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 Jun 16, 2011alright i have a few things to point out: 1) i love the difficulty scaling for the objectives. makes the game so much better now that they're actually possible
2) when i first saw the new cd for flight i was thinking "oh alright cant stay up most the time until maxed level" then when i got it to lvl 3 i noticed the cd scaled with flight. my first response was to throw my laptop through my TV because some of the later stages are impossible without perma flight. and with some SUIs still able to affect a flying psion, i saw no reason to change the cooldown. the 5 seconds (really 5.5) of vulnerability can easily lose you the game on the later stages. I've always used flight as a means of surviving until my team revives so that we dont lose the entire game because of a stupid mistake. and when the game gets to the point where psion can be killed in ~ 2 seconds, 5.5 seconds of being grounded is really deadly.
I definately agree with raising the CD, but scaling it with level doesnt seem balanced, and especially scaling it so you're grounded for 5.5 seconds.
another thing i'd like to mention is that this game is quickly becoming far less newb friendly. everything is quickly being marked up to accommodate all of us who have been around for awhile, and are getting to the high levels, but nothing new is really going in thats helping the new players to play.
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Posted Jun 16, 2011Found another bug. When the egg spawners fly down, they are targetable. Noticed this when playing Dead Eye and all of the sudden he shot one of them, with a killing blow. This seems to be an extremely short timespan of vulnerability, but if timed right, and you're standing close enough, they're supposedly still killable like that.
Another bug that seems to still be there, is sometimes when all players go incapitated, you don't get defeated. And another one is if someone leaves in the middle of the round, and all the remaining players die in that round, you won't get a defeat.
And one i haven't quite figured out yet. But i guess it happens when someone leaves after dying, and the remaining players stay, and all but one of them goes incapitated, you get a defeat. It has happened to me a few times, but i'm not sure what is causing it, but it seems to have something to do with a leaving player. Either when they leave before they revive, or just a random occurance when someone leaves. It's 100% certain that it is caused after someone leaves though.
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Posted Jun 16, 2011@iXoZTwisted: Go
I will be raising the level cap everytime players start to close in on the final level so as to show the overall achievement of each player. This being said I will be raising the level cap soon.
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Posted Jun 16, 2011Okay i see now that rounds get harder after 5, 10, 15, and 20. Maybe i was overreacting when i said it was immpossible. This was a good thing to do. I like having the objectives easier on early levels too. Questions: Are you having player levels pass 15? As the system is recording our kills, will we gain levels after the cap is raised according to our kills?
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Posted Jun 16, 2011@YinKuza: Go
He's an extremely powerful hero if built right for speed and range I would suggest trying the chaining abilities together. Just played 2 games 1 focus on thermal blade and the other focus on Pyro charge and they are incredibly powerful skills even late game. The turret will be buffed in terms of health in the future as i see that as a problem.
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Posted Jun 16, 2011@FiestaOne: Go
Sorry Fiesta I haven't been posting version by version changes. Something I will probably consider doing now that you bring it up. As per the version the latest is 1.53 I believe.
Cheers
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Posted Jun 16, 2011I know that there are testers and everything, but i have also tried Krug with focusing in individual abilities, and then globalizing it abit more to switch inbetween, and adding different stats to him (as i am lvl 15 myself, i have the oppertunity to do some different builds and test it out. And yes, he seems extremely powerful early on, but later on he just looks like a lack luster, atleast to me. But i guess i could be wrong.
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Posted Jun 16, 2011Thanks for the hard work Etravex.
Enjoying the game very much.
Is there anywhere that we can keep track of the change logs or find out which is the latest version number? Sorry I'm now at this site..
Cheers!
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Posted Jun 16, 2011@YinKuza: Go
Thank you for the heads up on Fulgore. Now fixed, unfortunately I had to reset the highest rounds stat once again because of this bug.
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Posted Jun 16, 2011@shadowel: Go
Your kills, although maxed out online, are still being recorded internally. No worries.
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Posted Jun 16, 2011@YinKuza: Go
YinKuza, I hope you don't think that I'm just throwing decisions together for balancing based on what individuals say. I have testers who test over and over again to fine tune characters. I'm afraid, especially after 1.51, you are not in agreement with everyone else when it comes to Krug.
I would direct you to try a couple different styles of approach with Krug. All have been tested several times and have proven to be extremely successful. You are right when you say his Pyro Charge isn't as powerful as the other's nukes to a certain degree. First off the primary target is actually taking over 2x the damage compared to other specialist nukes. The surrounding targets take 1/2 the listed damage which is extremely comparable to the AoE damage of the other specialist's nukes. to boot, Pyro Charge now costs only 2 nuclear charges. Another one of Krug's Specialties is his extremely low global cooldowns. where other specialists have .5 seconds to 3 second global cooldown on damaging abilities Krug has .1 second; which means that before the first pyro charge hits its target the second one can be well on the way.
Krug is an advanced class that requires a lot more skill to play and to build up. But I assure you if you learn the builds and make the proper modifications Krug is extremely powerful (in fact some testers believe he could be to overpowered now; i will get to that in a second).
Here are some key things that are necessary to know when playing Krug. 1. he has a 20% chance of gaining a Nuclear charge when attacking (increasing attackspeed early on is essential to increasing your chances of adding charges even faster). 2. he now has an upgrade for his "Charge Up" ability which is already on a very reasonable cooldown. If this modification upgrade is upgraded to max level of 3 (1500 minerals). He can go from 0 to 5 nuclear charges in 2.5 seconds instead of 10 seconds (this helps in tricky situations where you need quick charges). 3. Focusing on turrets, the Thermal Blade, or the Pyro Charges are all viable builds (turrets maybe receiving a health buff to increase their survivability late game). Although a word of warning, these skills need to be used properly. Here is a couple of pointers if you haven't figured them out already to make Krug very successful with his abilities. Chaining Abilities together for Krug is essential -Try throwing your thermal blade at one group of enemies and using Quick Maneuver to a different group of guys before the blade reaches the end of it's parabolic trajectory and watch as the blade takes down the designated group and flies all the way back to Krug at his new location killing even more with only 1 throw. -Try (with full charges) to use Pyro charge on a high health enemy and immediatly tap Charge Up and proceed to spam Pyro charge over and over and watch as you unleash 5 Pyro charges within a matter of seconds.
Krug does has a steeper learning curve, but utilize these abilities like combos and you will learn several other tactics as well that will make Krug a force to be reckoned with.
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Posted Jun 16, 2011My kill count is at 65535 and is no longer climbing, given your statement about the new system and mentioning people who keep playing will benefit as they do keep playing will this affect me negatively once the new system is out seeing as my kills no longer seem to be tracked?
My aka: DarKHacK
Will edit later on with ID.
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Posted Jun 16, 2011Loving that you decreased the difficulty of the objectives early on so that they are actually do-able now :)
Krug still seems like a flawed character who doesn't bring many benefits. His Pyro charge is alot worse than Fulgore's Nuke, Psion's Nuke, or Dead Eye's Nuke, due to the fact that it does less area damage, and will only be cast when he has charges for it, which he has to stand still for to get, and the others don't. This makes his survivability in the rounds after 20 really bad, and he will die rather fast. His Turrets are completely useless on savage, and his thermal blade just isn't worth getting.
Blaze could still use a little bit of love, especially to his fury prescence. I never see anyone using this stance anymore after he got the tier 2 defense addon ability, and even then, he is pretty bad. I suggest you look at some of the suggestions i gave you for him on the previous page and consider maybe trying some of it out instead of what he has in his current state, cause he doesn't last for long after the later rounds, even though he seems tanky as hell. His damage is simply too low, his survivability is ok, but just not enough to consider him a tank, and his skills doesn't fit very well for him to be considered an auto attack champion. He needs some kind of ensurance, rather than being bad at round 1-9, good at round 10-20, and then bad again.
And i don't know if this is a new bug, but it hasn't happened to me until now. When using Violent Transfer with Fulgore, he has a random chance of becoming permanently invulnerable. This seems like a vital bug that needs to be fixed asap as people can abuse this to stay in the game until b.net automatically shuts it down - 9 hrs, 6 mins.
Just thought i'd point it out.
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Posted Jun 16, 2011@iXoZTwisted: Go
Actually, there is no new upgrades given to Infested until rounds 5,10,15,20. They are not given out each round. The only modifications I implemented when balancing was increasing the amount of upgrades to health and damage for Infested Units based on Difficulty selected. Overall the game's difficulty has increased. And now the upgrades given at 21+ are every round and are considerably stronger than the normal upgrades.
By no means is this impossible. I will however be considering adding in a "continue" feature in which your team is given so many continues based on the difficulty selected which will allow you so many retries once your team is incap.
Krzysztof125, with version 1.51 you should no longer have an issue with blaze disappearing underground. I hesitate to put in a reset trigger if char is 10 seconds out of combat. This would give a whole new set of problems and would be a band-aid that would not solve the problem. I would rather fix the problem and be done with it. Which I do believe I did. If you can get him to go Invis please let me know, for I could not after extensive testing with 1.51
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Posted Jun 16, 2011Wow is it me or is this game a bit impossible now? i got to round 22 with psion solo on easy... What killed me was a Mutated SIU that 3 hit me =\ You made it so every round got harder 1-20. I dont think thats a good idea. New people wouldnt be able to make it far. The monsters from 1-20 should be same hp dmg etc. After 21 make it harder.
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Posted Jun 16, 2011Please do fix the tier 3 bugs before this major update though, and the getting stomped underground one, like have a way to reset where your char is after 10 seconds of no combat.
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Posted Jun 16, 2011Sounds promising :)
I'll definately look forward to that. Hope you liked some of the things that i posted on the previous page. Added a crapload of ideas and suggestions that could be quite useful in a project like this :)
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Posted Jun 16, 2011Yes the system will. I actually have an internal way of tracking each persons progress in detail. The system that I'm implementing will involve a form of currency that will carry over from game to game and will be rather difficult to obtain. Those who have played more will receive a bonus amount of this currency. Although, I will not be explaining yet what this currency does. You will have to wait for the update.
Additionally, I will be updating the bonus objectives to scale properly and many other issues.
One of my big plans is to spend some time doing some serious balancing. When I address the balancing issues I will be reseting the "top round received" stat for everyone as there was several bugs that allowed people to continue going into rounds even after defeat. Additionally, my goal is to make the difficulty, especially post 21, painfully hard.
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Posted Jun 15, 2011got another complaint. the cloud thats created by psion from his lightning attack just causes needless lag. could you remove it?
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Posted Jun 15, 2011Will this system benefit people who have reached level 15, maximum kills, and achieved over 100 rounds of survival ?