It never ceases to amaze me just how friendly everyone in Arc Raiders is. I've not yet come across someone truly evil while playing solos. Sure, I've been shot at, but I've either won the fight or talked the aggressor out of attacking me. But I primarily play against other PC players. I haven't turned cross-play on yet, and by the sounds of things, I probably shouldn't.
Two Arc Raiders players recently completed a mini social experiment, dividing PC and console players to see who were nicer. One player solely played on PC servers while another player was on their PS5.
Some things we found out. from r/ArcRaiders
"We both put crossplay off, Monstras-Patrick says on a Reddit post. "For a whole week, we played solo and wrote down our rounds of Arc Raiders. We noted the time we played at and all rounds.
"When meeting a player, we both agreed to lower our weapons and tell them we wouldn't attack. We'd explain that we were looking for items to upgrade benches and suggest they relax, maybe even team up."
Now the parameters were set, all that was left was to see who had a better time and who experienced the darker side of humanity. When I first saw this, I was readying myself to see the results that were in favour of console players over PC, but to my surprise, it was actually the opposite.
"My brother on PS5 noticed from the start he gets shot a lot more when crossplay was turned off and a lot fewer friendly players, a lot less talking, and a whole lot more shooting on sight," Monstras-Patrick says. "He felt he needed to shift his play style to be more silent and not trust anyone."
In contrast, the PC servers were a lot friendlier, with more talking, team-ups, and even trading occasionally. The duo even managed to collate some data. With the PC player meeting 172 players, out of these, 98 wished him luck, 47 shot him on sight, 17 extracted with him, seven lied and shot him in the back, and three faked a team-up and killed him later.
While on PS5, the brother met 237 players, from whom he had 102 shooting on sight, 58 shot him in the back, 42 wished him luck, 28 faked a team up and then killed him, and seven nice ones that extracted together. So in all, 79% of interactions in the PS5 lobby were negative, while only 33% of interactions among PC players were negative.
Now this test isn't completely airtight, as there are a ton of other factors that go into player behaviour, but I think having access to a mic greatly increases your chances of not getting shot at.
I was fighting someone the other day in squads. We had locked ourselves into a bit of a stalemate at the control tower, with dwindling ammo and time to extract. I heard a voice pipe up from the other side of the hallway, "What are we doing here, guys?" one of the aggressors asked. After a short chat, we all realised that the juice wasn't worth the squeeze and that we should all just go on our way so we could find more loot and extract with ample time.
If I hadn't heard this from the other squad, then we probably would have continued fighting until one team came out victorious or we both destroyed each other. Even if only one person speaks in proximity chat, it almost always cuts the tension and ends any ongoing fights.
Another factor in the friendliness of players also seems to be what region you find yourself in. I've played a fair few solo matches on North American servers, and people aren't necessarily nicer, but they do talk a lot more. I've had randoms help me out with quests and save me from angry arcs. While the EU servers can be a little more dicey, with a slightly higher chance of being betrayed.
The only time I've been shot at extraction in a solo game was on EU servers. I did end up killing the guy, but I also decided to let them crawl into the extraction and head back to Speranza with all their stuff, so I didn't stoop to their level.
Personally, I like the duality that Arc Raiders provides. If you want to fight other raiders, then squads will usually fulfil that wish for you, but if you want to have chill games, then solos are almost a guaranteed nice time. Although after seeing this, you may want to take Monstrats-Patrick's advice and turn cross-play off if you're a PC player, just to cut out the possibility of betrayal: "I am never playing the game on cross-play ever again."
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