With ARC Raiders abandoning its monthly update schedule and shifting to weekly minor maintenance and major content updates every six months, the development team has more time to focus on optimizing the core gameplay experience before Frozen Trail launches in October.

In ARC Raiders, some long-standing minor issues are quietly affecting the player experience. These aren't large-scale system reworks or complex updates that take months, but obvious design flaws and bugs. While minor, they frequently interfere with player actions.

Fixing these issues is relatively inexpensive, and if the developers can resolve them quickly, the player experience will be significantly improved. Below, we'll analyze three of the most troublesome issues in ARC Raiders.

Training Range Damage

Currently, ARC Raiders' Practice Range features three types of dummies, corresponding to enemies with light, medium, and heavy shields. You can test the damage of your weapons by attacking them. The system displays corresponding feedback when bullets hit shields or the head.

However, I discovered the biggest problem lies in the inaccurate headshot damage calculations for the dummies in ARC Raiders training mode. For example, Renegade requires five body shots to kill a target with a heavy shield, but it also requires five headshots. However, in actual ARC Raiders gameplay, headshots deal significantly more damage.

The headshot data in ARC Raiders training mode doesn't match your experience in actual combat. Even more concerning, some weapons don't display damage correctly at all, such as Dolabra. This can be very misleading for new players.

Many players use the training mode data to assess weapon strength, compare different guns, and try to understand the damage mechanics. If even the most basic headshot damage isn't displayed correctly, it's difficult for ARC Raiders players to trust the accuracy of other game data.

I believe this is likely because the training dummies and actual combat use two different damage calculation systems, and ARC Raiders development team didn't fully synchronize their damage calculation models during development.

Whatever the reason, the current ARC Raiders training grounds lack a reliable weapon testing environment, which is clearly a problem for an extraction shooter that emphasizes equipment and weapon selection.

Quick Wheel System

The second problem stems from the item wheel system. Because ARC Raiders needs to accommodate both keyboard/mouse and gamepad players, the development team adopted a unified wheel design. Theoretically, this system should allow for quick switching between grenades, medical supplies, and other ARC Raiders Items.

However, problems frequently arise in practice. For example, many players are accustomed to using Q plus number keys to quickly select equipment in combat. Normally, holding down Q and then pressing number 3 should immediately select the corresponding item.

However, in reality, if you type slightly faster, the system often prioritizes Q key's function, causing you to fail to switch items. This problem is likely related to the fact that Q key has two different functions: a single click switches the current equipment, while a long press opens the wheel menu.

ARC Raiders' quick wheel system needs to determine whether the player clicks or holds, thus introducing additional latency. The result is that you can't rely on muscle memory to quickly complete operations; you need to consciously wait for the wheel to fully unfold before making a selection.

In intense PvP battles, this delay often means the difference between life and death. Even using the mouse to directly operate the wheel presents additional problems. The wheel sometimes gets stuck in a certain area, preventing you from selecting the item you want.

Many players have lost count of how many times they've died because of this issue. This isn't because of operational error, but a flaw in ARC Raiders' interaction system itself.

Also Read: ARC Raiders Expedition Has Lost Players Fast and Frozen Trail May Be the Turning Point

Obstacle Vaulting Detection

The last problem relates to the movement system. ARC Raiders has an automatic vaulting mechanism. Normally, when you hold down the forward key to approach an obstacle and then press the spacebar, the character will automatically vault.

For most coverage, this system works well. Some higher obstacles require the player to slightly raise their crosshair, and the character can still climb smoothly. However, the problem lies in some obstacles in ARC Raiders with very unusual heights.

These obstacles appear to be automatically vaultable, but in reality, they don't trigger the vaulting action. You'll find yourself constantly jumping in place, yet unable to clear obstacles. I believe this is one reason many players feel that ARC Raiders characters lack agility and feel unnatural.

In actual combat, you might sometimes be forced to remain stationary because of obstacle detection issues, ultimately leading to your death. This death isn't because of poor aim or incorrect tactical choices, but because the character doesn't execute actions as expected.

Of these three issues, I believe fixing the damage calculation error in the training ground should be the highest priority. The training ground should be a crucial reference for testing weapons and researching equipment. If the data there is flawed, it's difficult to accurately understand weapon performance in the game.

While the wheel system and obstacle-clearing issues may seem like minor bugs, they continuously affect the daily gameplay experience, especially in high-intensity PvP matches.

With the recent slowdown in ARC Raiders content updates, many players hope the developers can use this time to focus more on optimizing these fundamental aspects of the experience. After all, fixing these long-standing minor issues might be more directly beneficial to player satisfaction than releasing new weapons and maps.