ARC Raiders stopped counting self-defence against you: what that changes

If you have been backing out of fights you did not start because you did not want louder lobbies, you can stop. Since Live Update 1.39.0, shooting back does not move the estimate that helps decide who you get matched with. Killing the squad that opened on you does not either.

That is the whole of the change, and it is narrower than it sounds. It is also worth understanding precisely, because the part that still counts against you is the part most players run into by accident.

What the notes actually say#

Embark's matchmaking uses a playstyle estimate built from how you engage with other Raiders across previous rounds. Before 1.39.0, defending yourself fed into that estimate at a reduced weight. The update removes it entirely: only fights your squad chooses to start influence the estimate, and defending yourself has no influence at all.

Embark spells out the boundary. Your squad counts as defending when the other squad damages, downs or knocks out one of your squad first. Your squad counts as starting a fight when you strike first, weighted by how severe the encounter was. And joining a fight already in progress — third-partying — is treated as starting a fight, not defending.

The line that will catch people#

Third-partying is the clause worth reading twice. The moment you push toward a firefight you can hear but are not part of, the system reads that as you initiating, regardless of who is winning or who fired first between the other two squads. The audio told you a fight exists; walking into it is a choice you made.

This is consistent rather than harsh. The change was aimed at players punished for outcomes they did not choose. A distant gunfight is not something happening to you until you decide it is.

What it does not change#

Two things worth separating out, because the update does not claim either.

It is not a change to how much PvP the game contains. Nothing about spawns, loot density or player counts moved. The estimate is an input to who you are grouped with, and Embark has been explicit elsewhere that similarity is likely rather than guaranteed and that shifts happen gradually. One defensive round was never going to reroute your lobbies, and one fewer defensive round will not either.

It is also not a scoring system you can farm. Playstyle is described as a continuous spectrum, not a rank, and it exists to group players who are likely to have a similar kind of round. Playing artificially passively to chase a quieter bracket is optimising for a number you cannot see against a system that is designed to move slowly.

The behavioural change is small and real#

For most players the practical effect is one deleted hesitation. There has been a persistent belief among cautious Raiders that any registered kill nudges you toward more aggressive company, and that belief has cost people fights they were already in. It is now explicitly wrong for defensive kills.

Fight back cleanly, finish the squad that engaged you, and take the bag. What you should still weigh is the fight you go looking for — the rooftop you climb because you heard something, the extract you contest because it is busy. Those were always the expensive choices for other reasons, and they remain the ones the system reads as intent.

It is a test#

Embark describes this as a testing period, and says the change may be adjusted, kept or dropped depending on what the results look like. Treat it as current behaviour rather than a settled rule, and expect the wording to be revisited.

The rest of 1.39.0 is smaller: Seeker and Wolfpack Grenades no longer deal inconsistent damage, trinkets from the Converging Paths project now stack, Dam Battlegrounds and Buried City picked up collision and stuck-spot fixes, and footstep audio in water was improved. That last one is not a matchmaking change, but if you rely on water to move quietly, it is the line in these notes most likely to change a run.