Doing Arena With and Without the EXPRESS MODE Results and A Suggestion

I've been playing arena in express mode since the day it first came out with sigil and love the time save we got from that mode. My sigil expired today and I decided to renew it a few days later and did some arena the normal way.

I know that with my 78 r5 4 stars I was able to put in around 1.1-1.2M points, and now without the express mode I was able to get 1.5M points. Of course being able to choose the team you're fighting changes your score but 400k difference is really huge imo. I think express mode always chooses the easiest team and we get very low points instead of the max we can get.

With express mode I was always fighting with 4 stars that have like 5-6k rating but with normal way I was able to fight with 8-9k rating 4 stars.

I think there should be a little adjustment, like another button on top of express mode to choose the hardest team instead of the easiest. I say a button and not make it built in because some people may not want it like a 7 star serpent could still make you lose points in arena if you don't have a good team at that moment.

I love the time saving we get from that mode but doing arena without express mode means I can get to the final milestone in 3 rounds instead of 4 with express. I think a paid feature should't have a flaw like this.

Just wanted point this little flaw (or maybe design choice) out, so that in the future maybe it can work better.

Comments

NARWH4L

I'd be shocked if they did it because it would just make farming units faster and it's already faster and easier than they want it to be. The time savings definitely makes up the difference in points by a good margin though. I can clear featured considerably faster with express even though it requires a few more rounds. Obviously this is something you wouldn't feel the same way with the 4* arena, but I imagine that 30% increase in points added a good bit more than 30% in time.

Onurre2

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2921559#Comment_2921559

Of course in the end I'm sure it still saves time but doing the arena always feel like a chore, it is never fun. So I might rather do it in 3 runs intead of 4. Because everything aside you need to wait for 2 hours for your champions to get ready again so doing it 3 times in your free time sounds like a better option to me.

Asher1_1

u want more ? Pay extra mode incoming … -

pseudosane

that is a significant difference. @DNA3000 do you perchance have data on this?

Squammo

I tested this myself in the past and one thing to take into account is that by doing less rounds you will also end up with less units, which is why I don’t mind having to do more rounds. Have you compared the time needed for your runs? Did you end up spending much less time for your 3 regular runs as for the 4 express ones?

DNA3000

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2921592#Comment_2921592

That's consistent with what I've seen. The easy match always generates less points per match because arena points factors in the PI of your opponents. The flip side is that the harder matches can take longer, so while they take fewer rounds they can take more time. This is highly dependent on the player; in my testing the sigil express path took more rounds but was faster in time, but other players have experienced the opposite: fewer rounds and also less time. If you use recoil masteries I think your kill speed rises to the point where the fights still happen fast enough that the stronger fights don't matter as much.

Another factor to consider is the flow of the arena. I often do arena without paying close attention to it, so I can do something else while grinding arena. However, this makes more sense in express mode where the rights are trivial. If you decide to pick the hard fights, lack of attention is more likely to cause you to occasionally lose a fight. Losing too many can eliminate the point advantage of choosing those fights. And in the rare case where you lose streak, you'll lose about two rounds of time to catch up your multiplier, essentially eliminating the advantage.

So there is a potential speed advantage dropping express and picking harder fights. But you will need to pay more attention to them and fight the fights efficiently, and mistakes will eliminate the advantage.

And yeah, I believe there's no way Kabam is likely to add more options for arena express. The original intent of arena express was to make it a convenience; a QoL benefit. The fact that it translates into a significant speed improvement when used was unintended. They are not likely to add optimization options to make it an even more beneficial accelerator.

Onurre2

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2921603#Comment_2921603

Thanks for the info. I just wanted to post this and maybe spread some awareness. It basically drops down 4 rounds to 3 (for my roster) if I don't use express mode. It could be slower or faster in total time but at least I don't have to do another round 2 hours or maybe days later (when champs reset for the 4th round and I'm free for it)

Felt like a little flaw for the 4 star arena only. Did the same testing on 6 star arenas and when I'm done with my r4 roster I usually end around 8M points, without express it was like 8.3M so the 300k difference is nothing in that arena but 400k difference in the 4 star arena is really big.

I didn't even tagged any kabam members for this. If they see this and pass it along, great, if not, still a good mode that at least "feels" faster by skipping all the unnecessary animations from the begining and at the end(wow won streak still at 3x.. wow match won). I also don't think kabam would improve arena to be even faster. This is not a whale feature and not expensive but definitely not free.

DNA3000

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2921618#Comment_2921618

I notice you mention cycling 78 4* R5s (26 rounds). You don’t mention ascension. If you aren’t specifically ascending your 4s, ascended champs speed things up noticeably. T1 dust is not easy to come by in large quantities these days, but there is a supply in monthly EQ and they pop up in special events from time to time.

I’m up to 54 ascended 4s (18 rounds worth) and if I only cycle those I’m down to 104 rounds more or less to max out trials without recoil and using express mode matches, down from closer to 130 or so.

Feuerschwer

Question I’ve had for a bit on efficient arena grinding, and I figure @DNA3000 would know if anyone does - is it worth picking synergy teams for improved PI/faster wins, or does the time saved from auto-filling the top three champs matter more?

Onurre2

Oh, out of those 78, 38 are maxed(ascended). I try to do 3 more 4 star ascensions every month from side quests and monthly quest.

NARWH4L

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2921621#Comment_2921621

Auto-fill all day. Sometimes I'll move around classes so I don't have three of the same class so I reduce the risk of disadvantage, but ultimately just spamming fill is way faster. The time to scour through stuff will not be made up in the fights.

Chuck_Finley

I haven’t missed sigil express.. I just milestone grind (not fully on the 4 star arena but do get all the milestones in the others) and the ability to choose to skip stall defenders and defenders that need a hard counter is invaluable. Haven’t went back to sigil for this reason

DNA3000

https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/comment/2921623#Comment_2921623

I would agree. I can only think of two situations where synergy teams are worth thinking about in arena. The first one is in theory when you're deciding who to rank up, in the early part of it ranking synergy team members to squeeze out a few more points might make sense, because you won't have to hunt for them: they'll be right on top. But eventually once you've ranked up a lot of champs the time it takes to find them to assemble them is not worth it.

The other time is if you're grinding specifically for Warbound or you're actually grinding for featured champs and using units to refresh champions constantly (which these days is less of a thing). If you're going to use the same team over and over, in my opinion the first concern is using the highest PI champs that have very good kill speeds, and then second would be synergy team connections. Even there, I'm not sure if synergies would matter compared to bursty kill speed in arena settings.