I’ve played a LOT of Arena on the consoles and it was my go-to game mode from levels 1-120 before I bothered with PVP. Here are some issues I have and some suggested fixes:
1. The Hero is worthless - I’m level 220-something and my Hero’s attack is 7. This is less attack than most or all of the common-rarity troops. All monsters seemed to get buffed in 1.0.8 but the Hero was left behind.
Suggestion: Hero attack needs a serious buff to make the player-character more ‘legendary’ and worth using. The fixes required to make the Hero worth using could be a forum post unto itself. I’d suggest a buff to 9 or 10 attack (at level 100).
2. Rewards - the rewards for doing 7 (or 8) matches are not in line with doing an equivalent amount of games of other game types, namely PVP and challenges. In 7 games I could have 700 souls if I farmed challenges or 10k+ in gold doing PVP. These modes are also low risk compared to Arena.
Suggestion: Winning all Arena matches should award 1 random Arcana Traitstone. This would make Arena a worthwhile method for farming traitstones. No Celestial, Minor, Major, or Runic traitstones please. Those are fairly easy to come by in comparison to Arcane Traitstones.
3. Traits - The arena is supposed to be a ‘level playing field’ however enemy troops are routinely traited up with all or most traits giving the AI an unfair advantage. I find myself building an Arena team and then checking to see if I can trait any of my team up to try and level what is supposed to be an already-level playing field.
Suggestion: Remove all traits from both sides or give all traits to both sides?
4. Buying troops - I’m not sure I see the problem with buying troops you use in the Arena if you win all of the games, except right now the cost to do so is exorbitant. 150+ gems to buy 3 crummy non-legendary troops?
Suggestion: 2 gems to buy common-rarity troops, 3 gems for rare, and 5 gems for ultra-rare. If you have all of these troops already leveled up, it should cost like 10 gems to get all 3. In fact, just get rid of the gem cost to level ratio and have the troops be purchased at level 1 (instead of 10). Gems are a sufficiently rare resource that this will not unbalance the economy.
I want to play more Arena but the risk/reward for time invested is seriously out of whack right now. Arena shouldn’t be a ‘for noobs only’ game mode.
Nice write up, I completely agree!!! Excellent Ideas.
I believe the Devs said they are bringing Arena in line with the PC/mobile. So that should be a slight buff to the end rewards (you should notice it, but don’t expect anything exciting).
In addition we could have different difficulties in the Arena. You are always level 10. Put it on Hard and the enemy is 15 for MUCH greater reward. Then Very Hard where the enemy is level 20 (you are 10) for insane rewards.
You all don’t have Hero Classes yet, right? That will mean a big buff to the value of Heroes.
For the Traits, I think this was done over the course of several battles b/c folks found the Arena too easy. Introducing them gradually was a way to up the difficulty.
However, I disagree on the point that buying troops directly won’t unbalance the economy. The economy is based entirely around random luck and folks chasing that one card they want. Making people able to by it directly necessarily impacts the economy.
Oh, and the reason you have to pay a crazy amount of Gems for 3 “garbage troops” is that the troops you played with were probably not EXACTLY level 15. Being over or under by even 1 level will add to the theoretical minimum or 50 (which is still crazy high).
You’re right, no hero classes yet. Do Hero classes buff base attack? I also find 99% of hero weapons to be extremely weak as compared to most troop abilities. Are those buffed as well by hero classes?
Regarding buying troops, as I mentioned gems are a fairly rare resource and you’re going through several layers of hoops before you can buy them:
RNG - if you’re looking for a troop, say Rock Worm, then you have to rely on RNG for it to appear in the group of troops you select when you start an Arena
Entry cost - 1000 gold
8 Wins
So you have to meet all 3 criteria before you can buy a troop. Also note that Epics (Purples) and Legendaries are NOT available as Arena options so the only troops you can buy are ones that take an eternity to get to mythic anyway. RNG is still in effect, it would just be… lessened ever so slightly. This would really just be a minor bonus or boon. It would take an eternity to farm 100 rock worms via Arena purchases to go from Legendary to Mythic and the time would probably be better spent buying gold chests. Not so sure I’m convinced buying troops would lead to inbalance.
Hero Classes do improve their attack some, but it mostly makes them tankier and makes weapon spells stronger. I think they’re nerfing this latter part b/c it got to the point where your Hero alone could easily carry you with the right class and weapon combo.
Arena on console is different than arena on PC in 3 notable ways.
1 as mentioned troops have their traits. 2 all fights are considered to be Broken Spire fights so you’ll only get Brown and blue traitstones. 3 you draft a weapon rather than pick it from your inventory. Other than that, it does match how arena was from 1.08 PC version.
The devs commented that the next update will rebuff the rewards to match how they are in the 2.0 PC version (which is the same as the 1.09 version)
I disagree with every suggestion in the OP, including the premise that Arena sucks.
Your Hero is roughly the same power as your opponent, no matter how weak you think he is. I wouldn’t use the Hero if not for arena mode anyway. Drafting well will buff the hero also.
Remember that you are playing against real drafted teams from other real players. That’s why some cards are traited and very powerful, its not the AI. It’s beneficial to trait your commons if you enjoy arena, it gives you a nice advantage.
Arena needs some minor improvements, not a major overhaul. Please fix the traitstone payouts, as I only receive brown and blue variants, so I’m sitting on hundreds of major brown and blue stones I can’t use.
So either let us choose the battle flag and tie that to the traitstone reward, or make Arena available in all regions so we can in essence farm our most wanted stones.
Another thing, I think it could be neat to get some small reward when your drafted team gets a victory under AI control. As it is now you never really know just how well you constructed a team. And I would get a twisted enjoyment from knowing my team hurt someone’s arena rewards.
Yes traits are active in Arena. That’s a cool feature I hope it’s not removed. It gives the player an incentive to work on other aspects of your card collection besides concentrating on powering up your legendaries. Plus it’s a great advantage that you worked for, it’s not like it’s some unearned luck based advantage.
The problem is you need all 3 of your troops to be EXACTLY and PRECISELY level 15, NOT one point higher or one point lower, then you can by them for the exorbitant cost of 50. This is a bug by the way.
They make bad troops acceptable.
They help scale the difficulty. The more we play the higher our level, the more traitstones we accumulate therefore go into the troops. The game should be harder the more we rank up. I don’t want to play with or fight against vanilla teams.
And another thing, my legendary troops have gone without traiting so I could power up my commons and rares. I’d be very upset at my wasted time and efforts shall that feature be removed!
@Strat is bang on, without the Combo Breaker, Traits are essential to balance the AI’s crazy cascades. It would be nigh impossible to get 7-8 wins before 2 losses.
Considering Arena Tasks are in the first slot (which locks up way too much, along with the 2 FROZEN slots for Kingdom leveling), it would be appreciated if Arena wasn’t made harder.
If the developers refuse to remove one of the Kingdom leveling Tasks AND if they are determined to remove Arena Traits, they might as well disable Tasks for level 100+ players. Having only a single useable Task slot is just superfluous and cruel teasing.
I like having Traits in Arena. Its one way to create an incentive for players to Trait these troops that they don’t tend to use much. When coupled with the Forge A Trait task, a player gets 25 glory, but he/ she also adds points to the kingdom level that troop belongs to. Can’t assume that they know the importance of leveling one’s kingdom power. A good majority are still learning as they progress with the game.
Apart from what @FoldinBoxes listed in his opener, Arena needs some love here. Just adding this or that, or even taking away this or that, is not the solution. Nor is the idea of putting all your eggs in one basket will improve this mini-game.
I did come up with an alternative. Its not getting much attention. But if you guys and gals could just go check it out some, you might like it.
