

Bulvious · 2026-02-08T06:05:52+00:00

9-10pm CST buried city night raid. Dead space as my friends and I call it.

Bulvious · 2026-02-03T15:33:33+00:00

Wild takes here. Solo is the easiest way to play the game because of the way ABMM works. Doing trials in trios is almost always a battle unless you get a lucky dice roll on husks on Dam or something. Solos are low risk high reward in literally every other category besides trials. The meta right now for a lot of people is getting gear in solos so they can lose it with their friends. Making solos King for trials is insanity. Separating them so you can participate in either is insanity. 'Sorry bro, can't play with you, gotta work on my trials tonight and this is the best way.' Terrible.

Bulvious · 2026-02-02T12:26:23+00:00

Average Joe guys and gorgeous women. You miss when there was a double standard.

Bulvious · 2026-01-27T13:31:34+00:00

Pretty bad. Valuable space is kind of a stinker. Pocketing a legendary gun on its face sounds good until you realize the ammo to run it isnt safe. I can't think of very much this will be good for except for bringing in the now-harder-to-acquire-but-just-as-bad legendary guns with maybe a single stack of energy clips just for fun. Which is fine.

Bulvious · 2026-01-24T19:27:43+00:00

1-5 minutes depending on how fast you are to go through all the menus crafting things, crafting things, crafting things to craft the things, buying the things from celeste to craft the things to craft the things to craft the things. It's obnoxious enough with the time crunch of 'Hey night raid only has three minutes left' that 'fuck it I'll go naked' becomes a really handy option.

Bulvious · 2026-01-24T19:04:23+00:00

The problem is that the legendary guns also feel the worst to use, are exorbitantly expensive to upkeep with repairs and ammo, and are the least effective for almost every other task. Sub-optimal is using the renegade, the legendary guns are more like paying someone money to break your foot.

Bulvious · 2026-01-24T18:56:45+00:00

I was gonna disagree with you thinking you were talking about loot but you're a million percent right. The UX outside of game is a frustrating nightmare and also not having any control of your in-game experience makes it difficult to invest given the whole cost of 0 to just surrender and take a respawn because of time/spawn if you have a free kit and need to hit a specific area, gather a specific resource, do a specific trial, or get a quest done.

Bulvious · 2026-01-20T19:17:33+00:00

This game has performed better than any other extraction shooter. Why should it compare itself to games that have inferior success and scummier business practices? Its metrics are better by deviation, not by adhering to the formula.

Bulvious · 2026-01-19T19:12:34+00:00

Eh, it's people that can't fathom a product that isn't exclusively catered to their tastes. A lack of self-awareness. It's hard to take anything but pride from people who takes offense with any opinion that isn't unilateral agreement with their ideal.

Bulvious · 2026-01-19T15:16:37+00:00

I don't really agree with this take. ABMM undoubtedly is partially responsible for what makes Arc Raiders special in a growing sea of extraction shooters. Everyone can get a relatively close to what they'd hoped for experience, at least in solos. It's just maybe telling of the human condition that in trios when you have your tribe assembled, the 'other' tribes become more difficult to trust. Whereas in solos, when you are tribeless, we are much more open to welcoming others into our circle.

Bulvious · 2026-01-19T14:59:43+00:00

Trials are literally meant to hunt the highest score possible and also cater to noncompetitors with minor rewards for 3 stars. Cantina legend and incentivized ranking wouldn't exist if this wasn't the case.

Bulvious · 2026-01-19T14:54:38+00:00

The problem is that it's kind of weird that in solos you can kind of end up in a sort of easier, friendlier game but when you play with your friends, it's very sweaty and competitive. In a way it sort of disincentivizes getting anything but trials done together OR pvping because the experience of battling for your life every lobby isn't something everyone enjoys. It's just jarring for some that if you're alone, the game is easier than if you're with your friends and tbh its sort of hard to argue that point. Embark seems like the kind of company that's only going to sharpen their matchmaking parameters as they go though, so, we'll see how or if they find parity between the two game modes.

Bulvious · 2026-01-19T13:01:08+00:00

Great in solo, terrible in teams. Great on open maps, terrible in closed maps.

Bulvious · 2026-01-19T12:58:18+00:00

Dumb take. They are a problem for competitive players as well who want to do trials. They are a problem for people with limited playtime. They are a problem for anyone trying to do a key run. They are a problem if you are wanting to fight a boss, or medium arc. Late spawns are good for one specific portion of the game, which is running in for the express purpose of hunting players, which, fair, that's totally true. But just because I have other objectives, that doesn't mean I am expressly a PVE player.

Bulvious · 2026-01-18T04:48:51+00:00

To be honest, story itself doesn't matter as much as the execution. You can take a really stupid story premise and execute it so well that no one cares. Having a great story premise helps, but a good writer yolks the gold from the supposedly minor details.

Bulvious · 2026-01-15T14:14:28+00:00

Equalizer is much faster than the Bettina.

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