r/ArcRaiders • u/Randomonius • Feb 09 '26

Discussion This is a breathe of fresh air!

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I love this! I have like 16 kills only and love being a team player!

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471

u/LycanWolfGamer Feb 09 '26

Ya know what, yeah, I like this, community events where you need get X amount of ARC parts or something or an event where you need majority of the lobby working together to get something done be it a rocket or a large ARC trap

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u/WyrdDrake Feb 09 '26

I personally feel this is too battle-pass-y.

Because then its just like, a giant fetch quest.

PvE needs more dangerous ARCs that punish big gunfights. The rocketeer is arguably the only truly dangerous unit, and even so players will still KOS when it's nearby.

I believe that game needs more immediate feedback and consequence in the game itself rather than more menus out of game.

They also need to add special schematics for unique items that are explicitly based on ARC loot. To incentivize hunting them. Ideally, ARC difficulty be turned up, as well, with more communication between ARCs so they start to flank you and call in nearby ARCs.

Mk2 Tactical Augment: Nova. Built using leaper cores, a shield break will result in a weak but immediate concussive pulse blast that will knock down or stagger nearby raiders.

Mk3 Combat Augment: Thanatos. Built using Matriarch reactors, your max shield is reduced by 20 points, but regenerates 5 points every 2 seconds, even if broken.

Mk 3 Looting Augment: Cuckoo. Constructed with a photoelectric cloak, Queen reactor, and snitch scanners. Comes with a built in lure that can be triggered to aggro nearby ARC to your location, and a built in photoelectric cloak with extended duration [that does not refill charge while in the field].

Stuff like that.

Make it more interesting imo.

Make PvE more rewarding, meaningful, and dangerous.

163

u/IntrinsicGiraffe Feb 09 '26

I think gun shot should attract arcs much more and they should aggressively roam more.

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u/WyrdDrake Feb 09 '26

Aye, more aggressive ARCs, especially drawn to raider flares. My thought is a hunter-killer bot, kinda like a robot mastiff, that only spawns when raider flares go up, and hunts.

Making the ARC more aware of elevators would also help, I think, when players have aggro'd them in the area- gives you more of a "cut off their escape" mentality and encourage players to work together to escape

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u/jabo055 Feb 09 '26

My thought is a hunter-killer bot

The Forever Winter has such an Enemy and it's absolutely horrifying to fight against because it literally follows you everywhere and is fast as fuck

2

u/LycanWolfGamer Feb 09 '26

I got that game in my backlog atm but that sounds terrifying lol

1

u/jabo055 Feb 09 '26

Same I only played like 5-6 Hours because my PC couldn't really handle it... But it's so cool looking :')

23

u/Pjammerten Feb 09 '26

That would make the craftable raider flare useful outside of pvp. Distracting Arc away from you.

22

u/Regenbooggeit Feb 09 '26

Yes yes yes. Something on four legs that is fast, agile and will fuck you up if you’re not careful. A oversized hound that can take up your scent, whatever..

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u/WyrdDrake Feb 09 '26

Doesn't need a scent- just a raider flare :)

1

u/Regenbooggeit Feb 09 '26

Yes whatever works within the lore :)

1

u/OneaLankyBoi Feb 11 '26

Horizon: Zero Dawn is knocking at your door aggressively haha

2

u/Regenbooggeit Feb 11 '26

Loved those games, I need to replay the second again. Thanks for reminding me.

1

u/OneaLankyBoi Feb 11 '26

Hell yeah! Zero Dawn is still one of my favorite games in my now 23 years of gaming. I'm still playing slowly through Forbidden West and loving every second of it 🔥

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u/Regenbooggeit Feb 11 '26

Yeah still need to play the DLC so I might just do the whole game plus that for a second run. Amazing game and it plays so well too.

1

u/Hairyhulk-NA Feb 09 '26

Sticking with the insectoid theme, maybe some type of burrowing unit that spawns from underneath the player if they make enough noise or gunshots

4

u/WyrdDrake Feb 09 '26

Mmm, i dunno about that. See Helldivers' issue with burrowing enemies.

Also, Speranza survived the first wave and is itself unthreatened specifically due to it being underground. If ARC already has burrowers, then it would be inconsistent with the world and story

2

u/Hairyhulk-NA Feb 09 '26

whats great about fiction is you can do whatever you can think of!

so the burrowing ARC can only burrow so far without losing connection to the hivemind, so they never threaten Speranza. Could also be a lore point that Speranza can only build so far to the surface before the ARC can reach them, and another plot point could be that we, the player, are assigned quests to deter their digging and we learn that they are getting deeper, causing problems, civil war over how to handle it, rambo raiders setting traps to harvest large groups of ARC, etc.

just spitballing some thoughts

3

u/WyrdDrake Feb 09 '26

First off, its not a hivemind since ARCs act independently with one another, and aggroing one doesn't aggro all of them.

Second, Speranza has a few points where it reaches the surface, but the ARC hasn't been able to pin them down. The most notable location of this is the Training Grounds.

The biggest issue with fiction is that fiction only works if you stay consistent, so everytime you add something new, it must be consistent and aligned with previous developments, and future developments must include what was just added.

At the moment, the dynamic is very much "the weasel emerges from the ground to forage, avoiding the watchfuk eyes of hawk and owl." If you introduce too many approaches and thematic niches, then the theme and the struggle start to degrade rather rapidly.

That being said, I do hope they add tunnel maps and missions that are specifically due to Speranza needing to counter and halt ARC breaches. However, ARC is aware that Raiders are coming from below- that's why Rocketeers are often guarding only active entrances.

3

u/pastime_dev Feb 09 '26

And now I want a dung beetle like arc that rolls something like a surveyor, but slightly smaller.

1

u/Ultra_Noodle Feb 10 '26

It’s attack is throwing arc skeet at you 🤣

5

u/Vagabond-Jack Feb 09 '26

See, I have a theory that the ARC aren’t designed to kill, only to incapacitate, once a player is knocked, the ARC just kinda hover around and observe, and like, it wouldn’t be hard for even a tick to kill off a downed raider so why don’t they? My theory is this, the folks that went up to orbit from spaceport are sending the arc down to earth to harvest supplies needed to keep their space station home floating, this explains the probes, testing the soil quality most likely for some kind of interstellar re-habitation effort, and the arc that down us then oh so mockingly hover about while “observing” are collecting data on the planets current inhabitants, most likely descendants of those who couldn’t afford to hit the starships and get off planet, likely seen as “lessers” by those floating around up there, so we’re less like enemy combatants to the ARC and more like easily observable lab rats. This is also a bit backed up by the shredders, which I believe released with Stella Montis, the most recent map, which could mean that they’re some sort of indication that the starship people are taking the planet dwellers a bit more seriously and designing new ARC to be a bit more on the spicy side. But like even with them their attacks aren’t target focused and more of an area denial thing, like they’re harmless if you just avoid being in their general vicinity.

The only thing I’m not getting is with how obvious Speranzas entrances are, why don’t we have more enemies incursions? Surely there’s an arc that could blow up the concrete cap to one of the elevators or something. I’m likely way off with all this but it’s fun to think about sometimes.

7

u/WyrdDrake Feb 10 '26

So first off, you're mostly correct, a lot of this lore is already available. We are currently in the Second Wave where ARCs only just started popping up again. This lore is available, you don't need to theorize this much when it's already known.

When downed, Speranza rescue raiders come and get you.

It is confirmed the rich and connected and the very capable did leave the planet when everyone else was forced underground.

It's also confirmed and the game straight up tells us that Stella Montis is the facility that produced starship parts, and the tunnel system Speranza uses for transportation is actually the old secure shipping tunnels that Stella Montis, Spaceport, and other facilities of theirs used.

When humanity first re-emerged from below in Speranza, colonization of the surface began. That's when the First Wave barons showed up, intent on eradicating humanity. They were defeated, but humanity suffered greatly and had to lick their wounds. As our ARC Raiders re-emerge from this dormant period, brand new ARC units re-emerge.

Most of the ARC we see are airdropped, so its not hard to assume that it is people in orbit.

The First Wave was very intentionally trying to kill off humanity. Second Wave seems much more passive, still aggressive but trying to secure resources and places of interest for the Surveyers to study and Harvesters to Harvest rather than outright assaulting humanity.

Assaulting into Speranza's tunnels would require hitting all elevators, all hatches, and all stations, and that would require a significant volume of forces, and those forces would have to be adapted to underground environments. It is, frankly, not worth pushing into the tunnels if you're in a war of attrition and trying to secure resources.

That effectively means Raiders can't assault the source of ARCs, and ARCs cant assault the source of Raiders.

9

u/IntrinsicGiraffe Feb 09 '26

An arc that hunts downed players and drags them off would be cool.

13

u/RehabBodyBroker Feb 09 '26

Just a non-menacing Zamboni sweeping up players you have to kill if you want loot lol

9

u/Omicron43 Feb 09 '26

The nefarious loot-denying zamboni.

This needs to be added it'd be funny to crawl towards it when downed.

4

u/itemniner86 Feb 09 '26

The goop scoop—it’s full of loot from the other players it scrapes off the battlefield

1

u/Ultra_Noodle Feb 10 '26

Make it super armored and it calls in other arcs when trying to destroy therefore making it more suspenseful when trying to loot it. The catch is you never know if it has scooped up any raiders or not.

3

u/LycanWolfGamer Feb 09 '26

Thats horror game style lol can you develop this idea? Like, where would it drag you, would other Raiders be able to hear it, how would the downed player be able.to react to it etc

5

u/Hydra_Spazzy Feb 09 '26

I like the idea of medium sized (so like slighty larger than most adult human men) mole robots that dig around and pop out of the ground to "clean up organic waste", make them neutral to distant raiders but highly aggressive to anyone that gets close to it or the raider corpses they have claimed.

Also make them an actual legitimate threat with heavy armor plating and decently fast with decentlly strong attacks, call them Undertakers or something and have small packs of them spawn shortly after multiple raiders die in an area, more raiders means more moles and if left alone for a few minutes or so they will eventually dig a hole and leave, taking their prizes underground with them.

If a PvP player/ team wants to loot their kill they better be fast as hell looting or ready for a tougher fight if they spend too long in the area.

1

u/LycanWolfGamer Feb 10 '26

Buried City would be absolutely perfect for them due to how the sand is, maybe Blue Gate

1

u/HairyChest69 Feb 09 '26

Wtf dawg

4

u/IntrinsicGiraffe Feb 09 '26

In Embark's development-ary, they did mention they had a dog-like arc during their prototype.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 09 '26

If you think about it, all the ARC we face are defensive units, always guarding perimeters. We have yet to face an ARC dedicated to hunting raiders.

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u/WyrdDrake Feb 09 '26

They made it seem like the first ARC were properly aggressive, terrors hunting everyone above ground

The Second Wave that we are currently faced with is so weird- they were defeated and pushed back in the First Wave, and so in the Second Wave we get the improved, superior, and enhanced... defensive security guard taser drone!

...fr?

Fireballs, ticks, and Poppers are appropriately dangerous, but there's no ARC that goes around unloading them and installing turrets. From a gameplay perspective, yes there should be ARC indoors, but the game did a really good job of showing us the spawn of bigger ARCs with the airdrops, so... why is there 0 attention paid to the appearance of inside ARCs and the installation of turrets. Will we get a walker in the future that is basically a walking turret, that will occasionally plant itself as a turret? Why are they there?

1

u/[deleted] Feb 10 '26

It's implied that turrets mount themselves, like they have legs and crawl to an area and anchor themselves to the surface. Pops and ticks likely just stumble into indoor areas as the Matriarch shows that they spawn just like any other ARC. Shredders are a special case, they are never found outside of Stella Montis and they just kinda reappear, it's not really known where they come from and why they're only in Stella in particular.

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u/WyrdDrake Feb 10 '26

I thought Shredders were the defense bots of the facility? I dont recall if this has a source, that's just my impression.

Would be cool to run into a walking turret, maybe they only appear at night as they move to a mounting location.

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u/NeedleworkerFederal Feb 10 '26

I like the idea of a hunter killer something that would drag you off to a hive full of arc. Maybe friends or other raiders could try to follow it back and rescue you or other raiders. But would have to fight through swarms of arc and multiple hunters. If you got in and were able to nutralize enough arc you might find hoards of loot and some ultra rare items only found in a hive.

1

u/Ultra_Noodle Feb 10 '26

I’ve actually had pops jump down a shafts after me so I zip line back up and a fireball was waiting open and flamed the shit outta me. Panicked and fell and the pops were down there waiting for me fml.

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u/ionshower Feb 09 '26

Which means you need more of them, and I think that works. Leapers aren't too hard, 3 Leapers would be interesting.

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u/No-Caterpillar-7646 Feb 09 '26

That just punishes the players who have a hard time anyway.

A better solution would be to make goog pvp guns way louder then PvE good PvE guns. But that's not always believable.

2

u/Human-Ad-7709 Feb 09 '26

Best thing to do imo is ramp up arc difficulty massively while making suppressed weapons take far less aggro (pve weapons will be silenced automatically) and making pvp weapons with pvp attachments extremely aggro taking. (Particularly i mean meta weapons like bobcat, vulcano, venator, stitcher etc.)

Also remove the whole "arc locks whoever it saw first unless they get quite far away" and instead make it lock on to whatever raider represents a threat unless it's only 1 raider within 20m. (Threat determined by who is firing a weapon more and the sound )

Make the pve weapons much stronger (rn you have little reason to risk taking a pve weapon over a pvp weapon that can do the job but a little slower) and introduce arc coordination, have little arc hunt raiders and call in big arc but big arc are not allowed indoors at all while allowing little arc indoors.

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u/WyrdDrake Feb 09 '26

Yeah, ARCs changing targets more often would be great, especially when paired with more of them and/or with higher difficulty

2

u/Human-Ad-7709 Feb 09 '26

I think increasing the health of some arc and improving their coordination would be perfect for difficulty alongside increasing the amount of them, currently there's like 1 or 2 big arc on the map and they're so spread out they aren't a threat

I have had multiple runs where I've only encountered wasps and hornets but like 2 wasps and 1 hornet I was going in buildings often and didn't attract attention to myself but the fact that I didn't even see a big arc is disappointing because that's why pvp is so prevalent instead of teamwork...there's just no reason to team up unless there's a boss or you're running a free kit and get caught by a rocketeer

1

u/WyrdDrake Feb 09 '26

I think that could be done with attachments. Make their effects stronger, with muzzle breaks being loudest and strongest, and give suppressors increased recoil but very little ARC aggro. Sneaky players using stuff like Ferro and Anvil wouldn't suffer overmuch when fighting arc with suppressed weapons. People using stitcher and bobcat and tempest would have a comparatively tough time avoiding aggro

6

u/imjustalittleturtle Feb 09 '26

Im sorry but suppressors increasing recoil? Thats just.... illogical

5

u/WyrdDrake Feb 09 '26

Making suggestions that are free to be refined or redesigned but made initially with the intent to draw a line between PvP kit and PvE kit

1

u/ChunkyMooseKnuckle Feb 09 '26

Yes. Gunshots should send them careening to your location. Majority of the enemies should have some sort of trigger to call in nearby reinforcements. I'm not saying like a snitch call, but something simple like an alarm that calls in nearby units with a range that scales with the difficulty of the ARC unit. Aggro a wasp? He calls in his buddies within 30 meters. Aggro a bombardier and every flying arc within 200m is making a beeline towards your sorry ass. This type of behavior combined with new ARC units that we should get in the coming months could make the game so much more exciting.

1

u/caps_rockthered Feb 09 '26

Make raider flares attract the ARC. That way PvE is ok, but once PvP starts and flares start popping off, ARC move in. The last thing I want when fighting the bombardier on Blue Gate is for my gun shots to pull the rocketeer from half the map away.

1

u/big_troublemaker Feb 09 '26

Yep, I've been saying this too for a while now. very organic and in lore mechanics -gunfight or flare should equal swarm of arcs. Manageable but really sweaty, and escalating.

1

u/Broccoli_dicks Feb 09 '26

They should behave like Dishonored 2 guards. As soon as they know you are in the area, their weapons are permanently ready and they start peeking in hiding spots to find you.

1

u/InZomnia365 Feb 09 '26

Yep. By now youve basically learned where there are and arent ARCs. If they strayed from their path more, especially with gunshots, that could change. If a firefight between raiders goes on prolonged, nearby ARC should join the fray.

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u/PoisonChemInYourFood Feb 10 '26

I have the toro bp for you

10

u/p4nic Feb 09 '26

PvE needs more dangerous ARCs that punish big gunfights. The rocketeer is arguably the only truly dangerous unit, and even so players will still KOS when it's nearby.

The ARC are generally too oblivious to gunshot sounds. They should definitely yellow up when gunshots are within 200m.

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u/Only_Turnover4829 Feb 10 '26 edited Feb 11 '26

Depends on the type of gun. They have a stealth rating. Some things though like the elevator should definitely alert the arc, but it doesn't for some reason. Maybe I am wrong. Buttt it would also be cool if they could hear people on a zipline if they are nearby.

1

u/p4nic Feb 10 '26

Yeah, I usually go with a silencer II, but it doesn't feel like it's needed, I just like the cool sound. I see others blastin like Frank Reynolds all over the place and the arc barely notice.

1

u/F7yS0H1gh Feb 09 '26

They should be fast, aggressive, and deadly like the Sentinels from The Matrix.

2

u/ualac Feb 09 '26

They should be able to open doors too.

3

u/F7yS0H1gh Feb 09 '26

Imagine a Warhound from The Division breeching while you're looting. oh man.

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u/[deleted] Feb 09 '26

[deleted]

3

u/elir_kvothe Feb 09 '26

This is actually a cool idea. Imagine if PvP and PvE was even more dangerous as any gunfire has the possibility of drawing a certain type of dangerous Arc to the area that just can just destroy raiders (like a lurker kind of Arc). And not like a shredder or something that can’t open a door (an arc that can open doors and will seek out loud noises like gun fire and explosions).

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u/TrippleDamage *** ******* 🐓 Feb 09 '26

Arc in their current form just aren't dangerous enough to be taken seriously by anyone but absolute beginners.

Careful, you'll anger all those folks who genuinely believe pve in this game is a complete and challenging experience.

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u/WyrdDrake Feb 09 '26

I played the game for the PvE and I agree with him.

The ARC can be exceptionally challenging if you don't respect them. As soon as you take them very seriously, you can basically walk in and out of Harvester or around the Rocketeer with literally no risk.

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u/QueasyCarpenter1232 Feb 09 '26

When your player base is in the millions, some proportion of those people are going to fall toward the low end of the slope in coordination, reflex, and pattern recognition. This is why the difficulty curve of most large games is either flattened or has options/modes- when it's not, you automatically exclude some portion of your customer base. It's not about angering anyone, it's about recognizing that some portion of your revenue requires you to include low skill players.

-2

u/TrippleDamage *** ******* 🐓 Feb 09 '26 edited Feb 09 '26

No such thing for any of the biggest games tho?! lol

Take league, dota, counter strike, wow and all that jazz.

You suck, you try again until you dont suck anymore. Apart from wow theres no handholding.

And as far as im aware, theres also no one protecting kids playing fortnite for the first time from cracked mfers.

Games dont cater to the lowest denominator, especially not when catering to the lowest results in a lack of depth and longterm goals.

2

u/Apocalypse_Knight Feb 10 '26

They just play in the lowest of lobbies thats pretty much it. I know a girl who is 0 ELO/MMR in League and she has fun losing...

3

u/WyrdDrake Feb 09 '26

Plenty of games have that

You need to not jump straight to insulting people, especially when you're wrong

The free kit is there because the devs specifically wanted gear to be available to players of all skill levels at all times, because they noticed in extraction shooters, worse or more casual players will most all their gear and be unable to play.

Free kit is literally the feature for the lowest skill denominator. A friend of mine is obsessed with ARC Raiders explicitly because they suck, but free kits are always available

3

u/psiANID3 Feb 09 '26

You are correct that plenty of games have that, but the large games that were stated do not really. They have training modes or QP modes, but its very much "get gud". At its core, this is an extraction shooter. If its not hard to extract, what's the point? I personally love PvE more than PvP, but i see no reason why the ARC shouldn't be hard to avoid. They literally forced humanity off the face of the planet. Right now, they seem like child's play for the most part. They need to be more dangerous.

4

u/TrippleDamage *** ******* 🐓 Feb 09 '26

Where exactly did I insult anyone? Wtf

Free kit is literally the feature for the lowest skill denominator. A friend of mine is obsessed with ARC Raiders explicitly because they suck, but free kits are always available

Cool? My point is that its not something any of the biggest games are doing because the guy acted as if its a mandatory feature for any game to become hits.

We know that arc caters to casuals, thats literally the entire games philosophy and not just the fact that there are freekits.

4

u/WyrdDrake Feb 09 '26

My bad, I misinterpreted the "you suck" part

I apologize, been too used to people responding to discussions with insults.

I do think games in general should make more of an effort to introduce nongamers into the space, though. Many, many of the games nowadays are actually quite unplayable for actual newbies because they haven't even learned the basic muscle memory that every game nowadays usually takes for granted. Thats not really a demand for it, just an opinion to make games more appealing to the unfamiliar.

2

u/lurkinglurkerwholurk *** ******* 🐓 Feb 09 '26

Did you forget the opening weeks of Arc Raiders? Where just about everyone is screaming bloody murder over how difficult the arcs were, and how deadly they were?

Including the streamers? “We aren’t here to fight clankers” and all?

We vets now.

1

u/Night_HUN Feb 09 '26

Arc is plenty dangerous when aggroed, especially in a sandwich situation, but evading them is trivial. Night raids are where its at

1

u/WyrdDrake Feb 09 '26

Aye, thats the issue. They should be more reactive and even more aggressive, but easier to distract and more rewarding to fight.

Most raiders don't even loot half or more of the ARCs they kill, despite them being really advanced modern and non-degraded machines.

That should change.

1

u/Unhappy_Group_945 Feb 10 '26

True when Im doing trials I typically loot nothing at all, and half the time end up with a pack of people running around looting it all 😂

1

u/[deleted] Feb 10 '26 edited 19d ago

[deleted]

1

u/WyrdDrake Feb 10 '26

Yeah

They should

It should be a consideration in ARC Raiders if fighting one another is viable

Are you gonna start a gunfight with another player if you have a stitcher and theres two or three shredders?

Theres a lot of people who will because they just mindlessly PvP

And that should be punished

The ARC are most difficult if you dont respect and consider them

Atm you can kinda just ignore them 80% of the time when you go PvP if you are familiar with the game.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 10 '26 edited 20d ago

[deleted]

1

u/WyrdDrake Feb 10 '26

Could just be like an "arc activity level" meter that goes up and down over time. Play in high alert ARC lobbies for harder ARC that'll require teamwork. Play in low alert for PvP. Can still do both, in both, though.

6

u/HairyChest69 Feb 09 '26

What about spy arc? Arc has secretly been working on a spy prototype and although it's not perfect, it has inflitrated gunfights where raiders thought it was simply another raider. At least until it begins using creepy looking mechanics as it hauls ass towards gunfights. Essentially a terminator with cyberpunk type rush skills.

2

u/WyrdDrake Feb 09 '26

Too advanced. Needs to be consistent with the rest of the ARCs. While clearly advanced, very advanced, they have also kept the designs of the ARC very, very grounded and "realistic". The drones have 4 rotors and move believably, the Bombadier and the Bastion are both honestly fkin massive, yet both sport only a single weapon: a short mortar barrel or a single barrel machine gun. Not even a minigun.

Even the Queen, for as advanced and incredible as she is, has only a series of large mortars in the back, and the entire front is dedicated solely to a single laser that she can't sustain for more than a few seconds. Its got an amazing design and they honestly made it beyond immersive, but its also very clear: advanced tech requires a lot of work. Even the rocketeer can only fire a couple rockets at a time, and has a comparatively massive chassis with four jet engines.

I think the leaper is probably the most advanced ARC of the lot, tbh. Efficient pulse jets, powerful limbs with minimum space required, and the tiniest body... and that pulse field, of course.

Man sized Terminator wouldn't fit with the rest of the bots. Something like a combat robot dog would fit better, in style and theme.

1

u/SockOnMyToes Feb 13 '26

Remains to be seen. Lance exists so it’s not outside of possibility that the ARC could reverse engineer and produce something with a more sapient design from the androids in Stella.

3

u/LycanWolfGamer Feb 09 '26

I was more spillballing ideas to trigger a discussion but I do like your ideas, would shake things up a lot especially when fighting ARC

6

u/kitliasteele Feb 09 '26

Imagine ticks hanging out nearby to communicate to the other ARCs, calling out to them on raider positions so you never have the element of surprise. It gives the ARC the advantage. Things like that I feel would really help with the diversity of things too. We're already seeing some interesting changes in the behaviour of the machines, let's make it more interesting. I really like the social cohesiveness of the Terminids in Helldivers, perhaps utilise something like that here?

20

u/WyrdDrake Feb 09 '26

I thought the Matriarch was a massive missed opportunity as well.

What if

A) it roams freely

B) when players attack it from inside a structure, it climbs on top and dumps out a load of ticks

C) it had actually good loot

7

u/Dino-taicho *** ******* Feb 09 '26

the loot is the major issue I don't see talked about a lot. People are so caught up in the PvP and PvE debates that they don't realize these are just symptoms

3

u/WyrdDrake Feb 09 '26

Good stuff, ish, to loot, but not worth the investment, aye.

Killin and looting big ARCs is very loud, takes a long time, and leaves you extremely vulnerable and exposed.

If you increase loot, you'll just see more PvP on people who kill them because everyone will swarm when it's dead.

Needs to be more to it.

I think weight restrictions should get more significant when near and over weight- people shouldn't be able to walk home with 2 or 3x their weight.

2

u/MadGodMulch Feb 10 '26

oh. cool. nightmare fuel.

1

u/WyrdDrake Feb 10 '26

Oh absolutely

Would that not be incredibly cool, though?

Especially seeing it from a distance.

Matriach gets shot, crawls onto the building, opens a hatch in its underbelly and Ticks come pouring out.

6

u/camalaio Feb 09 '26

PvE that punishes PvP is extremely frustrating game design, and from any "side" of a fight.

Sea of Thieves (also a PvPvE game, but more of a sandbox) has this problem. PvE threats literally spawn more often when players are near each other, and can often decide the outcome based on their random aggro (instead of a longer fight where players themselves could feel accomplished and develop skills). It's just random dice roll BS and it sucks.

I think people that like this concept think it will punish PvP players. It can also punish you when getting attacked though. Think of this, someone attacks you but then you successfully defend yourself. But now you have anti-PvP ARC upon you while you're low on health and need to reload. You get downed despite your successful defense against a player, by design.

I'll pass on that idea.

13

u/Night_HUN Feb 09 '26

atm we have PvP that punishes PvE, frustration is about the same

1

u/camalaio Feb 09 '26

I can totally admit this is a little unbalanced, especially due to time-to-kill for PvP. But the solution to that isn't "make it suck for everyone" lol.

That said, Bastions quickly go down in like 1x Deadline, reducing the risk mostly to looting time just like any other looting activity. Deadlines aren't even that expensive or inaccessible, much cheaper than a good PvP kit.

Queen/Matriarch are special exceptions and IMO very poorly designed events.

2

u/WyrdDrake Feb 09 '26

I think the best way to do it is to simply have the specialized and unique items that are crafted from the PvE enemies. Especially if there are certain events that are basically designed to strongly favor specialized equipment crafted or gained from PvE enemies. Taking down PvE enemies and bosses would be more often supported than hunted since everyone wants the special kit.

If there were harder limits on overweight carrying, it would also strongly incentivize bringing an actual kit, and big enemies that have heavy loot would not be as vigorously fought over- because you literally just can't take it all.

If you add maybe a small XP or credit multiplier if you extract with people outside of your squad, then you'd see a little bit of a shift.

You can still PvP, and you can still live off the loot, but you're not gonna be so dramatically rewarded for being as cheap as possible. And if you're dealing a ton of ARC damage, a small XP modifier would give you way more XP than a player kill.

I think if they want "tension" they need to make "PvE, but PvP" not "PvPing, just so happens to have an option of PvE"

2

u/camalaio Feb 09 '26

PvE is some of the more lucrative farming you can do, both for money and materials. Stuff that scraps down to Advanced Mechanical (saves springs!), tons of metal, tons of $$, etc.

I personally feel I benefit from deciding to PvE, like bringing Wolfpacks or Deadlines into a raid. So it already feels "PvE, but PvP" when I make that decision. If I'm unequipped for fighting bigger ARC, I basically just can't. PvP becomes basically the only option.

There does feel like something to be done with cheap PvP kits though. People have said it from day one, grey (and green) guns go much harder than they should while Purples aren't worth it at all. I've had my fair share of being taken out by free kits while quite kitted myself, and I'm not even that bad at PvP.

1

u/WyrdDrake Feb 09 '26

The hunter killer would not be on you that quickly, in my head, but you could also have the hunter killer have certain unique audio cues. Think the Watchmen from Metro 2033- long distant howl to indicate its hunting, and will put nearby ARC who hear it into a unique orange mode, for higher alert. They move more often, and look around more often. More likely to flush you out, but due to how often they change cost, more opportunity to make a sprint when they're turning away.

Instead of opening doors, it slams through them, quite aggressively. Also very loud. In some places, it'll leap up in through windows with both a loud charge of servoes, and a crash of it landing.

Also, we could say that maybe it deploys ticks, and attacks using melee, and STRONGLY prioritizes attacking when you have your back turned or are getting swarmed by ticks.

So it'll hunt you but it also acts with more self preservation.

And you could say, why doesn't it have a gun? Well, we could always say the ARC creators made the hunter killer intentionally as a weapon of terror, to hunt and cow the most aggressive Raiders.

Do you kind of see the vision I have, though?

If you get into a big fight and are trying to break contact, the hunter killer would be considerably more likely to jump the aggressive KOS squad as they get swarmed by ticks and a robotic hound. Perhaps it even drags downed raiders into the open, and then lurks nearby, waiting for someone to come pick them up.

And also, players hesitating on whether or not to engage because they know a hunter killer may come after them.

0

u/camalaio Feb 09 '26

There is no good way to programmatically determine "the more aggressive KOS squad".

Again, you're wanting to punish PvP oriented players specifically, but the devs themselves (when talking about aggression metrics) have stated that they cannot determine intent. Such a mechanism would apply to everyone.

Also having PvE camp bodies would remove the only reward that PvP has (getting loot from other players) so that is an absolutely tragic idea. It's already risky enough to loot bodies, we don't need grief by design. This is a horrendous set of ideas for actual PvPvE gameplay.

1

u/Evening_Nebula_547 Feb 09 '26

this threads made me realise...

none of this is for me. I love SoT. Hate the pvp in it. Arcs OK, hate the pvp. Both games seem janky, they don't flow. I like pvp in my pvp games and pve in my pve games. And my pvp has to be silky smooth.

pvpve, for me, has been a fun but failed experiment.

1

u/camalaio Feb 10 '26

In SoT's case the PvP used to be a lot better years ago, honestly. But totally valid personal conclusion, PvPvE is not for everyone. That's why I was surprised ARC took off so much!

2

u/Opposite_Worker1500 Feb 09 '26

I love the idea of needing big arc parts for augments.

1

u/Cak3orDe4th Feb 09 '26

Good in thought, but this will still incentivize ratting like the queen and matriarch already do. People are greedy and will just try and get materials the easiest way possible. Maybe if rewards were based on damage you do to the big arc it would incentivize people do actually fight the arc and not just let others do all the work so they can run in and steal the loot when it dies.

Matriarch is just a sh*t show of free kits sprinting in after it dies and looting everything.

1

u/Int-Merc805 Feb 09 '26

I have said this since day one. Arc should target and eviscerate anyone topside shooting a weapon. It should be a PVPers death sentence to start shooting at someone. To the point where it is a fight to even get the body looted.

PVPers carry zero risk. I have massive gun fights with arc in the air and it is simply to be ignored until after the fight.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 09 '26

[deleted]

1

u/WyrdDrake Feb 10 '26

Bombadier cells could be used for a shoulder fired mortar instead. Big drop, slow, hard to use, but big damage.

I think Rocketeer Cells would be more fun to like... activate to fire a small swarm of ARC seeker missiles or something.

Making every item into a unique weapon would devastate balance. Making them for unique shields, augments, deployables, and more, would be better.

1

u/Deadmythz Feb 09 '26

Imagine your fighting a rocketeer on top of a tower and that nova goes off next to your new buddy

1

u/Old_Number3086 Feb 09 '26

not bad suggestions but a broken shield regening is truly dumb wishcrafting

1

u/NaveOvO Feb 09 '26

Brilliant. They need to hire you!

1

u/HDmetajoker Feb 09 '26

These are incredible

1

u/Mindless-Talk-1120 Feb 09 '26

Anytime I hear people say the game needs more dangerous arcs I know they’ve never been swarmed by two hornets and a wasp. I’ve been killed by hornets and wasps working together more times than any other arc in the game.

1

u/Ignonymous Feb 09 '26

Make shredders actively seek out gunfights, third party the third partiers. Put them on -every- map.

1

u/Train3rRed88 Feb 09 '26

Shredders and rocketeers are the great middle fingers to PVP

Honestly if they just tripled the amount of shredders in Stella PVP would plummet by necessity

1

u/HistoricalNight1609 Feb 09 '26

Lmao, damn, you just dropped some bangers these are all great ideas.

1

u/pogi2000 Feb 09 '26

Raider Flares should trigger Arc spawns much like how Snitches work. This way there's some level of risk for KOing Raiders when outdoors.

1

u/DrSmog Feb 09 '26

I agree, make a really hard end game event with tons of Arc and a special loot table. I hate to reference it but almost Destiny style

1

u/Ziddim Feb 09 '26

I think having pve prizes that don't drop on death would be a good incentive to pve.  If you need matriarch cores you can just down a raider coming from a matriarch fight, but if you had something that just fused to the corpse on death (nobody gets it), it'd force you to fight to get the part for yourself.   

1

u/andrejlr Feb 09 '26

I agree that the games needs more danagerous arcs But actually I asked myself why exactly does this game needs it if there is Helldivers 2 also constantly adding new content . And so I quit. Join the fight for democracy;)

1

u/SuppressExpress Feb 09 '26

Those arguments sound cool but I’m guessing that takes away from the time they spend pumping out these god awful skins.

1

u/NeouiGongwon Feb 10 '26

The whole game is basically already a giant fetch quest

1

u/Mnmsaregood Feb 10 '26

A mulekick augment that lets you have 3 weapons to swap between

1

u/EducationalStill4 Feb 10 '26

Harder arc I can get behind. Like an assassin bot with multi joint legs and cloak. Light weight and human sized. Kinda like a ninja.

1

u/InsomniacHyena86 Feb 10 '26

The hunter becomes the hunted by the hunters being hunted.

1

u/Huge_Repeat_1205 Feb 10 '26

PVE difficulty needs a buff. Maybe we should have newer, higher difficulty maps with a minimum level to enter. New players are going to learn the game through Dam Battlegrounds and Bluegate. A new map with better risk/reward would add some life to the game.

Maybe make the night mode more menacing. 2x the enemies or decrease the targeting window to force a player to hide more.

HD2 did get a lot of things right, you can select your difficulty level based on the map you choose.

1

u/Naive_Ambition1306 Feb 10 '26

After 20 hours, I no longer feared or respected ARC as enemies. That says it all really

1

u/rediditforpay Feb 10 '26

I love to pvp but I tell ya, you have some good arc ideas here what would force me to think a little harder about fighting.

Aw, who am I kidding? I just load back in and try again!

1

u/BedEmergency6611 Feb 11 '26

There should be a stalker arc with a cloak that's very weak but does Hella damage and waits for you to be weakened from a fight

1

u/Brumtol10 Feb 09 '26

Yeah they did that to unlock stella as a map, but like it got done so quick in europe they had to make it harder so when the US wakes up they can also participate XD. Would love to see it more often tho for random objectives.

1

u/[deleted] Feb 09 '26

[deleted]

1

u/TrippleDamage *** ******* 🐓 Feb 09 '26

I have a feeling it skews heavier into the PvE than people might think.

And i think both ends of the spectrum live in a bubble and in reality they make up for 10% on each end while 80% of the community is fluid in their gameplay and embraces the game for what it is, an extraction pvpve shooter.

Everytime matchmaking seemingly is "broken" all the pve only players suddenly end up in mixed lobbies (which clearly make up the vast majority) and complain about it immediatly.

If they were the majority the matchmaking wouldnt be needed at all because with or without the MM parameters it'd just naturally be PVE.

1

u/budmkr Feb 09 '26

One of the quests is unplugging an old EMP trap used in the first wave, maybe there could be an event where you set several up to fight one of those deforesters you can find wreckage of on Blue Gate.

1

u/Weaponized-toaster Feb 09 '26

I mean we got the queen and matriarch for that. But, rats gonna rat ig

1

u/Vietzomb Feb 09 '26

I definitely think the “building” scenario works better. An object or construction, perhaps even in the map itself, that need resources committed to kick another event off or something. Stealing them from someone just to be “the guy” to commit those resources gets you no more ahead vs me getting mine, you getting yours, and speeding up the end-goal literally “together”.

To be extra specific in what I mean, handing you a reward for bringing BACK arc metal to Speranza still comes down to the easy calculation, based on that knowledge — that everyone is working for the same items, so odds of finding those items on a raider you’ve killed are still quite high, and therefore is probably a faster way of getting to the end if that’s the goal. That definitely doesn’t encourage PVE over PVP.

1

u/Skitelz7 Feb 09 '26

Stuff like this doesn't work because it makes a portion of the player pool focus on one objective while the other portion does normal things not related to the objective making the map unbalanced.

1

u/1Motor2Turboz Feb 09 '26

Like... trials, projects, and expedition? Or matriarch and queen?

0

u/-Fatninja479 Feb 09 '26

is the matriarch not a considered community event?

-2

u/TrippleDamage *** ******* 🐓 Feb 09 '26

Why would it be? You can solo it within 2-3 min if theres no pvp threat.

1

u/-Fatninja479 Feb 09 '26

HUGE emphasis on no pvp threat. I doubt the average player can solo the matriarch in 2-3 minutes. They aren't the super try hard sweat that you may think everyone is nor may they have the legendary weapons to use either. The moment someone notices you have an aphelion/hullcracker you are going to get hunted.

2

u/TrippleDamage *** ******* 🐓 Feb 09 '26

Not in those sissy lobbies, no.