The state of the arena

First i want to say that the arena have been stale for a while now and kabam needs to implement some changes to keep them fresh , here are my suggestions/ thoughts.
1- Featured 5* arena :
With the 5*/6* gates in act 6 Kabam need to make 5* more accessible and one way to do it is to look at the arena . it’s been a long time since they added the featured 5* and honestly 150 5* per arena is insanely low .I would suggest 250-300 per cycle is fair . I know people talked about basic 5* arena but i can understand why kabam doesn’t want to do it .
2-featured 4* arena :
I think we can all agree that 4* are becoming more irrelevant nowadays so i don’t see why they can’t increase the cutoff to say 1500 4* per cycle
This can make people have more access to the new 4* champs and potentially encourage people to get the 5-6 * version for the endgame content .
3- the crystal splash / cornucopia arena :
My post was going to be original about these 2 arenas . They basically useless , the milestones are laughable at this point of the game and the cutoff rewards are also disappointing and they have been the same as far as i can remember. They really need a major revamp .
At the end i want to say that the numbers that i suggested are arbitrary and i want to know what you guys think of them and what changes do you think are needed for the arena.

Comments

Brew_Swayne

Sunday arenas need to give out gold crystals in place of 2* crystals for hitting milestones and then give out some greater gold crystals instead of PHC shards for rank rewards.

Also, arena AI is a dumpster fire right now. Opponents are super passive/defensive and continuously hold their block, which lengthens the fight. Also seems like between rounds 10-20 opponents tend to hold out for S3...which also lengthens the fights because you're spending time trying to bait them out. No reason at all for an arena fight should last much more than 30-45 seconds, but over the last couple of months I've had quite a few easily exceed 60-90 sec. I've deliberately quit a fight here and there because I don't have the time or desire to f**k around in arena. I just want to hit some milestones and get on with my day.

RagamugginGunner

They need to make a basic 5* arena and/or a featured 6* arena. With act 6 having 5*/6* gates and the statement of Cav players getting more shards (which isn't true) they could make the 6* arena only for Cav players and put better shards in the milestones (their excuse for putting prem crystals in the featured 5* milestones and not GMC shards like they should have).

Also, Sunday arenas are a joke and just make it so people barely log in unless there is a t1a or t4b arena running.

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TheTalents

An arena shake up is long overdue, I agree with this post completely.

Greywarden

Adding a champ to an extended milestone would be pretty cool. Doesn't even necessarily have to be the same champ, just something if you hit X. Would lead to a lot more people doing arena imo and it would have people more open to grinding for the featured champ.

Neotwism

It would help to perma ban cheaters. When scores hit 90+ million u know something isnt right and that wasnt the intention of the arena. This drives alot of players to not even attempt trying for a featured champ.

Chancellor_Hawk

This is an excellent topic and long overdue.

1. 6* featured arena with 50-150 winners
2. 5* featured arena with 500-800 winners
3. 5* basic area that lines up with 4* basic champs. Both arenas reward the top 5%
4. Revamp the t4c arena and milestones to give out t4c frag crystals and full t4. This should have been changed years ago
5. Revamp the Sunday arenas to a collectors arena offering 2* versions of rare or previously unreleased champs.

Make arenas fun again. Making these changes will shift arena scoring and make 5* champs actually obtainable thru arenas for the other 99.5% of us playing this game.

Great points above regarding arena AI.

DNA3000

Essentially, two things need to happen in my opinion:
1. A 5* Basic arena giving out a 5* champion to the top 10% (Maybe 5%).
2. A rework of the Sunday Arenas. After a few days of playing the game, 2* champions become completely irrelevant.

I would hope Kabam learned their lesson the last time they acquiesced to step on the gas on power progression, because apparently it isn't obvious to most players that this is a progressional game, and lowering the rarity in one place in the game forces the game to invent a higher one. It looks like they learned their lesson when you look at how the 5*/6* design relationship works, but you just never know.

I don't mind starting over with 5* champs being made obsolete by 7* champs, so I don't care a huge amount, but I'm compelled to warn about the intrinsic progression-suicide of asking for uncommon things to be common and rare things to be uncommon. The rare vacuum will get filled with something even harder to get. Players always think this doesn't have to be the case and are always surprised when this is the case, even though this is about as predictable as gravity.

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DNA3000

You´re saying that the arena update as I´ve suggested it would kill the game as it´s progresing too fast.

That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that the less rare you make stuff, the quicker to force the introduction of even rarer stuff higher up. And I'm not saying I think it will happen like it is a guess, I'm saying it has always happened historically, including in this game. It is just a fact of life with games like this, and it is something most people with enough experience with this kind of game probably knows automatically.

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Fred_Joeity

Personally I don’t think a 5* basic is a good idea until you can take a 6* to r3, since that’s when a 6* would become “better” than its 5* r5 counterpart (not including sig lvl).

Sunday... yeah nobody bothers. That I agree could use a revamp.

As for everything else, I’m not sure about huge arena changes until they clean up the hackers, which is probably a slightly lower priority with all the other bugs floating around right now

SiriusBreak

If you look at this in terms of timing, the time seems to be nearing. February 2020 will mark the 2 year intro of the 5* Feature Arena and nothing has been introduced since. Theoretically speaking, the next step would be a 5* Basic Arena, and eventually a 6* Feature Arena (although they could come in tandem). The when is the main question now as I feel both are an inevitability judging by the current course the game is taking in focusing on 5 and 6* champs.

5* Champs are the uncommons and 6* are the rare in regards to Champion tiers. Many are allocating 5* champs about as fast as they were allocating 4* champs when the 5* Feature was introduced. It would seem that Arenas are due for some updating that being the case these days. The 5* shards are coming in droves by relative comparison to when the 5* Feature Arena was introduced.

Expansion of the 5* Feature rank rewards may also be part of such an update considering the very limited amount that's awarded. People are grinding full tilt boogie for the 'uncommon' tier and very few benefit from it. Although I highly doubt they'll ever expand the Feature arena champion rewards to a percentage based rank. Just expansion by a set number available to be awarded.

The Sunday Arenas are beyond overdue for an update though. They really serve little purpose these days as is. I wouldn't expect a major overhaul, just rewards that aren't ancient, lol. Perhaps a 3rd Arena in which players can utilize their 6* champs would be a great start. You can clear all 4 milestones in Crystal Cornucopia in 6 sets. The rank rewards, even at the top are pretty... weak.

Truthfully, I don't see this happening for at least another 6 months, if not longer. As I said, it's nearing. How close... not sure as that's Kabam's call. However it would be nice if they got on the Sunday Arenas sooner than later.

DNA3000

You´re saying that the arena update as I´ve suggested it would kill the game as it´s progresing too fast.
That's not what I'm saying. What I'm saying is that the less rare you make stuff, the quicker to force the introduction of even rarer stuff higher up. And I'm not saying I think it will happen like it is a guess, I'm saying it has always happened historically, including in this game. It is just a fact of life with games like this, and it is something most people with enough experience with this kind of game probably knows automatically.
Again: The even rarer stuff are 6* champions. Common sense, mate. I won´t even bother explaining that point as you´re just going to quote that one sentence you like, just like you usually do

This is probably why you put "power progression" in quotes, like its a term I made up or it has no real meaning in this discussion. There's a progression ladder to things like the champion tiers, and they are designed to target different requirements in the game, and they all function together. You can't just change one arbitrarily while ignoring everything that surrounds it. First of all there's a relationship between 5* and 6* champions that is evident in the design of 6* champions; their value is balanced between their initial strength and their expense in improving. That's what makes them a high tier effort sink. Changing how easy it is to get 5* champs alters that value relationship in ways that would lower 6* champion value, which would commensurately make them have to get easier to get. Second of all you also cannot make 5* champs easier to get without automatically making 6* champs easier to get, because 5* duplication becomes an increasingly large source of 6* shards. And third, there's player psychology that factors into how easy you can make one rung compared to how difficult it is to acquire the next higher one.

5* and 6* champions are connected like rungs on a ladder. You can't just pull one rung down without pulling the other one downward at the same time. Making 5* champs increasingly easy to get will make 6* champs easier to get both automatically and in other design-imperative ways, and that will accelerate the arrival of 7* champs. You have to think about 7* champs as if they already exist and are tied to 6* champs like a balloon. Pull down on 5* champs to make them easier to reach, and 6* champs get pulled down as well, and 7* champions eventually descend below the clouds and into view.

Again, this isn't something I'm just making up. This is simply how these kinds of games work, and how they are designed and implemented. Nothing I'm saying would be remotely controversial to anyone who's done this before. But again, if you think it is common sense that you can advocate for a higher and easier earning rate for 5* champs without accelerating their supercession, I literally wouldn't mind that happening any more than I minded 6* champions arriving. 6* champs shook out a lot of players that didn't want the next tier to arrive, and many of them unknowingly helped to make it happen by advocating 5* acceleration. This time, I just want people to understand what they are asking for, and if they still want it, go ahead. It doesn't "break the game" to accelerate this progression, as you implied earlier, it simply changes the game from one where progress is slow and players get to use what they earn longer, to one where progress is faster and players have to deal with obsolescence quicker. The game's going to survive in either mode. I suspect not all the current players would survive either mode, though.

Mathking13

I don't think I have many problems with the rewards for the featured and basic arenas, outside of the champion prizes. DNA3000 made a very good post or two in this thread on the impacts that increasing shard gain would have.
3 things I think would be good for Arenas here:
1. Champion is within a % bracket for all arenas. Even if it was just say the top 1.5% for the featured 4-star and the top 0.5% or so for the featured 5-star. This also might help lessen the impact of arena bots and other stuff like that until Kabam figures out a way to more effectively deal with them (not dissing on Kabam here; just saying it doesn't seem to be working as well as they'd want it to be right now)
2. Have a secondary prize for those who just miss out. Maybe a basic version of the featured champ at a lower star level (this is just an example; I don't think it'd be something as massive as that, but I'd say it would either have to be the champ or something else that's pretty dang significant). Again it's almost like a bit of compensation for those who are screwed over by this arena bots thing.
3. With that whole % bracket thing, let us see which bracket we are in LIVE. Not our placement, but which % bracket we are in. You could group the cutoff bracket with the one before it together (let's use the featured 5-star arena as an example. So the featured champ cuts off at 0.5%, and the next bracket cuts off at say 5%. Then, even if we're actually currently in the top 0.5%, we still only get shown that we're in the top 5% right now). I feel like this would make grinding arena for shards much easier.

Sunday arenas... yeah I feel like a bit more gold wouldn't be bad... and/or maybe make the 2-star crystals into those Collector crystals? That'd be pretty dang awesome. (and yes Chancellor_Nook I saw your post right after initially writing this. Nice to know I'm not the only collector here.)

oh yeah also just a thought... does anyone think peak milestones could potentially work in arena? hmm maybe I'll make a thread about that sometime...

to the OP, I just want to say... 4-stars are NOT irrelevant. Not in the slightest. 4-stars are still able to clear most content (yes they can't go into act 6, but that's just one bit of story content), are the core of a player's progression for a fairly significant portion of mid- to end-game content, and I mean come on you get SO MUCH ISO from duping them.

But hey at the moment, I don't have too many problems with my experiences in arena. Sundays suck, but really I just grind arena when I feel like it. :shrug:

DNA3000

Champion is within a % bracket for all arenas. Even if it was just say the top 1.5% for the featured 4-star and the top 0.5% or so for the featured 5-star.

This fluctuates a bit, but just for reference I believe the 10% cutoff for the 5* featured is generally between 1500 and 3000, plus or minus. That would imply that to get within 0.5% of the ranked players in the featured 5* arena would require getting to at least 150th place, and probably higher. That's inside the current 150 ranked places that award the featured champion.

14 million is currently basically safe for 10% (but creeping upward over time). 13 million is not safe. 13.5 is probably a 50/50 gamble at the moment, but this keeps changing.

Kobster84

Essentially, two things need to happen in my opinion:
1. A 5* Basic arena giving out a 5* champion to the top 10% (Maybe 5%).
2. A rework of the Sunday Arenas. After a few days of playing the game, 2* champions become completely irrelevant.
I would hope Kabam learned their lesson the last time they acquiesced to step on the gas on power progression, because apparently it isn't obvious to most players that this is a progressional game, and lowering the rarity in one place in the game forces the game to invent a higher one. It looks like they learned their lesson when you look at how the 5*/6* design relationship works, but you just never know.

I don't mind starting over with 5* champs being made obsolete by 7* champs, so I don't care a huge amount, but I'm compelled to warn about the intrinsic progression-suicide of asking for uncommon things to be common and rare things to be uncommon. The rare vacuum will get filled with something even harder to get. Players always think this doesn't have to be the case and are always surprised when this is the case, even though this is about as predictable as gravity.

Damn 1 and a half years since last update to arena kabam really is going full throttle
The thing is a 6* featured wouldn’t even break the game as of yet for a few reasons
Can’t get them high sig without spending a fortune
Can’t takw them higher then a 5* equivalent
And are more expensive to rank up

Mathking13

Champion is within a % bracket for all arenas. Even if it was just say the top 1.5% for the featured 4-star and the top 0.5% or so for the featured 5-star.
This fluctuates a bit, but just for reference I believe the 10% cutoff for the 5* featured is generally between 1500 and 3000, plus or minus. That would imply that to get within 0.5% of the ranked players in the featured 5* arena would require getting to at least 150th place, and probably higher. That's inside the current 150 ranked places that award the featured champion.

14 million is currently basically safe for 10% (but creeping upward over time). 13 million is not safe. 13.5 is probably a 50/50 gamble at the moment, but this keeps changing.

that's a good point. I was just using those values as an example, though. The point is that I think we'd need to see more people getting the featured champ.
Also I have a feeling that if the arenas went to % based, you'd get more people potentially going for the featured champ, meaning a bigger pool than we get currently for those arenas. Maybe not like 'oh we've got like 5x as many people grinding to #GetInThePool', but it'd likely increase.

DNA3000

Essentially, two things need to happen in my opinion:
1. A 5* Basic arena giving out a 5* champion to the top 10% (Maybe 5%).
2. A rework of the Sunday Arenas. After a few days of playing the game, 2* champions become completely irrelevant.
I would hope Kabam learned their lesson the last time they acquiesced to step on the gas on power progression, because apparently it isn't obvious to most players that this is a progressional game, and lowering the rarity in one place in the game forces the game to invent a higher one. It looks like they learned their lesson when you look at how the 5*/6* design relationship works, but you just never know.

I don't mind starting over with 5* champs being made obsolete by 7* champs, so I don't care a huge amount, but I'm compelled to warn about the intrinsic progression-suicide of asking for uncommon things to be common and rare things to be uncommon. The rare vacuum will get filled with something even harder to get. Players always think this doesn't have to be the case and are always surprised when this is the case, even though this is about as predictable as gravity.
Damn 1 and a half years since last update to arena kabam really is going full throttle

There's a misconception here that if Kabam makes no changes to the game, no changes to the star tier are necessary: that if they only make changes slowly, the eventuality of 7* champs will itself only happen slowly or not at all. But that's not the case. It is the demand for 5* and 6* champions that drives this, and those are affected by how many champions people have, not the rate at which they earn them. The more people have, the less relative demand for them overall. So just the current rate of earning them causes the need for higher tier (7*) champions to arrive: updating the arenas doesn't make this happen, it makes it happen faster.

To put it another way: even if Kabam did absolutely nothing to the 5* earning rate, eventually 7* champs or something equivalent would arrive. The only question is how fast, not if. The idea that Kabam has made no changes to the arena in a long time, so we can make changes now without affecting anything because it is "overdue" is not correct. The game is driving towards a finish line, and the question is how hard do you want to press the gas. But making no changes to the arenas isn't like taking your foot off the gas, it is just continuing to hold it down by the same amount.

The problem is no one can see the finish line, and no one knows how far away it is. But some people want to stomp on the gas because its fun, because they think they can hit the brakes when the finish line comes into view. But this car doesn't have brakes.

RagamugginGunner

Cav crystals broke the game and threw off the balance. Blaming arenas is just silly, no mater how long your post.

Kobster84

Cav crystals broke the game and threw off the balance. Blaming arenas is just silly, no mater how long your post.

Or possibly it’s because arena hasn’t been updated in a year and a half?

DNA3000

Cav crystals broke the game and threw off the balance. Blaming arenas is just silly, no mater how long your post.

As long as it was, it didn't including anything about blaming the arenas for anything. I guess it wasn't long enough for you, if you insist on adding content to it.

GroundedWisdom

I wasn't aware that the Arena was supposed to be updated according to time. That's not exactly something that has a shelf life. It's a question of where the game is at, and just the same as people ask for a 6* Crystal in the Dungeon, I don't believe we're close to the point that a 6* Arena is appropriate. A 5* Basic Arena, perhaps in the not-so-distant/not-so-immediate future.

GroundedWisdom

The one thing I'm more in agreeance on is the Sunday Arena. Perhaps an addition/revision is suggestible. The Sunday haul is a long one. Lol.

Akhilxcx

Essentially, two things need to happen in my opinion:
1. A 5* Basic arena giving out a 5* champion to the top 10% (Maybe 5%).
2. A rework of the Sunday Arenas. After a few days of playing the game, 2* champions become completely irrelevant.
I would hope Kabam learned their lesson the last time they acquiesced to step on the gas on power progression, because apparently it isn't obvious to most players that this is a progressional game, and lowering the rarity in one place in the game forces the game to invent a higher one. It looks like they learned their lesson when you look at how the 5*/6* design relationship works, but you just never know.

I don't mind starting over with 5* champs being made obsolete by 7* champs, so I don't care a huge amount, but I'm compelled to warn about the intrinsic progression-suicide of asking for uncommon things to be common and rare things to be uncommon. The rare vacuum will get filled with something even harder to get. Players always think this doesn't have to be the case and are always surprised when this is the case, even though this is about as predictable as gravity.
Damn 1 and a half years since last update to arena kabam really is going full throttle
There's a misconception here that if Kabam makes no changes to the game, no changes to the star tier are necessary: that if they only make changes slowly, the eventuality of 7* champs will itself only happen slowly or not at all. But that's not the case. It is the demand for 5* and 6* champions that drives this, and those are affected by how many champions people have, not the rate at which they earn them. The more people have, the less relative demand for them overall. So just the current rate of earning them causes the need for higher tier (7*) champions to arrive: updating the arenas doesn't make this happen, it makes it happen faster.

To put it another way: even if Kabam did absolutely nothing to the 5* earning rate, eventually 7* champs or something equivalent would arrive. The only question is how fast, not if. The idea that Kabam has made no changes to the arena in a long time, so we can make changes now without affecting anything because it is "overdue" is not correct. The game is driving towards a finish line, and the question is how hard do you want to press the gas. But making no changes to the arenas isn't like taking your foot off the gas, it is just continuing to hold it down by the same amount.

The problem is no one can see the finish line, and no one knows how far away it is. But some people want to stomp on the gas because its fun, because they think they can hit the brakes when the finish line comes into view. But this car doesn't have brakes.

and this is why we can't have nice things in the game bcoz some people don't even realize how stale this game is getting.

AlphA101

I wasn't aware that the Arena was supposed to be updated according to time. That's not exactly something that has a shelf life. It's a question of where the game is at, and just the same as people ask for a 6* Crystal in the Dungeon, I don't believe we're close to the point that a 6* Arena is appropriate. A 5* Basic Arena, perhaps in the not-so-distant/not-so-immediate future.

Why iSint 6* arena appropriate ? Wouldn’t you like the opportunity to get your self a guaranteed 6* champ to help you progress In the game ? Which can probably help you clear LOL / act 6 or variant.

Players playing the game always want better champs , while you seem to oppose it , even though you do play the game as well , don’t you ?

Akhilxcx

Cav crystals broke the game and threw off the balance. Blaming arenas is just silly, no mater how long your post.
Or possibly it’s because arena hasn’t been updated in a year and a half?

on one side i really want an arena update. do you remember we had a 4* basic arena when 4* were still important so some people in this thread are clearly misguided when they say we don't need a basic 5* arena. Game needs to progress with time and so does the rewards that come with it. on other side the recent updates to old existing content has me worried so much after the aw and aq update debacle that i don't expect kabam to do the arenas right.

GroundedWisdom

I wasn't aware that the Arena was supposed to be updated according to time. That's not exactly something that has a shelf life. It's a question of where the game is at, and just the same as people ask for a 6* Crystal in the Dungeon, I don't believe we're close to the point that a 6* Arena is appropriate. A 5* Basic Arena, perhaps in the not-so-distant/not-so-immediate future.
Why iSint 6* arena appropriate ? Wouldn’t you like the opportunity to get your self a guaranteed 6* champ to help you progress In the game ? Which can probably help you clear LOL / act 6 or variant.

Players playing the game always want better champs , while you seem to oppose it , even though you do play the game as well , don’t you ?

Would I like an opportunity? I think most people would. That doesn't mean the game is at the point where it's appropriate.