Comparing Updated Arenas to OG Arenas: Unit Milestones
DNA3000
Member, Guardian Guardian › Posts: 20,036 Guardian
With the announced changes to the arena milestones and structure, I decided to specifically compare the updated Trials arena to the original 2* trials, 3* featured, and 4* basic arenas. The reasoning being there's an obvious correspondence with the current 6* featured arena and the old 5* featured, and with the current 6* basic arena and the old 4* featured arena. Each of those arenas has the same number of units and takes approximately the same amount of effort to claim all of the milestones. So when it comes to unit grinding at least, those take similar effort. The complex issue is the new Trials arena which essentially contains all of the units originally contained in the original 2* trials arena, the 3* featured, and the 4* basic arena. The question is: how does the amount of effort to get units in the new Trials compare to the amount of effort it originally took to get about the same amount of units from the original three arenas it replaces.
I've done several arena analysis post in the past, and I'm going to reference two of them for some data: my "casual grind" one from here: https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/187556/a-case-study-and-analysis-of-arena-grind-rewards/p1 and my "optimized grind" one from here: https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/241505/grinding-arena-milestones-arena-rewards-part-deux. Using the numbers from my "casual grind" post (which was done without trying to optimize teams or grinding activity, and was done without running suicides) I can use those numbers to calculate exactly how many rounds it would take to get each milestone. To simplify things a bit, I'm going to assume every arena round earned the average amount of raw points I actually earned (points before multiplier) instead of tracking each arena team specifically. But I am going to factor in multiplier ramp up. With that, I can graph what my arena unit earning looks like per round for each of those arenas, and what it would look like in the new Trials arena. I'm hoping the graphs will be easier to see what's going on than a couple pages of dense math and tables:
The three short curves are the original arenas, and the longer curve is the new trials. The curves are "stepped" because I'm showing exactly when my units increase as I reach individual milestones, so it is not a smooth curve. You can see that the OG 4* basic arena was the best of the three in terms of units/round (steeper is better), and the new Trials arena follows it pretty closely. In fact, it is slightly better than the 4* basic in the first few milestones, because it is frontloaded a little more. Important to note, this presumes I'm always using the highest rarity allowed in each arena; that means 2* in the OG Summoner Trials, 3* in the 3* featured, and 4* in the OG 4* basic and also the new Trials. It takes a total of 156 rounds to reach the final milestone in the new Trials, compared to a total of 139 rounds to do all three of the OG arenas up to the top milestone, which is about 12% more effort if you attempted to get all of the milestones. What does this look like visually? Well, I could stack all three of the OG graphs on top of each other, but actually that's not really optimal. The optimal way to grab those units would be to get the first two milestones from each arena first, because they have the best return on investment, *then* do all the rest of the 4* basic, then do all the rest of the 3* featured, then finally do all the of rest of the 2* trials. What does that look like?
For the first thirty rounds of effort or so, and about 75 units, the new Trials is as good or better than the OG arenas stacked together. Then the OG arenas overtake it a bit in the middle, and then both level off. The Trials graph does end up slightly higher, as it contains 5 more units. The difference is not big between the two: for most people grinding similarly to this, the new Trials will be similar in performance to the original three arenas: it will take similar effort to get similar unit rewards. Players who were grinding for less than the maximum (all milestones) will see closer performance than those that were originally getting all of them.
This presumes my "pseudo-casual" grind numbers. They used more or less maximal 2* champs, maximal 3* champs (because almost all of mine are max rank and max sig) but a mix of 5/50s and 4/40s, not all at max sig. I can theoretically do better, and I did: I ran more optimized tests that also ran partial suicides (double edge, but not liquid courage) a while back. Using those numbers, along with updated testing specifically on 4* grinding speed, I can compare my more casual paced grinding from the past and the best I could do today, comparing what my speed would have been in the OG arenas and what it would be in the new Trials:
The lowest curve is what my old casual grind speed would have been in the new Trials. Next is what my speed would have been in the OG arenas doing the same thing. Higher than that is my optimized fastest possible speed through the new Trials arena. And at the very top, my projected fastest possible speed through the OG arenas if they still existed.
An important thing to note is that the two "optimized speed" curves are closer together than the two "casual grind" curves. And that's due specifically to the influence of 4* champs. Because the OG arenas used 2*, 3*, and 4* champs, they offered advantages to players who had max rank max sig champs of that rarity. With the new Trials, the best possible speed comes specifically from 4* champs alone. That means the smaller your 4* roster, the slower you will be in the new Trials relative to your original speed in the OG arenas, if you were doing all of them combined. It isn't a huge gap, but it is there. The more you build up 4* roster, the faster you will go relatively speaking.
If having maxed out 4* champs offers the best grinding speed, how many do you need to reach the top milestone? Well, that depends on a number of factors, including things like masteries, and whether you can consistently do the top match up without dying (and losing points), but if we take my test numbers, would take me about 130 rounds with my top 4* champs to get all of the milestones (that would be about 4.5 hours across three days, more or less). That's 43 rounds per day. If I grinded twice a day, I would need about 22 rounds or 66 max 4* champs. If I grinded three times a day (4* champs refresh in two hours) I would only need about 14 rounds or 42 such champs, and if I grinded four times a day I would only need about 11 rounds or 33 such champs. The more often you can grind, the fewer you need. Note: this doesn't take more time overall, it just requires spreading the grind across more recharge windows. Someone who could check into the game six times a day would only need to grind for about 15 minutes at a time, doing about 7 rounds with 21 champs. Whether that is reasonable or not depends on the person. And using a couple 4/40s here and there is not fatal: it changes your grind speed by only a few percentage points.
To put it another way, my own grinding behavior has a much larger impact on my grinding speed than the difference between the OG arenas and the new Trials arena.
Overall, the new Trials appears to have the same *potential* to earn similar rewards as the OG arenas. If you're someone who was doing all three of the lower OG arenas, your grinding speed for units might be a little slower. If you were grinding less than the maximum, your grinding rate will be more similar to before, and the stronger your 4* roster is, the more similar it will be to what it was before.
Personally, I think relative to the prior iteration, the unit grinding speeds are close enough to the OG arenas even in cases where the player doesn't have a strong 4* roster, that the Trials is still better overall given the increases in other rewards like shards and gold. However, there are a lot of different kinds of players with different rosters, and it is impossible to balance for them all (or look at them all: I looked at a lot of different possibilities, but that could only cover a small sampling of all possible situations). I think overall however, looking at just this one specific aspect of the arenas (unit milestones), the worst effects of the original change have been mitigated by a large amount, to the point where I think most players will, once they get used to the new arenas, not notice a big difference in effort to get the amount of unit milestones they used to get in the lower OG arenas.
I've done several arena analysis post in the past, and I'm going to reference two of them for some data: my "casual grind" one from here: https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/187556/a-case-study-and-analysis-of-arena-grind-rewards/p1 and my "optimized grind" one from here: https://forums.playcontestofchampions.com/en/discussion/241505/grinding-arena-milestones-arena-rewards-part-deux. Using the numbers from my "casual grind" post (which was done without trying to optimize teams or grinding activity, and was done without running suicides) I can use those numbers to calculate exactly how many rounds it would take to get each milestone. To simplify things a bit, I'm going to assume every arena round earned the average amount of raw points I actually earned (points before multiplier) instead of tracking each arena team specifically. But I am going to factor in multiplier ramp up. With that, I can graph what my arena unit earning looks like per round for each of those arenas, and what it would look like in the new Trials arena. I'm hoping the graphs will be easier to see what's going on than a couple pages of dense math and tables:
The three short curves are the original arenas, and the longer curve is the new trials. The curves are "stepped" because I'm showing exactly when my units increase as I reach individual milestones, so it is not a smooth curve. You can see that the OG 4* basic arena was the best of the three in terms of units/round (steeper is better), and the new Trials arena follows it pretty closely. In fact, it is slightly better than the 4* basic in the first few milestones, because it is frontloaded a little more. Important to note, this presumes I'm always using the highest rarity allowed in each arena; that means 2* in the OG Summoner Trials, 3* in the 3* featured, and 4* in the OG 4* basic and also the new Trials. It takes a total of 156 rounds to reach the final milestone in the new Trials, compared to a total of 139 rounds to do all three of the OG arenas up to the top milestone, which is about 12% more effort if you attempted to get all of the milestones. What does this look like visually? Well, I could stack all three of the OG graphs on top of each other, but actually that's not really optimal. The optimal way to grab those units would be to get the first two milestones from each arena first, because they have the best return on investment, *then* do all the rest of the 4* basic, then do all the rest of the 3* featured, then finally do all the of rest of the 2* trials. What does that look like?
For the first thirty rounds of effort or so, and about 75 units, the new Trials is as good or better than the OG arenas stacked together. Then the OG arenas overtake it a bit in the middle, and then both level off. The Trials graph does end up slightly higher, as it contains 5 more units. The difference is not big between the two: for most people grinding similarly to this, the new Trials will be similar in performance to the original three arenas: it will take similar effort to get similar unit rewards. Players who were grinding for less than the maximum (all milestones) will see closer performance than those that were originally getting all of them.
This presumes my "pseudo-casual" grind numbers. They used more or less maximal 2* champs, maximal 3* champs (because almost all of mine are max rank and max sig) but a mix of 5/50s and 4/40s, not all at max sig. I can theoretically do better, and I did: I ran more optimized tests that also ran partial suicides (double edge, but not liquid courage) a while back. Using those numbers, along with updated testing specifically on 4* grinding speed, I can compare my more casual paced grinding from the past and the best I could do today, comparing what my speed would have been in the OG arenas and what it would be in the new Trials:
The lowest curve is what my old casual grind speed would have been in the new Trials. Next is what my speed would have been in the OG arenas doing the same thing. Higher than that is my optimized fastest possible speed through the new Trials arena. And at the very top, my projected fastest possible speed through the OG arenas if they still existed.
An important thing to note is that the two "optimized speed" curves are closer together than the two "casual grind" curves. And that's due specifically to the influence of 4* champs. Because the OG arenas used 2*, 3*, and 4* champs, they offered advantages to players who had max rank max sig champs of that rarity. With the new Trials, the best possible speed comes specifically from 4* champs alone. That means the smaller your 4* roster, the slower you will be in the new Trials relative to your original speed in the OG arenas, if you were doing all of them combined. It isn't a huge gap, but it is there. The more you build up 4* roster, the faster you will go relatively speaking.
If having maxed out 4* champs offers the best grinding speed, how many do you need to reach the top milestone? Well, that depends on a number of factors, including things like masteries, and whether you can consistently do the top match up without dying (and losing points), but if we take my test numbers, would take me about 130 rounds with my top 4* champs to get all of the milestones (that would be about 4.5 hours across three days, more or less). That's 43 rounds per day. If I grinded twice a day, I would need about 22 rounds or 66 max 4* champs. If I grinded three times a day (4* champs refresh in two hours) I would only need about 14 rounds or 42 such champs, and if I grinded four times a day I would only need about 11 rounds or 33 such champs. The more often you can grind, the fewer you need. Note: this doesn't take more time overall, it just requires spreading the grind across more recharge windows. Someone who could check into the game six times a day would only need to grind for about 15 minutes at a time, doing about 7 rounds with 21 champs. Whether that is reasonable or not depends on the person. And using a couple 4/40s here and there is not fatal: it changes your grind speed by only a few percentage points.
To put it another way, my own grinding behavior has a much larger impact on my grinding speed than the difference between the OG arenas and the new Trials arena.
Overall, the new Trials appears to have the same *potential* to earn similar rewards as the OG arenas. If you're someone who was doing all three of the lower OG arenas, your grinding speed for units might be a little slower. If you were grinding less than the maximum, your grinding rate will be more similar to before, and the stronger your 4* roster is, the more similar it will be to what it was before.
Personally, I think relative to the prior iteration, the unit grinding speeds are close enough to the OG arenas even in cases where the player doesn't have a strong 4* roster, that the Trials is still better overall given the increases in other rewards like shards and gold. However, there are a lot of different kinds of players with different rosters, and it is impossible to balance for them all (or look at them all: I looked at a lot of different possibilities, but that could only cover a small sampling of all possible situations). I think overall however, looking at just this one specific aspect of the arenas (unit milestones), the worst effects of the original change have been mitigated by a large amount, to the point where I think most players will, once they get used to the new arenas, not notice a big difference in effort to get the amount of unit milestones they used to get in the lower OG arenas.
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Comments
Your contributions to the community has always been helpful
I can tell you the developers would sooner delete the arenas entirely.
If it means the forums as a whole are a lot less angry, because people have an outlet to express discontent without actually having to post anything, it is a small price to pay really.