Major Update Breakdown Including the New Stella Montis ARC Raiders Map
The first major update to the game is being rolled out with the release of a new, snowy map: Stella Montis ARC Raiders. This includes two new types of enemies, one of which is the scariest of them all, as well as a host of new weapons and gadgets, marking a well-needed expansion into new territory. Players will notice that they have a Stella Montis research facility access prompt when the game opens; this facility is rumored to have rare Exodus technology high in the mountains.
However, a special community challenge blocks entry to the newest zone yet. The first occupants of the facility destroyed all tunnels getting there, thus requiring everyone to work together to re-earn them for access.
What the Process is in Strategic Donation
This access requirement functions as a global community challenge, similar to large-scale events seen in other cooperative shooters. Each donation made by each player in materials counts toward the overall community progress bar, and it's required for participation and access to the Stella Montis ARC Raiders challenge that basic materials be donated to earn Merit Points: Metal Parts, Fabric, Plastic Parts, Rubber Parts, and Chemicals.
I would consider a strategic view of the economy as my first impression of the economy:
Prioritize Common Materials: It is advisable to use Fabric, Plastic Parts, and Chemicals in your donations as much as possible. Those tend to pile up within inventory quickly.
Preserve the Important Materials: Metal Parts are essential for the weapons and ammunition crafting, while Rubber Parts are used in many utility recipes. They are usually too valuable for large-scale donation.
Goals for Merit Points: All donations contribute to the community task, but towards personal merit, players should try to beat the 900 Merit Point ceiling at minimum. Those merits will be exchanged for exclusive rewards in the next phase of the event, although the exact nature of those rewards remains undisclosed.
You can continue donating even after 900 merits have been hit; this is purely to hasten community progress sealing the opening of Stella Montis ARC Raiders space.
Major Economy and Difficulty Changes
In addition to bringing a new environment to the game, this patch contains important, quite significant adjustments to the fundamental economy and really the new difficulty curve, which are extremely essential for progress, both now and in times to come.
Wolfpack Nerf and Increase in Craft Cos
Before-meta defining Wolfpack item is slammed with a huge rebalancing effort:
Crafting Difficulty: There is a marked increase in crafting costs in order to make Wolfpacks. It now requires three explosive substances and two OC motion coils, a huge step from the previous formula.
Sale Value: The base selling value of a Wolfpack has elevated itself from 3,000 to 5,000, partially compensating increased effort on creating.
Material Cost Change: OC motion coils are increased in numbers. These are the prerequisite materials in making up the recipe for Wolfpacks. Now, these cost eight ARC Alloy from its previous six.
Under this overall modification, spamming Wolfpacks, which was the common strategy before, has become significantly more thought-probing as production requires greater dedication and resource expenditure for deployment.
The Overhaul of the XP System
Perhaps the most sweeping systemic change is that, globally, you will now typically be able to find a great denial of the XP economy—in particular by farming particular, large enemies. Undeniably, from now on, leveling will be a slower and much more thoughtful process.
Targeted XP Nerfs
Previously, the best megapoint farming method consisted of interacting repeatedly with large ARC robots. This sub-strategy has been targeted directly:
| Enemy Type | XP Nerf Details | Previous Value | New Value |
| Bastions & Bombardiers (Loot XP) | XP gain from part loots is reduced by half. | 500 XP | 250/300 XP |
| General Damage XP | XP gained per point of damage against big units deducts one-third. | 3 XP | 2 XP |
| Spot Relays | The coin value for farming these has been greatly reduced. | 5,000 Coins | 2,000 Coins |
This general makeover ensures that players can no longer rely on simple repetitive farming methods for quick progress. It makes the grind on, especially against those players who have more specialized projects focusing on expedition themes.
Ancillary Costs go up in line with exploits being fixed.
Launch Ammo Cost: Each piece of Launch Ammo now costs double the price (from 100 to 200 coins each), thus making federations come under much heavier costs when it comes to holding fire on the powerful Holocracker.
Blaze Trap Fix: A major exploit with the Blaze Trap was fixed, which enabled it to scandalously deliver incorrect, overtuned damage (often one-shotting the Queen) and has therefore been entirely fixed now. The trap now does the intended, right amount of damage, bringing the balance back to the high-tier combat.
Generally, these system changes push high levels in resource value and ensure that players are engaging with diverse gameplay instead of falling back to old exploit or simply simplistic farming loops. The launch of the stella montis arc raiders map and accompanying rebalancing not only shows dedication to a long-term health and challenging scenario.
Thus, the two priorities of every player are now to donate materials to unlock the Stella Montis map and adapt one's loadouts and farming methods to the newly introduced structures in terms of experience and cost. To go along with our complete coverage of all the new features on the new map will continue as soon as the community completes Phase 1.
Among the new threats introduced on the snowy map, is one of the scariest of them all; you can prepare for it now with our full Master Strategy Guide for the New Matriarch Boss.
