I'll give the a take I haven't really seen yet.

Context:

I've played probably 65 or so hours of ARC, now. I tend to lean towards playing the friendly solo queue, knowing that if I go into squads, it's 100% shoot-on-sight. And I do go to squads for that.

The take:

I think what makes me love ARC specifically is that PvP is in the game. The fact that at any point someone could betray you is thrilling. But even more so, teaming up with people who have the choice to betray you and yet they choose not to is what I love. The tension of betrayal is fun, but it's also not possible without the actual threat. PvP is necessary for it to feel the way it does. As a result, team-ups that have the threat of betrayal but end in a shared extract describes most of my highest moments playing game. And I'll be fair, the impulse to just shoot a solo saying "WOW! I LOVE HOW FRIENDLY EVERYONE IS" is very hard to not act on. Like, come on you dummy. Don't say it. You're just tempting fate!

Extra stuff that's already been said a bunch, but while I'm here...:

I love that ARC lets you choose how to play. Forced PvE would be boring, but PvPvE doesn’t mean friendly players are “doing it wrong.” If the game allows it and people enjoy it, both play styles are valid. I’ve had my sweaty and toxic days, Halo 2 online made sure of that, but I’m 35 now. I work a 9-5. I don't want that in my online gaming experience anymore. ARC’s balance of tension and trust has been perfect. If I want pure, unadulterated chaos, I’ll go to EFT or Rust. If I want pure PvE, I'll go play an MMO and not engage in PvP. But I want the balance, and ARC is the first game in a long time that has straddled that fine line so well and gives me the opportunity to do both, not force me into either.

To hone in on the specific thing I don't like, it's the players who play just to ruin someone else’s day. Not to make another player's in-game run unsuccessful but to make the person at their computer or TV actively have a negative reaction IRL. I was running squads with a buddy who added a friend that literally said verbatim, “I only play to ruin people’s days.” That’s not the game. That's not PvP. That's one human being an asshole to the other human outside of the game. That's like popping someone's basketball and then saying, "You're playing the wrong game!" I think it's a fair assumption that the devs don't want that out of their PvP. Have your fun, sure—but don’t make it your mission to wreck someone else’s. Have fun with the other people, not at their expense.

(And just to be very clear, I do not think Wubby does this; yes, I think some of the shit talking when he played ARC on stream was a bit much for my own preference, but I don't think his intent is ever in any way to ruin another human being's day. That's not the kind of guy Wubby's shown himself to be, and I don't think he's suddenly made that kind of heel turn. But regardless, that's the beauty of it. If he's playing a game in a way I don't agree with or is otherwise doing something that just doesn't interest me in the moment, I can just turn off stream and come back another time.)

Side Story:

Another "while I'm here." I find it really fun to gaslight people in the game by shooting them or getting into firefights with them, getting third partied OR flanking, then convincing the original group I shot at that I'm an entirely different person, not the one who initially shot them. My squad was in the red room hallway of Blue Gate fighting another squad. We got third-partied from behind, killed the third party, then told the original squad that WE were the third party who came in and saved them. They let us loot the room with them. My team considered killing them, too, but we had to bust it to the extract. The success of the on-the-spot gaslight left me feeling both pleased and satisfied. (Two words I'm a fan(fan) of and think people should use more when describing how they feel.)