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New Feature: The Hellfire Arena


Flix

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Ah, right. So unless I kill a rider before going against it this happens because of that vanilla bug. At least if it happens again I know why, and how to circumvent it. I feel like an idiot now... Thanks mate!

Oh, round 8 on stage 1 is bloody ridiculous! :3lmao:Those bosses spawned two levels above the toon+SB level and ten levels above me. The second I saw them cast an endless roll of minions I got the jitters. That Grand Vizir also has a tendency to come out of the arena to chase some of the undead minions. I think I'll let this level be for now. :nono:

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So, finally got to finish the arena mode in Normal difficulty. Mobs were always 8-10 levels above my toon due to the high SB, which like I said in the D2F Creatures thread was gone in the round against the Elemental Lords. Well, fighting in the Hellfire Arena with mobs at character level or one level above at most does make it much easier. Still I had my fair share of jump scares and Blitz moments (Oh maaan...) because some rounds are just tough. As funny as it may be the last stage seems to be easier than the ones before for a melee toon like I'm running, and as far as I could tell the round that cost me my SB is most likely the hardest one. I'd have to double check against the Zakarum Council though because even at char level or +1 that was a tough battle. They are six and they cover a wide range of damage and resistance channels so it's not an easy one in the slightest.

It'd be interesting to notice how a pure caster goes against this mode since the tendency is that the higher your SB is the most probable it is for you to get easily redlined at certain rounds. I'm guessing that a glass cannon will be awesome in the arena since shooting first and asking questions later seems to be an easy way to get away with it, though in all honesty a toon heavy on debuff is probably the ideal for this mode. I mean, more often than not you'll come into a round where mobs just cast and cast and cast when their hand-to-hand combat isn't even that troublesome. But then one does root, the other stun and the other lands traps, so when you consider all three together... Yeah, that's the main issue. If this mode would be available for vanilla I'd say that an Arcane High Elf with Expulse Magic always on would be the easiest toon to use, but in D2F it's hard to tell.

Final thoughts about the mode, I like it a lot. It's an enormous change of pace from the regular gameplay, it's faster and more brutal, the rounds are more violent than whatever you encounter in the regular gameplay, you get your toon and your skills as a player tested, etc. It's just different from the rest of the game, much like a Crucible mode is on so many other RPGs, so this is a case of a mod being exactly what it should be. My main criticism lies in the limitations of the game itself, since the arena is pretty small and some bosses are just huge in comparison. The rewards are so so, I see it more as a way to get the loot on each stage and then the skill and attribute points at the end of it, rather than getting the relic and jewel. They're great and all but they seem to grow very little, just look at Hellfire Torch giving 20 armour at level 70 when I can get relic drops above 130. I know it has further bonuses but it just seems a bit low for a legendary, so if you'd ask me both items could benefit from higher values in armour and damage.

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Hey there, I really love the mod (only installed it today for the first time) but I just can't figure out how to start this arena questline? I must be really dumb as nobody in this thread had any problem like this. But I don't even know how to start it. In the multiplayer Island I found the arena, but it's completely empty, the four guys standing outside don't give me any quest. So then where should I pick this quest up? (I found one questgiver on the Island, he gave me a quest called BUGS. I guess this is not the one, right? (by the way, I have no idea what to do in that bug quest either)

 

Edited by Sethi22
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I am currently trying the Arena with a Necromancer. I was so used to have the Godpower skill for Philios's magic ban that I wanted to play something without this. No Philios, no Energy Shield and no Armour Lore.... Thrilling.

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I'm not playing in freeplay mode, but in Single player campaign. And it's not there (where should it be? The four guys standing outside should be the quest givers, right?) So maybe the problem is that I unlocked the island in freeplay mode, and then went back to single player?

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1 hour ago, Sethi22 said:

I'm not playing in freeplay mode, but in Single player campaign. And it's not there (where should it be? The four guys standing outside should be the quest givers, right?) So maybe the problem is that I unlocked the island in freeplay mode, and then went back to single player?

No, that's the expected way to access the portal on the Island of Many Roads (no way to get there otherwise).

I don't know why the quest isn't available.  Is your character Hardcore?

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Yes, all my characters are hardcore. Is that a problem?

Well I just tried it with a normal character and it's there. I didn't know harcore was a problem for this quest. That's kind of sad. So no way to play it with hardcore toon? (Thanks for the quick answer, by the way!)

Edited by Sethi22
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21 minutes ago, Sethi22 said:

Well I just tried it with a normal character and it's there. I didn't know harcore was a problem for this quest. That's kind of sad. So no way to play it with hardcore toon? (Thanks for the quick answer, by the way!)

Well it was not intended to be that way, it was just an unexpected side effect. :wacko: I can change it back to act like a normal quest, but AKAIK it would then be repeatable in Free Play mode then, allowing for exploitation of some very good rewards.

 

If you want to change it, you can open in the mod folder: scripts/server/quest.txt. 

Search for the line:  name = "S_BI_nn-Arena-Phase1-Round1",

then underneath that look for: releasestage = 8,

and change it to: releasestage = 30,

 

Back up your characters first if you do that, because if you make a typo it will wipe your character's quests when you load it.

 

P.S. I love your avatar by the way.  :D

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Wow how do you know all that stuff? I'll definitely change it, I don't enjoy playing softcore that much. Thanks for the help, you rock!

edit: Well, a few hours later I was able to try it, and it didn't work:( I still don't get the quest with my hardcore toon. I changed it to 30 (it was several lines below the one mentioned ("S_BI_nn-Arena-Phase1-Round1",) Any other advice maybe?

edit: It works! I had to remove the mod from the Generic mod enabler and reisntall it again. Now the quest giver is there :D Woohoo I'm gonna smash them to pieces!!! Thanks again!

edit: (holy crap! It turns out they were the ones doing the smashing :sob: I didn't even survive the first wave with my werebear... Well, back to the drawing board then...)

(Oh and the avatar, yeah I love that film, "They live, we sleep." ((Think it's true too...)))  

 

 

Edited by Sethi22
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  • 5 weeks later...

My latest singer barbarian finished Hellfire arena in hell difficulty at level 113. Enemies were like 13-14 levels higher. What did the trick:

divine devotion and Philios godpower, 75s recharge, ca-level 125

Grim Ward, ca-level 130

Was enough dispel power it seems

At hard hitting caster groups I used a spell block trophy with 75%block chance in advance.

 

I would say that divine devotion and alchemy are nice for arena fights if the character build allows two general skills. Buying stamina potions (strong ones to 60% regeneration time) and boosting the uptime with alchemy helps a lot in spamming spell attacks.

Alchemy also helps in having heal potions doing full heals in hell difficulty. This is very important for the first seconds of an arena fight.

 

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  • 3 weeks later...

I've just noticed that when enemies are active inside the arena and you use the side doors to the stands they just try to rush the main entrance and don't pursue you there. I've tried snipping with a bow but there are no hits since the arrows seem to "fizzle" on the stands, so terrain won't let a ranger snipe them. But how about a caster with Area of Effect spells, will that caster be able to snipe the enemies in the arena?

Fun fact, I've got a Kaldur's Legacy drop from stage 2 round 7. I believe it's my first one since I'm running CM 1.60! :JC_hurrah:

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  • 4 weeks later...
On 7/25/2020 at 3:45 AM, Androdion said:

But how about a caster with Area of Effect spells, will that caster be able to snipe the enemies in the arena?

Was about to post something and noticed how I never got an answer to this question. :dntknw:

@Flix @chattius - I have a question for both of you, the dev and the master tester. Would you two say that a build which can survive the Arena in any difficulty is the ultimate build in D2F? My short time in Nightmare seems to indicate that I won't have as many issues in other places as in the Arena, but since both of you are more savant in the higher difficulties of the Mod I'd like some input on that. Regular, Elites and even Campaign/Mini-bosses alone don't seem to have as much bite as some rounds of the Arena do, with as much as four bosses or six superuniques at the same time in a crowded space.

Now why do I ask this in particular? Because thinking about the endgame when building a toon had more to do with finishing the campaign. Can you beat the Guardians in Niob? You're good to go. But now it seems to me that the end goal is the Arena itself, and as such if a build can survive the Arena it can survive the entire game. So if the objective becomes that then when planning a build the emphasis should be on the Arena itself and not "just" the twelve areas of the game.

Is this reasoning solid or does it have some flaws, and if so which are those? Chattius seems to have made his last few builds more Arena-centric, so maybe he's been on to something that I've only now understood?

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I tend to think about it the same way I think about Crucible in Grim Dawn.  It is its own thing.  Many people stick to campaign and don't bother with Crucible.  Some people only build for Crucible and treat it like it's the only purpose and ultimate end-goal of a character. 

The point of the Arena is challenge though, so it stands to reason there's not going to be anything nearly as difficult in the main campaign.

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The good thing at arena is that the number of enemies is very limited and that it is an arena with limited room.

I can optimize a Singer build for this. Redemption and Grim Ward are very good in arena fights.

But let's go to the open. Enemies hit by Grim Ward run away, leaving Redemption circle. As soon as there are 20 will o'wisps, 10 eyes. some dragonflies from all sides it became very interesting even without a boss in the outside.

 

About the sniper part, the most dangerous moment is the one short after you opened the fight talking. I have to admit that it was the Arena which made me considering Divine Devotion on every new build. There are two god powers which can be used before talking and give a great protection for up to 20s at high levels. This will give you the time to teleport to the arena ranks. But without this, what will you do when rooted, stunned, ....

There are dead angles you can't hit, enemies can snipe back, ...

 

For me a singer is one of the best Arena characters: warcry, howl, stun, grim ward, redemption, shout, .... all are spells and Redemption fits more into a caster build which has combat discipline, ancient magic, ....

Salvation with its reflections needs no other skill than divine devotion to shine and is better than Redemption for the melee characters.

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Thank you both for your replies. It's nice to have a different perspective.

I'll be honest. I've been tired and a bit disheartened with all that's going on at my work, with Covid and plain stupidity of customers, so some feelings I have tend to become amplified. One of those is a huge issue that I have with Sacred 2, and that as it seems I'll continue having. Which is, I tend to loose the motivation to keep playing when the build starts being "more is more". You know, more grind for more items, low progression from one level to the next past 100, more grind for more levels for more slow progression for more items... You guys get the picture. So having an added challenge was a point of motivation, but like a Crucible you begin to wonder just how whimpy you actually are, so you turn the needle into focusing on it, but then you loose the edge of the campaign, yada yada.

Basically I don't know what to do. I start designing a char and build only to begin wondering that a Barbarian with almost 30% damage mitigation still gets slapped silly here and there. I wonder how a squishy toon would be then. And once I start thinking like that I'm stuck in a loop.

So yeah, I'm more releasing steam here than complaining. It's just that I have no idea where to go now with the game.

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Wasn't playing Grim Dawn Crucible yet.

 

For Sacred2 most of my characters are doing one or more metamorphosis.

My smith started as a singer/priest

at level 20 I added concentrate to recharge combinations and was staff shooting with frenzy for a while

then I recharged a warcry/howl combination

then I trained tactics; redemption and grim ward both doing fear so I placed them so in terrain that enemies were feared but couldn't really run away

then I was playing rotating a staff shoot combination with a warcry/howl one

I tried a lot what was possible with the build

and one time, I promise it will morph to a pure singer without needing weapon hits to recharge.

 

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The only character I ever played to 200 was a hardcore pure mentalism dragon mage. I always said when it dies I will do more sport with the kids,  it never died... and I still play Sacred 2

 

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Ha ha, that's gold right there! :bow:

Totally unrelated discussion I reckon, but that's kind of another thing that irks me about the game, that you never get to be level 200 and have enough time to enjoy it. More like you grind your way to it and then that's that. Kind of like getting to 100 in Dungeon Siege 2, by the time you can get there you barely have anything else to do, so it's just about getting there and not about enjoying your 900+ skill points in Sacred's case.

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I've updated all the pics in the first post with the new Hellfire Arena rounds in v15.  Some rounds have creatures swapped around, some rounds are restructured entirely.  Almost all of the models got redesigns.

@Androdion  I know you're not playing anymore but I went through the feedback to try to adjust the balance of the rounds.

I guess that about wraps up v15.  I'll roll in the Paladin clipping fix into the main release in another week along with any other bug reports that come along.

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7 hours ago, klariska said:

Ok I started a multiplayer open net game with my brother( he stays far).....I didn't ever see or read this post. I was minding my own business walked in the arena thought eazy quest and Pew Pew ded.... Man next time warn me. I am to old for fast pace games I may die of a heart attack 😒

Oh, you were definitely warned... sorry you had to learn the hard way.  :3lmao:

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On 6/23/2022 at 11:38 PM, Flix said:

I know you're not playing anymore but I went through the feedback to try to adjust the balance of the rounds.

I had to read the conversation again to notice where we were two years ago. Cool that my Arena runs at the time were in any way helpful.

Funny thing is, I still have the game installed, it's just that I only play Grim Dawn nowadays. And I don't even play Crucible! :lol:

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3 minutes ago, Androdion said:

I had to read the conversation again to notice where we were two years ago. Cool that my Arena runs at the time were in any way helpful.

Funny thing is, I still have the game installed, it's just that I only play Grim Dawn nowadays. And I don't even play Crucible! :lol:

Hnngghh, they just released a patch that made all WPS skills add piercing to ranged weapons.  I hear my Purifier calling...

It is after all the greatest game of its genre.  You know, I got Crucible for free by pre-ordering the game ages ago, and I too have never fired it up.  I never did much with Shattered Realm either.  Something to look forward to...

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