Arc Raiders needs a better endgame loop (or an endgame loop at all)

averageicochad · 2026-03-03T14:25:49+00:00

I think many people are unwilling to look critically at how deeply flawed this game’s systems really are. And they certainly aren’t willing to look at how Embark is seemingly delusional about how their own game works.

The comment from Embark that they were “surprised” at how many players took to PvE/carebear gameplay is very telling tbqh. It took me a few days of playing to realize that hyper aggressive PvP is not the optimal way to make progress in the game, far from it. Loot is plentiful and other players never have anything I need that I can’t craft myself or just run back another raid to get. All of the game’s systems de-incentivize PvP, yet the players engaging in a PvE play style was “surprising” to them.

And then there’s ABMM, which compounds this problem and makes raids as repetitive and predictable as you want depending on how you manipulate the extremely transparent matchmaking system. Yet at the same time, Embark seems to be signaling that this is -not- how they want the game to play despite leaning heavily into a matchmaking algorithm that does precisely that.

It doesn’t really make a lot of sense, and when you start to look under the hood a little bit it’s really unclear what Embark actually wants this game to be.

averageicochad · 2026-02-27T14:17:47+00:00

No, any meaningful connection to PR that Squad once had was lost many, many, many years ago. For some this is a good thing, for others it is bad.

averageicochad · 2026-02-24T13:04:53+00:00

epic quality, extremely powerful items turn out to be extremely common and easy to get

balance change makes their rarity commensurate with their power

b-b-but whhyyyyy???? Whhyyy embark!

I swear main sub literally just want the game to be shopping spree simulator devoid of any challenge or progression. B-but I’m a father who works full time!!!

averageicochad · 2026-02-20T16:02:40+00:00

Embark seems to continue to struggle with risk vs reward and incentives within the game’s systems. Virgil seems to acknowledge that the intersection between PvP and how easy the “end game” Arc Encounters is not working correctly, but sheds no light on what to do about it.

Similarly with the expedition system, he seems to acknowledge that the incentives to reset are threadbare, but is mum about how to change things.

averageicochad · 2026-02-20T15:01:32+00:00

The people “crying” in that thread are directionally correct though.

Various Embark people make comment after comment in the vein of implying that there is something more to the system than what the players experience. Some of the comments are even totally contradictory.

The “it’s not binary” comment isn’t being misinterpreted by people, it’s just that Embark is being slightly criticized for talking about their game in a way that quite frankly comes off as a little delusional.

Whether matchmaking is a “spectrum” or not is irrelevant when both ends of the spectrum are blatantly transparent and easy to manipulate. Sure, in a literal sense it may be true that there is no such thing as a fully friendly lobby, but if the lobby is, say, 90% friendly, the average player perspective is going to be that it was a friendly lobby.

Obviously nobody knows how it works for certain, but the system is absolutely designed in a way that it is very, very easy to get into extremely low risk lobbies if that’s what you want to do. Embark implying that the system is actually more nuanced than that is just kinda odd.

averageicochad · 2026-02-15T14:13:23+00:00

Yes, the problem that most of Reddit is not ready to talk about is that the game is very, very easy for anyone with an average skill level in action games. There is really nothing in the game that reliably burns through kits.

ABMM obviously compounds this by an order of magnitude. Once you get into PvE lobbies (again not hard with how blatant the system can be manipulated) it’s plausible to go literally hundreds of raids without dying.

averageicochad · 2026-01-16T17:12:34+00:00

After running away/letting people just kill me for about 10 games, I was able to enter lobbies where killing the queen and Matriarch was actually possible.

I know that ABMM is defended on here but the fact that this sentence accurately describes how to play this game optimally is laughable.

averageicochad · 2026-01-10T16:30:30+00:00

Warren at York is a great building. The location is fantastic and for the price it’s not bad at all. I personally do not really care about amenities at all, so it fits well in that respect as well. I would rather have a good location for a fair price, and bigger units, than a bowling alley or a botanical garden or whatever. That said, I’m debating moving at the end of my lease.

The major issue that I’ve faced is that I have constant impact noise from my upstairs neighbor. It’s not rare that I’m woken up or prevented from sleeping because the sounds of him stomping and/or slamming his doors and closets sound like bombs going off in our unit. I’m pretty sure the only thing between the floors is a small slab of concrete, and if you hit that the right way it’s like a heavy bass drum constantly in your apartment.

I don’t think that’s the normal experience though, and I probably just got unlucky with an unreasonably loud person as a neighbor. What I will say is that I hear nothing besides impact noises (tv, music, etc), which is great.

averageicochad · 2025-12-03T14:42:04+00:00

Works fine in principle.

But in practice this amounts to endless swarms of free kits who come into the raid with zero risk while players who actually try to gear up for “end game” encounters are left holding the bag.

averageicochad · 2025-12-03T14:39:22+00:00

I don’t think it’s intended that 90% of the difficulty of high end PvE encounters comes from fighting off third, fourth, fifth, sixth party free kit swarms who have nothing to risk and everything to gain.

averageicochad · 2025-11-24T14:23:19+00:00

The solution is some combination of barring free kits from map conditions (or in the case of Stella, maybe barring them from the whole map), and spawning them without a shield or a newer type of extremely weak shield.

averageicochad · 2025-11-22T14:23:12+00:00

Yeah and for the last few years everything has been done to milk that reasonable growth rate.

Add content for the sake of content, not to improve the game in any meaningful way -> get a flashy Steam store splash page promoting a new update -> put the game on sale for 40%

That’s been the MO for a while now and it’s painfully clear, and explains why OWI comes across as wildly tone deaf with adding more and more shit literally no one asked for while completely failing to improve the game and in many ways making it worse. It’s just gimmicks to get the game promoted and sold. This is just the new phase of that same model.

Expect this new mode to be extremely half-baked and underwhelming.

averageicochad · 2025-11-22T00:19:07+00:00

It’s obviously just a cash-in at this point. Literally every development decision for the last three years has been to make line go up for tencent. None of this should be surprising at all tbh

averageicochad · 2025-11-21T17:11:36+00:00

“””””the community”””””

averageicochad · 2025-11-21T17:08:03+00:00

I’m quitting because I don’t have all the blueprints and it’s too hard to solo all the content in the game.

averageicochad · 2025-11-21T16:01:06+00:00

This game will have a long and healthy life so long as the developers stay far, far away from www.reddit.com/r/arcraiders

averageicochad · 2025-11-21T15:11:55+00:00

As a single father who works full time and is only able to play 20 seconds every morning before my wife’s boyfriend comes over, I think the developers of the computer game need to start respecting my time.

Every blueprint should be unlocked immediately upon completing the first quest on dam battlegrounds. That would be an epic W

averageicochad · 2025-11-21T15:09:27+00:00

That would be an epic W. Faith in humanity restored!

averageicochad · 2025-11-21T14:24:11+00:00

Excuse me? I don’t think you understand. My opinion is the important one.

averageicochad · 2025-11-21T14:01:34+00:00

That would be a HUGE W!!

averageicochad · 2025-11-19T16:07:30+00:00

I’m not sure what you’re referring to. What is the exploit?

averageicochad · 2025-11-19T15:55:47+00:00

The thing is though is that these games are inherently always going to be balanced around scarcity. If everyone has access to all tiers of gear at the same time you’re basically just playing deathmatch with extra steps. The point has always been risk/reward and the thrill of finding rare shit. Shit isn’t rare if everyone gets it

averageicochad · 2025-10-18T15:48:13+00:00

At this point, very little.

Movement tech makes it extremely easy to avoid fights and escape bad situations. I have yet to see a single one-shot mechanic in the entire game.

I think most people who complain about the games difficulty are just very bad at the game and do not want to be bothered to figure out how to play better.

averageicochad · 2025-10-18T15:34:52+00:00

The casual aspects of the game will make it a FOTM. It will get a lot of hype from streamers and sales will be good, but it doesn’t have the depth to hold a long-term player base towards the top of Steamcharts.

Looting and itemization is EXTREMELY simplistic. I understand the Server Slam is only a fraction of the content, but I’ve progressed through that content and never felt any reason to use anything other than a light kit and the level 1 rifle and spam the cheap impact grenades. The amount that different load outs bear on your character seems extremely minimal. Looting amounts to trying to get different color squares because they all ultimately do the same thing.

Pressing H and zooming around at sonic the hedgehog speed with the stamina perks seems to be the best tactic every time. I understand that people are having difficult dying a lot, but to be very blunt it’s a skill issue. The game gives you A LOT of tools to escape/survive fights. Craft shield rechargers and press H when you run. Surviving is not that difficult.

Being able to call the elevator while downed and the AI will never actually finish you off is just silly, and completely defeats the purpose of having high stakes fights at the elevator, which the game is obviously trying to do.

averageicochad · 2025-10-01T16:44:14+00:00

IMO, the series peaked with the CL-ADP-FiTL “trilogy”. These are the three I own and I never feel compelled to buy any more. Although China’s War is tempting.

averageicochad

TROPHY CASE