It might be a different user, a different community name, but it's always the same: mostly NSFW pictures (sometimes not even revealing), 0 comments and a ~-6 score. The pictures are mostly about an erotic/romantic encounter between two people. Then the community disappears, resurfaces with a randomly similar name, and the same happens again.

Why?

I know it sounds dumb, but... The realisation came to me when I had been doing my missions quests for the third time: nobody is asking you to do your missions quests. Yes, they might give you a few useful items (and seven metric fucktons of rubbish, as well), some of them might even come in handy at the start, and yes, you can also get a whopping ONE hullcracker around the end if you invest all the time in it, but...

...You could just loot for the items you want, instead, or do your trials so that you have enough time to get the rank you want by the end of the period. Oh, and about the same amount of useful items (if not more) by getting the trials rewards.

Of course, if you just do it for fun (because you find it fun getting shot in the back while still looting for that fucking flow controller on your 7th Stella run), then enjoy the game the way you want (enjoy it anyway), but if you're like me and those shiny yellow dots distract you enough to lure you into listening to bloody scrap brokers telling you to bring a handful of wires for a noise maker: you don't have to. It's okay. You're not a slave to Celeste or Lance.

I just thought there might be dozens of us who needs to hear this, and I might not have been the only one to just do constant naked Stella runs to not waste resources BUT get a safe pocket. That's when I raised the question: "Why am I doing this to myself, in the first place?"

( P.S.: they should rework these flow controller type missions quests anyway, because it's truly, frustratingly unjust to not get spawned in medical/assembly and then having to try and extract alive only to restart and hope that you spawn in one of those zones. IMHO they should still randomise the location of those items within a certain zone BUT make them personal/unique, the same way they do with logs and books and shit, so that other players can't prevent you from completing the mission quest by simply getting there first. The same has happened with the Rocket Assembly battery charging mission quest, already - I don't see why they haven't done the same here with the two Stella item missions quests.)

See video attached (if I managed to upload it) - I'm making slow, smooth, regular circles.

I have obviously submitted a ticket already, I've been just wondering if the issue is global, or it's just me (and a few other people) because

• I'm using Linux
• I'm using an AMD GPU/CPU (...somehow?)
• the Steam update window stopped at 0%, so I restarted the whole thing and downloaded it again (but it must not be the reason, since I have also identified game file integrity after that)
• fuck me and my bad luck

It's probably unrelated, but since the latest patch (from ~2 days ago) I've been unable to delete the new Embark message in my inbox (top right corner in Speranza).

There is also another bug where the weapon upgrade click (from my inventory) takes me to the gunsmith bench, but with a completely different weapon in focus, also totally scrambling the weapon inventory, so first I have to rummage through 30 weapons to find the one in my hand - but that has been the case since the preceding patch.

This wheel thing is so frustrating that I just stopped playing altogether. I almost lost some valuable gear because I switched to the wrong item in a sticky situation, and I wouldn't want to go there again. It's like the mouse has an epileptic shock every time I move it while the wheel is up. Sometimes I try to pick the item in the bottom left, and after ~12 shakes in half a second it settles in the top section. Even when I'm doing very slow, steady circles it ends up crazy bouncing everywhere.

So what I had tried already:

• Restarting Steam or the entire PC
• Closing every single program I would normally use
• Changing compatibility mode: only works once, see below, in the update section
• Deleting Steam Overlay cache; disabling Steam overlay
• Deleting shader cache (it should have nothing to do with shaders at all, but see below, in the update section)
• Every single fucking combination of quitting Steam, starting the game immediately with the desktop icon, starting Steam first - then the game from the library button, all these done after either of the changes above
• Verifying integrity of game files

UPDATE

First I thought I found the root cause. As it turns out, on Monday, when the patch came out (or at least when I found out about it), there was also a Proton Hotfix update in Steam which I missed first. So I downloaded it, but it was still the same. THEN I quit Steam, restarted it and voilá, I got back my smooth cursor!

...Only to run into the exact same shaky cursor (again: only in the emote wheel, nowhere else in the game or any other program). I started to fiddle with things again, and what seemed to be working was to change the compatibility mode to Proton Experimental, and then quitting Steam (running the game straight after the compatibility change would still lead to the same shaky wheel cursor!), and starting it again.

HOWEVER, as it later turned out, it's like every single compatibility mode got corrupted, because after starting the game again (either by staying within Steam OR quitting it, then starting again) the bug returned, often switching to a completely different section of the wheel when I was about to release the button, often leading into unfavourable or straight inescapable situations.

What I noticed is that whenever I changed compatibility mode first, the game re-calculated Vulcan shaders. Shaders are responsible for visuals, so in theory they should have nothing to do with this, but I was rather desperate at this point. So I was thinking it could have something to do with the shader cache. Emptying it and re-running the game didn't help. Or maybe the Steam overlay? Nope, deleting the overlay cache or entirely disabling it didn't help, either.

UPDATE 2, workaround

I think I'm getting close. I found a workaround (not a fix), but this is still a rather inconvenient bug.

I managed to boil it down to one key aspect: Steam Linux Runtime 4 AND Firefox. Again: these issues started this Monday (20/04/2026). I never had this problem with the game before while Firefox was running just the same. What I managed to investigate/deduce this far:

• Running Firefox while Steam is open will somehow corrupt the game and the issues will persist even after closing Firefox. Or restarting Steam. Or restarting the entire PC. Or asking Jesus to take the wheel.
• Once the game gets corrupted, it can be reset by closing FF, deleting the game executable (Steam/steamapps/common/Arc Raiders/PioneerGame.exe), then verifying integrity of game cache files. Then Steam will proceed to download/update files for 3 things: Arc Raiders, Steam Linux Runtime 4, and Proton Experimental (I guess it's Proton Hotfix if I set that as default in Steam or the game). Then closing Steam and opening it again should result in a smooth wheel UI experience (until the next time you foolishly start FF while Steam is running).
• I need to test it more, but the corruption seems to be able to fix by having a "clean"/uncorrupted copy of the Linux Runtime 4 directory (/home/username/.local/share/Steam/steamapps/common/SteamLinuxRuntime_4) and simply sudo pasting it back if the user accidentally starts Firefox while Steam is running.

Whether the corruption in Steam Linux Runtime 4 is caused by Steam Linux Runtime 4, Steam, Arc Raiders, Proton or Firefox (??), I'm still not sure. However, the only overlap I can think of between Steam and FF is the default Steam browser, which is Firefox at the moment. Either way, changing the default browser would still just be a workaround, but this is how far I got after wasting most of my day on running and quitting the game countless times.

I doubt it's one of the extensions, but for the sake of clarity, here are the ones I'm using (I have tested for the latest addition, Per-Tab Volume Control: it's not the one causing the issue): ClearURLs Indie Wiki Buddy News Feed Eradicator Old Reddit Redirect Per-Tab Volume Control Simple Translate SponsorBlock for YouTube - Skip Sponsorhips uBlock Origin Youtube-shorts block

MoBo: Gigabyte B550 AORUS ELITE AX V2 OS: Linux Mint 22.3 - Cinnamon 64-bit Linux Kernel: 6.8.0-110-generic CPU: AMD Ryzen 5 3600X 6-Core Processor × 6 GPU: Advanced Micro Devices, Inc. [AMD/ATI] Navi 32 [Radeon RX 7700 XT / 7800 XT] (7800XT, according to the box) RAM: 16GB DE: Cinnamon 6.6.7 Display Server: X11

Mozilla Firefox for Linux Mint mint-001 - 1.0 150.0 (64-bit)

Solos. I got to the point where it's basically impossible to even start a match. My last mission is the one where you need to find an extremely rare item on Stella Montis, and I loathe it for the same reason I did with the previous (awfully similar) mission: everyone will shoot you in the back there, always impossible to anticipate.

So Stella is one thing.

But at this point no matter which map I choose, not even TWO minutes pass, and I get my shield blown off from behind, from a dark corner, from behind a building I couldn't even see before, and I get rushed by some troglodyte, at which point I'm fighting at a disadvantage.

This all started 2-3 days ago. Raider flares and dead bodies all over the place. What is going on? It's like everyone has suddenly gone feral. Was there some change I'm not aware of? I understand it's a PvPvE game, but up until last Friday it's been usually a mix of friendly and hostile interactions. Now it's pretty much guaranteed I would get shot from behind a corner before I could even react and then get rushed, every single game, no matter what. Bloody frustrating. I can't even just look for friendly players to team up with, because the first one I see is usually the one that camps me down. It feels like something had changed recently, but I don't remember seeing anything related.

There is one user in particular that I have no problem with otherwise, but they are just spamming a lot of the communities that I follow, and they remind me of some mid tier Reddit material that you either typically scroll over, or stop to see once, and then you regret your choice.

I have no problem with this account commenting (which they do), so I don't want to block them entirely; I just wouldn't like to see their posts.

I might be blind but I couldn't find an option for that. I'm mainly talking about the desktop environment of lemmy.world.

I was actually just trying to find a fitting community to ask, but couldn't find anything fitting. Was this just a simple editorial error, or is there something making the statement technically (virtually?) true?

UPDATE: Apparently, I was superficial enough to not take a closer look at the 1973 title. I never even heard of it (I don't think it was on TV in my country), and I didn't even consider the responsibility of it not being a standalone film. Thanks for solving the mystery, folks!

Clarification: I'm not a native English speaker. I've been gaming online for the past ~15-20 years, and it feels like there has been an increase in this kind of response in the past few years. Now, I know that it's not always serious: people started using it as 'no way' or meaning 'wow, serious?' recently.

BUT what has taken me aback is the frequency at which I've been seeing 'stfu' as a response to something I either meant seriously, or maybe said it in a light-hearted manner, but not necessarily as a joke - often as a first exchange. To me it still literally means Shut The Fuck Up, and whenever I see it, my immediate reaction is that the person on the other end actually meant it exactly as rude as I have always perceived it all my life.

Would you not take this as an offense, provided it's the first interaction between you and a completely random person? Would you immediately feel they are rude, neutral or straight out saying it very lightly? Is the usage really changing? Do you think they actually mean 'shut up', and they just add the 'f' because everyone else does it?

EDIT: Wow, thanks a lot for your angles! I forgot to mention, but let's assume that 'stfu' is the first and only response you see from this random person. I am also fine with dealing with different situations, I'm not primarily looking for advice (After ~20 years of online gaming experience, I can tell you I've seen most of it); I am mostly interested in your perspective: what vibe would you assume, based on only these four letters?

Sorry if this is not the right community for the question - this was the first one that came to my mind. I'm just wondering if I'm misinterpreting the meaning of the word 'local' in this context; or this is somehow pretty normal and due to the algorithm (in which case I'd like to know this algorithm a little more); or maybe because it's a bug.

UPDATE: I just reloaded the site, thinking I might have just pressed 'next' one too many times, making the algorithm run out of ideas. At the moment I don't see any more Evanston content, however, this has happened several times before, this is why I decided to write here, because it was the 4th/5th time already.

First I just accepted the fact that a bug prevents you from blocking people, but I had enough of toxic teammates today, did some search and neither a regular search nor a reddit focused one brought relevant results. It's like nobody had this bug, but now I'm unable to mute/block people.

The block button is there, you can press it, it even gives a sound effect, but it doesn't turn into a 'blocked' button, and the chaser brats just happily spew their toxicity all game.

Did I miss something? Is it just me? Is there a maximum number of people you can block, or something?

UPDATE: After verifying integrity of local game cache files, it's still the same, so I thought I would contact Epic support. Their upload limit is 9.5MB, which is kinda funny in 2025, but okay, millions of reports (surely), let's just upload the footage to my YT channel and link it as a non-public video (it looks like pea soup already, and it's ~17MB).

Their reply was "Due to system limitations I'm unable to review your video here, but I'll kindly request you to share it in one of our socials mentioned: Here"

The link leads to their website where they offer the following 3 options to upload my video:

• Reddit (not touching it with a stick, lol)
• Discord (DISCORD. A feckin' voice+text chat program. For dealing with reports. From a multi billionaire company. I'm not touching it with a stick, lol)
• X (not touching it with a stick, or anything else in the Universe)

So here we are, they have to believe my word, and if I'm lucky they will pass down the issue to some intern. If I'm not, they will be just waiting until I actually upload it to one of the above 3 atrocious platforms, and then maybe start working on it.

UPDATE #2: I did a little experiment and un-blocked one player on my block list in the main menu. I could suddenly block one player in-game. When trying to block a second player, it was "buggy" again. So I assumed that there was a certain limit to the number of people you can block (which is typically a power of 2, most likely 256). I went and counted the amount of players on my list. I did it by hand, so it might be off, but I counted 581 people, which isn't just a little off of 512. But it seems like there is a built-in limit.

...which means it's not a bug, it's a feature. Something that was put in the game intentionally, has always been there, and they still haven't done anything about it in the past year (I have sent them 2 reports since), even though it isn't some mysterious phenomenon that needs investigating, but a known limit that they should actually know about. All the while I can't even attach 3 screenshot pngs with my report because it exceeds the 9.5MB limit (in 2025). Anyway, I had enough and compressed a video about it to 8.7MB.

And no, blocking 581 people isn't unrealistic unfortunately, considering I've been playing the game for the past 10 years, which means 1-2 blocked people per week. And if you'd been playing RL for more than 4 days then you know that there can be MUCH more toxic and spammy players than 1-2 a week.