Sorry to double post but had to bump to ask if anyone playing Far Cry 4 has leveled to rank 10 in the Arena to unlock the Bushmaster?
It was quite frustrating at first for me, but once I got the hang of it, it was a very enjoyable and suspenseful experience. I'm on my 2nd play through on Normal, and feeling a bit impatient at the start. The main things that annoyed me was not having fast moving crouch ("Non Stop" skill) or fast reloads ("Ammo Wrangler" skill).
I did my usual hunting to craft bigger bags, this time avoiding the freebie Sandman and Elephant Gun my Gold Edition provides. It feels more immersive if you have to use stealth via the bow, and brute force via getting creative, like hunting Rhinos with conventional weapons and grenades and Molotovs atop a rock, or luring them to a firing range or machine gun nest.
I then liberated two outposts undetected to unlock the Soft Landing skill, and ground out some Mani Wheel searching and got enough Karma to unlock Non Stop, but was not seeing a Longinus mission appear to unlock Ammo Wrangler. So rather than continue with my bow, AK, Skorpion and M79 for the next phase of my tactics, clearing towers and outposts, I decided to go for a better backup weapon in the case of being detected.
This meant of course the aforementioned Arena rank 10 grind to get the Bushmaster. I was a bit ahead of myself. I'd only thus far unlocked Lvl 2 Health skills, for a total of 4 health bars, Running Reload, At the Ready (fast aim and weapon switch), and Non Stop (fast crouch). I hadn't unlocked any Healing skills, so syringes thrown down by spectators would not heal me a full 4 bars, and manual healing was VERY slow, one bar at a time. And of course as mentioned I was still on slow reloads without Ammo Wrangler, and that in itself can create suspenseful moments in the Arena.
I had no Death from Above or Below skills, or ANY special takedown skills for that matter, so I had to rely on sneak takedowns from behind or desperate last gasp frontal melees. To make matters worse, the A2000 starting weapon you get in the latter rankings, where the format goes from a 3 round battle to 4, the A2000 would often have a weird delay when aiming down the sights, vs the quick snap I was supposed to get with At the Ready.
I also had no special syringe skills at all, but that's something I tend to avoid in Far Cry 3 and 4 anyway. I just don't like magical syringes. I'd rather stick to the healing ones. I also prefer handling problems head on as they happen, vs taking time to dig into a syringe menu and play doctor drug addict. The silliness of Yogi and Reggie is bad enough.
In the actual Arena though, the best part for me was fast crouch circumnavigating the perimeter of the upper deck, while looking for unsuspecting combatants that I could kill and loot, along with stalking the final one or two searching for me on the lower deck. The real treat comes when you have to run n slide for cover after leap frogging kills, or desperately survive a wave of animals, or cunningly stave off a wave of heavies.
Arena has pretty much everything but the jungle itself. I'm glad I ground through it because now every time I use my Bushmaster, I'll know I earned it. It was worth it to go through the initial frustration to gain an appreciation for the AI, hone my skills, and feel more immersed in the game. I highly recommend it. It made me slow down and pace myself a bit and appreciate the game's challenges more.
BTW, the Arena Mode I played was Battles, which is definitely THE best for playing with few skills and/or suspense, as there's more potential for stealth. Endless is of course more head on where you're surviving waves indefinitely. Weapon Challenges requires a 3 out of 5 star score to win, so could be frustrating and take longer with few skills unlocked.
). And been loads of fun screwing around with the ai playing games with them see if they can find me while taking them out one by one.