**Mastery Loadouts**
Due to issues related to the release of Mastery Loadouts, the "free swap" period will be extended.
The new end date will be May 1st.
Due to issues related to the release of Mastery Loadouts, the "free swap" period will be extended.
The new end date will be May 1st.
New Arena Structure Feedback
This discussion has been closed.
Comments
Just an idea what about 3 different arena's
1for throne breaker level
1 for cavalier level
1 for uncollected and below
Make these arena's locked to the people at that level so the throne breakers can't go smash both levels and get every reward make the game more even and help the little guys who play arena.
The middle arena should however be toned down so there is a logical way to progress from the 1 small arena to the medium and advanced arena.
Please don't club UC with those below UC. It's been a criteria of UC and up. Let's keep it that way
It’s no coincidence that Shang Chi and Mr. Negative are substantially better champs than any released those far in 2021. Kabam saw the effects of releasing underwhelming champions on its profits—aside from youtubers and CCP participants, very few people spent hundreds of dollars chasing a six star Super Skrull or Psycho Man
So, for the arena, here’s how it works. All players other than those with 100+ six star champions (mega whales or elite, long-term ftp players) will be able to earn fewer “free” units from grinding. Kabam then hopes that these players will purchase more units. At the same time, Kabam is hoping (and it appears to have worked) that the introduction of six star champions in the rank rewards will cause the whales and top-top-top players to spend units refreshing their six star champions to chase ridiculous scores. Then, both whales and non-whales across all player tiers will hopefully spend more cash on July 4th to make up for the units they spent refreshing or were unable to get from grinding. No coincidence here—that Fourth of July spending is counted in the second quarter, where Kabam needs to show a major course correction. It will take a substantial jump in quarterly revenue to convince shareholders and the board not to start firing company executives.
Any lines from Kabam about “we are trying to ....” or “we were responding to ....” are lip service to the player community. Kabam is really only trying to do one thing—increase its earnings. In that same vein, their is only one group that Kabam really cares about making happy, and that’s its shareholders.
There’s nothing wrong with trying to turn a profit—- that’s what companies do. What IS shady is Kabam telling us that they made these changes for the player base as a whole, and sourcing feedback like this and pretending they are listening. Make no mistake—Kabam will only listen IF their plan doesn’t work. However, if Kabam sees increased unit spending and unit buying tied to new arenas without an unacceptable user-account-loss figure, then they aren’t concerned with our feedback. Shareholder-driven companies only really look at one metric to gauge whether or not new content is successful—how much we spend.
However, much like many others, I was sorely disappointed when the new areas came out to the point that I have been considering quitting the game as a result (which is what spurred me to finally create an account on the forums and voice my opinions on the situation). For context before I write up my suggested solutions/ideas, I want to preface this by saying I'm a Cav player without a very wide roster and who will occasionally spend in the game (Christmas, 4th of July and sporadically throughout the year). I've come to understand based on everything I've seen in the forums and on reddit, a vast majority of active players are in a similar to me (cavalier and occasional spenders), where how this change is currently set up, the only people that benefit are the top throne breaker players, which are likely in a minority.
For those of us that spend occasionally or are free to play the arena is an important part of the game. Whenever I plan to tackle some hard content or just have some free time and want to play mcoc a little more the arena is where I go (as is the case for many of us). With the current changes it is near impossible to get a reasonable grind at all that is worth my time, and as a result takes the option off the table for me and many like me to spend time in the arena without wasting so many extra hours for a much worse take home. Some of us don't have the 6* (or even 5*) rosters to facilitate the scores to get a reasonable amount of millstones in a reasonable amount of time. All of this has been said, I'm sure, but I want to reiterate where me and likely many others are coming from on why these changes just missed the mark by so much.
I do think that the addition of GM shards was a very positive step as it helps with many people's iso issues without oversaturating people's rosters. I also like the idea that people can now grind for 6* champions, but the people with the rosters to do that are the minority, and with how things are currently laid out, these people are the only ones getting any positive outcome out of the changes, while the rest of us suffer for those who are ahead can get so much further a head. Don't get me wrong, I do believe that those who have cultivated those rosters through time and skill and sometimes money as well deserve to be rewarded, but it seems like an oversight for it to come at the cost of the majority just to make the minority happy.
As promised, I do have some proposed changes that I believe will make the situation overall better for the grinders like myself while not hurting those who want to grind for the 6* champions.
Death Matches: The first thing is that death matches need to go. I know this is a point that others have already mentioned, but it is worth reiterating. It was already hard enough running R1 5*s in the arena without death matches pre-change, and having to rebuild a multiplier often achieves nothing but wasting the grinder's time. With the new arenas we will have to face R3 6* and soon R4 5*. If some one wanted to grind units so they could tackle hard content like trying to get to cavalier or working through variants ect. and they don't have the wide or deep of a roster, each champ they do have counts for a lot. Having death matches every handful of rounds just because you don't have the rank up resources (which you are often using arena so that you can tackle content to get said rank up resources) seems like it's locking people out for no good reason. The matter of the fact is that a R1 5* is already going to earn much less points than a R3 6*, so those who already have the extensive roster are not going to be affected in any meaningful way by this, but the rest of the community and player base this would be a massive quality of life change (to the extent that it is arguably not quality of life but rather a playability issue). I won’t pretend to understand the coding that needs to go in to implement this, but in my opinion it should be a top priority seeing as the arenas are borderline unplayable for a big group of people right now.
Milestones: Adjust the points needed to hit the milestones. Right now, to hit any reasonable amount of units in the milestones, most people would have to dedicate an exponentially higher amount of time in the arenas. This isn’t just people at a similar progression to me, but based on all the content creators, the discourse on reddit and on here, it seems that this is a problem for almost everyone. I don’t have a good idea on how the numbers should be tweaked specifically, but I do think they need to be drastically reduced. I’ve seen arguments from members of Kabam stating that now that 6*s are able to compete in the arenas, the points should be higher. While I get that, not all of us are at appoint where we can use our 6*s depending on progression. A vast majority of people who are cavalier are predominately using 5*s for content, and hence have access to a lot more 5* champs in there roster for the arena, meaning that the higher milestones just cause more a lot pain. I do have somewhat of a solution to this specific problem in my next point, but I do think regardless the milestones in both the featured and the basic need to be reduced. I’m nit sure if front loading would be a good idea (I can see good argument for and against), but it could at least be worth having a more exponential scoring system so that the average grinder can get a majority of the units by putting in 50-70% of the final score so that less time is wasted.
Changing Star levels needed: this is my biggest idea, and the one that I think could likely have the biggest positive impact on the new arena system. I think that they current arenas’ requirements should be reshuffled slightly. The summoner trials arena should be 1-3* champs (and have its milestone numbers adjusted accordingly). This would mean that 3* champions aren’t made completely obsolete (and importantly neither is the 3* boosts). Many arena grinders legitimately enjoy ranking up 3* champs to try them out in the arenas (and it’s a good way to see if you like a champ before rank up your higher level champs). This is harder to do with 4* champions because the high demand of ISO and T1A (even if we get a lot more in the near future, I don’t think many people will be happy with feeding it into their 4*s over their 5* or 6* champs). The basic arena should be changed to be 4-5* champions (and have its milestone numbers adjusted accordingly). Just like with the summoner trials arena this would prevent 4* and 5* champs from becoming obsolete in regards to arena, and importantly would open up a lot more grinder friendly arena (particularly those who are trying to use arena to help with content to progress their roster). I feel like the counter argument for this would be that people would find it easier to grind for the 6* champ, but I don’t believe that to be true seeing as the same people that would grind for the 6* would have had to have had an extensive roster, and it’s very unlikely that this change would allow someone to grind who previously couldn’t. I could also see the argument that some people could grind for the champions in both arenas, and if that is the case, perhaps that’s something to look into for the future, but I find it very unlikely that anyone would reasonably have the roster, time and units to legitimately successfully grind both arenas at once (similar to how people didn’t grind for both the featured and basic in the past). Last change, the featured arena should be changed to be 5-6* champs. I feel this one isn’t as necessary, but I do think it fits with the new structuring system I am suggesting. 4* champs aren’t reasonably going to gain a number of points that will matter in this arena, and keeping 5* champs as an option still creates the decision nexus for end game players with wide rosters to try and decide which champ they would want to grind for between the basic and featured.
This post is already over 1500 words long, but I feel I had to be thorough to get my point across that the focus shouldn’t be solely on the end game players, and if it was, it’d likely result in a big chunk of players quitting the game as result.
I hit all the milestones of all three arenas, and understood i cannot ever possibly do it with the same grind i'm used to.
The summoner trials is far more grindy for the same payout (not a fan).
the featured have more milestones, but as i understand... same units? Will have to pick one of the arenas and run with it.
Therein lies the flaw kabam. By forcing people to pick and choose one arena over another, you are VASTLY reducing the percentage rewards. The number of people in these brackets totally depends on the number of folks who participate. You should be working to INCREASE these participants, not reduce them.
It is not a coincidence that 6 star arena dropped along with an awesome champ. I think Bishop was the first champ to drop in 5 star featured and he was the first champ to have the persistent charge mechanic, correct me if I am wrong. They wanted to hype the new arena and it makes sense to release that along with a champ that they know will be sought after. I mean, who will go for Air walker if he was the first 6 star arena champ. But, saying they released Shang-chi and Mr.Negative only because of first quarter result is a bit of a stretch.
I never said Shang Chi and Negative were only Due to the weak earnings. But if they really wanted to maximize Shang-Chi hype, his release would be closer to his movie release, which is slated for September. My guess is they moved him up to second quarter, or severely tuned him up.
Also, notice how Kabam Miike’s response to our complaints is to tell us that “several more arenas just like this will be coming” before they make any changes. There are 42 pages and counting worth of users that have responded to this thread, the vast majority of whom are severely upset. In the past, Kabam has almost IMMEDIATELY reverted changes that are this poorly received (see Hood).
They need to see their “Data” first— not how the new changes have affected grind time or how rosters affect scores, but how the new arena system is affecting Kabam’s bottom line.
This arena is not a total failure. It has some good aspects which needs to be retained. We need to move forward in game and not revert every time there is an outrage. How we need to tweak this arena so that the arena is much less of a grind and more accessible to people with low and medium rosters is what we need to decide and not just go back to the old arena.
On my part, I look forward to getting almost 3k 6 star shards every week from the 6 star arenas. If I put up 22 mill in the old arena, I get 300 6 star shards, now I can get 1k, that is an improvement.
I used to play arena for units, playing all arenas a little which imo was the best method for getting units per hour.
That is a thing of the past and getting to some 5M in 6* arena brings me nothing worth the time involved.
Shards I can get elsewhere in the game, arena was the main unit source, much harder now
Developing certain content months ahead of time has nothing to do with whether or not Kabam makes impromptu changes to other content or fast-tracks a character release. And even if Shang Chi and Negative weren’t buffed pre-release, that has nothing to do with the fact that this arena system is directly driven by Kabam’s profit problems.
Endgame players were spending zero units on arena, period. Now they are spending a ton to refresh their champions to chase a six star. The milestones are so high to prevent the next-tier players who need units to catch up to those top summoners to earn those units without spending so much time grinding that it’s easier and eventually (based on the time-value of money) cheaper to just buy the units.
It’s all about the money. Kabam, as part of publicly-traded netmarble games, is required to prioritize making money for its shareholders above all other things— and those shareholders don’t care if the game is fun or fair as long as it makes money.
New summoner trials = 375 (300BC + 25BC per fight) x 64 = 24,000BC and 140 units
You need to grind 37.5% more to get 5 more units