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 9, 2011Propagators are only 3 player exp, and I don't think festerlings give ANY exp. If you farm it's for the occasional blood and decent cash you can get from them. I know Blaze with a little armor and the 1.5 shields leech thing can probably permatank it, which is kinda nice if you wanted to go do something else for a while lol
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Posted Jul 9, 2011Another way is to make sure his spawns drop nothing and give no exp.
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Posted Jul 9, 2011In my oppinion there should be made changes to King Propagator. Right now, if people are bored enough, or really wants to, they can farm him for however long time they feel like. For either EXP, or items. Getting EXP is really easy after he has spawned a crapload of Propagators. Your tank just kites him around while the rest of the team smacks the festerlings and leaves the Propagators, and the other way around, killing the Propagators for items.
The way i would like to see it changed - Everytime he spawns a Propagator you would have to kill it, or it would grow stronger, spawning stronger festerlings for every interval that the King Propagator would normaly spawn another Propagator, or something else. Just something that would make you HAVE to kill the Propagators that he spawns and make focus him, rather than those. The way it functions right now is just too easily abused, on any difficulty.
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Posted Jul 9, 2011@Sandman366: Go
The 10% speed thing works differently. You should read the comments i asked about it and find out the answer yourself.
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Posted Jul 9, 2011For those that have trouble, ya'll should try soloing. I've soloed Blaze a lot now and I've got 39 as farthest wave. And I'm on Easy. And I usually end up spending like an hour farming stuff on King Propagator (I know just about exactly how he works. 500 mana he spawns a propagator, unless there are too many festerlings. And....that's about it....)
I do like the idea of changing difficulty your own way though, with some of the random stuff. That was something I liked about Gemcraft, you could make it pointlessly difficult just to make it pointlessly difficult.
Yes I know the Frenzy stuff needs you to attack. Attack speed one still hasn't done much for me, I won't bother to get it for a while. And the 10% all speeds thing didn't seem to work for cooldowns. Maybe it was just hidden and did work, but I expected it to actually show up as a shorter cooldown.....
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Posted Jul 9, 2011@DeadMG: Go
DeadMG I don't listen to people who whine. I stopped reading your long post after I realized that you came on the boards to complain instead of add constructive criticism.
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Posted Jul 9, 2011@DeadMG: Go
20 hours isn't a lot of game time for Infested Arena. I generally spend about 4-5 hours on a single game. And I've been paying attention to every update and comment thus far. I reccomend you read back at least a half dozen pages of comments to really get an idea of where the game is at, and all the balance issues that have already been pointed out.
Believe me when I say we're way ahead of you on all this.
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Posted Jul 9, 201120 hours is "starter experience" at best. About 4 decent games.
Krug has currently 3 play modes. None of the two powerful ones include weapon damage as a major factor.
Psion and blaze are other two that are far more powerful with abilities then physical damage. Only deadeye and fulgore are weapon damage specialists. And theýre pretty gimp because of it at the moment.
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Posted Jul 9, 2011@luckyo1: I've been playing for nearly 20 hours now. I guess that technically, it's possible that Krug could have some more interesting mechanics, but I don't really see the point in grinding for another 20 hours to find out. Even if he did, then I'd better hope that nobody else took him first. And that I can bring my bank files everywhere I might want to play, which is far from guaranteed.
Sure, carbon steel items are coming. When I load up the map next, whenever that is, I'm sure that knowledge will immeasurably improve my play experience.
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Posted Jul 9, 2011@Extravex: may I suggest you push a 1.9 update stating at the start in big bold text that "2.0 is coming and you can farm carbon steel from bosses for items that will be in it"?
This is bound to increase the slipping popularity. Doesn't really need any other major changes, balance can wait for items and 2.0.
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Posted Jul 9, 2011@DeadMG: may I suggest playing at least for some time before making balance suggestions?
Carbon steel items are also coming - you'd know this if you bothered reading a few posts below yours.
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Posted Jul 9, 2011Playing EU (1.87).
Man, Abilities are so incredibly gimped. Physical DPS (weapon damage) has a whole tree in Infested Blood. Abilities have just one skill on the right hand side. Shield Armour is only ever useful if you're a specialist that has shield armour- if you're playing someone like Salv who has no other shield armour sources, then it's quite worthless, and the avoidance is hardly going to be useful compared to the tanking tree.
Secondly, Ability damage costs twice as much Infested Blood as physical damage. Why?
Thirdly, there are way more weapon upgrades than Ability upgrades. Salv, a caster, gets about five or six weapon upgrades, and one damage ability. Yeah. One. The others is meant to synergise with weapon damage, or heal. Some of the others, like the mind control one, are flat out useless. Great, I can control Infested, but Infested have WAY more health than they have damage. Even 500% on an SIU is nowhere near enough to make using the skill worth it. And, of course, you don't get ability damage synergy with it. Oh, and some abilities are only good against groups or good against bosses, so if you want to be useful you have to pay twice, but physical weapon damage covers both just fine, with a very cheap upgrade.
Fourthly, healing is a joke. You get one skill, there's no synergies with any Infested Blood skills, and nobody ever needs healing anyway. The health of Specialists is so low, either they're dead or full health.
And what even is Carbon Steel? I don't know about you, but I've never gotten anything for it. The middle shop only sells ammo.
As far as I can tell, the only way to play is to spam physical damage, for all characters, and the healing/magical damage abilities are utterly gimped and uninteresting. This also gives unfair advantages to characters like Blaze, where his initial damage is low but the extra he gets from upgrades do not take into account his insane attack speed, giving him easily the highest damage.
I also want to complain about the difficulty. It doesn't ramp up enough. Players should have to work as a team. And in addition, the XP earned should be equal for everyone in the team. Do I deserve less XP because I like to be the healer? But in most of my games, the DPS players get like double or triple the experience of everyone else. Most of the bosses especially can be trivially kited instead of fought in one place, and present no genuine danger to the team, they just take too long to kill.
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Posted Jul 8, 2011@bronzel
i think the steel is for the items in 2.0
if im wrong some1 say otherwise
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Posted Jul 8, 2011@Randomjoe266: Go
I agree with you. The game becomes too easy after a certain point. I was playing on hard, and eventually my two partners and I decided to leave : it wasn't challenging/fun anymore (wave 3X I guess). So the difficulty should be adjusted. But you also need to add more upgrades, so one doesn't end up spending all the money in +damage upgrade. Same goes for blood : add other trees, maybe ? You seem to have some very good ideas, I trust you, since your map is very enjoyable. Consider adding maybe a few more heroes ? Good to hear a version 2.0 is coming out !
One question : this steel you get on bosses, is it useless, or is there a way to use it ? I guess someone has already given the answer, but I can't find it !
Thank's a lot.
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Posted Jul 8, 2011i play this game a lot and have some questions/comments sorry if this is long (made the account to post on here)
1. For the player level and infested blood counter, it blocks out certain parts of my screen and i cant see them, does anyone know if theres a way to move it or make it smaller?
(that was my only question comments now)
ok... this may not come out the way i want it to so dont flame pls.
fun game (duh) i think at the beginning and later in the game (if u have a good team) it gets highly repetitive. Ive had games where it lasts for many rounds and... i just start afk-ing cuz i have all of the upgrades.
About the upgrades, i love what u did with the new weapon mods to do more damage to types of units, it allows for specialization in the early game. Also, with the infested blood tree, it has greatly improved with the updates of all the new ones, but some i find, are seldom(rarely) used and when they are, it is just cuz people have more blood. e.g. the health regeneration(i mean the hp/second), it doesnt do too much later game and the life/shield... gain(?) ability is much more powerful.
Thanks if u answer my question or consider my comments in the next vers...
Dukewin (Terminus on SC2 if any want to add, im always up for IA2)
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Posted Jul 8, 2011oh yeah! i was talking about this with oddlot =) so you are skipping from 1.87-2.0! Its great to hear that you've been working hard. Everything makes sense. With all the new additions the wait should be worth it.
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Posted Jul 8, 2011@iXoZTwisted: Go
Oh sorry I thought you meant my comments updates here on sc2mapster. Yes it's been awhile since an update, but we are going from 1.87 straight to 2.0 and alot of work is being done on 2.0 right now. New interface additions, items, streamlining code to allow for a greater number of infested units on the board at one time. Right now the max is 150 infested units on the board; I've done some testing and hopefully we will push for 225 or right around there
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Posted Jul 8, 2011@Randomjoe266: Go
Added to list of considerations
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Posted Jul 8, 20111.87 has been out for more than 2 days... i remember there being an update but not 1.88. wat was the last update?
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Posted Jul 8, 2011@iXoZTwisted: Go
It's been 2 days since last update.
I'm not going to rush the update guys. I realize that you all want to get into it but I'm not going to push out a buggy experience with items with 2.0 especially when people are spending their carbon steel to buy expensive items.
There are going to be 55+ items in 2.0 and all of them have to be tested and balanced before release.