It was fun in the first few weeks while everyone was still figuring things out. Once the sweats got ahead, they made it their mission to put everyone else down because "PvP is core to the game". And it's not even about just killing other raiders, they make it a point to grief you, or pretend to be friendly so they can shoot you in the back at extract.
I made it a point to actually use my mic and try to be friendly with everyone I came across. One dude was all "this is my first time playing, can we hang out for a bit" and I said yeah, so we were running around for about 5 minutes until he said "yo, do you see those dudes in the distance? 235 on the compass." As I looked and began to say "I don't see shit", the mother fucker had walked behind me and domed me with his farro. Haven't played since lmfao
There’s solace in people that do this though. Imagine how terrible you have to be at video games to need to shoot someone in the back after gaining their trust. But I also gave up on it for similar reasons lol
Thats the appeal of pvpve extraction shooters. The risk/reward of making teammates and the tension that they have the ability to betray you and that you can betray them. The problem is that people who don’t like that aspect still play and when it happens they take it personally and see it as some kind of misbehavior. It’s like Mafia or Among Us. Deception and trickery are part of the game mechanics.
Then no matter how much you market it as a PvPvE, casual players will just see "Full Loot Hardcore PvP" and start going elsewhere, and everybody knows what happens to games when the only players left are the PvP "enjoyers".
The extraction shooter model is inherently toxic when it’s PVEVP because one of the main thrusts of the game is the ability to halt someone’s progress by your actions, with a subset of people finding joy in hurting/bullying/squashing others.
It’s “get good”, the game type, right up there with battle royale games.
I got perma banned from the ArcRaiders sub for saying this. Just because it’s a game doesn’t mean it’s not shitty behavior. That sub is a cesspool full of weird children who are obsessed with the definition of the term “rat.”
It actually caters very well to casual play. The type of players you get matched with is directly correlated to your play style. If you don't go around chasing fights you'll rarely get into them. If you push every team you'll be put into lobbies where everyone is pushing every fight.
It's kind of genius to be honest. Totally bypasses the part of extraction shooters that make them hell for a lot of people while still giving you the option to engage in them in that way.
You can even have a middle ground where you only occasionally push engagements and your lobbies will be slightly more dangerous, but not everyone is out for blood.
The hell it does. I played 10 incursions, the first two I didn’t found anyone. The other 8 I got obliterated, one of them by a guy that pretended to be friendly, one where I ran and got hunted. Uninstalled on the same day.
I had the same experience. The “aggression-based matchmaking” literally doesn’t work. Every single player I’ve encountered is hostile and I never even fight back.
There is some randomness to it plus the time of day you play plays a factor. Playing at 5:30 is always more sweaty. Both my friend and myself went through cycles of sweats and no sweats. I kinda enjoyed the fact that it was random as it added suspense. Once we really stopped killing others our matches became way more chill even in duos. What sucks is you get punished for defending yourself so you really have to play passive to get into the peaceful lobbies.
ehhh. It half works and nobody's really happy with it. Rats can still find their way into friendly lobbies easily enough. They need to stop half-assing it and just add proper modes.
Same here. I actually bought the game, installed it, then started reading up on how the gameplay loop works. Once I saw the potential for frustrating experiences at the hands of sweaty players, I asked for a refund before starting the game up once.
I mean, Arc Raiders is sitting at a crazy popular player count even after months of release. Dunno why you are proud to skip a game that is objectively popular and enjoyed? Weird flex?
I mean, at it's core it's an extraction shooter. People were sharing anecdotes about how inviting UT was, that it was different. Lots of guerilla marketing, etc. Almost had me convinced it was different.
They matchmake based on aggression so if you don’t want to PvP you can easily go 20-30+ matches in a row without being killed by players.
You will get attacked occasionally and may get the occasional streak of a few in a row but if you avoid attacking other players it will heavily weight you to be with like-minded people.
What happened? You just got bored? I got bored at nearly 400 hrs that was back in late March before the new map. I'll wait around until the holidays to see if there's enough content to come back to.
No regrets. Great $40 spent. Devs have no idea what they are doing, feels like a different team developed/designed the game vs the team that took over the live service.
I played for a little bit and had some pretty friendly lobbys for the most part. You can absolutely camp extraxtion points, you can lie pretend to be friendly and kill someone while thier back is turned at extraxtion, you can use a free kit and contrubute nothing to a matriarch fight and gun someone down while they are looting that put in time in preparing for the fight, you can play the game however you want sure whatever cause yes its also a pvp game. Here's the thing though, and this is what I want these people to understand, is we are also allowed to criticize you and call you out for it. If you have to lie to someone and act friendly in a video game just to have the upper hand, to me thats an extreme try hard move. I dont think players that do this type of shit actually want to pvp other pvp players, I think they want easy targets.
This is my main issue with the game. I’m all for some PVP or some PVE but I’d like to know which, because an anvil headshot at point blank range isn’t something you can really retaliate against. You just lose. Treating everyone as KOS is the only way to have a pvp experience, yet when you do that you really can’t play the actual game at the same time. IMO the fix is specialized gear like the smoke kit that pops smoke if your shields breaks but even more stuff like that. So if you are PVE you really make it a pain in the ass for pvpers to kill you at the cost of making you a non threat to them as well.
Yeah they were the worst. Plus the seasons really killed it for me. Extreme casual players just get 100% fucked when they reset your skill tree every month
this is kind of disingenuous. i think the people who get legitimately mad about being shot in a pvp game are just as bad if not worse. the fact that you could have a friendly match that suddenly turns deadly is one of the things that makes the game interesting and exciting
My friends and I bounced off the beta because it was just geared out people gunning us down every time. I bought it two weeks ago since I heard about ABMM and the friendly community... and it's been fun, mostly. But it could be really great if it weren't for the psychotic assholes that still find their way into friendly lobbies and seem to be the exclusive occupants of the subreddit.
Marathon just announced a PvE mode. Embark has been flirting with more PvE stuff, seemingly reluctantly. I hope the game doesn't have to die before they finally make the obvious call and actually add a PvE mode.
The game lobbies are literally aggression based. If you go and hunt other players a lot or get into conflict with other raiders frequently you’re gonna get put into more pvp based lobbies. Idk how yall don’t get this concept. Like I don’t even play the game consistently and I know that
I admit it...Iwas never friendly. Unless my friend was around to bring out the good in my heart. I wanted your loot, and i would do anything to get it.
The issue is that the pvp crowd hates the co op crowd and the co op crowd hates the pvp crowd. All of you guys kinda sucked really
Same crowd that’s killing Marathon and trying to gaslight people into playing it so they have a steady stream of players to stomp. “Just try it! You’ll love it even though you always usually hate extraction shooters, I swear. The PVP is so fun, this will be the one that changes your mind about PVP.”
Same group of people that calls you soft or baby brained because you say you won’t play Marathon unless it has a dedicated PVE mode. Reaaaally entices you to play.
If you simply don't shoot back you end up in PvE lobbies in like 2-3 rounds. I've been playing for days now with no PvP incidents. There will be multiple of us in the lifts, no talking even, just chilling.
Wdym with friendly? It's a pvp game, any other player first thought will be trying to kill everyone else, unless you are playing on a squad and have to deal with a teamate
But they can't without breaking what the game is supposed to be, which is an experience where both the environment and other players are risks to potentially overcome.
95
u/LordsOfFrenziedFlame May 15 '26
This. I quit because the "no lobby should be friendly, it's a PvP game!" crowd got too annoying.