There is a specific clip making the rounds today and it is not a funny one. A solo loads into a trial, walks maybe ten meters, and gets opened up by a player who then tells the lobby he got the rat over here. The victim hadn't done anything. He had spawned in.
The post is sitting at a 0.81 ratio with a thousand comments under it, which tells you the room is not laughing this one off. The top reply from u/AngryMillennialFU is the joke version ("sometimes its easier to just steal an equalizer") and it is the joke version of something raiders are pretty clearly tired of.
u/lurkyloowhoo named the shape of it: a copycat trend after streamers started killing people and then telling the lobby "I got the rat over here." That is the move. You shoot first, you label your victim second, and the label does the social work of justifying the shot. It is a clean little laundering operation for opportunism, and because trial lobbies are where the expensive kits go, it pays.
The defensive postures are already forming. u/Dadlife710 runs two free-kit rounds before bringing the PvE swag in, vibing first, gear second. u/ChiefMark says he lost 600k across five matches to backstabs and is no longer trusting anybody in trials. u/Environmental_You_36's read is the bleakest and probably the most accurate: opportunists who fail to find a victim in regular matches end up funneled into the friendly lobbies, where the marks are.
The other half of the room
While that thread was metastasizing, the front page was also doing the opposite thing on purpose. The day's biggest post by a wide margin is a day-one player who has stopped grinding entirely and now spends raids building little surface tableaus for strangers to find.
"This seems to be the new copycat trend after some streamers started doing it - killing people and then telling everyone "I got the rat over here". Absolute weirdo behavior."
U/LURKYLOOWHOO · ↑ 248 · R/ARCRAIDERS
"2 days ago I lost 600 k in 5 matches due to this. The uptick in ratting and backstabbing is apparent. Not sure the expedition damage requirement is doing this, you can't trust anyone."
U/CHIEFMARK · ↑ 438 · R/ARCRAIDERS
"Another person said "that's punishable by death" so I downed him. He said sorry and we extracted"
U/WEEKLY-CITY-5963 · ↑ 273 · R/ARCRAIDERS
"Opportunistic players end up on carebears lobbies if they fail to find a victim in a couple of matches. You always need to be careful."
U/ENVIRONMENTAL_YOU_36 · ↑ 185 · R/ARCRAIDERS