ARC Raiders, with its exquisite production, stable performance, and unique gameplay, has set an impressive benchmark in Extraction-Shooter genre, winning widespread acclaim from players and critics alike.
However, like any newly developed game, it is not perfect. While immersed in the adventures of Speranza, the player community has also clearly pointed out many pain points to be addressed and areas for expansion.
Below are ten major shortcomings summarized by IGGM based on player feedback. If the developers improve these aspects, it will greatly enhance the overall game experience and extend the game’s lifespan.
1. Defibrillator Design Imbalance
Among the game’s rich system of healing and shielding items, Defibrillator is currently considered one of the most useless ARC Raiders items. Its function is limited to slightly speeding up the revival of downed teammates, with negligible effect in the fast-paced, intense team battles.
Players are strongly urging that not only should the rescue speed be significantly increased, but the ability to self-revive while downed should also be granted in single-player mode. Of course, introducing a self-revival mechanism requires balancing risks, such as the possibility of still being permanently killed during this period.
Only through significant enhancements can this item escape its fate of being relegated to storage and become a strategic choice that players are willing to keep in their quick access slots.
2. Lack Of Temporary Team-Up Functionality
The world of ARC Raiders is full of unpredictable player encounters, but currently, player interactions are mainly limited to brief emote exchanges or direct hostile conflicts.
The community generally hopes to introduce a formal temporary team-up function, allowing different squads to form alliances in the world to tackle challenging objectives such as Queen or the newly added Matriarch, or to cooperate in completing difficult tasks.
While this requires careful consideration of potential balance issues, such as multiplayer teams overwhelming solo players, given the current positive community atmosphere, this feature would greatly enrich the game’s social dimension and create more fun gameplay moments.
3. Limited Character Appearance Customization
In ARC Raiders, while there is a wide variety of thoughtfully designed clothing and accessories available, players are restricted from mixing and matching pieces from different sets. This limitation prevents the creation of unique and personalized outfits, resulting in a more uniform appearance for characters across the game.
A deep customization system is a key driver of player interest and community vitality. Removing this restriction on appearance customization, allowing players to freely create using existing assets, has virtually no drawbacks and can greatly enhance player sense of belonging and satisfaction.
4. Monotonous Finishing Move Animations
Currently, the game only offers one finishing move animation: knocking down an enemy with a punch. This is far too monotonous for a third-person shooter that emphasizes action and style. Players, especially those hunters who enjoy PvP, crave more diverse and visually impactful finishing moves.
While developing such animations is costly and requires careful balancing of execution time to avoid controversies about pay-to-win or exploit advantages, releasing them as purely cosmetic content would undoubtedly be an effective way to enrich combat highlights and enhance player kill feedback.
5. Insufficient Lighting In Darker Map Areas
Visibility in some abandoned underground facilities in Pre-Collapse Era and certain areas of the night map is frustratingly low. Darkness not only obscures environmental details but also makes it difficult for players to anticipate ARC enemy ambushes and surprise attacks, leading to numerous non-technical deaths.
While flashlights are standard equipment, their limited range and brightness are insufficient to address the root cause. Improving natural lighting in key areas, such as making moonlight or light filtering through crevices more believable, or adding ARC Raiders items that sufficiently illuminate the entire area, are necessary measures to reduce unnecessary frustration and enhance the smoothness of the gameplay experience.
Limited Ammunition Supply
Ammunition is the core resource for maintaining a player’s sustained combat capability, but there is a significant gap between its consumption rate and replenishment methods. While players can craft various tactical items in-game using In-Round Crafting skill or later Traveling Tinkerer skill, they cannot craft the most basic ammunition.
This forces players to rely excessively on fixed Supply Drops and Raider Caches on the map, sometimes even leading to desperate situations where they run out of ammunition. At this point, you might think of using high-level weapons that can deal perfect damage without needing a lot of ammunition, but the chance of obtaining them is just too low.
Unfortunately, the developers aren’t going to change the item drop rate anytime soon. So, we recommend that you buy ARC Raiders items suitable for your current situation, including weapons, attachments, and ammunition, which will make your entire looting process much smoother.
Not only that, players are very much hoping for an in-game ammunition crafting system that requires waiting time, such as the operating mechanism of Field Crates, would give players more flexible resource control capabilities while avoiding disrupting the existing game balance.
7. Poor Performance Of Zipline
As a tactical item that requires careful crafting in Utility Workbench, the zipline’s actual performance is disappointing.
Firstly, its deployment speed is slow, making rapid relocation impossible in crucial moments, and the speed boost during use is minimal, lacking the expected exhilaration when sliding down from a height. Furthermore, it cannot be retrieved after use, and the noise it generates easily reveals the user’s location.
These issues collectively result in its tactical value being far lower than its crafting cost and inventory space occupied. Comprehensive optimization of the zipline’s deployment speed, movement efficiency, and noise control is a prerequisite for making it a worthwhile and practical item.
8. Limited Anti-Camping Measures
In ARC Raiders, camping near Extraction Elevators has become one of the most controversial tactics in the game.
A particularly disadvantageous mechanic is that even if a player successfully activates an Elevator, their corpse and supplies remain inside, allowing campers to easily reap the rewards at the end of the round without any search risk.
Current countermeasures, such as Smoke Grenades, are ineffective against experienced Snipers. The game urgently needs to introduce more diverse counter-equipment, such as movable riot shields or a shield overload mechanism to prevent one-hit kills, to reshape the dynamic balance between attackers and defenders at extraction points.
9. Ineffective Matchmaking System
ARC Raiders’ current matchmaking system seems to fail to effectively differentiate between players’ gear levels and experience, resulting in new players frequently encountering players with top-tier gear.
This significant skill gap severely undermines the game’s fair competitive environment, making the initial experience extremely difficult for new players. Establishing a dedicated queue based on equipment scores is the cornerstone of maintaining a healthy game ecosystem and ensuring enjoyment for all players. It’s also a fundamental means of curbing cheating and malicious camping players that disrupt the overall experience.
10. Lack Of Support For Spontaneous Justice
A group of players has spontaneously emerged in the community, acting as Sheriffs of Topside, actively hunting down malicious players who enjoy bullying newcomers. This spontaneous act of justice is a sign of a healthy community, but the game lacks a formal system to support it.
Introducing a bounty and revenge mechanism, allowing players to place bounties for criminals or accept hunting missions, would make this spontaneous behavior more engaging, giving PvP interactions a deeper role-playing meaning and a community-oriented goal.
Undoubtedly, ARC Raiders possesses an incredibly solid core framework, and its future potential is immensely promising. However, from the balance of key items and the depth of social and customization features to environment design, matchmaking fairness, and the construction of advanced gameplay systems, the developers still face a long list of improvements.
Actively and continuously listening to the community’s voice, and making decisive and efficient optimizations to address these shortcomings, will be key to whether this masterpiece can transform its huge initial success into lasting appeal.
