All Right Arc Raiders, Let’s Talk...

(Intro)

All right, Arc Raiders. Let’s talk. I made a video about the game's server slam a couple of weeks ago, where I went over my thoughts with that version of the game that was available to play. And while the bones of the game, visuals, audio and attention to the smaller details across every aspect of Arc Raiders was beyond a breath of fresh air, personally I felt the thirty second gameplay loop to be lacking and simply just not for me. Many people in the comments... gracefully; yeah, let’s go with that, told me that version had less than ten percent of the full game’s content and that I should give the full game a try when it releases. There was also a lot of criticism on my general gameplay which I expected, but people were a little more passionate about providing some insight into the game for someone who hadn’t followed the development of it at all. Well, here we are. Eighteen days post launch and a dozen or so hours into the game. How have things changed for myself? Is my perception of the game any different? I figured it would make sense to go literally point by point from the first video and compare how I feel about the game now that the full version is out. I have the other document open with the original script next to this new one, so let’s begin again, and see if my impressions of Arc Raiders has changed.

(The good [again])

Is it me, or does this game look even better than before? I remember seeing some posts about the game looking like the visuals had been downgraded, but on my setup, I swear it looks better than the sever slam. Which is great; the game’s atmosphere and general art direction are gorgeous. I would’ve been more than happy with the previous versions' visuals, but the fact it looks better is just icing on the cake. Arc Raiders also pays the most attention to the micro parts of any extraction shooter, and I absolutely love it. Moving items across different parts of your inventory, how items stack, and the constant influx of craftables with Scrappy. There was so much care and attention to things you do outside of the raid experience as much as there is during it. There are no extra menus, no wasted time, and things just make sense once you use them. Important functionality isn’t hidden away beyond a wall of extra clicks you need to slog through. The menu experience is insanely optimized, which coming from years of EFT, blows my mind how efficient something like this can end up being. The workbench is even more useful than I thought it would end up being. Most of what you would need for an expedition is all craftable as long as you have the necessary materials. Even if you lose all your stuff, Scrappy is always there to at least get you back on your feet. I feel like it would be very difficult to completely run out of stuff to take with you, and within the context of this game in particular (we’ll get into why I specifically phrased it that way later), it’s awesome.

The sting of loss doesn’t feel as monumental as it does in other games. You can always bounce back with relative ease. Combined with the free kits you can equip, and you’ll never be left wanting for gear. The skill tree is interesting and vast for how deep it goes. Three different sets of skills you can learn each with multiple upgrades for individual skills. My one and only real complaint with it is why can we not see what the values are for each skill? If I upgrade my stamina five times, is there a reason there are no numbers associated with it? Are the changes in values so low they don’t want us to see it? Did my stamina go up by twenty percent? Or zero-point two percent? It really bothers me how you can’t see the numbers just by hovering over different skills. But other than that, it’s very well thought out.

(The Arc)

The Arc enemies feel much more in your face and annoying as they were most likely designed to be. Their AI feels much more like their goal is to basically catch you moving between points of interest on the map and if you do not deal with them quickly, they will bring backup, and your circumstances just went from bad to worse. It also feels like there’s more of them just wandering around in general; which isn’t a bad thing. The maps are large enough that having the AI scattered throughout even some of the quieter parts of the map makes sense even if there isn’t a whole lot to do in this corner, or that particular section over there. And this is for the smaller Arc enemies; the ones that are scouting and peppering you with smaller ballistics or stunning you. The larger Arc enemies, and so far, I’ve only fought up to the leaper, feel like unless you have the right equipment, you just shouldn’t engage them. Which again is perfectly fine. There should be threats you are afraid of in the world. It makes seeing them and trying to just get close much more of a risk. It’ll be interesting to try and fight them once I have enough resources that are focused soley on dealing with the Arc enemies but for the time being, I’ll just stick with the smaller mobs across the map. Thank you very much.

(The PvP Experience)

Now for the biggest personal gripe I had with the open playtest originally. Looking at my original document, I said that the PvP didn’t feel good to engage with. The fights were messy, scrambly, but in the bad way where players were just floundering around trying to get the other guy. Making a direct comparison to early game Tarkov where having guns with no attachments or good ammo felt scrambly but at least can spray at one another with full auto fire and you still have the chance of hitting a face shot for a one tap. And honestly, I still somewhat feel the same way towards fighting players, but now for different reasons. Has net code been a topic of conversation for other players engaging with Arc Raiders? I hope so because the amount of times I’ve taken damage after I have gotten to some form of solid cover or around a corner is disgusting. Their tests for the sever slam were successful; they work, but it doesn’t feel like they work that well as rude as that might sound. Even some damage feedback from the AI feels scuffed. Luckily, if this is actually a problem, it can be improved upon going forward. But I really do wonder if maybe that’s what gave me the first negative impression of fighting players during the test. Luckily, I haven’t had to resort to trying to fight players with melee, so that’s good. But in general, the fights are slow, meticulous, and if you don’t get the jump on someone or if you get ambushed, it comes down to a war of attrition most of the time. Who has more ammo, resources, shield regenerators; stuff like that. This is especially magnified when playing in duos or trios because now there are upwards of six people having to juggle their resources and use them in such a way they can last throughout this fight. What is a nice change of pace is that I’ve managed to have a couple of interesting VOIP encounters, which was also something I noticed was absent during my time with the test. People didn’t seem too chatty in those lobbies, but now people are willing to at the very least extract together safely. Even though one group tried to betray me right in the end, we still managed to get out. But that’s in trio lobbies. The solo Arc Raiders experience is very... very weird right now.

(The solo experience [again])

It seems to me that the solo experience right now in Arc Raiders is very much people being uninterested in fighting each other. Which for an extraction shooter is very strange. The whole point of PvPvE game is worrying not only about the AI threats that loom across the map, but the possibility that at any point, you might run into a player and not be prepared for it. But people seem to be much more inclined to just hang out and work together which hey don’t get me wrong; I’m all for in-raid spontaneous cooperation, but I don’t want that to be the only outcome. My hope is that the expectation doesn’t become that people just don’t fight each other in solos. If every time I want to engage with another player and fight them, and I hear over VOIP that I’m not supposed to shoot them, that’s where I begin to have a problem with it. People should be engaging with one another on top of fighting the AI. It doesn’t always have to be a fight, but sometimes we’re just looking for some action, you know? Sometimes, I don’t want to make friends; I want to challenge someone and if they beat me, good for them, they outplayed me or I missed my shots, positioned poorly, you name it. I’m going to make a lot of mistakes because the fights are so long, and I’m okay with that, losing and learning from it. But I don’t want to feel like the bad guy for simply wanting to engage with one third of the in-raid experience.

(Outro)

The final verdict for me is that this game is very good, like I thought it would be. It has already sold over three million copies across all platforms, which I figured it was going to do well. But personally, I still don’t see myself playing this in the long run, which is perfectly okay. I sadly just can’t get over the combat. It’s just not interesting enough for me to pursue playing more. And there is nothing wrong with that. I played it before it was released, had some strange interactions with the game, but chalked it up to some pre-release shenanigans. I tried it again once it was fully launched and had a decent time. But it all comes back to the combat for me. Something about it just doesn’t do it for. It doesn’t feel fun. This will most likely be the last time I talk about Arc Raiders, unless down the line in their supposed ten-year support plan for this game, they make some crazy changes, which I doubt, it’s just not for me. It’s the most causal extraction shooter out there right now, and I mean that in the best way possible. So many people are now being properly introduced by a competently made extraction shooter that doesn’t waste your time, gets you into the action constantly and doesn’t want you to worry about having to scrounge around with no money to your name and no gear to use. It’s sold crazy well and everyone is talking about the game so positively. People love it; I wish the game nothing but the best, and I do wish I was a part of that group. But something about the game just isn’t for me in the long run. Not to mention the prices of cosmetic items. Yes yes, they recently on the thirteenth reduced the price of the items in the store, but I kind of don’t care. I know I don’t have to buy or interact with the store but damn, those are expensive for a forty-dollar game, sixty of you bought the deluxe edition. These are the kind of prices you’d see in their other game, the finals, which is free to play. But to each their own I suppose.

I almost kind of regretted making the first video about this game because it felt like the consensus from most people was that I hated the game because I just sucked at it, which to be fair, I didn’t play well but also I did only have forty-eight hours to play it and only managed to get a handful in. So, forgive me if I don’t immediately understand every intricacy and nuance that is associated with a brand-new title I’ve never played or followed up until that point. But now, things make more sense; I still personally disagree with some decisions that have been made, but it’s not my game. I didn’t make it, and I don’t think I will continue playing it much more. But I gave it another fair shot and wanted to see if things would click for me. Some places they did and in others, not so much. I wish Arc Raiders nothing but the best and am interested to see where they take the game and what new content, they add that people can enjoy. Thank you very much for taking the time out of your day to watch this video. Let me know down in the comment section below your thoughts on Arc Raiders now that is has fully released, if you’ve been enjoying the game, what has been your craziest raid so far and be sure to subscribe for more videos about dying on a hill because you have a personal opinion that is vastly different from everyone else. I hope to see you in future ones.