The moment you’ve all been waiting for is close at hand - Live Arena is coming to Raid! As usual, we’ve released a proper Feature Preview video to explain the nitty-gritty details
You can also find what you need in the Highlights below. There are some smaller changes coming with Update 7.00 as well: a QoL improvement that will allow you to view many important Resources from your Bastion with a single tap and a new Balance patch on top of that.
Read on if you want to learn more!
Live Arena
Basics & Schedule
Live Arena is a new PvP mode that will allow you to face other players directly in real-time battles. It unlocks automatically once your account reaches Level 50 and can be accessed from the Arena map (in the Game Modes tab).
The first thing you need to remember is that Live Arena is not going to be available all the time - instead, this game mode will open several times a day on a set schedule. This measure is needed to avoid huge wait times in a PvE-heavy game that is Raid. Also, keep in mind that Live Arena will run on a test schedule for the first 2 days. You can see it below:
07:00 UTC - 09:00 UTC
10:00 UTC - 12:00 UTC
14:00 UTC - 16:00 UTC
After that - including the 3 remaining test days - we will adopt the following schedule:
00:00 UTC - 02:00 UTC
06:00 UTC - 08:00 UTC
14:00 UTC - 16:00 UTC
20:00 UTC - 22:00 UTC
The time frames might change in the future, but we’ll notify you beforehand if that happens!
Initiating a Live Arena Battle
You will need Live Arena Tokens to participate in Live Arena battles, and you can have a maximum of 5 at any given time. These Tokens reset automatically every day at 00:00 UTC, but you can purchase a refill with Gems. Every subsequent refill will cost more than the last, but after the daily reset, the price of the refill also resets back to default - you should be quite familiar with this mechanic already.
Once the battle is initiated, the game will find a suitable opponent based on your recent and average performance in Live Arena. We’ll do our best to ensure matchmaking is as fair as possible! And once an opponent has been found, the game will flip a coin to decide which player goes first in the first phase of the battle.
Pick Your Champions
In this phase, both players must take turns selecting their Champions until both Teams have 5. There is a 30 seconds limit on picking a single Champion in this phase, so don’t think about the choice too long, or the game will just pick a Champion with the highest power rating!
After the Teams are filled out, both players get to ban a single enemy Champion. That completely removes the Champion in question from the fight, bringing both Teams down to 4. Of course, you can be sneaky and play tricks on your opponents to ensure they don’t ban a Champion you actually want to have in the fight, just remember that they will be doing the same.
Finally, both players choose a Team Leader whose Aura will affect their Team in the battle.
One important note to remember: once you reach Live Arena Gold Tiers, all duplicate Champions across both Teams will be prohibited. Meaning that you cannot use a Champion if your opponent already has that Champion on their Team! So be careful and take that into consideration when preparing for Live Arena battles.
Live Arena Battle
As far as the actual Live Arena battle goes, it’s not that different from other Arena modes. Champion turn order is determined by their Speed and various Turn Meter manipulation techniques, then Champions use their Skills to attack, heal, revive, and do whatever else they need to win. The most important difference is that you will be facing another human and need to be prepared for nasty surprises!
Each turn has a 15 seconds limit, so don’t linger, or the game will take it for you. If you skip 3 turns like that, you will automatically enter Auto-Battle mode until you switch it off manually. And if the battle is not over in 30 minutes, it will end and count as a defeat for both players - not something you generally want.
Live Arena Tiers & Rewards
Victories will yield Live Arena Points and Bronze, Silver, or Gold Live Arena Crests. The former advance you through Live Arena Tiers, and the latter can be used to unlock Area Bonuses in the Great Hall (we’ll talk about those in the next section of the Highlights). For the time being, you get 12 Tiers from Bronze I to Gold IV, and there is no Platinum Tier for now.
Once you reach Silver I, you will start losing Live Arena Points for every lost battle. And if you don’t initiate at least 1 Live Arena Battle in 5 days, you’ll start losing 5 Points daily until you fight in a Live Arena battle.
Climbing through Live Arena Tiers will earn you some really awesome one-time rewards, including Fragments needed to summon a unique Legendary Champion, Quintus the Triumphant. On top of that, repeatable Live Arena Quests will yield a Live Arena Token Refill and Artifacts from brand-new Sets:
Impulse
4 Set: SPD +12%, 30% chance to reduce random Skill cooldown by 1 turn
Zeal
4 Set: C. DMG +25%, +7.5% Damage for every 25% HP the target has.
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Great Hall: Area Bonuses
The Live Arena Crests you win can be spent in the Great Hall to unlock and upgrade various Area Bonuses. Like the old Affinity Bonuses (we changed the name to better reflect what those bonuses do), these will affect all the Champions on your roster, but where the former affected all Champions of a single Affinity, Area Bonuses - as the name suggests - will buff all your Champions in specific locations. These include the following:
Potion Keeps
Ice Golem's Peak
Fire Knight's Castle
Dragon's Lair
Spider's Den
Clan Boss Battles (Hydra & Demon Lord)
You can upgrade Area Bonuses in the same way Affinity Bonuses are upgraded. You need Bronze Crests for the first 3 levels, then Silver for Levels 4-6, and finally Gold for the rest. You can use higher Tier Crests in to unlock and upgrade lower Tier bonuses as well, just like with Classic Arena Medals and Affinity Bonuses.
All Area Bonuses apply to the basic Stat of your Champions, and they stack with Affinity Bonuses! So you’ll have a handy buff for Hard Mode Dungeons if you progress in Live Arena.
Miscellaneous
The number of your available Arena Tokens and Keys is now displayed in the Bastion, Game Modes window, Shop, and Inbox. Just tap Key icon above, and you’ll be able to see the full tab.
Honestly, if this stays as it is, they have just ensured that I'll put the game down for good. If I want PvP I'll play CoD. to lock PvE stats behind Live Arena where I don't have the roster to compete is unacceptable. I'm in this 'beta', and so far I have fought nothing but stacked lvl 100 accts. Even if I had been lvl 100, I do not really play PvP, so the champs I have would not be geared or set up for PvP (minus the few I have to cheese 1 man defenses). I stand no chance and I don't want to put in the time, effort, or resources to maybe, barely compete in a mode I don't want to do.
You need to roll back the head of decay hydra head update that broke everyone's healing hydra teams. We spent good money pulling those characters and spending time upgrading and leveling those toons to fight the hydra. If you don't roll that back you owe a lot of pay to play players a big refund of real money not just some tokens in game.
Neither of those things are on the docket, as far as I know.
Have you already filled the new-ish Reserve Vault? 0_0 Personally I haven't even started expanding it yet.
So many new champions added I have hundreds of legos and many dupes, with all the rank 5 foods, running out of space, every summon I have to eat all the rank 3. currently at 350/400/300
Witnessed a small glitch during a battle in beta Live Arena.. was up against a team that did had a strange buff I had nerver seen in action before. I tapped the info button to see what it was.. the screen overlayed the battle as usual and I saw it was stone skin.. but at the same time the game froze, and a message saying I was disconnected appeared, due to unstable internet, another window popped up saying I had to relog in and I will lose my token. This is a first time experience of this nature.. All was well til I tapped that info button.
