I'm not a great fighter so I struggle at higher levels (physical disability, not something that can be corrected with practice), but I was always able to grind arenas with not much effort, maintaining a 3x multiplier for multiple rounds. I stopped grinding arenas because the milestone rewards were useless to me and the really good rank rewards required a level of play I couldn't achieve.
Then Kabam changed solo event rewards. Now they are much better, including the ranked portion. And most solo events can be done via arenas, with a few exceptions. A month after they made the solo event reward improvements, arenas were changed and became, effectively, massively more difficult. Here's my personal experience, based on my abilities:
BEFORE:
All the fights at multipliers under 3x were ranked Easy
3x Fights would gradually become more difficult as you kept winning sets
Rarely would I encounter opponents with "suicide" masteries
Losing a 3x multiplier streak wasn't much of a heart breaker because re-gaining it was easy
Winning all 3 fights in a set was trivial except after many rounds (like 10-15)
AFTER:
All fights, regardless of multiplier, are ranked hard. MAYBE medium. Rarely.
By the time you hit a 3x multiplier you're facing 6-star maxed out, awakened toons
About one third or more of opponents have suicide masteries.
I can't win more than one 3x set before I lose my multiplier, minimizing point gain
Winning all 3 fights in a set is only possible at the lower multipliers.
Honestly, it's pretty clear to me the motivation for Kabam was to counter-balance the increased solo event rewards, and the arena grinding that made them profitable. Yes, the arenas are harder. Kabam literally eliminated all "easy" fights (which is disingenuous at the lowest multipliers) and made the AI significantly more aggressive (I had to laugh at the Kabam statement this somehow makes the fight easier. Someone is taking spin lessons from politicians!).
Even though Kabam claimed to have fixed the match-making as of October 11th, I haven't seen it. My arenas are painful and disheartening. And I won't be able to get the units I was trying to grind before the end of today, which means I won't be spending money to increase my units balance. It doesn't work that way, Kabam. You take away are free units and we don't just hand us over all the money.
The "Infinite Streak" is not a feature of the game, but rather the result of the requirements/calculations for finding matches. It is always changing and will continue to do so as more and more players have access to higher ranked Champions.
This change is not made only for those that are "in the know" about the Infinite Streak. We promised to lower the number of deathmatches, and we've done just that. This is a major improvement for all players, especially those that are new to the Arena.
I have to beg to differ on both of these statements by one of the Kabaam monkeys. Since the infinite streak feature (yes it is a feature of the game) has been part of the game for the five or so years I have been playing and whether or not it was originally intended to be a feature or not, because Kabaam intentionally left if in the game, they made an informed decision not to remove this feature, it then becomes an official feature of the game. It doesn't matter what marketing speak you utter to the contrary. Kabaam made an intentional decision to make the infinite streak a feature of the game.
Also, the Kabaam monkeys, and Kabaam officially, in the forums said that this abrogation they have foisted on the players, mostly likely to extract real dollars from players, since Kabaam is a for profit enterprise, was to be for the most part corrected yesterday ahead of the arenas today. But I don't see it. As soon as I hit fight 12, I'm fighting teams that are 2-3 times my teams pi and it's mostly Dr. Doom dominated teams. This is a complete load of bovine excrement.
I'm a free 2 player and always will be, depending on how much longer I can stand to do arenas the way they are now. I don't have the kind of time that this game is starting to demand to be successful in even a limited way. WHEN ARE ARENAS REALLY GOING TO BE FIXED KABAAM? I don't mind the more aggressive opponents, but I really do want to be able to streak. It's the only way to get any consistent decent awards. And if you're going to take that away from us. You might as well shut down the game, because there will be no fun playing it.
The Infinite Streak, as well as the formulae that people use to achieve it, are not actual intended goals. They're the result of people learning the threshold parameters for Matchmaking that add difficulty. While they've been known and in existence for years, they're not really an intended method of game play. That's what he was saying.
Honestly, it's pretty clear to me the motivation for Kabam was to counter-balance the increased solo event rewards, and the arena grinding that made them profitable. Yes, the arenas are harder. Kabam literally eliminated all "easy" fights (which is disingenuous at the lowest multipliers) and made the AI significantly more aggressive (I had to laugh at the Kabam statement this somehow makes the fight easier. Someone is taking spin lessons from politicians!).
Okay, I think I see what might be happening here. When I (and most people) say the arena match ups have returned to normal, we mean the actual champions we're facing have returned to the PI levels we expect to see. I look at PI. to me, this:
is back to normal. The PI levels are all comparable to my actual team. I hardly look at the "Easy/Hard" words, because those do not correlate to difficulty directly. I suspect the reason why we might be seeing most or all of the teams show "Hard" is because that's how they added the new AI profile to the arena. The "Hard" profile is the one that aggressively throws specials.
Now, because every player is different, I suspect there are players who think that aggressively throwing specials is bad, because I would assume they have more difficulty dealing with them. But the very long-standing complaint in the arena is passive AI where the AI either doesn't attack or doesn't throw specials. It is the combination of high PI and passive AI that creates the kinds of match ups that frustrate most arena grinders. You can't beat a champ that will insta-kill you with a special three because their PI is three times higher than yours and refuses to throw a special until they reach three bars of power.
(I also suspect there are players who are just seeing the word Hard and complaining about it without actually making any attempt to evaluate if the fights themselves are indeed harder).
If there are players that are keying off of the word "Hard" and not the actual champions themselves, or who do not like to face more aggressive AI, then the problem here is that the word Hard doesn't correlate to the actual strength of the champion, and the more aggressive AI is something they put in after literally years of player requests for that very behavior. In fact, its a long standing request for AQ AI as well.
Can't please everyone, and for years the majority complaint in the arena has been either get rid of deathmatches or get rid of the passive AI. Both changes are responses to long standing player feedback. It does make the arena much easier to deal with and much more enjoyable for the vast majority of players I've ever spoken to. They flubbed the deathmatch change but that change has been reverted. The match I posted above is exactly what others are seeing as being a complete reversion to the old behavior. The "Hard" is, I suspect, connected to the AI change that players have been asking for, and most have had a positive response to.
Your theory that Kabam is trying to offset increased arena rewards has a critical flaw. For *most* players, the AI change is a positive one. And the deathmatch one has been reverted, so it can't be making the arena any harder than it used to be. Kabam is working on figuring out a way to eliminate death matches and high PI match ups, which again would not cause the average player to generate fewer points. That seems to make that theory completely untenable.
I asked Kabam to confirm if my theory was correct and the "Hard" in the match up screen in the arena designates the AI profile of that match. Kabam confirms that at least with regard to the arenas where the AI was changed to the more aggressive mode, the "Hard" designates the aggressive AI, not any specific intent to assert that fight is harder than normal. It is just that when they forced those arenas to use the more aggressive AI, the arena lists that AI profile as "Hard."
So if anyone thinks that the arena showing all "Hard" implies that Kabam is trying to make the arena harder, that's not true. In fact, the opposite is true: the intent is to make the arena opponents more aggressive when throwing specials, which makes them easier to bait and less likely to reach special three, and more predictable overall. Aside from being more aggressive in general, I haven't seen the "Hard" AI in the arenas exhibiting any particular tricks that make them more difficult to fight. They are easier to bait, and easier to counter attack, but otherwise more or less like the previous arena AI in other respects.
Arena matchmaking changes have been effective, at least for my preference. This is at 110x streak and I haven't encountered teams with a total rating that's 1.5x that of mine. Cheers, MCOC team. 🍻
So ridiculous after getting an initial 65 win streak in the five star arena I can’t even get to a 10 win streak without getting multiple death matches!
"Arena matchmaking changes have been effective" Yea right 34 win-streak surprise
Not really can’t use r1 4 star in that arena.
If r1 4 stars are allowed in this arena then matchmaking should work properly for them too. In my opinion there are some wrong values in their algorithm. If I'm wrong please correct me and accept my apologies
you have to rank those champs up man.. at least R3 ... I like to play it safe and use nothing less then a R5,4* for the 5* feature arena !
Everything in it's time. I don't like to waste any champion when playing arena As I mentioned earlier - It was a surprise Like Bob Ross said: there are no mistakes, only little happy accidents
1. It’s not based on skill: Kabam wants you to rank up all your champs otherwise you get death matches. But it takes YEARS to rank up enough champs. I want to use all my champs not just the ones I have resources to rank. 2. Deathmatches: honestly, this is just instant stress. Why do this to your customers? Grinding is not to gain skill, it is for points. Resetting the bonus to 1x and regrinding 15 fights for decent points is a poor spend of my time. 3. Add 6star champs in basic catalyst arena (aloha and T4bc). I need 7 T4bc to rank up my 6star but I can’t use a 6star champ in T4bc arena?!! This is outdated and needs to be fixed.
Kabam, we are talking quality of life. I cringe when I see T4bc arena come up because I need those resources but I know I need hours of stressful grinding to get them. Isn’t it better to keep your customers using their time more efficiently, getting the rewards, and moving on.
Problem to solve NOW: deathmatches in arenas. For those who play arenas every week, is frustrating and exhausting to keep building up your win streak and finding impossible matches to fight.
Problem to solve NOW: deathmatches in arenas. For those who play arenas every week, is frustrating and exhausting to keep building up your win streak and finding impossible matches to fight.
This is something Kabam is currently actively working on. In fact, they tested a mechanism to reduce those, but it had deleterious side effects that caused them to revert the change and work on a better solution. Those who play arenas every week would have noticed this happening a short while ago.
Problem to solve NOW: deathmatches in arenas. For those who play arenas every week, is frustrating and exhausting to keep building up your win streak and finding impossible matches to fight.
This is something Kabam is currently actively working on. In fact, they tested a mechanism to reduce those, but it had deleterious side effects that caused them to revert the change and work on a better solution. Those who play arenas every week would have noticed this happening a short while ago.
wow, you're so clever. But I was already aware of that. This doesn't change the fact that it's taking quite long to solve a problem that it was supposed to be a solution.
Problem to solve NOW: deathmatches in arenas. For those who play arenas every week, is frustrating and exhausting to keep building up your win streak and finding impossible matches to fight.
This is something Kabam is currently actively working on. In fact, they tested a mechanism to reduce those, but it had deleterious side effects that caused them to revert the change and work on a better solution. Those who play arenas every week would have noticed this happening a short while ago.
wow, you're so clever. But I was already aware of that. This doesn't change the fact that it's taking quite long to solve a problem that it was supposed to be a solution.
Problem to solve NOW: deathmatches in arenas. For those who play arenas every week, is frustrating and exhausting to keep building up your win streak and finding impossible matches to fight.
This is something Kabam is currently actively working on. In fact, they tested a mechanism to reduce those, but it had deleterious side effects that caused them to revert the change and work on a better solution. Those who play arenas every week would have noticed this happening a short while ago.
wow, you're so clever. But I was already aware of that. This doesn't change the fact that it's taking quite long to solve a problem that it was supposed to be a solution.
Dude maybe you should take a breather and calm down. The fact that they've already shown they're actively working on a solution should be good enough. For those who play arena every week, you think you would have learnt how to avoid them by now. Better solution since you got alot of attitude, git gud
Problem to solve NOW: deathmatches in arenas. For those who play arenas every week, is frustrating and exhausting to keep building up your win streak and finding impossible matches to fight.
This is something Kabam is currently actively working on. In fact, they tested a mechanism to reduce those, but it had deleterious side effects that caused them to revert the change and work on a better solution. Those who play arenas every week would have noticed this happening a short while ago.
wow, you're so clever. But I was already aware of that. This doesn't change the fact that it's taking quite long to solve a problem that it was supposed to be a solution.
Not clever enough to parse that last sentence.
Nah that's not being clever. Not parsing a sentence from someone who's not speaking their mother tongue it's beyond intolerance and it's much worse. **** nzs
I find zero impossible matches. Arena is the best its ever been as far as I can tell. I still don't love it but the streak is far less annoying to establish.
Problem to solve NOW: deathmatches in arenas. For those who play arenas every week, is frustrating and exhausting to keep building up your win streak and finding impossible matches to fight.
This is something Kabam is currently actively working on. In fact, they tested a mechanism to reduce those, but it had deleterious side effects that caused them to revert the change and work on a better solution. Those who play arenas every week would have noticed this happening a short while ago.
wow, you're so clever. But I was already aware of that. This doesn't change the fact that it's taking quite long to solve a problem that it was supposed to be a solution.
Not clever enough to parse that last sentence.
Nah that's not being clever. Not parsing a sentence from someone who's not speaking their mother tongue it's beyond intolerance and it's much worse. **** nzs
Gotta love rude reply guy throwing down the intolerance card lol.
Problem to solve NOW: deathmatches in arenas. For those who play arenas every week, is frustrating and exhausting to keep building up your win streak and finding impossible matches to fight.
which arena you're grinding and what type of death-match you have faced? since Kabam resume the arena I seldom face that, despite there is still occasionally 6*r3 team happened when I used two 5*r2 bundled with one 5*r1. in general it is quite acceptable to me.
Yep. Arenas are broke AF. Way more death matches. Impossible to keep a streak alive like before. I'm about to quit this broke @$$ $#!+.
Oh yes, and every opponent is a parry-stun ninja. I don't miss the turtling, but I've got better things to do than self inflict this arena brain damage.
Comments
Then Kabam changed solo event rewards. Now they are much better, including the ranked portion. And most solo events can be done via arenas, with a few exceptions.
A month after they made the solo event reward improvements, arenas were changed and became, effectively, massively more difficult. Here's my personal experience, based on my abilities:
BEFORE:
AFTER:
Honestly, it's pretty clear to me the motivation for Kabam was to counter-balance the increased solo event rewards, and the arena grinding that made them profitable. Yes, the arenas are harder. Kabam literally eliminated all "easy" fights (which is disingenuous at the lowest multipliers) and made the AI significantly more aggressive (I had to laugh at the Kabam statement this somehow makes the fight easier. Someone is taking spin lessons from politicians!).
Even though Kabam claimed to have fixed the match-making as of October 11th, I haven't seen it. My arenas are painful and disheartening. And I won't be able to get the units I was trying to grind before the end of today, which means I won't be spending money to increase my units balance. It doesn't work that way, Kabam. You take away are free units and we don't just hand us over all the money.
is back to normal. The PI levels are all comparable to my actual team. I hardly look at the "Easy/Hard" words, because those do not correlate to difficulty directly. I suspect the reason why we might be seeing most or all of the teams show "Hard" is because that's how they added the new AI profile to the arena. The "Hard" profile is the one that aggressively throws specials.
Now, because every player is different, I suspect there are players who think that aggressively throwing specials is bad, because I would assume they have more difficulty dealing with them. But the very long-standing complaint in the arena is passive AI where the AI either doesn't attack or doesn't throw specials. It is the combination of high PI and passive AI that creates the kinds of match ups that frustrate most arena grinders. You can't beat a champ that will insta-kill you with a special three because their PI is three times higher than yours and refuses to throw a special until they reach three bars of power.
(I also suspect there are players who are just seeing the word Hard and complaining about it without actually making any attempt to evaluate if the fights themselves are indeed harder).
If there are players that are keying off of the word "Hard" and not the actual champions themselves, or who do not like to face more aggressive AI, then the problem here is that the word Hard doesn't correlate to the actual strength of the champion, and the more aggressive AI is something they put in after literally years of player requests for that very behavior. In fact, its a long standing request for AQ AI as well.
Can't please everyone, and for years the majority complaint in the arena has been either get rid of deathmatches or get rid of the passive AI. Both changes are responses to long standing player feedback. It does make the arena much easier to deal with and much more enjoyable for the vast majority of players I've ever spoken to. They flubbed the deathmatch change but that change has been reverted. The match I posted above is exactly what others are seeing as being a complete reversion to the old behavior. The "Hard" is, I suspect, connected to the AI change that players have been asking for, and most have had a positive response to.
Your theory that Kabam is trying to offset increased arena rewards has a critical flaw. For *most* players, the AI change is a positive one. And the deathmatch one has been reverted, so it can't be making the arena any harder than it used to be. Kabam is working on figuring out a way to eliminate death matches and high PI match ups, which again would not cause the average player to generate fewer points. That seems to make that theory completely untenable.
So if anyone thinks that the arena showing all "Hard" implies that Kabam is trying to make the arena harder, that's not true. In fact, the opposite is true: the intent is to make the arena opponents more aggressive when throwing specials, which makes them easier to bait and less likely to reach special three, and more predictable overall. Aside from being more aggressive in general, I haven't seen the "Hard" AI in the arenas exhibiting any particular tricks that make them more difficult to fight. They are easier to bait, and easier to counter attack, but otherwise more or less like the previous arena AI in other respects.
Arena matchmaking changes have been effective, at least for my preference. This is at 110x streak and I haven't encountered teams with a total rating that's 1.5x that of mine. Cheers, MCOC team. 🍻
"Arena matchmaking changes have been effective" Yea right
1. It’s not based on skill: Kabam wants you to rank up all your champs otherwise you get death matches. But it takes YEARS to rank up enough champs. I want to use all my champs not just the ones I have resources to rank.
2. Deathmatches: honestly, this is just instant stress. Why do this to your customers? Grinding is not to gain skill, it is for points. Resetting the bonus to 1x and regrinding 15 fights for decent points is a poor spend of my time.
3. Add 6star champs in basic catalyst arena (aloha and T4bc). I need 7 T4bc to rank up my 6star but I can’t use a 6star champ in T4bc arena?!! This is outdated and needs to be fixed.
Kabam, we are talking quality of life. I cringe when I see T4bc arena come up because I need those resources but I know I need hours of stressful grinding to get them. Isn’t it better to keep your customers using their time more efficiently, getting the rewards, and moving on.
Arena grinding is a terrible way to get rewards.