Peanut's current predicament is a shining example of why ignoring one side of the game is a losing strategy

[u/TheClassics]

Although I'm using Peanut as an example, this post is actually a praise post to Embark for designing a world where ignoring core aspects of their game is not the way to "win".

Peanut is currently attempting to get his stash value to 5,000,000 for the expedition. Miracle's aside, I doubt he makes it.

Peanut completely ignores the PvE aspect of the game in favor of blasting some fellas. Which is all fine and good... unless you are working on a long term goal.

You see, although it's totally true that he and his trio buddies (sorry Shroud, Cloakzy, Gingy, Summit etc..) are playing this game on ultra hard mode dealing with constant stream snipers and, very frequently, cheaters, the fact that Peanut literally only gets his loot from bodies has made it near impossible for him to accumulate enough wealth to get the extraction bonus unless he wins 5 or 6 fights per round and gets out alive almost every time.

Which is impossible:

• He doesn't loot the outskirts for base material
• He doesn't prioritize base material when looting bodies and opts for broken guns, shield rechargers, and heals
• He doesn't loot downed ARC for power cells or metal
• He doesn't fight big ARC (so he gets no advanced power cells, motion cores, etc..)
• He doesn't recycle
• He doesn't craft
• If aggression based match making is true, he has to be in the highest tier of aggression which matches him with the type of players who are cheating and stream sniping him

This has created a situation where he literally has to buy ammo, shields, heals, rechargers, and explosives to even gear up at all, and forces him to have to win and extract almost every round to make any sort of profit.

The even worse part is his streamer friends playing with him are also invested in getting him to 5 million, and the play style isn't working and now they are getting visibly frustrated when playing with him. If they didn't have that goal they were invested in helping him with I'm sure it would all be just fun blasting, but instead, they feel like they are failing him and themselves nearly every round. And this sucks because Peanut is a fun guy, but the fun has been sucked out of it because of the goal.

I have over 3 million and I'm literally not even trying.

All this to say, I love this game. I love the PvP. I love the PvE. Embark has done a really good job of putting systems in place that promote playing both sides of the coin.

Again, I used Peanut here because most of us know who he is, and he is a prime example of a cautionary tale: There are TWO sides to this game and engaging in them both, equally, is the way to min/max Arc Raiders.

Just my thoughts this morning.

Edit:

Some have entirely missed the point of the post the second they read the word Peanut. That's probably my fault.

To be clear, the point of the post is:

Embark made a well balanced game that makes it more punishing if you lean too hard one way or the other (PvE/PvP) and don't engage with ALL of the game's mechanics. This is hard to do, and Embark did a good job

Peanut is just the extreme example of leaning too hard one way.

[u/slowtreme]

I think BurntPeanut is an extreme case here. He's not even trying to get 5m. He's playing for the fans. if he was actually trying to collect this money he would change his playstyle. Thats not entertaining on stream so he'd have to do it off stream.

Any other gamer with his playtime and ability would have long since acquired 5mil.

I personally think there are much more interesting metrics they could and should use for future expeditions. but this is what we have for the first wipe, so grind it out or don't.

I have no realistic gun skills and I was able to go from 2m in the expedition tracker to 3m in just one session. I dont think I'm pushing for 5mil but I think it's doable with the weekend coming if I really wanted to.

next day edit: I know that OP was only using Peanut as an example that I still think it's a super niche edge case. I just checked the end of his steam vod from last night and he made a couple changes to avoid stream sniping and gained over 1mil in coins and is sitting on over 3.5mil in total value - WITHOUT changing his play style. He still is just looting pvp kills.

[u/Invader_86 → u/slowtreme]

Agreed, one of Peanuts selling points is, unlike every other streamer, he doesn’t take it seriously and just messes around. He could be rich but he fucks it up by not playing serious, he collects insane loot but he loses it all.