Infested Arena 2
Now On B.net NA and EU!
Welcome Back...
It has been 43 years since your last encounter with the Infested, which took place on a space station in a remote part of the Universe. You thought you were victorious after defeating the Broodmother. Little did you know that the Infested followed you back to your home planet in the Galminus system and have since been mutating, evolving and multiplying directly above you. It is clear to you that the Infested are far more powerful than they were last time. Mutant strains and cross breeding has brought about new and terrifying Infested units. But, you are not easily discouraged...43 years has brought about advancements of your own. Prepare yourself the Invasion is about to begin...
Evolving from Infested Arena to Infested Arena 2
New Arena Invasion Dynamic
Infested Arena had 4 hallways which spawned the same amount of Infested units (a total of 2 different types: ranged and melee) at the same intervals with randomized Special Infested Units (SIU's) spawning at 1 of the 4 hallway locations at set times.
Infested Arena 2 has a randomized Invasion dynamic where at the beginning of each round randomized Drop-pods will fall from the sky in random locations. Once the Drop-pod lands it will begin generating eggs which after a short time will hatch and release the Pods designated spawn unit (i.e. Spewer Pod will spawn several infested spewer units). There is also a % chance based on active players and difficulty selected to generate new Drop-Pods at varying locations and varying times into the Arena. There are 4 basic Infested units (Infested Arena only had 2) each has it's respective Drop-Pod. Furthermore, you will easily be able to identify, with the "Infested Pod" dialog, all the current pods found within the Arena. In addition, Special Infested Cocoons will drop from the sky into the arena and after the duration will hatch a random SIU, all of which can be tracked using the "Infested Pod" dialog.
New Special Infested Units
There are now 10 SIU's including new ones, such as: Behemoth, Vile Imploder, Stalker, Desecrator. Some of the SIU's from Infested Arena were removed because...,well, they just weren't any fun.
Infested Blood Transfusions
Infested Arena 2 Introduces "Infested Blood Transfusions." Each time a Special Infested Unit or Boss is killed there is a chance for them to drop "Infested Blood" when one Specialist picks this up all specialists receive 1 Infested Blood. You can use a new menu to load up a stat tree in which you can further modify your Specialist by injecting yourself with the Infested Blood - Things ranging from increased movement speed, damage, extra shields, armor to having a chance to apply the "plague" or chain explosion reaction each time you attack.
Each available stat change found within the Infested Blood Transfusion Tree is modeled after Infested units you are fighting (Infested Bulwark Plating - Increase Armor +1/2/3/4/5)
Specialist changes
My original plan was to incorporate several new Specialists in Infested Arena 2, but after consideration and plenty of feedback I decided to change the fighting mechanics with each specialist. In Infested Arena everyone had energy and all abilities had close to a 10-15 second cooldown. Many times people would run until there ability was up. This wasn't to much fun. How could I make battle more fun and enjoyable? I decided to go with an action game battle dynamic. Each Specialist now has a total of 6 abilities (up from 4) and cooldowns are down around the 1-3 second mark.
Infested Arena witnessed 5 specialists who almost were identical in operation but with different special effects.
In Infested Arena 2 each Specialist is completely individualized everything about them operates differently from other specialists. Read on for details
A Few Examples of The New Battle System
Seifer's New Battle Mechanics
Built for Tanking.
-Seifer uses fast regenerating Energy to perform his abilities.
-Seifer has a "charging up" mechanic known as Ravager's Roar to boost his attack power and armor. With each roar Seifer receives 1 Ravager's Mark which will keep Seifer's damage and armor up until he uses "Igniting Wave." Once used all Marks will be removed. How do you get the most out of your Igniting Wave? Keep charging up with Ravager's Roar.
Fulgore's New Battle Mechanics
Built for damage from the shadows
-Fulgore uses Fast regenerating energy for a few of his abilities
-The rest of Fulgore's abilities operate off of a combo system known as Marks of Death. Each attack Fulgore executes has a 20% chance of awarding 1 Mark of Death. Other abilities and upgrades can apply additional Marks of Death just by using them. Fulgore can then choose to use his other abilities powered by Marks of Death. Once a Mark of Death ability is used all Marks of death are consumed. Depending on how many Marks of Death Fulgore had when executing the ability will determine the effectiveness of that ability (i.e. Vexing Shadows requires at least 1 Mark of Death. For each Mark of Death consumed when Vexing Shadows is executed Fulgore will teleport and deal extensive damage to 2 enemy units. If Fulgore has 5 Marks of Death then a total of 10 enemies will be warped too and attacked).
Blaze's New Battle Mechanics
Built for Siege and AoE
-Blaze uses Fury to power the majority of his abilities. Blaze's Fury meter starts at 0 and as Blaze attacks his Fury meter will begin to rise reaching a maximum of 100. As Blaze reaches certain thresholds of Fury he will be able to perform various abilities. Blaze also has abilities that require no Fury and will actually add a certain amount of Fury to Blazes Fury meter when used.
-Blaze utilizes "Presences" - Blaze can only have 1 Presence on at any given time and depending on which presence Blaze has on they will positively/negatively effect him (i.e. Fury Presence grants 150% additional Fury increase with regular attacks, Increases damage by 40%, and movement speed by 10%, but at the cost of degenerating Shields, and 50% increased damage from all Infested attacks.)
and much more.
Dead Eye's New Battle Mechanics
-Dead Eye uses Fast regenerating Energy to power his abilities. Dead Eye has the capability of dealing extreme damage to single targets as well as using superior crowd control abilities to protect his teammates. Dead Eye has access to Critical Strike Upgrades which allows every attack and ability a chance at dealing 200%, 205%, 210%, 215%, or 220% damage depending on critical strike upgrade level.
Salv's New Battle Mechanics
Salv can be used to focus directly on damage and AoE or Healing. Salv has access to Quick Access Heal buttons which allows him to cast his healing spells (via buttons on the leaderboard) at great distances. This way Salv can keep track of his teammates health and still remain an effective damage dealer.
Salv uses fast regenerating Energy to power his abilities and has great Crowd Control abilities such as "Mind Sync" which allows Salv to convert up to 10 Infested Units (SIUs included) to his side for a duration. This ability can turn the tide of battle quickly if the right units are "Mind Synced" (i.e. Mind Syncing a Special Infested Behemoth - sends the Behemoth to do massive AoE damage to all nearby Infested Units).
NEW SPECIALIST Psion's New Battle Mechanics
Psion is a new addition to the team and although requires a persistent player level of 7 Psion is a power addition to Infested Arena.
Psion uses fast regenerating Energy to power his abilities. Psion's main purpose is to rain down destructive electrical magic from above. All of Psion's abilities have some form of electrical attribute. Although Psion's Health and Energy starts out low Psion Energy Reserves start out higher than the rest of the Specialists.
Psion is capable of enabling "Flight Form" which increases his Electrical damage and increases his movement speed. Psion can traverse cliffs and has the ability of summoning his favored ally "Arc." Arc's weapon is increased along with Psion's weapon. Whenver you upgrade Psion's weapon the benefits transfer to Arc.
Psion is also capable of restoring teammate shields via the Quick heal keys located next to the leaderboard. Instantly clicking on the appropriate team icon will heal the corresponding teammate.
Persistent Player Level
All of your kills are permanently recorded within Infested Arena 2. Whenever you start a new game of Infested Arena too you will notice that your kills refelct all prior kills you have recieved while playing Infested Arena. As you Level up (via your Persistent Player Level) you will be granted access to exclusive Hero Specialist Units. In addition, you will partake in the Persistent Level Player Stat Menu.
The Persistent Player Level Stat Menu allows you (upon starting Infested Arena) to add upgrades (dependent on your Player Level) to your Specialist. In other words, the longer you play and the higher your Player Level the more initial upgrades you can make to the Specialist you have selected.
Latest Patch Notes
This Map was created for the NA Server. If you are from EU server please include the version you are playing in your comment
Comments
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_ForgeUser4426202 Owner
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Posted Jul 1, 2011you should add in infested blood for purchase for like 5k in the shop at the center of the map. And add in tier 3 upgrades
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Posted Jul 1, 2011keep in mind that I will always be able to add new items as time goes on regardless. As to how many items and what requirements are needed I cannot say.
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Posted Jun 30, 2011question/suggestion for items...is it possible to add a round or char requirement for the possible permanent items have lower lvl items like around 9 and upper lvls about 17? tho its abit more work to make about 2x the amount?
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Posted Jun 30, 2011Different compromises for psion +2 dmg per upgrade vs psion / -1 dmg per upgrade vs light or vice versa or +2/3/4 dmg per upgrade vs psion/light for a much more expensive price Psions arc can have an item that does +10% more dmg so 60% total Some items can make Psions lightning storm have +1/2/3/etc range for -10%/20%/30%/etc less dmg ^ can be used for all nukes Can you tell us what the items had that made them overpowered so we know? Maybe we think .5 dmg per upgrade is nothing for an item but your testers found out it was too much. If thats the case you can easily nerf it or make it expensive. If the .5 dmg per upgrade was too much use a % like 5% more dmg overall. Or less or nerf or make more expensive etc.
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Posted Jun 30, 2011Finding out how to make compromises in items would be nice. It would fit to peoples different playstyles. If the item system is a problem you should make them weaker? Or more expensive... a 5% buff or something might not be that bad. You could try to use items make the abilities better but not the main damaging ones unless its a small buff like the 5%. Oddlots ideas on the abilities sound better than just "pure buffs"
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Posted Jun 30, 2011Oh, I also would like to point out, that maybe instead of pure buffs, there could be compromises. Instead of just adding range to something like thermonuclear capsule from armor, what about instead having it be say, +3 range, but -1 Radius on the blast. I would gladly purchase armor sets with these abilities, and then gauge more playstyles and whatnot, just by having certain abilities modified.
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Posted Jun 30, 2011New patch [1.87] is out adding survivability modifications for weaker classes such as Psion, Dead Eye, Krug, and Salv.
Also modifying Psion and Dead Eye's abilities to increase their survival.
Many new weapon modifications have been added to several specialists allowing for new builds
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Posted Jun 30, 2011I liker the psion buffs. I liked psion before, but I felt anything other the flying, lightning storm, was completely useless. Arc was cool early game if you really needed him, but quickly sucked.
As for your problem with items, what if you made them rather expensive? Such as 500 Carbon Steel for a single item. You'd at least then have everyone buying items less often, leading to less overpowered-ness. Also, what about items/armor that increased experience for people below a certain level? This would probably help balance the power in levels, at least. I also think abilities of items might be better off, say for example a seifer. Take him, 5 item armor set. Each piece does it's own little thing. Maybe a helm give +5% health, or increased health regen. While a chestpiece might increase the effectiveness of his abilities. Maybe have it be like the Psionic Barrier absorbs %10 more damage with that particular armor piece.
Instead of just buffing damage and stats, why not use the armor to incline players to use their abilities more, and fufill their roles more properly? Instead of sheerly making them super powerful. There's obviously going to be the idea of certain sets of items point towards certain aspects, like a blaze would have a dps, a tank, and support set. Maybe something towards +2 range to the Projectile shield?
Anyway, that's what I've come up with as far as the item system goes. I don't know if you've already toyed with the ideas, but from your previous posting on your testing, I think this would be a good alternative.
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Posted Jun 30, 2011Here is a list of current changes for Psion on the new patch thus far [patch hasn't been uploaded yet]
Working on doing some new things with Dead Eye next. If you have any suggestions feel free to post them and they will be considered.
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Posted Jun 30, 2011Hi again, thanks for the EU upload :). I played Psion 3 times and figured out that his V spell (the AoE slow + dmg ignoring armor) is bugged. The slow is effective but no damage appear at all (keep spamming billions of 0, sometimes 1 dmg).
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Posted Jun 30, 2011Evasion only applies to damaging abilities. Anything that is an ability that doesn't cause damage will still apply such as the behemoths new 3 second stun. Usually when I'm fulgore I've gotten in the habbit of using shadow strike right before the behemoth comes that way i have evasion from damage up while im stunned for 3 seconds. I will look into the cloak of darkness and the behemoth I do believe it should work; however, maybe there was a desecrator around or a creeper? they reveal your hidden status to all units
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Posted Jun 29, 2011few bugs ive found...first im not even sure if its a bug or not, but the behemoths stun for about 3 sec now, also theyre attacks hit through evasion and cloak of darkness on fulgore, i got 2 shotted at round 27 i think also when i was playing as fulgore in the no mands land after i killed a spewer i got killed right after it, idk what caused it but it pissed me off that this kept happening, somehow getting hit(not with cleave) while in cloak and evasion not even letting me dodge it.
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Posted Jun 29, 2011I cannot at this time. I had already undergone the entire item process and had a huge majority of it completed; as we started to test out the new items we realized how it threw the entire balance out of order. And there was the issue with players who had powerful items and players who didn't and individuals not getting any kills [no items] and players not moving because they were to strong [with items].
At this time I'm rethinking the entire process. I'm open to suggestions from the community and will implement some form of permanent item setup in the future, but need to do so carefully as to not disturb the current balance of the game.
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Posted Jun 29, 2011Can you tell us when the items will be implemented? or give us a sneak peak?
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Posted Jun 29, 2011I can't say for sure ATM but I will keep what you said in mind :)
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Posted Jun 29, 2011Etravex, could we get either an answer on this one way or the other. I love to tank, I know a few others who DPS, Blaze is my preferred for Tanking, theirs for DPS, I would love a higher level Tank character, meaning unlocked with Player Level. Personally I would love an immortal, but would settle for any thing I could get that was fun and ranged. Could you please look into this and consider implementing into the game? Thanks
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Posted Jun 29, 2011Well, I've been playing a bit by myself, and I mostly play with dead eye. Must say that I didn't even notice that much of a difference without that upgrade. Sure, before the recent changes (mainly speedlings) I could get to round 50+ alone, now I only go up to around 30, but being more difficult is good IMO. It gets kinda boring if you're able to just sit around for like 6 hours, max all upgrades, and then just wait until a round strong enough kills you off, or everyone decides to leave the game (which most certainly will come first), which was what happened when I first played with my friends. They got so bored they didn't even wanted to play it again, and we were playing on the difficulty just below lunatic. Whenever there was a boss, I just went there with Dead Eye and killed it in a few seconds, because of full damage ups. But after the changes, they're interested in the map again because of it being more challenging. Well, I think the map will change a lot with the items system, depending on how good the items are. Then maybe the nerfs will be more justifiable.
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Posted Jun 29, 2011Yes Fulgore also had his double attack removed. The modification was left over from Infested Arena 1, but now that Critical strike does up to 220% damage there is no need to have 440% damage being done every small fire interval. The damage was to insane as it was with that cheap modification. Due to these upgrades some of the boss rounds were lasting all but seconds especially if fulgore and deadeye went straight high single target damage.
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Posted Jun 29, 2011After one of the recent patches, I feel like an upgrade for Dead Eye disappeared, I believe the one that cost 2000 mins and made him shoot doubled. Was that intentional? ;(
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Posted Jun 29, 2011I only registered to say i really like this ums, there is not enough good umses in sc2(at least not i can find). :) I would need some good players to play it though, max 21 lvl(and like last 6 lvls in 2 people).