What is different versus normal co-op arena?
The enemy can teleport. Ok.
Also, sometimes one of the enemies has a target on his head and you have to kill him. Btw, you dont have to hunt him down. He comes for you. Its not like he runs away, or his AI is different in any way, lol. I'm not kidding. Stay in one area. He'll come to you. 75% of the time, the marked target spawned a few feet away from us.
Enemies take longer to kill, depleting your ammo very quickly. When has that ever happened in regular co-op arena? There have been times where I've ran out of ammo and I'm looking around the map for more ammo/weapons. You can't melee any of the enemies with the exception of chokers (and that's only when they are choking one of your team mates), meaning you pretty much have to kill every single enemy with your guns. In regular arena, you can just shoot an enemy once with your pistol or long range gun and melee them for the kill. For the armored ones, all you have to do is knock down their helmets and then melee them. You can't on Shade Mode. Armored snipers are a great addition to this mode, even though we already had them in the Fort DLC, but it doesn't make it any less awesome IMO. The Marked Man is a great addition too. I did notice that what you mentioned is true, but in Crushing, the Marked Man will run away when you're beating the shit out of him. Bitch won't even teleport...he'll just run. Haha.
What I'm trying to say is that in Shade Mode (at least in Crushing difficulty), feels like it is
true survival. I've only done Chateau on Crushing with just me and a friend and my god. It was the most intense fucking 8 rounds ever. We took an hour to beat those 8 rounds and we had 0 lives left when it was round 6. We kept moving around the whole map. Doing it back to back (UC2 style; only two players) is going to be a real bitch to do on all of the maps, but it will get done!
If you ever play it on Crushing:
- Don't equip the cluster bomb. It's fucking WORTHLESS. In that one game alone, out of 8 rounds...I think I only killed a total of 4 enemies with the cluster bomb and I must have gotten it over 9 times. Enemies will just teleport away every single time. Army of Three is a must.
- Always look for a MAG. It will kill a regular enemy with one shot. For armored enemies, it will take two shots. However, if you have Army of Three activated, it will take them out with one shot. Good bye Marked Man!
- In regular arena in Crushing difficulty, power weapons like the Hammer will take down a mini-boss like Militia Man down with the 4 shots that are provided. In Shade Mode, it won't kill them. It won't even make the mini-boss turn into the blue shade. lol
- Team Safe is worthless for a slot 2 booster. Either put Overstock or Bargain. My choice would be bargain.
- I have noticed that the Micro is awesome in taking down regular enemies. I think it takes them down more quickly than if you use your M9/AK47. Not 100% sure of this yet, but it feels like it does the job more quickly.
- Get the sniper rifle from the Armored Snipers every single time you kill them. It only has 8 shots to it, so make use out of every single one of those shots. I have Scoped-In to gold for co-op, so instead of using Regeneration, I use Scoped In and it's REALLY useful because I get no pain wobble at all. This comes in really handy when you're aiming the sniper rifle to kill the Marked Man or if I'm just in front of the Marked Man aiming my MAG.
- Grenades in general are pretty worthless. They are not on Hard difficulty because enemies will usually stay, but in Crushing, enemies will teleport away every single time. You'll get lucky sometimes and kill one, but overall they are useless. I guess you can use them when things are getting heated to make the enemies go away for a bit, but other than that, nope.
- Army of Three + Protector for kickbacks.
- Stay close to your team mate. This is crucial.
And best of all, GOOD LUCK! You'll need it in Crushing!
Mikey Jr. said:
I would have done things differently.
1. Make it longer. 8 rounds? Really? What is the purpose of that? Make it much longer, make the enemies more aggressive as it goes, each 5th round, throw in a special shade that has one of those perks like unlimited ammo, pak-80, etc.
2. Different enemy types. Why no guardians? Those guys would be way more fun to fight. High agility/mobility, but lack of any long range weapons. Have them as their own round, or mix them up with the shades.
3. Secondary objectives. Sometimes secondary objectives pop up, and if you complete them, your team gets +2 (3, 4?) bonus medals. It could be something simple like deliver the idol, or 3 areas pop up simultaneously. Each party member has to stand in each area and capture it at the exact same time. Or an object appears somewhere on the map that can only be destroyed by melee. Shooting it does nothing. If you destroy it, then bonus medals. It presents a risk/reward type system. You dont have to do them, but if you do, it could give you that edge for the later rounds.
4. Every 10th round, spiders. Except these spiders cant be killed at all. For a few minutes, you just have to survive. Run like fucking hell. Climb everything you can, jump, try to outmaneuver them. Shooting them slows them down though, and grenades stun them.
These are just some ideas I have come up with from the top of my head right now. This is what I would expect from new content. Not slap together some shades in co-op arena and call it a day.
Great ideas. I like them too and even hoped that some of them made it into Shade Mode. Complete bummer and missed opportunity for sure. Since ND have made tweaks in arena before without mentioning it, maybe they can add stuff later on. Hopefully they do.
Am I disappointed by the mode? A little bit. But I think it's fun.
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