Reflecting on the October Arena Experiment for Red Goblin Round 1
HollywoodShono
Member Posts: 102 ★
As a lot of you are unaware, I am streaming Arena constantly, especially for new champions on Twitch and Youtube, I also frequent Twitter. For the Red Goblin Arena, I was rank 170, with 13.8 million points in the 4 Star Featured, as Ilacskills noted on Twitter.
As a lot of you are aware, Arena went through an experiment that a few people liked, and the majority of the people disliked. Let's reflect on the good of Deathmatch 2020.
1) Fights 5-15 were extremely easy, making it easy to run your 5 and 6 stars here
2) All Champions could be used, unlike in the previous system, you had to rank up champions(More on this later)
3) Most fights were only 1.5x higher than you, with some fights at 2x, even 2 ranks higher(Except in 3 pain points I'll talk about later), most fights were doable.
4) Fights 16-20 were an increase of 1-2 Ranks on each character, allowing you to pick your battles easier(A Meme Tier with a great champion, could select opponents easier for them)
5) It forced you to get good in order to maintain your streak. I had over 200 wins in the new arena before I lost mine, then I stopped trying.
However, let's analyze the bad, starting with the most important.
1) Ranking up champions had zero meaning to it. In the old Algorhtyhm, ranking up 4 Stars to 3, ensured you could get to 20 wins in the 4 Star Basic Arena just fine. Ranking up 4 Stars to Rank 5 meant after 13 wins, getting to 20 was easy, same with Rank 3 5 Stars, then at 20 Wins, you could mix and match more of your roster, going down a couple ranks if you had Rank 5's(A Rank 5, 4 Star, could run with a Rank 3, and 2, and be OK), and in the 5 Star Featured, even meme Tier 6 Stars could do very well.
2) There were three known pain points, 4 Stars at Rank 3, would always fight Rank 5's in the 4 Star Basic. They would also fight Rank 5's in the 4 Star Featured, making it a punish to rank these champions up. 5 Stars at Rank 3, would almost always fight 5 Stars at Rank 5, with a much smaller pool of champions, meaning 50% of the time, you'd be fighting the old Deathmatch. But in the 5 Star Featured, it was even worse, 5 Stars at Rank 4, and 6 Stars at Rank 1, were at a huge disadvantage, meaning you had to play good or lose the streak. None of these pain points make for a fun experience.
3) You had to pay attention when doing Arena, no more holding your phone one handed like Brian Grant frequents. No more sitting and watching TV because you enjoyed the background noise(I did this frequently)
4) People lost fights they normally would not, because of Deathmatch 2020 on Rank 3, 4 Stars, Rank 3 5 Stars, Rank 4, 5 Stars, and Rank 1, 6 Stars. This is not a fun experience for anyone, new or veterans. Veterans can get around this by simply using maxed out 5 Stars, 6 Stars at Rank 2, but it was a huge struggle.
What could fix things?
1) Eliminating the 1X, 1.25x, 1.5x, 2x Multipliers, having to do an extra 15 minutes of fights to regain maximum points is annoying. Losing a fight to go back to 1 is not.
2) At said pain points in Section 2 2), reduce the strength of the opponents by 1, not only broadly increasing the amount of opponents you face(Even if someone wouldn't Rank 3 a Killmonger, chances are, they would to Rank 2, for example), so a 3/45 would only face 4/55, 1/25 would face 5/65 or 2/35, 5/50 would face 4/55 or 1/25, and 3/30 would face 4/40, the rest was fine.
3) Leave things alone, things will change again once 6 Stars at Rank 4 and 5 will be introduced, so let people figure out the new changes.
4) Having a .75x, 1.25x, 1.5x, and 2x opponents to choose from(Yes, 4 choices, up from 3). I personally enjoy the challenge if I am using maxed out 4 stars to fight high level 5 stars as I can usually beat them, but nobody wants to fight Rank 3 6 stars, with bad Rank 1's, or Rank 3, 5 Stars.
5) Placing bot accounts with a lot of meme tier champions maxed out at 4, 5, and 6 stars. These should already be in the game when you search for specific characters to duel.
The 4 and 5 Star Featured Arena are highly contended pieces of content, and while some people like the challenge of fighting people 2 ranks higher, the old system forced you to rank up your champions, which overall, is a better system, however, it would be nice to have options.
Obviously, if you don't meet the requirements(Using Rank 1 4 and 5 Stars in a Featured Arena), you SHOULD get deathmatched with opponents 4x your strength. This way, you have a reason to rank up meme tier 4 and 5 stars.
The short term problem, is resources to max out a 5 Star, or rank up a 6 Star, is too scarce at the moment, forcing people to rank up only their best champions.
The long term problem, is some champions are just bad, Kabam has done an awesome job reworking or changing champions around that were underperforming, and I am hoping that not only do players get an option to buy 2/3/4 Star Deadpool in the future if they missed the opportunity in the past, but someday in the future a 5 Star can exist, much like Wolverine and Scarlet Witch did, I'd also like to see King Groot, regular Groot, Thor Jane Foster, and Venompool be a part of the buff list, and not just synergy buffs like Cable and Symbiote Spider Man received.
Thank you for reading, and I'll see you around.
As a lot of you are aware, Arena went through an experiment that a few people liked, and the majority of the people disliked. Let's reflect on the good of Deathmatch 2020.
1) Fights 5-15 were extremely easy, making it easy to run your 5 and 6 stars here
2) All Champions could be used, unlike in the previous system, you had to rank up champions(More on this later)
3) Most fights were only 1.5x higher than you, with some fights at 2x, even 2 ranks higher(Except in 3 pain points I'll talk about later), most fights were doable.
4) Fights 16-20 were an increase of 1-2 Ranks on each character, allowing you to pick your battles easier(A Meme Tier with a great champion, could select opponents easier for them)
5) It forced you to get good in order to maintain your streak. I had over 200 wins in the new arena before I lost mine, then I stopped trying.
However, let's analyze the bad, starting with the most important.
1) Ranking up champions had zero meaning to it. In the old Algorhtyhm, ranking up 4 Stars to 3, ensured you could get to 20 wins in the 4 Star Basic Arena just fine. Ranking up 4 Stars to Rank 5 meant after 13 wins, getting to 20 was easy, same with Rank 3 5 Stars, then at 20 Wins, you could mix and match more of your roster, going down a couple ranks if you had Rank 5's(A Rank 5, 4 Star, could run with a Rank 3, and 2, and be OK), and in the 5 Star Featured, even meme Tier 6 Stars could do very well.
2) There were three known pain points, 4 Stars at Rank 3, would always fight Rank 5's in the 4 Star Basic. They would also fight Rank 5's in the 4 Star Featured, making it a punish to rank these champions up. 5 Stars at Rank 3, would almost always fight 5 Stars at Rank 5, with a much smaller pool of champions, meaning 50% of the time, you'd be fighting the old Deathmatch. But in the 5 Star Featured, it was even worse, 5 Stars at Rank 4, and 6 Stars at Rank 1, were at a huge disadvantage, meaning you had to play good or lose the streak. None of these pain points make for a fun experience.
3) You had to pay attention when doing Arena, no more holding your phone one handed like Brian Grant frequents. No more sitting and watching TV because you enjoyed the background noise(I did this frequently)
4) People lost fights they normally would not, because of Deathmatch 2020 on Rank 3, 4 Stars, Rank 3 5 Stars, Rank 4, 5 Stars, and Rank 1, 6 Stars. This is not a fun experience for anyone, new or veterans. Veterans can get around this by simply using maxed out 5 Stars, 6 Stars at Rank 2, but it was a huge struggle.
What could fix things?
1) Eliminating the 1X, 1.25x, 1.5x, 2x Multipliers, having to do an extra 15 minutes of fights to regain maximum points is annoying. Losing a fight to go back to 1 is not.
2) At said pain points in Section 2 2), reduce the strength of the opponents by 1, not only broadly increasing the amount of opponents you face(Even if someone wouldn't Rank 3 a Killmonger, chances are, they would to Rank 2, for example), so a 3/45 would only face 4/55, 1/25 would face 5/65 or 2/35, 5/50 would face 4/55 or 1/25, and 3/30 would face 4/40, the rest was fine.
3) Leave things alone, things will change again once 6 Stars at Rank 4 and 5 will be introduced, so let people figure out the new changes.
4) Having a .75x, 1.25x, 1.5x, and 2x opponents to choose from(Yes, 4 choices, up from 3). I personally enjoy the challenge if I am using maxed out 4 stars to fight high level 5 stars as I can usually beat them, but nobody wants to fight Rank 3 6 stars, with bad Rank 1's, or Rank 3, 5 Stars.
5) Placing bot accounts with a lot of meme tier champions maxed out at 4, 5, and 6 stars. These should already be in the game when you search for specific characters to duel.
The 4 and 5 Star Featured Arena are highly contended pieces of content, and while some people like the challenge of fighting people 2 ranks higher, the old system forced you to rank up your champions, which overall, is a better system, however, it would be nice to have options.
Obviously, if you don't meet the requirements(Using Rank 1 4 and 5 Stars in a Featured Arena), you SHOULD get deathmatched with opponents 4x your strength. This way, you have a reason to rank up meme tier 4 and 5 stars.
The short term problem, is resources to max out a 5 Star, or rank up a 6 Star, is too scarce at the moment, forcing people to rank up only their best champions.
The long term problem, is some champions are just bad, Kabam has done an awesome job reworking or changing champions around that were underperforming, and I am hoping that not only do players get an option to buy 2/3/4 Star Deadpool in the future if they missed the opportunity in the past, but someday in the future a 5 Star can exist, much like Wolverine and Scarlet Witch did, I'd also like to see King Groot, regular Groot, Thor Jane Foster, and Venompool be a part of the buff list, and not just synergy buffs like Cable and Symbiote Spider Man received.
Thank you for reading, and I'll see you around.
6
Comments
for the Featured, you have to use Maxed out 4 Stars until 20 wins.