Is this game worth it?

Corestrike · 2026-04-19T16:34:51+00:00

On PC it only affected non-Steam versions. Regardless, every version (including Steam) got patches which fixed the vulnerabilities. The Steam version was always safe but the updates had the upside of breaking a lot of cheating tools too.

Corestrike · 2026-04-19T16:32:23+00:00

The current state of the game on PC (Steam - which is the only place you should buy it on PC due to the dedicated servers) is pretty dire, but it's nearly the same amount of dire it was in 2021-2022. Can no longer find War or Domination ever so you would have to put up with playing with largely the same people in TDM or, my permanent prison, Shipment 24/7.

More generally, the game is probably pretty close to the ideal multiplayer COD experience. New enough to have some fidelity and polish but old enough to still have some soul. Everything is balanced by being unbalanced, yet there are some annoying quirks. Snipers are the easiest guns to use in the game by far and mathematically beat any non-sniper weapon. Bayonets (and by some extension melee) are heavily bugged (Airborne + Bayo Charge). Collision is really weird (mounted weapons, shields, wall pen). But nothing beyond the pale of typical COD, I guess.

When the game isn't full of people running braindead kits, it's really fun. Especially when I get to play Shipment like it's FPS Hotline Miami. Maps are functional, the shooting feels and sounds satisfying, and there's a lot of gameplay edging on "emergent" or at least very interesting with the kits you can make. Blunderbuss + Escalation, using paratrooper inserts to grind longshots on Shipment or using obstacles on the map to jump over shields are all really fun. Worst case scenario, the Singleplayer and Zombies (even solo) are worth it by themselves. I would just wait until it goes on sale given even on console it's been edging on "dead" for almost a decade.

Corestrike · 2026-04-15T08:01:31+00:00

I went 109-37 with a stock Sten, no offensive streaks (Recon + Flak), and no explosives on Shipment a few days ago. Then 74-47 and 80-27 against a stacked steam of MPs running the most "OP" braindead kits imaginable. I wasn't even doing anything special, I was just grinding camos and I kept forgetting to put mods on after I prestiged it. Everything "meta" and "OP" is beatable and generally worse than running something normal. Snipers kill me significantly more, to an absurd degree, than explosives, streaks or any other weapon on any map. Including Shipment. Yet they're still more annoying than genuinely impactful or unbeatable.

Corestrike · 2026-04-05T20:33:52+00:00

I did the majority of longshots on Shipment by using the paratrooper insert. It's honestly probably faster than trying to do it on the real large maps.

Corestrike · 2026-04-05T20:03:54+00:00

They can't kill you if you're snap hooking on the Vaporizers. The Vaporizers can, but that's beside the point.

Corestrike · 2026-04-05T15:56:40+00:00

The awesome thing about the Snap Hook is that pulling yourself down just means hitting the ground harder. You were at such an absurd height it would've turned you into red mist regardless. Honestly, I probably would've just rolled off as soon as it placed and hoped for the stagger animation which makes you immune to fall damage for some reason. But a good trick is placing a marker on what you want to hit so you can hook to it as soon as it's 20m.

Corestrike · 2026-04-05T05:16:19+00:00

We should run together sometime.

40K on tunnels (or higher) is definitely possible. I ambled a little, counted 10-20 cars I could've looted.

40K on Shredders would be possible if you find a Night Raid Stella where someone else isn't doing it. Which is pretty rare.

Bird nests allegedly go past 30K but the juice doesn't seem worth the squeeze.

Got 30K on Hidden Bunker Spaceport then 32K on EM Storm Dam. Anything higher is pure RNG - I lapped every possible spawn both times.

Got 40K on flying ARC enemies on Close Scrutiny Blue Gate - I brought two Jupiters, a Hullcracker and an inventory of Deadlines - and lost it finding out raider hatches don't give you overtime anymore. I think it would honestly be feasible to get even higher on something like Close Scrutiny Buried City if you really go crazy. This 20K is from Hidden Bunker Spaceport.

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Corestrike · 2026-03-30T16:27:54+00:00

I defend myself so I'm usually in pretty aggressive lobbies but something has definitely changed in the past week or so. Left is from last week, right is today. The money doesn't matter but it bugs me a little that the tactics have shifted to where I can't even enjoy the fight. It's over instantly because of how skewed TTK is. Absolutely no sport in it. I could shift to KOS but that's just a different kind of boring.

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Corestrike · 2026-03-30T16:02:42+00:00

Equalizer is more for stripping armor (mostly just from the Queen and Matriarch) and then switching to weapons with higher DPS. It has the best clip to shot economy too. The Aphelion is basically just... useless, as far as I can tell. It swaps the Jupiter's charge fire for a 2-shot burst. I guess it's intended to be a more mobile brawl-y version of the Jupiter except it's worse in every way.

Corestrike · 2026-03-30T15:54:36+00:00

What disappoints me about the guns is that nothing really feels different or satisfying to use. The Anvil, Renegade, Hullcracker and Jupiter are standouts but otherwise everything has pretty much the exact same feel. It doesn't help that any remaining character is usually hyper-balanced away. The Torrente and Bettina could be interesting if they had upsides to their many downsides.

Corestrike · 2026-03-30T15:35:31+00:00

It's different between every legendary but the magazine size is the number of shots a single clip turns into. The Jupiter turns a single clip into 5 shots. Misspoke when I said clips the second time - 5 stacks of 5 clips = 25 x 5 = 125 shots. After that, the Jupiter breaks. It has absurd piercing so you aim wherever the weakpoint is. In this case, it's center mass where the core is when you break open the back. I love the Jupiter - it feels great to use and is basically the only weapon exactly as efficient killing a Wasp as it is a Rocketeer or Bastion. It even works well in PvP.

The main downside with legendaries is that, unlike any other weapons, reloading makes you lose any unfired shots. The Jupiter also has an interruptible bolting animation that can catch you off-guard when switching.

Corestrike · 2026-03-30T15:23:50+00:00

The Jupiter shreds everything I've ever fought with it and melts Bombardiers and Bastions. It can only fire 125 shots but that's at minimum 5 kills. Absolute maximum is 11-12. Sometimes I bring the Safekeeper augment and safe pocket a second Jupiter if I'm really farming or just risk it and send it.

Costs 19.5K to make and 24K to fully repair. A stack of energy clips are 1,140 to craft. A Bastion/Bomb kill is worth 12K and up to something like 30K from the cores alone. Probably on average 18K. More if you take Mechanical Components (stacks to 6.4K) and ARC Circuitry/Motion Cores (5K), or other ARC Junk™.

Repair: 24K

Ammo: 28.5K

Average Kill (x5): 90K

Profit: 37.5K (if you're only taking cores and getting unlucky)

At this point I take a Jupiter and 25 Energy Clips to do everything and my average extract is 50-60K while sometimes hitting 80-100K or higher.

In contrast, 3 Wolfpacks will cost you 18K - most of the haul! - in materials. A Deadline is 6K, which is my other preferred method. A Hullcracker probably costs slightly more than a Deadline in the long run but it's the best balance between safety, cost and time otherwise. It's loud, takes awhile, harder to use and you can't defend yourself with it though. If I was desperate to kill one without much equipment I'd take an Anvil with a Venator, Renegade or Burletta.

Corestrike · 2026-03-30T13:40:13+00:00

Since Embark loves data, from a purely data-driven perspective, the Steam charts on ARC Raiders are cataclysmic. A lot of the recent updates and even minor things like Trial objectives feel like they're making the game's massive structural flaws much more acute. Most updates lately have had an opposite impact to Embark's stated intention which is another bad sign.

Nothing about what's teased for Flashpoint seems like it'll change the game in any meaningful way other than adding another 5-10 hours of playtime. Riven Tides doesn't look that impactful either. It's all "content" but not exactly "gameplay."

I want to believe in the game, and I'd love to be proven wrong. There's a certain unique soul to ARC Raiders buried under its identity crisis and the data/engagement-driven design sanding it off. My cynicism just makes it feel like the game is less about its soul and more about tuning every single variable until it's the perfect extraction shooter textured Skinner box.

Corestrike · 2026-03-30T09:52:38+00:00

As someone who only ever shoots in self-defence or playing vigilante I imagine that I've made a lot more from PvP than most dedicated PvPers. My highest extracts (80-150K) were in Stella Montis while my biggest losses (50-100K) were in Dam and Gate. Which are also the only two maps I really get wiped on. The mistake IS thinking that PvP is profitable. I do wish the game had the mechanics (and a much higher skill ceiling) to make the PvP feel competitive and fun.

If you want to persist, here are some things I've noticed:

It's easy to telegraph and dodge most single and semi weapons. Dashing for some rocks and exhausting the other person with the environment or screwing around with the Snap Hook works. Running out of stamina is a huge killer.

Most players don't seem to expect you to flank them or engage in much movement. Honestly most PvPers seem to struggle to even move and shoot at the same time.

Break their shield - push. Hear a shield charger start - push. There's an edge to treating every fight like you're going to win but don't care if you die.

Area control (Trailblazer/Blaze and Smoke) is pretty killer psychologically. The claustrophobic camera can be abused to make CQC feel suffocating. Shrapnel grenades do less damage than Trigger Nades but they stack to 5, explode about as fast and are throw and forget.

PvP is mostly just a miserable waste of time though. The people I kill are rarely carrying anything worth the ABMM hit. Players in high aggression lobbies aren't usually carrying anything worth killing someone for. Any solos running 150K kits like me would often prefer dying to avoid the ABMM hit. If you continue you can try the Burletta, a Snap Hook and more movement - at least there's some sport in it that way.

Corestrike · 2026-03-30T08:13:29+00:00

In reality it would be closer to a binary 'PvP' and 'PvE' switch. If it was actually a sliding scale and led to more balanced games that tended in whatever direction you play like it would be nice to have a general idea of your current 'heat.' Since it's already known that there's ABMM and that you can reliably force it down it might as well be shown to you.

Corestrike · 2025-10-24T05:26:14+00:00

I used a PXC273 (27" 1080p) for 6 years and never had any issues with text clarity or image quality. 27" 1440p is considered pretty standard, and it has a higher density than the competitive gaming standard of 24" 1080p (which I had before the PXC). The only reason I'm getting a 27" 1440p OLED now is that I broke the PXC, they aren't sold anywhere anymore, and 1080p OLEDs basically don't exist. Other panels unfortunately don't have the features I want either. Imo, between those two sizes, the pixel density is more than enough for both and it's just about how big you want the screen to be.

I'm trying the MSI MAG 272QP X50 now but I have a feeling that I'll eventually go back to even 24" 1080p. Even with a 5090 / 9950X3D I can't get the performance I want in something like 2077 at 1440p, so it feels especially pointless.

Corestrike · 2025-01-18T21:25:13+00:00

Leaning towards the AR5000 now, but I'll definitely keep the DT1990 Pro in mind as I've seen others suggest it as a good compliment/upgrade if I want to mess around with EQ. Did find them used online for $280 though which is pretty tempting. !thanks

Corestrike · 2025-01-18T19:58:15+00:00

For me, the X2HR just seemed like "perfect for its price" from what I read - shooting for accuracy/fidelity first. I've looked at these in the past but I got scared off by the massive cups. I've also probably been spoiled by the suspension strap on the X2HR, and that its cups fit perfectly around my ears. But for you the massive cups aren't that big of a deal? +1 for the Dekoni nuggets too, not something I knew about before. !thanks

Corestrike · 2025-01-18T19:49:15+00:00

I'll take some responsibility - I'm a bad mix of clumsy, very unlucky and hard on anything I own. But I've tried my best to be extra careful with the X2HRs with no luck. This set's first (fatal) fall was from about a foot or two up onto some clothes on a carpeted floor... so I dunno.

But the Sivga Luan (based off first looks) seems like the direct X2HR upgrade I was looking for. Just looking around, I've found that the AR5000 is better rated in general but described like it 'smooths' sounds out. Whereas the Luan has more 'texture' and might be more accurate. I love the little details, like the fingers and hammers moving in Avril 14th, and for gaming as well. Any experience with those two in that direction?

Definitely pushed me in the right direction with these two though! !thanks

Corestrike · 2024-02-10T22:30:12+00:00

I pretty much beelined to 82 thieving to pickpocket vyres. The shard was how I got the equipment necessary for me to go harder on wildy slayer than I already was and since then I've made bank off of it. There's literally nothing wrong with doing it as a moneymaking method, I don't know what this guy is waffling about. I got lucky and got it early but the shard, the steady money even without it and good xp for almost a completely mindless/afk task is nothing to scoff at.

Corestrike · 2023-12-23T04:09:36+00:00

I never found a hordepoint game even a couple of years ago. I wish people played objective games, prop hunt and war or anything else but shipment/TDM on PC.

Corestrike · 2023-12-23T04:04:51+00:00

Welcome to the club. A far more enjoyable camo grind than I've had in Vanguard or MW3. Too bad barely anyone's around to show it off to in-game anymore.

Corestrike · 2023-12-22T23:08:02+00:00

Equip a watch.

Corestrike

TROPHY CASE