and just faced a level 97 when i am elvel 56 no point in wasting my time there....

Gosh, you do give up easily, don't you? How do you expect to be able to learn to win in live arena if you run from every battle that looks like it might be a challenge?

I'm level 65 and routinely beat champions who are lvl 80+. Last night I faced a lvl 99 champion and might have won if I hadn't been so tired I forgot my new Arbiter had a revive skill!

Annoyingly, I also sometimes get beaten by players who are only in the lvl 50's. :D

It's all a learning experience, see which champs play well in which teams, building your own core, finding counter picks that work, choosing the best aura leads, etc.

Btw, have a look at HellHades fighting off teams that are 20+ levels higher than his FTP account - mostly using epic champions

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5EXjAkaw0BA&ab_channel=HellHades

Just got matched with a lvl 99 player. I nearly quit before the fight started, but figured I'd see what I could learn from the fight.

My tanky defensive team can beat this lvl 99 player, that's what I learned. :)

Yes that could happen but it's not the normal case. Facts are it's just plain unfair to put against a opponent who plays years longer than you. This is the reason matchmaking was invented. 

Why should you have an easier route to the same in game rewards and ranking as me? Why should I be penalized for farming more or playing longer?

No thank you. This isn't an FPS game. You don't get to make it to Gold Live Arena, G4 Tag, or place Plat without playing the real players there at some point.

very much this. Live Arena started with all of us in the same place and if one isn't able to or inclined to fight through tougher matchups, waiting for tougher opponents to move up rather than complaining seems sensible. 

certainly can use that time to work on builds, get better at team compositions, think about how to do better at the champion selection stage, work on counters, off the top of my head. 

we all started with limited champion pools, limited gear selection. i think most of us who made it to a reasonable stage of PvP (contending for Plat if not in it, Gold tag) understood from an early point that we should be grinding our way through it rather than expecting it to be easy. if I were still in that earlier stage I would probably be focused on farming Gold 5 as much as humanly possible since there's still that loss cap.

To your first point, "Live arena started with all of us in the same place..." That's pretty much the downfall here. When a new player starts the game and plays their first ever regular arena match, it's against another team setup from a similar player power, with a similar set of champs. With live arena, meta arena teams are pairs with rookie teams. It's not the same. 

Should a rookie team place Plat with the same number of battles as a meta? No. But, there should have been some thought put into initial ranking. Perhaps all Plat level standard arena are automatically Plat 1 or gold 4 live arena and likewise down the list. 

Telling someone they shouldn't have an easier road than you, when in fact, the current live arena path is much more challenging than when you started is garbage. Let's back this up to when you first started the game and your first 20 arena matches were against gold 4 or higher teams. That's basically what newer players are facing with live arena. 

This new portion of the game is unobtainable for many players due to the poor matching system. It is a great way to discourage new players from wanting to try though, and one availablebpart of the game That's impossible for some will be enough to close accounts. 

Besides the stupid Match ups it's slow and boring anyway. What's the point in having a timer if there's no penalty for those who don't select in the time allowed. It's not much different to tag team arena just slower.

I start from the stance that I don't believe anyone is entitled to succeed in a PvP format, especially this one. Success is not guaranteed by gear or champions either, as it is often influenced by experience and time spent improving their knowledge through fights. 

So yes, I think the current system with the loss cap being in Gold rather than Bronze or Silver is not good. It diminishes or outright removes the portion of the game that acts as a knowledge check. This is on top of the fact that it takes place in what I believe to be the wrong tier in Arena, whereas in Bronze/Silver it could help players grow their Great Hall while learning the ropes. I think getting to Gold Classic Arena so quickly - and staying there - gives a lot of players the wrong idea of how PvP is going to work in a competitive setting in Raid.

Please don't put words in my mouth as it pertains to an easier road. When myself and many other folks on the forum started out, the Arbiter quests were more difficult and the speeds necessary to get into and stay in Gold Classic were somewhere around 300.  

Also, a newer player should likely consider focusing on growing their account out through gear grinding, farming Great Hall (which is going to be better for them than the hyper focused Area Bonuses. Coincindentally this is one of the reaosns why comparing Classic and Live Arena is outright silly.), setting up their Clan Boss team, getting impactful champions to 60 so on and so forth. 

I saw the fights getting easier as I climbed out of Bronze into Silver, as the more developed accounts moved their way up so I do think things have been settling a bit in Bronze. That said, Live Arena should be more demanding than say, Bronze Classic as it asks players to have a developed account, or at the very least answers for tough champions and or matchups. 

If someone doesn't want to wait for matchmaking to level off, their accounts to grow, their knowledge to catch up or some combination of the above then they can use their free tokens without worrying about getting demoted in Live while they're in Bronze. 

I see where you are coming from :) But its not easier - compared to your account lvl abd opponents i should have the same difficulty level to win, even tho my equipment hasn't your stats. I hope that makes sense to you, don't wanna be confusing lol

I don't mind having even better than 50% of my battles against someone 15 to 30 levels above me but today it was 100% and usually runs about 80%. How hard is it to change it so that there is weighting on level. 

Let me turn that question around to you - why should you be able to earn medals faster than me if I'm at the same rank as you, just because I have a better account? If you're complaining that you're being matched against people that you have a <50% chance of winning, why would it be fair to instead penalize me?

Still sounds like I get penalized for all the work I put in. 

I've grinded out my gear and champs for years, just like Krama. Why should it be just as hard for me to play Arena at the lowest levels of Bronze or Silver as it is for a player just getting started? Why do they get to dodge me to reach the same point totals?

Cause it seems that folks want to take away all the gear and champ advantage. Advantages I earned from farming dungeons and CB for over the past 3+ years.

When players like me and Kram move into Gold Live Arena, a brand new player shouldn't be able to do the same at the same time. And in this "only match against players with an account exactly like mine" that is seemingly what you want. You want to move into Gold Live Arena without ever fighting me, or Kram, or DThorne, or anyone else with time in game greater than you, or champs better than yours.

Cause really, it seems some are asking for different tiers of Silver and Gold in the background. Extra secret tiers hiding behind Gold 1 and Silver 4 and Bronze 4. Krama and I go in one bracket, the hard bracket. And some people go in a medium bracket, and some in an easy bracket, and some in a beginner bracket. And everyone gets to farm themselves into the Gold tiers no matter what, getting to the top tiers of Arena never fighting anyone with better accounts than their own

If someone can make it into Gold without ever having to fight an account like mine, and I have to fight mostly the biggest krakens in the game, doesn't seem to me that they've earned the same placement as I have. If you can't fight the teams in Silver or Gold Live Arena, then Silver or Gold isn't where you deserve to be.

Like I said in the beginning. I don't mind fighting someone 20+ levels than me even more than 50% of the time but this last round it was 100% and most rounds it is 80%+. I think I had one match where they were only 17 levels higher. At least bring that number closer to 50%. 

They can figure out a match making system where someone isn't getting curb stomped 50% of the time. 

Aehm....if you expect to win more than 50% of your matches, you do not seem to realize that you are at exactly the right spot if you get 50% wins.

I am ok with losing more than 50% of the matches. I just don't want to do it by getting curb stomped time and again, although if I am going to lose a match maybe it is better than having it happen in 5 seconds instead of a 5 to 10 minute fight. 

Have a little patience, this new content is not designed to be n00b friendly.  And certainly will take time until the older/advanced accounts progress.  I am fairly late game and I am not prioritizing LA at all.  It really should be at the very bottom of priorities (use your 10 and move on ....) for anyone under level 100.  

Don't flatter yourself buddy. You think because you asked for it, they just gave you Live Arena? Bollocks. The end-game in this new creation is to bring more people who have money. Period. If you don';t see this you're thinking with your old-player hat. Remove it, and put the game designer one on, and you'll soon understand that what i'm saying is true. It probably cost them millions of dollars to implement this, certainly not to make YOU happy LOL.

This is basic business. Everything is constant growth or slow decay. To grow, you put out new products, to gain more customers. It's that simple.

Absolutely is for older players. It's called player retention.