The Truth about Arena - And a simple solution
1. PvP has always been harder. The PvE missions have always been easier. This is an indisputable fact.
2. Arena has become significantly more difficult. Fact. It was always difficult. But yes, as I have stated over and over it is far more difficult.
3. It is not more difficult because of sandbagging, changes by plarium to make it harder (they don't change things at all LOL). Fact.
4. It will continue to get harder because of "inflation" and "aging population". Fact.
5. Aging population: The longer the game has been around, the tenure of the base skews older. Fact. This will continue.
6. Inflation: Better gear, better champs all concentrated on just 4 heroes. Everyone's team is stronger. Particularly those playing longer. Fact.
7. Even "stupid" players stuck in lower levels because they do not fully understand game mechanics have crazy stats just from getting better gear.
8. Plarium acknowledges that arena is more difficult and will address. They are slow to fix ANYTHING. We as a group have no patience.
Solution:
Make the tiers bigger
1. Increase platinum. Very few try to achieve plat because it is too difficult to win medals for most. This is the only time sandbagging exists to any measurable level. It makes Gold4 easier. Good for me. But they should probably make Plat more attainable. Bad for me, but good for the game.
2. Increase Gold 1, 2, 3 and Silver 1-4. NOT Gold 4. This would essentially bump everyone up a bit to levels more consistent with the past.
3. If someone is inactive for 3 weeks, there defense in slots 2-4 are removed.
1 & 2 are solved simply by replacing constants in existing logic/code.
3 seems like a simple addition to code if there is already a mechanism to drop after inactivity.
In the meantime as any fix could take weeks or months, I choose not to complain that my Alt can't get past silver 3 (I am at Gold 1 mission). I am improving in other content so I am not stuck when the really difficult missions come up. I can do dragon19 and golem 19. I do FK13 with a level 40 Grappler. Spider, I can manual 13, and have no expectations of improving this with current roster. Clan Boss, I can 2 key Brutal and I am at almost 10M on NM. Not bad all around.
As for arena, I will begin to farm better gear in Dragon/Golem when my 2x XP is out. Finish masteries for 1 or 2 CB members (shards drop in CB boss chests btw... and books). Decide whether ranking up spirithost makes any sense -- probably not. Decide if HK is a better choice -- maybe. Save up my shards and hope for better luck next 2x event, or at least an apothecary sighting.
That is all. I will continue to offer help to those that want to actually try and get better. To those that sit idle, good luck but I recommend improving your team and/or learning more about the game.
Best of luck to all,
Trips