As far as I can tell, this is just a PVP 3rd person multiplayer shooter. Tagging this game as PVE is absolutely disingenuous. Despite the dev team originally developing this as PVE, they launched with PVP included, and the PVP and matchmaking feels half-assed.
Story wise, the game world takes place in a post apocalyptic environment where scary robots, (arc,) have taken over the surface of the earth, and humanity has retreated to underground settlements. Your job as a raider is to go up to the surface, scavenge for useful things, and then extract yourself. There are no story elements here, which is a real missed opportunity. I guess if you’re playing an extraction shooter, you aren’t playing it for the story? Completing quests or your expedition thingy feels inconsequential. It’s an endless loop of grinding, crafting, losing everything and rebuilding. Who doesn’t love a Sisyphean task? A good story can really make the difference between wanting to keep playing after crappy matches, vs getting bored and quitting.
Despite the backstory hinting at working together to overcome the ARC, feats encourage PVP. For the most part, PVP is going to be the major interaction you’re going to have with other players that aren’t in the clique of friends you’re running with. Other players absolutely will shoot on site without trying to be friendly. If you play on PC, turning off cross play has reduced how often I run into PVP. Furthermore, there have been some improvements to matchmaking. If you take the friendly approach, over and over, you’re more likely to end up in matches with friendlier players. Now about 30% of my matches put me in PVP situations.
In B4 skill issue. Even though this isn’t the type of game I normally play, there are some glaring issues that I believe detract from a game like this, even for people who are more into this type of game.
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Being dropped into a match/instance that is already half over. And it will happen match after match. Record for me is 6 in a row. Full matches are about 30 minutes. Getting dropped into one after 12 minutes has elapsed means that all the good stuff is already looted. This is infuriating; all the risk with no reward. From what I have learned this is intentional. Raiders get dropped into a match at different time points. I don’t understand the purpose of this. Seems like this is a mechanic that encourages extraction camping?
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Arc spawns out of nowhere. I’ll go into a match with a pair of binoculars, or a gun with a scope, search the horizon, check 360 degrees, walk a few steps, and suddenly I’ve got aggro on wasps, a hornet, or a rolling bomb ball when I know it was clear just seconds ago. There is definitely an issue with how arc spawns.
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The camping. The camping is out of control. Spawn camping, extraction point camping, and being 2 shot with the entry level guns. Why try to buy, make and upgrade guns when you can just spawn or extraction camp with a free loadout and ambush people?
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Traders have limited items to sell with a 24 hour cool down. They have no patterns to sell, and there are 3 different currencies for purchasing things from them. Coins, cred, and seeds. (Celeste wants seeds for items, Shani wants cred for items, and the rest use coins.)
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Movement is janky as hell. If I’m crouched next to a log laying on the ground, why do I have to stand to climb over it? Rock climbing also feels clunky.
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Disconnecting due to internet issues also mean you lose your loadout too.
At launch it was good and have had pretty good luck in solos but trios has been miserable. 99.9% shoot on sight pvp and camping like every other extraction shooter
I really want to like the game but haven’t got a single enjoyable match in like 20 I tried. The graphics and environmenta are stunning I just don’t get the gameplay. It’s like first 10 minutes of a battle royale over and over without the rest of it.
This is a very terrible take. Arc Raiders has aggression based matchmaking. If you want to play PvE you can almost guarantee that. Play 10 games on a free loadout, shoot no one ever, defib a guy or bandage someone if you can, help them kill arc, extract peacefully. Tell the in-game survey you like it when you get out peacefully and tell it you hate it when you don’t get out because of pvp and you’ll super quickly find yourself essentially playing pve.
For the last two weeks I have played hundreds of rounds solo, talking in mic to anyone who walks by, and have been shot three times. In literally hundreds of slow to fast rounds, almost always a major map condition, Stella Montis or otherwise.
Most of your points are equally as bad, but like this alone is easily disproven.
OP, what is an example of an excellent game in your eyes?
Fallout series, skyrim, predecessor, Baulder’s gate 3, control, dark souls, killing floor, runescape dragonwilds, first decendent.
I couldn’t get into predecessor, the matches take too long and the grind for coins to get new characters is slow. As MOBAs go its not bad. But i wouldn’t say great. And i definitely enjoy ARC more.
Baldurs gate 3 is a given. Best game of the last 5 to 10 years for me. Hands down.
Skyrim is boring as hell. It was marvellous when it came out, but its been released so many times and feels too clunky theses days.
Cant comment on dark souls, those games are too hard for me.
Didnt know runescape dragonwilds was a thing but after a quick google i am very interested. :)
Not played killing floor or first descent so can’t comment.
Imho ARC is certainly not a masterpiece but i do feel like a lot of what you dislike about is comes down to your personal bad luck and experience. I have had a very different experience with it, where the PVE has been much more prevalent that the PVP. I dont really follow the story, i just like sneaking around and killing the ARC. I play duos with a few different friends and enjoy the occasional brush with a hostile player. For me it really is occasional. I would say 10% of my matches i get someone shooting at me. And only about half of those end with me dead.
But i fully accept that the same applies to me. My experience of the game is not yours. So i appreciate that my personal view doesn’t impact yours.
Arc Raiders feels confused about what it wants to be. It markets PVE vibes but plays like a rough PVP extraction shooter. No real story, constant camping, messy matchmaking, and punishing mechanics make the grind exhausting. The world has potential, but right now it’s more frustrating than fun, especially for solo or casual players.
I just need someone to remake TLoU Factions on a free to play multiplayer network. Genuinely baffled me that ND didn’t include it in the remake.
TLoU Factions is everything I want in a multiplayer PvP “Survival” game.
In Factions, your performance earns you “supplies” which you use to grow or shrink your base over 12 matches and “events” happen in which your performance over three matches is evaluated to again grow or shrink your base.
Every 12 matches, the base resets and you start again. But after a while you stop caring about the base (because all the achievements tied to it are unlocked) and you start playing for fun and the perk system allows for a lot of skill expression and niche crafting.
Players can naturally become ninjas with smoke bombs and shivs, or healers/gifters, snipers, brawlers etc. and the parts systems is balanced in such a way to provide a comeback for weaker players/teams where necessary but in a way that’s fair.
The game-to-game gameplay is the same though: 1) fight for map control and rotations of lockbox spawn points that contain crafting items for each of your teammates individually - centre one holds the most/rarest items; 2) craft items to help your battle - these persist on death after crafting; 3) Complete the team objective: eliminate the enemy team or capture their stronghold.
It’s the best fucking loop, I can’t really describe it and I really wish I didn’t need PS Plus to play it.
Yep, went back to Helldivers 2 for some actual PvE gameplay.
The mere presence of griefers eliminates this from PVE:
Until they come up with servers where PvP is prohibited, PvE isn’t worth discussing.
Steam has it tagged as a PvE game. I took a chance on it because of the PvE tag. I thought it would be like WOW where you would be able to opt not to PvP. I should have read the reviews before I bought it. Too late for a refund now.
You were saying?
It’s clear you didn’t actually read the page, or check reviews, or check any of the communities, or do any basic research before buying the game. Your “complaints” can be summed up as “uninformed consumer”. What do you think an extraction shooter even is?
If this were a review on Steam I’d mark is as unhelpful and give it the 🤡 award.
Dickhead
Why, because I can read? 😂
Kinda odd Steam doesn’t have a PvPvE tag, TBH.
It has both tags listed on the store page, both in the tags and in the game description. OP just can’t read or didn’t bother to look.
It’s a fairly niche category, though I’ve come across a few games that have it in the descriptions of the game, though not necessarily tagged as such.
You can tag it on the store page. If enough people do that, the tag shows on the page for everybody. If that happens with enough games, valve sometimes officially adopts the tag.
I’ve been trying that with fighting games and rollback netcode for years now. I still have hope it’ll get adopted eventually.
God what a manchild that guy is
Strongly disagree. The possibility that someone might at any time choose betrayal adds a lot to otherwise PvE lobbies. It is what creates the positive feelings when they freely choose cooperation. If it is just built into the game that they have to cooperate, it is emotionally meaningless. Having the emotional experience of trust and support from strangers is very powerful, and I think it’s a defining element of AR.
Calling it a horrible game is a bit much.
I don’t think it’s as amazing as people make it out to be but, like you mention, turning off crossplay significantly improves matchmaking and supposedly giving feedback helps balance it even more. Its also a lot more fun with friends but the amount of PVP increases with groups and especially much more with 3 man.
The last few days, I haven’t run into any players fighting each other. There may in fact be some matchmaking effects deciding this, based on my past behavior.
It helps in my case that I have a lot of upgrades and don’t feel bothered about losing really good gear anymore. Interestingly, I’ve often felt the good gear helps against ARC, but not much against committed players. A well executed blindside ambush can take down even a player with a heavy shield.
The main defense is the psychology. Fostering a sense of communal protection by shooting the wasps that are attacking someone else, bringing one defibrillator in case you find downed players, and in some very rare cases, acting as protector for someone who was wrongly downed. Eventually, some PVP-heavy players decide they have more to fear from attacking others than being passive.
A weird tip to try; when seeking some objective and worried for ambushes, play the Recorder. Some attackers are looking for the thrill of combat, not loot, and are dissuaded by an open musician. Other players are just fearful you’ll shoot first, which is less likely when you’re announcing yourself and taking your hand off your gun for the instrument.
I haven’t had an issue with this at all. I’d say over 50% of the time, if I communicate with other players that I don’t intend to kill them, we end up working together.
50% is way too low
Im just happy to see that Arc Raiders have been able to keep 91% of their players since launch, whilst Battlefield 6 has lost 85% of their players since launch. Obviously Arc Raiders is doing something right 😅But you’re right, its not a pve game per se. Its a PvPvE.
I respect that it’s a populat format, but as soon as a game has both PvE and PvP the game is just PvP in my opinion.
I don’t like most PvP games, so seeing both tags scares me off of most titles.
Sometimes you’ll see a game like that where you can disable PvP, or host a private lobby, or some other compromise. Most of the time doing so reveals just how shallow the PvE content really is
It’s an epic game and it’s fun as hell. Just not something for you I guess.
While I agree that it’s a bit disingenuous to call it’s a PvE game I do think that the feel of it is on the PvE side a lot of the times (but considerably less than half of the time). Especially since the ARC robots are so well done. And I don’t encounter other players in a meaningful way every game.
However, I don’t agree at all that it’s a horrible game. I think that it’s a fantastic game! It’s just released and it has some issues. Apart from a couple of small issues I think it’s a game that does the genre extraction shooting great, runs great, and is the first game in quite a while that feels done and polished and not rushed in any way.
Regarding the shot-on-sight and camping I think it’s a double edged sword. Of course it doesn’t feel good to die, especially by camping. But it would not feel good to extract if there was no risk/stress before doing so.
