Why would anyone care about any other aspect of the game if it didn't affect PvP??

PvE will continue to be your F2P mode where everything can be solved with an Excel Spreadsheet. All the numbers are known, all the teams are known, everything is just "hit minimum stats to win" and provides zero long term challenge. 

What PvE does though, just like shop and shard purchasing, is provide the champs and materials needed to compete in PvP. That's what it is here for. 

PvP is the endgame in which everyone is driving to. There would be zero reason to build a strong account, through either purchasing or farming or both, without the endgame crucible that is PvP.  That is why you get shards. That is why you get gear. That is why you build champs way above the requirements any PvE challenge could require. For Arena, for Ceeg.

No matter how much you spend or how carefully you plan, we are all at the mercy of RNG eventually lol

I'm not sure what Ceeg is, I'm assuming Siege? I guess my question is if you consider Hydra and Chimera Clash as PVP? I could see that being a section of PVP, but if you're mainly talking about Arena then I would disagree with saying "Everyone". Just hoping to get some clarification on what you consider to be in the realm of "Endgame PVP" because a lot of people actually don't care that much about PVP, they're more into PVE and probably just do stuff like Live Arena for the PVE Bonuses. 

Now obviously I'll acknowledge that the majority of spending is in the name of PVP progression and that's what Plarium cares about the most

A lot of people compete with how many turns they can take down pve content and how fast. How many points/damage that can hit cb, hydra, Chimera for. 

PvP is not everyone's end game goal, im willing to bet its a very small percentage of players even krakens that care whatsoever about PvP. If this wasnt the case there would be such much forced incentive to participate in it as everyone already would be according to you.

Myself like many other caught the raid bug due to its afk play style. I have other games I play when I actually want to play games. Raid was almost pure afk farm game when I started over 4 years ago. A lot of the new content goes against that play style. 

Personally I can never care about PvP in a game like this as it will never be a balanced nor fair prospect. Im happy people with much more money and or time than myself can enjoy it though.

I only do Xeeg cuz my mean clan leader makes me.  Also I'm yet again asking for decent tools to coordinate.

I'm with you.  I don't much care for PvP but I enjoy pushing the limits of my account in PvE.  Though you can definitely see how everything is funneling you back to PvP.

I started playing for the same reason as evilized666. I didnt have time for full mmo games anymore so wanted to play a dungeon crawler where you built the teams then afk played them. 

I have no real interest in pvp and really do not like doing the live arena, i only started doing LA because i decided i want marius.

To me it is obvious that LA was unpopular with poor participation, they have made repeated efforts to encourage / force people to play it. 

Having said that, you do compete in pve of course (hydra scores etc)

I also agree with harlequin that if you remove the advantages of the krakens by restricting who they can beat up it will remove their incentive to spend. Some games get their money from cash for cosmetics, but that would not work with raid.

As someone who just started LA and is still S2 (yes really) i sometimes just quit 3 times and then kill the bot as it is quicker than waiting while the afk opponent picks.

When i do play properly i usually win 80% of my matches despite picking the same champs every time to speed things up.

Generally the game matchmakes by player power, most my opponents are around 20 million player power, but what i have noticed is that when i have won 4 or 5 on the trot they will somehow manage to find a whale to kill me (last time they matched me against hellhades)

After i lose a fight, i sometimes then get an opponent under level 100

TLDR, in the lower tiers it is matchmaking by power, with an algorithm to drive you to 50% win rate

I think saying "everyone" is too big of a subject matter. It is hard to imagine that this game was originally designed for players who enjoy PvP, and judging by the current user response, there don't seem to be that many of those people.

I agree.  Fair matches can be quite fun.  Unfortunately the algorithm creating matches is quite inept

i

.  The majority of my matches are against teams that are way out of my league.

As a new(er) LA player, I only joined because they have made it impossible to complete dailies without it.  To a 9 month account not even to Visix quite yet, more than 1k of extra energy per week (and the 20 daily autobattles) is important enough not to leave on the table.

I like it has helped me to be a better player, and affirmed I've made some decent build choices by the teams/toons I take down.  That said, I do not like LA much.  As a dolphin acct, I see player accounts lower than mine every night stacked with toons I could only hope for with high-level blessings out the wazoo.  So clearly I am being massively outspent unless my shard RNG is the worst. 😜

I only have five or six toons I would put in the match, so I do quit when I am badly matched.    So I laugh some at the idea of choosing toons as an adjustment to what others are adding.  I wish.  So, I get my one win and move on with my dailies.  When I want Marius, then I'll start doing it more.  Until then...meh.

I can;t recall which thread, but somewhere you ( I think it was you) mentioned fighting clanmates in Live.

Is there any good way to set this up other than just coordinating to click find match at the same time and crossing our fingers?

for now, nope. just have to queue and pray, though it's certainly doable to meet friends in LA with planning.  

Lord knows I keep meeting some of the same krakens who stomp me, sometimes 3 or 4 times in the same day

I'm not a PVP person—simply because I am not willing to pay for it, but it takes the cake that I am unable to win ONE match within 15 attempts as I'm matched against folks infinitely stronger at 900 rating. Any cure planned for this plague? Maybe remove Live Arena altogether? It takes bloody ages and it's good for nothing.

i

Seems they do exist, missed about 5 days since this chest came into game

It was very easy to queue up with clanmates in g4 simply by playing at same time. But the pool has gotten much larger and will just keep growing.  

Yeah at the moment there are only a handful in my entire cluster in g4 Live, and only one or 2 times a week where we're all playing at the same time.

I'm sure it'll happen eventually.

Live arena is stupid.  The only difference from regular Arena is 

1: Opponent AI is off. 

2: Each fight now last about 10 min from the time you press find an opponent untill the end of a fight. I have seen opponent's take the full 15 seconds for their turn and the only attack they have is their A1. 

Everybody knows Team power is a joke and does not matter. Team power is basicly a reflection of how lucky you got on your equipment drops, or how much you spend. Champion's are the same thing. 

I have  12 teams and have been playing for 4 years now. One of my teams only have 2 legonaries other than the free logins. So that team sucks for any arena. Now you have to win a live arena battle to get all the daily rewards. So I have not finished my daily rewards since they started requireing you to win one. I quite after the 5 keys you get. (yes I know you get 5 more but after about an hour doing nothing, who wants to spend another hour with the same results.

I guess all I am saying change the required "win" to match all the rest of the Arena matches that only require you to "participate".

And yes I know that live arena is for end game players, your account has to be lvl 50 just to start. Again why the required win?

@Nokwa 

@Drizit DoArden 

I am not a Plarium defender (like some who may respond on here) and I agree that there are certainly issues with Live Arena, but it seems like neither of you are paying attention to how to manage your LA experience at all.  If you are truly not engaged with the game mode and do not wish to engage with the game mode, you can be done with LA for the day in about 5 minutes flat.  All you need to do is ride the bots.

If you are in Bronze or Silver, you will be given a bot team after three consecutive losses, so here is the plan:

(1) Open a fight

(2) As soon as an opponent is found and you have the ability to exit the fight, exit the fight and take the loss

(3) Repeat two more times

(4) Fight the Bot, collect your 20 multi-battles and go play the rest of the game.  

Final thought:  If you can't beat the Bot Teams, find a different game because Raid is not for you.