The arena is still not quite fair enough.

[Anacybele]

I don't know what IS did wrong, but after some tests, I can confirm that the arena didn't change in the update at all, or maybe got WORSE.

No, I'm not really blaming this on repeatedly losing again, though it's probably a factor of some kind (just a smaller one). But the matchups I'm getting are still not balanced.

Switching around my teams and looking for one that will actually win, I eventually went in with a team of all 4 stars. Now, you'd think that I'd be matched up against another 4 star team since the update supposedly changed the arena matchups to be based more on star rank, right? NOPE. I was matched up against a team of all 5 stars except for one character. They also had a bunch of inherited skills (Lilina doesn't naturally get an AoE, I think).

IS fucked up here.

Edited April 12, 2017 by Anacybele

[Elieson]

4 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

the update supposedly changed the arena matchups to be based more on star rank, right?

This is an incorrect statement. It's a combination of four things, including Star Rank.

 

• Star Rank
• Natural BST (unequipped stats)
• Merged Bonuses
• Equipped Skills

implying that Stat/Skill spreads as well as Star rank all tie in. This is 100% not solely or primarily based on Star Ranking.

[Anacybele]

2 minutes ago, Elieson said:

This is an incorrect statement. It's a combination of four things, including Star Rank.

 

• Star Rank
• Natural BST (unequipped stats)
• Merged Bonuses
• Equipped Skills

implying that Stat/Skill spreads as well as Star rank all tie in. This is 100% not solely or primarily based on Star Ranking.

Except you just proved my statement correct?

It's not 100% based on star rank, no, but you'd still think a 4 star team would not ever be matched against a 5 star one for that reason alone. I also mentioned that the enemy team had a number of inherited skills. I don't have many.

Edited April 12, 2017 by Anacybele

[BestFriendJ0]

Lilina does having an AOE special attack, Growing Flame.

I often find that the teams I'm going against are actually more of a match than before, but it certainly isn't impossible to win or anything like that

 

EDIT: Also the only difference between 4* and 5* are access to skills and a rather small stat increase of 1-3 depending on which stat and which character we're talking about (assuming everyone is lv 40)

Edited April 12, 2017 by BestFriendJ0
not wanting to repost

[Lushen]

I also, think they made things worse.  But for different reasons.

Arena matches are now based on the stats BEFORE skills.  This means I can't use my cavalry team no matter what I do.  In the past, I could put fury on this or that unit but now there's no way to up my character's stats.  IS could have had the perfect system had they just gotten rid of stats and made it based on star rating, + rating, and # of skills.  Then you could play with any team.  Instead, we're all forced to use 4 armored units if we want to compete high in the arena. 

[Othin]

As far as I can tell, the only real purpose was to make it so that skills would better influence matchups, so that skills that don't give stat boosts actually count for something and skills that do give stat boosts don't get disproportionally counted. This makes for a bit more balance between teams with different amounts of skill inheritance use. As I and others said, there was never reason to expect some huge change that would get way easier.

[Elieson]

1 minute ago, Anacybele said:

Except you just proved my statement correct?

It's not 100% based on star rank, no, but you'd still think a 4 star team would not ever be matched against a 5 star one for that reason alone. I also mentioned that the enemy team had a number of inherited skills. I don't have many.

A 4* team of armors could match against an entirely 5* team of non-armors, given the new mechanics, and with skills and such, I could see a 3* even sneaking in. I can't tell you how often I match up against teams with one 5* and three 4*s, when I have a team entirely built up of 5*s.

[Anacybele]

1 minute ago, Elieson said:

A 4* team of armors could match against an entirely 5* team of non-armors, given the new mechanics, and with skills and such, I could see a 3* even sneaking in. I can't tell you how often I match up against teams with one 5* and three 4*s, when I have a team entirely built up of 5*s.

I disagree, not when star ranking is supposed to be taken into account like I said. That's not taking star rank into account at all in either case that you mentioned.

My teams are not doing much damage to their opponents (unless it's male Robin vs a sword or Frederick vs a squishy blue unit) and are getting KO'd more often by units they should have a complete advantage against. I'm getting less fair matchups than I was before.

Edited April 12, 2017 by Anacybele

[Othin]

3 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

I disagree, not when star ranking is supposed to be taken into account like I said. That's not taking star rank into account at all in either case that you mentioned.

My teams are not doing much damage to their opponents (unless it's male Robin vs a sword or Frederick vs a squishy blue unit) and are getting KO'd more often by units they should have a complete advantage against. I'm getting less fair matchups than I was before.

You're overestimating the impact of star ranking. I'm not sure why it would individually have any weight at all, since it should be covered by its impact on stats and skills, so if it does have any weight, I'd expect it to be very small.

Edited April 12, 2017 by Othin

[Elieson]

1 minute ago, Anacybele said:

I disagree, not when star ranking is supposed to be taken into account like I said. That's not taking star rank into account at all in either case that you mentioned.

My teams are not doing much damage to their opponents (unless it's male Robin vs a sword or Frederick vs a squishy blue unit) and are getting KO'd more often by units they should have a complete advantage against. I'm getting less fair matchups than I was before.

Why do you keep saying that Star Ranking is taken into account in such a way that it should be weighed more heavily in matchmaking than the other three elements? It doesn't, and you're definitely seeing why via experience. If anything, Star Ranking contributes to higher stats (for the raw BST check) and for accessible skills (for the other check). It alone is a contributing factor, not the key factor. 

[shadowofchaos]

Ana, you need to stop blaming the system for every little thing that doesn't go your way. You're the single member that accuses Heroes of being broken or glitch and demanding fixes more than any other member in this forum based on losing in the arena. While some of us actually deal with experience killing anomalies like orb purchase bans and safetynet.

The system isn't broken just because you can't get a 7 match deathless run.

Advanced tier is supposed to be the equivalent of picking Lunatic Mode on Awakening or Fates.

I go in expecting to lose at least half of my attempts.

Edited April 12, 2017 by shadowofchaos

[GespenstMK2S]

35 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

I don't know what IS did wrong, but after some tests, I can confirm that the arena didn't change in the update at all, or maybe got WORSE.

No, I'm not really blaming this on repeatedly losing again, though it's probably a factor of some kind (just a smaller one). But the matchups I'm getting are still not balanced.

Switching around my teams and looking for one that will actually win, I eventually went in with a team of all 4 stars. Now, you'd think that I'd be matched up against another 4 star team since the update supposedly changed the arena matchups to be based more on star rank, right? NOPE. I was matched up against a team of all 5 stars except for one character. They also had a bunch of inherited skills (Lilina doesn't naturally get an AoE, I think).

IS fucked up here.

Are you picking Advanced matches? Those will always feature characters that outclass you in stats.

[Anacybele]

20 minutes ago, Elieson said:

Why do you keep saying that Star Ranking is taken into account in such a way that it should be weighed more heavily in matchmaking than the other three elements? It doesn't, and you're definitely seeing why via experience. If anything, Star Ranking contributes to higher stats (for the raw BST check) and for accessible skills (for the other check). It alone is a contributing factor, not the key factor. 

Because I was never saying that at all? I'm saying star ranking should be taken more into account than it is. Not way more into account than everything else. Big difference.

[TheWill]

To be completely honest, if a team of four stars is getting paired against 2-3 five stars, there probably should be some adjustments. It's not going to be perfect first try, should just wait and see what they do. The biggest issue I had with arena was when I tried to level up a team of 20's when I had already done my arena rank and I'd get paired against another team with a level 40 and low level's ranging from levels 10-15, making it impossible for me to kill the level 40.

[Ryuke]

Put fury on all your user is the best tip i can give

[shadowofchaos]

20 minutes ago, Anacybele said:

Because I was never saying that at all? I'm saying star ranking should be taken more into account than it is. Not way more into account than everything else. Big difference.

I'm going to be blunt about this:

This topic is essentially: "I'm not winning, therefore it's a bug."

Have the guts to pick the medium option. The Advanced option is literally: "YOU WILL BE AT A DISADVANTAGE. ENTER AT YOUR OWN PERIL".

[Anacybele]

Just now, shadowofchaos said:

This topic is essentially: "I'm not winning, therefore it's a bug."

Yet I very CLEARLY stated that I was NOT blaming this on my losses nor did I say anything was a bug.

Also, that team of 5 stars I was talking about? It was intermediate.

[TheNiddo]

There is nothing wrong with arena and its working as intended. There is very little difference between 4* and 5* when maxed out, the system isn't going to prevent the two from mixing. Nor did they ever promise it would: just that it would be a factor in choosing your opinions. As in one of many parts.

Either plan your fights better or pick a lower difficulty. I got slapped hard with a difficulty increase and have started running into horse emblem teams, flier emblem teams, 4 mages all running fury while running buffs to boost up Nino to insane levels: I ain't complaining, I'm adapting. And I'm F2P.

[Ayaneru]

IS didn't do anything wron as long as the matching system working as intended. I am pleased with the new system, i don't need to slap Fury 3 on everyone and still get good score

To be fair, the only thing that need to be fixed isn't the match making system, but your attitude 

[De Geso]

If you want to win all 7 matches deathless just do Intermediate Arena Duels. The difference in feathers isn't substantial enough to tear your hair out over on Lunatic if you don't think your units/skills are at the level they should be to get the 7 win on Advanced. 

I've not had any issues with the new arena and that seems to be the case for most people here. /shrug

[GaleforceAbuse]

Honestly, the fact that they no longer consider stats from skills (including weapons) is probably a decent part of why 4* units can get matched against 5*. The weapon usually added 3-4 ATK, but now it's just the 2-3 points in each stat.

Also, weapon triangle advantage just changes what the your attack and your opponent's attack. You still need to do the calculations to figure out if they can stand a chance.

[BANRYU]

@Anacybele Did you happen to look at the levels of the 5* units you were getting matched with? In my experience (using the arena as Stamina-free grinding for lower-leveled units, most of whom are 3-4 star), 5* units still show up, but are usually of a substantially-lower level to the degree where they're more or less on par with my lower-rarity units. 

[Alkaid]

I get what you're saying about your 4* team matching against teams with 5*s feeling unfair. I guess star rank really doesn't carry as much weight as one would expect, but that happened to me plenty even on the old system. Like Banryu just said, were the 5* units always lvl 40? I often would run into 5* units in their mid 30's.

Considering you were upset at arena before, I think the changes will have just made it worse for you since if nothing else they seem to give you more challenging matchups now.. I'm getting much harder matches than before. For the first time in a couple weeks I didn't go deathless my first 7 runs, and I DO have a team of pretty inheritance stacked units. I'm getting matched with a lot more competently decked-out inheritance enemies, and while I scored higher than I ever have before(4,650 despite 2 deaths) I feel that's pretty pointless since others who scored higher on the old system will probably just score higher now too. All it's really done is make matches more challenging from what I can see.

Edit: And I think one of the main reasons you're drawing a lot of ire is your thread title, compared to what you actually said in your post.

Edited April 12, 2017 by Alkaid

[Ice Dragon]

1 hour ago, Anacybele said:

The arena did NOT change.

I can say for certain that it did.

Before the update, the average score for a single deathless Advanced match was around 658, and I was virtually guaranteed at least one Hector or Effie. Occasionally, I'd see one or two units with high merges. Enemy teams were mostly melee-oriented with only one or two ranged units in the mix.

I ran 7 arena matches last night. I saw no unmerged units other than my own Sophia. At least two units in each team were +10, but usually three. There was a total of 1 Effie and no Hectors. Enemy teams consisted largely of ranged units with a sprinkling of dancers and Eldigan. The average score for a single deathless Advanced match was around 708.

 

1 hour ago, Anacybele said:

Except you just proved my statement correct?

It's not 100% based on star rank, no, but you'd still think a 4 star team would not ever be matched against a 5 star one for that reason alone. I also mentioned that the enemy team had a number of inherited skills. I don't have many.

Previously, a 5-star rarity contributed about 12-15 points in stats, 10 from the rarity itself and 2-5 from the improved weapon.

Now, it contributes about 10 points in base stats, an undisclosed amount in "difference in rarity", and an undisclosed amount in "difference in skill usage". Because the difference between a 4-star unit and a 5-star unit is much smaller than the difference between a vanilla 5-star unit and an optimized skill inheritance 5-star unit, the difference in rarity and base stats is probably weighted less.

 

Have you not inherited any of the skills you said you would on Frederick yet? I know you mention Armored Blow or Defense Plus a lot, so I'm not sure if you've gone through with those plans yet.

[Birdy]

So, summarizing what has been said here:

- With a team of 4*'s you can easily go up against 5*'s if:

1. Your units have more skills equipped;

2. Your units are of a higher level;

3. Your units have a higher natural base stat total than the enemy (armors > melee infantry > ranged infantry, etc. (Not sure where precisely all other things like cavalry and healers come in));

4. Your units have higher merge levels;

5. A combination of the above.

 

Correct me if there's anything wrong or should be added. Now, maybe it's better to talk about how fair these things are?