Champion Arenas have existed since 2014 and have always worked the same way. There is absolutely nothing stopping Kabam from keeping the milestones and units as they are and just changing the position rewards, putting the 7-star champion in the top 100 or something like that. And yes, I read Kabam's justification, that they would change the milestones and would have to choose between reducing the units or increasing the amount of points. But no. They are not forced to reduce the units or increase the amount of points to increase the number of matches to reach the last milestone. It's their game, they decide what to do. They can literally change the position rewards and keep the arena structure the same as we have today. Any change in the arena should be in the position rewards. Just reorganize the position rewards. If there is a reason why this hasn't happened, it's only because if there is no arena, the only way to guarantee that you will get a champion is to pay with money. And I completely understand why Kabam doesn't want to, they're right. What I can't understand is that you guys defend this and don't even propose to have a healthy discussion. This is a forum, things are supposed to be discussed. It's funny because sometimes it's such a one-sided reaction that it even seems artificial.
It's not a matter of defending Kabam, it's a matter of defending the best thing we have now and that is how quickly we can clear milestones for units. The most important part of arenas is units. If they were to change anything (and this what they've said), then the will also change how quickly we can earn the units because they don't like it, but they've accepted the balance with the other rewards that are lacking. In a perfect dream world, yes, Kabam can just adjust the out of dates rewards and touch nothing else. They are completely capable of doing that, but they've said they won't. And while a rewards upgrade would be nice, it'd have to be significantly more generous than they'd probably be willing to be if it's going to mean significantly increasing the time it takes to farm the units. It's not a worthwhile trade-off.
There are other ways to solve this. They could add an extra arena, without battlechips, without units, without anything. Just with the 7-star champion in the position rewards. Whoever wants to grind for the champion, grinds only for the champion. The fact is that the arenas were one of the first things that existed in this game and they always worked the same way. Over the course of 10 years, they worked. 10 years have passed and absolutely nothing has changed. Nothing new has happened to the point that this has become a problem or even an issue to be discussed, it should be quite simple actually. At the same time, I understand that the arena has chronic problems, especially when it comes to obtaining champions. A considerable portion of the accounts that get champions in the arena use third-party programs or pay for mercs. But that is a different issue. My point is that as a community, we should be able to discuss solutions and generate a healthy discussion about the issues.
You're clearly not understanding the point, which is that if Kabam does anything to arenas, even looks their way for a second to change anything, they will change how easy it is to get units from them first.
Champion Arenas have existed since 2014 and have always worked the same way. There is absolutely nothing stopping Kabam from keeping the milestones and units as they are and just changing the position rewards, putting the 7-star champion in the top 100 or something like that. And yes, I read Kabam's justification, that they would change the milestones and would have to choose between reducing the units or increasing the amount of points. But no. They are not forced to reduce the units or increase the amount of points to increase the number of matches to reach the last milestone. It's their game, they decide what to do. They can literally change the position rewards and keep the arena structure the same as we have today. Any change in the arena should be in the position rewards. Just reorganize the position rewards. If there is a reason why this hasn't happened, it's only because if there is no arena, the only way to guarantee that you will get a champion is to pay with money. And I completely understand why Kabam doesn't want to, they're right. What I can't understand is that you guys defend this and don't even propose to have a healthy discussion. This is a forum, things are supposed to be discussed. It's funny because sometimes it's such a one-sided reaction that it even seems artificial.
1. The arenas have been revised several times, the last time was a couple years ago when they changed the format from the four arena system to the current three arena system.
2. In theory, there's nothing stopping Kabam from doing anything you want with the arenas, except for the whole "game design/economy balance" thing.
3. You did not read any Kabam justifications for anything. You read a statement of fact. It is a statement of fact that if the arenas were ever revisited, they would be exposed to, and then subject to, the current game balance requirements for any game mode in the game. Not "would have to be." Would be, period.
4. I can't speak for anyone else, but I can take the blame. The reason why so many people feel confident in the position that Kabam should not revisit the arenas comes initially from me. I was one of the players that worked with Kabam on the last iteration. I with a couple other players did extensive analysis of the arena, in order to present the developers involved with the redesign justifications for lowering the level of effort required to achieve milestones in the new format and balancing the effort across the arenas. This was a very involved negotiation process: we did a lot of testing and calculations and even milestone by milestone ladders of how players would grind for them, across several iterations. I know as well as anyone in *or* outside the dev team how fragile that economic balance is.
So when people started begging for arena updates, I was the one who originally articulated all of this on the forums, as the only person with any first hand knowledge of that last iteration cycle that was regularly participating on the forums (and willing to speak on it). When Kabam Crashed began becoming more involved on the forums, he was amplifying statements I had already been making for quite some time (with, of course, a bit more authority).
Speaking of Crashed, while he currently has a more expansive job title, not that long ago his primary responsibility was managing the game economy. As in how game rewards and resources are balanced and distributed. Crashed and I chat a lot, because I've had a long-time interest in game economy design (going back to long before I started playing this game). So when I say that no, you might think you want the devs to revisit the arenas, but you really really don't, that's based on both my direct experience working on the arenas with the devs and knowing first hand what concerns and requirements go into arena reward design, and also my conversations with one of the guys responsible for making all reward decisions in the game.
You say the devs can do anything they want, and in one sense that's true. But there are all kinds of practical concerns that limit what devs can do in practice. And in this case, those practical limitations are currently working *in* the players' favor. It would be a mess to tamper with the arenas. It would cause all sorts of player upheaval. It would take a lot of time and resources to do. But when you say the devs can do anything they want, what they want is to rebalance the arenas for current player rosters, *increasing* the amount of effort it takes to earn rewards in the arenas to the levels they were when the arenas were first redesigned. That's what they *want* to do, but they are willing to keep things as they are for now.
So keep telling the devs that no, they aren't limited in what they can do, they can do anything they want, so they can do what you want them to do. But when you finally convince them you're right, don't be surprised when they decide instead of doing what you want them to do, they decide, shocker, to do what they want to do instead.
I have been the biggest proponent of players providing feedback to the devs for the last nine years. I am a firm believer in making feedback, discussing feedback, hell I've gotten all sorts of suggestions actually put into the game. I am the poster child for feedback actually working. So when I, the guy who got Kabam to give away Alliance War revives for free says, maybe stay away from this one, a lot of people consider that to be a credible warning.
Only thing that I dislike is the scaling for the 4* arena takes so many extra runs compared to the 6* arenas but maybe that’s because I don’t have all my 4* maxed out and my 6/7* can do those arenas in 1 sitting each. Other than that arena has always been a “get out of it what you put into it” deal.
Trials is designed to replicate the amount of effort it used to take to get those units from the older arenas. When we had four arenas instead of the current three the effort to climb in those arenas was lower, but the units were spread out across more arenas. The two 6/7* arenas are "faster" so that one is a bit slower to compensate.
The trials was designed around having maxed 4* champs, on the assumption that's what players would eventually have. But the 6/7* arenas were not obviously designed around maxed out 7* champs because those did not exist at the time. Now that 6R5 and 7R3 exist, those arenas are extremely fast, and continuing to get faster.
The only change I would like to see in arenas is for the Trials to allow using 6* scoring at the same rate as others... I just cant stand using 4*s
Because of the implementation baked into how the arenas work (for which changing it would be difficult enough it would probably be easier to add a new arena game mode and delete the current one) if you allow players to use 6* champs, the game will simultaneously throw those champs against the players as opponents (that's how the arena picks opponents in the first place: sampling what teams players use and then throwing those back at the players). And if the game starts seeing 6* champs as valid opponents, the death match threshold will automatically rise to match (as the minimum floor to find a valid 4x match automatically increases), essentially making it all but impossible to use 4* champs in that arena in any practical way.
The 4* cap is there to make sure at least one arena is grindable by lower progress players. That's also why half the units are in there. Half available to almost everyone, the other half open up to players above a certain roster strength. A lot of players think the 4* cap is a limitation on players, but it is actually there as a positive feature to give players an on ramp to the arenas before they have strong 5/6/7* rosters.
Comments
2. In theory, there's nothing stopping Kabam from doing anything you want with the arenas, except for the whole "game design/economy balance" thing.
3. You did not read any Kabam justifications for anything. You read a statement of fact. It is a statement of fact that if the arenas were ever revisited, they would be exposed to, and then subject to, the current game balance requirements for any game mode in the game. Not "would have to be." Would be, period.
4. I can't speak for anyone else, but I can take the blame. The reason why so many people feel confident in the position that Kabam should not revisit the arenas comes initially from me. I was one of the players that worked with Kabam on the last iteration. I with a couple other players did extensive analysis of the arena, in order to present the developers involved with the redesign justifications for lowering the level of effort required to achieve milestones in the new format and balancing the effort across the arenas. This was a very involved negotiation process: we did a lot of testing and calculations and even milestone by milestone ladders of how players would grind for them, across several iterations. I know as well as anyone in *or* outside the dev team how fragile that economic balance is.
So when people started begging for arena updates, I was the one who originally articulated all of this on the forums, as the only person with any first hand knowledge of that last iteration cycle that was regularly participating on the forums (and willing to speak on it). When Kabam Crashed began becoming more involved on the forums, he was amplifying statements I had already been making for quite some time (with, of course, a bit more authority).
Speaking of Crashed, while he currently has a more expansive job title, not that long ago his primary responsibility was managing the game economy. As in how game rewards and resources are balanced and distributed. Crashed and I chat a lot, because I've had a long-time interest in game economy design (going back to long before I started playing this game). So when I say that no, you might think you want the devs to revisit the arenas, but you really really don't, that's based on both my direct experience working on the arenas with the devs and knowing first hand what concerns and requirements go into arena reward design, and also my conversations with one of the guys responsible for making all reward decisions in the game.
You say the devs can do anything they want, and in one sense that's true. But there are all kinds of practical concerns that limit what devs can do in practice. And in this case, those practical limitations are currently working *in* the players' favor. It would be a mess to tamper with the arenas. It would cause all sorts of player upheaval. It would take a lot of time and resources to do. But when you say the devs can do anything they want, what they want is to rebalance the arenas for current player rosters, *increasing* the amount of effort it takes to earn rewards in the arenas to the levels they were when the arenas were first redesigned. That's what they *want* to do, but they are willing to keep things as they are for now.
So keep telling the devs that no, they aren't limited in what they can do, they can do anything they want, so they can do what you want them to do. But when you finally convince them you're right, don't be surprised when they decide instead of doing what you want them to do, they decide, shocker, to do what they want to do instead.
I have been the biggest proponent of players providing feedback to the devs for the last nine years. I am a firm believer in making feedback, discussing feedback, hell I've gotten all sorts of suggestions actually put into the game. I am the poster child for feedback actually working. So when I, the guy who got Kabam to give away Alliance War revives for free says, maybe stay away from this one, a lot of people consider that to be a credible warning.
The trials was designed around having maxed 4* champs, on the assumption that's what players would eventually have. But the 6/7* arenas were not obviously designed around maxed out 7* champs because those did not exist at the time. Now that 6R5 and 7R3 exist, those arenas are extremely fast, and continuing to get faster.
NEVER
Kabam :
The 4* cap is there to make sure at least one arena is grindable by lower progress players. That's also why half the units are in there. Half available to almost everyone, the other half open up to players above a certain roster strength. A lot of players think the 4* cap is a limitation on players, but it is actually there as a positive feature to give players an on ramp to the arenas before they have strong 5/6/7* rosters.