5.2 Update (Patch notes)

Arena was the first mini game we added to Gems of War back in 2015. We have mentioned several times in the past that we would like to go back and revisit the Arena to give it some love and attention. Now we have kept that promise.

  • We have removed the old Difficulty from Arena.

    • Difficulty will now be consistent throughout the run.

    • This means that difficulty no longer affects Arena Rewards when finishing an Arena.

  • We have replaced Heroes with Epic Troops.

    • Hero improvements in the past and newer powerful weapons have meant that Arena has become less about drafting a team, and more about which hero can cast their spell first. We wanted to shift the focus of Arena back to players coming up with clever combinations in their draft picks.
  • When drafting Troops, players will now be able to see their Arena team, so they can view the troops they have currently chosen. This allows them to plan out their other draft picks to optimize their team.

  • We have made improvements to the Arena Troop Pool, so newer troops will automatically appear as Arena options 3-4 weeks or so after they are released (previously, we would just add new batches of troops every 3-6 months).

  • We have reduced the max number of Victories from 8 to 6.

    • This reduces the amount of battles required to play. Generally, without the hero, we found these battles take a little longer, so requiring 6 battles to complete felt consistent with the old 8.
    • Number of Defeats remains unchanged
  • With the changes to Victories, we have rebalanced Arena Rewards and made some improvements to the amount of Trophies given:

    • 0 Wins: 50 Gold

    • 1 Win: 100 Gold

    • 2 Wins: 500 Gold, 75 Souls, 3 Trophies, 1 Glory Key

    • 3 Wins: 1000 Gold, 200 Souls, 8 Trophies, 1 Glory Key

    • 4 Wins: 2000 Gold, 350 Souls, 18 Trophies, 2 Glory Key

    • 5 Wins: 3000 Gold, 500 Souls, 30 Trophies, 2 Glory Key

    • 6 Wins: 4000 Gold, 750 Souls, 50 Trophies, 3 Glory Key

  • We have made 2 changes to the Arena Offer. The first is that it will now trigger at 5 Wins instead of 6, and will only happen 3 times per day.

  • The second change is that the Arena Offer will give a random Daily Deal.

    • Players who earn 6 Wins in an Arena run will get a 10% discount to their Arena Offer.

    • Offers do not include VIP exclusive offers.

  • We have added a new perk for players who are VIP 4 or higher, that they will start Arena runs with 1 Victory.

  • Campaign Tasks around Arena have been changed to reflect the Victory changes.

We have added a new event focused around the Arena.

  • During the event players will earn Valor based on the number of Wins from the Arena run

    • 0 Wins: 0 Valor

    • 1 Win: 0 Valor

    • 2 Wins: 5 Valor

    • 3 Wins: 10 Valor

    • 4 Wins: 18 Valor

    • 5 Wins: 30 Valor

    • 6 Wins: 50 Valor

  • The Mini Games Menu will have an Arena tracker (similar to Vault Event) which will track the amount of Valor a player has earned towards the current reward Stage.

  • The Arena Tracker has 5 different rewards that it will progress through before starting back at the first reward type again. Rewards that have been earned will be sent out via the In-Game Mail:

    • Reward 1: 3 Gem Keys

    • Reward 2: 1000 Jewel Shards

    • Reward 3: 2 Event Keys

    • Reward 4: 60 Writs

    • Reward 5: 1 Orb of Chaos

  • Arena of Valor also will support a pre-set Troop that will replace one of the regular troop draft picks.

    • The Troop will be given each time a player starts an Arena run during the Event.

    • The Troop is not limited by the normal rarities available in Arena (e.g. Common, Rare, Ultra-Rare, Epic).

    • These pre-set Troops may not happen in every Arena Event.

  • Any Arena runs started before the event begins will not give any Valor, and any Arena runs in progress at the end of the event can be completed like a normal Arena run once the event ends.

  • Valor doesn’t carry over to the next event, and any reward progress is lost once the event ends.

  • We have added a special new Flash Offer for special Event Pets.

    • Special Event Pets are the cosmetic Pets for special Events such as Halloween, Gems of War Anniversary, Campaign Pets, etc.

    • Faction Pets or Pets that can be gained from Pet Gnomes will not be offered.

    • Platform Exclusive Pets like Steam Puppy or X-Ball will not be offered.

    • New Special Event Pets will not be offered until 3 months after their first release.

  • The offer will cost $1.99 USD and can be purchased up to 2 times

  • The offer will contain the following:

    • 2x Pet

    • 50 Gems

    • 6 Colored Pet Food

  • Pets are chosen randomly but Players will not be offered a Pet if they have enough pets to ascend or are already at the maximum ascension.

  • Like the Weapon Flash Offer, this flash offer will appear randomly during the week, as long as there isn’t another Flash Offer running.

We will continue to run special 1-Day Pet Rescue events over various weekends throughout the year. This will give players several means to complete their Pet Collection and level them up.

  • We have made some changes when viewing Troop cards in Battles so that it does not affect game speed if the battle is running in the background.

  • We have made some visual improvements for Advent Calendars and Flash Offers

    • Advent Calendars will all have the new improvements, but only a few existing Flash Offers will use the new visuals with the 5.2 Update.

    • We will be updating other existing Flash Offers in future updates.

  • We have added support for more reward help popups in Advent Calendars and Flash Offers and Advent Calendars.

    • These rewards can now be tapped/ clicked or have controller shortcuts to get more information about that reward.
  • We have added a new Halloween themed Logo for the season.

  • We have fixed an issue where Class Masteries were not applying in Battles correctly.

  • We have fixed an issue where Battle Icons on the World Event Fight Map would jitter when they were too close together.

  • We have fixed an issue where Valravens could overwrite Battle Bosses in World Events.

  • We have fixed an issue where players not in a guild would get an error if they tried to open a World Event news item.

  • We have also fixed an assortment of smaller issues.

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We have updated the Arena article and have a new article for the Arena of Valor for this update:
Arena
Arena of Valor

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3 new PS4 trophies.

And three new Steam achievements, I assume they are the same.

Looking at the Arena of Valor page, we can see you need 45 valor for (presumably) the first reward tier. Now there’s been speculation as to the progression after the first reward. Since this is now planned and the update is out, could this detail be elaborated upon? Thanks.

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Why it is written nowhere that Arena of Valor is a week-end event? :slight_smile:

Who is the guy on the “Are you not Entertained?” trophy image?

@Kafka does this vague description cover any bugs that had been reported on the forums?
image

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Why does it still cost 1k gold to partake in it? Lol

I figured that would be the first thing removed.

Just to break even?

Then 1.3k gold per win?
That’s worse than even the Cpvp rate.
So all this work with the arena but fundamentally it’s still only good for Trophies and nothing else basically.

I hope I’m just reading it wrong. But we’ll see I guess.

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I’m willing to give the Arena change a try. Epic troops might be goofier than most of the hero weapons. I can only hope they make the Arena of Valor Event fair…

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(old values were 4,000 gold, 1,200 souls, 30 trophies, 5 glory keys before multipliers)

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So if Vip 4 you can earn basically 3000 gold on about 15 min. Most top guilds require about 2 mil so will take the whole week. Who needs sleep or a job. 500 per battle not the 1300.

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So 10k gold. That’s better than the 4000 someone posted

The rewards are multiplied by your soul/gold bonus.

Having finally got the update, I find the new Arena hilarious. The power levels are ramped up to 11. Between Doomskulls and the new troops let into Arena, its more or less a smashathon of who dies first from overpowered casts.

It might not be for everyone, but I do find this rather amusing. At least more interesting than fill Dawnbringer and win.

Now I really hope the Arena of Valor event doesn’t put a damper in the interest of playing Arena.

Even got imitation Runic Blade as a draft

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My 2 cents… I personally like the flash offers, however I would like to see special pets and weapons that I don’t have in daily deals also.

I would also like to see offers for different avatars each month.
This may not be popular, but for us that do spend money on this game, some better in game perks for certain VIP levels. Not just more gem totals in the shop.
As far as arena goes, does the arena fairy have nudes of someone!? I hate arena, everyone hates arena. Why in the name of all that is holy would you decide to make it worse, then force us all to play it as an entire event?? I’m sorry, but a HUGE swing and miss. Scrap it completely and think of something different. Please!

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I was getting 12k gold, 4500 souls, 30 trophies, 5 glory keys.

2 less battles and 1.75x the time.

I now get 9k gold, 2250 souls, 50 trophies, 3 glory keys.

So 5.2 = Another nerf to materials with a chance at 10% off already overpriced daily deals…

Such amazing creativity, freshness, and fun!

15 Likes

They finally did it. They created a game mode more boring than treasure maps. I got the achievement. I’ll never play it again. I know there is the valor achievement. I don’t think I’ll bother with it.

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Not one to usually knock new stuff, but this is worse than Arena v1.0. Got my achievement on both accounts. Done with this mode until they create another achievement. I hate / have hated arena forever; I’ll continue to spend the gems just so I never have to lay eyes on it.

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Isn’t it wonderful how they listen to the players of their game.

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