5* featured arena death squads

Guys seriously. Now I’m starting to get death squads, post streak, with all 4/40 or 2/35 teams. It’s manageable, yeah, but seriously? Why does this seem to keep increasing and why have you to my knowledge refused to speak with us on it? A couple weeks ago myself and others started noticing death squads when using teams with one 4/40 and two 3/30, then gradually it increased to two 4/40 and one 3/30. Now it’s with full 4/40 teams. This is making it so skewed towards the biggest accounts. I don’t have the time or resources to rank up every single 4*/5* I get to 5/50 or 3/45 just to avoid death squads in arenas. The one place where people with smaller accounts should be able to go to grind and improve their rosters the most. Please mods, admins, someone. I’ve put in support tickets and got the generic auto response, and forwarded to the suggestion box that probably has t been checked in a decade and is full of spiders and gum. This is all really starting to suck the joy out of the game...

Comments

KOKC

game is easy who cares

BirdReynolds

@Kabam Miike or anyone else. Desperate cry for help

Sinnur

@Kabam Miike this is an ongoing issue that has no comments from Kabam. A simple explanation would be appreciated.

DarthPhal

Do you have screenshots of death matches with all 2/35 5* teams? I’ve never had that happen. In fact I don’t even pull them when mixing a 2/35 with two r1 5*. Something seems off.

Beatlerao

Yeah I’ve been testing and haven’t run across this either. Would like to see a screenshot.

Dexman1349

IMO death squads shouldn't exist at all. If the arena is open for designated star level, it should be for all champs you have with those stars. Arenas are a big enough of a chore, players shouldn't be punished for using champs that are allowed into it.

If players want to grind with 1/1 champs for the lowest possible points, we should be able to.

Additionally, the cutoffs for death squads should not be based on PI but rather rank/level. I have 3/30 champs with higher PI than a couple of my 4/40 champs. Consequently, those 4/40 champs are treated like 3/30 and will trigger death squads (Round 16 in the Alpha arena triggered a death squad when I tried to use my 3/30 Voodoo who has a higher PI than my 4/40 WW2 and 4/40 Wolvie).

Rich_Ryder

Sinnur wrote: »

@Kabam Miike this is an ongoing issue that has no comments from Kabam. A simple explanation would be appreciated.

There has never been a promise of who you will face in Arena other than other players so what is ther to address?

DarthPhal

It’s true that there is no official arena streak and the mods aren’t going to be able to help but the players will. It’s always been an evolving thing that takes some experimentation but if it’s accurate that all 2/35 teams are pulling death squads for you I’m guessing something else is at play. This is pretty far from the norm even lately.

BirdReynolds

@DarthPhal @Beatlerao Unfortunately no I didn’t take any, though I usually do for general nerding purposes. Each time I got them though it was with high pi teams of two 2/35 and one 4/40. I ran 5/50 & 3/45+ until round 22, then the death squads showed up on rounds 23, 25, and 26. Oddly, round 24 was the normal easy streak matchup, I think their combined pi was somewhere around 13k. Then on 27 and after they stopped. I didn’t go beyond that as I don’t want to use 3/30 or 1/25 and get hosed, and I’m still waiting on everyone to refresh. If it comes up again though I will remember to SS it for you. I know just yesterday an alliance mate got them in round 70 something for using a 2/35 and two 1/25’s.

I get having the minimum threshold, I do, especially in the 4* basic arena where it costs nearly nothing to take champs to 3/30. But 5* champs require a lot of resources just to go to r2. And with the amount of time and work that goes into just acquiring one, it is unfortunate and pretty lame we can’t use our full 5* roster in arenas. It is also really just very obnoxious that we have to be so mindful of the teams we choose, it takes the fun out of it. And why else would I play a game, for it to be a chore? I used to enjoy arenas, not nearly as much anymore. And with no more end game content left to explore outside of LoL, arenas are almost all I have left to satisfy that gaming itch.

If the minimum is going to increase like this, it would at least be nice for it to stay put for a while to allow for adjustments and rank ups, instead of what I’ve experienced to be an increase almost monthly. It would also be nice to get some feedback from Kabam on this. At a minimum just say “hey, don’t use teams below 10k pi before synergies, etc”. @Kabam Miike the game is changing, we are all trying to adapt and roll with it, but you’re the ones at the wheel, some communication on this would be great.

DarthPhal

I’m wondering if it’s something to do with the mixing of 5* and 4* in general. I usually only use 5* and 5/50 4* for grinding milestones and tend to keep them separated. So far the only time I pull death matches is when I forget and bring 3 r1 5*. It was a pain the first few times but I’m used to it now and have a routine set for how I mix them. For me arena is still worth the payoff but I get how it could drive people away.

I’m going to experiment some and see if I can reproduce your results out of curiosity, but not before I hit my milestones.

@BirdReynolds

BirdReynolds

I wonder if it is driven by people ranking up 6* champs to r2 more. I recall teams of 3x 3/30 or 1/25 being feasible until people started getting a second r5 5*. I also don’t have this problem in the catalyst or 4* featured arenas, 1 4/40 or 2/35 is all that’s needed, which is why I assume it is driven by 6* actions.
@DarthPhal

DarthPhal

@BirdReynolds The rising floor is definitely the result of the rising ceiling. It’s just a matter of finding where new the safe floor is. I’m taking as many 5* as I can to r2 to be safe since the t1a and t4b have become much more available and I’m bottlenecked on t2a and t5b anyway.

DNA3000

Sinnur wrote: »

@Kabam Miike this is an ongoing issue that has no comments from Kabam. A simple explanation would be appreciated.

Kabam has commented on this several times. Kabam has stated that nothing algorithmic has changed in the arenas and that it is the fact that the arenas, in some unspecified way, factor in player roster growth that is causing death matches that used to show up at lower ratings to show up at increasingly higher ones. That is all they are prepared to say about the inner workings of the arena.

My own testing indicates that the arena is more complicated than players have generally assumed. I've determined that matches you fight now can affect the strength of matches you get later, for example, in a mostly predictable way. Which is to say, if I play in a certain way, I never get death matches. If I play in one of a number of different ways, I can practically guarantee them, and this is repeatable. So I know the game is factoring in how I play, but I cannot state in what precise way it is doing that.

As far as Kabam seems to be concerned, this is working as intended.

DNA3000

Dexman1349 wrote: »

IMO death squads shouldn't exist at all. If the arena is open for designated star level, it should be for all champs you have with those stars. Arenas are a big enough of a chore, players shouldn't be punished for using champs that are allowed into it.

If players want to grind with 1/1 champs for the lowest possible points, we should be able to.

Additionally, the cutoffs for death squads should not be based on PI but rather rank/level. I have 3/30 champs with higher PI than a couple of my 4/40 champs. Consequently, those 4/40 champs are treated like 3/30 and will trigger death squads (Round 16 in the Alpha arena triggered a death squad when I tried to use my 3/30 Voodoo who has a higher PI than my 4/40 WW2 and 4/40 Wolvie).

Nothing stops you from using any team you want in those arenas, it is just that the difficulty tuning you trigger could exceed your skill level. But there are players who claim to deliberately die in the arena to avoid entering infinite streak, because they believe they get more points during the run up before the drop down into infinite streak. I'm not one of them, but it is entirely possible that one of the design decisions embedded in the arena is a way for players to indirectly manipulate PI and point totals in this way. The concurrent design decision is that this manipulation can backfire on the player in ways we characterize as getting a death match.

GroundedWisdom

It's based on Total PI, not Ranks. You need a Team of 10-11k PI.

DGC

I haven't had any death matches past round 16 but i don't mix 4 and 5 stars.

DarthPhal

This, over time, is going to become more and more of a problem for people who haven’t been developing their arena rosters enough to stay in front of the new minimums. If it’s not already there, the infinite streak will become nearly impossible for newer players to achieve and maintain.

DNA3000

DarthPhal wrote: »

This, over time, is going to become more and more of a problem for people who haven’t been developing their arena rosters enough to stay in front of the new minimums. If it’s not already there, the infinite streak will become nearly impossible for newer players to achieve and maintain.

1/25s are still useable. It is just that no one wants to do anything other than read two year old infinite streak guides.

Dexman1349

It's almost as if Kabam developed the arena progression so that players have to upgrade all champs simultaneously (leave no champ behind). Basically, we should not take a champ to R4 until all of the other champs are at R3.

This isn't a problem when you're dealing with relatively easy to rank champs like 3* and 4* (when the arena meta was created). However, this is entirely thrown out the window when we're dealing with 5* champs that are significantly more challenging/expensive to rank up.

To me, this is a flawed system as it forces players to rank up champs that we have no other intention of using. And it also punishes players with limited rosters. I don't even have 30 different 5* champs and I have to be very selective on how to use the bottom third out of fear of generating a death match. Am I expected to burn through 20 T4b and 50 T1a to gain access to a third of my roster for the sole purpose of Arena grinding? These champs will not be used in any other part of the game.

DarthPhal

DNA3000 wrote: »

DarthPhal wrote: »

This, over time, is going to become more and more of a problem for people who haven’t been developing their arena rosters enough to stay in front of the new minimums. If it’s not already there, the infinite streak will become nearly impossible for newer players to achieve and maintain.

1/25s are still useable. It is just that no one wants to do anything other than read two year old infinite streak guides.

Oh I know, I still use all my 5* but I know people who have the vast majority of their 5* at 1/25 still and it has to be tricky to pair them all safely.

BirdReynolds

I too am in the process of ranking all my 5*’s, but it takes a while. I have 22 r2+ but still have 13 at 1/25. That’s a lot of points left on the board if I can’t even use them regularly. The mass rank up also took a backseat because I had a hot streak and got a handful of great champs to take up to r4, so most of my resources were tied up. Now it’s back to ranking up Groot and KK and so on.