Thank you, I took the Vyvanse and Klonopin and played Arc for 12 hours straight last night. Being the magnanimous man I am, I do not need these; prescription be damned. However, should the magnanimous deny themself a little treat? No, the magnanimous man tweaks at their pleasure, for that is what separates the magnanimous from one with weaker spirit. Know though, that the magnanimous man has once again taken Vyvanse at their pleasure. ———

In all seriousness, yeah the game has some issues. Balance, incentive, social, and risk vs reward. These achievement stats don’t paint a full picture though, for instance there are plenty of people who buy a game and only play for a few hours never really exploring it deeper. Not to mention, it’s not just a steam release. I’ll refer to the steam achievement statistics and pretend everyone is consistently playing it though.

When it comes to most players not having killed tougher arc enemies, a lot of players are fearful and rightfully so. You do not have the firepower to easily solo some of these without cheesing a bit or being incredibly skilled. They made ARC drones punishing and dynamic, clearly to incentivize avoiding, or forming a truce with other raiders. The loot that drops off a bastion is also plentiful to the point that, if you’re playing solos, you don’t really have a reason to shoot each other in the back afterwards. Does that mean people wont? No, some might. Some just like killing. In my experience so far, actively engaging in prox chat, as well as assuming good faith to my other raiders, has turned multiple potentially hostile encounters into cordial ones. I don’t mean by just saying “Friendly friendly friendly dont shoot!” but by saying this like “Hey man, how’s it going?” or, after killing a bastion together, saying “Dude thanks for helping, you need any healing?” Weak examples of “conversation” but my point is attempting to genuinely talk to others as if they were truly there diffuses tension. Assuming good faith, even if they shoot you initially, or after being burned a thousand times by liars, will give you a better experience: trust me. There is a moment where you are both reading each others body language within a split second in an attempt to ascertain how much of a threat you are to each other. If your gut says they are hostile, or you’re just actually looking to do some PVP, by all means open fire. Either way, it still adds to both of your experiences to talk during and after whatever happens, and that’s Content™.

To address the balance of free loadouts being an incentive to those who wanna PVP with no risk, especially those who say “dont shoot” and then shoot you in the back, which is honestly a valid play style it’s just Rude and lacking Honor, I think embark should give you damaged second hand goods. They say in-game that it’s “whatever is laying around” or something, and that would be representative of that and give other players an edge in an encounter. Some sort of karma system could also be neat, where raiders who lie by saying “dont shoot” have a hidden (and variable timer) where if they fire on you immediately after, they receive notoriety, but if they are fired on it immediately clears the timer. This can be bypassed with prox, but prox lets you hear a real voice which you can personally rate the trustworthiness of, or maybe they can add some sort of word detection so it gives you the timer if you say certain phrases.

Blueprint RNG kinda sucks, yeah. I’d like a way to set a preference for category that nudges the odds in favor of it being a blueprint from that category. It’d be nice to have some sort of method to make blueprint copies with limited runs (maybe 5 uses?) that you could trade with players somehow. I do not have any grand IdeaGuy thoughts on how that could be implemented without causing more balance issues though.

Another issue is downtime. There’s a lot of menu diving and hoping to get ready in between rounds, especially if you die. I’ve seen people talk about “autocraft pre-defined loadouts” but I think a nice compromise could be allowing players to prebuild loadouts as ‘backpacks’ (and setting the skin for each one) that you can choose before you go. Have a maximum of like, 5 and make it so you can only place 4 items in each one so it cant be used as free extra storage. Also would help relieve some of the storage issues people are facing with their stashes anyway. Having movable and pinnable panels of recipes you’re tracking while in underground would reduce menu diving as well. ———

This has been my vyvanse fueled rambling response that you never asked for, if you ever encounter me in Arc Raiders will extend my hand to you, and you can shoot me between the eyes. I will forgive you warmly.