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.
if we could get an update on whats going on it would be nice.
Hopefully Etravex has time to do 2.0 soon.
Keep this map alive ! , Supporting Etravex to keep this map alive , we depend on u te keep it alive !
@Westrian: Go
Depends on how much work Etravex has to do.
is it possible to fix current IA2 from the patch or gonna leave it sit as it is until 2.0
@Timewarp121: Go
Ya, it might be detrimental to 3's quality if we drop in blind without a system in place to give feedback on.
Finally! I have your attention. My thoughts are to get 2.0 out asap with whatever features you have implemented atm. That will bring up the activity which is needed right now and hopefully inturn will bring us more ideas. All the item/features and ideas on the drawing board should be left for a more complete 3.0.
@Etravex: Go
Ok, I have an idea for IA3. Try to finish IA2 and then use that as a launching point for IA3. My suggestion is to do something like the Zerg Hunter RPG, where you can import your characters levels, carbon steel and items form IA2. I'm not sure if that would be feasible but if you can it would be awesome. BTW have a neighbor who is a mechanical engineer.
@Etravex
take ur time. go into IA3 and get thru ur year, work on it between semesters if u can... :)
do what u think is right i hope to see more activity from u in here...
@Etravex: Go
Create 2.0 for IA2 with the items and all that and use it as the base for IA3's code down the line.
FFS. I just typed a lot of stuff and it just disappeared! Damned thing...
Basic ideas:
"Map packs" where we can get multiple arena in each map and every so often it might change to another arena in the pack(s) chosen. People could pick if it's rare/common for arena change and a randomized "fifth value". They could also disable it entirely if they want. IF arena changes, all heals are removed and all players receive (6-playercount)/10 the strength of the total healed. Every player gets a grenade for each grenade on the field, and all minerals are simply collected for players. If blood was on the field then it's put somewhere on the next map randomly in a REACHABLE spot.
"Reroll" items-stuff could maybe re-roll the drop for another item, and can also hit re-roll again (but if Extravex was nice and let it work for Blood too it'd be limited)
Exp bonuses after some bosses would be nice, and at the end when you lose (or win??) for total team infested kills, total SIU kills, total bosses killed, wave reached, your infested&SIU kills, etc.
"Bloodthirsty" blood transfusion for bonus blood rate, or a wave with REALLY high blood rate (but with few SIUs) or lowered drop rate (with lots of weakened SIUs). Perhaps other things that give bonus to blood chance could increase chance for waves that modify blood drop rate?
There may have been more but I can't remember it now...
@Etravex: Go
My vote goes towards fixing up any and all completed systems (including the persistent items) you have now and implementing them. There is a huge variety of content that can be added to IA3 but as of now I have been saddened by the lack of players wanting to play IA2. Also, If you were to create a more permanent fan base off of a nice clean IA2 then IA3 will be that much better.
as for IA3 ideas? (after all, I did say there were tons) ~~Instead of having the "pick an arena" play style, have players fight their way through each arena, each of them with a different theme, level goals, and spawns ~~Visual changes to units upon equipping an item ~~stat based units and items (different from persistent items) and the ability to tweak the stats of a single, player specific, item (I.E. a power-suit for seifer) ~~a rework of the persistent level system, such as giving exp upon completing missions, reaching certain goals, or killing bosses. ~~changing how drops work including blood drops. I.E. instead of having blood be randomly dropped, have only the mutated SUIs drop blood at a 100% rate. and instead of having normal infesteds randomly drop items, have tinted infesteds randomly spawn which drop an item based on their color (gold for money, blue for energy, red for hp) and have them be given special stats (speed for gold, health for blue, attack for red)
@Etravex: Go
I'd laugh so hard if it weren't reverse psychology (which I doubt it was) because he would be so ashamed (and for good reason).
Just keep IA2 working for now and get IA3 to have the item system (with and it loads the data from IA2). IA 4 or 5 can have HotS stuff :P (HotS isn't due until like....2013, at the least...)
@PmacTK421: Go
ME= Mechanical Engineering
Here is my current fork in the road: rush out some additional content for this map or do what I want to do and go straight into Infested Arena 3 with a new smart system I'm working on designing for the Infested mob balance, items, new heroes etc... I feel there is enough content currently to start a whole new project. I also would love to use HotS content for the next implementation.
Although it will take some time to implement. I'm torn, but I do believe the quality will be far better if I start IA3. If this is the case and I decide to start IA3 what new content would you like to see in IA3?
I hope , it will be before 2012 , because this map rocks so hard
@Etravex: Go
What is ME? Also, even when I clear through the holiday game blitz, I will soon have Mass Effect 3 and possibly SC2 HOTS on my hands. I wont complain though, as I understand that you must have a lot on your hands. just make the patch good, and don't pull a Dashus on me.
@Timewarp121: Go
Timewarp is obviously trying to to use reverse psychology to get me to reaffirm that I'm still working on the map and get it out faster. Your plea for an update has been heard Timewarp. Nice job with the reverse psychology; it must have worked.
The map or franchise for Infested Arena is far from dead. I have gotten together with some real talented people who are adding a lot to the map. However, the map is on a temporary hold, due to many things. The new update couldn't have come at a worse time. My third year of ME is underway and I'm busy as ever. In addition, I believe by putting 2.0 or something else out at the moment would be very ineffective due to the mass amount of great titles coming out this holiday season. There are plans. But for those of you who are waiting for 2.0 anytime soon I'm sorry to inform you the wait will be longer.
There is a lot more content than originally anticipated that is going to be included in the next patch/project.
@Timewarp121: Go
If you're gonna be the next EtravexisLazy, I could always call in Sixen.
@Timewarp121: Go I am unable to ascertain as to whether thou art trolling or severely incapable of intellectual thought.
In other words, get a life and stop trolling. Actually no, grow up first. The fact that you're enjoying this means you are severely lacking in the maturity department.
...and now to sit back and wait to be "trolled" XD
@Sandman366: Go
bcuz its good fun to see you wound up over a dead map lol gl waiting.