Fixed this, thanks for the catch @Lyrian!
2 Likes
If 100 people on the stream request that epic tasks be lowered to a cost that doesn’t alienate 90% of the player base. Will it make a difference?
Those streams or feature requests for that matter used to feel like they meant something.
Now they feel like the “suggestions box” at a work place. Free donut Fridays won’t make up for the doubling of the company health insurance rate while downsizing is in full effect and salaries are frozen. I could go but I think I’ve made my point.
TL:DR:
More/Retention of Players = 
Epic Task Costs still = 
6 Likes
Update 5.2 Preview Stream Notes: October 5, 2020
– This is not the update that revamps treasure maps.
Arena Rework
– Originally released in 2015. Revamped to modern GoW standards.
– In the team drafting pre-arena run, players can see the team being built as units are picked.
– Hero(ine)s are no longer allowed in Arena runs. That means no weapons allowed in the Arena. A selectable Epic-tier troop replaces the Hero(ine) in Arena teams.
– Weapons have become too powerful and became the focus of Arena. By banning Hero(ines) from the Arena, the focus of the arena becomes team building. No more Runic Blade and Dawnbringer Arena teams.
– Draft pool of troops have been revamped. New eligible troops will be added to the draft pool 3-4 weeks after their release. Epic and lower rarity Underworld, Godslayer, and Siegebreaker troops are eligible to appear in the draft pool, if the devs decide that these troops are not too overpowered for the Arena.
– The number of wins for a full Arena run has been reduced to 6 to reflect slower matches without the Hero(ine).
– Normal arena run prizes have been slightly reworked.
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 Keys
5 Wins: 3000 Gold, 500 Souls, 30 Trophies, 2 Glory Keys
6 Wins: 4000 Gold, 750 Souls, 50 Trophies, 3 Glory Keys
– The first three runs that reach 5 or 6 wins generates an instant additional Daily Deal offer.
– The offer is discounted 10% on a 6 win full clear.
– If declined, the additional offers are lost.
– Players that are VIP 4 or higher will start each Arena run with 1 automatic win.
Arena of Valor
– New event focusing around the Arena.
– In the event, there may be a specific themed troop that is mandatory on Arena runs during the event.
– Players earn Valor from Arena runs to earn prizes, cumulatively.
Scoring:
– 2 Wins: 5 Valor
– 3 Wins: 10 Valor
– 4 Wins: 18 Valor
– 5 Wins: 30 Valor
– 6 Wins: 50 Valor
Prizes are earned in laps. After earning the last prize in the lap, the next prize laps around to the first prize again. There is theoretically no limit to the number of laps that can be completed per event.
3 Gem Keys → 1000 Jewel Shards → 2 Event Keys → 60 Writs → 1 Minor Orb of Chaos
– Valor does not carry over to future events.
– Valor needed for each prize tier was not revealed (still under balancing).
Cosmetic Pet Flash Offers
– Flash offers may now occur for cosmetic pets that are not restricted (ex: droidbot, etc).
– New cosmetic pets can be offered via flash offers 3 months after their release.
– Cost is $2 USD for 2 pets. Two purchase limit.
– Pet is chosen randomly from eligible cosmetic pets.
– Saturday pet events will still occur in the future.
General/Bugfixes
THE GAME NO LONGER SLOWS DOWN WHEN LOOKING AT TROOP CARDS IN BATTLE. FINALLY.
– Some cosmetic revamps for flash offers and advent calendars.
– Halloween seasonal logo being turned on.
– Fixed jiggling battle icons in the world event battle selection screen.
– Fixed issues with class masteries not applying in battles.
24 Likes
Heroes were the only thing that made arena palatable. I hope arena is not forced on the playerbase beyond the annoying need to play it once a week for campaigns.
21 Likes
I do like the jewels (for pet food), writs and orbs for this event, though… I wonder what day it will be? Or another weekend one?
2 Likes
The event version of the Arena will be a weekend-based event.
3 Likes
I know that I will be playing it during the Arena weekend events. As far as Vault events give you theoretically unlimited Orbs and Diamonds via treasure gnomes (themselves or vault keys), there is lots of variability (RNG) involved.
Arena’s variability comes in how good you are at building and executing teams, to hit the 50-valor runs. But it doth give unlimited Orbs, Diamonds (shards) and Deeds (writs) if you keep playing and winning.
Let’s say 90 seconds per battle, no VIP-4 (so you need 6 wins as oppposed to P2W needing 5 wins). Best outcome is 50 valor per 9 minutes, or about 333 valor per hour. Let’s further say the reward tiers require the following valor for tiers 1-5: 13/30/50/90/150 = 333 total, it means 1 hour of excellent play with no bad luck gives you 1 complete cycle of rewards. Here are some projections, based on how many cycles they have designed for most players to complete per hour.
Cycles/Hr 6 Hrs 9 Hrs 12 Hrs 24 Hrs
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
1 6 Orbs 9 Orbs 12 Orbs 24 Orbs
60 Diamonds 90 Diamonds 120 Diamonds 240 Diamonds
3.6 Deeds 5.4 Deeds 7.2 Deeds 14.4 Deeds
0.03 Mythics 0.05 Mythics 0.07 Mythics 0.13 Mythics
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
2 12 Orbs 18 Orbs 24 Orbs 48 Orbs
120 Diamonds 180 Diamonds 240 Diamonds 480 Diamonds
7.2 Deeds 10.8 Deeds 14.4 Deeds 28.8 Deeds
0.07 Mythics 0.10 Mythics 0.13 Mythics 0.26 Mythics
-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=-=
0.5 3 Orbs 4.5 Orbs 6 Orbs 12 Orbs
30 Diamonds 45 Diamonds 60 Diamonds 120 Diamonds
1.8 Deeds 2.7 Deeds 3.6 Deeds 7.2 Deeds
0.02 Mythics 0.02 Mythics 0.03 Mythics 0.07 Mythics
Notes: (1) Hours are totals over the weekend, e.g. “6 Hrs” is a casual 2-hr spend each day of the weekend event. (2) A player that has VIP4+ and is really good at hitting 6-wins per run (1st win free) is definitely getting more Valor per hour (hence more cycles) than a F2P who is less skilled (may only hit 4-win/18 valor consistently) (3) Mythics earned are based on 2 gem keys and 3 event keys combining for an expected value of 0.0055 Mythics
This will be the first event where having good game knowledge and skills actually means something, and will quickly distinguish the peasants from the heroes.
2 Likes
It would not surprise me in the slightest if not all “laps” were created equal, though, in terms of Valor cost.
Think the gnome tracker: same reward payouts each time, more work required each cycle (lap).
This would be the “balancing” needed to make sure most players can farm some, thus having the carrot to participate in the first place, but not too much without an overabundance of effort (exhibited only by the sorts of people who get 20+ pity keys during gnome events, a small portion of the playerbase, I’d wager) because to allow that would be to trivialize other game modes too much.
Looking forward to playing the event — skeptical that the orbs/writs/diamonds will be as “unlimited” as some would like to suggest/hope (though, to be clear, I do think this could be the official point at which these resources can be considered “farmable,” which is much appreciated even if the farmability is limited and/or infrequently available).
5 Likes
Arena “rework” looks horrible and absolutely boring and not worth playing. Rewards need to be very easy as Arena is now 100% crippled by removing hero and hero weapons.
Random troops with no traits, no hero, no weapons, very limited troop selection.
What this is really doing is slowing down players from getting orbs from fun weekend events. I will skip this unless it is re-re-worked!
I hoped Arena would be improved. Devs crippled it to zero!
It takes 1000 Writs to make 1 Imperial. It takes 6 Arena battles to get reward 1. Best case it will take 36 Arena battles to get 60 Writs! Awful game design @Sirrian
14 Likes
By very definition, it isn’t… or it is. Depends on how someone looks at time.
It isn’t:
You only have 72 hours to participate, meaning only so much can be done in that many hours.
It is:
These events will keep coming back.
It isn’t:
This game will eventually come to an end, however realistic/unrealistic (let’s go with an arbitrary, will this game last 1,000 years?)
1 Like
They haven’t announced publicly how much valor is needed per reward tier
Right. It’s 36 tedious slow battles to get 60 writs… in the best case.
1 Like
I would say that you’re right over the target with your line of thinking. The question I believe the devs are still attempting to balance is how to not to make progression too harsh for the casual crowd as to completely scare them off from the event (event feels very unfulfilling), while at the same time not allowing super-engaged players to walk away with dozens of laps of rewards every time the event runs.
3 Likes
Considering that the Weekend Arena Event is something that gives all players equal footing because all troops inside are relatively equal in stats and provided by the game regardless of current account progress, a low level can play as efficiently as a high level for this event.
With enough engagement with the game, a low level can gain some serious catch up tools that wouldn’t amount to much for high levels.
I’d encourage as many catch up mechanics as possible, given the state of the game.
If its limited to a few loops at most, the Event wouldn’t amount to much.
I’m always going to be of the mindset of players that play the game more should be rewarded for their efforts. Holding them back because others don’t want to play is something I don’t agree with.
10 Likes
I thought about that too, but I’d disagree with the comparison to pity keys.
The primary driver of the Vault weekends is the flood of treasure gnomes. Play more, get more - very linear. Pity keys were added which strictly speaking amount to a fraction of the total rewards at the end of the weekend for serious grinding. The pity keys do little to detract from the linear progression of rewards. However, they do buff rewards for very casual and low rates of participation, to encourage the entry ticket.
The primary purpose for most playing the Arena weekend will have to be the Reward tiers, not the arena rewards themselves - seriously, trophies, gold, souls and glory keys? If the game applies an exponential or even incremental rate of effort to achieve the same rewards for later cycles, I think the devs have lost the plot.
I’m actually lauding the genius of 5.2 arena rework in many ways
- killed the unfair weapon advantage (the last advantage with all other stats no longer applying)
- +1 win for VIP4+ is actually IMHO reasonable and achievable with several well-priced (ignore end gamers here) campaign passes and flash offers to make me want it. The P2W advantage here is smaller than the Deathknight armor, and still requires actual work in Arena events
- one bigger step towards the diamond, deed, imperial deed (yes both variants) and orb economies
- very well balanced event: endgamers get good end game rewards out of it, new players get to actually participate at no disadvantage
3 Likes
Big fix, IMO. Thanks, devs. 
7 Likes
Based on the beta, and not knowing the numbers until they are live, it is safe to say, you are wrong and it is a similar style to the gnome vault keys on gnome weekend, as @Magnusimus has said.
Without the numbers that would appear on live though, I cant say anything else about it besides that is the style of system that it was on the beta.
1 Like
Which part is wrong? I did not make a guess either way, but I did put my reasons as to why I don’t believe the comparison to [Vault Event] pity keys is valid at all. And I called the devs out for losing the plot if they actually went live with increasing effort required for each cycle.
Because if the only rewards during the Vault weekends were pity keys, only a select few diehards will be touching it at all past the first handful of keys (i.e. negative encouragement for participation).
If your statement really means the same mathematical model used for level progression and pity keys - as in the “linear growth model of effort for the next reward”, which translates to a “quadratic model of effort measured by total rewards”.
Here’s an illustration using the pity keys model.
It takes you 5 more gnomes between pity keys #7 and #8. Looks linear enough, flat 5 each time.
However
- to double your take of 3 keys (to 6), you need to expend 3.5x the effort
- to double your take of 6 keys (to 12), you need to expend 3.7x the effort
Or put another way, let’s say I’ve spent 3 hours and have come away with 6 cycles.
Do I really want to spend 10x the effort, to only end up with 3.3x the rewards? i.e. 27 more hours for 14 more cycles of rewards.
The way it worked in beta, and Ill just use the number 50 (example number only)
Reward 1 - 50 Valor needed.
Reward 2 - 100 Valor needed.
Reward 3 - 150 Valor needed.
After each reward is gained, that amount is taken, so say if you had a few losses, and were at 45 Valor, and then won an arena run and gained the 50 valor (See above notes on the stream), you would get reward 1, and then have 45 Valor left over towards reward 2. It will reset between each time, which is normal and some may not understand this, not saying you wont.
So basically, reward 1 = 1 run through. reward 2 = 3 run throughs, etc. Once all rewards had been gained, and you had obtained the Orb at reward 6, the valor amount does not reset back down to 50 (example being used) but will just keep increasing by the 50 example per reward gained.
Hope this explains what I am trying to say, and get across that the above examples you gave are all based off of the wrong impression of how the valor and reward system will work.
Now, keep in mind, this was based on Beta, and I believe the system will stay the same, it is simple the numbers that are being balance and adjusted, which is why I am unable to give numbers there and have just used an example of a round number.
3 Likes