Trials Season 3 has a nasty sense of humour this week, and "Tricks and Traps" (March 23–29) proves it fast. If you've been tweaking your loadout or stocking up on ARC Raiders Items, you'll feel why the moment you drop in: the map wants you distracted, rushed, and panicking, usually in that order. One clean run can look brilliant on paper, then you whiff extraction and it all turns into wasted effort.

How Trials actually punishes mistakes

Trials don't even open until Level 15, but the real gate is mental. You're not just chasing points, you're juggling risk. Hit 4,000 for a three-star run and the Epic rewards are sweet, sure, but the leaderboard grind is what gets people sweaty. Rookie to Cantina Legend (top 1,000) isn't about one hero game. It's about repeating good decisions. And the cruel twist is still there: bank nothing if you don't extract. You can play the cleanest objective route in the world, then get clipped in the last thirty seconds and watch the whole run evaporate.

Objectives that pull you in two directions

This rotation feels like it was designed to mess with your rhythm. First, you're told to harvest plants, which sounds calm until you realise you're crouched in the open, staring at a pickup prompt, while footsteps get louder. Then it flips hard into pest control: Ticks, Fireballs, Pops. They don't politely line up either; they swarm, they pressure, they force bad reloads. Bring something that deletes them quickly, or you'll end up healing instead of scoring. On top of that, you'll want damage on ground-based ARC units whenever you can safely farm it, because those points add up faster than people think.

Stella Montis and the Locked Gate problem

The location tasks are where the week earns its name. The Stella Montis Medical Research wing wants you searching containers in tight corridors. That place practically prints ambushes. Clear one room, open a box, and suddenly you're boxed in by another squad that heard the rummaging. Then there's the Locked Gate objective: disabling mines. It's slow, fiddly work, and the whole time you're listening for movement because you can't afford to be surprised mid-disarm. The multiplier tied to the Gate makes it a tempting farm, especially when the map condition pushes more action there, but it also turns every step into a question: "Is this worth dying for?"

Route planning that actually works

If you want consistent runs, treat the week like a checklist you build on the fly: 1) grab plants early when the lobby's still spreading out, 2) swing Stella Montis only if you've got an exit plan, 3) commit to the Locked Gate only with the right tools and a team that won't sprint ahead and trigger everything. Sapper gear isn't optional there, and fire resistance makes Fireball hunts way less chaotic. Most players lose points by over-looting, not under-fighting. Take what you need, rotate, and keep extraction in your head like a timer. If you're trying to stack coins or grab missing blueprints without living in fear of a dry spell, a lot of folks use RSVSR to top up currency and items so they can stay focused on clean attempts instead of scraping together another kit.