Now firstly let me say I know there are players who do not like Arena at all. This thread is not for you.
There are however players that do like Arena - in fact we are having and Arena contest in my Guild this week. I like different modes and Arena is one of them. It is a very neglected mode though, with no proper event and no weekly Leaderboard. Here are some of my suggestions, and I hope other Arena enthusiasts will add more to the list:
Add a weekly Leaderboard
Have a proper event with better rewards.
Add more troops for a larger variety.
No need to add weapons or classes - I enjoy this mode precisely because it is so different from any other in the game. So not much needs to change apart from the above 3 things.
I agree, at minimum the Arena weekend event needs a proper Event landing page (Overview, Fight, Rewards, etc) … though I’d be loathe to see it incorporating a “Shop” panel (albeit if so, it should be similar to the Pet Rescue shop page, e.g. no Potions).
I wouldn’t mind seeing the ability to include a (classless) Hero on the team equipped with an (Epic or lower tier) Weapon, because Arena used to be the only other mode where you could see an opposing Hero. But I’ll agree it’s not really needed, Classes simply cannot be allowed (Elementalist anyone?) nor can Legendary or higher Weapons be permitted (Dawnbringer, Mang, Runic Blade, Wand of Stars).
I used to like Arena but the event is not worth spending time on it (for me). There is so much to do already.
So offering better rewards would really be the minimum.
But be careful what you wish for because this will with almost 100% certainty add monetization to the mode if they ever do more with it than to tweak the rewards for the event.
I like arena, too, but rarely play it because the rewards aren’t worthwhile.
I’d love to see the rewards improved, but one thing I’d recommend would be taking a leaf out of the class challenge book, and giving class XP as a reward. Since it’s one of the only modes you can’t use a class, many players who are trying to level up their classes will avoid it, even if the rewards were equal to other modes. Just have the rewards give some xp for a random class, or the class your level is lowest in, or (though this would require more work) give some token you can use to level up the class of your pick, like how you can use orbs to level up troops - have the orb give 10 class xp when used on the given class.
The mode would need other rewards too, but this is one thing that would be really good at making the mode attractive to all players, not just those who have already leveled all their classes and don’t care about class xp, who also don’t care about the arena rewards anyway.
Much of life is monetization. Why should Gems be any different?
When was the last time you went to your boss and asked for a raise? That’s trying to increase the monetization of your time. When was the last time your taxes went up? That’s the government increasing the monetization of whatever it is they do.
Et cetera.
I’m not saying that this increased monetization is a good thing, mind you. But that’s the model we’ve had for a long time; if the developers didn’t monetize this thing as aggressively as they could, chances are the game wouldn’t exist after very long.
Some monetization but not too much. Every time more monetization is added a number of players do in fact leave. Are they getting enough new players to replace them? Judging by the half-empty guilds and struggle to get guild members I doubt. Go look at the weekly trophy scores. Only about 100 guilds do around 30 000 trophies or more a week, the next 100 do about 20 000 trophies - that is not even 1000 trophies per player average - so at most 200 somewhat active guilds in the entire game.
So if you are coming from a very privileged background where you have money to throw at a game all the time - great. But I bet many players do not.
