Usually when gnome doesn't start up in arch it is due extensions which are not supported either gnome or arch. But you usually find them in AUR, which fix your issues quite quickly.
I haven't had any issues with gnome 3 in arch since they move to it, apart from extensions and a couple of things not well integrated in Wayland+gnome. Said that, it has been much more a nightmare for me to install packages in docker images of Ubuntu.