I’ve played over 200 hours of Arc Raiders, and it’s one of the most gripping extraction shooters I’ve tried. But its biggest strengths are now being held back by some core problems that could hurt the game long-term. If you want to see this great game become a genre leader, here are sixteen concrete fixes it needs.
1. Exploits, Desync And Core Fairness
The most urgent issues break the game’s fairness. There are a couple of bad exploits: a “double pump” trick that lets you fire shotguns way too fast, and a way for two players to boost through locked doors without a key. These ruin the risk vs. reward balance.
Then there’s the lag (desync). Too often, you’ll die behind cover on your screen because the server sees you somewhere else. For a competitive shooter, fixing this stuff isn’t optional—it’s essential maintenance.
2. Spawns, Free Loadouts And Safe Pockets
Right now, spawn points are fixed and predictable. This lets other players camp them, killing you before you can even move. Here’s my idea: if you bring in your own custom gear, you always spawn at the very start of the match. If you take the free basic loadout, you spawn in a later wave.
This means camping a later spawn only nets you low-value loot, making it pointless. The free loadout becomes a low-risk way to jump into a fight, while bringing your best gear is safer for looting.
3. Transparent Backpack And Looting UX
There’s a visual bug that makes your backpack menu see-through, so you can loot while still watching the world around you. It looks cool and feels smooth, but it’s a huge advantage—it removes the danger of looking away to manage your inventory.
Instead of just patching it, the developers should consider if this style could work for everyone, maybe with some tweaks to keep it fair. It highlights how the current looting menu feels a bit clunky and disconnected.
4. Quests That Matter, Not Just Tutorials
Right now, quests feel like a long tutorial checklist. You finish them just to clear the notifications, and the rewards are mostly forgettable. This wastes their potential.
We need a set of five to ten long, multi-step quests that unlock after the basics. These should have big, relevant rewards—specifically, blueprints for top-tier guns like the Tempest or Volcano. You could still get them randomly, but this gives everyone a clear, earned path to the best gear.
5. Blueprint Clarity, Drop Rates And Expeditions
The blueprint system has been messy. At launch, some high-end blueprints literally couldn’t drop, and the developers have changed recipes before anyone could even find them. This hurts trust.
Worse, when you join an “Expedition” season, you lose all your learned blueprints. With how rare they are, most players will never finish their collection before a reset hits. This makes Expeditions feel punishing.
My fix? Let players protect one to three of their hardest-earned blueprints when an Expedition resets. This respects our time while keeping the high-stakes choice.
6. Smarter Blueprint Acquisition Systems
Getting blueprints is pure luck, and it’s frustrating. We need backup systems:
Trade-Ins: If you collect, say, ten copies of a gun in your stash, let us trade them for its blueprint.
Learn by Dismantling: Give a small chance (like 1%) to learn a blueprint whenever you scrap that weapon. It makes sense—take enough apart, you learn how to build one.
Blueprint Machine: Let us trade in several duplicate blueprints for one we don’t own yet.
7. Dynamic Loot Zones And Map Variety
The maps have static “red” and “yellow” high-value zones. They create great fights, but once you learn them, raids can feel samey.
What if these top-tier loot areas changed location each match? One raid, the best stuff is in the apartments; the next, it’s in the factory. This would force new strategies and keep the map feeling fresh.
8. Stash, Crafting And Workshop Quality Of Life
Managing your stash and gear between raids gets tedious. Two simple fixes would save hours:
Loadout Templates: Let me save a setup—gun, armor, meds—and refill it with one click from my stash, even crafting missing parts if I can.
Stash Search Bar: Let me type “Anvil” or “bandage” to find what I need in my crammed inventory.
9. Workshop Upgrades, Resource Tracking And Partial Turn‑Ins
Right now, upgrading your Workshop is more annoying than it needs to be. A simple fix would be to clearly mark the parts you need. If you’re saving up for an upgrade, the game should put a little icon on those rusted gears or power cores in your stash. This would stop you from accidentally selling them and let you plan ahead for the next tier.
Also, you should be able to turn materials in bit by bit. Why do you need to have all 10 parts at once to start an upgrade? It just clogs your stash. Let us contribute pieces as we find them, like we can for big community projects. It keeps the same total cost but removes a lot of the hassle.
10. Stack Sizes, Bedroom Displays And Collectible Storage
Stash space is always a struggle. A great long-term reward would be letting us stack items higher. Maybe after finishing a tough quest or an Expedition season, you get a permanent 5-10% increase to stack sizes (not for ammo, to keep things balanced). It’s a nice way to reward players who stick with the game.
And about all those rubber ducks and trinkets we collect—they eat up space! Give us a special display area in our quarters, with unlimited slots just for show. The trade-off? Once you put a collectible on the shelf, you can’t put it back in your main stash. You can only sell or scrap it from there. This lets us have fun collections without hurting our ability to play.
11. Cosmetics, Identity And Audio Penalties
Cosmetics occupy their own substantial section, reflecting how important self‑expression is to many players who live in a game for hundreds of hours. First, shop pricing is flagged as high for a full‑price title even after prior reductions, with the implication that lower prices would make cosmetic purchases feel more palatable relative to base game cost.
Beyond price, the bigger issue is rigidity: outfits function as locked sets, preventing players from mixing helmets, jackets, and pants across different skins even when clipping concerns would be minimal.
The suggested direction is to adopt a system closer to Embark’s previous game, The Finals, which allows extensive mix‑and‑match customization despite hosting more body types and, therefore, more potential technical complications.
Additional asks include more color options for both outfits and hair, particularly vibrant shades like pink that many players use as a signature look, plus the introduction of facial hair cosmetics ranging from simple beards to exaggerated, stylized mustaches.”
12. The Recorder As A True Instrument
The final suggestion focuses on the recorder, a musical in‑game item that already fosters delightful social moments where enemies spare a player mid‑raid just to listen. Honestly, I love this emergent, social‑experiment aspect and wants deeper mechanics that allow real musical expression rather than random notes.
Applying a similar control scheme to the Arc Raiders recorder would turn it into a learnable instrument with a skill ceiling, encouraging players to master songs and share performances in matches.
It is characterized as a “silly” request, but one that aligns perfectly with the game’s social side and could become a beloved, community‑driven feature that costs relatively little to implement compared with its potential cultural impact.
A Player‑Driven Roadmap For Arc Raiders
All these suggestions—from fixing the Workshop grind to letting us play songs on the recorder—add up to one goal: making Arc Raiders more rewarding to play, respect our time, and let us have more fun expressing ourselves.
Getting these things right is what turns a good game into a great one that people play for years.
