ARC Raiders Buried City Boost

Another Tuesday has come and gone, which means ARC Raiders has released a new patch to further optimize the game, but don't get your hopes up just yet! Flashpoint hasn't started yet; you'll likely have to wait another week or two for that.

Nevertheless, Patch 1.20.0, released on March 17th, is still well worth your attention. Not only does it introduce a new outfit, but it also addresses the long-standing controversy surrounding Il Toro weapon, while, as usual, delivering a host of bug fixes.

Below, we'll give you a comprehensive rundown of everything included in Patch 1.20.0, ensuring you enjoy the best possible ARC Raiders experience, at least for this week.

New cosmetics

This week's new cosmetic additions include Rawhide Outfit and two new hairstyles; you can acquire these items by using Raiders Tokens in the in-game store.

As with previous releases, these new cosmetic items continue Rust Belt aesthetic, a post-apocalyptic, wasteland-style theme. While they may not be flashy or extravagant, they align perfectly with the game's narrative backdrop and combat requirements.

However, cosmetics generally offer no tangible combat advantage, unless, of course, you happen to be wearing an outfit that provides a visual camouflage benefit.

Therefore, if you're running low on tokens, or if you'd prefer to save them for future items that might interest you more, there's no need to rush into any store trades just yet.

Il Toro balance adjustments

Il Toro is a pump-action shotgun available in the game. Despite being classified as merely an Uncommon (green-tier) weapon, it packs a serious punch and has become a favorite among many players.

To be honest, however, the disconnect between its rarity tier and its actual power level often creates inconsistencies within the game's item and crafting systems, which is why so many players have been calling for adjustments to Il Toro for some time now.

Patch 1.20.0 focuses primarily on Il Toro's DPS and its effectiveness in medium-to-long-range engagements, specifically when paired with Choke-type weapon mods.

Building upon this, the development team has also refined the internal tier-balancing of Il Toro itself. The goal here is to make lower-tier versions slightly less versatile, thereby ensuring that the benefits of upgrading the weapon feel more distinct and impactful.

As for the overall reduction in Il Toro's power level, the primary changes involve a decrease in its rate of fire and an increase in its reload time.

Specifically, the damage per pellet has been reduced from 7.5 to 7, the base rate of fire has been lowered from 43 to 38, and the base bullet spread has been widened from 4.5 to 6.

This means that the rhythm of pumping the action and firing the next shot will feel slightly slower, while the bullet spread cone has become wider, theoretically resulting in a decrease in your shooting accuracy.

If you engage opponents at extremely close range during combat, the difference resulting from this change might not be particularly noticeable.

However, at standard engagement distances, or even at the outer limits of close-range combat, the bullet spread is indeed significantly wider.

Furthermore, the weapon's total reload time is expected to increase from 4.3 seconds to 5.7 seconds. Specifically, the initial cycle time for a single-shell reload has been extended from 0.88 seconds to a full 1 second, meaning your base reload time is ultimately expected to increase by roughly one and a half seconds.

If you manage to successfully down a few players, you might not find yourself in too much trouble despite these weapon changes.

However, if an opponent launches a fierce counter-attack and you are forced to consume an extra second completing a reload, the situation will certainly become rather precarious.

Historically, Il Toro has been a versatile weapon in all close-quarters engagements and was once a core piece of gear within the dominant PvP meta of ARC Raiders.

If you are a player who prefers PvE gameplay, these changes may be of little consequence to you; however, within PvP sphere, this update certainly signals a potential shift in the landscape of future meta strategies.

While this may result in a diminished PvP experience for you in the short term, it promises to have a profound and positive impact on the future development of ARC Raiders, particularly regarding the balance of its weapon systems.

How to obtain Il Toro?

You may find it as a drop during raids, or you can use 15,000 coins to exchange for a Tier 1 Il Toro at Tian Wen's shop. Of course, our top recommendation is to buy ARC Raiders blueprints, then gather the following materials to craft the weapon at Gunsmith 1 workshop:

• 5x Mechanical Components
• 6x Simple Gun Parts

Il Toro can be upgraded to a maximum of Level 4. Below is a list of all required upgrade materials (all upgrades are performed at Gunsmith 1 workshop):

Il Toro II:

• 1x Il Toro I
• 3x Mechanical Components
• 1x Simple Gun Parts

Il Toro III:

• 1x Il Toro II
• 4x Mechanical Components
• 1x Heavy Gun Parts

Il Toro IV:

• 1x Il Toro III
• 4x Mechanical Components
• 1x Heavy Gun Parts

Other bug fixes

If you happen to be hoarding coins, one of this week's bug fixes brings some decidedly bad news for you: the number of coins received from selling Energy Clips has been reduced from 1,000 to 200.

This item serves as ammunition for energy weapons; however, if you don't use them frequently, selling them off is a viable option.

While 1,000 coins wasn't exactly a massive sum to begin with, a previous design oversight made it far too easy to mass-produce Energy Clips through crafting.

This allowed players to stockpile and sell them in a way that disrupted the game's internal economic balance, hence the need for a fix.

Other fixes included in Patch 1.20.0 are as follows:

• Fixed an issue where residual sound effects from ARC enemies Comet and Fireball would continue to play even after the enemies had been eliminated.
• Fixed an issue in Dam Controlled Access Zone where players could potentially be squeezed through walls and become stuck.
• Fixed an issue in Spaceport map where collision detection was missing in the area near the eastern elevators and beneath the piping.

Finally, it is worth noting an additional issue that has recently surfaced: due to the anti-cheat system occasionally misidentifying certain input commands, players utilizing accessibility peripherals may face accidental bans.

If you happen to encounter this unfortunate situation, please be sure to submit an appeal request immediately. The development team will review your case and unban your account, ensuring you can resume playing the game without interruption.

That wraps up everything we have to share with you in this update. The new March update is also just around the corner. Stay tuned and get ready!

In ARC Raiders, the start of a new week signifies the opportunity to kick off your weekly loot-gathering journey by tackling the latest set of trials. Beginning your week with these objective-driven missions provides a clear structure and focus for your gaming sessions.

Since Expedition 3 has only recently begun in the game, these seemingly simple trials actually represent your safest and most reliable method right now for acquiring essential basic materials.

In this guide, we will walk you through everything included in Week 20 trials, which went live on March 16th, and provide the perfect strategies for completing each one.

Week 20 trials overview

As with previous weeks, this week's trials consist of five specific objectives. These tasks typically involve transporting designated cargo or dealing damage to specific types of ARC enemies.

None of Week 20 trials are particularly difficult; however, if you wish to maximize your rewards and potentially acquire rare ARC Raiders blueprints that are hard to come by otherwise, you will need to earn at least 4,000 points within a single mission.

Get hit by lightning

To be honest, when you first see this trial objective, your immediate reaction will probably be, You've got to be kidding me! After all, getting struck by lightning in the game results in your character taking damage.

Nevertheless, whether the developers were running low on ideas or simply wanted to test your self-healing capabilities, you must complete this challenge if you don't want to miss out on the rewards.

To do so, you must first wait for an Electromagnetic Storm event to spawn on any given map, as this is the only event that causes lightning to appear in the surrounding environment.

Since these map events are time-limited, and you certainly don't want to waste time standing around doing nothing, you need to master the patterns of the lightning's appearance and descent. Your goal is to get struck as many times as possible within the short duration of the event.

If lightning is about to strike a specific spot on the map, a glowing blue circle will appear on the ground at that location. Simply keep a close watch; if you step into the circle ahead of time and wait for the lightning to descend, you will successfully get struck.

Of course, to earn enough points to maximize your trial rewards, you will need to get struck multiple times. Therefore, be sure to bring plenty of healing supplies so you can continuously heal yourself while getting zapped, it makes for a truly comical scene!

Damage Hornets

This type of objective has appeared in previous weekly trials as well. While Hornets are not considered the most difficult type of ARC enemy to deal with, getting hit by their stun rounds will leave you stunned for a few seconds and will also reduce your shields.

Therefore, the key to taking down Hornets lies in dodging their stun grenades while simultaneously destroying any of the thrusters located on their bodies to destabilize them.

Another tricky aspect is that Hornets invariably appear alongside swarms of Wasps, which serve to provide them with a certain degree of protection. However, Wasps appear to be significantly easier to eliminate, so there is no need to worry about them.

Damage flying ARC enemies inside Spaceport walls

This trial strictly confines the mission area to the zone marked by boundary lines within Spaceport map; you must eliminate a sufficient number of flying ARC enemies within this specific area to earn trial points.

Do not worry that the reduced operational area will prevent enemies from spawning frequently; to ensure you can successfully complete the objective, the game will significantly increase the spawn rate of flying ARCs during specific time intervals.

ARC Raiders features a wide variety of flying PvE enemy types. In addition to Hornets and Wasps mentioned in the second trial, the following units are also present:

• Snitch
• Spotter
• Fireflys
• Rocketeers

Among these, Firefly was a new addition introduced in Shrouded Sky update released in February. Once it detects you, it will attack using a flamethrower; you can inflict damage by shooting at its thrusters while simultaneously utilizing cover to dodge its attacks.

Of all the flying ARC enemies, Rocketeer is the largest and presents the greatest challenge to eliminate; consequently, taking down a single Rocketeer yields the highest number of trial points. However, you should not overlook opportunities to eliminate the other enemy types as well.

Also Read: ARC Raiders Shrouded Sky Update: Increased Difficulty, Key Room Controversies, and Player Demands for Balance Changes

Damage Bombardiers

This particular ARC enemy is far more dangerous than any of the flying bots mentioned above. It is a massive, heavily armored unit capable of launching devastating long-range mortar fire to inflict catastrophic damage to you.

To make matters even trickier, every Bombardier is flanked by two Spotters. These Spotters not only act as bodyguards but also mark your location, thereby facilitating Bombardier's attacks.

Therefore, we recommend prioritizing the elimination of Spotters first, a tactic that also helps prevent other nearby players from detecting your position. However, be aware that Spotters will eventually respawn.

Consequently, immediately after eliminating Spotters, you must aim for Bombardier's weak points to take it down as quickly as possible: destroy the yellow knee joints to cripple its mobility, and then destroy the rear-mounted cylinders to completely disable its propulsion system.

Common spawn locations for this enemy include:

• Dam Battlegrounds: Primary Facility (Night Raid)
• Buried City: Parking Garage, Marano Park, North of Plaza Rosa
• Spaceport: East of Vehicle Maintenance, The Trench
• Blue Gate: Raider's Refuge, Checkpoint, Traffic Tunnel

In addition to serving as a trial objective, Bombardiers may drop the following materials upon death; you can use these, along with any blueprints you've acquired, to craft additional weapons:

• ARC Powercell
• ARC Alloy
• Mechanical Components
• Advanced ARC Powercell
• ARC Flex Rubber
• ARC Motion Core
• Launcher Ammo
• Bombardier Cell

Deliver carriables

This mission requires you to locate crates and transport them to Field Depots within the current map, or to find batteries and deliver them to Substations.

Theoretically, crates can be found in every map except Stella Montis; however, you may prefer to complete this task in a map where you are more familiar with the terrain.

Although the mission itself does not strictly require combat, carrying a crate will significantly reduce your movement speed and generate noise, which may attract ARC or other players.

Therefore, if possible, it is recommended that you team up with one or two friends to complete this mission, taking turns to cover one another.

If other players approach, simply letting them know that you are currently working on a mission may be enough to convince them to leave you be.

The information above covers everything you need to know to complete all the trials for ARC Raiders Week 20. You can choose to start immediately, or wait to complete them during off-peak hours on the weekend - just be sure not to forget!