You install ARC Raiders, queue into your first few raids, and it hits you straight away: you spawn in, start thinking about loot and shiny new ARC Raiders Items, and then some wired-up grinder deletes you before you even figure out where the extractions are. That is not you being unlucky; that is the game's skill-based matchmaking throwing you into the deep end with people who live in this queue. So the weird fix a creator called Its_Iron suggests is not to "git gud" faster, it is to intentionally look awful so the game quietly shoves you into a calmer part of the pool.
Why Solos And Why Stella Montis
The plan starts with one choice in the menus: go straight into Solos. No duos, no trios. Teammates mean someone might clutch fights, drag your stats up, and ruin what you are trying to do. Once you are on your own, pick the Stella Montis map every time. Even if your quests sit somewhere else, ignore them for a bit. Stella Montis becomes your little SBMM workshop, the place where you fix the kind of lobbies you are getting, not your task list. It sounds a bit backwards, but you are playing the system, not the scoreboard.
Free Loadout And Letting Go Of Gear Fear
When you hit the loadout screen, you will see that weight bar sitting at 0.0/35.0, and the game will tempt you to bring your decent guns, a bit of armour, maybe that rare drop you were saving. Do not do it. You pick the Free Loadout every single time. That throwaway pistol is your best friend because it does not matter at all if you lose it. This kills "gear fear", that tight feeling you get when you know a single bad fight wipes out an hour of farming. With nothing important on you, it gets way easier to treat the next 45 to 60 minutes as what they really are here: a deliberate tanking session for your hidden rating.
The Art Of Dying On Purpose
Once you load in, you are not trying to win fights. You are basically sending a message to the matchmaking algorithm. You roam a bit, maybe poke around for landmarks, but when you bump into the dodge-rolling, crouch-spamming players who look like they are scrimming for prize money, you just do not shoot. Stand still. Let them farm the kill. It feels wrong at first, because everything in shooters trains you to at least trade damage. Here, taking even one or two enemies with you can keep your MMR too high. After doing this over and over, raids start to feel different. The killers move on, you slide down the brackets, and the game stops assuming you are one of the sweats.
When The Lobbies Finally Chill Out
After that painful little hour or so, something shifts. You start getting raids where people do not instantly snap on your head. You hear "hey, anyone nearby" in voice instead of someone screaming at you. Players share loot spots, ping extra meds, or even walk you through extractions while they grab their own stash. It turns into a slower, more social loop where exploring wrecks and scavenging actually works for new or rusty players, instead of being target practice for veterans. If you still feel nervous about gear once you reach those easier lobbies, you can always pick up a bit of help outside the game, like grabbing currency or items through a service such as RSVSR, and then lean fully into the fun part: messing around in the world instead of sweating every fight.
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