graham.k.short said:

Jenkins2110 said:

Tag team arena isn't really the issue. Facing OP teams in the lowest tiers of bronze in classic arena is the problem and add most new players are not able to realistically benefit from the rewards i.e. progress missions, medals for great hall bonus. 

I completely agree. An awful lot of the teams in Bronze IV seem to be ridiculously OP. I've yet to get into Silver 1 but when I do there will be a cascade of about 30 rewards from stuff I've otherwise already done. Seems to me the progress mission should be to get into Bronze II or III.

yeah you don't want to rush to get there unless you need to get to silver 1 for mission, I was farming gold easily in gold 4 then plarium dropped that patch in may then  presto hello silver 3 / 4 and if I get back to gold 1 it doesn't last too long

so many beasty teams in list, at least before the latest patch you d still get the odd 1 champ team or 4 lev 1 champs now its full over powered teams slaying it .

open the number of people in top end to hep the over powered move up the tiers or fix the missions and drop the gold only rewards to do lev 7 or high and make it one for all just push up the number  needed - whoever came up with the current idea for classic arena omg

I feel like my voice is never heard like I'm sure many feel.  Plarium much like Garmin don't listen when issues are truly being reported.  I reported issues to Garmin almost every other week and they insisted they weren't having a problem.  Next thing you know they lost total control of their system which cost them.  Several months ago I put in a ticket every day explaining that I couldn't log in.  Plarium like Garmin denied there was an issue.  Turns out I wasn't the only one having the issue and everyone I knew that played on mobile devices could not log in.  After three days of not being able to log in I tried logging in on my pc without any issue.  I found that more than half my clan was missing.  Yet Plarium still said there wasn't any issues on their end.  The problem was no one with a mobile device could log in, yet Plarium denied it.  They lost many players during this issue.

I'm not saying what happened to Garmin will happen to Plarium, I just feel that when issues are reported they need to be taken more seriously, and if you are aware of them be honest about it instead of trying to cover it up.  That only makes people upset.

The second issue I have is with Arena.  This patch didn't help.  Around the same time your mobile server crashed you made changes to arena that affected everyone.  I was in Gold and worked hard to get there.  I didn't think anything needed to be changed in arena at that time.  I then made the mistake of purposely placing myself back in silver thinking I would rather get silver awards.  BIG MISTAKE!

The changes you made to arena at that time made it so I could not get out of silver!  These changes were about 4 to 6 months ago.  Arena was fine at that time.  I have challenge awards proving I was in gold, yet now I teeter between silver 1 and 2.  I can't even get to silver 3 which is the point I am at on my missions.  I am at a standstill on my missions even though my challenges had me in gold.  

Instead of trying to tweek the arena, just reset it to where it was before that original change 4 to 6 months ago.  That will solve the problem.  I think many people thought the issues were that all those players that got mad and left because they couldn't log in sat in arena and over powered everyone.  That may have been part of the problem, but that was not the complete issue.

I don't know what you planned to do. I see what you've done. In the bronze League III with my power at 30 K, there are no opponents below 45 K, from the word at all. Yes, sometimes throws on rivals with one gray hero. But this is random and this is not an arena, but a farce. 9 out of 10 fights are like this http://prntscr.com/u4m56z " do you guys want money that bad?" I will not invest thousands of dollars in the hope of buying Golden heroes. You at least some visibility of the ARENA will save. Well, or write that the arena is when you pay 1000 dollars.

Herra72 said:

Instead of trying to tweek the arena, just reset it to where it was before that original change 4 to 6 months ago.  That will solve the problem.  I think many people thought the issues were that all those players that got mad and left because they couldn't log in sat in arena and over powered everyone.  That may have been part of the problem, but that was not the complete issue.

Please reset arena to work like it did 4 to 6 months ago.  It is very frustrating to be stuck in arena at silver 1 and 2 and have your missions completely stopped.

So... how exactly are they supposed to reset arena to how it was 4 to 6 months ago? Kick all the new players out and take away all of existing players' improvements in terms of new champions and gear since then? 

There is definitely a big problem with arena, which no doubt has many contributing factor, but in the end the big one is very simple: people's teams get stronger over time, while the number of spaces in platinum remains the same. Competition just got harder and harder in plat and high gold, which has pushed teams further and further down into tiers they really weren't meant to be in. So you're delusional if you think that they just threw a switch somewhere and can just switch it back and everything will magically go back to how it was before. 

They need to do more than they've done so far and I believe they will, eventually. But one way or another, arena will remain a lot harder than it once was. If you've dropped that far, it means you haven't been trying hard enough to improve your team and limit the damage. 

L9753 said:

So... how exactly are they supposed to reset arena to how it was 4 to 6 months ago? Kick all the new players out and take away all of existing players' improvements in terms of new champions and gear since then? 

...So you're delusional if you think that they just threw a switch somewhere and can just switch it back and everything will magically go back to how it was before. 

 ...If you've dropped that far, it means you haven't been trying hard enough to improve your team and limit the damage. 

Not sure why the tone of sarcasm.  I am frustrated and want better game play as does everyone.  I would respond to each of your sarcastic solutions but every time I try it just seems ridiculous.   

I'm not sure how long you have been playing either.  Registered user date only applies to this forum not game play.  Yes, you have a great understanding of the game, so do I.  I don't have the time to play 24/7 but have been working hard on my arena team for almost a year now.  You have no idea what tweeks and research I have done to advance my team so accusing me of not trying hard enough is incorrect.  Maybe if I sat around all day playing games I could farm more gear to get the exact stats I want but I don't have that kind of time.

I don't want to argue with you.  I'm sure you have great ideas.  I also know Plarium has a lot to work on to accommodate all the players.  I am not the only one with this issue.  If you see Gizmo Mogwai's post on the previous page they are having the same issue as me.  On the other side of the coin they need to prevent cheaters on the upper tiers from taking advantage of the game.  It is not an easy task.  Also, when they make changes it might take several weeks for people to see the results as players work with the new system.

I just feel the changes they made 4-6 months ago dramatically changed arena game play.  I feel that if they work off the save from before (or programed it in a way that was similar to that time) and made adjustments to just the upper tiers that would be more fair to the starting players and those stuck in the lower tiers.

Shouldn't we be working together to help us get through game play issues instead of calling each other names?  Just a thought.

Been playing for less than a month, but learned early on about the state of the arena.

Now i only do the five fights for daily and avoid the arena like Covid.

Arena to me is 1. Actually fighting another player who is controlling their chars at the time of the fight.                                 

                        or 2. Fighting against a game generated line up, of made up chars.

This type of arena set up, is the first time i have come across it and i hope it will be the last.

Herra72 said:

Not sure why the tone of sarcasm.  I am frustrated and want better game play as does everyone.  I would respond to each of your sarcastic solutions but every time I try it just seems ridiculous.   

I'm not sure how long you have been playing either.  Registered user date only applies to this forum not game play.  Yes, you have a great understanding of the game, so do I.  I don't have the time to play 24/7 but have been working hard on my arena team for almost a year now.  You have no idea what tweeks and research I have done to advance my team so accusing me of not trying hard enough is incorrect.  Maybe if I sat around all day playing games I could farm more gear to get the exact stats I want but I don't have that kind of time.

I don't want to argue with you.  I'm sure you have great ideas.  I also know Plarium has a lot to work on to accommodate all the players.  I am not the only one with this issue.  If you see Gizmo Mogwai's post on the previous page they are having the same issue as me.  On the other side of the coin they need to prevent cheaters on the upper tiers from taking advantage of the game.  It is not an easy task.  Also, when they make changes it might take several weeks for people to see the results as players work with the new system.

I just feel the changes they made 4-6 months ago dramatically changed arena game play.  I feel that if they work off the save from before (or programed it in a way that was similar to that time) and made adjustments to just the upper tiers that would be more fair to the starting players and those stuck in the lower tiers.

Shouldn't we be working together to help us get through game play issues instead of calling each other names?  Just a thought.

I've seen and participated tons of discussions about the state of arena for the last three months or so. And even before that, I was already pointing out that the arena missions in the progress missions were seriously out of sync - though not nearly as much so as they are today. 

But it does get rather irritating after a while to read endless posts of people talking along the lines of 'oh, Plarium changed something three months ago, if they just reverse it everything will magically go back to normal'. No. You can't go back in time and you can't undo the vicious circle that has made arena harder and harder in the past months - I'm not even convinced Plarium did anything at all to set that chain in motion, apart from just having a system that wasn't properly thought through. As Trips likes to say, arena was kind of a ponzi scheme from the start, which only really works as long as there are large enough numbers of newbies coming in to offer easy wins to the established players. 

It was a serious question about reversing people's accounts, because that IS what you're talking about when you say you want to go back to 4  months ago when arena was easier. It was easier because the average player had a weaker team - so how could you reverse that, without actually undoing the progress people have made since then? 

And you're right, I don't know how much effort you've put into improving your team. Maybe you've just been very unlucky instead. But while almost everybody has been struggling and dropping tiers, to drop that many does suggest that somehow you haven't managed to progress as much as the average player during that time. And since arena will inevitably remain much tougher than it was before, whatever additional changes they make, you'll need to turn things around and improve your team more, one way or another, if you want to get back into gold. 

Ok.. so the change will take time. But it seems to me that there are changes already. And those have made it much worse actually!!!

I was moving my way into silver 3, but now I have been kicked down to silver 2 and fight hard to stay. Like many has pointed out the few easy matches are also gone, so now we ave to try and fight speed/nuked maxed teams over and over and over. it is not even slightly fun. I am a player who loves a challenge, but plain suicide over and over?... 

And Tag Arena is just laughable now. I hope it gets better with time, but as L9753 pointed out the games mechanis has an inherit flaw wich makes it harder and harder to the average player. The Arena system need a big overhaul and a big change from bottoms up. You cannot have a system where you keep feeding the Whales (through rewards) while the rest struggle to compete. The gap just growes. And the few lucky enough to get the perfect combo champions move up and becomes part of the problem. What you need is to think this through all over again. Some Arena chart that you divide in several Arenas, as more players come into game is a much better system. Also put in bots to fill up empty spots, with players levels about the same range but not all just maxed and perfect combo champions. I do not think it would be hard for you to make some Team composition schematics and then insert random player of that role. Result is lot of team that have a strategy, but are not unbeatable. Result will be a challenge but not suicide.

Hey Plarium.

Let's start with a simple arena.

Either you really do not notice the problems, or you are simply not able to analyze the situation and make changes that will create a balance in the game based on fair mechanics.

Why now you have implemented the concept - the strong only gets stronger. I'm talking about arena bonuses. A strong player who is already stronger than those who are below, in addition to everything else, also has an arena bonus. I believe that this is not fair, since only the parameters of the hero, his talents, set of attributes and personal skills should be taken into account in the arena.

In my case, I built up on the fact that I can not collect the required number of gold medals in the arena, which in turn I can not get, because I just can not (now) get into the gold league.

Here again your concept is at play that growth is only available to strong players, development for the weak is simply stopped. It is impossible to become stronger.

I showed off the level of my fighters and their clothes, the only thing that could make them even stronger is the increase in the bonuses of the big hall (but I'm stuck) and the arena league, but here I am stuck in silver.

Let's talk about missions now.

There's a tough tie to success in the arena, which makes the game meaningless for those stuck in silver and unable to overcome your logic.

From my point of view, it makes sense to remove the gradation of arena medals (bronze, silver, gold) and issue an arena medal for victory. Then no matter what league you are in, your process for the big hall will also gradually improve.

Moreover, I believe that giving out more medals for a fight to someone who is in the top league also introduces a disbalance according to the same principle: strong players wander even stronger due to the weakness of the weak.

Give out an equal number of unified medals for a victory (without division, gold, silver, and so on)

Take away the arena league bonus, I think that's important too.

Then the process of the arena and missions will depend only on the activity of the player, and not on what he was lucky enough to pull the hero out of the crystal, while others were not lucky.

And needless to say, it all depends on the attributes. This is not true, at least if it were true, we could see various heroes in the top of the arena, but we see practically the same set.

Thanks for your attention.

Anxiously awaiting the next "What we are working on" post in Announcements.

Arena has not improved at all. It was better 2 months ago. 

Green Knight has stated that there are no limits to how many players can be in each tier except for Platinum. So why not adjust the points lost for defensive losses so that you don't get beat up so bad overnight?  

Add some tweaks to the algorithm, and PLEASE hurry up with the champion rebalance! Some of champs need a kick in the sack and some need some serious buffage - or just make them sensible (like HP champs with abilities based on ATK, for example).

Hello!

I completely agree. An awful lot of the teams in Bronze IV seem to be ridiculously OP. I've yet to get into Silver 1 but when I do there will be a cascade of about 30 rewards from stuff I've otherwise already done. Seems to me the progress mission should be to get into Bronze II or III.

This is a side effect of the difficulty spike. The matchmaking updates should affect this issue, yet we are also considering changes to the missions themselves.

I was moving my way into silver 3, but now I have been kicked down to silver 2 and fight hard to stay. Like many has pointed out the few easy matches are also gone, so now we are to try and fight speed/nuked maxed teams over and over and over. it is not even slightly fun. I am a player who loves a challenge, but plain suicide over and over?...

We did not change players' placement after the last matchmaking update, so changes need time to show effect. Some positive changes are already seen, and one of them is an increase in the rarity of a "few easy matches." Such matches often helped place players outside their team's capabilities contributing to the difficulty spike. Yet, it is only one of the early steps to tackle this issue. We are currently working on a matchmaking update to flatten the Classic Arena's current difficulty curve.

And Tag Arena is just laughable now. I hope it gets better with time, but as L9753 pointed out the games mechanis has an inherit flaw wich makes it harder and harder to the average player. The Arena system need a big overhaul and a big change from bottoms up.

The last couple of the Tag Team Arena updates were improvements in forming an opponent list closer to players’ powers and placements in the rating. While some issues need to be dealt with, please elaborate on the flaw that will create a problem.

Green Knight has stated that there are no limits to how many players can be in each tier except for Platinum. So why not adjust the points lost for defensive losses so that you don't get beat up so bad overnight? 

 Thank you for your suggestion. The big concern is that player who loses on defense loses fewer points than the winner gains. This imbalance might create unreachable rating differences and escalate the current situation.

Have a nice day and stay safe.

Greenknight said:

Hello!

I completely agree. An awful lot of the teams in Bronze IV seem to be ridiculously OP. I've yet to get into Silver 1 but when I do there will be a cascade of about 30 rewards from stuff I've otherwise already done. Seems to me the progress mission should be to get into Bronze II or III.

This is a side effect of the difficulty spike. The matchmaking updates should affect this issue, yet we are also considering changes to the missions themselves.

Can you tell us what matchmaking changes were made? Earlier in this thread I asked, and you said the change was that players who are inactive for ~14 days are now taken out of the list.

I was under the impression there were no matchmaking changes made to Classic Arena.

Can you clarify if there were matchmaking changes to Classic Arena, and what they were?

As others have mentioned, some time has now passed since the update and there is virtually no change in the arena difficulty--Silver 4 is 290-300 speed players when 7 months ago this would be gold 4. 

On top of this, players who started the game before arena was broken were able to get the 20% tier bonuses (attack, defense, hp) in order to help them clear the spider 20 and other dungeon content when it was still easy to get into gold arena. Now that arena has gotten so much more difficult, players do not have these helpful stats to progress in the PVE content. This also keeps players from progressing as fast as they used to.

Finally, it is much harder for newer players compared to older players to upgrade the great hall. 

You say that you are considering changes to the missions, but if you do not change these other things as well then it will not be enough of a fix.

Either fix the arena matchmaking so it was how it used to be, or remove the 1) missions; 2) great hall medal requirements; 3) tier bonuses.

**EDIT: You do realize that all the players who started before arena was broken essentially were able to progress in the game with the equivalent of 2 extra gear slots (stat bonuses from tiers, great hall bonuses)? This is what we want fixed. Along with the arbiter missions.

So glad I came to the forum and went through this thread.  I go to bed in Bronze 3, halfway to Bronze 4 and wake up in Bronze 1.  WTF?  Then I find myself finding it nearly impossible to beat anything in Bronze 2.  

I get that it may be appropriate for the last two Challenges should be success in reaching Silver 1,

But for Progress Mission, this placement makes no sense at all!  I've already 3* 'd Campaign in Brutal!!!

Hello!

Hippocampus said:

Can you tell us what matchmaking changes were made? Earlier in this thread I asked, and you said the change was that players who are inactive for ~14 days are now taken out of the list.

I was under the impression there were no matchmaking changes made to Classic Arena.

From the last patch, only changes in handling inactive players were added to the Classic Arena. Currently, we are working on overall changes in matchmaking algorithms.

Silver 4 is 290-300 speed players when 7 months ago this would be gold 4.

This is part of the current Classic Arena's problem. The rise in competitiveness in Gold tiers caused many players to lose their placements and overflow lower tiers.

Finally, it is much harder for newer players compared to older players to upgrade the great hall.
You say that you are considering changes to the missions, but if you do not change these other things as well then it will not be enough of a fix. 

This is why we are working on Classic Arena matchmaking. The main goal is to resolve the issue, not treat symptoms of it. Sadly, such changes need time, careful planning, and testings. We will release the solution as soon as it is ready.

Have a nice day and stay healthy.

@Greenknight

Okay I see. 

So here is the problem. On the official discord, and here in your post, you have called this one change "Matchmaking updates". The changes made in 2.12 are NOT matchmaking changes. You also said "updateS", plural. There was only one change. You have adjusted the inactive player mechanics, but not adjusted the actual matchmaking at all. So just to recap: it was only one change, and it was not a matchmaking change.

Calling something a matchmaking update means that you have changed the way matches are chosen. You have not. This is misleading to a very large portion of your player base who do not read in detail all of the posts on this forum, and this does NOT build trust with your community.

This goes for the posts made on this forum, the posts made on discord, along with an interview from Cirilla on Hell Hades youtube. I understand that she is not a native english speaker, but great care needs to be given when discussing this topic to make sure you are not misleading your players. If you are not a native speaker yourself, this is not an attack on you--this is just showing how important it is to review the language before talking about it.

Many in the community heard "matchmaking updates/changes/fixes" and thought there was an additional adjustment outside of inactive players that was an attempt at fixing the state of arena. 

If you would have avoided saying "matchmaking" update, and said very explicitly that the only update was for inactive players, the community would not have expected a drastic change in arena to begin with.

I would strongly recommend using very careful language in the future when talking about this. If english is not your first language, it might be a good idea to consult with someone who is a native speaker.

As for the state of arena--I understand it is a very complex system and that the fix will be extremely difficult. In fact, I am confident that with the current SYSTEM, it cannot be effectively balanced forever. What might work for a fix now would very likely change in the future as player habits, teams, gear, etc change. Unless you want to constantly adjust the matchmaking algorithm, the system is the problem--not the algorithm. 

It must be very difficult, because it has been broken for 6+ months and nothing has been done.

I know you just said that you want to fix the problem, not the symptoms, but at some point you need to relieve the symptoms. If the more permanent fix will take longer than a couple more weeks, you should strongly consider adjusting the symptoms in the short term while you try to solve the larger problem. I'm afraid if you leave it broken too much longer the player base will keep leaving, and then we won't have a game to enjoy anymore.

Let's see, I have a question for plarium and I would like to be answered.

I have come to the conclusion that you have done the normal arena as the Arena 3x3.

I mean that you have reduced the number of players in each rank, let me explain: if before there were 1000 players In  (SILVER IV) , then you have reduced it to 800 for example 

Great update!

Before this I was struggling to reach Silver I, now I'm struggling to stay in Bronze IV. All the wile the Arena and Great Hall mission are unchanged. 

Oh and what about the constant pump-out of speed gear packs? That definitely help the situation.

Looks like I have to look into other games, where the devs are listening a bit to the community, and do something to make their games enjoyable.

Yes.. you are correct. Sadly I leave the game now. I cannot continue, progress and have fun the way this is now. Why they do not realize they are effectively blocking their new playerbase is beyond me...  Are they really satisfied only with the few whales that buy packs?  Thats it?  Thats all they want with this game? 

GreenKnight said:

Hello!

Hippocampus said:

Can you tell us what matchmaking changes were made? Earlier in this thread I asked, and you said the change was that players who are inactive for ~14 days are now taken out of the list.

I was under the impression there were no matchmaking changes made to Classic Arena.

From the last patch, only changes in handling inactive players were added to the Classic Arena. Currently, we are working on overall changes in matchmaking algorithms.

Silver 4 is 290-300 speed players when 7 months ago this would be gold 4.

This is part of the current Classic Arena's problem. The rise in competitiveness in Gold tiers caused many players to lose their placements and overflow lower tiers.

Finally, it is much harder for newer players compared to older players to upgrade the great hall.
You say that you are considering changes to the missions, but if you do not change these other things as well then it will not be enough of a fix. 

This is why we are working on Classic Arena matchmaking. The main goal is to resolve the issue, not treat symptoms of it. Sadly, such changes need time, careful planning, and testings. We will release the solution as soon as it is ready.

Have a nice day and stay healthy.

Matchmaking modification will NEVER resolve this issue. When platinum and gold IV are full of whales and long time veterans, no matter how you modify matchmaking, newbies will never have any chance to get Arbiter(unless they become whale or be extremely lucky).