Arc Raiders has become my go-to game lately, thanks to its great gameplay loop and replayability. Each session comes with its own ups and downs, from memorable friendly encounters to unexpected betrayals. Even in its day-one state, the game felt balanced, offering good risk/reward choices and intense PVP/PVE moments.
Now, after spending over 300 hours playing, I have started to see some chinks in the armour. So, over the last few weeks, I have compiled a list of potential avenues of improvement that I think need to be addressed to retain players in the long run. Of course, these are aspects based on my personal experience, and other players may disagree or prefer alternative additions such as a dedicated PVE mode. Nevertheless, I’ve got to get this off my chest, and as always, if there’s anything you think I’ve missed, feel free to share your suggestions on Club386 social media.
Mid-battle spawns
This is what I believe to be the most unanimously agreed bad aspect of the game, and is bordering on unfair. Every couple of games, and sometimes multiple times in a row, you get put into a match that’s already underway. It’s hugely frustrating going up against those who joined earlier and have had up to a 15 minute head start over you. In other words, you join a map that is mostly looted, and where all the high-value areas have already been cleared.
Needless to say, this is both unfair and annoying; not only for the late players, but also for those who had a head start. In their case, these early players get new potential adversaries after they had to survive half the match dealing with PVPers, making extracting loot safely an even harder task. This happens frequently as some early players loot fast and extract quickly, leaving a void in the available player slots, which the matchmaker hurries to fill. While this has the advantage of making more use of each server, it is detrimental to the overall gaming experience.
Since I can’t see any benefit to players, I strongly believe that this aspect of the game needs to be removed entirely, or at least give players a choice to opt out. If Embark wants to keep it to optimise server usage, loot should respawn after a defined duration or, better still, when new players are brought into the game.
Loadouts
Preparing a loadout before and after each raid must be the most time-consuming aspect of the game, outside of actively playing a match. If you fight a lot, you will often find yourself repairing your shield/guns and crafting new meds/ammo for the next match. This becomes even worse if, don’t be embarrassed, you are an average PVP player who loses fights often. In this case, you will need to craft guns, upgrade them, and equip them regularly. To put it simply, a lot of time could be saved if the game had user presets that automatically craft and set the inventory with a single click.
A good way to implement this would be a tool that lets you create a handful of presets, while detailing how many resources you will need to craft them. It would be a bonus if the tool could combine crafting using owned items with stuff that can be bought from merchants with credits. If this is difficult to implement, at least make it so we could pick from the available loot. The player could craft multiple copies of the guns, shields, and ammo they want in their preset, then the game only has to pick from inventory and place them in the player’s backpack.
Map pings
I have two problems with the way the map operates in Arc Raiders. First, for the life of me, I don’t understand why we can’t zoom more than about 2x. Why can’t I zoom 20x, even if that means I will see a pixelated mess? Give me the option! This is especially annoying when you try to ping the exact location of a mission or building entrance to teammates, as you can’t be precise. Though I’m not a developer, this surely can’t be that complicated to fix.
The second issue with the map – I’m entering full-on rant mode – is the ping system. It would be much nicer if we could put multiple pointers on the map, which can be especially handy when planning a looting route. It’d be perfection if each subsequent pin had a small number that reflects its position in the sequence; this way, players could follow their planned route without needing to revisit the map.
Inventory & Resources tracking
Arc Raiders is a looter-shooter, which means you must deal with a lot of inventory management and item crafting. Yet there’s no getting around it, the item stacking system is one of the worst I’ve ever seen. As far as I can tell, there is no way to take one, two, or x amount of any resource; you can only pick up the stack or half of it. And since many items stack in packs of 3 or 5, this becomes annoying very quickly. Stating the obvious, the game needs an option to select a specific amount to transfer. Also, some item stacks are ridiculously small; 10 or 15 on green items is never enough.
Stacking aside, the feature I would love to see is resource tracking. The game does have a way to track needed resources to craft weapons, shields, etc. This allows you to easily identify the necessary resources while raiding, which is extremely convenient, especially for new players. However, said tracking disappears the moment you craft the item. My request is simple: let us keep tracking active and give us the option to track any lootable item we want, regardless of whether it’s needed for crafting or not.
Lastly, a shortcut to automatically transfer all unnecessary items (anything aside from guns, ammo, and meds) from the backpack to storage would be a nice quality-of-life improvement. At the moment, if you miss the option to clean your backpack after the loading window, you can only send items to your stash one by one. As if this game isn’t eating up enough of my time as is.
Character customisation
This one’s somewhat niche, but let us mix and match the character outfit using parts from different skin sets. For example, I would like to combine the Abyss helmet with the Torpedo chest piece. This will undoubtedly result in situations where one 3D model clips inside another. Personally, I don’t think that’s a problem as it would result in some hilariously funky creations, but I understand that the devs may not want their game to look unpolished. In this case, Embark would need to implement design rules regarding the maximum dimensions of each outfit piece, so each one can combine with others more naturally.
Skill tree
The skill tree in Arc Raiders is confusing to say the least. Instead of telling you exactly how much each upgrade can boost your speed, carry weight, etc, in percentage terms, you only get a vague description of the effect. For example, ‘Broad Shoulders’ indicates that it ‘increases the maximum weight you can carry,’ but by how much? 1, 10, 100kg? I had to search online to find the answer is 2kg per skill point. Why I need to go outside the game to find such info is a mystery.
While I’m at it, the ability to reset just one skill instead of the entire tree would also be nice. I don’t want to pay 162,000 coins because I miss-clicked on ‘Effortless Roll’ instead of ‘Ready to Roll’.
Trials leaderboard
Weekly Trials are a strong component of the game, in addition to its competitive nature, which I like a lot, it also nets you plenty of nice loot each week, sometimes even blueprints. Unfortunately, climbing the ranks becomes extremely tedious after reaching the Daredevil tier, requiring upward of 100,000 points to advance to the next level. It’s especially hard for players like me who enjoy the peaceful lobbies of solo play, where players don’t kill on sight.
The issue here is that solo players are forced to compete with duos and trios for the same leaderboard. Trios, who can kill more enemies, collect more resources, and split to cover more ground. For example, one of last week’s trials asked to throw snowballs at a Bastion (enemy). Well, as a solo, you only have two hands, so the number of snowballs you can throw per minute is nearly 70% lower than a team of three. Simply put, the odds are stacked against you. Wouldn’t it be nice if weekly trials could have separate leaderboards for solos, duos, and trios?
Gameplay & experience tweaks
I can feel the weight lifting from my shoulders, but before I’m through, let’s close the list with some minor changes that could add up to give the game more variety and gameplay possibilities:
- First, the game has a parachute item, but as far as I can tell, it doesn’t work; its main use is to be recycled into fabric. Why not make it useful, so players can jump from a tower if they get cornered by enemies?
- The first Expedition (wipe) had many players scratching their heads over how many credits they needed to farm to unlock the full set of rewards, which was revealed just a week before D-day to be 5,000,000 credits. A hefty sum to collect on such short notice. Despite the backlash, Embark seems to be doing the same with this second Expedition, as players are unsure if they will need 5,000,000 this time too, or more.
- Currently, when a teammate is downed by an enemy, he can crawl towards you to be revived, which can take some time. It would be nice if you could drag him to safety quicker, like in Battlefield 6.
- When looting during a raid, the only way to know the monetary value of an item is to deduct it by looking at how much your entire backpack value has increased. It would be nice to see the item value when hovering the mouse over it, as is the case outside of raids, in the Speranza stash/inventory.
- This may be controversial, but sometimes I find so much loot that my backpack isn’t able to hold it all. It would be great if you could send the loot back to Speranza without exiting the raid. I understand that the idea behind the limited carry capacity is to force you to make hard decisions, but still, what’s the difference between this and exiting before launching a new raid, apart from wasting time on the loading screen? Plus, this would keep players in each lobby, which would reduce the aforementioned fast player exits that force mid-game matchmaking.
- Lastly, an option for players who missed previous Expeditions to catch up would be welcome. Since you can stack the bonuses of up to three Expeditions, those who missed one will be at a disadvantage. So, why not give them the possibility to catch up with the rest? I’d understand is this demanded more resources than doing each Expedition at the scheduled time, but that’s a price some might be willing to pay.
Reading all of the above, you might think Arc Raiders is a terribly frustrating game, but that’s not the case. I’ve enjoyed sinking many hours into it, and encourage fans of the genre to join in. There’s always room for improvement, however, and the aforementioned tweaks to gameplay could help elevate the experience from good to great.
The first two months following Arc Raiders’ release were filled with content, and we had time to explore the game and learn its quirks. Now that we’ve absorbed the main course, it’s time for Embark to treat us to new maps, events, and gameplay mechanics. The developer has stated it has a ten-year plan for Arc Raiders, so the future seems bright. I’m ready for the journey, and here’s hoping some of my suggestions help along the way.
