Arc Raiders

Cinge said:

Hmm anyone else with issues today? Sitting in matchmaking for 6+ minutes. Cant cancel. Have to close the game and re-launch.

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DDOS attacks

Lenas said:

DDOS attacks

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Someone took losing way to personally.

Tarrant said:

Thats extraction shooters for you. Or, at least, for those us of not used to playing them.

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My favorite for this was Synduality. It is an anime mecha extraction shooter from Bandai based on some franchise that had a tv show, books, models, etc, and they finally released the game. One of the big draws of the game is your copilot is an anime waifu (or husbando if thats your thing) that you get to dress up and she runs around your hangar and acts as an AI hologram and spotter mid sortie. More importantly for this story, if you bought the special edition you got a free copy of a higher 'blue' tier mech that was piloted by the lead character in the anime TV show.

It brought in all these anime weebs who loved the franchise but had never played an extraction shooter and clearly didn't read the 'Its a dangerous place, each time you go out someone can kill you and take your stuff' tag lines on the store page. Never bothered to look at what an extraction shooter is. Didn't even read the game description or tags. Nope. So they get into game, dress up their waifu and first sortie after the tutorial they are running around in their pimped out special edition mech smelling the flowers only to get brutally murdered for their shoes. From there it snowballs. The wolves now have hangars full of special edition mechs (which have better stats) and are just slaughtering all the players who have now lost everything and are in starter gear.

The weeping and gnashing of teeth was glorious. People calling for lawsuits for theft, petitioning the EU for violation of consumer practices. People reporting players steam accounts for 'cheating' after they were killed. It was hilarious, but the rush of review bombing pretty much torpedoed the game. It still exists, but much smaller and mostly just in Japan now. Perhaps even more amusing, is the 'special edition' mech is craftable in game once they got past 'green' tier quests. But that shock of their first brutal murder at the hands of a pvp'r broke most of the players.

Mao said:

My favorite for this was Synduality. It is an anime mecha extraction shooter from Bandai based on some franchise that had a tv show, books, models, etc, and they finally released the game. One of the big draws of the game is your copilot is an anime waifu (or husbando if thats your thing) that you get to dress up and she runs around your hangar and acts as an AI hologram and spotter mid sortie. More importantly for this story, if you bought the special edition you got a free copy of a higher 'blue' tier mech that was piloted by the lead character in the anime TV show.

It brought in all these anime weebs who loved the franchise but had never played an extraction shooter and clearly didn't read the 'Its a dangerous place, each time you go out someone can kill you and take your stuff' tag lines on the store page. Never bothered to look at what an extraction shooter is. Didn't even read the game description or tags. Nope. So they get into game, dress up their waifu and first sortie after the tutorial they are running around in their pimped out special edition mech smelling the flowers only to get brutally murdered for their shoes. From there it snowballs. The wolves now have hangars full of special edition mechs (which have better stats) and are just slaughtering all the players who have now lost everything and are in starter gear.

The weeping and gnashing of teeth was glorious. People calling for lawsuits for theft, petitioning the EU for violation of consumer practices. People reporting players steam accounts for 'cheating' after they were killed. It was hilarious, but the rush of review bombing pretty much torpedoed the game. It still exists, but much smaller and mostly just in Japan now. Perhaps even more amusing, is the 'special edition' mech is craftable in game once they got past 'green' tier quests. But that shock of their first brutal murder at the hands of a pvp'r broke most of the players.
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That's pretty goddamn funny and it's no surprise that Bandai would be the ones dumb enough to ruin the video game debut of whatever franchise you're talking about by making a game in one of the most off-putting genres in existence.

Mao said:

My favorite for this was Synduality. It is an anime mecha extraction shooter from Bandai based on some franchise that had a tv show, books, models, etc, and they finally released the game. One of the big draws of the game is your copilot is an anime waifu (or husbando if thats your thing) that you get to dress up and she runs around your hangar and acts as an AI hologram and spotter mid sortie. More importantly for this story, if you bought the special edition you got a free copy of a higher 'blue' tier mech that was piloted by the lead character in the anime TV show.

It brought in all these anime weebs who loved the franchise but had never played an extraction shooter and clearly didn't read the 'Its a dangerous place, each time you go out someone can kill you and take your stuff' tag lines on the store page. Never bothered to look at what an extraction shooter is. Didn't even read the game description or tags. Nope. So they get into game, dress up their waifu and first sortie after the tutorial they are running around in their pimped out special edition mech smelling the flowers only to get brutally murdered for their shoes. From there it snowballs. The wolves now have hangars full of special edition mechs (which have better stats) and are just slaughtering all the players who have now lost everything and are in starter gear.

The weeping and gnashing of teeth was glorious. People calling for lawsuits for theft, petitioning the EU for violation of consumer practices. People reporting players steam accounts for 'cheating' after they were killed. It was hilarious, but the rush of review bombing pretty much torpedoed the game. It still exists, but much smaller and mostly just in Japan now. Perhaps even more amusing, is the 'special edition' mech is craftable in game once they got past 'green' tier quests. But that shock of their first brutal murder at the hands of a pvp'r broke most of the players.
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Does sound like the fault of the kind of thin skinned faeries that are hyper weebs. Yknow ones that actually review the gameplay on steams embarassing amount of hentai games.

Synduality had issues. A lot of them actually. The game was released in a weird state. They had the game 'finished' but chose to slow roll maps and quests in stages to try and time gate content and gear with monthly unlocks or some shit. However the game economy was balanced around the full release so early on you had trouble farming higher rarity crafting components and blue gear was super valuable. Once the new map was opened all the materials became super easy to farm and all but the rarest of gear was pretty easy to replace. Bandai actually had a decent game in there somewhere, but the developers clearly had a 'vision' of how they thought things should go that was completely out of touch with how people actually play games.

That is one thing Arc Raiders is doing fairly well. It is super accessible to get into with the full free load out kits that you can use for questing and exploring at 'no risk' and so far grey and green weapons are sufficient for any fight I've done in current release. Greens, and even blues, are fairly easy to craft if you aren't losing your kit regularly and the most dangerous pvp setup I've found is when people ambush me with the Ferro/Stitcher combo. I do think this is going to lead to a later problem with uniqueness and in game practical preference on weapons and gear (why use expensive shit if the low tier is just as good in practice) but we're not to people rolling full epics yet, so we'll see.

But yeah. I have my issues with Arc Raiders, but it is very good at easing people in and letting them play a lot with low investment but still being effective at completing quests and getting shit done. The big test for this game will be player retention when the first season winds to a close and a 'new hotness' game releases that the streamers and all flock to.

Also. I have 2x Anvil BPs, 3x Bettina BPs, and a Torrente BP as spares if anyone wants them. Most all my friend group has them now and they're just sitting in my inventory cause I feel like selling them is wasteful if someone needs them.

Mao said:

Also. I have 2x Anvil BPs, 3x Bettina BPs, and a Torrente BP as spares if anyone wants them. Most all my friend group has them now and they're just sitting in my inventory cause I feel like selling them is wasteful if someone needs them.

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Those have to be relatively common because I found all of those, too. The only other blueprints I found were a glowstick and wolfpack grenade.

I genuinely hate that this game really does make me legitimately angry. The most fun I had was spawning in with the free loadout and giving zero fucks about whether I died. The crazy thing is, every time I went in with shit gear, everyone was cool as hell. One time we even had nearly 10 players in the Olive Grove helping each other find lemons.

...but as soon as I go in with 'good' gear, it's like I load in to the fucking up-side-down. Being completely stressed out every time I hear footsteps or see a human silhouette in the distance is not for me.

All I do is free loadout. Just mass farming exp, upgrading benches, doing quests etc. The only rough part I am having is the snitches. Because of free loadout setups are horrible at killing them before they fly into the sky and call for backup. Ferro is the only decent one, if you can hit the 3 lights under it fast enough before it flies up.

Grabbit Allworth said:

Those have to be relatively common because I found all of those, too. The only other blueprints I found were a glowstick and wolfpack grenade.

I genuinely hate that this game really does make me legitimately angry. The most fun I had was spawning in with the free loadout and giving zero fucks about whether I died. The crazy thing is, every time I went in with shit gear, everyone was cool as hell. One time we even had nearly 10 players in the Olive Grove helping each other find lemons.

...but as soon as I go in with 'good' gear, it's like I load in to the fucking up-side-down. Being completely stressed out every time I hear footsteps or see a human silhouette in the distance is not for me.

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Oddly, you have found the secret sauce but I don't think you realize it yet. Extraction shooters, imo, are all about risk management and kitting out for the mission. It feels counter intuitive to not use your best gear all the time cause 'well, if I get in a fight I want my best stuff.'

For me, its just rolling 'economical' for the mission I am doing. Is it questing or just looting? Go cheap to mid level kit. All the noise you are making opening boxes and running around, someone will most likely get the drop on you. The purples /might/ let you survive, but they have just as much odds to be new gear for the guy who ambushed you. Save the good stuff for when you are grouping up to pvp or hunt bosses and big arcs and when you are doing that don't fuck around looting all the trash. Do your mission, get the stuff you want and get out with your good gear and mission objective. Depending on mood, I either run free kit or the anvil and a set of heals/grenades. Anvil is a really good sweet spot imo for efficiency and value.

Extraction shooters are very much about risk management, tailoring yourself to what mission/goal you have for that sortie and keeping the odds as much in your favor as you can. I feel they are one of the few games that can get that twinge of adrenaline rush that you can get from some of the more extreme sports and activities, but its not for everyone.

Btw, I'll happily hop on discord any play with anyone that is interested. Though I am more a stealthy type, given past profession.

Finally, I have time to play and logged in, but it took a bit. I've been bogged down by work all weekend. I thought the game was doing a shader thing since it's the first time starting it up, but I guess the login servers are fubar. Bought the game for my son, and he was able to log in without much effort. We ran several games, and it's time for dinner. Not thinking, I close the game. He leaves his running. Guess who cannot get in now...

Took me like 10 minutes of staring at the splash screen to get in earlier but once I was in, didn't have any issues actually playing. Seems like they're just having to scale up servers, total population numbers are continuing to rise.

Cybsled said:

Just wait until the quest where you have to kill the giant Arc ball that rolls around. I did that on the desert map because it usually spawns in a remote area. Tossed 2 nades at it, it was damaged, then it runs away out of bounds at the edge of the map. I had to spend like 10 minutes trying to get it close enough so I could finish it off and loot it lol

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Fuck that ball twice on the 4th map is just ran out of bounds

Gavinmad said:

Also people who've already been slugging it out for 10-20 minutes or however long suddenly have to deal with completely fresh players. Like I don't know what damage and healing is like in Arc Raiders but in Tarkov you can't just heal yourself forever because your max health gets lowered, your armor gets damaged, etc.

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Gear degrades rather quickly. I lose 40-60% durability on shields after one drawn-out fight(I never repair past 60% anyways if it can be helped). I've looted bodies with broken and/or incredibly low durability, so it's hard to refresh.. they're also heavy, so choosing to continue fighting while carrying other peoples weapon and gear just isn't really in the picture; you're focused on leaving at that point. I'm almost certain loot respawns, but maybe in 15mins? Only evidence I have of this is on spaceport, I arrived around the 22min mark and on my way out.. the viewing area w/ the double barricaded door was breached, but all the loot was still in there, would be surprised someone leaving a blue shield, wolfpack, and silencer 2 blueprint; but I guess it's possible. I exited with 3mins or so to spare, was doing the task that has you run from one side of the map to the other for a lidar camera iirc.

Games are also far shorter; maybe 10-15 mins average, with one to two pvp engagements + loot + quest.. multiple extracts, so it's easier to get out or not deal with funneled areas with extract campers. No one shot mechanic; it's both tragic and a blessing. Tarkov you can rock the best shit, get one tapped.. here, I feel like the gear really isn't indicative of "instant winning." I almost strictly run Ferro and a sidearm for any given task/quest and have no problem against other high-end gear; outside of like disrespecting advantage/disadvantages. If they break in one hit, they're green, if they don't.. they're blue. Most of my "losses" are never aim fights.. it's just getting overwhelmed by multiple people pushing, them letting one go down while the other two clean up.

The game is pretty easy if you just abuse mechanics, esp the third-person aspect.. and prioritize hard engages off of being up one. Hit and run tactics, and battle of attrition go a long way.. most people will get hit by a ferro, and question all their life decisions and if you choose to aggress because you know you're up one, or use it to disengage to re-engage on your own terms you'll win way more fights. A lot of people have cod brain rot, so they'll just constantly chase/charge at you. A variety of nades is where I think the biggest play is. Absolutely fucked people calling over the rockeeter. Even used the snitch sensor to drop an extra 4 bots on the field.

Cybsled said:

Just wait until the quest where you have to kill the giant Arc ball that rolls around. I did that on the desert map because it usually spawns in a remote area. Tossed 2 nades at it, it was damaged, then it runs away out of bounds at the edge of the map. I had to spend like 10 minutes trying to get it close enough so I could finish it off and loot it lol

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Showstoppers make it really easy.. but as a solo, iuno. Seems like it'd still be as annoying unless you had a showstopper+2 or more trigger nades. A friend of mine wolfpack'd one, which was pretty lol.

This is my first extraction shooter ever. I wouldn't say I am very good at PvP games any more and I did not play the beta.

I'm really enjoying the game. I've had a good balance of experiences: teaming up with people organically, extracting together, getting ass-raped by traitors, killing some people in straight-up fights, and getting the drop on people to murder them. I never know quite what to expect. Its fun and always feels tense.

I was originally very concerned about losing my gear but now I load-out more judiciously and take what comes - extracting early if I feel like I am benefiting overall.

Good game and awesome sound design.