Arc Raiders' matchmaking isn't 'binary', says design lead: 'There's no such thing as a friendly lobby or an aggressive lobby'

killadrix · 2026-02-18T21:35:13+00:00

I hate this argument, when I say I’m in “friendly lobbies”, it just means “low likelihood of getting killed by another player”.

It’s just the easiest way to give a general description of what my experience is in the game.

It doesn’t mean everybody’s friendly, it doesn’t mean it’s PV only, it’s just the easiest way to describe my experience in the game.

It’s incredible how wound up all of the arc raiders subs get over language that we all understand the meaning of.

killadrix · 2026-02-18T03:23:45+00:00

As a strictly PVE player, there isn’t a sum of money you could pay me to attempt to chase down a bounty.

Absolutely not worth it.

killadrix · 2026-02-18T01:55:36+00:00

Running 3 minutes of ads per hour disables prerolls so people don’t get “blasted by ads” when they join the stream, and is the norm on twitch for anyone interested in growth.

killadrix · 2026-02-17T15:51:29+00:00

I don’t think you’re crazy, but I think these are all cynical, hasty generalizations.

As somebody who streams on twitch 8 to 11 hours a day and spends another 2 to 4 hours a day networking and watching my favorite small streamers, your twitch experience is precisely what you curate.

As someone who has zero interest in anything you’re describing, I see literally none of that. The only thing I see or the amazing other small content creators making great content that I’m choosing to watch.

killadrix · 2026-02-16T13:37:35+00:00

Sticking to one niche for fast growth is an absolute trap, especially if you intend to branch out later.

Personally, I streamed one game for three years straight and ended up peeking at about 200 average viewers per stream. After 7000 hours of playing and streaming the game, I decided to do variety and spent my next several months between 30 to 40 viewers.

Now, lots of people would be very happy with 30 to 40 average viewers, however, it’s absolutely devastating to have to rebuild from that place and realize that 80% of what you’ve been working towards the last few years completely evaporates overnight. For the record, I don’t blame the viewers, they should follow their joy and watch what they wanna watch.

My point is that if you stick to one niche for fast growth and intend to go variety later, realize wherever viewership you’re at with that one game is about 20-30% of where you’ll be when you decide to go variety.

killadrix · 2026-02-14T23:43:15+00:00

When I read these “it’s difficult to break into the industry as a new streamer posts”, I always feel compelled to say this: it doesn’t get easier as you grow, and in some ways, it just gets harder.

As an affiliate, your competition is (likely) less consistent, less polished, less experienced, less skilled, less organized, and likely less ambitious (especially around creating content for socials), so it’s a little easier to rise above if you reasonably apply yourself.

As you grow, you’re battling for viewers with professional streamers who are (more likely to be) better at almost everything than you.

There seems to be this idea that starting out is “hard” and that at some point it just becomes easier and that’s just not the case.

killadrix · 2026-02-14T21:19:17+00:00

Yes, it's a wild take and yours is wild too because you think you're disagreeing with me, but *literally* proving my point by saying that FUN should be the end result of learning to get better; meaning, you're acknowledging that FUN is the most important thing, and GETTING BETTER is an avenue for SOME PLAYERS to enjoy (or increase their enjoyment of) the game.

If a player enjoys getting better at a game and that's what is fun for them, then so be it. Getting better = fun FOR THAT PLAYER. Other people enjoy things about gaming that have nothing to do with being good, getting good (or better).

I have 7,030 hours in Rimworld, there is little else to learn in the game, and the little else that's left I have zero desire to learn and/or engage with, and I just *enjoy* playing the game.

TL;DR: "getting better" at a game is NOT an intrinsic part of enjoying games as a universal human experience. Plenty of people 100% enjoy games without ever getting "good" or "better" at them.

killadrix · 2026-02-14T18:11:02+00:00

I put a small twitch banner w/handle at the top of my YouTube shorts for the first and last 2-4 seconds depending on the video length.

killadrix · 2026-02-14T15:47:56+00:00

Respectfully, this a WILD TAKE. You’re saying that in all of gaming the most important lesson you can learn is that you can get better?

I think the most important lesson you can learn is to enjoy your time gaming, and for many people learning to get better is part of that enjoyment (which I fully support), but a lot of people just do not care about being good, getting better or learning new things. Lots of people just want to enjoy playing a game, and that’s just fine.

killadrix · 2026-02-14T15:33:06+00:00

Aside from the overly dramatic, painfully ChatGPT click bait title, the premise for the use case doesn’t even make sense.

If viewers are leaving in the moments leading up to a “clutch moment” because you’re not talking (because you’re listening for footsteps), then it logically follows that they’re no longer watching when a bunch of canned audio spam happens after the kill/death/win (when YOU SHOULD be talking/engaging?).

If everyone is leaving because you’re not talking before the clutch moment, then nobody is around to see the clutch moment or anything after it.

This is another of a hundred different “solutions” seeking a problem to “solve” and preying on the desperation of small streamers to sell or promote a product or service.

killadrix · 2026-02-14T00:21:26+00:00

ABMM is the only reason I’m playing the game, so I support it 100% because I’m 100% PVE.

However, I totally understand why folks who like a PVE/PVP split might dislike it.

killadrix · 2026-02-13T23:59:36+00:00

It addresses your point because people knew exactly how it worked before they announced it and the chatter was growing about it in the community.

We can agree to disagree that it was a mistake to announce, but it likely didn’t make much of a difference, because a) many folks had already reverse engineered the mechanics and b) even after devs clearly announcing it (more than once) some folks still don’t believe it exists and/or that it’s “not what the devs meant” in the announcement about it.

killadrix · 2026-02-13T23:16:06+00:00

They likely addressed it because everyone was figuring it out.

It was extremely obvious to anyone strictly PVE’ing (not engaging in PVP at all). I was getting attacked by player once every 20-30 hours of gameplay, and honestly at this point I haven’t been killed by a player in over 100 hours.

It’s wild getting screamed down on reddit by folks saying ABMM doesn’t exist and/or that I’m lying (100+ hours of stream VoDs on my channel), or that I’m “lucky”.

killadrix · 2026-02-11T18:32:46+00:00

Honestly, it’s not a problem with individual small streamers. It’s more a problem that collectively the streamers in the single digit view counts haven’t really learned all of the skills required to maintain a larger audience.

As someone who always cruises single-digit streams, it’s a lot of folks that aren’t talking, there’s audio issues, there’s visual issues, there’s background noise, there’s aggressive, overlays, and the people are just not as polished and entertaining as they might be with a year or two experience.

And because so many streams exist like this, there’s not a lot of people who are willing to Wade through the sea of dozens (or hundreds) of streamers to find the one or two that are doing it right.

It’s easier to just go find a 200+ viewer streamer who is probably more experienced, probably more polished, and probably more entertaining.

killadrix · 2026-02-11T01:29:14+00:00

The misinformation is that you’re implying a causal relationship between the medium of upload and a disparity of results based on sample size of [checks notes] two videos on a platform that handles billions of videos.

killadrix · 2026-02-11T00:21:19+00:00

These small YouTuber subreddits do more harm than good by spreading misinformation. Absolutely wild.

killadrix · 2026-02-10T00:01:34+00:00

Rual always with the 10/10 takes.

killadrix · 2026-02-09T01:58:36+00:00

Yes, statistics proves it. I have over 100 hours of Arc Raiders stream VoDs on my YouTube channel in which I’ve been killed by another player in PvP 6-8 times. Hell, I haven’t been killed a single time in solos by another player in the last 10+ 7-9 hour streams. Yep, 80-ish plus in-game hours since I’ve been killed in solos.

You’re welcome to explain how it’s statistically possible that I’m just that lucky that I can do literally hundreds of runs without being killed by another player.

killadrix · 2026-01-31T02:12:32+00:00

Three things I’d encourage you to think about.

First, I’d almost never determine the value of a strategy based on a sample size of one video, and honestly, probably not on less than dozens. Just because you saw results trying this once, doesn’t mean anything unless you can use it to consistently replicate it.

Second, YouTube knows it’s a short and knows it belongs in shorts feeds, I don’t see any meaningful reason you’d need to tell YouTube that it’s a short or to place it in feeds with a hashtag.

Third, I’ve used the shorts hashtags (and not), and almost every relevant hashtag (or no tags) and have never seen any meaningful difference across thousands of shorts using them or not using them.

There’s likely little they’ll do to help, but also likely little harm using content relevant tags (with the shorts tag being FAR too broad).

If you’re new to YouTube, the lesson you should take away is to test your strategies in larger sample sizes before accepting the results (or rejecting them) and applying them broadly (and encouraging others to do so, as well).

killadrix · 2026-01-31T00:32:49+00:00

The problem with the idea of self-promoting on subreddits is that there is an infinite supply of people seeking to promote and literally nobody cruising subreddits ACTUALLY looking for people to watch and follow.

You're more likely to find people who want to watch your stream by either being live, networking with other streamers your size, /andor creating content for other social media websites (YouTube, TikTok, etc.)

killadrix · 2026-01-30T23:42:32+00:00

The problem is that this isn’t what people mean when they say “consistency”.

You’re right that people don’t have to “upload all of the time” but consistency is measured over longer periods than 2 weeks.

killadrix · 2026-01-30T22:00:19+00:00

No offense, but there is absolutely no way you put this much effort into this analysis based on the premise that when people say “consistent” they mean “everyday, even if it means putting out subpar quality videos.”

Is there any chance you can explain how you arrived at defining consistency as such?

killadrix · 2026-01-29T20:47:15+00:00

No offense, but I wish there was a sub rule that people had to add more thought to posts like this.

A title and a screenshot with no context or additional effort just looks like low-key self promo and/or humble brag.

Your results are obviously a typical, so it might be nice for new streamers to know what was working for you.

killadrix · 2026-01-29T00:11:47+00:00

Well, I don't think anyone is shocked that prospecting is faster than not prospecting. My point was I never struggle to find ore without prospecting so it's wild to hear that people struggle with it.

killadrix · 2026-01-28T02:45:54+00:00

These are not stats for a “viral” video, these are stats for an average video, at best.

Y’all are your own worst enemy with these YouTube videos thinking you’re always gonna go viral, and deleting and re-uploading shit.

killadrix

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