Join The Club
Are PvE-only lobbies a thing in Arc Raiders? Will one measly kill mark me as a hostile player in future matches? These are questions Embark tackles head-on in a new matchmaking-focused blog post. This is by far the most the developer has spoken in detail about its unique aggression-based matchmaking system since we first learned about it, and it's a genuinely interesting read.
"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," the post reads. "It's important to understand that playstyles aren't binary. This isn't 'friendly' vs. 'shoot on sight.' It's a continuous scale."
Embark says that while some players are always friendly and others are bloodthirsty maniacs, "most raiders fall somewhere in between—maybe friendly until threatened, maybe opportunistic, maybe cautious, maybe unpredictable on a bad day."
To communicate that point, Embark included an illustration of the range of playstyles you're likely to encounter based on your behavior. The graph, which does not represent "real matchmaking telemetry," shows that you're most likely to play with players in adjacent ranges of aggression—as in those who are slightly less or slightly more PvP-hungry than you are. With my extremely small kill count, that explains why the majority of my matches have no PvP at all. But if you're in that middle majority, spicy lobbies are a lot more common.
Embark has recently made two changes to its behavioural judgments based on feedback:
- 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.
The studio also took this opportunity to clear up common misconceptions about how matchmaking works in Arc Raiders:
- 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.
Good to know, though I doubt this reassurance will totally squash the superstition around Arc Raiders' invisible social machinations. Guides lead Sean Martin singled out the "One shot or kill does not immediately put you in a 'PvP-focused' lobby" claim in our work chat:
"I don't believe them lol. I literally killed like two people defending myself over the weekend and my next match was hell."
I think we've all had days like that.
