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Madness: Complete Arena Guide <Unfinished!!1>

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2023-04-25 10:10:50

Intro

Note: I am updating this guide daily.

Have you found yourself strugglin' to pick a build or play Arena Combat? This guide will teach you how! Nevada is a big and chaotic place, so you gotta be prepared for what it throws at you.

Origins

Once you start a new game in Arena Combat, you'll be prompted to name your character and your origin.Origins are important because they pretty much tell your play style. They also have strengths, which give bonus skills, and weaknesses, which don't allow certain skills and don't give stats whenever you learn a skill for that... skill.

A Noob has no weaknesses and no strengths. Sometimes they're good so you can learn the importance of each skill. The very first time I played Arena Combat, I picked the Noob for that reason.

An Agent's strength are guns and their weakness are melee weapons. There is an incredibly prodigious variety of weapons available in the game. Melee weapons have many different types to them too, but not as much as guns. Guns can also be modified, but melee weapons can't.

Their specials are to stunlock opponents and "Enemies won't know you're an opponent until you're caught being violent, while all others have to hunt you down." This just means that you won't immediately be attacked in Infiltration stages. The type of stage is shown at the top left of the mission UI. Agent is a great choice, but you're missing out on a bunch of combat if you haven't played the story mode already.

An Experiment's strength is Acrobatics and their weakness are guns. Honestly, this mix is really stupid. Acrobatics typically are meant to go with guns and only makes melee combat a bit faster than without it. Experiment's specials are to startle opponents who watch you do a takedown on an enemy. Takedowns are only able to be executed when an enemy is Dizzied, typically when they get hit by a blunt weapon, or if one is thrown at them. Acrobatics are an important skill, though it is almost useless without ranged weapons. Playable, but not recommended.

A Mercenary's strength are melee weapons, but they cannot use their fists. how the hell are you able to swing a bat but not your own fists?? The game is completely playable without using your fists, so the weakness won't affect your gameplay as much as the other origins do. They have a special that is similar to something you're able to do later in the game; bribe opponents to your side. Not exactly the same, but if you play the game a bit more, you'll understand what I mean.

Finally, a Patient's strength are unarmed, but their weakness is acrobatics. Patients are absolutely freaking horrible. My experience wasn't terrible, but that's because I couldn't bring myself to beat the game with it. Once again, acrobatics are very important to the game. Being restricted really, really just sucks. Also previously stated, unarmed doesn't have to be used to beat the game.

Patient's specials are summoning an 'imaginary friend' to help out in tough or dire predicaments. It may sound cool at first, but I discovered that the same 'imaginary friend' only helps in the last third of a wave of enemies, according to... somewhere. (sorry I forgot!) Not only that, but he only helps when you've lost a corpus, or a portion of your health. If you're looking for a challenge, the patient is perfect for you. Just don't try Madness mode, m'kay?

There are more origins, but I'll talk about them in the "Imprints" part of the guide.

Missions Basics

(The paragraphs are sorted in the types of missions you will encounter in order!)

Now that you've got your origin set, the next thing to do is your very first mission. Most missions have waves. Waves are just hoards of enemies. After a wave ends, you'll be able to rest in between them and re-equip weapons if they are broken or if you lost them.You are not able to train skills or re-equip armor in between waves, nor in any mission at all. If you open your inventory in the middle of a wave, you are able to look at your weapons, stats, and already learned skills, but that's all. You don't have to equip your strongest weapon at the beginning of a wave! It might break or run out of ammo before you really need to use it.

Every mission also has a certain type, like stated previously in the "Origins" category of this guide. Since the Pilot Episode, the first mission, is only accessible through the bus stop, it is a Contract mission. Contract missions usually are solo missions. You aren't allowed to bring any friends or allies with you. One contract mission isn't really a contract mission: The Heist. It's the only contract mission where you're able to bring your hirelings, and it changes a bunch based on the difficulty. The Heist is currently the only hybrid mission (or i'm just stupid.)

The next mission type is Siege. (Skip the crossed out lines if you don't want spoilers to the missions!)

The missions that are sieges are Pit Stop, The Haunting of Nevada House, and Hard Sell.

Siege missions are pretty self-explanatory. Enemies will gather in one or more spots, and when enough enemies gather, they attack in the middle of the stage, typically when you have to guard something. One mission, The Haunting of Nevada House doesn't have anything to guard, nor gathering enemies. The enemies really just appear and choose violence. Other than that, siege missions aren't too difficult.

The next type of missions are infiltrations. There are no oddballs in these types of missions. Also quite self-explanatory - you infiltrate something. You start at one point, and your goal is to reach another part of the building. Throughout the building, you'll encounter enemies. Each wave is a different part of the building. Sometimes these could be difficult, but they aren't too common in missions.

Finally, there are battle missions. These missions take place in one area while all the enemies come to you. I believe that The Haunting of Nevada House should've been a battle mission. Battle missions are super common, and the difficulty varies.

All in all, you don't have to worry too much about mission types, but it always helps to be prepared so you can equip the appropriate weapons.

Enemies

Each mission has different enemies. They have their own weaknesses to certain things. None of them are the same! Also, once again, this is voted in the order you'll encounter. For example, the first enemy you'll encounter is a grunt.

The easiest enemy to fight is the grunt. Now, I know that I just said that none of the enemies are the same, but the grunt is found in the Sleepwalker Training program, and The Murder Room. They aren't exactly the same, though. one can have weapons, and one with bare hands. Since the Sleepwalker Training Program grunt has no armor, they have no bonuses. They can be punched 3 times and look like a folded blanket. The Murder Room grunts, however, are more intelligent, for they wield weapons and can now block and dodge a bit more. Still can be taken out fairly quick, though.

Another common enemy is the agent. They're found in The Sleepwalker Training Program and The Fast Track. They're really just grunts with a gun and a tie. Their suit doesn't protect them much, and really just gives them more ammo.

The final sleepwalker enemies are the Generation-03 Limited Model, or G03LM which I like to pronounce Golem, and the ATP Enginner. The G03LM is a boss enemy that wields a spike mace but with no armor. Upon being hit 5 times, the G03LM will get frustrated and flail around their arms. If they don't hit anything, you'l be able to sneak up behind them and takedown them. If they do hit someone, it is still possible to takedown them from behind, but you'd have to mash the E button to work. Finally, the ATP Engineer is the first enemy you'll face with a Tac-Bar. Tac-bars are "The raw potential to dodge bullets." You can unlock a tac-bar and increase the size by increasing your dexterity, but I'll talk more about that in the "Stat" part of this guide. The ATP Engineer doesn't have a large Tac-Bar, so after dodging a few bullets, you'll be able to land a hit, or any projectile. The ATP Engineer also appears in The Fast Track .

In Pit Stop , there are Bandits in the first wave and Zeds in the second and beyond. Bandits are quite weak, similar to grunts, though they have better skills and know how to fight. Zeds can take 4-6 bullets from a weak gun. In the endless waves of this level, there are a tad bit stronger enemies. There are Prophets, and Graveseekers. Prophets replace all of the bandits, and they have a bit more variety of weapons (sike, I lied. They probably have less, lol)

Prophets are stronger than bandits, and have a bit more dexterity and acrobatics than them.

Graveseekers are a boss enemy and have a similar look to the prophets. Gravekeepers always wield a shovel. The enemies are similar to G03LMs. They attack 5 times and then get frustrated, and you know the deal. Apparently, there are Abominations in this level according to the wiki, but I never seen one, so I won't report them at least in this version of the guide.

An enemy that's actually unique to its level are the MERCs. The MERCs wear grey and yellow. Every single enemy in that level has something to do with MERCs. The most common enemy in that level is your average MERC Recruit. Pretty weak, can come with weapons, but not that much of a threat. Next is the MERC Laborer, kinda engineer-looking. They can also come with weapons, but they can also take more punches. Another enemy is the MERC Sniper. They're just MERC recruits with either a sniper. Then there's the MERC Zerker. They're relentless and pretty fast. Most of the time they're dual-wielding weapons, and there's a 99.9% that they've tried to charge at you at least once before dying unless you have crazy strong weapons. Next is the MERC gunners, which are once again, just a clone of the MERC Recruit, but with a gun. Finally, there's the MERC Captain, which is a boss that appears near the end of The Foundry. And appearing during endless waves are the Liftbots! Sounds cool, right? Nah, they're just robots that punch kinda hard and can tank some attacks. Of course they're cool, dummy!

In The Fast Track, along with the Agents, you'll encounter the Half-Mag Agent.

The agent appears in the last segments of the mission. The Half-Mag, which you probably already figured, is a boss enemy. Despite its name, the Half-Mag is surprisingly fast. The Half-Mag has a common skill that you'll see a bunch in boss enemies. The skill raises the user's fist for just a second, and then teleports faster than an anime swordsman covering the distance of a yard.

This skill will annihilate a corpus. Even when you're stronger levels like 20-30, 1/3 of your corpus will still probably get obliterated if you aren't an endurance or armor build. Other than that, it's a regular boss. I'm not explaining it again. The last enemy of the Fast Track is the ATP Soldat.

It has a larger Tac-Bar than the engineer, and does more damage and more health. Basically, the soldat is a superior engineer.

Source: https://steamcommunity.com/sharedfiles/filedetails/?id=2965936647

More MADNESS: Project Nexus guilds

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