OK new player. Not completely F2P but not a whale. Looking for the best deals before I buy, as it's about ROI, and I am running a raid card.
Long post but the truth is there are multiple things that need to be considered.
What the older players didn't contend with was increased content in champions, game content and factions. This means that newer players need to "hoard" their champions for later progression across all of the factions early up and for the extra content. You do need to hoard as getting champions is completely random. Some of the champions are also close to only good at one thing champions but what they are good at they are good at [Edit: Early - Mid game]. The same goes with all the variation of the artifacts as well as you also need them for the number of champions you have. The more of both artifacts and champions the greater the player power.
When it comes to Arena if I come up against a player who is the same player level as me, or close, I can more often than not beat them, even though I don't have a good speed lead. Most of the time I am at the bottom of the player level in every round. Usually I am near 1/2 to 2/3 of the team power I am against and I can win if I can hit first and bring my shield up first. Every loss requires two wins to advance. I don't have a decent speed lead and have collected plenty of AyumiLove N/A champions. Yes I am aware of how to speed balance and my teams is set to hit in the order they need to hit. But then that is more the case with how the arena works and you need that speed lead.
I currenlty have champions that are also only mostly good for one thing so I also have a few sitting idle in my vault for later as well as holding the rares for food for later. Thus increasing my player power. The other problem is you can't simply hold and run a team of 5 for the FW as you need the different affinities to progress. Which means you have to progress multiple champions.
Mastery builds also mean you need multiple champions as you can build them one way that works but for other areas you weaken them. So either duplicates or subsitutes are required. Greater game content also affect this.
The teams I come up against often have champions that are top tier and I have nothing to counter with. My legendary collection hasn't been good even with waiting and doing the 2 x shard events. Unless some players pulled them from Shards playing for 60-90 days I hit teams with Scyl who is a 180 day reward. In the arena the higher you go the greater that disparity becomes with player level and higher player levels means longer game time which means better collection of artifacts as well as the chance to level. This is the lot of those who are in bronze and especially the new players.
For those who say people shouldn't build FW teams and diversify, etc, etc , etc, that is rubbish. Advanced Quests require you to have developed some of this and you need to do some of these to complete the daily advanced quests. For the not so bright who make the comment "they are advanced quests for advanced players" if they can't be completed then they shouldn't be available to the players and be refreshed daily.
Also with the Progress Missions you hit the Arena tier block and yet if you look at all the missions beyond most of the people who get to the Arena tier block have well and truely done them and simply click complete once you get beyond the block. Either the missions beyond need to be harder or the problem is the issues with Arena.
Also truthfully with artifacts in general who uses anything other than speed boots. So that tells you there are things with the mechanics that needs work. Which is also why to build the arena teams you need speed leads and you can't influence which champions you get.
