As a newbie (lvl 44) trying to build my roster as I prepare for Act 5, the change to the Arena's means its going to take me double if not triple the amount of hours to build enough PHC shards for one decent weekly crystal opening (UC x 1, 3☆ x 1, PHC x 2). Cannot express how annoyed I am and for the first time since I downloaded the game, I don't feel like playing. Well done Kabam. You made me not want to play your game. Re. Sult.
A 6* arena didn't benefit the majority of players? I'm personally shocked. They were never gonna just add another arena and put even more units and milestones into the game. They also wouldn't make the milestones in these super easy to get bc then the people with big rosters would just scoop them up every arena in a few rounds. More isn't always better, especially in this game.
A 6* arena didn't benefit the majority of players? I'm personally shocked. They were never gonna just add another arena and put even more units and milestones into the game. They also wouldn't make the milestones in these super easy to get bc then the people with big rosters would just scoop them up every arena in a few rounds. More isn't always better, especially in this game.
No, but my concern is for the people who were lower level and Grinding for a new 3*. Granted my Account has overgrown the need and I was doing it out of habit, but people who were less further along were getting a chance to earn a new 3* as a Milestone. Now there's no chance they're going to be able to put up 6.2 Mil. That's the only decision that I'm struggling with the logic on.
11 FIGHTS IN, DEATH MATCH (for me anyway on Hard difficulty and like twice my Champs) but somehow I'm supposed to maintain a winning streak and have to score over 6 million points for a new 3* feature Champion when I used to only need 640,000????
TERRIBLE TERRIBLE TERRIBLE, ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE... I haven't missed getting a new featured 3* Champion EVERY week (even when it took around 1.4-1.5M to get a 3*) since July 2019
That is clearly over if these changes aren't reversed or FIXED because right now, the Arena is HOT GARBAGE
I'll NEVER spend another penny on this game and I might end up quitting over this... NOT kidding
This is 10000000000% the OPPOSITE of making Arena better & improving QOL
THESE CHANGES ARE TERRIBLE
11 FIGHTS IN, DEATH MATCH (for me anyway on Hard difficulty and like twice my Champs) but somehow I'm supposed to maintain a winning streak and have to score over 6 million points for a new 3* feature Champion when I used to only need 640,000????
As a Champion Collector, I haven't missed getting a new featured 3* Champion EVERY week (even when it took around 1.4-1.5M to get a 3*) since July 2019
That is clearly over if these changes aren't reversed or FIXED because right now, the Arena is HOT GARBAGE
I'll NEVER spend another penny on this game and I might end up quitting over this... NOT kidding
A 6* arena didn't benefit the majority of players? I'm personally shocked. They were never gonna just add another arena and put even more units and milestones into the game. They also wouldn't make the milestones in these super easy to get bc then the people with big rosters would just scoop them up every arena in a few rounds. More isn't always better, especially in this game.
I am also shocked that when kabam said to improve the arena experience and quality of life changes It was only for the the top players.
Kabam should remember most players grind fir milestones, not rank rewards.
As someone who's been encouraging people to grind for milestones when they can for years, I'm not sure I would agree with you there.
In any case, the design changes for the reward structure seem to be part of Kabam's plan to accelerate players to Uncollected, by adding more roster growth into the arenas. This comes at the cost of some problematic changes for unit grinders.
Ultra casual grinders probably have enough front loaded units in the first couple milestones that things aren't too bad. And players who were grinding efficiently in the 5* featured arena arguably have had things improve in many respects. The biggest problem area are people that were at a point of progress where they had significant 4* rosters but not large 5* rosters and were targeting the 4* basic arena. I rarely use the term, but those guys got screwed by the update. They don't have the firepower to grind very efficiently in the two main arenas, but would be getting far less units and other rewards from the low arena. That's something I've strongly suggested to Kabam they look at moving forward.
The 4* basic arena was a very efficient place to live for pre-UC and new UC players with moderate 4* rosters but small 5* rosters. It not only got them units, it also got them 5* shards. Not a ton, but you could slowly grind your way to a better roster there. That's much more difficult now. It is as if the arenas are missing a path from low progress rosters to higher progress rosters. The low arena gives rewards focused on lower player rosters, and the high ones give pretty good rewards for players targeting 5* and 6* rewards. There's nothing in the middle, which used to exist when we had more arenas.
11 FIGHTS IN, DEATH MATCH (for me anyway on Hard difficulty and like twice my Champs) but somehow I'm supposed to maintain a winning streak and have to score over 6 million points for a new 3* feature Champion when I used to only need 640,000????
TERRIBLE TERRIBLE TERRIBLE, ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE... I haven't missed getting a new featured 3* Champion EVERY week (even when it took around 1.4-1.5M to get a 3*) since July 2019
That is clearly over if these changes aren't reversed or FIXED because right now, the Arena is HOT GARBAGE
I'll NEVER spend another penny on this game and I might end up quitting over this... NOT kidding
Well put @DNA3000. This is exactly the situation I'm in. ~20ish 5*s (mostly 2/35), more than enough 4*s to make the 4 star arenas enjoyable, the catalyst arenas challenging but not impossible to max out (only recently), and some basic 4* champs reachable. I guess shooting for UC more quickly makes sense now, but it feels like this took one aspect of the game out for me.
11 FIGHTS IN, DEATH MATCH (for me anyway on Hard difficulty and like twice my Champs) but somehow I'm supposed to maintain a winning streak and have to score over 6 million points for a new 3* feature Champion when I used to only need 640,000????
TERRIBLE TERRIBLE TERRIBLE, ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE... I haven't missed getting a new featured 3* Champion EVERY week (even when it took around 1.4-1.5M to get a 3*) since July 2019
That is clearly over if these changes aren't reversed or FIXED because right now, the Arena is HOT GARBAGE
I'll NEVER spend another penny on this game and I might end up quitting over this... NOT kidding
Are you gonna post this on every arena thread lol
If that's what it takes to STRESS that these changes are HORRIBLE, and get Kabam to fix it, then YES
I don’t necessarily care about getting the featured 5 or 6*s I never score that high anyway but what I care about is being able to get units and reach all the milestones.
For people in your position, the optimal mindset will likely have to change. It is too early to know how this will all shake out yet until we see a few cycles and get a better idea where the rank reward cutoffs end up, but the largest benefit for intermediate grinders with a decent number of 5* and 6* champs could be to shoot for the 11-30% (or higher) rank reward in both 4/5/6 arenas. Those contain 250 6* shards, which might be more reachable now than in the previous 5* featured arena (which had 6* shards in much higher rank tiers only).
If I was in your position today, I would probably be shifting my effort from trying to grind optimally for units, to trying to find the optimal strategy for grinding shards, in an effort to expand roster. In fact, even I am considering whether shooting for units over shards makes sense in the new arena configuration, and I do have the roster to sweep the milestones if I choose. But the new arenas aren't really built for that necessarily being the best long term strategy. It depends on how high the 1-5% rank gets.
11 FIGHTS IN, DEATH MATCH (for me anyway on Hard difficulty and like twice my Champs) but somehow I'm supposed to maintain a winning streak and have to score over 6 million points for a new 3* feature Champion when I used to only need 640,000????
TERRIBLE TERRIBLE TERRIBLE, ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE... I haven't missed getting a new featured 3* Champion EVERY week (even when it took around 1.4-1.5M to get a 3*) since July 2019
That is clearly over if these changes aren't reversed or FIXED because right now, the Arena is HOT GARBAGE
I'll NEVER spend another penny on this game and I might end up quitting over this... NOT kidding
Are you gonna post this on every arena thread lol
I wasn't going to be that guy, but that's not a Deathmatch. Lol.
I don’t necessarily care about getting the featured 5 or 6*s I never score that high anyway but what I care about is being able to get units and reach all the milestones.
For people in your position, the optimal mindset will likely have to change. It is too early to know how this will all shake out yet until we see a few cycles and get a better idea where the rank reward cutoffs end up, but the largest benefit for intermediate grinders with a decent number of 5* and 6* champs could be to shoot for the 11-30% (or higher) rank reward in both 4/5/6 arenas. Those contain 250 6* shards, which might be more reachable now than in the previous 5* featured arena (which had 6* shards in much higher rank tiers only).
If I was in your position today, I would probably be shifting my effort from trying to grind optimally for units, to trying to find the optimal strategy for grinding shards, in an effort to expand roster. In fact, even I am considering whether shooting for units over shards makes sense in the new arena configuration, and I do have the roster to sweep the milestones if I choose. But the new arenas aren't really built for that necessarily being the best long term strategy. It depends on how high the 1-5% rank gets.
Well tbh I don't care about shards. I'm still working my way through the game and act 6 in particular just like these other people, and I don't really care about crystals right now. I just want units for content, and this change mostly ruined that
So I’ll start off by sharing what I’m working with so you can get an idea of what I’m working with. I have 18 6*s total and 21 5*s that are over R3 (97 total 5*s, most R1). I could become thronebreaker by the end of the month if I luck out on the T5CC from SQ or 7.2 I’ve gotten this far from grinding arenas for units to be able to heal/revive and occasionally grab an offer that would improve my team and help me progress. So that being said while I don’t have the biggest and best roster I am slowly getting close to where those endgame players are that have god tier rosters and even being close to that level of player I don’t think the new arena was a good move especially for players with lesser rosters than mine. I don’t necessarily care about getting the featured 5 or 6*s I never score that high anyway but what I care about is being able to get units and reach all the milestones. I just finished my first run of the Shang chi arena and I only did the one of the 6* arenas and used all the champs I can to avoid death matchups, and without boosts I got 2.5m. You need 16.5m to get all the rewards for that arena, and that would take me 8 runs and without recharges or spending. I can’t use those champs again 8 times over the next 3 days I can only do 6 with my 6* (12 hr recharge). So now I won’t get all the units available from this arena, but that’s also while completely ignoring the other 6* arena which I would get no units from at all. Before in arena I got every single unit reward in the arenas besides 3 milestones in 6* which wasn’t many units. But now I’m going to miss out on like 350 units, which is a lot of units. But hey I can get more 3*s out of grandmaster crystals! So one way I think they could make this arena system work is if they fixed matchmaking to fit what you bring in. For example if I bring in 3 of my 5*, one R3, one R4, one R5, I should face a team with R3,R4,R5. Simply just make the lower ranking you bring accumulate less points, that way we could use R1 5*s or R2s without getting punished with a death matchups that ends your streak that is now extremely crucial to be able to get a high score and get all the units you can in this arena. You wouldn’t get many points from them but at least you’re getting points and putting those champs to use. Right now in the arenas to avoid death matchups you basically can only use maxed 3* or 4* in one and then R3+ 5* and 6*s in the other, that makes more than half your roster useless, unless you are one of those god tier roster players with everyone ranked up. Before what was great about this game was while 2*s aren’t what you want to pull you could still use them in their specific arena to get units which are valuable resources. All of this is without even mentioning players that don’t have even close to a roster like me to get these rewards, they would miss out on even more units which would help them progress the way I did and I really feel for them. Those are my thoughts on the new arena and I want to hear what all your opinions are on the new arena or if you agree with me on my thoughts about it. I’m hoping one day they’ll change it for the better because arena is in my opinion a great game mode but it just needs some more tweaking to get it right.
Grinding out units seems like it will be much harder in this format. There is no place to get infinite streaks using only 4*. Same issue with trying to use only 5*s. Seems like ppl will be forced to only use 1/2 their roster for grinding units....
Also, another thought... I can’t sell my champs... but their usefulness has been taken away by this arena change... why do I need them again? Oh because there might be insane challenges like using a 3* Loki to beat a full path in act 5... hmm let me grind out units so I can complete that... oh wait you cut my ability to do that too 😂
So to summarize, I think the general feedback is that these Arenas are good additions, but it's the amalgamation that people have an issue with. Is that correct?
Here's another way to view the changes from the old system - these are APPROXIMATIONS
Old 5* featured: approx 60 rounds of 6* champs to get full 12 million milestones Old 4* featured: approx 40 rounds of r4/r5 5* champs to get full 4 million milestones Old 4* basic: approx 40 rounds of 4* champs to get full 1.5 million milestones
So 140 rounds to get all milestones
Now compare that to the 2 new 6* arenas
Each has 16.5 million for max milestones, so you need 33 million to get all milestones
That is approx. 167 rounds of ONLY 6* CHAMPS!!!!!!! So not only do you need a large enough 6* roster to run them 167 times, it still is 20% more rounds than the old 140 rounds WHERE YOU COULD USE 4* and 5* CHAMPS
So this change is bad for all arena grinders
- high level rosters still need to put up 167 rounds of only 6* vs 140 in old arenas - small 6* rosters will have no chance of getting both, or even 1 of max milestones
I ask the community to check my math but I really hoper Kabam reviews this change as it has greatly increased, not decreased, the grind
It depends. If you're only looking at millestones, yes. The rank rewards, however, are substantially better. So it depends on how you value those things. Someone who decided to forego milestones (and units with them) and say shoot for 1-5% in just one of the two 4/5/6 arenas, assuming they can get there (we don't know what the cutoffs will be long term, and it may take some cycles for that to settle down) they'd be getting 1000 6* shards per cycle, which is 8000 6* shards a month. Whether that's worth the loss of units depends: it is probably very subjective.
Also, the original 5* featured granted 300 6* shards to the top 5%. It is now going to be giving 250 6* shards to the top 305, and in two different arenas. That's a lot more people getting more 6* shards than before. More 6* champs means more points and more rewards from the two top arenas. So in the long run, I don't think players that can get there are too badly off.
Again, if you're focused on the milestones and specifically the units in the milestones, the amount of effort to get those (if you were trying to get them all) has gone up: for some players slightly up, for others a lot more. But I think injecting more shards into the arena is at least some small compensation for that change, and it is compensation that will pay interest in the long run. The problem is getting players to the point where that is even realistically practical in the first place, which is in my opinion a more critical problem.
Units are premium resources. Honestly, one of the few complaints wasunit-grinders had before was that it was a bit tedious and long and now it's even longer, it's what, doubled the points required to hit milestones?
I don’t necessarily care about getting the featured 5 or 6*s I never score that high anyway but what I care about is being able to get units and reach all the milestones.
For people in your position, the optimal mindset will likely have to change. It is too early to know how this will all shake out yet until we see a few cycles and get a better idea where the rank reward cutoffs end up, but the largest benefit for intermediate grinders with a decent number of 5* and 6* champs could be to shoot for the 11-30% (or higher) rank reward in both 4/5/6 arenas. Those contain 250 6* shards, which might be more reachable now than in the previous 5* featured arena (which had 6* shards in much higher rank tiers only).
If I was in your position today, I would probably be shifting my effort from trying to grind optimally for units, to trying to find the optimal strategy for grinding shards, in an effort to expand roster. In fact, even I am considering whether shooting for units over shards makes sense in the new arena configuration, and I do have the roster to sweep the milestones if I choose. But the new arenas aren't really built for that necessarily being the best long term strategy. It depends on how high the 1-5% rank gets.
It’s not about the shards, it’s about the units. With the new milestones, the average milestones grinding player need at least 2x the time compared to previous iteration, for the same units. Kabam needs to cut all milestones to half, they are way to high. No one is going suddenly to grind the game for the double hours, especially old players which most of them are already burned out grinding all these years, and hoped for a faster, less grindy (for the unit rewards) arena setup. Kabam completely missed the shot with the milestones, same as they did back in Christmas with the celebration arenas, but this time, is not an one time arena, it’s the whole arena mode which is ruined.
Comments
11 FIGHTS IN, DEATH MATCH (for me anyway on Hard difficulty and like twice my Champs) but somehow I'm supposed to maintain a winning streak and have to score over 6 million points for a new 3* feature Champion when I used to only need 640,000????
TERRIBLE TERRIBLE TERRIBLE, ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE...
I haven't missed getting a new featured 3* Champion EVERY week (even when it took around 1.4-1.5M to get a 3*) since July 2019
That is clearly over if these changes aren't reversed or FIXED because right now, the Arena is HOT GARBAGE
I'll NEVER spend another penny on this game and I might end up quitting over this... NOT kidding
THESE CHANGES ARE TERRIBLE
11 FIGHTS IN, DEATH MATCH (for me anyway on Hard difficulty and like twice my Champs) but somehow I'm supposed to maintain a winning streak and have to score over 6 million points for a new 3* feature Champion when I used to only need 640,000????
TERRIBLE TERRIBLE TERRIBLE, ABSOLUTELY TERRIBLE...
As a Champion Collector, I haven't missed getting a new featured 3* Champion EVERY week (even when it took around 1.4-1.5M to get a 3*) since July 2019
That is clearly over if these changes aren't reversed or FIXED because right now, the Arena is HOT GARBAGE
I'll NEVER spend another penny on this game and I might end up quitting over this... NOT kidding
In any case, the design changes for the reward structure seem to be part of Kabam's plan to accelerate players to Uncollected, by adding more roster growth into the arenas. This comes at the cost of some problematic changes for unit grinders.
Ultra casual grinders probably have enough front loaded units in the first couple milestones that things aren't too bad. And players who were grinding efficiently in the 5* featured arena arguably have had things improve in many respects. The biggest problem area are people that were at a point of progress where they had significant 4* rosters but not large 5* rosters and were targeting the 4* basic arena. I rarely use the term, but those guys got screwed by the update. They don't have the firepower to grind very efficiently in the two main arenas, but would be getting far less units and other rewards from the low arena. That's something I've strongly suggested to Kabam they look at moving forward.
The 4* basic arena was a very efficient place to live for pre-UC and new UC players with moderate 4* rosters but small 5* rosters. It not only got them units, it also got them 5* shards. Not a ton, but you could slowly grind your way to a better roster there. That's much more difficult now. It is as if the arenas are missing a path from low progress rosters to higher progress rosters. The low arena gives rewards focused on lower player rosters, and the high ones give pretty good rewards for players targeting 5* and 6* rewards. There's nothing in the middle, which used to exist when we had more arenas.
If I was in your position today, I would probably be shifting my effort from trying to grind optimally for units, to trying to find the optimal strategy for grinding shards, in an effort to expand roster. In fact, even I am considering whether shooting for units over shards makes sense in the new arena configuration, and I do have the roster to sweep the milestones if I choose. But the new arenas aren't really built for that necessarily being the best long term strategy. It depends on how high the 1-5% rank gets.
Can't read
Also, the original 5* featured granted 300 6* shards to the top 5%. It is now going to be giving 250 6* shards to the top 305, and in two different arenas. That's a lot more people getting more 6* shards than before. More 6* champs means more points and more rewards from the two top arenas. So in the long run, I don't think players that can get there are too badly off.
Again, if you're focused on the milestones and specifically the units in the milestones, the amount of effort to get those (if you were trying to get them all) has gone up: for some players slightly up, for others a lot more. But I think injecting more shards into the arena is at least some small compensation for that change, and it is compensation that will pay interest in the long run. The problem is getting players to the point where that is even realistically practical in the first place, which is in my opinion a more critical problem.
With the new milestones, the average milestones grinding player need at least 2x the time compared to previous iteration, for the same units.
Kabam needs to cut all milestones to half, they are way to high.
No one is going suddenly to grind the game for the double hours, especially old players which most of them are already burned out grinding all these years, and hoped for a faster, less grindy (for the unit rewards) arena setup.
Kabam completely missed the shot with the milestones, same as they did back in Christmas with the celebration arenas, but this time, is not an one time arena, it’s the whole arena mode which is ruined.