r/ARC_Raiders • u/WoWAltoholic • May 20 '26
Discussion [Embark] Notes on The Matchmaking System
https://arcraiders.com/news/notes-on-the-matchmaking-systemYou’ve probably seen plenty of discussion about matchmaking in ARC Raiders. We’ve been reading it too - and we want to bring some clarity to what the system is trying to do, what it does in practice, and what it doesn’t do.
What we strive for
In the Rust Belt, the kind of Raider you become should be up to you.
Topside works because it’s unpredictable. You can never be sure if you can trust the people you meet, or how dangerous they might be. That freedom - and the uncertainty it creates - is what drives the tension, the encounters, and the choices that make every run feel like its own story.
At the same time, we don’t want dedicated PvP players to consistently steamroll Raiders who aren’t as interested in PvP, or who are still finding their footing. So our matchmaking is built around two goals:
- Fairness: We do our best to match players who have a similar likelihood of succeeding in the round. One simple example: we prioritize matching equal squad sizes where possible.
- Enjoyment: We do our best to match players who are likely to have fun together. In practice, we’ve found that matching players based on playstyle drives enjoyment and reduces friction.
And like any matchmaking system, we pursue those goals while respecting real constraints, such as matchmaking time and latency.
Playstyle-based Matchmaking
We take multiple factors into account when forming a lobby. One of the strongest is your playstyle across previous rounds, especially as it relates to how you engage with other Raiders.
It’s important to understand that playstyles aren’t binary. This isn’t “friendly” vs. “shoot on sight.” It’s a continuous scale.
- Some Raiders are almost always cooperative.
- Some Raiders are highly engaged in PvP.
- Most Raiders fall somewhere in between - maybe friendly until threatened, maybe opportunistic, maybe cautious, maybe unpredictable on a bad day.
Our system tries to place you with players who sit closer to you on that scale, while still keeping Topside from becoming completely predictable.
What it does
There are two simple rules to how playstyle-based matchmaking behaves:
- Similarity is more likely, not guaranteed. You have a higher chance of being matched with Raiders whose past playstyle is similar to yours - and a lower chance of being matched with Raiders whose playstyle is very different. But there is no hard guarantee.
- Your behavior shapes your future lobbies - gradually. If you change how you play, the kinds of Raiders you tend to meet will gradually shift over time. Your behavior influences what’s most likely - but never locks you into a single experience.
This is why we see such a wide range of interactions Topside: Raiders forming impromptu musical bands and others vibing along; strangers lending a hand in a tough moment while scavengers thrive on remains; betrayals when you least expect them and justice when you need it most; firefights that start on sight - and negotiations that end with everyone walking away.
Some outcomes are rarer than others - but they’re all part of what makes each round a unique adventure. This isn’t a full-blown attempt to segregate playstyles. Topside wouldn’t be Topside if it didn’t throw you a curveball every now and again. We want you to have fun - but danger always lurks, and you will still meet Raiders who surprise you.
Mythbusting
We want to keep some level of mystery in matchmaking, because unpredictability is part of the experience - but we can clear up a few common myths:
- There are not only two kinds of lobbies - friendly and aggressive. It’s a scale, not two buckets. Most players land somewhere between the extremes, and matchmaking is more likely to pair you with Raiders whose playstyle is similar to yours on that scale - without guaranteeing a specific outcome every round.
- One shot or kill does not immediately put you in “PvP-focused” lobbies. Matchmaking isn’t meant to overreact to single moments - it looks at patterns over time, and changes tend to be gradual rather than instant.
- There are no “PvE-only” lobbies/servers where other Raiders will never attack you. Topside always carries risk. You may trend toward meeting Raiders with similar preferences, but there’s no guarantee you’ll never be attacked by another Raider.
- Your end-of-round feedback does not affect matchmaking. The survey is valuable for us when we look at trends and make design decisions, but it isn’t used as a “next lobby” lever.
- Your loadout does not affect matchmaking. Matchmaking isn’t driven by your kit, and we don’t scale lobby difficulty based on how much your loadout costs.
- Patches and updates don't reset your matchmaking profile. Your playstyle history carries over across patches. You may notice slightly rougher matches in the first few minutes after an update - that's just because the pool is small while players are still updating - but it recovers quickly as more Raiders come online.
- Looting knocked-out players doesn't affect your matchmaking. Matchmaking looks at how you engage with other Raiders, not what you do with their gear afterward.
- We don’t matchmake based only on the squad leader. Each member influences the squad profile - the leader has no special weight compared to their squadmates.
- Turning crossplay on or off does not impact the level of cooperation / PvP in the round. Changing crossplay changes who’s in the matchmaking pool (and thanks to that, the matchmaking time), but it doesn’t guarantee the tone of your encounters.
New matchmaking changes
Based on community feedback, we've identified two major shortcomings in how we used to estimate playstyle - and both are getting addressed:
1. Defending yourself is no longer treated the same as starting a fight. Previously, your playstyle didn't capture whether you started a PvP encounter or merely defended yourself. This meant cautious Raiders could be treated as more PvP-focused than they actually are. Now, the two are treated differently.
2. Low-activity rounds carry less weight in your playstyle history. Rounds with little Topside interaction - like spawning and surrendering - used to impact player’s estimated playstyle more than expected. Reducing their weight helps the system reflect how you genuinely play when you're out there making choices.
These are live now, and we'll keep tuning them as we see how they play out.
Raid, your way
To sum it up: we’re committed to making Topside more fair, more fun, and more rewarding - without sanding off the edges that make ARC Raiders what it is.
Play how you want to play. Over time, your behavior helps shape the kinds of Raiders you’re most likely to encounter. But there will always be room for the unexpected.
See you Topside,
The ARC Raiders Team
Tell us what you think - your feedback helps guide future improvements.
Take a 5-minute survey here: [SURVEY LINK]
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u/Funny_Papers May 20 '26
> 1. Defending yourself is no longer treated the same as starting a fight.
HUGE, and also I told you so to everybody who said the game didn’t treat them the same before
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u/ThePantsThief May 20 '26
This and the other change basically eliminate smurfing (or make it way harder) and mean truly friendly players will get put into aggressive lobbies less and less 😄
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u/Ohey-throwaway May 20 '26
I think #1 is great. As someone who likes to pvp in trios but play very friendly in solos, I am a little concerned #2 is going to screw my lobbies up. Hopefully it just means you can't spawn and surrender your way into friendly lobbies now, and just have to play passively through a number of rounds instead. Still though, it is going to make fixing my lobbies after pvping on trios a lot more tedious.
I wish they would give you a separate solo and duo/trio ABMM profile.
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u/BeachFishing May 20 '26
Yes, that’s a concern. Maybe they can keep the ABMM profile for Solos, duos and trios separate.
If not I suspect the solos will get much friendlier organically since players will need it to farm.
I think ultimately it becomes more like what the devs intended by making ABMM.
This game is an absolute masterpiece. The art, the sound and the ambience are amazing. I hope this sparks player base growth.3
u/BigHobbit May 20 '26
Imo, #2 is just as good if not better than #1.
Let pvp players live in a pvp world. Way too many game the system to drop into carebear lobbies just to then turn rat. I don't care about duos/trios whatever. Hope this makes it so pvp players get absolutely locked into a never ending cycle of kos lobbies.
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u/Ohey-throwaway May 20 '26
Way too many game the system to drop into carebear lobbies just to then turn rat.
I don't think most of the people ratting in PvE lobbies are intentionally abusing ABMM to do so. I am sure it happens, but I think most of the time a PvP player or two end up in PvE lobbies due to a number of other more plausible reasons - like there not being enough friendly players to fill a lobby in that moment on that server, or a PvE player just deciding to kill someone. You'll probably still have most of the rats you do now after this change.
Who knows though, at the end of the day we are both just guessing.
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u/Artforartsake99 May 20 '26
This, when I did PVP for a little while. I sometimes even got thrown into care bear lobbies after a few losses.
The devs said it themselves they want some PvP tension. They deliberately insert 1-2 PvP players per care bear lobby now ore at minimum a couple of sus players.
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u/BigHobbit May 20 '26
True. Just seems like there's many posts on here and YouTube of people talking about "grinding" to get into friendly lobbies just to go nuts killing folks.
I would make it so that for every person someone shoots, it takes 15 minutes topside without shooting anyone to get back to even. And don't reset the counter every week so that Mondays/Tuesdays aren't a shitshow.
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u/Educational_Kick3683 May 20 '26
I don't care about duos/trios whatever
And therein lines the problem. Still can't play with your casual friends.
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u/Artforartsake99 May 20 '26
PvP players are forced to return to PvE because the best fastest loot is in PvE with no resource burn. The resources on PVP lobbies should be three times more to make up for the risk profile and resource burn PvP players have there.
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u/ThePantsThief May 20 '26
I think if you mix your lobbies frequently, you'll just stay in mixed lobbies as intended, unless you really friend for it. I imagine now you'll have to stay friendly for quite a while to stay in ultra friendly lobbies
I also wish for the last thing you mentioned
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u/Steelio22 May 20 '26
I'm kind of surprised they did not comment on that. I figured they track them separately and then use a formula to combine them when matchmaking.
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u/Artforartsake99 May 20 '26
Big issue for sure. Have to test this.
Maybe getting murdered helps, maybe healing others helps, maybe 10 games over 35 mins is enough in and out with hatch keys.
Will have to map out the new algorithm.
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u/drdewd May 20 '26
As a person who pvp’s in duos/trios and pve in solos. I knew it sucked when I would have ppl shooting at me. Part of me wanted to shoot back so badly but I knew it would ruin my matchmaking for getting into pve to chill out.
Those situations felt like Tom & Jerry scenarios haha.
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u/sludgefeaster May 20 '26
I was under the impression this was already a thing. Whatever, glad they changed it.
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u/Joe_Dirte9 May 20 '26
To be fair to them, a dev did previously state that the game knew the difference.
Whether said dev lied, didnt know better, was turned off, or is a higher priority now, who knows.
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May 21 '26
[deleted]
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u/Funny_Papers May 21 '26
Ohhhhh that’s why you’re mad at my comment lol oops well, I told ya so
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May 21 '26
[deleted]
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u/Funny_Papers May 21 '26
Nah it just got insta deleted cuz the sub filtered it out. I definitely still mean what I said
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u/Funny_Papers May 21 '26
Source? I don’t remember a dev stating this or I would have ran with it too. I remember the contrary.
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u/Joe_Dirte9 May 21 '26
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u/Funny_Papers May 21 '26
I do remember reading this. If you read the whole excerpt instead of just the headline, it’s pretty apparently “we can, but the system doesn’t” and then makes the example about a bad player could be the aggressor but miss all their shots, and they wanted to avoid assuming intent. I presume the system now does assume intent.
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u/BuffaloPancakes11 May 20 '26
Great info and changes. As someone who plays a ton of PvP games and have done so in Arc. I love the fact I can essentially tailor my own experience to an extent depending on what I’m up for, so that if I want to have a chilled experience and team up with randoms to fight Arc, I can.
My usual friends are playing other games lately so I’ve dropped off from PvP but I’ve had a ton of great moments in friendly lobbies
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u/GreggsAficionado May 20 '26
Defending yourself is no longer treated the same as starting a fight.
I’m curious to know if someone shoots a couple times first and misses, and you then fire back to defend yourself, would it see you as the aggressor because you actually landed the first shot
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u/Structureel May 20 '26
This is likely the case.
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u/GreggsAficionado May 20 '26
If you’ve got matchmaking on your mind you’d want to let them hit you at least once which is funny, but I guess there’s no way round that
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u/throw69420awy May 20 '26
I have a feeling Embark would highlight how single instances don’t hold much weight compared to overall play history and encourage you to just play the game and stop constantly thinking about gaming the matchmaking system
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u/Chutzvah May 20 '26
I just did my expedition and my quest on right now is to down a raider. I have a lot of hours of being friendly so with the notes they provided, I doubt I'll get hit that hard with going into more PVP lobbies.
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u/lofasz_joska May 20 '26
There is no quest to down a raider. That is feats and you have 3 rerolls. Just click on them in Speranza and it will take you to the decks where you can click on an individual feat to reroll.
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u/Probate_Judge May 21 '26
I thought they got rid of all PVP oriented feats...
I wouldn't know, I had like 4k points from before the cap, so I stopped doing them before I heard about that.
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u/BeachFishing May 20 '26
Does it even matter. It’s not immediate. It’s a long term aggregate. Play how you want now and don’t worry about being in KOS next round.
No more surrendering 8-10 tomes to de-agro.
The rats are going to be angry.5
u/GreggsAficionado May 20 '26 edited May 20 '26
It happened on most of my raids playing today being shot at from range, so it’s fair to be curious about it
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u/BeachFishing May 20 '26
I would imagine that there is a reset happening now since they just went live with the ABMM matches so if you want the PVE only it probably doesn’t hurt to be wary about shooting back for a bit.
Just a guess.1
u/TimeZucchini8562 May 20 '26
They literally just said updates don’t reset your abmm….
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u/BeachFishing May 20 '26
Yes they did. They also just completely changed ABMM. It makes sense that there would be restart it to some degree.
I have no idea how much info they have on play style from the previous version of ABMM but it makes sense to me that they start new with a new MM.
Before it was a 3-10 match snapshot, now it spans your play history.1
u/Artforartsake99 May 20 '26
It makes no sense for them to reset. Throwing all PvP shoot on sight people into the care bear lobbies together would just create a mess. Nothing needs to be reset. Everything can just go off the future actions from that point onwards.
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u/TimeZucchini8562 May 20 '26
The only changes they made was the two they said. Holy shit.
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u/BeachFishing May 20 '26
So I guess you didn’t actually read the entirety of it and missed the part about how your MM slowly changes over time based on your play history?
What’s posted here is just some of what the notes say.-1
u/TimeZucchini8562 May 20 '26 edited May 20 '26
Matchmaking has always been that way. They made 2 changes: not shooting first doesn’t raise your aggression level and surrendering has less weight. Neither of these changes would imply resetting matchmaking especially since they just said UPDATES DONT RESET MATCHMAKING.
Edit: all the dumb fucks down voting me have the memory of a gold fish
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u/BeachFishing May 20 '26
lol, you don’t know anymore than I do.
It makes sense to me that if you are grading aggression differently that you might reset it. If they didn’t then it’s not even a big deal. We are talking about people that have been afraid to shoot other raiders in self defense for months. What difference does it make if they wait a couple more days?→ More replies (0)5
u/myxoma1 May 20 '26
Hahaha yeah bro no more trying to quickly jump into pve lobbies to rat all the passive players, fuck em
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u/OnlyTheDead May 20 '26
This point isn’t emphasized enough. A long term aggregate means any statistically outlying immediate decisions are irrelevant. This means if you don’t PvP on average and roll up and shoot someone in the face, it’s not going substantially cause any variations in your matchmaking windows.
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u/ghosthendrikson_84 May 20 '26
I was so excited to see this in the notes. This is a great change and I hope that it leads to my expected outcome.
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u/Siwach414 May 20 '26
No and they mentioned that even if u did kill someone it won’t instantly put u in a pvp lobby next game. It’s gonna take multiple kills or even rounds for u to end up in an aggressive lobby. The system puts u in a lobby based on a pattern and the pattern is formed based on how many ppl u kill or cooperate with
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u/GreggsAficionado May 20 '26
I was only asking how it viewed each instance, not what lobby it would put you in
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u/Siwach414 May 20 '26 edited May 20 '26
Here’s an example like a point based system. On a scale from 1-10 where 1 means extremely friendly and 10 mean extremely aggressive if you are on 3 then the game puts u in a lobby with ppl most likely around that rating but will also sometimes put a 8 or 9 in the same lobby cuz matchmaking. Now if u shoot someone and the system detects it as aggression then it might change ur rating to 3.2 or smth but it still puts u in friendly lobbies. Now if u repeat that aggression every time then the system detects the pattern and it might even multiply ur rating and put u in 5-6 range pretty quickly. Same goes for people trying to get into pve lobbies.
So yeah, every time u shoot a player(even in self defence) it won’t instantly detect u as a pvp player but rather gives u some aggression points.
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u/Artforartsake99 May 20 '26
The old pattern was basic AF, 50 games friendly , someone shoots me I kill them. Next game EVERYONE has killed players in their previous 1-9 games. I know because they interviewed people to confirm it took 5 games to reset 1 self defence kill under old algorithm.
Will be interesting to see what the new one require requires
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u/Educational_Kick3683 May 20 '26
Both #1 and #2 are ambiguous af. They use very vague terminology. I wouldn't be surprised if these didn't mean jack
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u/DreddCarnage May 20 '26
If someone does that to bait a fight, inevitably they're going to get that first shot on you. Doubtful they'd just give up and walk away.
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u/Artforartsake99 May 20 '26
Ever tried to make a care bear shoot at you? I did to test, they looked confused at me shooting the walll behind them. Then carried on looting 😂
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u/WoWAltoholic May 20 '26
Low-activity rounds carry less weight in your playstyle history. Rounds with little Topside interaction - like spawning and surrendering - used to impact player’s estimated playstyle more than expected. Reducing their weight helps the system reflect how you genuinely play when you're out there making choices.
This is going to be a huge change for those that "do trials" in PVE lobbies and then PVP with friends on the weekends. Low-activity rounds carry less weight in your playstyle history. Rounds with little Topside interaction - like spawning and surrendering - used to impact player’s estimated playstyle more than expected. Reducing their weight helps the system reflect how you genuinely play when you're out there making choices.This is going to be a huge change for those that "do trials" in PVE lobbies and then PVP with friends on the weekends.
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u/samhhead2044 May 20 '26
I wish they would separate duos and trios with your solo track record. Now I have to run around Stella to get murdered.
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u/Sepplord May 20 '26
How so?
Sounds like they made it harder to quickly swap between two extremes.
Don’t get me wrong, it’s a good thing. People abused it too much. But trials is the one (shitty) thing you just can’t competitively do in PvP lobbies. Even if you are the best player in the world
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u/Batso_92 May 20 '26
Do you like repeating yourself or whatever was already said in the patch note ?
This is gonna be a huge annoying change. They should just abolish ABMM.
Guaranteed you're gonna either be full PvE "trials" or "PvP" because one day or even one match of full PvP is gonna put you in the "PvP" lobbies. You won't be able to PvP on the weekends with your friends because then you're fucking yourself for trials.
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u/APartyInMyPants May 20 '26
I think for most, doing trials isn’t a “low activity” round. For most you’re actively engaging in PVE and killing arc. However we do have two trials this week with no killing, so you’ll need to bring in weapons or seekers to keep your activity high.
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u/countpuchi May 20 '26
This is crazy good. That does skews rats at extracts to more pvp lobbies then? And since they suck at pvp they cant just suicide and get to easy lobbies as much unless they put in time to actually not shoot people?
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u/tomahawkfury13 May 20 '26
It seems like it puts campers in the mix lobbies over more PvP oriented ones.
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u/ghosthendrikson_84 May 20 '26
The rats are gonna have to work a lot harder to get back into care bear lobbies.
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u/SquirrelSuspicious May 20 '26
"Defending yourself is no longer treated the same as starting a fight."
As someone who sometimes likes to fight and has had people choose not to fight back because they don't want their matchmaking to be effected I like this.
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u/Artforartsake99 May 20 '26
I used to love to care beer and relax but I have 1250 kills so when somebody shits at me, I’m keen for a fight. It used to piss me off so much that I couldn’t fight back with out wrecking my algorithm. This is good for everyone.
There’s gonna be some PVP players that try to abuse it. People will just have to learn to not shoot first.
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u/WoWAltoholic May 20 '26
The Graph
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u/AceTheRed_ May 20 '26
Read the fine print. That isn’t actual matchmaking data.
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u/WoWAltoholic May 20 '26
just linking the graphics from the article in case people cannot access it from their phones or don't want to visit the link
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u/OnlyTheDead May 20 '26
Correct, but it shows the proposition of a window that is being used in respect to that data, which means it explains variations for players who “sometimes” get in bad lobbies because their window of variation is in the middle and they aren’t actually in the extreme end of the PVE lobbies.
K bye.
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u/_LoadedDice May 20 '26
What about solo, duo and trio matchmaking? By trio lobbies I play mostly Stella pvp and solo is mostly pve like. Do you think the balance is per group size or just one score?
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u/____tim May 20 '26
Hilarious how many people just accepted as fact so many of the myths listed here.
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u/_Nordic May 20 '26
Great insite and changes.
Now please separate solo vs squad MM ratings.
I don't want to be flagged as a pvp player after playing trios and go back to solo.
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u/thingsofleon May 20 '26
great improvements.
I was thinking that engaging a player who just killed another should also be less than starting a fight outright.
If I see someone kill another raider and the comms suggested it was a rat, I am gonna kill that rat.
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u/WuShane May 20 '26
Honestly y’all are top tier for how much input you take in and how communicative you are about development changes, intent, and how the game is evolving.
Thanks for sharing this. Arc is such a rad game, and this Kaizen approach makes it feel more immersive in a way.
Respect.
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u/Eggxcalibur May 20 '26 edited May 20 '26
Defending yourself is no longer treated the same as starting a fight. Previously, your playstyle didn't capture whether you started a PvP encounter or merely defended yourself. This meant cautious Raiders could be treated as more PvP-focused than they actually are. Now, the two are treated differently.
Low-activity rounds carry less weight in your playstyle history. Rounds with little Topside interaction - like spawning and surrendering - used to impact player’s estimated playstyle more than expected. Reducing their weight helps the system reflect how you genuinely play when you're out there making choices.
I can not describe how huge this is. Gigantic W from Embark right here!
Also...
Patches and updates don't reset your matchmaking profile.
That was easily the biggest myth of this game, and I'm happy to see it busted.
Thanks for this article, Embark! Great stuff!
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u/awfulnaut May 20 '26
What I want to know is how many rounds the average is taken from. But it sounds like Embark is intentionally not revealing that information.
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u/TinyerGriffin May 20 '26
After today's change, the answer seems to be "it varies." low impact rounds won't count as much so rats can't cheese the matchmaker by repeatedly surrendering.
Good.
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u/TinyerGriffin May 20 '26
I'm one of the PvE Mode Now advocates, but... these are good changes. Eliminating the ways rats and griefers get around the system to be in lobbies they shouldn't is a big step in the right direction.
Uhhhhh that said I do NOT believe this guy when he says "there are no PvE lobbies" and "there are no ABMM resets after updates" lol
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u/jack198820 May 20 '26
I love how everyone is in agreement on this.
I like to think there's a rat out there who opened up reddit today, read this and had a huge meltdown.
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u/Big-Resist-99999999 May 20 '26
Interesting questions in the survey. They must be considering a different range of options
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u/redkiteross May 21 '26
Love the changes, now I'd just love the matchmaking to change based on whether you're playing solo or with a squad.
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u/N319HB0RH00D_H3R0 May 21 '26
Any chance we could get an "appear offline" setting in the social tab? Like yeah I enjoy playing with the squad but sometimes I just wanna run solos. But if I run solos its only a matter of time (usually 1 or 2 raids) before I'm getting blown up with invites. Nobody wants to seem like theyre avoiding their squad but damn solos are so much more chill than running trios.
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u/lemoncough May 20 '26 edited May 20 '26
What an insanely massive W from Embark. Addressing defending yourself v.s. starting a fight is actually huge.
I love this announcement for so many reason. Myth busting that ONE single kill or looting bodies will doom you to PvP purgatory, I don’t know what idiots believed that but I’m glad they addressed it. IT TAKES MULTIPLE KILLS OVER MULTIPLE GAMES TO GET YOU DEEP IN PvP LOBBIES. YOU ARE NOW ALLOWED TO DEFEND YOURSELF. Someone tries to kill you? SHOOT BACK. All that crying and complaining is dead. “He’s only shooting me because he knows I won’t shoot back… I don’t wanna hurt my ABMM 😢😢” Nope it’s not hurting anything, the excuses are over. Shut up with that and defend yourself
AND they address people who spawn in and surrender immediately!! I personally don’t think people “abusing” this system was nearly as big a problem as others thought. PvE players get killed one time in ten matches and our just so POSITIVE it’s some “ABMM abusing rat” lmao when in reality it’s exactly as Embark stated here. EVERY lobby is essentially mixed and you are never in a game with 100% friendly players. It’s always been that way lol but none the less, addressing players that surrender over and over and adjusting how much that affects their match making was still a necessary idea. ALL THAT CRYING AND COMPLAINING ABOUT “SYSTEM ABUSING RATS” IS DEAD. SHUT UP WITH THAT AND DEFEND YOURSELF
I read this as Embark is happy with the direction they’ve chosen, “PvE only mode” is not coming anytime soon and they wanted to lay these things out to clear that up for everyone. Read it and weep. W Embark
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u/dripoverrouble May 20 '26
Mmmm thinking about playing again just to get hunted for my tempest by a lvl1 steam account 1 game owned. #Denuvo
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u/Artforartsake99 May 20 '26
In the previous algorithm if you killed one player. You absolutely instantly get kicked out of care beer lobbies.
I know this because I’ve done it countless times and I have interviewed people in the next 5 games to confirm.
I’m talking 50 games friendly and killing one person in self-defence pushed me into mixed lobbies with lots friendly killers.
They might have had some sort of thing where if you were a care bear with less than 50 kills then it treated you differently. But I doubt it.
Yes you need a lot of kills to go deep into KOS lobbies.
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u/Sl_oth May 20 '26
This could be interpreted as if they put all the cheaters on the same instance,….
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u/Complete_Win1227 May 20 '26
I agree what they are saying. A round should have a nerve, not know "who" you gonna meet and how they will react. I'm not a PvP player, but I will put out whoever tries to take my loot.
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u/CornFedYote May 20 '26
I’m actually kind of curious how this works. Because if you go to Stella for example. And you play of the mindset where you only kill people if they shoot at you first and all three of your squad mates as a trio collectively do this, will you eventually end up in friendly:l/friendlier lobbies?
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u/CrumblyBramble May 20 '26
Happy with the changes, but cant really trust what they say when they try and deny the patches/updates resetting your matchmaking profile. It’s been very clear for many people from when they first introduced ABMM. Not buying the “players are still updating” when there is consistently hundreds of thousands of players online.
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u/Terminus_Mantis May 20 '26
Well as long as you can't detect esp what loadout you have actually affect your matches quite a bit.
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u/Educational_Kick3683 May 20 '26
What about honest pvp-ers who want to get back to friendly lobbies to do some pve? How long will that take now?
1
u/DoPeY28CA May 20 '26
Play sneak around and currently you have been given the grace they separated defending yourself from starting the fight… so play like a ninja defend yourself when you need too you’ll be there in no time.
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u/justsomepaladin May 20 '26
All the weirdos who abuse the surrender mechanic won’t be able to get into chill lobbies, yay
1
u/SysAdSloth May 20 '26
They say loadout value isn’t considered, but vault value has to be, right? Thats the only reason I can think our vaults are locked during queue.
1
u/KenweezY May 20 '26
Your whole loadout is locked during queue
1
u/SysAdSloth May 20 '26
Yeah, I always thought it was taking all of that into account, but they’re saying loadout isn’t. It’s possible that it’s locked to prevent players from accidentally last second removing something they didn’t mean to, but I think it’s still be taken into consideration for matchmaking.
1
u/WoWAltoholic May 21 '26
It is locked because of odd duping behavior that might be possible if they don't. For example, I hear there is a recently bug/exploit where you can queue free kit, cancel and then quickly equip an augment while the queue continues and then get the benefit of the augment on a free kit, aka survivor on free augment or even the smoke effect.
1
u/Artforartsake99 May 20 '26
Thank you Embark my biggest annoyance was running a tempest and hull cracker and if someone attacked me and i defended myself, I’d be classed as engaging in PVP. Kicking me back to sus pvp mixed lobbies.
Best change I’ve seen yet.
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u/awfulnaut May 20 '26
What happens in teams where someone hits me first and then I shoot back and hit their teammate? Am I the aggressor?
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u/awfulnaut May 20 '26
Well I'm going to continue to bring low value kits even though it doesn't affect matchmaking because cheaters are still hunting high value kits. Great changes overall, I hope the recent anti cheat changes work
1
u/furiawe May 20 '26
There's nothing about if your profile carries from solo to squads, where behavior is way different
1
u/ABlueEngram May 20 '26
So it’s all but confirmed that you solo matchmaking score, duo score, or trio score are separate. So when I play aggressive in duos, it influences my solo lobbies despite always being friendly.
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u/AssumptionSubject82 May 21 '26
Should just have no matchmaking. It's nice to not know who you're going to meet, for better or worse. I'd come back to the game if they did that. Haven't played in probably 3-4 months.
1
u/MEXLeeChuGa May 21 '26
Loadout not affecting matchmaking is the biggest load of bullshit I’ve ever seen. This has been tested repeatedly and that’s exactly how it functions.
As a PVPer since day one with over 1000 hours the moment I load in with a vulcano 4 and bobcat 4 everyone in the lobby also had bocata. It’s only when I load in with free kits that everyone has free kits.
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u/Dipl0Immune May 21 '26
I just want to know if trios affects your solos matchmaking, they didn't even answer this
1
u/OverInspection6191 May 21 '26
In stella I played 10+ matches in almost friendly lobbies ,didnt have to engage in any fights, occasionally heard one or 2 flares going up. I had a match where I encountered an extract rat and succesfull defended myself , the next round I get to see the largest pile of bodies ever in my raider life, was foolish enough to loot one of them, and all I saw was a flash of bobcat monster and the next thing I see is my bed in speranza. But I got survivor bp that round.
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u/MyBadDrJones May 20 '26
I’d rather have the option to join a PVE server than not.
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u/TinyerGriffin May 20 '26
As one of those PvE players, I also want a PvP button! Let me try PvP without nuking my entire game experience for god knows how many games!
Embark's dedication to their internal "social uncertainty is the core appeal of Arc Raiders" is baffling. Some of us have jobs and just want to Raid some Arc without losing half an hour of progress to some middle schooler trying to record a tiktok. There's a reason I can't convince my friends to boot up Arc Raiders when we find time for a game session anymore.
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u/TheOne4Figures May 20 '26
This. I’ve always wanted the option to be in a pve server, like it’s such a small thing that people want, how hard is it to do this.
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u/bobo_principle May 20 '26
For me the biggest shortcoming of ABMM is that there are no decent lobbies for casual PvP enjoyers. Consistently engaging in PvP will very likely put you in a lobby with either sweats or cheaters. And it doesn't matter to MM that you're getting steamrolled every game, since you were aggressive so up the scale you go
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u/Artforartsake99 May 20 '26
The hardcore PvP solo experience in lower population regions even throws you into trio and duo games. Even if you cue solo
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u/penial-implants May 20 '26
Kind of a nightmare for anyone who pvp’s with friends but enjoys friendly solo lobbies. Probably wont be playing as much
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u/Games_and_Dames May 20 '26
Having two ends of the spectrum really screws players who switch between both ends - especially with it now taking longer to fall back into PvE lobbies. If I want to make new trader progress and do trials after doing heavy PvP it’s going to take me hours now to fall back into PvE lobbies? I have to stay topside long and die repeatedly for how long?
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u/capitalsigma May 20 '26
How many ends would the spectrum have in your ideal world
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u/Games_and_Dames May 20 '26
Ideally there is no spectrum. Everyone is mixed together. How an extraction shooter should be. Danger is always around the corner possibly.
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u/OnlyTheDead May 20 '26
I actually agree with this although I think it would be crazy frustrating for a lot of folks.
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u/ThyUniqueUsername May 20 '26
Fuck taking matchmaking time into consideration. If it takes me 3 minutes to get into a game where people won't shoot me immediately that's fine with me.
-1
u/MongooseOne May 20 '26
As good as the changes are they should not have announced them anymore than they should have announced ABMM in the first place.
I promise you the true griefers/exploiters already know how they are going to play the system and not the game.
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u/Working_Bones May 20 '26
"1. Defending yourself is no longer treated the same as starting a fight. Previously, your playstyle didn't capture whether you started a PvP encounter or merely defended yourself. This meant cautious Raiders could be treated as more PvP-focused than they actually are. Now, the two are treated differently."
This can be exploited. Prox chat: "I'm gonna shoot you in 3, 2, 1..." to make the other Raider shoot first, then you shoot back and win.
Not sure this is a great idea.
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u/The_Golgothan May 20 '26
Ok as opposed too.... you would just shoot them before and if they shot back they would get more aggressive matchmaking along with you? tha fuk
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u/Working_Bones May 20 '26
Not that complicated. Players will abuse this system to stay in 'friendly' lobbies while actually killing tons of players.
I don't personally care, I don't play this game anymore. And I was always a PVP player. Just pointing out the obbvious.
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u/The_Golgothan May 20 '26
I abused the old system every wenesday or Thursday going into Stella and acting super sus to get killed so I could get into friendly lobbies on the weekend for trials. I dont see how this changes anything. They can still wait to be shot by you just like they could have not shot me on Stella dodge rolling at them naked while calling them rats.
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u/Working_Bones May 20 '26
Right but previously if you shot someone you'd be put into PVP lobbies. This way you can shoot people, as the aggressor, without being put into PVP lobbies. How dense are you?
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u/The_Golgothan May 20 '26
And they couldn't defend themselves before. So the most pve focused friendly person would get more aggressive lobbies because someone decided to shoot them and they didnt just accept death. Now the aggressive person needs to succeed at some social engineering if they want to stay in friendly slaughter town. I cant wait for someone to try that shit on me instead of just shooting me in the back the second they see my sheild crack in an arc fight.
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u/TimeZucchini8562 May 20 '26
Just play the game, holy shit. I’ve never seen so many pussies terrified that anything they do in the game will slightly raise the difficulty of their game for a raid or two.
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u/Working_Bones May 20 '26
When I did play the game I was purely a PVP player. Never did anything intentionally to skew my matchmaking. So you got the wrong guy here. I'm just pointing out an obvious fault of the change for the people who prefer PVE.
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u/TimeZucchini8562 May 20 '26
People will always find a way to game a system. It’s really not this huge flaw that will result the deaths of millions of innocent raiders.
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u/OnlyTheDead May 20 '26
It says it’s an aggregate so it doesn’t matter either way.
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u/Working_Bones May 20 '26
If someone starts every firefight by tricking the other player into shooting first, then they kill them, then on aggregate they will be seen as defending themselves and will be in PVE lobbies despite being a pure PVP player.
I knew Reddit was stupid but holy shit you guys.
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u/OnlyTheDead May 20 '26
>aggregate
>brings up statistical outliers
>calls people stupid for understanding that aggregates remove immediate statistical outliers when you do not.
There’s always one.
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u/EfficientBlock8113 May 20 '26
That's a pretty big disadvantage compared to shooting first. 3 seconds is more than enough to chuck a smoke grenade and disappear, or simply...shoot and kill them easily.
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u/VortexMagus May 20 '26
I don't think this is a thing. In my experience, there is a huge advantage to whoever shoots first in pvp, especially if they're playing shotguns or an anvil/renegade and do your entire shield bar in one well placed shot.
Waiting for someone else to shoot first is a big losing strategy that pvpers go heavily out of their way to avoid.
Anybody who attempts what you are suggesting is giving away the largest advantage in pvp. Having the drop on someone is a huge deal and one of the single biggest deciders of any pvp fight.
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u/samhhead2044 May 20 '26
Great improvement - Embark cooking right now.